Last Monday was the first day of class for the new semester. After taking some much needed time to rest and recharge I was excited to get back into the classroom and see my students. As I started to pack up my materials for class I looked for the bookbag that I usually take, only to remember that it was still lost in transit from Thailand (we mailed some things back to China, paid for 1 week delivery by air, and have now been waiting almost 3 weeks). No big deal, I just found another bag and headed out the door.
When I got into my first class I started unpacking. Attendance sheet-- check. Student name cards-- check. Lesson plan-- uh oh. I had left my lesson plan on the printer at home! Home was a 45 minute bus ride away, so there was no going back. Allie had class across the hallway, so we got one of her students to take Allie's lesson plan to the copy machine. Turns out that all the administrators were in a meeting, so noone was available to unlock the door to the copy machine. Thankfully, my gracious wife let me have her copy of the lesson plan and she just did it by memory. I sure am one lucky man!
Later in the day I had a little down time, so I pulled out my Kindle. What better way to pass some time than a nice, leisurely read? When I opened my Kindle case, this is what I found:
Awesome. First a missing bag, then a forgotten lesson plan, and now a broken Kindle! Great way to start out the semester! During my last class of the day I was throwing myself a mental pity party while my students were working on an assignment. While I was walking around the room monitoring their work I noticed a list on the wall that had their student ID numbers, followed by 2 -3 digit numbers. It wasn't a list of grades, so to satisfy my curiosity I asked a nearby student for clarification. "Oh, one of our classmates' father was in a bad accident. She is absent today because she had to stay home and help her mother take care of him. We have all been giving money to help with the hospital bills." And I thought that I was the one who was supposed to teach the life-lessons....
I love how God can find ways to remind me how blessed I am, how much He loves me and how much I don't deserve. All in all, I've got to say, it was a pretty great first day back.
Hi Chris and Allie. This is Abby Sytsma. We miss you. I wish I could snuggle with a Tiger:) Was it scary or fun? Hope you are doing well. Talk to you later.
ReplyDeleteHey Abby! We're really happy that you read our blog! Snuggling with the tiger was both scary and fun-- it was more scary while we were in the cage, but it's fun now that we're safe! We miss hanging out with you and your family. Tell everyone that we said hello!
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