I Just Arrived, Now What?

So I arrived late Tuesday night in Jena after a long plane ride as well as another 3 hour car ride. But I made it, I am "home" hmm...will I ever get used to calling Jena home? I am not sure. For Almost 23 years I have called Pennsylvania home and now I am living in a new country that will be my home.  Well it was too late for thought for that so I did what any traveler would do at night... I slept, not long but I slept.  I slept just long enough to wake up and start work.  Wow, not even in Germany 24 hours (heck it was barely 12 hours) and I already had to start work.  (Not a bright decision on my part but like I said before it was the best one for me).

So I was on the tram to work on my first day.  I was so nervous, not really meeting anyone that was there yet.  I had briefly talked to the principal and one of the other English teachers on skype but that was over a month ago.  I was to say the least freaking out!  Well I got there, I was so tired but excited, and I met about a dozen new faces.  Some of my co-workers did not speak English but the majority do so it was a big relief to find this out.

The first thing on the agenda was a fire safety meeting.... in German.... Yeah, so like I said before, I don't speak German.  This was the most boring thing I could ever sit through with less than 5 hours of sleep under my belt.  After that was over we had a little celebration for the beginning of the new school year as well as for some other reasons (some of which I had no idea).  But we had cake, sparkling wine (of course there were no kids at school), and orange juice.  Yes wine at school... One of the biggest differences from America.  In no way, shape, or form could we ever have alcohol inside a school even if the kids were not there!

After that I had a run down on the curriculum.  Not much time today to look at it but I would have some time the next two days to get familiar with it before teaching...I still at this point could not believe that I would be teaching little ones English! We can't communicate to each other. I had no idea how I was going to do this.  And because I am kinda naive this is probably the first time I put too much thought into this "issue".

So I got my schedule for the year,  I found out I would be teaching English to 1st grade and 3rd grade.  This would be the first year that both have taken English.  I was very excited! This first day I also signed my contract, got my "desk" and learned about my duties. The duties were a lot more than I was expecting so I was happy that I wasn't going to have much down time.  I don't know if anyone else is like this but if I have to much down time I tend to over think and I had a feeling that would make me homesick even more... I rather be busy.

A step closer to my dream

So I have now been in Germany for a little more than 24 hours, I have made it through my first week of work, and I was so ready to finally make my dream of becoming a teach a reality.  At this moment I knew that this year was going to be hard (hell, the first year of teaching is hard enough but now I am teaching 20 students at a time who have no idea what I am saying, and I am over 4,000 miles  away from my biggest support system).

Keep Calm and Teach On!
This was my new motto for this upcoming year!
These were our senior class t-shirts 

                      Bring on the adventure!