Unglaublich

My contract ended on July 24th, a Tuesday. For all intents and purposes, school ended July 19th, a Thursday. July 21st Harry Potter #7 was released. Now, my last day at Barnes & Noble before coming to Japan was the release party for HP #6. I'm usually not into the whole "Full Circle" thing, but I do like my Harry Potter, and this would be the last one ever, so...

Like a mad woman, I managed to prep for my successor, thoroughly clean the aparto, have last dinners with friends, pack all remaining things, navigate the evil post office, all the while doing my full load of classes. There was a fair amount of slipping home to clean in my free hours, but that's just a good use of time! I left Wadayama on the 4:37 pm bus on Thursday, July 19th.

To leave a sweet taste at my school, I bought all the teachers cups of Haagen Daaz and gave a nice, complimentary speech. I wrote up some thank you cards for particular teachers, took some pics with my students. When the time came to leave, many teachers came to see me drive off in Matsuda sensei's car. I was so happy that Matsuda was willing to take me home and to the bus station-- she was my favorite teacher, the one who shared the most of herself and her ideas with me, and hers was the last face I wanted to see.

As we pulled up to bus station, I saw a group of women loitering... they were from Aaron's n my convo class! Many of them had sneaked out of work to come and wait at the bus stop with me. It was so nice! There were a lot of hugs, pictures, and a few teary eyes as I boarded the bus.