Goodbye Cone, Hungry, Teacher

It’s been said that, “All good things must come to an end.”

Although most of us don’t like admitting this, there is certainly some truth to these words.

So when my time as an Elementary School English teacher in rural South Korea came to a close, I tried to focus on the positive aspects of my experience rather than dwell on the inevitable ending to a great chapter in my life.

One thing that really helped me come to terms with my last days as a teacher was a collection of goodbye cards made by my students. It would have helped a bit more if they were all nice cards, but I’ll take what I can get.

Take Evan’s for example. Evan’s card was either really nice or really mean, depending on how many teachers from the U.S. he’s had.

Angelina’s card reminded me that I must not be a very good English teacher…

And Alice’s card reminded me that my eyes are apparently located towards the bottom of my face…

And then there was Brian’s card. Brian seemed to have used the card making activity as an attempt to crack some sort of secret code…

And David used his card as an excuse to just draw pictures of food…

Quinn tried to charge me for his card, but I didn’t have a 99.9 dollar bill or a 1,500 cent coin…

Simon gave me a new nickname…

And another “Evan” made sure that we’d stay in touch through walkie-talkies, though I’m not sure what army tanks had to do with me leaving…

One student even speculated on what I’d be doing when I made it back home…

So the goodbye card activity didn’t go quite as planned, but that’s ok. I knew I’d miss these kids, even if they wouldn’t miss me.