It’s a small world after all

The Cantonese version of the song, “It’s a small world after all” is one of my favorite childhood songs. And I will explain later why I chose it as this post’s title.

To catch up a bit, it’s been over 4 years since I’ve written something on here (or anywhere, really). At one point, I didn’t even remember that I had a blog because I hadn’t journaled in quite a long time. So much has changed since Covid and I had no idea that I would end up where I am now.

To give a little update, I was working at Buxton School, a 9-12 boarding high school in Massachusetts until June 2022. I decided to leave because I was only able to see my family and friends once during Covid and I missed them a great deal. If the school were closer to home in the Bay Area, I definitely would have continued working there for who knows how long. I miss the place and my students and my colleagues and still keep them in my thoughts every day. After I left, I went home and spent time with my family for a little while. At that time, my sister and my brother-in-law who moved to Washington State had trouble finding day-care centers for my nephew because there simply weren’t enough spaces. As I was still contemplating what I wanted to do next, I told my sister that I could help take care of him until they were able to find something that worked for them. It would also let me spend time with my nephew; a win-win.

After doing that for close to 6 months, I eventually returned home and started looking for jobs once my sister and brother-in-law were able to go on maternity and paternity leave because of my second nephew. I still wanted to be a teacher and work in education but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to return to the classroom. In May 2023, I found a part-time YMCA swim instructor/lifeguard position and was hired after completing the swim test and lifeguard certification. I’ve always loved swimming (having been on my high-school swim team) and being around water in general so it was a sort of perfect fit – I get to teach what I enjoy doing. However, because it was only a part-time job, it didn’t provide any benefits and it simply wasn’t enough, financially speaking.

After thinking it over a bit more, I realized that I really do miss working in a boarding school setting. So, I started looking into different boarding schools in the Bay Area and found San Domenico School in San Anselmo. Though I grew up in the Bay, I had no idea that there was a K-12 school with a boarding program in Marin. Long story short, I was hired as a Resident Faculty in July of 2023 and I just started my second year here. Right now, I still get to teach swim lessons at the Y part-time and work in boarding, continuing my work as before except with fewer responsibilities.

Circling back to the reason behind the title of this post and why I decided to write again. At the start of this school year, when we welcomed new students and their families onto campus and into the dorms, I saw a familiar face that made me do a triple-take – it was one of my students who graduated from Buxton School in 2019. She saw me and was so surprised because she had no idea that I had left. It turns out that she is going to graduate school in Berkeley and her sister, who is a 9th grader, is one of the new students here at San Domenico. The family wanted her to be somewhere close to Berkeley and SD just happened to fit that bill. I was flabbergasted because I wasn’t really able to comprehend the chances of that happening. And hence the title of this post: It’s a small world after all.

Because of that, I also started thinking about writing regularly again. Looking at the archives, I still can’t believe that I started this blog as something fun to do and that it was never deleted because of inactivity (thanks, WP). This is still a place for my thoughts, nothing more.