Trick or Treat
October 28, 2007
Man what a week.
We had Parent Teacher conferences on Wednesday. That was a challenge as there is a lot of work that goes into those things. We had to have report cards ready and then we had to prepare for the conferences themselves. They took up the entire day. I started at 8 and finished at 4:30. I was wiped out.
Friday was the last day for one of my students. He and his three brothers have been at the school for several years, but now their family is moving to Detroit. He’ll have to get used to the snow. Friday evening was the annual Halloween party at the school. It was quite the event. It is a mandatory event for staff. They told us when we were hired that there would be certain expectations for after school activities. There would be certain events we would be expected to attend. Unfortunately, they don’t come right out and tell us which events these are. Instead they include a list of all events throughout the school year inside our Faculty Binder. There is a small star next to many of these things and further investigation reveals that those are, indeed, expected of us if we hope to receive our full bonus at the end of the year.
Anyway, the party was fun; there was lots of food and candy. There were performers and also a haunted house. At the end of the evening, kids got to go to the Early Childhood building and receive treats. The costumes were crazy! Our clientele is very well off and they spare no expense at outdoing others.
We got home around 9:30, stumbling off to bed by eleven so that we could get up and be back at school by 6:30 Saturday morning for another mandatory event called the Charity Road Race. Carrie walked the 5k (~3 miles) course while I stood at the finish line and marked down finishers. The guy who came in first completed the course in a little over sixteen minutes! After the race there was the awards presentation which was done entirely in Spanish and as such was really boring for me. Once that was over, we loaded up the car and headed for the beach with some of the other staff.
It was fun at the beach even if it did rain on and off most of the day. We climbed back in the car around 6 or 7 for the hour long ride home. We stopped by a little town on the way for empanadas and fresh fish and then we proceeded to get really lost. We made it most of the way back to Valencia before we made the wrong turn, but once we veered, it took us forever to find our way back. We finally made it home around nine, exhausted and a little stressed, but safe.
Today we hung out and did very little. Carrie had planned on doing some baking and I was excited to cook up my fish, but there is no gas when we turn on the stove so cooking isn’t going to happen today. Now the power is out too so we sit and find things to occupy our time while Zman naps.
There you go, another week in the life of the marauding teachers. Not much different from life at home, although we can’t understand most of what people say around us, but then I couldn’t really understand much of what those New Yorkers said either.
MJR
Man what a week.
We had Parent Teacher conferences on Wednesday. That was a challenge as there is a lot of work that goes into those things. We had to have report cards ready and then we had to prepare for the conferences themselves. They took up the entire day. I started at 8 and finished at 4:30. I was wiped out.
Friday was the last day for one of my students. He and his three brothers have been at the school for several years, but now their family is moving to Detroit. He’ll have to get used to the snow. Friday evening was the annual Halloween party at the school. It was quite the event. It is a mandatory event for staff. They told us when we were hired that there would be certain expectations for after school activities. There would be certain events we would be expected to attend. Unfortunately, they don’t come right out and tell us which events these are. Instead they include a list of all events throughout the school year inside our Faculty Binder. There is a small star next to many of these things and further investigation reveals that those are, indeed, expected of us if we hope to receive our full bonus at the end of the year.
Anyway, the party was fun; there was lots of food and candy. There were performers and also a haunted house. At the end of the evening, kids got to go to the Early Childhood building and receive treats. The costumes were crazy! Our clientele is very well off and they spare no expense at outdoing others.
We got home around 9:30, stumbling off to bed by eleven so that we could get up and be back at school by 6:30 Saturday morning for another mandatory event called the Charity Road Race. Carrie walked the 5k (~3 miles) course while I stood at the finish line and marked down finishers. The guy who came in first completed the course in a little over sixteen minutes! After the race there was the awards presentation which was done entirely in Spanish and as such was really boring for me. Once that was over, we loaded up the car and headed for the beach with some of the other staff.
It was fun at the beach even if it did rain on and off most of the day. We climbed back in the car around 6 or 7 for the hour long ride home. We stopped by a little town on the way for empanadas and fresh fish and then we proceeded to get really lost. We made it most of the way back to Valencia before we made the wrong turn, but once we veered, it took us forever to find our way back. We finally made it home around nine, exhausted and a little stressed, but safe.
Today we hung out and did very little. Carrie had planned on doing some baking and I was excited to cook up my fish, but there is no gas when we turn on the stove so cooking isn’t going to happen today. Now the power is out too so we sit and find things to occupy our time while Zman naps.
There you go, another week in the life of the marauding teachers. Not much different from life at home, although we can’t understand most of what people say around us, but then I couldn’t really understand much of what those New Yorkers said either.
MJR
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 12:33 AM
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