"Miss Devlin"

Soooo I finished my first week at work! yay! As you can see by my new ID badge, I'm an official member of the Santa Cruz staff!! It's been a very long week, but also fun getting to know the school better and some of the kids! I didn't teach any computer classes this week because the principal thought it would be best for me to just prepare before jumping in! School officially started on Tuesday, so Monday was mostly full of paperwork and stuff. On Tuesday, the kids arrived, and they are so cute! I helped out the 1st grade teacher getting the kids to the prayer service and back. One of the first grade girls' name is MysticalRose. What an awesome name! And there was this adorable kid named Anthony who kept turning around to talk to me during the prayer service. I told him to shhhh but he just had A LOT to say! The principal, Sister Leonette, gave each kid a (plastic) pearl (saying they are all special, aww) and Anthony had to tell me and his classmates "These aren't real pearls!!" Of course they aren't, kid! We're not going to give you real ones haha. Apparently kids up to grade 3 were putting them in their mouths!

For my first three days, I was going through the cart of 25 laptops clearing off what the kids put on there last year. I got to see backgrounds on the computers of Justin Bieber, Taylor Lautner, sports teams, cars, and one girl had a banana as a background! Some of the kids had the gadget on the side where you type on post it notes. Someone wrote "I love superman!!!!" and one wrote "Wherever the sun does not shine, that is where Justin Bieber is" which didn't make much sense to me since she looked like a Bieber fan haha. I worked with volunteer IT guy (who used to be a math teacher at the school) named Mr. Mount on Wednesday for a little bit. He told me I have the "patience of Job" for going through all the computers and erasing everything. Each of the 25 computers had 8 different grades on them so it did take a while! I guess Job was patient in the Bible? It's been a while since I read it....uh oh bad JV :O

Also on Wednesday, I taught my first class! One of the middle school teachers had to leave early, so I subbed for him. It was 6th grade science and they were doing their first hands on lab. It was about the senses, they have 5 different stations they went to (one for each sense) and for example, they would smell an onion in a tissue box with holes in it so they couldn't see. Then they wrote a paper about why the senses are important to science. It was a little scary to teach my first class, but 6th graders at least listen to you. (Unlike 7th and 8th!?) There were these two girls who kept asking me questions about the paper and I didn't know, so I pretty much made it up haha.

The next day, one of the two 6th grade girls who asked me all the questions came up and gave me a hug before school started. It was cute! She said "I finished that homework in ten minutes." I'm guessing that's good? On Thursday I didn't have much work to do, so I lesson planned at my new desk in the air conditioned trailer! Isn't it pretty? :) I also found out I might go to Nogales, Mexico next Saturday with some of the other teachers to an orphanage that the kids raised money for Lent last school year! That would be really cool!

On Friday, I helped the 2nd grade get to Mass in the morning. It's the biggest class in the school-27 kids! Then, I observed Mr. Chavez teach Spanish to the first graders. He had this cute way of having them memorize the months of the year. They all pulled out imaginary "dough" from their desks and made tortillas. Each time the tortilla switched hands, they said the next month. It was adorable. They were also counting like "first, second" and when they got to sixth ("sexto" in Spanish) This little girl puts an arm on her hip and goes "I like sexto!" I wasn't sure if I should be amused or a little scared haha. Oh and I got my own box in the teacher's lounge. It says "Miss Devlin" on it. Still trying to adjust to being called that. I'm like "Hi, I'm Ka...um...Miss Devlin'" lol. So, yeah from the picture you can definitely tell I get lots of mail compared to the teacher above me;)

So---that was my work week! In community, we've been having a great time. I get along well with my casamates and we've had some great dinners! On Monday I made Asian stirfry, Tuesday Jeff made an amazing frittata, Weds Jen made yummy pasta, Thurs we all made burritos (soaked the beans and everything!) and Friday Erin made a great couscous and veggies dish! So, I'm lovin the food so far! We have found some potential stores to save more money than we did last week! Last night we went out to the bars for the first time. We were just getting to know the area, and we ended up seeing some of the ACE teachers. It was funny. Anyway, the adjustment is going pretty well. We also got a bike from one of the teachers at my school, so we only need 3 more! And, I might get Cricket internet at work that I can bring home! (So I can actually Skype! And blog more than just at the library!) Woo!