Long Time Coming

I apologize to those of you who had been checking my site for the past month and were left disappointed after finding out that yet again, I had not posted. Needless to say, I should have been more diligent in this past month about keeping everyone updated—forgive me. Tomorrow will make it officially one month since I arrived in Thessaloniki, and two weeks since school has started. Now I suppose that all of you don’t know exactly what I am doing here (as I myself found out upon arrival) so I will give you a brief rundown.

Most mornings my day starts at 7:00am and I either make sure that all the kids are up and out the door, or escape to the gym for a quick workout depending on the day. Unfortunately, I do not have a designated class that I teach during the school day, which is a bit disappointing. Instead however, I get to bounce around and experience all secondary grade levels and teach a whole array of lessons. I am in charge of teaching an SAT prep class which will begin next week; I think that 40-50 students are forecasted to sign up for this course which makes me a bit nervous since I only have 2 hours a week with them. I am an advisor for three different extra-curriculars: debate, newspaper, and an International Relations Mentorship program. The first two are fairly self-explanatory, but they last one is the one I am most excited about. I am designed a club for the kids who are interested in careers in the international affairs field. We meet once or twice a week to discuss current events and debate political issues. In addition to that, I am working on convincing a few of the embassies to host us through-out the semester so that the kids will get the chance to meet real diplomats and hopefully discuss their ideas with them. When that becomes more concrete, I’ll let you know.

The next two months should be fairly busy for me as well, as I have agreed to look over all of the senior’s applications who are applying to American Colleges. So far I have only met with two of them, so I have about 45 more to go. I am also helping out our affiliated University by working in their study abroad office writing for their newsletters and being a contact for both exchange students and abroad institutions. If that isn’t enough, my nights are spent in the dorm with the kids making sure they complete their homework (and in free time playing Apples to Apples!). Oh yes, and I am learning Greek twice a week at the University.

So for now, that is my life. I promise that I will post more this week (probably this weekend to be honest) to update you on the culture and events that have gone on in the past month. I just needed to sit down and get the ball rolling by making my first post of the school year.