Sigh.

So today was my last day at my morning school. I'm so sad!

Friday was not my last day, as I originally thought. I slept terribly Thursday night, thinking Friday was it. But it wasn't until I got to school that I discovered Monday was the last day of summer camp. Not sure why, or why no one told me, but I was happy I had one more day with the kids.

Not knowing otherwise, on Thursday I told my shadow--Eric--that, "tomorrow is our last day together!" and explained he'd have a new teacher next week. He was pretty upset. He kept saying, "but I want Teacher Carolyn!" over and over again and was breaking my heart. So after school I went straight to the store and started buying gifts for my students. I bought them stickers, bookmarks, cards, chocopies, and pen-like contraptions that have a bunch of different colored crayons and you can keep switching to different colors. So I brought them to school on Friday but I gave them away today, our actual last day.


It was a good day. Like many days, it started out downstairs at an assembly, during which they usually speak and sing in Mandarin or Taiwanese. All of a sudden they started speaking English and saying it was my last day and I was going back to America. They had me go on the little stage and say goodbye. I said thank you, I'll miss everyone, I hope I can visit them, and goodbye. Then the whole school did a little chant for me that I hear them do all the time. I really don't know how to describe it, but Teacher Ruby said they were "giving me a Coke." It's this chant with clapping and arm movements. I'm pretty sure that at the end of it a Coke explodes. It goes something like this:

Yi
Er
Yi Er San
Yi Er San Se
Ho-hay!
Dundudndudndun, dundudndudndun
ooOOOoooOOOooo POP!
shwshwhshwhshshwhshw
gulugulugulu

Yeah, I know. When I come back, I'll show you it. It was pretty surreal standing up there with all of them doing it in honor of my departure.

Then we had our class. We finished up stuff we had to do, played games, sang songs. One of my students, Emily, was sick last week and was tested for swine flu. She's fine and was back today, so I was very relieved and happy. I had a few extra students who will be in that class for the regular school year, and they were in the class on Monday to do a test-run. Joy gave me this awesome card. On the front he made a picture of me (I love the blond hair and tie) and on the back it said, "Dear Teacher Carolyn, I like you, I want to hug you, and I'll miss you. Joy." Then he taped a heart, a picture of himself, and signed his name.

How could that not break your heart!? It's so adorable.

Needless to say, I gave him a big hug.

At the end of our class, I gave the kids their presents. They seemed excited by the stickers and crayon thing. I kinda think they were hoping for a toy, though. Oh well!

I gave each kid a hug. Their new teacher took a picture for us. We played our game, Walk and Walk and Stop, one more time. Then we all had to say goodbye. Eric and Louie were crying a little and they hugged me and said, "I'll miss you" like 8000 times. I'm going to miss all of them so much, but especially those two and Nico. I was really trying to stay composed. Then I left.
I totally forgot to pop in and say goodbye to Mia, but I talked to her on Friday and got a couple cute pictures of her.

I'm so lucky I found that job at that school. (A) Without it, I wouldn't have been able to afford to stay in Taiwan, (B) it was a great way to experience teaching in a real classroom environment (as opposed to a cram school environment, which is a completely different kind of teaching), and (C) those kids are so freakin great. I'm really thankful everything fell into place so I could work there.

I feel a bit silly being so emotional about it. Of course there's an end. It's the nature of teaching, especially when you're from another country. But I'll really miss them.

Sigh.