I can't believe that I've been back at school for 2 weeks. Only 10 more to go until spring break when I head to the Philippines, but who's counting!!
The transition back to work was a bit difficult due to my injuries, but thankfully I am healing. The first week back was the most painful; it hurt to move. It felt like there was constant stabbing on my ribs and if I moved the wrong way, or took a deep breath, the knife went deeper. I couldn't bend down to help the kids so I had to have them come to me. They loved that! That's what they're used to, and it typically takes a while to break that habit, so they really didn't need much prompting to come to me instead of the other way around! I also had to tell Una, the principal, and Omar, the head of school, that I couldn't do any moving or lifting. Which meant that I would be no help for the organizing of the literacy room that they wanted to start. They totally understood, but it's just funny because that's the only thing that they have told me to do as the literacy coordinator and I couldn't even do that! Believe me though, when the pain finally does go away I'll have plenty of work to do as the literacy coordinator. There are 2 rooms stacked full of books and other supplies that have to be organized and inventoried, and guess who gets to do all of it?! It's not what I thought I would be doing as the coordinator, but at least it's something. I made it through the first week back by taking Panadol (Tylenol) and ibuprofen every 3-4 hours and coming home and either falling asleep or just lounging on the couch.
During that first week back I got flowers from a student and I turned in my resignation! Oh, and I didn't get the new student that I had been told I was getting before we left for break. Turning in my resignation wasn't quite as big as I thought it was going to be. Yes, it felt great to make that decision and make it official, but that's it. Jenn, Alexandra, Maureen, and I headed over to the boys' school to turn in our form to Ms. Khuloud, the director, but she wasn't there and we couldn't find her secretary so we went to HR and gave them to Ammar. He was curious about how many from primary were planning on resigning and asked us why we were resigning. We briefly explained our reasons then returned to the primary school to send our email to Khuloud, Una, Omar, and Ammar to confirm our resignation. Done! That was it. The whole thing could have been done in 5 minutes if we didn't have to travel to the boys' school and if we didn't chat with Ammar. I don't know what I was expecting, but that wasn't it.
The following week was a short week, due to Prophet Mohammed's birthday, but it felt like 2 weeks! Why is it that 4 day weeks end up feeling longer than a regular week?! This was the week where more changes were instituted, so maybe that's why. They changed the mosque schedule, got rid of art and IT, and changed music to a block of 2 lessons every other week instead of one lesson a week. The annoying part of the new mosque schedule is that the grade 3 and 4 boys eat lunch together and they only have 10 minutes to do that. It makes for a stressful 10 minutes if you're in the cafeteria on duty and on the playground rounding the boys up before lunch is more intense then it was before. I don't think it's going to change though. With art and IT being cancelled I now have 2 less free periods, but 2 more periods to teach content that I so desperately need to teach. So, right now I'm not really sure how I feel about that. It will be hard on Sundays when I only have one break, and that is lesson 2 so that will be a long day, but Sunday's are good to have long days because the kids are a bit more focused then they are the rest of the week. We'll see how it goes. We didn't have music last week so I don't know how that change will be, but the kids were upset to know that their specials were being taken away from them. My new music day is Wednesday lessons 1 and 2, which will make for some very short Wednesdays, on the music week, as I will only teach lessons 4, 5, and 10. I guess that's the day that I'll be working in the new literacy room!!
In other news I am cat-sitting for the next 6 months! Fara's friend had to give up her cat, I'm not really sure why, and Snowy (the new cat) doesn't get along with Jasper (Fara's cat) so I volunteered to take her until I left. She's quite freaky looking! She's a Persian and Fara had her shaved so she looks weird. I'm sure once her fur grows back to its regular length she'll look less freaky! She's a really good cat and has adjusted quite well. She enjoys sitting by the window during the day and sleeping with/on me at night. She's really quiet too; I haven't heard her meow since she's been here; she does like to purr though.
It's cold! I know that this makes no sense for those of you who just had tons of snow and ice and lost power, but trust me it's cold. In the mornings and evenings it's about 50 with high temps during the day of about 68-72. The afternoons are quite pleasant, but it's cold in my apartment and cold getting to work in the morning. I've had the heat on in my car and I'd have it on the apartment if I had heat. Instead I'm drinking tea, wearing socks and sweatshirts, and wrapping in a blanket. I don't know what I'm going to do if I get a job in MI. Oh yes I do, I'll turn the heat on!!!
72 degrees at 3:15pm.
