I have had my new class now for a little over a week. The transition into the new school year was absolutely crazy. I had a lot of orientations to give because we had 4 new teachers, and a lot of lesson plans to write. We had one morning that the kids were not there so we could switch classroom and prepare for the new kids. The classroom that I moved into was left a mess by the previous teacher, so I spent more time cleaning up than I did decorating. It was also kind of hard because I didn't even know the English names for all of my students, so I couldn't label things. In addition, the school is short some basic needs for decorating classrooms, like laminating film, and the Velcro to put posters and stuff on the wall.

My new students are really good kids. Before the school year started, one of my students was described to me by his former teacher as "a super sweet kid, but he has random violent outbreaks that are almost psychopathic." I haven't actually had any problems with him, but it kind of had me scared for a while. I have been sick with some kind of the flu for a week now, so most of the time has been spent just trying to get through. Hopefully the next week will be a little easier, and I will be able to engage with my kids a little more.
It has really started getting warm. A few weekends ago I went running wearing a t-shirt.

Last week though, it randomly started snowing. The next morning was the most beautiful that I have seen since I had been here. The snow was nice and sticky so it stuck to the trees. It stayed on them for over 24 days and was absolutely breathtaking. It seems stupid that I was so awed by the snow. In fact if I were back at home I would be completely sick of it by now. Seeing a mountain full of trees covered with it was something different completely though. This is a sidewalk on my way to school. The left side goes strait up a mountain.

This was the view from the fifth floor staff room at my school. It is a narrow street between buildings, but it is covered in trees, which were then iced with snow.

Love you all, miss home a lot!