Goodbye Teacher!

It's just been one long social whirl this week as I host a series of farewell soirees for my English students.

For the teenagers it's been Sprite, sandwiches and games based around Taylor Swift lyrics and I actually got some of my big, tough, thirteen year olds singing.  Yesterday, I was sad to say goodbye to my ten year olds.  I had got more sandwich stuff in, but I needn't have bothered as they trotted in happily with plastic carriers bags full of cake, curry, chicken frankfurters and other goodies.  Most of them also brought gifts.  I have been inundated with presents, including diaries, pens, key rings and even a powder compact from Shanghai, from this lot since we started in May last year.

 During our last lesson we sang songs, had a treasure hunt around the ground floor of the house, ate all the food and played games.  After a final game of "killer shark" ("hangman" without the capital punishment overtones) I stood outside in the warm night air and waved goodbye to them as they clambered into the waiting cars lined up outside our front gate.  As always I smiled to the departing vehicles, unsure whether in the dark interiors anyone was smiling back.  Since I started I have had very little contact with the parents, as they generally speak worse English than their children.  Despite this, my sense is that they are mostly satisfied with "English with Douglas".  If nothing else, I seem to have instilled in the ten year olds a sense of pleasurable anticipation at the thought of an English lesson.  A fact of which I'm rather proud.

I got a lovely surprise on my last day of teaching.  I'd just got back from my morning bike ride when there came a knock on the door.  When I opened it I was greeted by two of my thirteen year old students, Michelle and Thian, holding a dripping plastic bag which turned out to contain an "ABC", a peculiar Malaysian desert including shaved ice and red beans.  Some weeks ago in class we had been talking about our favourite foods and I said I had never had an "ABC".  Not my ideal breakfast, but a very thoughtful gift.

The idea is that finishing teaching early will give me time to do some travelling and get back to Italy early to start sorting out our house, before Sue returns in October.  But, I must say life is going to feel a bit empty for a while.