Sunglasses Always Fit

Fourteen more teaching days and it will be the end of my 13th year of teaching, which has included three years of Covid, six years in Hong Kong, nine years total teaching abroad. I’ve taught every age from kindergarten to seniors, subjects ranging from Latin to Yearbook, delivering absolutely key knowledge from dividing fractions to the life cycle of a silkworm to the importance of deodorant.

There is end of the year admin and organizing to do: a summer of travel to plan for, my flat and my plants to prepare for six weeks of Hong Kong heat n’ humidity without me to manage it, friends to say goodbye to, a classroom to pack up and move (right back into my old room! typical).

So, obviously, I’m writing for the first time in six weeks. OBVIOUSLY I’m wisely spending all my time making videos of the trip to Egypt I took earlier this year, drafting a 36 hour playlist for the 14 hour plane ride I’ll be taking in 21 days, meeting up with strangers from Facebook to give him a SCOBY starter for kombucha, hoping for a meet-cute situation (TWAS NOT he was 60 but I did get to hear about his knee surgery), and going through my spice rack and Tupperware to, you know, do the things I have had on my to-do list since last September. In ten minutes I fully expect to find myself trying on earrings and lip gloss I’d forgotten about and baking cookies. It’s 11pm on a Friday night. 39 is wild. 

That sentence alone is wild to me. 39. I am 39. Years old. And time seems somehow simultaneously going faster and slower. I recently rushed to do a recommended health screening because I looked at the difference between the testing for “Women’s 30s” and “Women’s 40s” and the price goes up by THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Because, apparently, your entire physical system knows to start slowly malfunctioning the moment you blow out the candles on your 40th birthday cake. When I get on the treadmill at the gym, I have to scroll UP to find my age. I (still) mark “spinster” on my Hong Kong government forms. 

But, a spinster I shall remain for the moment, as I’ve turned away from my dating (mis-h)apps, knowing I’m headed home for the summer anyway. The dating scene is BLEAK here in Hong Kong. I’ve created a great life for myself here for the last six years, but it doesn’t feel like a place where I’ll be able to find a life partner. And the clock of life is a tick-tocking away! I understood people do in fact get old, but I am offended that it is happening to me personally. 

I am offended that I get grey hairs on my head, but brown hairs are growing on my chin. That I get hangovers now. That I get really excited about a high sleep score on my Fitbit.

I guess I should like, make more of an effort and go out and meet someone and like, get married and stuff but. What if I feel full and complete and formed already? If I’m content, feet kicked up, swaying in the hammock of delightful and satisfied self-realization? 

I’ll say it again – the world NEEDS aunties – financially and emotionally stable single women to come in and help all their parent friends, and elderly neighbors, and aging relatives. To come over at a moment’s notice because we were up anyway, watching Netflix and eating whatever we want in gorgeous caftans while deciding which photo to put on instagram of our latest travels (just did Taiwan last weekend! Country #41!). 

Many women my age feel pressure to get married and have children and, to be honest, I also used to feel this but . . . teaching first grade this year has been the most potent form of birth control known to man. If any uber Christian conservatives are reading this – I recommend it as part of all high school’s “family planning” health units. Far more effective than taking care of an egg for a month. 

It seems like yesterday I came to my principal’s office and was told that for a variety of reasons, I’d be moving from fourth grade to first grade. And I am not embarrassed to say that I cried, certain that I wouldn’t be good at it and wouldn’t enjoy it. 

And I was right! XD. Bittersweet vindication. I mean, of course I know and am assured by others that I’ve done well. The kids learned things. Nobody died and everybody heard about Jesus (my old mantra from mission trip days). They’ve grown a lot over the year – I was looking at their first day of school pictures we took, and marveling at how many inches they’ve shot up, the way their faces have rearranged, the many teeth that have fallen out (plus, in Hong Kong, we were still all in masks until March 1st, so I’ve only really known their faces since then). 

But first grade is not for me. I am not the one. It’s for other people. People who don’t gag over snot in many forms and places, hands always in pants, open mouth chewing, bloody noses and teeth falling out every day. People who enjoy when kids want to hold your hands after licking them. First grade is for teachers who are thrilled at the thought of hearing their names repeated ten thousand times a day at louder and louder volumes until they pay attention. I thought I was a decent actor, but I’ve realized I’m more of a stand-up comedian kind of teacher who enjoys an older, more discerning captive audience of nine and ten year olds to entertain. First grade teachers are Oscar-award winning actors who can easily feign interest in the most boring stories ever told. I, on the other hand, invented hand signals to demonstrate that their story is off-topic, and I don’t want to hear it.

There have been things I’ve enjoyed . . . just about everything is brand new information for a six year old, so everything you teach is important. They are full of “why? Why? Why?” Of course, I often go off track, like in a lesson about our pirate-themed unit, where while teaching about trade routes, I went a wee bit off topic and gave a twenty minute TED talk on colonization and oppression and economic inequality, putting that good ol’ poli sci degree to work on molding young minds for the revolution. However, this led to a few students drawing mad faces and writing “bad” over the continent of Europe on their world maps, so . . . I might need to be more careful.

Since all of my students speak at least two languages, we talk a lot about how English is complex and there are many cases where there are no good reasons to explain the “why” behind something. So at one point, one of my students said whoever Mr English was (who presumably invented the entire language) should be canceled. So I had to promise to find the technology to build a time machine and go back in time and punch Mr English in the face. 

My class gives their fair share of cuteness – one girl with English as one out of her three languages can never get “see you later, alligator” correct and always says something like “bye for now, gator friend.” 

I’ve been called “Mom” more times than I can count and helped wipe noses and tie shoes and remind them about using soap and drinking water and using kleenex and how to share and say please and stand in a line. I have the books “Stickman” and “Superworm” memorized. When we have carpet time, their little hands brush up and down my legs and tell me they’re “spiky.” We read chapters from Amelia Bedelia and laugh at her silliness, during free time they wrestle around like a pack of puppies, their sweaty foreheads and wet dog breath and open farting making my room smell like a sauna of old men. They still believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy (and sometimes mermaids and unicorns) and I encourage that belief with stories of my own.

Every time we do something the tiniest bit fun, at least one will say it is his/her “favorite day! Best day ever! I’m so excited!” If I’m gone for a class period for a meeting, they will announce they missed me when I return. I get hugs and cards and declarations of love if I’m absent for a day. Cries of “We thought you moved away!” if I’m sick for two days. Their little thinking faces are cute and they only think about bunnies and rainbows and have their birthday parties at McDonalds. 

But I’m ready to move on and up again. The beauty of teaching is that just when you can’t take it any more, summer comes. Just when you’re so tired of your students you can’t imagine another day, you have a new class/teaching partner/classroom/grade level to keep your mind busy. Today during “golden time” (did we have this in the States? Basically it’s weekly free play time for the students. Which they actually really need, as they have lost three years of normal social play), I was busy picking themes to decorate my new classroom with next year, while my students came up to me every minute to have me sample “food” from their playdough restaurant, or look at the Lego something they made, or ask what time it was (even though we have covered time-telling extensively).

I was counting down the minutes until I could announce that we were down to officially only 14 days left of school! I was hollering in excitement, but my students were all “awwwww I don’t want it to be summer!” Which is cute, but. I can’t wait to leave Miss Weight here in Hong Kong and morph back into carefree Rachel for a few glorious weeks. 

I’ll always remember this year, and thank God for the friends who got me through it, and pour one out for my immune system, lost to the cause of teaching first grade. 

Until Next Time.