A successful first week

So I made it through my first week at school alive! Yay! I think that overall it was a good week to. I was able to meet most of my new students and see where their classrooms are and who they are. Of course I really don't remember a whole lot about them right now, or very many of their names, but I am confident that by the end of the year I will know them. I will work very hard to get to know all of their names to. That is what attendance is for :)

So the school year started out just like any other year with an opening ceremony. The principle and vice principle gave a speech, as well as the parent's board, the police captain and the priest gave a blessing to the school. Oh and did I forget to mention, I had to make a short speech. I had known this ahead of time and prepared some things but I was still nervous. I decided not to read from the card that I had written and that turned out okay, but by the time I had finished my 15 seconds of speaking I was shaking from head to toe! Everyone is really friendly and all, but it is terrifying getting up in front of a large group of people, all who are looking at you funny because they know your the new American. Oh well it was just another experience and I lived through it.

This opening ceremony also involved some things that I had never seen before. First off I should explain that the school that I am teaching at requires uniforms. It is not a private school they just like the way the students look when they are all dressed in nice uniforms and look more respectable. So since they have uniforms they had a little "fashion show" for the kids. It was a really cute idea and the kids had a lot of fun with it and some of them did some really cute little "routines" on the "cat walk" :) Also this year they brought in some doves to release at the end of the ceremony. They had 10 in total which represents the highest grade that you can get, which I thought was a really cool idea. So other than that the first day was pretty uneventful and involved a lot of sitting around in school and chatting with my new colleagues.

So thus started the start of the school year, I met my classes and they asked me tons of questions about who I am and where I am from and what I like to do. So many questions and so difficult to answer the "What is your favorite_____?" questions when you don't have a lot of favorites. Oh well I guess that is good practice to get me to start thinking on the spot :) The kids are really advanced though, so I am looking forward to challenging them this year and seeing just how far they can go.

I am also going to be team teaching with some optional classes. Students are offered an optional class at my school and one of those is an optional English. We have 2 types of optional English, one of the 5th and 6th graders is a drama club. So we will learn the basics of acting together and at the end of the semester they will perform a play. The second optional English class for 7th and 8th graders is a movie club, they will learn about the basics of film making and we will watch and analyze movies together. We are not sure what we want to do for a presentation yet, but there has been talk of creating an alternate ending for a movie or creating their very own academy awards ceremony.

So also this week, in addition to meeting all my classes, I have been able to make some time for the kitchen. I have so far made a rice and vegetable casserole, a celery and bean soup, carrot cake and bagels. Yes that's right I said bagels from scratch. It took me an insanely long amount of time to make them and I am not sure if I will ever do it again, but the end result is pretty tasty. So I can say that I did make bagels from scratch at least once in my lifetime and it is nice to have the taste of bagels again after a very long break from them.

So that was my first week, eventful and relaxing and so far a great start to a new adventure. I am really liking it here so far and I hope that it stays that way, and with the support and great colleagues I have here I don't see that as a problem. Well as always I miss you very much and I hope you are all well. Take care of yourselves and keep me in your thoughts and prayers as you are always in mine :) Love you!!!!

Va pup
Va iubesc
Mi-a dor de voi

~Pana mai tarziu
Sarah B.