Back to School

Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple of days. Truthfully, they've been pretty lackluster days, a lot like we'd be having back home this time of year. Staff meetings, classroom prep, family time at home. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Today was our "Meet and Greet" or as they call it back in my hometown, "Unpack Your Backpack" night. Except my kids didn't have anything to unpack. The school provides all of the supplies, so mostly they just came in, picked out a desk and said hello (or guten tag, annyeonghaseyo, halla, namaste, and ni hao ; ) I have 17 kiddos this year, the most of all the third grade classes (so hopefully that means I got all the good kids - haha). Four of them are EAL students with extremely limited English. I have little peanuts from South Korea, Sweden, Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand, India, Canada, and the US (although the kids who claim US citizenship are still multilingual, often from mixed families or they just happened to be born in the US and both parents are from elsewhere). Definitely the hardest part my job is going to be pronunciation of names! I've had tough ones before but nothing like this! Although I was just looking at an email of late entry students who, for one reason or another, will start school later, and Everleigh is on that list. Her name fits right in!

Speaking of Everleigh's late entry to school, she also got to meet her teacher tonight. She's going to love nursery school. She's such a social little thing, and loves to sing her ABCs, dance, color, read, and learn new things. Her latest obsession is with the song 'Baa, Baa Black Sheep.' : ) She is over her fever, and is still doing well with the Ayi. I've had a picture request of Aling so will try to remember to get one tomorrow before we head out the door.

Since it was a late night for us, Aling made us dinner. Yummmmy! Vegetables and chicken with noodles. Probably would've been even better with rice, but we don't have a rice cooker yet. Curses - that means another trip to the gosh darn Wal-Mart! ; )  That reminds me that we were shopping at IKEA last weekend, some American guy randomly stopped us and said, "Hey! Foreigners with a little girl! I don't mean to be forward, but can we get your number?" Very funny, but understandable how people crave familiarity and someone to connect with. He and his wife have 2 daughters, aged 1 and 3 and they were having a hard time meeting people with kids. The downside is that they live in Futian, which is still in Shenzhen but would take quite awhile to get to by taxi (like living a couple suburbs away in Chicagoland). Once school gets underway (and preferably once our shipment arrives so we have toys) we'll have them over for dinner and play time. 

Well, tomorrow is the big first day of school, so I'm headed for bed. I've been missing my old team and coworkers from LinnMar. This place has lots of perks and nice people, and teaching is teaching wherever you are, but I'm missing my coffee club group and impromptu team meetings in the morning. I'm sure they're all missing me, too. ; )