The First Day

Going through the minutiae of today would take too long, so I made this list:

1) Once I start teaching, Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be my easy days. Monday, I teach one section of World Lit; Wednesdays, I teach two sections of American Lit. Yes, that's really all.

2) Most of my female students wore fierce heels today that I doubt I could walk in.

3) Of all the kids there today, I saw one white student. She is 16, pregnant, and lives in a homeless shelter.

4) More than anything else, the most difficult thing I have encountered so far is navigating the personalities that make up the faculty. As in: who is friends, who hates each other, who thinks who is lazy, etc. I don't really know my place, and feel like I don't know my boundaries and responsibilities.

5) Students left at 2:15 p.m.; I left at 5:15 p.m., following a 3-hour staff meeting. Is this a precedent? God, I hope not.

6) I am making cookies for the all-school cookout on Friday, and I am EXCITED because I LOVE BAKING and students LOVE COOKIES, so hopefully we can bond over this a little.

7) I recognize some students from my observations last year, but I don't know anybody's name.

8) I MIGHT GET TO TEACH HAMLET.

9) All the students at the school receive free lunches. However, there is no school kitchen, so the lunches usually consist of a cold-cut sandwich, a bag of chips, some pre-packaged cookies or a wrinkly piece of fruit, and one of those janky juice boxes composed of a plastic cup filled with juice and covered with a piece of tinfoil. This lack of hot lunches is a HUGE sticking point with students. Today, students were asked to list what they liked about last year, what they disliked about last year, and what they would like to see improved this year. Every single group mentioned the caliber of the lunches. I don't really know what the sticking point is with this, but I'm tempted to put up my hand at the next staff meeting and say, "LET ME WRITE A GRANT PROPOSAL FOR THIS."

10) The first full sentence that any student said to me today (besides "Hi," "How are you?" and "What's your name?") was "Did anyone ever tell you that you look like that girl from 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend'?" (Meaning Uma Thurman) I said I didn't know what he was talking about, but was thinking, Nope, and nobody's ever told me that I look like Mariska Hargitay, either.