Our First Day of School

The first day of school. I remember my "first first" day of school; transitioning into a third-grade class where I didn't know anybody. I remember bringing an empty cheerios box for some art project and a box of tissues, which if I had cared to use myself, I could have depleted handily with wiping up all of my waling and sobbing at being sent off to a new, scary school.

Today began quite differently. I woke up at a quarter 'til eight, had a quick breakfast and hopped on the bus 2P, which has a stop right by my school. Even if I didn't have any visual capacity, the sound of the squealing masses of energetic children could easily have guided me to my destination. I pushed my way through crowds of parents, who, being too preoccupied with making faces and baby noises at their children through the fence, did not seem to realize that I needed to pass through. I then realized that I had accidentally entered into the pre-kindergarten building and had to go to the other entrance.

Fortunately, I will not be teaching the smallest of the small ones. Most of the classes that I will be helping in are sixth grade, with several third-grade classes as well. Apparently, I will be helping out in science class, art class, English class, (obviously enough) and a mystery class labeled on my schedule as "speling/games" (sic). It seems that during that period, I will be playing games that have to do with spelling.

 Changing subjects (get it?) here, I now turn to the culinary side of the fine establishment through which I receive monetary compensation. Happily enough for me, I have discovered that the school provides delicious food for all of its forty teachers at noon, every school day. This means I save lots of money. They have fruit, hot food, dessert, and plates of sliced ham, the last item leaving me quite unsure of how to go about eating it. After careful observation, making sure to act completely natural, I discovered that the other teachers simply hovered around the unsuspecting plate of ham, hands deftly diving downward like five-clawed birds of prey to scoop up morsels of meat. Let me situate you a little; this all takes place within the confines of the teachers' lounge, a small room, maybe the size of a generous living room. However, due to the fact the eighty percent of the room is taken up by nine tables arranged in a square in the middle of the room, all the teachers are stuck tripping over chairs and bumping into each other in the three-foot section that remains for moving around the room.

The arrangement of the furniture seems to be quite conducive to a very chatty environment in the teachers' lounge. After all, some communication has to take place when an ample, pear-shaped little Spanish woman  is trying in vain to squeeze herself between me and an obstructing chair on her mission to find another ripe fruit for after her next class period.

There are five English-speaking teachers' assistants at Colegio Dulcinea this year. Gianni is a robust Louisiana man of Italian ancestry, Chris is an North Carolinian whose parents hail from Ecuador, Nekane is a tall girl from Connecticut whose father is Basque but moved to the United States to play Basque handball professionally, and Sarah is an Irish girl who has a less convoluted parental lineage. And there is me, a guy from Michigan whose parents are from Michigan. It's easier to remember that. All the assistants seem to be pretty fun people, so that's a big plus. Also, we can share ideas and hopefully make life easier for each other.

These are the impressions of my first day of school.