It is hard to believe that we will be back in the United States in less than a week! The school year is over, and it is surreal to think that we will be on a plane this Thursday.Aside from the fact that we are in China, I had assumed that the end of this school year would have felt much like previous years. I was wrong! Although we are excited to return home, we are not excited about leaving. In the past, I was always counting down the days until I would be free from teaching. I saw my job as a burden, a necessary evil. This year, I am saddened to think that I will not see any of my students for 11 weeks. We are eager to return to our friends & families, but we are hesitant to leave; it’s a paradox of feelings!
Why we are grateful this week:
1) All of the teachers from English Week have returned home safely. It was a tremendous success, and the team learned to “flex” with the changes to their destination and schedule.
If you are interested in being part of an October 2008 or May 2009 English week, then please contact us for more information. We would love to talk with you this summer! It really is a life changing experience for everyone involved.
2) One of my New Year’s resolutions was to run two marathons this year. Jess and I ran the Great Wall Marathon three weeks ago. I ran with her the whole way; the pace was not taxing. For me, it was like a long slow training run. So, I scheduled another marathon for this week. I planned to push my pace to see how much 20 weeks of training had helped. I finished 30 minutes faster than my previous personal best, but I am most thankful that I am uninjured after running two marathons in less then a month.
3) Jess has been baking with students the past two Thursday nights, and I have enjoyed the delicious creations. M & M Cookies made with oil instead of butter, and pistachio-walnut-chocolate
4) We held our final movie night of the semester last night, and we closed it out with Life is Beautiful. About 100 students came.
We have enjoyed the movie nights this semester, and will probably continue them next year. They are easy to plan, and the students appreciate them.
5) Our contracts are complete! The changes have been made, the necessary physicals completed, and our signatures are on the papers. At this point, we have completed everything we can do to be prepared to return next year.
Please continue to “think” about us:
1) This is our final week in China, and we don’t want to waste it with packing and anticipation. We want to finish strong! Beyond that, we want to realize that this is not the finish. We plan to return next year, and we plan to stay in contact with those students who have Internet access during the summer.
2) Our plane leaves from Beijing on Thursday at 6:30pm and we arrive in Washington DC on Thursday at 7:44pm. It’s a 13-hour flight that only takes one hour, and we will probably spend the better part of a week recovering from the jetlag. Coincidentally, we will be spending that week with 400+ high school students in Virginia.
Our only concern about the flight is how we will get to the airport with our luggage. The college is supposed to provide transportation, but we are unsure if that will happen. So, it might be challenging to find transportation to the airport next Thursday.
3) We are currently working on plans for next year. We are hoping to organize more frequent English Clubs on the Main Campus.
My vision is that we would hold two clubs on the Eastern Campus and one club on the Western Campus each month.
My concern is that the students might view the Club on the Main Campus as competition for their student-run English Clubs. This is why I want our Clubs to be on a different night, and I want them to look and feel different from the student-run English Clubs. In this way I am hoping that they will be viewed as a compliment instead of competition. We also need to get approval from the English Department, which includes the arrangement of our teaching schedules so that we could all be free on the same evenings.
4) One of the first tasks we need to complete when we return to Maryland is creating a 2008/2009 budget. We have been extremely blessed with the necessary funding for this year, and we already have a good start toward next year. However, once we are home and have full access to our accounts, we will need to reevaluate our financial situation and continue the process of raising our 2008/2009 budget.
5) We will be home for about 30 hours before we get on a charter bus full of high school students heading for Rockbridge, Virginia. We have been looking forward to the opportunity to spend a week with many of the students we worked with during the last three school years prior to China, but we will also be coping with jetlag. We have stayed in touch with many of these students via the Internet, and this should be a great week. As the summer progresses we are hoping to support the new leaders at this high school as they work toward creating a “Club” of their own.
We will be in Maryland for most of the summer (June 12-August 25), and we can not wait to share our experiences in China with all of you.
Living outside the boat,
Brad & Jessie
