1 week, 2 cockroaches, multiple spiders and 32 students later...

It has been one crazy week! We finished moving into our apartments on Saturday and I did some serious deep cleaning--and by deep cleaning I mean soaking the perimeter of my place in Raid Bug Barrier to try to end the war on bugs before it began. This had the added benefit of making all the spiders come out of their little hiding places into the centers of rooms, where I could seek and destroy them. I also found one roach in the first day or two and managed to kill it and throw it away all by myself--however, as I'm the only one who's found a roach so far  and so early I don't know if that bodes well for this apartment. And, as I was thinking of what I was going to write this morning, and feeling happy that I could only report one roach, I was rudely intruded on by another in the bathroom this morning. = P Not happy about that, but roach killers are up, I have more saved for later, and hopefully they won't be too big of a problem (crosses fingers).

Our apartment is pretty nice and it's starting to feel like home. I'll take pictures soon, but I've been waiting to put up more pics so it feels a little bit more homey. I love being able to live in the same complex as 4 other ALCS staff--we can talk to each other through the windows, have Harry Potter parties every night while we plan, and most of all one of the guys here--Christian-- has been incredibly helpful in cleaning up stuff for us, taking care of bugs, and getting our wifi set up (besides the Hondurans living with us, he's the only one fluent in Spanish). Also, Shannon Hopkins also fixed my shower so I could hot water. The showers here are a little sketch--there's wiring within the shower head that heats a coil that heats the water right before it comes out of the spout. The first night, a friend and I were messing with the water settings, and the whole shower head was sparking and lit up bright red--we thought it was going to explode! The fuse or something inside blew and so Shannon replaced that for me, as well as cleaned out the shower head so that the pressure was better.

Sunday was a great day--In Honduras, all churches are generally at night, but we got up early and went to a house church that Shannon and Kristi Hopkins help coordinate. They don't have so much of a worship service as it's a children's ministry, so generally we'll play with the kids there, teach them a Bible lesson, and have a craft and recreation time as well. After getting back to that, we went to the bigger market (there are two markets in town, but on Sundays there are a lot more vendors in the morning at the market only 5 min from our place) and bought some fruits and veggies. I got a bunch of avocadoes, some mini bananas, and some weird corn. My new bread and butter here will be eggs, avocadoes, and tortillas---I've eaten that at least once a day since Saturday (and for those of you who know I generally dislike eggs, they're filling and cheap). After some time to rest on Sunday, we went to a church in Gracias for their evening service. The rain was torrential, so between the rain and the mics the speakers used it was really hard to hear them, much less understand. I was able to understand a little bit of the sermon, and it helped a lot that the pastor used some emphatic examples--trying to pull a fake tree up and 'out of the ground' to demonstrate being rooted in Christ and "la Palabra de Dios," the Word of God.

The rest of the week has been preparing like crazy. This week, we were picked up by the bus at 7:05 to arrive at school by 8ish. I'm desperately trying to turn myself into a morning person, especially as once school starts on Monday, we get picked up at 6:10! Fortunately, it gets dark early here (around 6:45 or 7ish it's already dark) and light really early (4am ish? I haven't woken up yet to find out when exactly : P ) Our days have started with devotions and then we were free to decorate our classrooms and plan the curriculum. Unfortunately, we were given our curriculum in pieces and have been so busy trying to get everything decorated that not much planning has happened yet. Most people didn't get all their curriculum until yesterday (myself included) and we're still missing things.

On the classroom end of things, I'm really pleased with how it turned out (pictures coming soon). I'm trying to develop a good organizational system here but it's difficult when there are no such thing as hanging file folders (!) or other good storage units. That will be a struggle this year I believe, but I'm doing my best with what I have to work with. If anyone is going to send me a care package, please send like 20 hanging file folders, please!

On the teaching side of things, I feel so overwhelmed and nervous now, though still excited to begin. Coming here, I thought I had 28 students in 5th grade. This week, I've learned I have 32! One of the fourth graders from last year is not returning, so I have 5 new students. 2 of them are repeating 5th grade, 1 is coming from nivelacion, which is a 6? month intensive english language program ALCS does to try to prepare students to enter a bilingual school for the first time (so who knows what his English will be like), 1 came here with his sister who is a teacher here, and the last one I know nothing about. Needless to say, I'm really nervous about the class size in general and the impression I've received that there will be quite a few students who will struggle greatly either academically or behaviorally. On top of that, I have a pile of books and need to do some major planning and scope and sequencing today to try to prepare for this coming week at the very least.

In the good news, though, I got my personal schedule and I have an average of 3 45 minute prep periods per day. Here's my schedule day by day:

Hours/Day	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
7:40-8:00	Devotions	Devotions	Devotions	Chapel	Devotions
8:00-8:45		7th Math	5th Math	Penmanship
8:45-9:30
9:30-9:50	Recess	Recess	Recess	Recess	Recess
9:50-10:35	5th Math	5th Math		5th Math	5th Math
10:35-11:20	Language	Language	Language	Language	Language
11:20-12:05	7th Math		7th Math	7th Math	7th Math
12:05-12:45	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
12:45-1:30	Spelling	Spelling	Spelling	Spelling	Reading/Seatwork
1:30-2:15	Reading/Seatwork	Reading/Seatwork	Reading/Seatwork	Reading/Seatwork
2:15-3:00

Please pray for me this weekend and in the coming week that planning will go well, I won't feel too stressed out but can work well yet, and that all the beginning of school stuff will go well. Pray that I'll be confident and consistent with the students from day one so they know they must obey the rules and procedures (otherwise this will be a loooooong year). Praise God that I have the planning periods, especially at the end of every day and that I'm surrounded by so many extraordinary, helpful people.

~Emily