The countdown is really on! 10 days? Are you serious?

Today is the last day of school. It’s the last day I will see most of the students in the school for awhile. I say for awhile because I know I will be back to visit. Last night, one of my students who I’ve grown very close with called me and told me that she passed all her finals and classes which means she is now officially a junior. We reminisced about last year around this time. She and her mom came in to discuss her repeating the 10th grade. She was very adamant about transferring and not wanting to come back to do 10th grade again. After the meeting, I pulled her aside.  That unforgettable conversation was quite emotional for me which ended up with both of us crying.  In the end, she decided to come back to MATCH. She started the year a bit rocky since she still hadn’t completely bought into being back at MATCH, but during the school year, something clicked inside her and ended up passing EVERYTHING! It’s amazing, and I’m extremely proud of her for staying and really believing in herself that she could do it. We’re going out to celebrate next Wednesday.

The other day, I received a card signed by my students, and here are some of my favorite comments:

I’ll
miss
you
the
most.

Wow Ms. Liu
You’re leaving
me to go to Colorado.
That’s not fair, just kidding.
I hope you have a better life
out there living in the canyons
and it has been
a great 3 years working
with you.
I will miss you very much.
P.S. Add me on Facebook.

Thanks for everything Ms.
Come back and visit with your future babies.

I’m going to miss these kiddos!
Last day of MATCH School…ever!

We’re in the teens now! Roger and I had our second  night of packing last night. It’s strange. Once I start packing, I make Roger start packing, but then he can’t stop. Our bedroom is practically packed away already! It didn’t take as long as I thought. Once school ends on the 25th, I’ll have more time to tackle the basement where we have tons more stuff including wedding gifts we haven’t even opened yet, but will be so happy to have once we move into our new place.

So for the past couple of months or so, I’ve been training the person who’s taking my role next year. I’ve also been creating this master training binder which includes every big and small thing in my brain that are about SPED. For example, “make sure you’re documenting when the speech therapist sees specific kids so that when the invoice comes to the business office, you can approve it”, a list of all the paperwork she needs to complete for meetings, evaluations, etc, information about manifestation determination hearings, and even how to read evaluation results. Basically, I’m including everything, and it’s taking me forever. I’ve had to ask people to cover me for certain duties because I needed more time in the day to work on it. It’s almost finished.  Although school ends on the 25th, I need to come back on the 28th for a few parent meetings to speak to some repeaters. After that? Officially done.

Newsweek rated MATCH as the 49th best high school in the nation
and 2nd in Massachusetts!

I should try to keep this up – blog every 2-3 days – just like the good ol’ days!

Roger’s co-workers threw him a surprise going-away party last night. Originally, the plan was to hang out with his co-worker and wife, but when we arrived we realized there were other people present. There were homemade beer cheese, homemade hummus, and other yummy foods! This cake was amazing too!

So, it begins – going-away parties. Today, I’m taking five of my students to dim sum. It’ll be their first time trying it. I know it’ll be a fun experience for them. They’ve been excited for this for a few weeks now. I’ve taken only one other student to dim sum before, and she claimed she felt like she was on Fear Factor. HAH! Next Saturday, my Gund Kwok sisters are throwing me a potluck. Mmm…Gund Kwok potlucks are the best. I’m going to really miss them….oh and of course, my GK sisters too. The weekend after that, Roger and I are having our own going-away party with French food at Robert Petit Bistro and hanging out at Jillians. This really isn’t a goodbye though. We’ll see each other on Facebook, and I’ll be back again. Denver is so close yet so far. I just can’t wait for the craziness to begin…

Almost every day, there’s at least one person who asks me, “So, are you all packed?” Umm, I’m 25 days away from moving. Of course, I’m not packed! But that little question keeps bothering me a little more each time it’s asked. You would think I would’ve already planned out my whole packing schedule, but I haven’t. Instead, I actually have plans for my mother to teach me how to cook my favorite dishes. I plan to buy a FlipUltra HD camera to tape her cooking the actual dishes, so I can take the videos with me to Denver. (I don’t have to get the Flip, but it’s a fun gadget to have.) I’ll be sure to post videos on Facebook so my mom can teach you how to cook some authentic Chinese dishes too. My mom is awesome. She’s planning to pack a Chinese kitchen box for us.  This amazing box will include items such as a wok, cleaver (a must-have in Chinese cooking), rice cooker, a round chopping board, ingredients and condiments, and much more that we will need.
YaY for Mom! I’m going to miss her.

Hmm. It’s been quiet recently, and although some of you have been blogging a little, I haven’t been receiving it in my e-mail as a daily digest as I’ve set it. So today was the first time I’ve read any blogs from 5/12/10 till now since I wanted to update. 

As you can see from the title of my blog, I have 28 days till we make our Mile High move  This hasn’t entirely hit me yet as I haven’t thought about or even planned on when I’ll begin packing and what I’ll be packing. We haven’t even completely decided which stops we’re going to make on our move. However, we have reserved a U-Haul and a car trailer. I also bought a new bike – Dahon’s Mu P24. It’s a folding bike, and I love it. I’ll be riding that to school each day. This isn’t want I wanted to update about though.

I can tell my mom is sad about us leaving, but excited for our big move.  This move is the next big phase in our life when we eventually buy a house or condo and have kids. My mom can’t wait to have grandchildren, of course. So last night during dinner, she told me that I have a chance to make different choices from what she made. As many of you know, my parents came to this country with no education and very little money. The only option they thought they had was to work in a Chinese restaurant. They worked long hours and wouldn’t really see the kids that often.  Growing up, I considered my oldest sister as my second mother because that is what she was like to me. That was normal for me though, and I didn’t think much of it. I just knew that my parents worked hard so that I wouldn’t have to work as hard some day when I grew up. My mother plans to retire in a couple of years. She said that she’s had a good life and doesn’t really regret that much except for one thing. She said to me in a mixture of Chinese and English, “I didn’t miss much, but one second you’re little kids and now you’re all grown up. I missed your childhood because I had to work all the time. I’m telling you because now, you have a chance.” My sister then responded, “Basically, she’s saying you should be a stay-at-home mom…at least till the kids go to school.” My mom continued to tell us a story of how they found someone to babysit my brother when he was a baby. When my mom took my brother to the doctor’s for a check-up, the doctor asked if my brother had been crying a lot because his voice seemed horse. My mom didn’t know how to respond since she wasn’t around during the day to know if he had been crying, but she suspected that the babysitter must’ve let him cry and cry.  I feel sad that my mom feels this way…that she wished she could’ve been there to take care of us and to see us grow up. My parents believed having a babysitter was the only way for them to earn enough money for the family since that was their circumstance. Now, she’s telling me that I have a chance to make choices. My mom doesn’t often bestow advice involving a reflection of her life and the decisions she has made, so this is something I must really think hard about. I don’t want to feel the way she feels. I always played around with the idea of being a stay-at-home mom as a joke with Roger. However, I started thinking that maybe I could find something where I could work from home, work part-time somewhere, or maybe we’ll need to rethink our finances for at least till the kids start going to school. At the same time, it’s hard to think about not working. We have some time to think about this though….

As for now, I have 28 more days till the next phase of my life begins. I can tell these next 5 years of my life will be crazy, and I can’t wait for it all to begin.