Salamat Tahun Baru

Lippo Cikarang, West Java, Indonesia

It’s been a year since I last blogged and I’ve been through quite a lot. Looking back, here are some of the things that happened in 2013 in my life:

• Visited Papua, Bali, Poland, Cleveland, Minnesota, Japan as well as more familiar haunts
• Completed my first year of teaching and began my second
• Moved to a new house
• Experienced my first ever breakup 
• Became an uncle
• Became school House Coordinator 
• Saw drastic workplace injustice
• Did not re-sign a contract for 2014-15
• Flew an airplane twice 
• Gained a lot of weight 
• Drove a motorcycle 
• Hosted visitors to my home

So what will 2014 hold?

I’ve moved

Because I can’t keep a thing going. But this one is named after me so I have to keep it going. http://matthewboyer.wordpress.com/

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What. A. Day.

• Up at 5 to grade and record papers
• Shower, breakfast, etc
• School by 7:50
• Three periods (see below)
• Paperwork, grading, etc
• Drive home an hour earlier than usual
• Run into roommate being inappro-pro with his girl
• Teacher work sample
• Nebraska teacher certification application
• B&G application
• Meeting with Held
• Packing, cleaning
• Saying goodbyes to Allie, Brad
• Dinner goodbyes with Tory, Kelly
• Evening prayer/goodbyes
• Teacher work sample (yes I know I already said this)

Who knew I was so loved until I’m about to leave? The kids today were, not perfect, great and I’ll miss them even if they are turds. In 1st period I gave them crackers and we watched Master & Commander which most of them really seemed to love. At the end I thanked them and they actually gave me a round of applause. Wow. I gave them all a knuckle punch on their way out. The next period we watched Anastasia (which totally has historical ties). Then third we watched M&C again and the kids were just all talking about how they’ll miss me and they gave me some papers/notes. Those sweet kids.

And now it’s time to leave! (when I finish packing tomorrow morning)

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I brought home a stack of papers that is 4 inches thick. I’m not even kidding.

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Now I’m starting to get a bit scared. Not because I’ll be teaching in China but because I’m not sure that I’m smart enough for these kids. I got an e-mail from a teacher telling me about his classes and his freshmen are doing things that are tougher then some stuff I’ve done at college much less what my freshmen are up to! I’m honestly a pretty intuitive, flexible, natural teacher but I’m going to have such a rough patch in the next month I’m just hoping to survive. I might just be crazy here but the expectations for me and the students are as tall as the SWFC.

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Why yes I am listening to Chinese music thank you very much! Why do you ask?

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Am I making the right decision? I almost feel as though I’m not because I hold to the status quo instead of trying to change and address things, particularly my feelings. It’s as if I’m a complete n00b to this all and don’t even know how to feel or act or any part of it and I sometimes think that I’m just deluding myself into saying that I’ll change if I act differently but I’m also very uncomfortable changing. I want to address things on the front end instead of making it painful but I also know that moving too fast can be a bad thing. Basically I need to figure my intentions for life out. Fun stuff huh?

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I went ice skating today!

I’ve never done so before but Gibs, Lauren, Hannah and I went up to Mahoney State Park and went skating and were the first ones there on the pristine ice. I was definitely keeping close to the wall initially but it only took about 20 minutes before I was really pretty comfortable skating all over which is odd since the last time was a roller rink in Denver 2 years ago. It was great just to glide on the ice and have great fun with friends. Allie, Rachelle and Rianne came by after a while and joined us. Hannah and I skated together and I realized that I’m a bit more adventurous when it comes to physics while she is more in need of physical affection then I would normally provide. It’s a process though right?

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My final Friday is done and overall it went quite well. I had a good day teaching but I know that this next week will be draining with everything I need to fit in somewhere/how so wish me luck on it!

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In exactly seven days I should be descending on a plane into Incheon Korea on my way to Shanghai.

It’s tough to believe that my time here in Seward is basically finished. Today was an odd day. I’ve just been so stressed about my teacher work sample that it hasn’t been going super great. I did alright today though and the classes ran fairly smoothly until access when my coop left for bball which ended up leaving me with about 30 kids and it was pretty close to super chaos. Oy vey. Tomorrow is my final Friday with them and I’m hoping for the best of it.