Good Bye Farmgirl, Hello Mrs. Rucker

This week is the beginning of our lives as Elgin Owls.  It is funny really . . . We have Cyril phone numbers, live in Fletcher's district, have a Cement address, and felt like those variants were not enough so we topped it off with school in Elgin.  I had the first of two days of teachers' meetings Monday.  I had met the principal, asst. principal, and the woman whose position I was taking while she became the librarian.  That is it.  I had not met any of the English teachers. Needless to say, I don't like to be at that sort of disadvantage, but that has not stressed me as much as I expected. My stress manifests itself in grouchiness, not sleeping, and eye twitching, among other OCD behaviors like obsessive house cleaning.  Last year, my eye twitched all summer over school.  It has not twitched yet this summer.  I really have not been too worried.  I have this general attitude that I will just do my best.  It will either  be enough or it will not. But anyway, I walked into that meeting not knowing very many people.  

I was one of the first people there and all the tables were still vacant except one that was totally full.  I picked a table and sat.  And sat. And sat.  After what seemed like eternity, but was really only 15 minutes, the librarian showed up and joined me.  Soon two more friendly ladies sat down and I had made my first three friends in Elgin.   The handful of women who made it a point to be friendly made my day so much easier.   At some point in the day, one of my table mates had put a ceramic owl (not tacky cutesie but definitely funky cute) and an Elgin t shirt on my desk.  It is way too big, but that is not the point.  When I saw them, big fat tears welled up and I just wanted to race back to my old lunch bunch in my old school where I knew the lay of the land.  It was just the nicest gesture, but it made me want to run back to a place where I did not need nice gestures quite so badly.  The bestower of gifts has the room right across the hall and I know I am going to like her a lot, though there is no replacing the friends I left behind.  I had been with them so long, some were family.  As it turns out, I will be a class sponsor with owl lady.  One thing I know for sure about her is that she has the best laugh.  It is like listening to Misti.

Today was the first day of class.  Bell and I got to the high school early so we walked  to Bell's building with the owl lady and her girls.  There is a lot of construction going on so we wanted to find the safest route for our kids and find a meeting spot for the kids so after school they could all walk back together.  There are 20 some elementary kids that belong to high school teachers, and we were hoping the older ones could escort the younger ones.

Bell was deposited and my day got busy with assemblies, going over school handbooks, passing out forms . . . You know all that boring first day stuff.  I even had lunch duty today, though I returned from lunch to find a box of "good luck" fortune cookies waiting for me.   The day went pretty smoothly even though I had to rely on the other teachers to keep in the loop since I cannot access my email yet.  Then last hour arrived, and with it came the first kids of the day to challenge me.  When I offered to let them have bottled water, they argued about wanting to have Gatorade.  Then it was why could they not have chips if I did not mind gum.  Hopefully, they now get the idea that if they get mouthy, they get nothing.  I am sure they were just testing me, but I had to dig out the Wicked Witch of the West routine nonetheless.  

At the end of the day, one of the fellow teachers once again reached out and made me part of the group. We had planned on a student aid going to the elementary with a list of the kids to make sure they got back okay since this was the first day, but thankfully, one of the teachers decided to go instead. Apparently when she got there, there were so many other kids waiting on moms in the same area as our children, that our kids could not find each other.  She found all our babies, including mine.  In the meantime, I had realized they were late and headed over my self.  By the time I got there, Suzanne had found a safer meeting place for the kids and gone over the steps of where to go when and what to do if they couldn't find the group.  I was really touched that she made sure she found Bella.  I know, I know.  It is just what any mom would do, but still.  It was important.

I am not even going to think tonight about the vocabulary lessons I don't have or any of that.  This week is busy enough.  There is a command appearance for us to be at the school ice cream social tomorrow evening.  Friday is a much needed back adjustment and a birthday dinner for Harold.  The vocabulary will still be there next week.