Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 - 11:03 p.m.

Its been a good day. I stopped at the hostel on the way to work and booked a bed for my "homeless" weeks. (Guess I am not homeless anymore though, lol) Its actually cheaper than my apartment, all of 200 nt per night, about $6 US. Nice. I mentioned before how different hostelling is here from Europe. Here they usually take only groups. People dont travel alone and its a VERY modest culture, so sleeping in a room with strangers is not a popular idea.

They even reminded me a few times that there MIGHT (stress was def here) be someone other people in my 4-bed dorm. I very much so wanted to run down the history of hostelling and its current usage....but the I remembered that hostelling STARTED in group form (school children in Germany)AND they were being really kind and speakin in MY language, so I bit my tongue and assured them that I woudl somehow deal with that concept. Oi!

Then at work the gifts have started to trickle in. I am getting little goodbye presents from my students. Its so terribly cute I cant help but get all warm and fuzzy inside. I have received a ton of stationary, pens, and even some perfume today. (I consider this my first official day as a real teacher, now that I have my first perfume gift. We always used to give our teachers cologne or perfume for x-mas when I was in Elem. school.)

Also, I had my last class with one of my younger groups of students. This has been a challenging class for me due to the head bashing with the assistant teacher as well as the insaney high energy of the kids. Its so headache inducing most of the time. But despite all this, they have really come to like me. I dont understand, but am not questioning affection from any source!

And when I came back from the room we were doing the oral test in they had a surprise for me. The assistant teacher (who has been sooooooooo sweet about me leaving) wrote on the board "Debra, We love you very, very much." And as I walked into the room, they all jumped up and screamed this to me. It surprised me in a way that I can not explain. I started to get all teary, but it still hurts like hell to cry, so I had to hold it back.

Do all teachers get this? Have I actually touched these kids lives? These are thoughts going through my head when this happened as it is now.

As hard as this year has been on my selfish ass, the kids have def been THE best thing about this experience. I dont think I would have lasted a moment without their unquestioning sweetness.

Does this mean that I like teaching?

Dunno still. Gotta remove myself from the teachin environment before I answer that one. Downtime to breathe (literally and mentally).

But I am touched.