An Iridescent World: School Days

So I just finished my first week of school. (Whew!) I've been looking forward to/dreading this day but it was actually quite fun. The first day of Georgia as I have now learned is a day of celebration. It is far from the typical American first day of school where we go into our homerooms, have book lists, syllabi, and supplies lists handed out. Not here. Georgians, if you haven't figured out from my many posts of food, dancing, and supras, love to celebrate! They are very good at it and the first day of school was no exception. All of the parents, students and teachers gathered on the front lawn of the school facing the school steps to watch the Back to School Program. There were speeches given by teachers about their goals for the new year as well as speeches from my director about how well academically the school did last year. Afterwards there were a series of traditional dances performed by the school's students. After the program was finished the students, teachers and parents alike went to their students' classrooms in order to pick up the new textbooks for the year. I wandered around the school looking slightly confused (my permanent face in Georgia) greeting excited students that would run up to me and yell Hello. After talking to a few of the students I finally found my sister's classroom (on the third floor...need to remember that). I was greeted by a dead chipmunk on the floor as well as a group of 11th grade boys who would a min later pick up the chipmunk and dangle it in front the girls seated next to the door.

Well after all of this school excitement I decided to return home and take a 2pm nap (a practice that is slowly developing into a habit). I was however informed that my mother and her friends were planning a back to school supra at our house later that evening. Five women rushed into my home around five and commandeered my family's kitchen. They brought beer, pickled peppers, sausage, eggs, cake, beer, wine, onions, tomatos, pork, sauce, xinkali, and even glass plates. Within 30 mins we had ourselves a full blown feast. We ended the night with a good ole fashioned Disco party!

The rest of the week I observed my counterparts' English classes. This really boiled down to me answering a few questions about myself to my students (Do you like jewelry? What are your parents names? Are you married? Do have friends?) and then creepily lurking near the back of the class to take notes about each individual class and my counterparts' teaching styles. I will continue observing classes next week and then come Friday I'll sit down with my teachers and pick which grades I want to teach. I need to at least teach 18 hours to meet PC standards but I'm thinking of teaching a little extra and doing a full 20 instead. When I told my counterparts about this plan to teach 20 they thought i was crazy. My counterparts here teach about 18 hours each. They were astonished that teachers back in the states teach full time. Apparently 18 hours is pushing it here, how else could they have their day off in the mid of the week. Strange world Georgia.

Below are some pics from the week.