I'm the worst, but they're keeping us so busy!

Sorry for my last, somewhat depressing, blog. I swear I really am having a great time here. It was just one bad day.

Sooo it's catch up time...
I have only blogged about my very first day here so I will do my best to fill you in on the last two weeks.

My first day at the school (Tuesday 4/16) was very interesting. We got a complete tour of the campus, and let me tell you this campus is probably the most beautiful school I have ever seen. They told us that it is actually in a bad area, but when you are at the school you feel completely secluded from the outside world. ASF has grades ranging all the way from pre-school to seniors in the high school. There are separate "schools" for each set of grades: ECC, Early Childhood Center, which is across the street from the main campus, Lower School first-fifth grade I believe, Middle School, sixth through eighth grade, and the Upper School (where I teach), ninth through twelfth grade. In my opinion, the middle school is probably the nicest of all, but I was honestly blown away by the campus as a whole.

I met my co-op and figured out that I would be teaching 10th grade English (she also has an AP class, but she's still teaching that because they are so close to the exam).  She let me know that I would be starting the very next day since I had already taught before.

Holy cow.

There's no way I'm ready for that. I've only taught seventh and eight grade. I barely have experience teaching 10th grade. The last time I read Of Mice and Men was in HIGH SCHOOL. I don't have all of my usually resources available. Is there even internet at our house?
Let's just say I was positively terrified.

I only met one class that day and gave them my little spiel about me, but learned that my classes switched every other day and they were on an 80 minute block schedule. I have never taught an 80 minute period before, and to be honest, my biggest weakness was making sure we did not run out of time as I instructed my lessons in the states (those were only 45 minute lessons).

Anyway, we went home and our host mom took us to the grocery store so we knew where it was if we needed to get anything for ourselves. Somehow we end up losing our host mom and freaked out a little bit because we had no way of contacting her. Kaelin wanted to have her paged, but we decided to look around a little bit at first. After a short time we did find her and everything was alright.

We have since learned that this is a common theme to our day. Nothing, and I truly mean nothing, goes right for us the first time. At least it makes for some interesting stories...