Already in Overdrive

The mural in the workroom. (not my design, I just painted it)

Today officially marks a week since I arrived back in Poland. I can't believe it has been a week! It has flown by. And in just another week school will begin. Since arriving my duties/work have increased quite a bit. As I mentioned the other day I will be teaching 6 classes a day at the school, as well as "overseeing" (I use this loosely) the english at the preschool. Basically, I let the english teachers there know what they need to teach. Currently I have student books for 3 of my classes and still trying to figure out all the other ones. :) The preschool won't have workbooks just a teachers manual, but it hasn't arrived and I will still need to translate that in the next week or two. ;) And my 4th grade class books haven't even been ordered PHEW!!!!!.....Needless to say I won't be bored these days. I am very thankful that I will plan two days to get away next month (october) to rest and try to catch my breath. I remember talking to friends about solitude and silence before I left and how I was going to read this book from one of my favorite authors and now that title just seems like a joke or a true reality of what I'll be needing soon. ;) Tomorrow all of the english teachers in Proem get together to check in and see what's happening this semester. We meet once a week but not officially with everyone, so it will be nice to all be together tomorrow morning. We will be discussing the evening english classes and how those will be handled this year.

I must say that each year that I help the preschool/school prep for the new school year I become more and more appreciative of what it's like to be a teacher in America. This week we moved all the classes around at the school and I moved the office...which still isn't done. We moved the office downstairs which is the only space for it. The room was a little rough and had no windows so I painted the mural above on the wall yesterday and today. No custodians to move tables, chairs, or boxes just a bunch of teachers hauling things around. While we do have annoying things such as standardized tests, professional development requirements, new trainings, the forever changing curriculums...we have A LOT. As I put together my bulletin board for English I find it humorous that I am hand making a lot of the things for it. But there are several reasons for that. One, we just don't have those kinds of things like they do at all the teacher stores where you can buy the little cakes to post up birthday cakes,etc. But another reason is that when it comes down to it, it's also about money. When they look at what they can do and what they would rather spend there money on it's not these things. All the teachers love those things but it's just not a reality here. They are penny pinches and pack rats to a 'T'. ;)