Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia (possibly in that order)

On my last day of work before winter vacation I tried to write a really reflective blog entry on everything I learned about teaching middle school students over the past four months. I wrote a draft that referenced various educational philosophers and how my idealist expectations were squashed by the paradigm of English education in Japan. However, I could not capture the resiliently optimistic tone that I was going for, so I watched the letters fade from the computer screen as I held down the backspace key in frustration.

I spent that evening filling a simple black backpack with everything I would need for the next two weeks in Borneo--a huge accomplishment in not overpacking.

Then I went to Malaysia to meet my cousins Annie and Caitlin, Caitlin's friend Brad, and Jocelyn, who came a week into our stay.
First Caitlin got sick, then Annie, then me. Brad fell asleep to the sounds of vomit crashing against the toilet bowl and Annie's hallucinations of rats crawling in her brain.
We lived off of room service for a week.
After we were well enough to escape the waterfront Hyatt, Caitlin, Brad and Annie took on Mt. Kinabalu, as Jocelyn and I did this
and this and saw the biggest flower in the world,
and made friends wherever we went.
On January 1st, Jocelyn and I went to the gorgeous islands one last time. We were supposed to catch the 5:00 boat back to the city along with all of the other tourists, but with a flirtatious boat driver's number in my sandy purse, I made a call that alloted us three extra hours on the island. After watching the magnificent sunset, darkness settled over us, and our driver appeared in a rickety boat with his brother. Apprehensively, but with little choice, Jocelyn and I boarded the boat with the strange men that took us across the South China Sea. We held onto each other as we gazed at the breathtaking sky full of stars. Upon exiting the boat we thanked the two men, wished them a happy new year, and then parted ways all the more faithful in the good in mankind.

This brings me back to the beginning of this post--keeping the faith as a teacher.

Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh sums up my world philosophy in two simple sentences: "When you grow a tree, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the tree. You look into the reasons it is not doing well."
My students just need a little bit of water and sunshine. Hopefully I brought enough back from Malaysia.