Bittersweet Goodbyes

Smultronstallet (Ice cream restaurant)

Gota kanal

Hiking in Soderkoping

 Top of the hill =)

Last day with my wonderful teacher Ms. Eva Blume

"Be brave enough to live creatively. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go in to the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful, what you'll discover will be yourself."

I have tried to think of things to say in this last Sweden blog. When I found this quote, I knew it would say everything I cannot exactly put in words. This experience has truly been life changing. I have heard the saying "wherever you go, there you are". I would rephrase that now to, "wherever you go, you continue to find and create yourself". The many goodbyes of firsts and lasts are nothing short of bittersweet. I am so glad to go home- graduate college (finally!), visit with family and friends, finally watch one of my nephews ball games this season, etc. However, there are so many things here I am going to miss. I honestly believe I am a stronger and bolder person because of this experience and I wouldn't trade it for the world! 

In school this week, the students are still preparing for the national test that will take place in a couple of weeks. My teacher gave the students all of their old exams back and also had them take a sample test. As with any high school student, most are not very interested in math. It took much prompting and checking on students to keep them on task. This week, they are also taking English tests so the schedule was a bit different than usual. Like back at home, I have probably interacted just as much (if not more) with teachers than I have students. We have spent lots of time discussing similarities and differences between American and Swedish secondary education. 

I will give a short recap of my last few days here in Linkoping:

Monday I went to a chocolate store in Gamla Linkoping to bring some goodies home for my family and students back at the high school I was student teaching at before I left. I also went with Ericka and her boyfriend Jonas to Soderkoping. We ate at a famous ice cream restaurant, took a hike up the hill/mountain, and walked around downtown. Before going back to the bus stop, we went to Norrkoping's downtown as well. 

Tuesday For dinner, we met with five Swedish student teachers who will be coming to Bowling Green for four weeks in September. We tried to help prepare them for schools in America. I think they were a bit overwhelmed but we reassured them that with them being able to talk English they wouldn't have a problem. 

Wednesday Today I have been packing and cleaning my corridor. It looks a little bare in here now. I made chocolate chip cookies for my corridor mates to try as well. Tonight we will go eat downtown and have say our goodbyes to some people we have met during our time here. We will head to the airport around 10 tomorrow morning. It will take 18 hours of travel time to arrive in Nashville just before 11 tomorrow night (my body will think it is 6:00AM). 

My plan is to blog one more time when I get back to the United States! Graduation is Saturday-so there will be much to errands and things to get done on Friday. To those of you who have followed me through this journey, I thank you and hope you have enjoyed getting to hear about Sweden and back through the eyes of a teacher. See you soon USA!!