Woo Ha

Hello all. I apologize for the delay in our post. We finally moved into our new apartment and we did not have internet until this evening. So what to write about????

THE MOVE

Although we are both extremely happy to be in a place of our own - no roommates or living out of suitcase - the move was anything but smooth. We moved into an apartment that was previously housed by two teachers at SLP - Mark and Scott. We had heard rumours that they were not the cleanest of people, but both Gene and Jenny reminded them on Friday to clean so we were keeping our fingers crossed. We didn't have access to our apartment until past 2pm ( I guess the boys like to party!) At first glance things did not look so bad, but upon further inspection we were both disgusted at the state of the apartment. Our first instinct was the call Gene, but we soon found out that it was useless. All he said was "sorry, there is nothing I can do." How wonderful!

We will post before and after photos on our Yahoo photo album!

Every surface that could be cleaned needed to be cleaned and badly. Inside cupboards, outside cupboards, the fridge (inside and out), sweeping and washing floors, bathroom floor, tiles, toilet, all the dishes etc. It was horrible. To make matters worse the kitchen sink was clogged so we had to wash everything in the bathroom! To clean, rearrange the furniture and unpack took over 12 hours. We finally hit the sack at 3 am on Saturday morning. We were both glad that we had worked so hard the day before so we could semi-relax on Sunday. We spent the last day of our weekend relaxing and grocery shopping.

FIRST DAY OF WORK

We arrived nice and early on Monday morning with butterflies in our stomachs. The room where the mother's can watch their kids was so full that there were people standing outside the room. We knew that we had a audience and that made the case of the nerves much worse! Once I entered the classroom I completely forgot about the fact that people were watching. When I spoke to Paul later he told me that he felt the same way. The hardest part of the classes was monitoring time. Instead of the typical "running out of the time", I actually found that the class went too quickly and I had extra time on my hands. I am already adjusting my syllabus to remedy this situation.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Unlike what most people think, I believe that this job is going to be a lot of work. We are already pulling 9-10 hour days. Part of this is because we are new and we have yet to discover a more efficient way to complete the work, but part is that there is simply a lot of prep work to do for each class. Here is what a typical preschool morning schedule looks like for Monday-Friday....

9:40 - 11:00 am PRESCHOOL HOMEROOM

11:00 - 11:20 am SNACK BREAK (Teachers get a break as well)

11:20 - 12:40 am SECOND PRESCHOOL CLASS

12:40 - 1:20 am LUNCH (Preschool teachers serve lunch to their homeroom class - not included in our 21 classes a week)

1:20 - 2:20 pm ACTIVITY CLASSES (We teach an average of 3 classes per week - not included in our 21 classes a week)

We are required to teach 21 classes per week at 80 minutes each. As you can see we only cover 10 hours with our preschool schedule. We are VERY BUSY people. But once you get a routine down and become more efficient, it seems that most teachers are only working their 40 hours a week. Time will tell.

Well that's it for now. I will post those photos right after this. Drop us a line and let us know how you are doing!