School Days

Ahh, the first day of school.  Was it You've Got Mail that mentioned "bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils"?  Well, okay, technically this is the second day of the school year, and I don't use pencils (I even forgot my pen this morning - oops!), but it is my first day in a classroom, so it counts.  Thanks to building construction, the campus hasn't really gotten any noisier, but the construction noise is now augmented by hundreds of students, and the craziness of the first week of school prevails.  But sitting on my back porch, surrounded by trees, the noise is muffled, and I can steal an hour to talk about my "first" day of school.
Yesterday I spent doing mostly clerical work in the college counseling office, but today I joined the English teachers of Psychico College bright and early in their conference room.  As they hurriedly drank coffee, ate breakfast, and sorted out schedules in a mix of English and Greek (sometimes even in the same sentence), I reflected on how much I love the culture behind education (even if, this time, I only understand half of it).  I was reminded of the (many) days I spent in the Math Department office of my high school, listening to the teachers converse among themselves, outside of the classroom.  But the idea that I am a teacher - now that one I'm not quite used to!
I realized that I am still fully in the student mindset when I introduced myself to a class full of 7th graders by my first name.  Miss York - now when did I grow up?  But it was standing in front of this class, telling them to be quiet, talking about what I should do while I'm in Greece that I thought - hey, I can do this.  And I even enjoy it!  I'm new to the language, the country, the school - even to teaching.  So I'm either crazy or courageous, but I'm off to quite a start.

The Benakio building, which houses the lykeion (high school, grades 10-12)
of Athens and Psychico Colleges. Thanks to last year's fellow, Chris Duffy, of
"The Daily Feta" at http://thedailyfeta.blogspot.com - b/c I stole your photo.