School has started!

Yesterday (Tuesday) was the first day of school for all of the girls and today is the first full day of school.  This means a couple of things for Thalia and I (yes, Thalia got her late on Saturday night.  My very own, living, breathing Spanish/English dictionary has arrived!): 

1.  All 60 internas are here which means I have even more names to learn.  YAY!  I’m getting a couple of them already, but there are still a ton that I don’t know.

2.  I have the pleasure of waking up at 5:20 so that I can oversee the girl’s breakfast at 6:00AM.  I haven’t woken up that early on a regular basis… ever.  I’m pretty sure that I woke up around 6:00 for high school (maybe 5:45 my freshman/sophomore year when I had to catch the bus).  

3.   Thalia and I are starting to teach classes.  However, for the first 6 weeks we only have classes (really more like review sessions) for the internas after their normal school day is over. 

The first day of school was nothing like I have seen before.  In the States, students are rarely excited to go back to school (especially middle school and high school age students which is what these girls basically are).  Here, the teachers all lined the hallway in front of the auditorium holding balloons, cheered, and hit the girls on the head with the balloons.  The girls were all excited and cheering as they were filed into the auditorium for their welcoming ceremony.  As all of the girls were filing in, one of the teachers was emceeing the introduction and had them cheering on a regular basis (I couldn’t understand what he was saying or why they were cheering, but it sure was loud).  We then proceeded to have an hour long (at least, I think) welcome ceremony complete with an introduction to all of the girls who will be graduating this year, a skit about school, and a skit in which the teachers dressed up as saints or angels (either that or the Greek gods – I’m betting it was saints or angels).  Additionally, at the end of the ceremony, Sor Mirna cut a ribbon that had a large 2012 on it... welcome to the new school year!  (Unfortunately, I didn't get a good pic of it.)  Here are some pictures of the welcome ceremony, I was sitting kinda far away, so I apologize for the poor quality:

 I didn't hear what all of the different flags stood for, but the senior girls carried them in at the beginning of the ceremony.

 The senior class.

 The teacher's skit.

A majority of the teachers, I think one or two may be missing.

While school is going on and I’m not yet teaching actual classes (the girls have 6 week sessions in which they have only certain classes and I’m not going to start teaching English until the second and third sessions), I’m pretty much doing whatever Sor Mirna asks me to do… so yesterday and today I was helping her enter things into the computer and I traced and cut out an obscene number of flowers (I don’t know what they are for, but the scissors started giving me a blister on my thumb)! 

Yesterday was also the first day that Thalia and I took some of the girls out shopping in Santa Rosa for various things that they need.  This will occur every Tuesday.  Let me just say that I’m not a huge fan of shopping… much less shopping with a group of teenage girls who pretty much just want to spend all of the money they have on random things… and when there are 10 of them that I’m in charge of…  and I’m in a city that I don’t know that well… and we are walking very  close to cars that don’t stop for pedestrians… and we go to the market which is extremely cramped and I can’t always see all of the girls at one time and they are all going to different booths to get different things.  Oh, well, I’m sure I’ll get used to it and it will be easier once I get to know the city better.

Well, I guess I should get ready for the English/Math review session that I have to lead this afternoon… wish me luck. 

P.S.  It’s still cold here… as in I’m wearing a sweatshirt and my jacket everywhere.  Because although we are “inside” it is all open air and the walls don’t really retain heat even if it were warmer inside.  So basically I’m outside 24/7 and it feels like it has to be somewhere in the 50s.  (I actually just looked it up and it is really in the 70s, but there is no sun.  It feels so cold, though!)