I say "Goodbye!" and I say "Hello!"

It was a difficult decision when a few months back, my husband I decided that we need to prioritize family and health over work. So, I said a (temporary - I don't know how temporary this is) goodbye to teaching, my passion of more than a decade and to the institution I worked for for almost 9 years.

It was 2 weeks ago that hubby and I took my stuff from school. It just so happened that 2-3 days after, we had a serious typhoon here in Baguio wherein we had 2 days and 2 nights of brownout. It was kinda dark so  I did not do any crafting. Rather, I set out in  organizing and arranging work stuff I took from my former office since I resigned.

We got 3 bags and 2 boxes of my stuff. I am very grateful that our student assistants helped us pack these. I never knew I had a lot of stuff under my desk and lockers: 

Opening all my stuff brought out memories and it made me sentimental and a bit sad. :( I honestly feel that teaching is my passion but I have to prioritize my family  and our little one in my tummy whom we've waited for such a long time,

The largest box  brought out my personal stuff such as mugs, headphones, many pens, paper clips and even my sanitary pads and eraser.

Teachers have a lot of notes because we research what we teach- I speak for myself. We also have plenty of folders to hold our certificates from trainings we attended and we conducted (left photo below).

Opening one folder (right photo below) containing my schedule and my gradesheets made me a bit -yeah- sentimental :(

I opened all the Pandora boxes, and these is what were revealed- papers, evaluation reports, CDs, rulers, personal stuff-lotion, alcohol, mugs, baonan, fork and spoon, etc:

It even had the training materials I had in India for 2 weeks last 2009

And my doodles on every page of the materials. I remembered our strict trainer in Python programming. He was peering at my notes and sarcastically told me to doodle more including his face. He thought I was not listening and asked me to recite. Imagine that! I couldn't help doddle because  I was so sleepy and doodling keeps me awake and listen to him. 

 






















That training is one of the things in my life I cannot forget and I thank ASEAN and my institution for supporting me that time. Brings back funny and embarrassing memories. Hah! But I gained a lot of friends. :) I had to dispose the notes :( so I took pictures of my doodles (not that I feel like an artist :p)

Going back to this post, during the 2 day brownout break, I was also able to sort out my certificates from certifications, trainings attended, trainings conducted, working committee membership, outreach and community involvement, etc. I used  3 binders with plastic sheets for these. I might use them in the future when I decide to go back to work.

I love stickers and imagine my shock that I have more in school! I usually place those smilies on my students' papers. The rest, I just buy them and put them on my stationery set. Priscia, my niece gave me scrapbooking materials so I combined them all and placed them in one plastic folder. My smiley stickers are not here anymore since I donated it to a colleague and a friend who's very interactive with her students.

I also have plenty of scrapbooking stuff in school which I gathered in one box with my pamana from my sweet niece. She said I use it for our baby's room, decors and album. I could kiss that girl! :)

I also organized my various pens, highlighters, pens and washi tapes in one metal container. I have plenty of "maarte" pens from colleagues who gave these as souvenirs from national trainings they attended. I couldn't throw them for sentimental reasons and they're still working!

What do you know, the most I have in my collection are sticky pads!!! I had 4 or 5 from my nice but most of these came from me! I love buying them and giving them as gifts to my colleagues. Since we check researches and documents, stickies help us write our comments and tag pages. I organized them in my desk drawer.

After going through my work school stuff and organizing them with the ones I have at home, I also started raiding my closet. Goodbye to  my uniforms! *sniff! These are set aside for donation. 

Goodbye for now to a happy (yet very stressful) work life and hello to a new and exciting chapter in my and hubby's life. :)