My kiddos

After posting last night, I looked back over previous posts from years gone by.  I only started this blog when I decided to move to China, so it's obvious that I'm in a different place than I was way back then, but it still surprises me to see just how different everything was.

Looking back over those early posts and comments, I can't help but think of my students back then.  We developed a code so that they could post comments and not have to write their name or give away any personal information, but that I would know who they were.  I still know who each of those codes represented and can still close my eyes and remember being in the front of them in class.  I miss them.  I miss their 5th grade questions and thoughts and love.  My goodness those kiddos knew how to love.  They meant the world to me, each and every one of them.  I love that I am still in touch with many of their parents and get to hear little snippets of how life keeps on going for each of them on that side of the world.

When I think back to those kids and other than I have taught, I sometimes wonder if I should have stayed.  I could have taught their younger siblings, watched them grow up, been that teacher that they could stop by and say hi to long after they had left my classroom.  I could have gone to that state-championship softball game, watched that swim meet, or been their YoungLife leader once they changed schools.  I could have answered that phone call to meet up for coffee and hear the scoop on life in high school.  So many could haves...

And yet I don't regret leaving.  They knew that I needed to.

And the kids here need me to.

I love my kiddos now to the moon and back, just as I have all of my students over the past 6 years.  They are going to change the world some day, each and every one of them.  I'm teaching kids who are from every corner of the globe and whose impact goes far beyond what I can imagine.  I am so grateful to be a part of each of their lives.

But I won't be able to have a coffee with them when they're in high school, because most of them will have moved by then.

There is an amazingly enticing quality to life in one town for the rest of my life. 

Being a TCK really stinks sometimes...




Location: Chengdu, China
Local Time (CST -- GMT+8): 8:11 p.m. (3/22/2015)
Auburn Time (PST -- GMT-7): 5:11 a.m. (3/22/2015)

Silence is Golden?

The quiet game was a pretty normal thing in our family when I was growing up.  And when I say that, I mean people tried to make me play it.  Tried is the key word.  It never really worked, because I always lost in about 2.3 seconds.

I feel like this blog often becomes a bit of a quiet game for me, seeing how long I can go before I feel an irresistible urge to share everything that is on my mind in one foul fell swoop.  (Speaking of foul fell swoop - I've never written that before.  Is it fowl swoop or foul swoop.  Goodness homonyms mess everything up!  Oh wait, they are both wrong.  One fell swoop.  Thank you Google!)

It's been a fairly wonderful winter/spring.  Busy and crazy at times, but there isn't much that I can complain about.  I have a student teacher right now, and she is amazing and helpful and marvelously competent, so I'm getting a lot of things done that I generally don't have time for.  Grades? Complete.  Comments? Started.  Committee details for our upcoming accreditation visit? Planned.  Can I please please please have a permanent student teacher?  I would be so much more efficient and well rested! :)

In other news, I'm feeling restless.  I didn't realize why until a friend was in town (well, he's more of a cultural counselor, but now that I've known him for a few years I'd call him a friend) and pointed out that in a few months Chengdu will be the longest place I've lived by choice. (You should all check out his blog.  It's great. Seriously...read it!) Isn't that odd?  The African TCK has chosen to call China home.  And because of that little newsflash, my brain goes into overdrive and I start scoping out what I could be doing and where I could be living.  I so desperately wish that wasn't my instinct, but it's so deeply engrained in the very fiber of who I am that it's impossible to ignore and oh so hard to fight.  Thankfully my contract is for one more year so I have time to either fight the urge or start listing out the possible destinations. :)

Okay, enough randomness for one day.  Well, almost enough.  Here are a few bits and pieces I found while browsing Pinterest today that I feel the world needs to see :)

Location: Chengdu, China
Local Time (CST -- GMT+8): 7:33 a.m. (3/22/2015)
Auburn Time (PST -- GMT-7): 4:33 p.m. (3/21/2015)