longest week ever.

Good lord i can't believe it's only been a week since i updated. And i don't have a whole hell of a lot of time, so i'll make this quick.

Last Tuesday: Visited my schools for the first time. Found out i have 3 schools instead of just one. Even though everyone was super-nice to me, ended up feeling very lost and alone. Sent out an e-mail to other assistants begging for company and got invited to spend the night at a house with 6 other assistants, which turned out to be a mixed blessing, because they we're so settled and happy that it only served to accentuate my state of flux.

Wednesday: MUCH MUCH MUCH better. Meeting of all the language assistants on the island. I found a place to stay while i look for a permanent place, lots of potential roommates, got to spend all day talking to people...it was such a relief.

Thursday: School. Just observed classes.

Friday: Moved into little tourist bungalow in St. Louis (in the south of the island, much much closer to school than where i had been staying), with JJ (John-James) from Oxford, and Vanessa from Tasmania who i will probably live with all year. That evening had dinner at the apartment of a Reunionais English teacher, Cesar, who took us to a Jazz club in St. Pierre.

Saturday: Cesar took JJ, one of the other American girls, Bridget, and I up to the mountains to swim in waterfalls...it was incredible. We jumped about 45 feet into a lagoon and were really really impressed with ourselves. That evening we went back to the jazz club.

Sunday: Went with JJ, Vanessa, and Cesar to watch Reunion play Madagascar and France play Italy in beach soccer, then came back to St. Louis to have apertifs with our landlords, Phillipe and Rachel, who are super nice.

Yesterday: My first real day of teaching. Nerve-wracking as hell, as at one of my schools i'm basically introducing a bunch of six year olds to the english language, all by myself. It was so scary.

But overall, things are good. A two-week vacation starts tomorrow, so we have lots of time to prepare for classes and find a permanent place to live. And life in the bungalow is quite cozy...we have fun conversations about our lives and politics and culture and teaching and the differences between American and British and Australian language and culture. So yeah...will try to update sooner and more coherently next time.

Love y'all.