Adjustments...

And just when I thought I was adjusting so well...

Don't worry, nothing bad happened, I just realized that maybe my adjustment wasn't happening as smoothly as I anticipated.  I made it through the first week of school, and that is going well.  School is school, I can snap into "teacher mode" in a matter of seconds, figure out what I need to do, and do it.  The kids are nice, and most of them are responsible and get their homework done.  I have a couple of boys that...well, we'll see how that goes.

What did happen is I realized that after school, I'm withdrawing from everyone.  I've read 4 books in the last week.  One of which, I realized after the fact, was 700+ pages long.  (The problem with using kindle/nook apps...you can't really see the size of the book.)  Since Tuesday, I've probably spent a total of 1 hour in the company of my roommates actually talking with them.  The rest of the times I've been by myself reading, facebooking, or e-mailing.  I haven't even really paid attention to school, until it became necessary.  So it hit me yesterday morning as I was reading my Bible and praying on the screened in porch (a GREAT place for devotions) that I'm not adjusting, because I'm not interacting.  I'm surrounding myself by the familiar as much as I can.  It could be in part that with school starting and more responsibility I need time to think and process...but not from 4pm until I go to bed, usually after 10 or 11.  I want to interact here, I want to really participate in life.  I don't want to spend the whole year hiding in my room (or the screened in porch, beautiful as it is...I'm really impressed with it if you couldn't tell).

So yesterday at the teachers meeting before school (we meet together about 15 minutes before school starts to make announcements and pray as a group) when Jennifer asked for prayer requests, I said that pray that I start to adjust and stop withdrawing from everyone, and I described what my roommates had already seen, and apologized for it.  It was good, they were really understanding about it. 

After school yesterday when I went home, no one was there...so I was going to write a blog entry then.  However, I heard noise coming from the house next door (video game noises), so I decided to make an effort and interact.  When I went over there (after knocking) I found three of my students playing video games in the guys' house...which seemed to be a fairly common occurance.  Scott, one of the teachers, was there too.  So I spent the afternoon/evening talking with people.  And it was good times.  When Melody (one roommate) came home, she came over for a while.  After the power went out about 9, Hannah, another teacher, joined us.  And the 5 of us (I forgot to mention that Lucas got home sometime around 6 and my students left shortly thereafter) talked and laughed until probably 10:30 or so.  I did spend a little time checking e-mail, but I definitely didn't start reading a book. 

Today I've been invited (or rather told) that I'm going to the Valle with a group of the teachers here.  More enforced interactions.  I'm looking forward to it, I want to get a purse because I didn't bring any of mine with me, and they sell these huge shoulder bags there.  I had a blue one for a few years before it finally wore out. [I bought it in 2006.]  They don't look overly large, but they can hold everything (okay maybe a slight overstatement, but only slight), and I loved it.  So I'm hoping to get another one of those.  I don't know how long we're planning on being out, we're leaving late morning so my guess is we'll eat lunch out there. 

My hope is, now that I've recognized what I'm doing, I'll be able to work through it (and now that I've brought it to the attention of the rest of the teachers here, a few of them will help me).  Scott told me that he did the same thing when he first got here...at least in terms of withdrawing...and now he's doing really well, so there definitely is hope. :-)  And actually, after yesterday and spending time talking and laughing with everyone, I'm already feeling better.  I just know I'm going to need to be intentional about spending time with other people and not totally hibernating in my room.  A little hibernation is okay, and for me, probably necessary...but definitely not as much as I have been doing lately.

Highlight of the week (well, other than spending time with everyone last night): one of my students came in and told me that now Math is her favorite subject, and she had never liked it before.  She also said that she told her parents that and they didn't believe her at first.  It made me smile.