My First Day at Masago Chugako
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: Twenty-four days till Xmas
A new school, new teachers, new students. Masago is only about 3 miles from my apartment so I get to sleep in a few extra minutes in the morning. I take the same route that I have been using but just turn off sooner. Our office looks out onto the bay and there is a gorgeous curved bridge that has the sun shining on it most afternoons. Gorgeous. This is a newer school than Hamako but still no heating in the classrooms and, I'm sure, no air conditioning either. It's hard to beleive that I was wearing as little as possible just a few months ago. Now I'm wearing almost everything I own at once. A neck scarf and gloves are a must during chilly bike rides to work in the morning. I have found that a t-shirt under my turtleneck and then a sweater vest over that and a jacket is pretty cozy for now. I know it's going to get colder and I have my little handwarmers sitting in my desk drawer for when my fingers start freezing. These hand warmers are made of some chemical that when it hits the air it heats up. There are sticky ones to stick to your back under your jacket. These are supposed to be very effective at keeping your core temperature up there.

Masago is a little bigger than Hamako. I have 4 classes of 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. That's 12 different groups of 35-40 kids each that I get to work with. Change is always stressful and my first challenge is to memorize all the new teachers names and begin memorizing some of the kid's names. What fun.