Last day of classes!!!

It is over! My first semester as a teacher has been completed! This semester went by so fast. I can hardly believe it is really done. I finished the six week intensive course with the seniors Monday night (we went out to celebrate) and I said goodbye to my freshman students yesterday. I had mixed emotions while saying goodbye to them, it was sad but fun.

So being the awesome teacher that I am, I typed out a little note to all my students. It was a short and sweet little message about how much improvment I've seen, how proud I am of them, I will miss them, to keep in touch, etc... It was well recieved. Not only my little note, but I gave all my students little cheap notebooks. I told them that they had to use these notebooks for English writing purposes only and they all loved that idea.

In one of my classes a student gave me a gift. He gave me a wooden boat.Cool, I thought and thanked him. It was not until later in the day when one of the office staff told me what giving a boat as a present to a teacher means. Apparently in the Thai culture when you get a boat from a student it means you are highly respected by them. It symbolizes getting students from one side to another safely. If there are waves or danger, the teacher steers the boat back on the right direction. What one side to another means literally is getting students from one level in their education and teaching them and giving the knowledge to move up a level. AWESOME! So cool!