Working again

I started back to work on Tuesday. It was kind of an easy slide back into work - sort of a "working vacation". All of the teachers at Ekeberg went to an overnight retreat at a hotel about an hour north of Oslo. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday doing some "team-building" exercises, which were somewhat okay. The fun part of the retreat was the social aspect, though. The food was very good (and free) and we had a fun time hanging out Tuesday night. I really like everyone I work with! This is Norway, though, so of course I got to bed way too late Tuesday night (actually 3 o'clock Wednesday morning). Breakfast at 7:30 the next morning was tough.

And today was back to reality again. Work - at work. Today was a full day (from 8 until 4) of planning for the upcoming school year and all of that kind of stuff. The hard part is the fact that there are six of us in my 3rd grade team who have to come to a consensus. By about 2 o'clock, I'd had more than enough. But, I made it all the way to the end...And tomorrow we have pretty much the whole day to get our classrooms ready for the first day of school, which is on Monday.

I saw some of my students today. Although school hasn't started yet, the afterschool/vacation program is open. It was really good to see them - they were excited, and so was I. I wrote a letter to each of my students (actually, they all got the same letter) telling them that I hoped they had had a fun summer and that I was excited to see them again when school started. I sent it to them in the mail on Monday, and the one's I saw today were pretty happy about that letter. I ran into one mom who also commented on it. Nothing like kissing up to the kids and their parents before the start of a new school year!!