winding down

This was me on September 1, 2008. It has been 72,748,800 seconds since that day. Or two years, three months and twenty.one days. I stood there in the atrium of my apartment on my first day with no umbrella as the rain poured mercilessly outside. I stood there with no clue as to where I should go. I stood there waiting helplessly in a country not truly my own.

I remember as I introduced myself to my first class. Trembling at the core, fearful of ridicule and failure I looked into a mass of dark brown eyes framed by dark brown hair. The classroom seemed impossibly full of curious stares and my voice rattled its way up my vocal chords and somehow fluttered out of my mouth. "Hello, everyone. My name is Linda. You can call me Ms. Linda or just Linda is okay too..."

I will never forget that first class. They welcomed me. They asked me questions. They engaged me into their academic lives. I remember clearly Brad and Jennifer and Tiffany and Thomas. They've long forgotten me by now, but I remember them dearly and warmly. My first encounter with students... as a teacher.

It's been 1,212,480 minutes since that first day. It's beginning to hit me that I'm leaving a place that I genuinely love and care for. There were numerous headaches for sure, but the sprightly greetings from students, the concern and sincerity of co.workers and my classroom, my domain, those things were all worth the frustrations and late night lesson planning sessions.

My heart is starting to ache with longing and I haven't even left yet. I'm going to miss Bongwon.