And what a first day it was!

As you can probably tell by looking at the picture I really had my hands full.
I have to say that today was probably the most hectic crazy first day that I've ever had! There were so many funny stories about today that I don't know where to start. There are a lot of differences between these kids and kids in the states. I think the biggest difference is that these kids are never really encouraged to think for themselves and so that is such a novel concept. Today I had so many students raise their hands to ask if they could throw something away, or raise their hands to tell me that they were hot. My first response was to just be like, "You know, solve that problem, you are in 4th grade!" I didn't say that exactly but I can tell that that is going to be a struggle for me to either get used too or to get my kids used to the other way of thinking. It was a little, oh alright, a lot crazy because most of us didn't have current class lists and so we were just guessing. I had one boy in my class for like 2 hours before anyone realized he was in the wrong class! So on to some comical things. One of my kids is named Fadi, which is a pretty common name here, but I felt like I was insulting him all day long. I guess that's the most comical actual event, but the whole day just made me laugh, because what else can you do. As my friend Adam said, "you know it's going to be a rough day when you (the teacher) are stuck in a traffic jam, caused by most of your students being ahead of you on the street!" And that is so the truth, from the very beginning I had kids, about half my class was in the classroom before I even got there. Now those of you who taught with me know that that's really nothing unusual but here's the wierd part. I got there at 7:30! I know, pretty amazing huh?!
Anyway, before I close I wanted to include a picture, which pretty much shows that although it might have been a rough day, with a view like this it can't be that bad! :)