FINALLY, My First day of teaching

I’d like to say that my first day of teaching went ok. Michael, that beautiful bald man, has managed to convince me – via reverse psychology – that I’m actually ridiculously cool under pressure. My director, who apparently came over to listen to me at some point, mentioned later that I was talking a lot. I made jokes, mostly because the only three questions I got in all four aulas were “How old are you?” / “Are you single?” / “Do you have any children?” I am 60, single, and I have 30 children; or, maybe 20 children. I couldn’t remember, probably due to beginner’s onset Alzheimer’s. I sweated a lot, but for my first real lesson, speaking in a foreign language in front of a couple hundred real students, I did ok. Not well, but ok, and ok is a good place to be.

Things that I need to work on: if giving aulas were a race, I’d win every time. I had so much extra time from giving the 2 aulas worth of material that I managed to cram into one lesson – I have no idea how – that I reviewed the material. I write everything on the board that I want them to know, and underline key words that should help them remember the concepts. I broke down the word biologia into “vida” and “ciencia”, but they didn’t know what the hell Greek was, so I just told them it was an old language. I hope they aren’t panicking right now about how hard 8th grade will be, because their teacher is a nazi who just finished 4 years of college science and has no idea how to process information when it isn’t condensed into an impossibly small time-frame. Breathe, myself. You did well. I wonder why I’m panicking now, when I managed to get through it calmly?

On the way home, some drunk guy asked me to passear with him, but I negared. Then, almost to my house, I heard some kids say, “A Dona esta aqui!” and scatter from my sand pile. I pretended to chase them from it, until I climbed it myself and struck a celebratory king-of-the-sand-pile pose. I’m a comedic genius.