First Day of School, except not really

So today was billed as the "first day of school" but it's hard for me to feel like that is the correct way to describe what happened today...

Last Friday when we got our schedules (yes, that is when I actually found out what I'm supposed to teach) someone asked, casually, if Tuesday would be a half day like it had been in the past. The response was something along the lines of "hmm, I guess so. We have done that before" (as if this hadn't crossed anyone's mind yet this year). So apparently that was the plan. The students would come in, go in to the auditorium (actually, it's the "amphitheater" - that just seems like a grand description for what this place is) and listen to a little talk by our Superintendent (our new principal is en route from Egypt at the moment). After that the homeroom teachers (not me) would read off their list of students and take them to homeroom where they would get their schedules. The last part of the half day was supposed to be the kids coming around to each of their classes for about 10-15 minutes.

Except, and I guess I should have expected this at this point, that's not what happened.

Last night we got an email with the actual schedule for the day - Welcome presentation in the amphitheater, homeroom teachers - except no student schedules handed out and no shortened classes. No actual teaching required.

So that was day one. *sigh* oh well. I got a lot of organization taken care of in my classroom - which was great since most of yesterday I couldn't even get in there because they were putting in a new carpet. I got my syllabus copies. The carpet glue smell had another day to air out.

This afternoon we got our class lists and I suspect that a large part of my classes will involve me trying to pronounce the students' names and them laughing. Should be great.