Students, take out your notebook and copy down this note

Hi All,

When last I checked in with you all I was a day away from starting life as a teacher.  Well I'm glad to say that I have managed to survive the first week and definitely came out better through the experience.

The first day of school is always met by some nervous excitement.  I mean by everyone, teachers, parents, and students alike.  Having gone through it before doesn't really dull the experience and I could tell that everybody was feeling that same nervous excitement that I was.  As my homeroom class trickled in for the first class of the day on Monday it made me smile because I knew that for the first time, these were MY students and I had the chance to really make a difference in their lives ahead.  I was a little nervous at first, but who isn't on their first day of anything.  Thankfully though, I think the students were all a little apprehensive as well, since being in grade 7 meant that they were starting middle school, something a touch different from elementary school for them. 

As the day got started and my classes filed through, I was just feeling really positive about the whole experience.  When I would see the bright faces of the students, I can't help but feel that with a smile and a positive attitude for learning, that these kids could achieve anything.  Of course you're all thinking that this is very poetic and overly simplistic but seeing them there in front of me sincerely made me feel that way.  Not that I'm applying a standard for other teachers, but I feel as though you need to hold onto this kind of a belief if you want to be an influential teacher.

So far I've made it sound like the first week has been a breeze.  It has most certainly NOT been a breeze.  Teaching (especially the first year of teaching) is a LOT of hard work.  There's no easy way around it and if you aren't swamped as a first year teacher, something is amiss.  For the record, I haven't left school before 5:00pm the entire week.  The grade 7s are still very dependent and all throughout the week I've needed to explicitly tell to write things down in their agendas or I had answer questions I've previously stated more than once already.  I still love my students to bits despite the nuances of being in school.  Also som,etimes as a middle school teacher there are times when I feel like I'm one part teacher one part parent (a good learning experience for the future).  I've managed to keep atop of things so far, but soon I'll be inundated by grading, extra-curriculars, and a whole stack of meetings.

A few small hiccups aside (like the fact that there aren't enough math or science textbook for all the students and it'll be the end of OCTOBER until the new shipment comes in) the school and community of staff, students, and parents has been amazing.  Working at an international school is really a neat and worthwhile experience.  I have students from all over the world and each of them brings some unique life experience to the classroom with them.  Despite the inevitably challenges and difficulties ahead I'm finally confident that the choice to come start my teaching career abroad in Macau was the right one.

There's way more that's happened during the week that I have time to tell you all about unfortunately.  I have lessons to prepare and you have better things to do with your life than read my blog so that's all I'll give you for now.  Check back again next week and I'll give you an update about meeting students' parents for the first time for curriculum night and some other things I've been up to.

P.S. If you were wondering how small Macau really is, I've run different TIS teachers all weekend (asides from the ones I arranged to meet with) and I saw my students at the grocery store and at church.  Remember I've only been teaching for a week.  At this rate I'll meet my whole class before Christmas.