Today is the first day of school for my teacher friends at home. While I am not sad to be a month into the school year already at Dakar Academy, I am missing the excitement of the first day at Royal Orchard. I will admit that I am the most homesick today that I have been since arriving in Senegal. I am feeling downright sentimental.
I can imagine seeing my friends and colleagues after the summer and catching up about our vacation anecdotes. It's fun to see how students have grown and changed over the summer, how the classes are mixed for the coming year, and it's exciting to introduce the new classroom routines and expectations you've perfected in your mind over the break.
I am missing my colleagues who have inspired me, encouraged me, and survived with me. I am missing my classroom at the top of the stairs across from the library, I am missing the familiarity of greeting the kids by name when I pass them in the hall.
ROMS represents familiarity and comfort. It represents the confidence and know-how that seem to have eluded me here in Senegal. It represents a challenge I overcame, and great personal victory.
As exciting as my new adventure is, it's not without some sadness. In all the craziness of preparing to move I don't know if it truly set in until today that I wouldn't be back (at least not this year). This is the point where my past and my present truly diverge. I hope and pray that when I look back at my first day of school at Dakar Academy and my first year teaching in Senegal, that I will regard them with as much pride and fondness as my time at Royal Orchard.
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I can truly empathize with you today my dearest Alicia. I was thinking of my sweet JK's coming back and wondering how they have grown and changed. When I was at the schools last week in the kindergarten classrooms I could not help thinking about my beautiful classroom at McKinnon and all of the staff that I left behind. I know that it's hard to leave the comfort of the familiar but we aren't pursuing familiar...we're pursuing adventure. :) For as much as you miss, you are equally missed!
ReplyDeleteThinking of you!! Just think about your challenging beginnings at ROMS....I have no doubt you will one day find this unfamiliar territory you're in right now become what you know, love, and even desire!
ReplyDeletePull yourself together woman or I'll send that rabbit over to keep you company.
ReplyDeleteHow did I miss this post?!?!? Sheesh, I must have had a slow moment last week. (Well, at LEAST one moment).
ReplyDeleteI have no words of wisdom for you, friend. As much as I can talk about EQAO, learning skills, and assessments, I don't know what it's like to have that "school family". But I DO think that there is a little something missing at ROMS this year. There's one less teacher decked out in purple on spirit days. A shortage of over the top, creative activities happening, and one less enthusiastic, pride-filled cheer coming from the front row of the bleachers on game day.
So, as much as you feel a little something missing in your Dakar life, there's a hundred other "somethings" missing here at home. And not just at ROMS. It's everywhere. Trust me.