Greetings from Greencastle

Phew! I can't believe my first week of teaching is already over. It was a BUSY week and I definitely had my work cut out for me, but already knowing the students, the school routines, and the curriculum helped tremendously. I'm kind of amazed by how NOT stressful this week has been as far as school is concerned. I can tell people have been praying for me and I appreciate it!!

I'm posting from school because I still can't get internet in my apartment, and I came in today to do some work on the classroom. Yesterday after the kids left I rearranged their desks, and this morning I worked very hard on a huge wall display about the fruits of the spirit. Making the tree was the hardest part!! I'm going to work through the fruits of the spirit with my students this year and each month we'll look at one of the fruits in depth, learning how we can display this that particular fruit in our lives. I'll try to post pictures of the tree and the rest of my classroom as soon as I free up some memory on my camera. :)

My apartment is beautiful and came stocked with about 90% of the things I need to get by. What a life saver! It even came with an alarm clock in the bedroom, haha!! I'm still looking/waiting for a TV but that's not a necessity so it's not at the top of my list. My building is extremely quiet, and after almost 10 days of living there, I have yet to see one of my neighbors. I see people in the parking lot from a distance, and I hear doors slamming and people talking down the hall, but I have yet to actually SEE another tenant inside the building. It's almost eerie. Another thing that makes my building unique is that it used to be the Putnam County Hospital. The structure has been there since 1922 according to the cornerstone, but the inside was remodeled and modernized and now it's apartments. It still says Putnam County Hospital on the front, and they left the ER entrance pretty much as is - there's a ramp that leads right up to the door. Also, I'm guessing the elevator has been there for awhile too - it's a big hospital type elevator and is somewhat temperamental. Looks are deceiving though, because once you get into my apartment, the difference is like night and day. I have beautiful cream carpet, linoleum in the kitchen and TILE in the bathroom! I'll post pictures soon.

My first night I crawled into bed and was amazed by the silence and lack of light coming in from the huge windows above my bed. After four years of trying to sleep in Chicago, I could get used to sleeping like this! The silence was almost deafening. Then I thought, "Oh my word...people DIED here!!" If you know me, you're probably laughing now because you know that ended my happy thought... I pulled my blanket up to my shoulder and squeezed my eyes shut, praying for sleep to come quickly.

Well, I have a few math papers to grade here but I want to leave you with my first kid quote of the school year. When asked on a reading test, "What did you learn about friendship from this story?" one of my third graders wrote, "Friendship is better than vegibals." AMEN!!