Did the Barenaked Ladies' song pop into your head? I hope so, 'cause that was my intention. I arrived last Thursday afternoon. Was probably closer to 3:30 local time when I snatched my suitcases and cleared the last screening process. I was met at the airport by one of the guards at the school - he has sort of become my driver when I am setting out on an adventure. It's always nice to see a familiar face when you arrive at the airport.
I returned to my apartment, had a visit with Cathy, went for Iftar that evening with staff, returned home, slept for a few hours, woke up in the middle of the night to unpack all my things, went back to bed, woke up the next morning, had another visit with Cathy (I think), went back to sleep, woke up, put some more things away, had supper at Cathy and Paul's, went back to bed, woke up in the middle of the night, watched a million episodes of Bones because my tele wasn't working, went back to bed, woke up when Khaled phoned to say they were coming to switch lightbulbs, went to school, went to Grand mart, bought groceries, went home, had a nap, supper at Cathy and Paul's, went to bed and so ends my first weekend in Damascus.
Sunday morning I woke up bright an early for school. It's still teacher prep days, so there weren't any little gremlins to attend to. It was nice to be back on campus, but my classroom was a wreck. The downfall of having the opportunity to buy so many resources is that it means there are tonnes of boxes to unload. In order to unload boxes, I needed to clear the shelves of materials that needed to be retired about 20 years ago. That was my task for Sunday and Monday. Eid started on Monday night, so Tuesday-Thursday are holidays at school. However, when you arrive a week late, you have a bit of work to do. On Tuesday, I was ready to deal with my ready-to-use classroom library. Unfortunately I needed to level all my books first, so I was busily referring to the scholastic website to identify the guided reading and lexile levels of the 300 books in my new classroom library. I also leveled the books that were left in the classroom. It was a very time consuming task, but I am excited for all the materials that my students will now have at their fingertips.
Wednesday was "Make your classroom look as though you might actually teach children here" day. As it turns out, all that was needed was a good 8 hours of work. Desks are in place (I still need to steal three from another empty classroom, but all in good time) walls are decorated (I will try to be better at including pictures - just give me time to get into things here) and everything has a set place. Only one sign fell down since yesterday, so all in all, not a bad day's work.
Today I planned to return to school by 9:00, however when I woke up at 8 I was still rather sleepy. So I figured that I'd doze until 10:30 or so and then hit the road. At 12:05, when I finally woke up (Henry and Ella were curled up on their pillow beside my head) I quickly got dressed, had some lunch (left over sweet and sour meatballs and nokedly) and came into school. Since my arrival, I have had a visit with Cathy, checked my email, and written my blog. Not so productive yet. Hopefully I will feel inspired in a few more minutes.
All in all it's been a great first week. Lots of work needed to get done, but thankfully I am mostly on top of things. I have my schedule worked out (barring any changes from the office) and ELA and Math are set for the first week of school. I will take a look at the Social Studies unit and Science unit that I will start the year with. As it turns out, we have 30 extra minutes a day with our students which means we have more instructional time. I have enough time now to teach Social Studies AND Science everyday. Whoot whoot.
With that, I should be off. No sense in prolonging the inevitable. Will talk to you all very soon.
Tylene
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