Teaching Withdrawals

Picture: This is Jerak when we celebrated his birthday. I made a cake and barely any of the kids ate it because they don't like sweet things. Note to self, Miss Melissa needs to think of another food item for the kids to eat on birthdays :) Hello all! Right now, Melissa is sitting in a chair, in her room while her roomates go for a walk. You may ponder that this is unusual for Melissa to be sitting alone while there is a party outside her door. But she is because right now Melissa is pondering.... :) It is amazing the feeling of people knowing your name. As I walk into the school building, I am greeted by kids yelling my name. "Melissa, Melissa, Melissa." All of their voices are so adorable when they say my name from Brent in kindergarten to Grady in primary. I absolutely love it when they say my name which sounds dorky but i don't care. :) Enough about that, right at this very second, I am going through withdrawals. So far I have been teaching for 3 weeks and to hear about the opportunity of getting a break from the kids, I was SO happy. ( When a team comes, they usually do VBS during my class time) I thought to myself, " Yes, no prep, I can just relax for once in my life!" Monday, Tuesday came and i was fine with not teaching. I was still able to see the kids and so it was all good. Wednesday came along and it was time for me to teach. It was going fine but soon some of the kids goofed off during reading time. I even had to use my "Angry" tone of voice in front of the class. After that class, I was so thankful that I didn't have to teach for the rest of the week. (There is another team doing an English camp here) Now today was Thursday (as tonight I am writing this) and I did not have to teach. As I was walking up into the school building to pick up the kindergarten and take them to lunch. I was greeted by my students. Jerak and Hayden gave me a hug, Elizabeth was tugging on my dress, and Joseph kept asking when we were going to take primary to lunch. (Annie and I will be taking the class tomorrow to lunch) Right at that moment, I had such love for my students. Yes they can be disrespectful, talk in class, and not listen to me but they are my students! Its like we are a one big crazy family. (and no i'm not the mother, I'm the jie jie (big sister)) As I looked into their classroom, I was saddened that I couldn't be with them which is why I am going to teaching withdrawals. I love teaching especially teaching here. These kids are so amazing and i love that I am teaching them English. I mean there are so many visitors that come who don't know Chinese so it is perfect. Also I like how they can use the English one day in their forever families. I'm glad G gave me a break from them because it helped me to see how much i like teaching. Hold on one second, you think I am deciding on teaching as my future occupation. Well yes you are correct but I still want to get my Certified Occupational Therapist's Assistant license too. I am so fascinated with what OTAs do that I think it would be such a great tool for me to have here. Stay tuned for more information on it though! haha