My First-Day Shirt

Last summer, I decided it was time to update my wardrobe. Most of my teaching clothes are ones I bought secondhand before moving to Thailand three years ago, so I decided it was time to put some new shirts into the mix. After searching several stores over several days, I ended up finding only one new shirt for the new school year. I dubbed it my first day shirt.

I knew to some degree that I would look a bit like a cartoon character with how often I would wear my first-day shirt. I wore it in my introduction video I sent to my students and their parents at the beginning of the year. I wore it when I posed for my “Flat Mrs. Cora” cutouts that I sent home with my students the first week of school. Of course, I wore it on the first day of school. I even dressed my Bitmoji in a shirt that looks like my first-day shirt! Little did I know how many different first days there would be this school year.

I ended up wearing this shirt again on the first day that I started working from home. I wore it on the first day that I went back to working at school, and I wore it on the first day that students could start learning onsite. Yesterday, I wore it again for the first day that our elementary school went back to all-online learning.

My original intention was for my students to always feel comfortable when they saw me on the first day of something new. Their mental image would be of me in that blue shirt, and they could count on me looking the way they expected. In the end, it ended up being a comfort for me, too. No matter what happens next, I can put on my first-day shirt and know that I can handle it.

I’m back with my original homeroom class online for the rest of the semester, so my first-day shirt should get a break until the new year. Speaking of a break until the new year, next week is the last week of the semester! I’m planning one more blog post, and then I’ll take a break until January. Hopefully I’ll have some sort of update on the online/onsite situation for the new year by then!