To my coworkers,

To my coworkers,

Almost one year ago, I was getting ready to go to the UNI job fair in Iowa and I was scared. I was scared to be making the 6½ hour drive through the Midwestern winter by myself, to arrive at the hotel and have the reservation missing, to be under-qualified for the jobs that I was going to be applying and, hopefully, interviewing for but not receive any offers, and finally coming home without an offer to live abroad.

Then I got to the job fair and sat in the orientation for Ivy Collegiate Academy, a small school on the island of Taiwan. I was surrounded by laughter and smiling faces; these were people who were my age and all hired that weekend to work at this school. My interview wasn’t until the afternoon, but I knew I wanted to fight for the job and teach with these people.

A couple hours later, it was all over. I was able to say I had a job offer. I wasn’t coming home empty-handed and it was a feeling unlike any other. I knew where I was going in a matter of five months.

One day, a couple months later, I came home from student teaching and had a request on Facebook to join a group: Taiwan-a-get-to-know-ya. My first thought was, “Killer name!” Then, looking through the members of the group, I saw faces I had sat with in the orientation at the job fair. These were the people I was going to be working with.

I remember calling my parents and telling them about the group. I’m pretty sure my dad was more excited for me to be a part of a group of people with the same dreams and passions as mine than he was about me actually getting the job abroad.

Nevertheless, I dove in and introduced myself. I’m pretty sure I read that post ten times to make sure I didn’t seem dumb before posting it on the wall of the group. I began adding my comments to the streams of posts that had been on the page for weeks and the members of the group commented back almost immediately with responses and “likes.”

I had been a member of a group of teachers during my time in college. The English education group at UWSP was my family away from home. We supported each other, helped each other, and understood each other. But the feeling that it was going to end, at least in the physical sense of seeing each other regularly, was unnerving. Those people had been my rocks, my support system, during the hardest semesters of college and we were all going to go our separate ways and begin our lives. Needless to say, knowing I was slowly becoming a part of a group of teachers all going to the same place physically and in the same direction with our lives was comforting.

Moving to Taiwan has taught me a lot but I have to give credit where credit is due. I wouldn’t have learned as much if I had never met each of you.

Thank you for teaching me how to communicate with other people. Everyone has their own style of communication and, as teachers, it’s important to remember to adapt and change the conversation style for each person.

Thank you for teaching me patience and understanding in and out of the classroom. I’m still working on this one.

Thank you for teaching me that I don’t need to have my priorities all figured out right now at this point of my life. I’m only twenty three years old. I know what is important to me today, but those things weren’t important to me last year and some of them may not be important to me next year. And that’s okay.

Thank you for teaching me how to be a better, more well rounded teacher.  Just because I’m teaching young people doesn’t mean I have to stop learning. To be the best teacher I can be, I need to be able to take criticism, admit to being wrong and making mistakes, and I need to know when to ask for help. Doing these things aren’t signs of weakness, they’re signs of strength. Thank you for helping me through my first semester of teaching.

Most importantly, thank you for treating me like family. It’s very hard for me to be so far away from home, but over the past few months, the distance doesn’t seem as far because I’ve come to know all of you so much better. You’re there for me when I need a laugh, a smile, a hug, an ear, a drink, some advice, a hike, a stupid movie, a ticket on Candy Crush, and so many more things that family members give to others.

So, here’s to the next six months in Taiwan! If they’re anything like the last six months, they’re going to be wonderful.