It's All Over

I walked into my classroom on Thursday and my assistant, bless her heart, had cleared it out. We still had 4.5 hours of school left and surely at least 10 of my students would show up, even though I had been telling them since graduation that I would not be offended if they called it quits early. I wanted to have more netflix and pillow fort days without them.
Anywho, this is what it looked like in my room

Not bad except for the fact that the children kept asking me what they were going to play with since all the toys had been packed up and it was way too hot to go outside. Kids these days just don't know about using your imagination! Or playing 7 Up, which we played for about half an hour before they got bored. During that time I got to thinking about how far I've come in the past year and some of the lessons I've learned during that time and thought it would make a good blog post, so here goes.

In no particular order, here are some of the lessons I've learned in my year of living and teaching abroad:

Don't sweat the small stuff
I can admit that I'm a perfectionist and a little OCD. I like having my stuff in order and being in control of the things that happen to and around me. Living abroad has taught me that you can't always control what happens, but you can control how you react to things. Things will make you upset undoubtedly, but you have to ask yourself if it's really all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

Kids are the same no matter where you go
And for the most part, so are their parents. They just want to feel valued and be happy, and in turn build relationships with you. I'm so thankful for the relationships that I've been able to build with my students and their parents. This year has been the perfect example of how teacher - student - parent relationships should go, even if some of the parents were a bit overly concerned about me making sure their child ate all of his/her lunch each day.

You'll never grow if you don't leap
Nothing great ever came from being afraid to take risks. There will be many times in your life that you have to choose between taking the safe path and venturing down the path to uncharted territory. In those times, pray and LISTEN and then follow your heart. Chances are, the uncharted path will lead to new experiences and growth and it will make you a better person.

Don't let anyone take advantage of you
Be knowledgeable and stand up for yourself. I always worry that when I'm traveling people will try to take advantage of me because either a) I'm a woman, b) I'm american, c) they think I'm stupid, or d) all of the above, so I try to be as prepared as possible, especially with money conversions and how much things are worth. When in doubt, wait it out has become my motto lately and it has served me well. There's never any harm in taking time to think things through or do a quick google search to get more information.

Sometimes you have to make your own rules

Do you see all those empty parking spaces, and this person just went and made his own space?! What creativity! How bold! I would have never thought of that, and if I did think to do it, the thought would have quickly been replaced by 'but I'll get a ticket. or towed'. Nope, not this guy, he saw an opportunity and he took it because, sometimes rules are merely suggestions. Now, I'm being funny here, but I find that in Abu Dhabi at least, especially when it comes to rules of the road, they really are just suggestions and people do what they want. Sometimes you have to take that approach with life. Take charge and make your own rules, be bold.

After all,