Beginning Teaching

In which our Heroine successfully teaches three classes, gets hit upon by the night manager at her hotel, navigates Greenville in the rain and finds a Target where she purchases, among other things, a bubble umbrella.

(Side note: perhaps I need to lay off the 19th century novels for a bit!)

I love my job. I'm exhausted after day 2 of teaching, but I love it. This is what I was born to be. I was really nervous about my adult class, but it went well; it's small, but everyone worked really hard, which was encouraging to me. I had my little kids today; they're really funny. I had one little boy who wanted to tell me all about his dog-most of them are pretty shy, though. I'm amazed at how easily I slip into the role of teacher; it's definitely a lot more natural than I thought it would be. Tomorrow, I have 3rd graders, a 4th-5th grade mixed class, and a middle school class. I'm not really sure what to expect with them, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless.

As mentioned above, last night was weird. I realized that I had forgotten to pack toothpaste, so I went down to ask the manager for some. I was already in my sweats, wearing (what else?) a Meredith t-shirt, so when he asked me where I was from, I didn't think anything of it. I told him, and he goes "No, really?"

Thinking that was odd, I replied "Yes, really."

He responded "I would have sworn you were Portuguese or something"

My thoughts at this point: Portuguese?!?!? Um.... what?

My response: "Nope, both of my parents are Irish."

"Well, whatever it is, you wear it well. You're a pretty girl."

And then I walked away, toothpaste in hand, puzzling over the bizarreness of the encounter.

My last adventure (so far) has been driving in Greenville. This evening when I got back from dinner, my Twitter update read: Reason #45067 I will always be an MCG: my innate ability to find a Target in a strange city, no matter how lost I get there otherwise. I had been hoping I could find Target or a drugstore or something because I've had this sore throat since I got here and today's nasty rain didn't help at all. Sure enough, as I found somewhere to eat, I noticed a Target, so I ran in after eating and bought a DayQuil/NyQuil combo pack, some throat lozenges, a clear bubble umbrella (which I've been wanting for the longest time), and some dark chocolate. Hey, a girl has to celebrate a successful first week of teaching, right?

Now I'm in bed, getting ready to go over my lessons for tomorrow one more time. I teach all day tomorrow, then drive home in the evening and on Friday, I fly to Atlanta to teach all day Saturday and fly home Saturday night. I'm going to sleep all day Sunday, I do believe. Good thing I love my job so much!