As you may have guessed, I have been a bit busy for the past few days. :) School started on Tuesday. The day started as my past two first days have (including student teaching)–with a hazelnut latte! :) It reminds me of the wonderful people who taught me to teach. The first day, while somewhat exciting because you get to meet your new class, is also rather tedious with all of the forms and procedures and such. The kids were on their best behavior, which is delightful. I had a 3-hour chunk of time in the morning to fill, which was rather tedious when it was all “here are the procedures and rules of the room, blah blah blah.” I have about 5 kids who don’t really understand me, so I will be glad when the bilingual program is up and running!

For the rest of the week, I started reading Phineas Gage to them (subtitle: A Gruesome but True Story about Brain Science–it’s absolutely disgusting, but the kids love it), started in on some new stuff in math (my additions to the school math program–Math 4 Today and Fraction of the Week–more goodies from student teaching!), have planned almost a day ahead most of the time, discovered that being on the same floor as my grade-level colleagues is a blessing and a curse because I socialize too much after school, given tedious handwriting homework in an attempt at behavior modification (it’s worked so far–three paragraphs on “how we walk through the halls” copied on one’s best handwriting will make a kid behave, apparently), started reading workshop (which I am SUPER STOKED about. Really. It is seriously awesome. Any upper-elementary and middle school teachers should try it!), and had a delightful feeling of “I’ve done this before” competence. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Now that I have all my posters up (thanks to Jamie and his parents coming to visit my room!), I’ll try to take pictures soon.

Speaking of Jamie and his parents, Carl and Donna were in town! We had a delightful visit including lots of food (which I enjoyed cooking and I hope the rest enjoyed eating), picking up our new kitties, playing games, and seeing “Wicked”. I highly recommend the show. The score is great, the plot is intricate, and it is in general a delightful experience. We had a good, though short visit. It’s always fun to show people our life in Chicago. :)
it was rather serendipidous that we went to see the show this weekend, as we discovered that our kitties (who came pre-named) got their somewhat strange names from the two main characters in the show: Elphaba (Elphie) and Galinda (Glinda). It’s been fun to see how the cats’ personalities actually mirror the characters’. Glinda is the perky, friendly one, and Elphie is more reserved. They both have interesting hobbies. Glinda likes to try to climb the walls, and Elphie likes to run around the flat, then race for under the bed as soon as you approach her. Neither of them really like posing for pictures, but Jamie tried to take a few anyway. I’ll leave their posting to him. A funny kitty-related conversation:

B: I can tell you’ll be a really good dad because you’re so gentle with the kitties
J: Yeah, but I probably wont’ be able to make the babies jump as high (the kitties have a feather toy that in pursuit of which they will jump in the air)
B: And you won’t try.

So, in summary life is good. I’m relaxed (mostly) about school, though I look forward to coming home to my hubby and kitties at the end of the day. :)