Back in the Flow

Well, school started and I'm back in the flow already. It's wierd, but I really do feel back in the swing of things already. For some reason I was thinking it would take me a lot longer to get back in the groove, but today went off without a hitch. Well... for the most part, but I'll talk more about that later. What's REALLY great is that from the first impressions of today, I think I have a really good group of kids, which is a relief. I was really worried about having problems, especially now that I'm in my new, itsy bitsy classroom. I have a full 30 in my first period class, so I was just feeling more and more nervous as the clock got closer and closer to 7:45. But, like I said, the kids were good, they were nice, and easy to amuse. So I have high hopes for my semester!!

On the down side, I still don't have a KEY to my classroom, which means that I have to leave my room unlocked all the time! This is an obvious negative side effect of the construction project, that I don't really have any control over. With the new system, all classrooms have the same key, but they didn't order enough of them. Go figure. So, I just have to keep all confidential files and my laptop shoved into my desk drawer, which I DO have a key for.

So today went pretty well, except for my bathroom breaks. I guess I got used to being able to go to the bathroom whenever I needed to, so my bladder had quite the shock when I had a three hour block in which I COULDN'T go. That was tough. I thought I might start doing the potty dance at any moment, but luckily I was able to keep it at bay until my classes were over. I promptly ran to the nearest rest room, which was FULL of chatty girls. Soooo I ran over to the other bathroom, which was ALSO full of chatty girls. By the time I ran back over to the first bathroom it had emptied out a little and there was (thankfully) an open stall. I'm pretty sure I looked pretty absurd running back and forth down the hall. I just hope the administration doesn't have a need to check the security cameras in that hall!

Unfortunately I am notorious for class-room slip ups and bloopers. Who can forget my first year when I hinted to my class during a review that Neanderthals had a body part that was REALLY BIG (I was referring to the brow ridge, but that was of course lost on the kids...) , or when I had to call home and explain to a parent why their son had recieved detention (it was, of course, because I caught him "pretend making out" with a paper bag puppet he'd made and drawn boobs on... yeah... try explaining that one) or when I tripped on a students book bag, went flying into the middle of the room, lost a shoe and gave myself a bloody lip... Ah yes, the joys of teaching. Well today was no different. By 6th period my voice was dry and cracking from talking all day, which I'm just not used to. I was going through the syllabus and explaining procedures for signing out, when I meant to say

"You'll notice the sign out sheet in the back of the classroom..."

but what came out was

"You'll notice the sign out sheet in the back of the (cough/gulp) assroom"

Somehow the "CL" just didn't come out and I had about 25 bewildered students staring at me wondering if they should laugh or not. The timing couldn't have been worse because I'd just gotten finished with a really long lecture about how inappropriate language is called "inappropriate language" for a reason, and that I wouldn't tolerate it in class. So I made some lame joke about keeping myself after school for detention and we had a good laugh.

Soooo it was a good first day, overall!! Hopefully the rest of the semester is this easy!! I'll post some pics of my new classroom soon, once I get some pictures!!