It was about an hours drive and I was sweaty, sticky, dirty and sore from a weekend of lots of walking, dancing, and very little showering. Lucky for me, I have family just up the road from the school that I am staying with and made a quick stop there to shower and put on clean clothes before heading back to the school. When I got to their house, there was a woman cleaning the cabin that I would be staying in. Very sweet woman who suggested I shower up at the guest bathroom while she finished. When I got out and was getting ready I talked with her a little more. Mind you, so far she has seen me dirty and stinky and now clean but without any make-up, a towel in my hair, and not at all what I'd want someone's first impression of me to be. I then found out that her son was going to be in my classroom so she had a sneak preview of the new teacher. Oh well! I guess I'll have to get used to that in a small community. I'll ALWAYS have to be ready to run into students or their families.
I then jetted down to the school (a cool 3 minute drive) and got to work on my overwhelmingly dirty, messy, unorganized room. I was still in a bit of shock about getting the job and this didn't help. Luckily, the principal's daughters were there to help out and they took care of a lot of the manual labor while I tried to wrap my brain around what to do with my walls and furniture.
At this point, it was mid-afternoon and all I'd had to eat all day was a few dried bananas that my dad had given me and some crackers that had been in my car for a week. I was starving and low on energy and inspiration. The nearest grocery store with any kind of selection is 15 miles away, otherwise it is basically like corner markets and even those aren't close (except one but we'll get to that later). Thankfully, my family invited me up for dinner that night and made delicious steak, rice, green beans, tomato-cucumber salad, and pie. Oh, it was divine! I then went back down to my cabin and slept in my new bed for the first time.
In the morning, I awoke and was hungry again and still had no food. I didn't want to drive all the way to town to get food because I had so much to do at school to get ready and so little time. I decided that I would go check out the local store and hopefully find a granola bar or something. I had driven past this place several times now and it wasn't much. It looked pretty dirty from the outside and never had any cars out front, but it always said it was open. I pulled up in the gravel out front and the owner was standing out on the porch. He went inside as I approached and was behind the counter when I entered the door.
The place was practically empty! There were about three long rows of shelving but other than the very front of two of them, there was nothing on the shelves but dust. What they were stocked with was candy and chips. In the refrigerated section were about half a dozen six-packs and a few bottles of water. I didn't know what to think but felt like it would be rude to just turn around and leave after coming all the way inside.
The first thing the guy says to me is, "You look like a teacher!" I definitely had a picture-book confused look on my face and said, "I am a teacher." How did he know!? I was wearing a dress that I'd bought a while back for Mountain Dance and really don't think of as being all that teacher-y.
We started chatting then and I told him I'd just been hired at the school up the hill. He was kind enough to let me know at that point that this was mostly a beer store... So, maybe not where I should be shopping for breakfast at 9:30 in the morning. I grabbed a bag of chips, a candy bar, and a bottle of water and went to check out. He told me he'd give me the educators discount and charged me a flat $5.
The rest of our conversation went like this:
Him: "Have you found a place to stay yet?"
Me: "Yeah, I have some family up the hill so I am staying there until I can find my own place."
Him: "There isn't much around here. If I hear of something, want me to let you know?"
Me: "Sure! That would be great. Thank you."
Him: "Alright. I'll just call up to the school then and ask for the teacher from Oregon."
Me: "Oh. Yup, that'll be me."
Him: "I saw your license plate."
Me: "Oh ok. *nervous laughter* Well have a good day."
When I got to school and was telling the story, I was told to check the expiration dates on the things I'd bought because more than likely, they'd be expired. Sure enough, the chips had expired a couple weeks prior. A few days later, when I opened the Snickers, it literally crumbled out of the wrapper onto my lap. Gross! I don't think I'll be trying to do any emergency shopping there again.
The rest of the week went well with setting up my classroom and talking with other teachers. I had a really hard time planning for my students before i'd even met them and really didn't have much time between classroom clean-up and set-up, professional development and training, and then getting ready to head up to Portland to get all my stuff.
Our training included What to Do if There is A Mountain Lion on the Playground with Students. Our school has also invested in some super awesome new technology (iPads! Woohoo!) so that even out here in the country, our kids are not at a disadvantage over kids in the city schools. I thought this was funny since I am coming from the city and have never seen this nice of stuff at a school before. The only problem is that even though we have all this amazing new technology and some incredible techies who know how to use it, there is a bit of an issue with internet out here. Pretty much all of the apps or programs for these iPads and computers require internet, at least to download. Unfortunately, we have limited internet and just having ten of us trying to download an app at the same time completely stopped up the server and made it so nothing else would work. There is also a limit to how much internet we can use in a day so we need to make sure to not use too much otherwise the other classes and teachers will have to go without.
In the middle of our first day of professional development, the cook came in with an urgent message that a Deadly Storm was on its way our direction. Thunder, lightening and quarter sized hail were predicted to be hitting all around us and we needed to stay indoors. I sent the news link to my parents with my predicted future headline: New Teacher Struck by Lightening.
I got a real kick out of these small town problems. As much as I am going to miss staying caught up on New Girl and Castle and all my other favorite TV shows that I was used to watching on Hulu and Netflix, I am looking forward to reading more and being a healthier person. Everyone here is so nice and welcoming. They all seem happy to have me here and more than willing to help me in anyway.
My last day of my first week, I had planned to take off by 2:30 or 3 so I could go get packed up and then head up to Ashland for the night before going the rest of the way to Portland. At 3:30 I was still in my classroom and the custodian came in and told me another storm was on it's way and I needed to get out of there. "Leave," he said, "Go get your stuff and I don't want to see you back here 'til next week. Have a safe trip." I took that as my cue and off I went for a last amazing weekend in Portland.
The fresh food I can gather from the garden.
My little cabin
The red sun shining through the smoke and trees.
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