I think I need a vacation...

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So last night I had a dream. In my dream, I was riding on a bus. The bus driver stopped the bus and refused to move forward until everyone on the bus got quiet! I am thinking that this means I need a vacation, because it is symbolic of my life in the classroom at this point. I love my kids but they are definitely a chatty bunch. Consequently, I am spending a lot of time trying to think up ways I can encourage them to talk only at the correct times. So far, their behavior is just pretty uneven. On good days things are fine, but other times its just a nightmare. I also got to experience the joy of "parents' evening" i.e. parent-teacher conferences yesterday. It was a crazy 5-hour long marathon of visiting with nearly all of our many parents since we have 31 students. While it was definitely very informative, since a lot of information had not been shared with me previously, I felt like I was in a somewhat awkward position.

Luckily I only have ONE more day at school until our week-long "half term" holiday! On Saturday I am flying to Milan, where I will be spending the night and meeting Dad when he arrives on Sunday. We will take the train to Florence, spend a couple of days there, and then go to Rome for a few days, and then head back up north. I am SUPER excited about it 😊

It is hard to believe I have been here over a month already. There are still challenges (like the fact that wet clothes don't seem to ever dry... still missing that dryer) but I have settled in to a large extent. I have even found some cookies, jaffa cakes, which are pretty much my new favorite food. Pete has also promised us a microwave sometime in the near future (which would be "life changing" as Hilary put it). However, I will believe that when I see it! I am still hoping for a bedside lamp, since things have gotten pretty dark and grey here in the last few weeks.

Ellie, our adviser from UVA, came to visit, which was a lot of fun. She visited us at our schools, and took us out to dinner a few nights. We went to the Eagle pub in town, which is famous because it is where Watson and Crick announced their DNA finding. (Why you would want to announce that kind of thing in a pub, I know not!) We also went to her concert one night. She plays the violin in an orchestra here, so it was nice to be able to go and support her. She was staying at Downing College, which is pretty much right across the street from our school, so I also went and had tea with her one afternoon after school. I am still not really a tea drinker, but it just seems to be what people do here!

Interestingly, Ellie was actually headed directly from visiting us to Boston, where she was going to be giving a paper at a conference about our program. Apparently we are on the cutting edge of something ! Kaitlin remarked that she found it interesting that here we are just getting up every day and going to work and trying to make it through the day and people somewhere are really INTERESTED! It is kind of weird to think about. I also happen to know that some pictures from THIS VERY BLOG are being included in the presentation. It starts off with the picture of my crazy British binder and the title of the presentation is something like "from three whole punch to two!" 😊

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Photos

Photo 7
the church by our school from Downing

a complete set
Liz, Kaitlin, Hilary, and me