On the night of the event, a driver picked us up but things got suspicious when he didn't go the direction of the cultural center. I became a little confused and frustrated with the driver as I tried to figure out what was going on. Eventually, I gave up and just figured that we along with the student group were having dinner somewhere else.
We arrived at a nice Italian restaurant and when we walked in, Sean and I saw all of my ETA mentees seated around a table waiting. My first thought was, Cool! The cultural center must have asked everyone to be on the panel! which was quickly followed by Where are all the students? Sean's first thought was, What a coincidence that the other ETAs decided to eat here too!
Turns out that my mentees had all gotten together to plan a little thank you party for being their mentor. I have honestly never been so surprised and tricked in my entire life - I didn't see it coming even for a minute which was shown by the fact that I had brought some pictures and lesson plan materials with me in anticipation of a discussion. They bought us both dinner with really good wine and presented me with a gift certificate for a day at the spa back in Holland. So nice!
This year I have been incredibly lucky to work with such a motivated, creative, hard-working and inspiring group of ETAs. It's been a privilege to watch them transform over the past ten months and be transformed myself because of their innovation and tirelessness. It's going to be really exciting to see what everyone does next and I'm especially happy that one of my mentees was accepted to be a mentor next year as well!
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