First Day of School

So I learnt today that the first day of school can be as daunting for a "staff member" or teacher as it is for a new student!
 
The boarders all came back last night and there was much squealing and hugging from the returning students and some nervousness from the new ones. It's amazing how clearly I remember my first day at Selborne. I even remember what was for supper that evening! Lots of memories came back last night.
 
Anyway, the first day of school went off pretty well actually. I'm mostly helping out with the littlies in junior school and I was a little bit nervous about that just because I don't consider myself to be very good with kids :/ but turns out that I can handle it (with a little effort)! Yay! Also, the teacher who I am assisting is amazing (I almost wish I was a student in her class!) so I'm going to learn a lot from her. Tomorrow, I'll be going through some basic DEL (Dept. of Enhanced Learning) training so hopefully by next week I'll be helping out some of the littlies who don't speak English as a first language. I think this is good for me. Teaching little ones takes a lot of patience, watching what you say and how you say it and being upbeat and I want to be all of these things! And I also want to be a good mommy one day so I'm thinking this is really good life-lessons :) Isn't it amazing when you learn a whole lot from teaching? I think it is.
 
It definitely is a challenge getting some of the older students to take me seriously though. Firstly, I'm shorter than all of them (and this was a problem even when I was a prefect to Std. 7 girls!). Secondly, I was a student so I relate to them a little too well and so they think, "oh she remembers, she can understand and let this pass..." and that's true to a certain extent... I do remember wanting to stretch my bed time as far as possible, confusing the prefects and IGs and trying to take them for a ride, etc, etc. But I also have a responsibility and am accountable so it's kind of hard to find a balance between being their friends and also being strict and getting them to do what they're supposed to do. Oh gosh, I have a whole new respect for the work that the staff do here. It's definitely not easy and you need to seek wisdom every single step of the way.
 
Anyway, tomorrow is a new day and drama rehearsals start tomorrow which I am excited about but also a tad bit nervous about! It's a huge project and there's going to be loads to do but I do have an amazing team of people backing me up so I'm really glad about that! And really grateful. It's gonna be goooooood!
 
Better be off to bed and hopefully tonight I won't get woken by scared girls knocking at my door! Yeah, that happened last night... *sigh*
 
More later :)