The First Day of School

I felt like it was appropriate to give this title to this day. It was. MY FIRST DAY OF REALLY TEACHING!!!! All my own, just me. I feel like such a grown up and understand just like every other teacher does, I'm sure, how much you "fake it til you make it" as one of my roommates Shannon likes to say (the authority part here, people). As a student, most of the time you can't even tell when a teacher is uneasy about their role and status. They're THE TEACHER; end of story. A couple times throughout the day I remember thinking to myself, "Am I really doing this right now?? Am I really an official teacher?!" Yes I am, Woodstockers, yes I am.

1. Something that hurts. MAN those hills are hard on your knees! My knees are a bit achy and they HATE going down hills even more than going up! It's not that bad, just annoying.

2. Something different. This past Saturday was the day our school provided the new staff a chaperoned trip down to Dehradun (1.25 hr. down the mountain). There we would acquire all sorts of home furnishings to help us settle our roots deeper into this rocky soil. So after first making some purchases at a rug and textile shop (where all of the items are made by a leper colony), we jetted our way down a "short cut" road that would take us to our next stop. Apparently EVERYONE ELSE in DD that day also knew of the "short cut" and decided to drive it at THE SAME TIME. Basically we found ourselves in an Indian traffic jam, backed up on both sides of the road at times, but especially in ours. Those motorcycles would weasel their way in between cars like usual. And we were stuck, going nowhere, until our driver decided it'd be best to head back the way we came. "Okay, how are we going to do that??"...famous last thought.

Well, THIS is how we'll do that.

Our driver begins the 17-point turn to try to get us out of our lane and into one of the sporadic openings in the right lane (remember, Indians drive British-style), but quickly finds that that option is too slow and is starting to back up the on-coming traffic even more. So what does one do in a situation like this?? ONLY THE LOGICAL THING TO DO: REVERSE REVERSE!! REVERSE REVERSE! Thank you cha cha slide. Our driver slams it into reverse in the right lane and we're out of that jam faster than an earwig can crawl out of my cinnamon package. Too bad I left the ground stuff in Wisconsin...

3. Something VERY different. The other day the whole staff was invited to a short communion service before school began. I was sitting in my chair, receiving the Body of Christ, when I happened to notice something peculiar to me on the alter. "No..." I thought to myself, "it isn't!" as I comically arrived at my own conclusion about what might be served next. As it so happened, that afternoon in a small chapel in Mussoorie, India, I was served orange-mango juice, the Blood of Christ.

Here are a few pictures of my walk to school--The First Day of School. The sun is rising on what will be both a hard-working and wonderful year at Woodstock School.