It's a good thing my boss didn't ask me to sign a renewal contract before Christmas, because I would have said yes. The stress of preparing for the Winter Festival, which made me not even want Christmas to come at all except that it would signify that all that work would end, and the realization that my life at work would always become busier still and never less, brought me to the recognition that I needed to find a different job. I still love Gunsan, so I wanted to stay here, but I needed a healthier place to work.
As it happens, my church has an English school as well, and they were hoping I would work there. For a couple weeks leading up to Christmas I'd begun to realize that that was the right decision to make, and my wonderful excursion with my pastor, his wife, and others on Christmas Sunday brought exactly the confirmation I needed to know it was the right decision.
So I'll be in Korea for at least another year (I hope for more), but I'll be starting work at a new school and soon I'll be moving to a new apartment. I'm both nervous and excited, but I know it will work out, because I know this choice is right.
Today I broke the news to my kindergarten class, because my last day with them is the 10th. And one of my favorite students, who used to be so bad but has become so good, looked up at me with his eyes all wide and serious, the way they get when he wants me to know (or think, in cases when he's done something wrong) that he means business. His voice was shakier than usual and had that little waver in it like when I'm about to send him out of the classroom and he's suddenly remorseful for not listening. And he asked me, "Suzanne teacher, where to going?"
I told him where, and said that I will stay in Gunsan, that maybe I will see him again in Lotte Mart (I have run into his mother there before, in fact).
And he said, his voice about to break from all his earnesty, "I go to, too. I go to, too!"
And I was both sad and touched. I'm grateful to have a student--even one who had been quite a terror at the start--who is so attached to me that he wants to follow me wherever I may go. I'm sad that he's so sad that I will leave. I knew it would be hard for some of them, because they are small and have become very affectionate, so I wanted them to have some time to get used to the idea that I will leave and someone else will come. But then I felt a little bad, because now some of them are very sad. I still think this is better, though, rather than telling them so suddenly when they have no chance to say goodbye. I hope I do see some of them again. I certainly will miss them. They are wonderful children, even the troublemakers, and I love all of them.
I hope whatever impact I have made on them has been a good one, whether large or small.
