Dangling around my neck each day is a card attached to a navy blue Singapore American School lanyard. This badge clearly and boldly reads: TEMPORARY.
Every morning for the last 7 weeks I have put on my powerful accessory and used it to get in, around, and out of the school’s campus. With each passing day, this tiny, plastic card somehow seems to feel heavier on my chest. The TEMPORARY on the badge is beginning to bother me. As my family in Singapore and at SAS expands, my experience builds, my laughs reverberate through the halls, my roots deepen, my students grow, and my self-awareness increases, I feel more permanent than anything. Truthfully, it is hard for me to come to terms that this shockingly brief, yet incredibly impactful, journey is now nearly halfway over. Next week is approaching quickly, which means only one week left of my middle school placement. Ultimately, I’m preparing for round one of painful Singapore goodbyes.
To say I have been having a great time in Singapore would be a complete injustice to these first 7 weeks. Considering the innovative school, flourishing city, and 90° February weather; I have been living my dream. Weekdays present themselves as an opportunity for me to grow professionally as a teacher, co-worker, and team player. SAS has helped me recognize my own strengths and challenges me to enable them appropriately to empower others to achieve success. Among other things, I have spent long weekends at Starbucks grading argument essays, impactful days conferencing with students about projects they chose to pursue themselves, Chinese New Year’s Eve counting down fireworks in Chinatown, an afternoon overlooking the harbor, and an unbelievable evening with a Newbery award winning author eating raclette cheese brought straight from Switzerland. In these moments how could I not feel anything but permanent? I do not have much time here; therefore, it is imperative to make the most of it. I owe it to myself and my future students.
Because this time spent student teaching is fleeting, the beauty of this experience blooms even more vibrantly.
It’s comforting to me to remember when I look down and see TEMPORARY plastered across my ID badge, that this experience will be nothing but permanent. These moments are short-lived, but why not live them like they will last forever? I’m temporarily permanent, living each moment to the fullest and soaking up every bit of Singapore and SAS I can.
Cheers lah,
Rachelle
Every morning for the last 7 weeks I have put on my powerful accessory and used it to get in, around, and out of the school’s campus. With each passing day, this tiny, plastic card somehow seems to feel heavier on my chest. The TEMPORARY on the badge is beginning to bother me. As my family in Singapore and at SAS expands, my experience builds, my laughs reverberate through the halls, my roots deepen, my students grow, and my self-awareness increases, I feel more permanent than anything. Truthfully, it is hard for me to come to terms that this shockingly brief, yet incredibly impactful, journey is now nearly halfway over. Next week is approaching quickly, which means only one week left of my middle school placement. Ultimately, I’m preparing for round one of painful Singapore goodbyes.
To say I have been having a great time in Singapore would be a complete injustice to these first 7 weeks. Considering the innovative school, flourishing city, and 90° February weather; I have been living my dream. Weekdays present themselves as an opportunity for me to grow professionally as a teacher, co-worker, and team player. SAS has helped me recognize my own strengths and challenges me to enable them appropriately to empower others to achieve success. Among other things, I have spent long weekends at Starbucks grading argument essays, impactful days conferencing with students about projects they chose to pursue themselves, Chinese New Year’s Eve counting down fireworks in Chinatown, an afternoon overlooking the harbor, and an unbelievable evening with a Newbery award winning author eating raclette cheese brought straight from Switzerland. In these moments how could I not feel anything but permanent? I do not have much time here; therefore, it is imperative to make the most of it. I owe it to myself and my future students.
Because this time spent student teaching is fleeting, the beauty of this experience blooms even more vibrantly.
It’s comforting to me to remember when I look down and see TEMPORARY plastered across my ID badge, that this experience will be nothing but permanent. These moments are short-lived, but why not live them like they will last forever? I’m temporarily permanent, living each moment to the fullest and soaking up every bit of Singapore and SAS I can.
Cheers lah,
Rachelle