This week at least, it's because I've been teaching double. In exchange for a tricky visa extension that has allowed us to stay in China for the Olympics as planned (and a little more pay), Ethan and I have signed on to teach for six additional weeks at OU in a summer program for Alabama-bound students. The new group of students is dreamily small (only 12 so far!), but this week we've been juggling the teaching commitments of getting this new program up and running as well as finishing out the final week with our other 200+ students. But for me at least, the madness is over. Poor Ethan still has to get up and teach at 8 AM tomorrow, sorry honey!
Last night though, tired as we were, it was time to say goodbye. For the past couple of weeks we've hosted a couple of "movie nights" for our 70 or so first year students who have come to be our favorites (mainly because we can gossip about them together). We've showed them "The Shawshank Redemption" and also the most recent "Pride and Prejudice" which were both well loved and deemed "perfect" by resident movie buff, Hebe. And, last night we took over the media room once more for a goodbye party and to share by request some of our pictures. Ethan put together a great sampling of our adventures over the last three years that included beautiful scenery from the US in Yosemite, Zion and the Whites as well as pictures of our travels in Guatemala, Belize and Honduras, many of which have appeared on his blog. We've been so lucky to have such adventures!
When our show was over, though, no one really wanted to leave. Even the slacker boys who have all but stopped breezing into class these days (but amazingly came to look at pictures!) remained. I don't know who demanded it first, but what they wanted was a song (or a dance, it was up to us). I have to admit in my exhausted state there was a part of me that felt like I had sung and danced enough over the course of the semester for this group, but as there was a microphone attached to the media console, Ethan and I gave in. Ethan sang "Yesterday" and then we did a duet to that song from "The Breakfast Club" (I managed the "hey-hey-hey-heys" but drew a blank on the verses, sorry Ethan). So terrible! But I'm glad we broke the ice. One by one, and with a little coercion, our braver students came up to the mic to sing us goodbye, leaving me with some of my fondest memories of this semester. Not only that but Hebe and a few others stayed later to present us with two wall hangings to remember them by - very sweet.
Here's a a video of three of our songbird students singing the official Olympic song, "Welcome to Beijing" - you can hardly see a thing (that's Costa Rica in the background), but hopefully you can hear their sweet voices. I will miss them.
"Welcome to Beijing" - Sunny, Olivia, and Hebe
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