Greetings, all, and apologies for my recent hiatus from regular posting! My student teaching finished with lots of smiles, gifts, and celebration; I am so deeply grateful for having such an amazing experience with kind and patient mentors and loving and inquisitive students.
But now, my attention has turned to the experience ahead: my impending move to South Korea. I've received my official approval to get my visa stamp and spent the morning gathering the materials I need to mail. I've shopped for a few kitchenwares for my apartment and I'm getting ready to ship two big tubs and a box to my future home. I've begun packing the suitcases that will come on the plane with me. I've become an avid fan of Chelsea Speak on YouTube. I've started tearing through the summer reading that my employers gave me. I've spent hours poring over travel guides to get inspiration for travel during school breaks. I've purchased two of my three or four flights for Christmas travels.
I cannot emphasize enough how excited I am for this new adventure. I absolutely love to travel, the school that I am going to has philosophies that mirror my own, and I am confident that the faculty and administration will be a fantastic support system for me as I further develop my personal teaching style. However, I am also seriously struggling with this major transition. After graduation, most of my good friends moved to Boston or New York. Two dear friends are renting an apartment together. Others are returning to Mount Holyoke. While I am thrilled with the opportunities that await me both personally and professionally, I am truly, deeply worried about losing the friendships I have cultivated over the last four years. Several of my closest friends all share a social circle in the city in which they live, and there is no way that I can be a consistent part of that for the next couple of years.
I remember having coffee with LP, a young alum friend of mine, the week before graduation. She was telling me of her upcoming plans to travel to visit friends of hers from college all over the world! I smiled and said that was one of the nice things about going to our school, you had friends everywhere. She paused for a moment, and admitted that yes, it was good to have friends everywhere, but it was also hard...because none of them are here.
I have said to many people that after my two years in Korea, I intend to move back to Massachusetts, either Boston or the Pioneer Valley. But really, the more I think about it, that feels like the safe answer, the personal choice. My nomadic spirit dreams of teaching in London, Zurich, Christchurch, Cairo, Jerusalem, Quito. My educator self seeks an opportunity wherein I will be challenged but supported, and make a difference in the world. But the community-oriented woman inside me wonders when I will ever begin to find and build home. For the time being, I am trying to focus more on the present. In two days I will spend a week visiting my best friends in Boston; in less than a month I'll depart on my new adventure and go about creating my community. I suppose my next move will largely hinge on the ease of doing so.
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Currently reading: Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace and In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms by Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin Brooks
Current high: just two days until I take off for a whole week with my buddies!
Current low: worries about friendship maintenance in years to come.
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