At long last

Hi, everyone:) This is Sarah. Abby, you've made a great observation - I have been extremely busy the past couple of weeks - it really picked up momentum towards the end of last week, and it is just now starting to ease up. I've been staying till well after 7 most nights. I've been getting my classroom setup and trying to do lesson planning - it has all been quite the whirlwind of activity! I'll probably be doing a lot more planning this weekend, so I thought I'd take the time now and write. It may be a long post too, because I have a ton of things to tell you all! So, if you've got the time, pull up a chair and enjoy the read (hopefully:)
First of all, do you guys remember the stew for which Esau sold his birthright? Well... I had it for lunch yesterday! The way the stew is translated in the Korean Bible translates into this particular type of stew that I had (and of course, I can't remember the name!). It was made of red beans and some kind of long, spiraly noodle - it was so good! I don't know that it's birthright good, but it was quite delicious!
Yesterday was an awesome day! Though it was the first official day of school, we didn't actually teach. Here, they have a special ceremony to welcome students to their new grade. It began as the students exited the classroom to head up two flights of steps to the sanctuary. All students from the upper grades lined both sides of the hallways and stair wells and cheered at the top of their lungs for these little 1st graders! It gave me chills and I almost started crying as I thought of the significance - I was reminded of "the great cloud of witnesses" that we all have - I wish you all could have seen and heard it! It was loud and crowded - full of students cheering on this next generation! Two flights of stairs mind you!
During the ceremony there was an amazing martial arts performance by 4th and 5th graders. They were kicking and hand chopping through blocks of wood - and then as a climax, two students stepped out with these butcher knives, stuck apples on the tips, and two more students stepped out and kicked these apples from the tips! Everything was really dramatic - as they kicked through stuff, the broken pieces went flying high up in the air. I found out that students here start doing martial arts from 1st grade on. I was really impressed.
As the final part of the ceremony, parents came to their children and prayed for them. Then we (all the home-room teachers, I think there are 5 1st grade classes) passed out brand new Bibles to the students. Tucked inside the covers were letters written by the previous year's 1st graders. Everything was just so neat and really made the children feel very valued and important (which they are). I was very impacted by it all. It would be so cool if we could do something like this for our students in Pittsburg. (I was given one of the Bibles too, by the way:)
Anyway. Today! Today was fabulous:) I finally had students in my classroom for more than just 20 minutes! We still did not do a lot of teaching, as far as curriculum is concerned, but we, of course, spent a lot of time talking about rules and procedures - which is what we'll mostly be doing this week and for even a lot of the next month. The only subject that I'll actually teach for a while is language arts and Q.T. - Quiet Time. This is actually Bible time - it's the first thing we'll do every morning; I will teach this twice a week, my co-teacher will teach it twice a week, and we have chapel on Thursdays. There's actually a Tuesday morning (7:00) chapel just for teachers, and on Mondays there is a devotional time for each "Mini-School". This explanation might really make this post long, but I'll try to be brief. Here's how this school is set up: each grade band (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8) is its own "mini" school - each band has its own principal and "mini" office. The principals report to some other main guy (whose title I can't remember, and "guy" is way too casual of term to use!). It seems to work out really well. Anyway, I had Micah take pictures of my classroom so you could all see it - although there are so many things that I'm already planning to change! So it may not actually stay the way it looks in the pictures - but you'll get to see the huge window wall I have (which I love) and how big the classroom is; I'm pretty pleased with it all. Love you all, and thanks for enduring through my ramblings:) ~Sarah