It's Good to be Back!

It's so good to back this year.  One month ago I was welcomed by this lovely sign, these lovely flowers, and my lovely roommate.  It was so good to come back to the familiar - to my same apartment, to the same roommate I had my first year, and back to my classroom and students.  It's been a slow start to the year for a couple reasons, but it's been nice to ease back into school and to feel really ready.  

We were delayed by one week because of the coup, but that has had no effect on us (in fact, I had completely forgotten about it until writing this!).  We had the first two days of school and then a weekend.  After that we had four days of school and then a workday where we had to go to immigration to get our visas and work permits renewed.  The following week we were supposed to have school but we had so many cases of Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease that the kindergarten and elementary schools had to be shut down from Monday to Wednesday.  We had school Thursday and Friday and that leads me to today.  So after being here a month I have really only taught about 8 full days.  Kind of crazy!  

But it's been a great first month.  It is so nice to come back to teaching having had two years of experience.  It makes everything so much easier - from deciding what projects to do, to knowing where to get the materials, and to knowing how to handle my classroom and the students that I have.  I have also found that I have a lot more confidence in what I am doing and that has helped in so many ways.   It's been great to see my students again and reconnect with them, and so fun to have them for a third year!  I love already knowing my students and having a relationship with them.  

It's amazing to think back to two years ago when I was arriving in Thailand for the first time.  I was so afraid, so homesick and scared and lonely.  I had absolutely no idea how to manage a classroom or come up with all my own curriculum.  And now I come back for a third year, confident in teaching, having good friends, knowing a couple hundred students, speaking a bit of Thai, knowing my way around, and flourishing where I have been planted.  God is so good!