Epiphany at 1:16 AM

Today, I had a marvelous Epiphany.

I was talking to one of my friends this morning and she made a comment about how I didn't seem my normal happy self. I realized she was right, but I couldn't pin why. I thought about how I've tried to use my time wisely lately. The other foreign teachers have gone back to America so I'm a little lonely, but I figured this was my time to buckle down and study Chinese for the next few weeks until the semester ends. I had kind of a "Let's just get through this" attitude. After I talked to my friend, I decided to go work on my lesson plans for today. I only teach one lesson a week. I just teach it 20 times. I thought the lesson I had made for this week was good, it went well Monday, but pretty poorly yesterday (Tuesday) So I decided to take some time to think of how I could improve it and tried to brainstorm some ideas for new lessons. Then I went and taught three classes, and they went phenomenally. Much better than yesterday. Not only did the lessons go well, but I had a lot of fun with my students and they learned English. When I walked out of my last class I realized that my happiness is tied to how much I give of myself to other people. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's still true. I walked out of that class and it dawned on me that the reason I was happy today was cause I had given part of myself to my students. I also realized that if I don't give myself to my students, and try to be as a good a teacher as i can be. I won't be happy while I'm in China.

Kind of a strange realization. It made me happy to understand this, but it made me sad to think of some of the teachers I had who didn't give themselves to their students more and how unhappy some of them probably were.
When I say give myself, I guess what I mean is that I have to care about my students. If I don't care and I'm just trying to make them learn, it's not really fun, but if I do care, then I try to make good lessons for them, and I think they can kind of feel it, maybe not consciously, but my attitude makes such a big difference in how they behave, it's kind of amazing sometimes.

Anyways, I may be cold, but I'm not lonely. I may have no other foreign teachers or Americans close by, but I have a lot of Rockin' Chinese students, so I'm not really worried about the next few weeks.