The First Days of School

Hello again,

Before we head directly to school, let me tell you a little about committing my first Slovak "crime". On Tuesday, you may have heard about a shooting here in Europe's safest capital (I'm not trying to say I did it, this is just how our story begins). It happened while I was at school, just one bus stop away from where I am currently living. After work, my current roommates and I were unable to get home because of roadblocks, so we headed to Danko's house for a mini potluck. Danko, Shelby, Jackie, Christina and I were all starving and ready to eat, but we had to wait for Corey. Finally, he arrived, weird cucumber juice in hand, looking flustered. We asked him what was wrong and he told us that he had locked his keys in his apartment and that the only person who would know where to get a spare is currently on holiday in the States. We mulled over this information during dinner and finally came up with a foolproof plan - to boost Danko onto Corey's first floor balcony where he could break into the open patio door... So off we went, scoping the place out, measuring distances and trying to come up with a way to do this without having anyone call the cops on us (the part of the plan where the girls distracted the cops by taking there tops off thankfully got left out). We finally did it, cop free, and Corey got his keys back. We now live in fear of the same thing happening to Shelby... she lives on the fourth floor!! (I photographed the whole event - because if you photograph it it's not a crime - and put the photos on Facebook... they're quite entertaining, you should probably check them out.)

Now, onto school. I think it is fair to say that, for most people, the first few days of school are a busy, exhausting, exciting time. For me, they were just confusing. For starters, until today, I had no idea where I would actually be teaching. Although this didn't bother me too much, it did make my planning/setting up the classroom time rather pointless. I didn't know where to put my stuff, wasn't sure which group I should be planning activities for, and was out of the school doing paperwork or immigration stuff so often that I felt like I was doing basically no work. Somehow, my would-be classroom (if I were to stay in Bratislava, which, as of today I have found out that I am) got set up and it looks awesome, but I can not really say how this happened.

Then there is the fact that, today, on the children's first actual day of school, I only got to stick around for about 10 minutes to meet them. The reason for this being that I had to be rushed to a doctor for surgery! I think most of you can remember the horribly revolting "buddy" I brought back from India on my arm... well, to spare you the gorey details, let's just say that I had a new friend in my ear to take care of today. It was awful.

I'm going back to the doctor tomorrow morning for a follow-up on my ear. Hopefully it will be less painful and unpleasant. I tried to post some photos of my awesome classroom on here to get your minds off this disgusting topic, but the computer/internet is too slow, so I'll put the on Facebook instead. Go check them out there!

See ya later!

Steph :)