I survived my first day of school and it went well! I think I might have been a little excited to get started - I woke up at 2am, then again at 4am, and finally jumped out of bed when my alarm went off at 5:45am. I drove to Newport at 6:45 in the ice and pitch darkness and was in my office by 7am. Kids starting trickling in to introduce themselves and check me out - they were really cute about it. And some other teachers popped in to say hi too, which was nice. I had gone to school yesterday to meet the choir teacher - her name is Christine and this is her first year in Newport. She is super nice and answered all my questions yesterday so I actually felt like I was ready to start today. I think she and I are going to work well together and it is nice to have a music colleague again after being the only HS music teacher in Peru.
My classes went well today, for the most part. I really enjoyed the HS band and I know I am going to have a great time with them. We sightread some music and I am anxious to receive the other music that I ordered yesterday (the existing music library is filled with crap that I refuse to subject them, or me, to). The kids were nice and very helpful. The MS band was a bit of another story. I've never been a huge fan of middle school and I think these guys are going to be a challenge. There are some very nice kids in the band and they weren't horrible, but there were a couple of kids who were just crappy. I know it will get better as they get used to me, but I was EXHAUSTED after the MS rehearsal and, of course, it is the last period of the day every day!
All and all it was a good day and I am looking forward to going back tomorrow so that is a good thing! School finishes at 2pm everyday (so early!) so it is nice to have some time in the afternoons that I can spend in my classroom and get things done so I don't have to bring a lot of work home. I love setting up a classroom and getting things organized and it appears that the man I'm replacing wasn't very tidy or organized, so I have lots of work to do!
Thanks for all your good wishes for my first day of school. I appreciate the love and support!
I spent last weekend visiting Nicole and her daughter Sierra. I hadn't seen them in what seems like a long time - maybe last spring when I first got back from Peru? Sierra is 9 months old and has grown and changed so much since I last saw her. She is adorable and super fun!! It took her a little while to warm up to me, but once she did I was rewarded with lots of beautiful smiles.
Nicole's husband Joshua was away for the day on Saturday, so we had a nice girls day - grocery shopping, playing with toys, reading books. Sierra LOVES to read books and listens intently when she is read to. She is a girl after my own heart!
Nicole and I have been dedicated fans of "Dirty Dancing" since the weekend in 7th grade when we saw it for the first time, and watched it probably 10 times in the course of 2 days. Yes, we've been watching this movie for 20 years! We've often watched it when we are together and we both can quote nearly the entire movie word for word. I found this "Dirty Dancing" trivia game and I couldn't resist getting it for Nicole. We played it over and over again and loved it!! It was so fun and we had a great time answering the questions and acting out the scenes and dances. And then, of course, we had to watch the movie. We decided we will show the movie to Sierra when she is in 7th grade so she can enjoy it as much as we do.
