Winding down week one

I am so tired today I can't even tell you. I have been waking up before 5:00 for the last several days and am just not sure if it is sustainable. I am going to have to figure something out.

ANYWAY, things are still going pretty well. Work is really starting to pile up as I get into my classes and into my other responsibilities as department coordinator. But my coworkers continue to be just lovely, helpful, patient people who don't seem to take offense when I ask their name for the hundredth time after they tell me for the tenth time where the teachers' room is. God, I feel like an idiot most of the time.

I am definitely liking the kids a lot. Most of them are really darling; I am lucky to have some who are really good students who clearly want to do really well. Of course, some of them are a little difficult, but it's just very garden-variety, low-level, not speaking in English (which they are supposed to do in my class at all times!) disruptiveness. I'm confident we'll work it out. Maybe I should mention that in my last job I physically restrained kids.

And I am continuing to navigate the funny things about the school, like the delicate art of getting my supplies doled out to me by Susanita, the bookstore lady whom I think I've already mentioned. Yesterday I went to officially get my stuff. (She puts together a meticulously inventoried plastic bag of things for you). I had one of those forehead-smacking moments of operating in a foreign language when I asked for some post-its. I launched into this rambling description of "the small yellow, square papers that stick to things." She said, "Oh, Post-Its?" (pronounced post-eets). Yeah, Susanita. I mean post-eets.