1 month in...

I have been in Germany now for nearly a month, and it already seems like a lifetime ago! I finally have internet working at my place, and now that school has started I have started to figure out how I'll need to manage my time.... so hopefully I'll be able to update often!

I have so much to tell in just a month....... and I have found it nearly impossible to put pictures into this stupid blog, so you'll just have to look at FB for those!

The day I arrived, I was picked up at the airport with my 4 giant suitcases and 2 carry-ons and brought to my apartment. I got my keys, learned how to lock the doors, open the windows, flush the toilet, lower and raise the blinds.... it was a lot to take in! Soon a couple from school came to take me into town and go shopping for essentials. I have emailed a lot with the husband, Stephen, because he is now the math department head at school, and it was great to finally put a face to the names! Rebekah, his wife, and Stephen taught me how to buy a ticket for the train, how to get a buggy at the supermarket, how to find the essentials at the store, and where to find the most delicious ice cream! After we unloaded everything, we went to the town square for the Oberursel wine festival that happened to be going on the weekend I arrived. Several more teachers from FIS came, and I had a great time hanging out with them all evening! Since I find it physically impossible to sleep on airplanes, though, I didn't make it much past eleven that night, and I slept like a rock when I got home!

Over the next few days I was helped by the teachers so much! Since no other new teachers were arriving until almost a week later, I had a lot of opportunity to learn how to live here before the craziness started at school. I spent a LOT of money at Ikea.... bought a new dresser (just like the one I have at home in Texas!), two end tables, a new bed and mattress (which I LOVE), and a desk for the living room... along with a few odds and ends for the apartment.

As strange as it sounds, Julie (one of the math teachers at school who I have also emailed with quite a bit) and I were both looking for shower curtains and couldn't seem to find any we liked at any store we went to! She ended up taking me to Frankfurt where we went to the big department store - where we were both successful in finding shower curtains - and also spent a little bit of time walking around Frankfurt.

Once the rest of the teachers arrived, life started getting crazy. We had two trips organized the weekend before work started. The first was a tour of Oberursel and then dinner with applewine - a local drink that is sure to knock you on your ass! The following day, we went to the next town over - Bad Homburg - and took a tour of an old castle. It was GORGEOUS, but, unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside. We did get to climb to the top of the white tower at the castle, and the view from the top was amazing! Then the new teachers have a week of orientation and meetings before the rest of the faculty, and we had our entire days planned out for us. We were given tons of information in very little time, and all our brains were spinning. One day we had a "Welcome to Germany" class, another we spent all morning talking about all the taxes we were going to pay, and one afternoon we went to the mayor's office for a private meeting about Oberursel and drank applewine in his office! At the end of the first week, we took a trip to a nearby Roman fort. I'll be honest and say it reminded me a lot of the Alamo... not so much the way it looked, but the concept and organization of the structure... but it's crazy to think this fort has been here since around 700AD!

School started last week, and I actually started a day early because I have a 6th grade homeroom. This is the first year the kids are out of elementary school and in the upper school, and they get to come in an for a few hours on the afternoon before classes start. They get their schedules and their lockers and get to spend a little time wrapping their heads around the concept of 8 days of schedules, 11 different teachers, and organization and time management. I have never had 6th graders on the first day of school, and while I hate to say I was laughing at them, the anxiety they feel over the stress of their new lives in upper school is absolutely adorable!

I am teaching five sections of classes that rotate through an 8 day cycle with 6 periods per day. The kids have a few electives that rotate in there differently from their core classes, but in an 8 day cycle, I see each class 6 times. I also see them at all different periods throughout the rotation. While we haven't even made it an entire rotation yet, I really enjoy the variety of the day-to-day schedule. I have two 6th grade math classes (plus one 6th grade homeroom), one 7th grade math class, and two 8th grade math classes... which is more preps that I have ever had, but I really enjoy the variety of ages and levels of the students I have. Some of the teachers I work with have classes ranging from 6th grade to upper level IB math classes, and the shift in brain power that that must take is beyond my understanding! I am happy right where I'm at! I share a classroom with another teacher, and I have to float for my homeroom and my 7th grade class, so I feel like I am never sitting - and almost always on the run. It keeps my busy, but I don't really have a "home" at school. I don't mind though, because the teacher computer lab I go to work in is the office of a friend at school and is next to the printer, so it's actually easier to work in there! :) I just bring my hard drive to school and bring it with me to each of my different classes.

The kids are amazing. I have one class that is VERY talkative, and might make me pull my hair out, but I moved some seats around today, and hopefully that will help! I haven't taught any GT or honors classes at home, but it's a big change for me to have kids fill out their info sheets and check "yes" to the question "do you like math?" Then when I read the answers to "why?," I feel like I am reading 50 papers that I wrote because they all love math for the same reasons I do! :) It's great!! :)

This past weekend I went on a hike with the 9-12 asst. principal, Pete, Julie, and a couple other new teachers to the top of the nearby mountain. It was about 9 km uphill, and took somewhere close to 2 hours (I think), but the view from the top was AWESOME! Just as we were getting ready to head back town, a massive storm rolled through, and it started hailing. Hail. In August. I don't know what to do with myself.

This week has been pretty busy, and it's the first full week of school. Monday I was caught in a monsoon on the way home, dried off and waited out the storm at my place with Julie, waited over half an hour at the train stop (the trains apparently were not running because of the storm), got money from the bank, went to dinner but the restaurant was closed, walked somewhere else to eat, SPRINTED from the restaurant to the train station to make the train home - in rain boots, nearly missed the train by mere seconds, rode without a ticket, tried to not throw up my dinner and wine from running so fast, got home and sat for ten more minutes trying to decide if I was going to throw up my dinner and wine, and finally went to bed. Yesterday, I was at work until around 6:30 and then went to eat at the restaurant that was closed Monday. Today was my long day at work, and we had a meeting right after school with our grade level homeroom teachers. Tomorrow is an easy day, though, so I went home right after the meeting. A bit later I went on a 10K hike through the woods with Julie, and we just got home from dinner down the road.

I am loving life. I miss my friends and family, but I am so thankful for skype and facebook. And that I can call the US for a flat 5 euro a month. It helps!

Now that I think I'm all caught up, I'll try to keep up to date!



Much love! I miss yall!