The First Week of School — by Shelby

Seeing as how I went and did a silly thing like getting my Masters, it seems I will have many a first week of school in my near and not so near future. It would seem that after spending nineteen years of my short twenty five attending various classes that as my educated self I would be cool, calm, and collected, but alas this is not true. The night before classes were to begin at Thida (a new school for me– small fish in a big pond!), I took some ginger to calm my anxiety, planned meticulously, and had various nightmares of not waking up to my alarm, missing a class, or making a small, Thai child cry. Regardless, I awoke on the first day excited, though a cup of coffee was not only necessary, but a requirement for survival (and will henceforth be). Though the coffee was needed, the nerves were for nothing, because whilst going back and forth between old and new Thida, I have found that not only the children are warm and loving (I feel like a fish in an aquarium in that office, and I am pretty sure it is the closest I will ever come to being famous… besides dating the vampire from the cover of IAM magazine, October 2011 edition ;-)), but also the teachers are beyond kind. Everyone makes it feel as if you always belonged there. On top of that, I learned to bring my own spoon, not give out the homework too early, how to make copies, and wear ten children as a belt all at once. I am still settling into teaching IEP classes and sweating my fanny off in rooms with no AC (pun intended), but the jitters have disappeared and life is looking good.