I arrived in Sydney on a wet, windy and chilly Saturday morning having been wrenched from the heart strings of so many children asking me not to leave, telling me they’ll miss me or that they already do. My only solace that I could tell them "I'll be back".

The enormity of it all hasn’t really sunk in. What just happened? The past six months was a blur of experience and feeling. The unbearable heat of Thailand’s ‘hot season’, riding to work on my motorbike, ‘weying’, being understood in Thai, being misunderstood in Thai, the euphoria from hearing students producing the language you’ve just introduced them to, the food and above all so many smiles from so many children of all ages, shapes, sizes, temperaments and dispositions.