Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Back To School!

The school year has officially started. Last Thursday was the beautiful first bell ceremony. It is a ceremony celebrating the first ever bell for the 1st graders and the last ever first bell for the 12th graders. A bunch of prestigious people spoke, the mayor, principal, priest, a doctor from the government (I’m not so sure about who he was…), and last but not least, me! Okay, maybe I’m not prestigious, but it felt pretty special giving a speech to the entire school and about half of my village. Yes, that’s right; I gave a speech in Romanian! It went surprisingly well J


So on the first day, all the kids bring flowers. They are flowers for their favorite teacher, the principal, anyone they want. After each of the speeches, a few kids brought up flowers. I even got a few! Every time they give flowers they kiss you on the cheek. I’m still getting the hang of it… sometimes they kiss both cheeks and sometimes they only kiss one. I may or may not have embarrassed myself by going for the second kiss while they start walking away. Haha! Oh well!! Then after all was finished, the rest of the kids give out their flowers. I got a bunch!! Here is a picture of me with my two partner teachers and all my beautiful flowers!



There has been a lot of work to do. Writing long term plans and planning lectures. I have 8 classes total. I will have 4 classes tomorrow (Wednesday) and 4 classes Thursday. I’m a little nervous for the first day but I can’t wait to meet all my students!


Today I was at school to work on a few things with one of my partners. On my way out, I ran into another professor whom I’ve seen a few times. I saw her last week at the medical center and she always has a huge smile on her face. Anyways, she asked me why I wasn’t at school yesterday and said I should come even when I don’t have lessons. It’s the little things that make the days so wonderful J


I also made a pretty big leap in my work that I’ll be doing at the school. I was talking to my partner about attending other classes in the school because I am very interested to see how they teach, methods, discipline, etc. She told me I could and said that teachers are interested in learning about methods used in the United States. Of course, since that is part of my job, I was overjoyed to hear this. There is a meeting that is held every month for all the teachers. (I’m not quite sure yet what goes on during these meetings but I guess I’ll find out.) So I asked if I could teach a different method each month. It was approved by the director and I now will be teaching all the teachers each month! I know it isn’t THAT exciting, but I think I will be able to make a big difference.


I plan to dedicate my next blog to food here. But it is tasty and all homemade. Stand by for recipes!


I know I neglect this blog…but I’ll try to get better about it!

Miss you all, lots of love!

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