My schools

Just a quick update on my schools and my "tour" of schools. Here is the breakdown. I am teaching in 2 schools. One school is called "Les Terres Blanches" (white earth) and the other is called "Anatole France 2". I am teaching 5 classes in Anatole France 2 and 3 classes in Les Terres Blanches. My schedule, since I am actually only teaching 12 hours total a week, is pretty nice. I work Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings for 2 hours at Les Terres Blanches & Tuesdays and Fridays all day at Anatole France 2. Wednesdays are off for all primary schools, as well as Saturdays and Sundays. I am teaching ages 8-10. It's the equivalent to 2nd - 4th grade.

My "tour" was very lackluster and a little disappointing to be honest. My coordinator took both Marina (the Spanish girl teaching in the city near me) and myself on the tours of our schools. We went to Marina's schools first and spent about 2-1/2 hours at her 2 schools meeting all the teachers, meeting the principal and getting the full tour of the place including the staff rooms, cafeteria and copy machine. The only really scary and disappointing thing was that her schedule wasn't set so she didn't know what days or what times she was working. I had the growing suspicion that my schedule hadn't been set yet either. When we finally finished with Marina's schools, we got to mine.

On the way to my first school, we were in a little traffic accident. While waiting at a light, we got hit from behind by a scooter. It turns out that the scooter was hit from behind by a car and he, in turn, hit us. No damage was done to my coordinator's car and the guy on the scooter seemed ok so after we checked on him, we finally got to my school. My school, Anatole France 2 was really cool. Unfortunately, we got there right before lunch so the meeting was very quick and rushed. The principal was actually teaching a class so our meeting was even quicker than I could have imagined but I immediately got good vibes from her and am looking forward to being there all day on Tuesdays and Fridays. After this quick tour of the very old school, we went to Les Terres Blanches. By the time we arrived at this school, lunch was in full swing. By the way, we have 2 hours for lunch and all the students and most of the staff leaves for this lunchhour. We caught the principal right before she left for lunch so the meeting was very quick, I got no tour and basically was told that they would email me my schedule by Friday evening at some point. Finally, I received my schedule and it is as I mentioned above.

In all, the tours were barely helpful but at least I know how to walk to the schools from the train station, got to see what they looked like and at least got to meet the principals really quickly. I am trying to stay calm and actually look forward to teaching on Monday.

Your British word of the day lesson: fish fingers = fish sticks. In a sentence: Fish fingers were on sale at the grocery store today and they made a great dinner later.