One Week Down

Today is Saturday which means that my first week teaching has come to a close. It was quite the adventure, I have to say. I worked four days - Monday through Thursday - at four different schools, the first of which you've already heard all about. After Monday, I woke every morning at 6:15AM and made my way over to the nearest Underground station to wait for my call and, when it came, off I'd go. Wednesday was the worst of these day - a drunk dum found his way over to me and started to pet me, running his hand over my hair. I moved away from him but he followed and ultimately security had to escort him out of the station. Fun times. I'll be picking up travel sized hair spray as soon as I see it.

I got lost. A lot. Most of the time this was the result of my consultant telling me to ask the bus driver who would either have no clue what I was talking about or wouldn't be able to speak to English. On Tuesday they asked me to take a taxi but neglected to tell me I'd be needing cash for said taxi (who refused to accept my consultant's credit card over the phone) so I had to make a last minute switch to a bus route instead. Needless to say I was little late that day. Wednesday's issue was the driver telling me to get off the bus way, way, way too soon but, hey, Thursday? Thursday I did not get lost. Thursday rocked.

The teaching itself has been pretty straight forward. Tuesday, I had a kindergarten class who basically played in between hearing stories and working on small assignments like explaining what made a good friend and putting the words in "I like my mum" in the correct order. On Wednesday, I was in a Year Two classroom taking over for a teacher who was preparing for parent interviews that evening.  I did a drama lesson that tied into their literacy lesson and assisted during a math lesson and a community lesson. There was also an hour  where I was rotated into a kindergarten class where we worked on counting. Thursday was a Year One classroom  where we did lots of work on writing instructions and creating patterns. It was also the first time I actually had something to mark at the end of the day. Each day was something new and different, but combined they were pretty much the same.  I enjoyed gaining the experience and having the opportunity to be a part of these schools, even for just the day.

I am very excited for Monday and what the new week will bring - hopefully it will find me working full days for the whole week.

On the home front, things are going well. There is still some tension, uncertainty and awkwardness colouring my interactions with the roomies. It's reminding me a lot of my first day of high school. Admittedly, my social skills where my peers are concerned are not all that great to begin with so its definitely a challenge for me to do the bonding thing. Once the paychecks start and I have more funds to work with - more possibilities open to me -  hopefully I'll have better luck thawing the social scene. Or maybe I'll just release my inner Blair Whaldorf and take it from there.