Kate Goes to Work...kinda

So I kind of HEART the English department at my school, which we'll call MBO. I went in today to be divied up amongst the teachers, who wants me in what class and when. This part is actually pretty important, so I was slightly nervous, but not nearly as much as the first time I was there. I arrived on time and walked into the teacher's lounge where I was greeted by a pack of English teachers sitting around complaining about coffee and being sarcastic with one another. I didn't really jump into the fray as it were at first, but when it became clear that this was also ok on my part, I did.

A Word on Teacher's Desks: We were told in our training that teachers in their lounge were sometimes quite territorial about their desks, so when my BL (BetreuungsLeherin--German (n), someone who keeps me out of trouble) let me sit at a teacher's desk, I was worried, and when the owner of said desk returned, I popped up. This was for a relatively young teacher, and he found this VERY amusing.


Our teachers' room is kind of like this but without the cross and the organization

Apparently, due to a malfunctioning heater, the first 3 classes of the day have been cancelled, so there was much Sturm and Drang about that, but for me it just means I can wake up at a more reasonable hour, not that I'll be coming to school anytime before Tuesday, though!

So we got me kind of in the schedule for the next week at least, not the 12 hours I'm supposed to work, something a bit less (don't tell Condi Rice, she'll open a can of whoop-ass on me!), but I'll work to make it a good run. When this was over I got to caucus with some of the students, just to figure out how much English they knew. This turned out to be a bit awkward, since we didn't have a set theme, and so we stuck to a few themes:

*mopeds
*the marks on one of the kids necks (what's the German word for those?)
*Hasselhoff (two of them serenaded me)
*School and the general lameness of everything
Very topical things.

Then back to the lounge, where another one of the teachers repeated the Hasselhoff song (THREE TIMES IN ONE DAY, PEOPLE! IT'S NO LIE!), and then, having nothing better to do, about 4 of us went to lunch. This was actually pretty fun, because the art teacher offered to show me around Berlin, and I told her that, though Philippe is in town this weekend, I will take her up on it at some point. Who knows? Could be cool. One teacher was talking up his facebook account where he cleverly inserted a picture of a monkey for the profile, and the other teacher, whose desk I invaded, Texas style, turns to me and says "See, he does this because he has no kids. He REALLY needs kids" After lunch I just headed home, kind of tired but with a very optimistic outlook on the next year.