Almost finished...

Only one more week exactly until I go home for Christmas. I'm so excited but a little nervous as well. There are so many people I want to see and so many things I want to do that now 3 weeks seems like such a short visit. When I bought my ticket, it seemed more than sufficient but that was a silly thought in retrospect. How can 3 weeks ever be more than sufficient time with your friends and family? So perhaps it's not enough time but it's all the time I get so I'm more than thankful for it!!

So, my first semester as a "professor" is wrapping up this week. I'm extraordinarily busy trying to get grades finished up, last minute work from students checked, and everything else that comes with the end of classes. It's funny because you never know what people really think of you until they actually tell you. I had been pretty disappointed in my lessons (yes, I admit that I can be perfectionistic about some things) but yesterday in my first 2 classes the students presented me with gifts and cards to thank me for teaching them. Here's an excerpt from one of their cards: "Dear Miss Traylor! Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to you! We would like to say a big thank you to you for your marvelous lessons, which we greatly enjoyed! We will never forget how much encouragement and support we have gotten from you! It was a truly amazing pleasure for us to communicate with such a versatile and interesting teacher like you! Best wishes, your students F-142" How sweet is that! They'll never know how much I needed to hear that right now. The picture above is of me with the F-142 group.

One more class today, one tomorrow night and "все" (vuh-see-oh which means, that's all in Russian). Interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about this whole teaching thing anymore. Maybe I actually like it. Don't hold me to that statement though :)