Back to School, Back to School

So this was our first week with kids!  By week, I mean three days.

It didn't start well on Monday though.  It started with finding out that my hard drive full of all of my teaching material is most likely dead - though the super-duper tech solutions department is trying some dissection...  Cross your fingers!!  Then, my stomach decided to show me what our newbie info packet meant by "intestinal distress."  Then when I was leaving school at 8 PM with two bags and my arms full of more things, the cab I got into kicked me out.  And the next two drove by waving!  So then I had to walk home in the heat, just to ride back two hours later to try conference calling with our insurance back in the US and then emailing the fathers and more bank/insurance people to make sure everything is ok again.  Yep, we were at school until midnight because our internet was down at our apartment.  :o(

As Alexander would say, "I'm moving to Australia."

We're all good now, don't worry.

The lobby.  To the right, the offices; Pre-Kinder and Kinder down the hall to the left. 

Go up those stairs in the lobby (stairs are inside those glass doors) to the cafeteria.
The hallway on the other side are the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classes.

Up the stairs again to the 3rd floor and you can get to the walkway to my classroom.  This is from that walkway.
You can see the classrooms on the left.  Third floor has the 4th and 5th grade classes as well as a few apartments.  The fourth floor is all apartments.  This is the courtyard/playground.  The building on the right is the gym/stage.  The floor of that starts at the floor of that protrusion.  Under it is more play area (for shade!) as well as the ballpit that's the darker window towards the back.

Tuesday was getting ready for the open-house.  People kept saying that no one would come visit (since my classroom is a bit isolated), but I had a nice steady stream of visitors all 3 hours!  Everyone was very friendly.

I had this panicky realization that I've only ever had one "Very First Day at School." Somehow that translated into my brain as "I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow" with a very healthy serving of "I have to do all of these projects for the first day of school."  My first day ended up being the product of three hours of sleep, but it was one of the best days ever!  I loved it!  The kids were fascinating with all of their accents and names - though I'm going to have a rough time remembering Seo-Yi, Yuahnn, Hyeong-Rak, and Ji-Woo all in one class!  :-\   I don't mean to!  They were so enthusiastic.  Weirdly, the hardest part so far is trying to figure out how to do dances and games and parts of music with only 13 kids...

18 keyboards, anyone?

The dark smudge are the three racks of guitars. 

Man, I'm excited about what this year will be like!  On the other hand, it's very weird to be without people and things that you get used to for five full years.  I've never worked without you guys!

Ach well, we'll meet again. :o)

Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil Saturday night!  There are us 18 newbies going.  Good thing we're taking a school bus!

XOXO