Nature Walk

After my complainy (and my mom mentioned misspelled) post, several things have happened.

After work that day, I went for a walk with a couple other teachers. I brought my camera and took some amazing pictures. Which you can't see just yet, but there's one I am particularly proud of. But it was really neat walking around the village. I got to see places I hadn't seen before. I tell you, it's just beautiful here!

I got issued a new laptop....with ALL the keys on it! Yay!!!

I ordered from that store again, and got some more food. I'm feeling pretty good. Still no bush order but it's only been 2 weeks and 5 days....maybe when I hit week 3 I'll be lucky. We are getting closer to week 4 every day and so I know it can be any day now.

Okay, I'm just going to say this: I don't know how effective last year's teacher was with my students. I have been very spoiled having a great first grade team at my last school. It makes such a huge difference. So I had a rough day yesterday but I came back today with a plan: we are going to work on classroom basics. And my god these kids are awesome! Once I let them know what I wanted, they worked very hard to give it to me.

I cracked a joke today....just a stupid little one that mostly cracks me up. This quiet little boy whispers, "You crack me up." It was a delightful moment. I am loving these kids. They are so sweet.

One thing happened that wasn't so hot. I was debating whether or not to even mention this aspect, but it happens. My house was on lock-down on Saturday. Someone was causing some trouble in the village and a call went out for all teachers to lock the doors of their houses. I totally slept through it, but I am very well looked after here, and one of the janitors came & checked my house to make sure my roommate and I were safe. Everything was fine, but this tells me two things: make safety number one and I am very lucky that there are so many wonderful people here who help me even when I don't know it.

I certainly chose a wild path when I decided to come up here. I am finding you have to focus on the beauty and look past the ugly. But it's still hard up here. Everything is more of a challenge, except love. It's easy to love these kids. That's the one thing I don't struggle with. But I miss Benicia. I'm about to hit the longest I have ever been away from it. That's sad....I think I just found some new strength!! :)