Friday, June 29, 2012

holy moly, i'm sitting in the airport.

So, what better time to do a little blogging?!

Right now I am an hour away from take off, drinking coffee, fighting off little urges to cry, and I am pretty sure I smell but, honestly, I am doing really well!  I cannot believe that a year has already passed and I am going home for only three weeks to start yet another year of work in this country.  

To catch you up on everything that has happened would be quite the task right now, and I don't want to upload too many pictures because I am trying to preserve battery to ensure plane ride entertainment.  The last month and a half has been awesome.  One of my really good friends came back, I got another tattoo, I had a birthday party at the beach, stayed at a jimjilbang (I will go into detail about that on another post), went to a water park, a baseball game, and did a little rapping with the band that my friends are in. Awesome, just awesome.  

This last week however, not the most awesome.  When traveling and especially when living abroad you are always thinking about people back home and always nervous that you may lose someone and, unfortunately, it happened.  My aunt Lynn fought a courageous battle with cancer and lost it this last weekend, I found out while teaching which made it a little difficult to pull myself together and focus on teaching, but once my kids saw I was sad and I had eight little nuggets hugging me it certainly helped.  That certainly made it hard to be away from home but, fortunately, I made a trip out to California last April to spend some time with her and my uncle before leaving, and the memories of that trip and the time I spent with them will always make me smile.

Another difficult part of this week was saying goodbye to the kids. My word, for being six years old they say some pretty profound things.  Every class I start the kids by asking how they are doing, on my last day I asked Blaze and he said, "I am happy, because even though you are going to America I will never forget you."  Holy waterfall, I couldn't keep it together any longer after he said that.  My last day was good though, my oldest kindergarten students got to skype with my parents and sing Dani (my bestie from home) happy birthday.  After recovering from what Blaze said I kept it together pretty well until it came time to actually watch the kids leave.  For most of it I just had some water in my eyes and that lump in my throat and then, it hit me.  I was standing by Mallory, a student who I have taught my entire time here, and she was just standing silently and holding onto my arm.  I knelt down to tell her it will be ok and then she lost it and so did I.  I still tear up thinking about it (kind of like right now).  Her bus came and I hugged her to send her off and she death gripped my arm and pulled me down the stairs  to escort her to her bus.  I gave her the biggest hug I could and sent her off, 20 minutes later she called me (I gave all of my kids my cell phone and email, I seriously love these kids) and I could barely understand what she was saying through the crying, I told her it would be ok and that she should calm down and she said, "I just want to see you everyday but I can't because you are going to America."  Gah, I lost it again.  Though I was fine for my afternoon classes, the kids are older, not nearly as cute, and I just don't like them quite as much. 

The rest of the week was hot and my air conditioning was broken, that definitely made for some sweaty packing, my apartment was a sauna, it was gross. Last night Holly came and helped me pack and we got one last hangout in.  Man, I knew I would make friends here, but never did I think I would be able to find the people that I did. There are so many people who I will always keep in contact with and who I am going to miss so dearly while I'm away.  I feel truly blessed to have met the people I did while still keeping in touch with friends from home and maintaining those relationships.  

Well, this has gotten quite lengthy and I am going to preserve some battery, so I will end it here, but will try to update about my travels while home and everything else...eventually. 

Here is a picture of my youngest kindergarten students and me on my last day. 


Ugh, too cute.