First day of school! First day of school!

Okay, so if you know me well...you too will hear Nemo yelling my title of this entry when you read it, or picture a fat cat wearing a tiny backpack. If not, I'm sorry.

So today was the much anticipated first day of school, also known as "Primul Sunet" meaning the First Bell. After being told to show up at 8am and given no further instructions, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I got plenty of rest though for the big day since our power went out yesterday due to the rain....I was in bed by 9pm. Crazy. Everytime I am getting ready for bed that early I can't help but say to myself, "back home I would still have one more hour to shop at Target still." Hahaha. I know, I am pathetic. But at least I am truthful.

So I got up at 6:15am, took a bath and started getting ready for school. It wasn't raining now, so I figured I could wear the dress I planned on and not the "alternative" outfit I had planned on if it was raining. My host mom even bought me a snazzy pair of rain shoes to walk to school in yesterday. I say rain shoes and not boots because they are shoe length and not tall like boots, but get the job done. I had planned to leave the house at 7:45am and it took me a little longer to get ready than I had first thought. I actually wore make up today, and not just mascara, which is usually the extent of my make up in Moldova thus far. So time is approaching to leave for school and I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and my host mom runs in and says that I need to eat breakfast. Bless her heart...she always is telling me I need to eat more and that I am going to die of starvation, which I am pretty sure is impossible. I tell her that I don't have time for breakfast today since I have to leave for school in 5 minutes and have already brushed my teeth, or at least that's what I attempted to say in my choppy Romanian. She then tells me that she even made a cake for me and my host sister, who attends the school that I work at. I now feel horrible but don't want to be late for the first day of school, so tell her that I can't eat because I don't have time and apologize.

As I walk outside the door to head to school, my host mom takes a picture of my host sister and I feel like I did on the first day of kindergarten all over again. It was super cute and I am so lucky to have such an awesome host mom. Plus the lady made me cake, so she's already won me over.

I walk to school with my sister and there are a bunch of kids waiting outside of school with flowers and I figure I will just hang out there, when this old baba escorts me to the back of the school and inside where the teachers are. Thankfully I had "New American Teacher" printed on my forehead or else she might not have know who I was.

I get inside and meet my partner teacher, Tania (or Tatiana) and we hang out for a minute in our classroom and then make out way to the auditorium. I'm sure that's not what it's called but that's what it was to me. They normally hold the First Bell ceremony outside, but due to the weather it was held indoors this year. All the students line up according to their class and then the 1st graders are led into the school by the graduating seniors. It was very cute. All the students dressed up really nice and formal, there were boys in suits or slacks and dress pants and most girls had dresses on, while some stayed "modern" and wore their skinny jeans and athletic shoes.

The ceremony lasted a long time, I was introduced by the director of my school, Zina, and there were some speeches from students and a orthodox priest. After the ceremony ended, I went with my partner teacher to our classroom with our 9th form class. My partner teacher, Tania, is the "dirigente" or homeroom teacher for this class and has been since they were in 5th form and will continue to be until they are in 11th form. As the dirigente, she was responsible to get all the books for the students for all of their classes. She left the room for a while with some students to get the books and some of the students, who I had previously met, crowded around me asking me questions about California and how long I would be staying in Moldova. They also took some pictures of me and them and asked for my name so they could find me on Facebook.

After they had all received their books, and paid the rental fee (I didn't even know they had to pay to use the books), the students were free to go home and my partner teacher and I started working on lesson plans. We made 4 lesson plans for tomorrow and are still working on the schedule with splitting up the hours between her and the other English teacher at school that I will be working with. I will be team teaching grades 4th-12th. I didn't think I would be working with that many different classes. Tania said that all of the students learning English will want to have me teach them at least for one class so she had to spread the American around. It's neat to think that these students have never had the opportunity to learn English from a native English speaker before, so I feel honored to be that person, but worried that my English won't be "proper" enough for them. They learn British English from their textbooks here and not my Cali-slang. Heaven help us all.

After working on our lesson plans for a bit, with both of our tummies rumbling, we decided to call it a day. I got home around 5pm and my host mom asked me if I was hungry and I said yes. I hadn't eaten all day gladly had some soup (which isn't one of my favs), pasta and sauce, a slice of cake and tea. After I finished up my dessert, it started to rain a little bit and I was happy it waited until after I got home to rain. Today was a good day, I am very tired but look forward to tomorrow when I will get to meet more students and actually bust out some English knowledge on them!