One down, 37 to go!

I have officially survived my first week of school...yay me! The week consisted of TONS of get-to-know-you games, fun activities, and establishing procedures and the sort. The week went by without a hitch, for the most part, except I made my first student cry. :( I must admit I didn't expect that to happen during the first week of school!

At SCS there is a system where students have colored cards, and their cards are flipped if they do something wrong. There are green (excellent), yellow (warning), red (lunch detention), blue (call home) and black (principal's office) cards. Well this student had been out of his seat and talking and the like and eventually I made him flip his card to red. Well, apparently, this was devastating and he began to cry, though mainly because of what his Mom said would happen if he was on red this year than because of what I had done...or at least that's what I keep telling myself. :)

This weekend was fun, and I must say that it was nice to finally have a weekend not planned by the school. On Friday night we had a pool party at one of the teacher's house and we ate Dominican food and had a fun time just spending time together. Saturday morning I slept in a little, and then the most wonderful thing happened...OUR WATER TURNED BACK ON! We had been without water in our apartment for 4 days. The first day our entire apartment was without water because there, apparently, is a water faucet someplace that can be turned off. So we should have had water for 3 days but sadly we didn't. But regardless of how our water was turned off, I don't think I've ever been happier to see water come out of a faucet before. Saturday night a bunch of us played Settlers together. Sunday I went to a Spanish church whose pastor is from Georgia. He spoke Spanish with an accent I could understand and at a pace I could follow! I was so proud of myself because I could actually understand more Spanish in those 2 hours than in my entire time here so far! :)

Today school was a bit of a zoo. Let's just say that when teaching overseas, it's important to be adaptable and expect the unexpected. I had taken my students to their first special (which is on the opposite corner of the campus in a building we like to refer to as Africa because it's so far away) and it started to downpour. I realized that the windows in my classroom were open, so I ran across the campus to go shut them. When I got to my room, I frantically tried to shut all the windows, but by the time I got them closed, a third of the desks were covered in water, all of my math curriculum was drenched, and a few of the students' backpacks were filled with water. I spent my whole prep period trying to dry of the classroom. Good times! Soon after that the rain let up a bit, but then right as the students were to come back after lunch there was another downpour. Our cafeteria has no walls (most of the school is open-air) and so some of my students were playing out in the rain absolutely drenched and some were running around screaming inside the pavilion trying to get away from the rain (an impossible task). We ended up playing and hanging out in the pavilion for 20-25 minutes waiting for the rain to let up so we could run to our classroom. After that, all the kids were wondering if they could dump out their shoes or complaining that they were cold. It was a crazy day!!!!

So apparently there's another tropical storm coming over us, so pray for the DR as we brace ourselves once again!