My Closure

I’ll admit it – I’ve been a bad blogger. I recorded events almost a week after they happened, I really didn’t think about writing anything insightful/witty, and I mastered the art of the photodump.
Apologies.

But my last post is no different, really. Even though I arrived home about a week ago, I’ve been putting off writing/thinking about closure, but now that I’m finally on the way back to Yale, I figure I should probably wrap up my summer adventures for good. (Yeah, I’m on the plane right now – how last minute is that? Also, the guy behind me is apparently feeling the urge to bother my feet with his own; I keep having to move out of range.)

Well, I guess I’ve also been holding off because I feel like I haven’t really left Hong Kong. Once a Summerbridge teacher, always a Summerbridge teacher. When I close my eyes, I’m walking home to my flat or standing in my classroom, my backpack slung over one shoulder and my laptop cradled in my arm. I can hear all the chaos of the traffic, and the noise settles over me like a thick blanket. And when I wake up, it takes me a moment to remember that I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn anymore, and I don’t need to run and catch the 115 bus anymore…nonetheless, when I open up my e-mail, I find letters from students sitting in my inbox, and the landscape of Facebook has forever been changed for me (I really wish I could read Chinese.)

 Summerbridge, and this summer, have had a profound effect on me. I remember that in the beginning, Joyce held a “workshop” about “impact.” She gave each department a box of Playdoh, and told us to create something about how we wanted to impact our students. I made a series of three hearts, stacked on top of each other in order of size (sounds trite, I know). If I remember correctly, the first one was a love of my subject, or something in it, at least. The second was a love of learning, of finding something to grip them passionately for the rest of their lives. The third, the biggest one, was a love of themselves, of having the confidence to speak English and step out of their comfort zone. That was the impact I wanted to have.

What I didn’t realize, though, was that they would have an impact on me. I mean, I didn’t expect this summer to amount to much. Since it was my first summer without a music festival, I thought that I would be caught up in some sort of loss or regret. And sure, maybe I’d learn a bit about teaching, and I’d work hard, but I hadn’t thought that so many things would happen in one summer. If my impact on the students was threefold, then so was the impact that Summerbridge Hong Kong had on me.

The students

They’re amazing. What can I say? Ever since we had Student Closure, these wonderful, brilliant students have been reducing me to tears. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much in a week! At Student Closure, we (okay, just CDC 1) were crying, and at Celebration, we were crying, and all throughout Eval week, even if the goodbyes could be a little tedious and dragged out, that doesn’t mean that I wanted SB to end. Actually some of them were very angry with me because I did not allow them to chase me to the airport. Instead, I called each and every one of them right before I left, blurting out quick goodbyes and apologies for, well, waking up some of them. When I finished, I sat there for a moment, blinking back tears and thinking about how I would never see any of them again.

But once a Summerbridge teacher, always a Summerbridge teacher, and even though I probably won’t see them again for a long time, I know that I have created lasting relationships with people halfway around the world. I mean, sometimes I despair that I didn’t really teach them that much – we never really had time to go in depth in any particular subject, and I’m not sure if they even liked the book. Nonetheless, if I remember where they were at the beginning, and how they were towards the end…wow. At the very least, they’ll remember homophones/homonyms, and they know how to solve word problems now. Moreover, one student even told me that until my blindfolded taste-testing/synaesthesia experiment, she hadn’t been able to find the words to describe the world around her. So, maybe they did learn something. Besides, that’s not important, right? It’s the bigger picture that’s really at stake.

You would think that a month can’t make that much of a difference in a child’s life, but apparently, it can. Some of them, at the beginning of the summer, seemed listless and apathetic to learning. But by the end, they were making steps towards being great leaders, and they were the ones who were keeping the others on track. But it doesn’t matter how decent the teacher was – at the end of the day, students are going to get out of a class whatever they put into it, and these students put in a lot. I am so unbelievably proud of them, and I can only hope to watch as they do amazing things in the future. (And trust me, they’ll make sure that I watch – half of them have already written me e-mails, and the other half are on Facebook and/or Skype).

So yeah. I love my students to pieces, and I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual. I’m especially proud of the boys, because, well, all of the girls were hard workers from the beginning, but it’s the boys who grew tremendously. They’re going to be brilliant.


The staff

Evelyn, Tiffo, David…I could list most of the staff, but I actually wouldn’t have survived SB without these three. I am especially grateful to Evelyn, who is one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met (Ev, are you reading this? ^_^). I mean, there I was, completely dazed and confused and wandering around Hong Kong, and she took me by the hand and showed me where to eat (Crystal Jade!!!) or which bus to take (115), and she was always willing to go shopping or get sushi or go anywhere and everywhere with me. She was the one that I discussed lesson plans with, and we vented to each other a lot, and she definitely kept me sane.

Actually, I did a lot of venting this summer. I don’t like to think of myself as a negative person, but the circumstances were such that there was a lot of venting to be done. I mean, SB is great, but you’re required to be positive from 9 to 5, and what that means is that you end up bottling up a lot of anger. Well. Some people didn’t seem to have any, some people let it dissipate throughout the day (which, unfortunately, some students might have picked up on), and lots of us ended up unleashing all of it over dinner. In fact, dinner often turned out to be gigantic venting sessions. But you do what you have to do, right? And, really, Ev, Tiffo, and David were wonderful for the venting. I can only hope that I listened enough when they were venting, and I do hope that they know how much I appreciate all of them!


Me

I came to Hong Kong with a lot of emotional baggage. I was tired, I was confused, and I’d been through a lot in the last year.

And then Summerbridge started.

Suddenly, I was too busy to even take a moment to reflect. Traipsing all over Hong Kong didn’t exactly mean that I had time to sort out all my “issues.” Well, actually, it meant that I had time to discover a new issue – how I felt about music.

I mean, I’ve been playing violin longer than I can remember. As a kid, there were a lot of things I never got to do, simply because I was busy practicing. I mean, I don’t regret it – before this summer, I couldn’t even imagine what I would do during the day if I didn’t have my violin around.

But then I left the States, and did different things, and discovered that maybe there is more to life than music. I mean, I knew that, but I think I had some trouble actually understanding that. I was having trouble letting go of something that had been a big part of my life.

Now, well, I think I’m okay. I mean, this doesn’t mean I’m going to quit playing. But maybe, maybe I won’t be so hard on myself anymore about not making the time every day. I mean, no more double-majoring for me! I think I’m busy enough as it is, and now I can focus on things that I’m more interested in. Different levels of happiness, right?

In conclusion – Hong Kong helped me reshuffle my priorities. In a good way.

The real closure

This summer in Hong Kong will be, as one student said in her Celebration speech, “in my memories forever.” I’m not going to lie – at times, I wasn’t necessarily happy with the Summerbridge structure of things, and I was often irritated by how much extra work I had, in comparison to many other teachers (CHs, you know what I’m on about). Nonetheless, even though I hit rock bottom in the 3rd week, the good things about SB far outweighed the bad, so it’s all right.

I wouldn’t necessarily plan on coming back to Summerbridge (though I would consider Breakthrough in the States). This is mostly because I remember, in about the 3rd week, almost quitting the program outright. Let’s just say that it was a busy week. However, now, after an Eval Week spent hanging out with the students, I can hardly even recall those feelings. I mean, despite all the bureaucratic crap, the students just had this amazing ability to brighten my day, and I am truly grateful to them. Thanks, everyone – it’s been an unforgettable summer. Keep an eye out for next summer's blogging adventures!