And I'm off!

Well, in the morning I'm off.. to Cambodia that is! We leave campus around 8 am Sunday morning.  

The last day of classes went incredibly well. I have never laughed so hard or so often along with my students.  We finished up the lesson book, played many games, wrote letters, and did other "end of camp" activities.  The kids were their wonderfully weird selves.  They laughed at my accidental sarcasm for the first time ever, wrote me sweet letters, FINALLY let me take pictures of them, and even insisted on a "jumping" picture at the end of the morning session.

In the afternoon, I walked with my class in the pouring rain to a nearby school for our closing ceremony program.  I'm glad to hear HK sent some rain to IA, by the way!  On the way, I shared my umbrella with a student I don't get to talk one-on-one with very often, so that was great! At the closing ceremonies, each class presented a small program or skit.  My class has improved tremendously in their English skills, but they are still quite shy in front of a stage, so we decided to create a video.  I videoed each student and compiled many pictures from class into a video and attached music to the video.  When it was our class's turn to present, I hooked up my laptop and the class sat on the stage looking at the big screen.

The video wouldn't work.  The school's tech person even came and tried to fix the problem, but we were unable to show our video.  I was devastated.  The program I used to make the video crashed twice without saving, so I had stayed up until 2 am making the video the night before.  When I looked at my students while the tech guy worked with my computer, they looked pretty bummed.  When my toughest student gave me a sad look, tears began rolling down my face.  Knowing the video wouldn't work, Team Leader Amanda dismissed the students, the crowd still applauded, and I went backstage to prevent myself from losing it.  I didn't, and my class and I enjoyed watching the other seven classes perform, but I still ended the camp feeling like I had really let my students down.

After school, Rachel, Joy, and two of our students--Candy and Karen--went to movie in the theater together, and I was able to enjoy my FIRST 3D movie with them! Today (Saturday), my students, Karen and Vincent, joined me and all of the ELIC teachers for a youth rally in the morning, then we met with some other students and teachers for lunch, shopping, and ice skating! At the end of the day, Karen and Vincent both asked me if I would like to go biking next weekend when we're back in Hong Kong for two days, so I'm hoping we can find a time that will work! Vincent wants to get more students from class, too, so I'm looking forward to this!


......


Tonight we had our last team devotions in Hong Kong since Cambodia is TOMORROW.  It still hasn't sunk in that I'm leaving this city and going to an entirely different country and culture tomorrow.  We'll be in Cambodia until Saturday, then fly back to Hong Kong for two days, and leave for HOME on Monday morning.  It's so hard to believe that I'll also be home in a little more than one week. Time has FLOWN by, and it's going to be full of more sad goodbyes, especially with my teammates!


I'm not sure about internet access in Cambodia, but I should be able to send at least one update!

Love you all!
Kristin