Week 5

School

School has been going well. I can see myself taking charge more and being more initiative in the library. I also kind of feel a little bit like it's my library.... the long overdue list today kinda stressed me out--I want those books back! heh heh.

We have been doing inventory at the library, and that is a brain frier. I did the non-fiction in two days alone. Then it was time to do fiction... J. said she would help me with that because it's a lot harder. And she was right. It is time consuming. We did inventory all day yesterday and I could barely think afterward. We are about done now.

The fiction is kind of a mess. Sometimes there are a few copies of one book and they each have their own catalog record. Really, though, you just need one record that says how many copies there are. Some of the book series are messed up too. Certain books have the wrong record saying it's a completely different title, etc. The librarian before J. was the husband of the woman I was with at Wetzel for that first week and a half! Imagine that! How funny yet not funny.

I get to be completely in charge in the library tomorrow. J. will be gone at a big meeting and R., the Educational Technologist who's office is in the library, has been gone all week. So it's just me. And I'm excited. There's even a class coming in during second period that I will do a lesson with.

This ninth grade English class has written myths. Now they will make their myths into children's books to share with first graders. I will be talking to them about children's books and even reading a book to them. It should be fun. I'm kind of nervous. They'll probably think it's stupid. Oh well!

Heat

Yesterday, the place that supplies heat to the base had some sort of problem and the heat went out everywhere. It was back on in the schools pretty soon, but could take about two hours for the water to travel through pipes to get here. Then we realized at our apartments that the heat was out, as was hot water. Crapola. Even though it'd been in the upper 40s and sunny all week, it gets cold at night.

We woke up this morning hoping the heat was back on. Nope! Since we're in Europe, we have one of those typical shower heads that is attached to the cords, so it's hand-held if you want it to be. That's how I bathed this morning with freezing water. Eeek! It took a while to get warmed up this morning after that.

After school today the heat was STILL not back on. Someone made a call to the school liaison to see what we should do. Apparently the heat was back on base everywhere yesterday and they forgot about us! Annoying..

So the liaison told us to call this certain emergency number. Liz did that.. thank goodness! Because our heat was back on by 7 p.m. Looks like I can actually take a hot shower tomorrow morning. Wooo.

Travel

Disappointing news came at school today: the tour to Bruges I was SO looking forward to this weekend was canceled because not enough people signed up for it. Terry, Jenna, and I were the only ones from our BSU group who signed up. So instead, Terry is going to drive us to Rothenburg. It seems like a pretty awesome place, so I'm looking forward to that.

We found tours through USO that go all sorts of places. There is one going to Bruges this Saturday. I called the office this evening (they're open until 10 p.m.!), but that trip is full. A few others that sounded pretty good still had 4-6 spots left. You can't book over the phone! You have to go to the actual office on Ramstein's base.

There is a tour through USO on March 12. Kaye, the Wetzel counselor, offered to take Terry to Ramstein on Sunday if she needed to shop. So we plan to make that little outing so we can book the Bruges tour in March (the USO offices are even open on Sundays in Ramstein!). I want to go to Bruges so badly, so I am REALLY hoping this will work out! :) It's cheaper than the other tour too...plus!

Egypt Update. I've been waiting until everything was official before I posted any of it.

We got spring break worked out. The airline let us switch different flights. So Jenna and I will be going to Dublin, Ireland on the late evening of Thursday, April 7. We booked a nice hostel for that night... and our tour departs Friday morning from that hostel! We will be going on a tour of Southern Ireland on Friday, Saturday, Sunday April 8-10. We return back to Dublin Sunday evening. We will have that evening that the next morning in Dublin to do what we please. We booked that same hostel for Sunday night. We fly out of Dublin on Monday, April 11 at 3:30 in the afternoon to London. Yay!!!!

After that, spring break was already planned. London (Jenna and Lindsey with a day trip on the 13th to Stonehenge, inside Windsor Castle, and to Bath that still needs to be booked). Leave on the 14th to fly to Amsterdam. On the 15th, we will go on a tour to see Zaanse Schans Windmills, Marken and Voldendam to see windmills, cheese, and wooden clogs. That is just a half-day trip, so that afternoon/evening we can go see Anne Frank's house. I hear it is beautiful in Holland in the spring because of lots of flowers, especially tulips. Can't wait! :)

April 16th we're taking a super cheap bus back to Germany and will have Sunday the 17th to rest up before school on Monday!

Things are working out and I'm excited for the semester. Planning these trips can get very stressful at times, but it is so worth it. I love my student teaching placement. I love everything I get to do on the weekends. Even though I took a cold shower and spilt coffee on my pants at school today (rinsed it off quickly and no stain!), I didn't let it get me down because life is good. Way good. I am so lucky to have this chance to live in Germany for a semester, work with some great teachers, intern under a great librarian who I think is awesome outside of librarianship too, and travel on the weekends in Europe.