K-I-K-C

It seems to me that vacationsickness is a lot like homesickness in the way that when you're busy, you don't have time to miss the warm, sunny beaches that you were on just a few days ago but as soon as you get a minute, as soon as things start to slow down, the reality of just how far away those beaches are slaps you right in the face.

With my dad landing in China the same day that we did and the start of the new semester coming just a day after that, I haven't really had time to think about the fact that, this time a week ago, I was sipping coconut smoothies in my hammock, under a palm tree, next to the ocean. Until today.

This week, my dad went home, I started planning my flight home from Boston (and what I will be doing once I get there) and my classes wrapped up unit 1. With the end of the unit, came a review day and review days are my favorite because we get to play lots of games! However, my students are notorious for their behavior, so, when we play games (or do anything really) they tend to get really loud/crazy and stop listening. I have learned that this is best dealt with silence (because language barriers are real). I stop talking. I sit down. I wait for them to be done (if it happens more than once we stop playing) and while I'm waiting, I think. Sometimes I think about whether or not I should get a milk tea after school, sometimes its about what's for dinner, today it was about the beach. I thought about how, just a week ago, I was relaxing in the sun and swimming in the ocean and today, I am looking out over a sea of (noisy) grade 2 students who were all bundled in their winter coats and that vacationsickness started to sink in. It really, really sunk in when one of my students tried to "give a hint" (*ahem* cheat *ahem*) to the student who was taking their turn in the game by whispering "It's kick! K-I-K-C! KICK! K-I-K-C!"

Toto, we are not in Thailand anymore.

Nope. We are back and we have a lot of work to do this semester, starting with spelling. (Although, I would like to say that while we still have work to do on the exact order of the letters, they really know their vocabulary! Yay, Grade 2!)

Now that we are officially back in reality (because Netflix found out I was using a VPN and cut me off from my tv world), I will just have to settle with looking at pictures of the beach and reminiscing of the days that I've spent looking for shells and looking forward to the days this coming summer that I will spend looking for shells.

*(Although I can't look too forward to those days just yet because while I was sitting in the quiet that the "this is my disappointed face" creates, I also remembered how much I love those noisy, winter jacket bundled Grade 2ers, even if they do try and cheat sometimes (because even their cheating is endearing, k-i-k-c, how cute is that?) and I have a feeling that as I'm looking for shells on the beach this summer the missing-china-sickness will really start to sink in.)*