Monday, August 18, 2008

German speaking children and maternity pants

WELL. Today was the first day of school. My first day as a real teacher. My first day being one hundred percent responsible for a class full of children with no guidance from anyone. My first day of being the responsible adult on recess duty. Yikes.

This was a day that I had built up in my mind for....well, I'd be lying if I didn't say I'd been building it up for years. Ever since I started working on my education degree back at the ol' alma mater, I've thought on and off about how it would be when I had my own classroom. Last year when I was student teaching, I thought about it even more, and I am slightly ashamed to admit, in a rather superior manner. Even though I loved both of my cooperating teachers, and learned SO much from them, at the time I sometimes thought to myself "well, I will definitely not do THAT when I have MY OWN classroom." Well, pride goeth before the fall, wocka wocka wocka, because today I found myself thinking on several occasions "if only I were half as with it as them." BALLS it was a hard day! I thought I had planned for every eventuality but then it seemed like every five minutes something came up that I didn't have an answer for.


I am going to be meanie mcmeanerston teacher for the first few weeks (months?) and just drill stuff into their brains. I am pretty sure that the only alternative to this would be a violent uprising that would end with me being dangled off the balcony that goes around my classroom by a rope crafted from their PE socks. That whole "no smiling 'till Christmas" thing might turn out to be true. Well not totally, but I am going to be a hard ass for awhile. Which is sad, because I dislike being a hard ass, it makes me feel like the teacher from Charlie Brown.

All this aside, I am hopeful. I just have to plan the mother f out of every single day, and have a plan B for every single time period. Today, I had a plan B for the time when I thought my plan A might not work out, but not for the rest of the day, which turned out to be a mistake. Oy, this is going to be the biggest learning experience of my life. I just hope the kids can learn something in the process.

In other news, I went on a shopping spree two days ago, and somehow managed to purchase MATERNITY WEAR. There are no words my friends, there simply are no words. This was my thought process that led to said purchase:
"Why is there all this extra elasticky material at the waistline that goes up to my boobs?"
"Well, maybe it's to prevent the underwear sticking up from the back of your pants. That has always annoyed me."
"Maybe it's a built in girdle!"
"Man, these Germans have their shit figured out."
"Well, it's not that weird, these are really comfortable pants, so...."

My only defense is that I was over worked, over tired, and dehydrated while doing this shopping, and it may have affected my decision making and logical reasoning skills.

I will probably keep the pants though. I tell myself it's because conducting an exchange auf deutsch would be too difficult, but it could just be that I secretly am in love with elasticky pants.


And I shall end on that note. :)

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