One Month Anniversary!

This is the Aristotle market just a few blocks from my house. There are all kinds of tavernas, butchers, fruit stands and bakeries there. It is one of my favorite places to go.
This is a shot from Panorama.
Me trying to be artistic
This is the gang minus Mauro at Pella, it was very cold and windy.
These are the mountains behind Pella that I am going to try to visit. There is a town called Edessa in the foothlls that is supposed to be fantastic.



ONE MONTH!

Officially, as of Friday, February the 15th, I have been in Greece for 30 days, a.k.a. one month. I am not sure how I am effected by this; some days I feel like I have been here for so long that I forget about things from home; while, on other days I can not stop thinking about how new I am in this world. Did time flow like this when I was in the U.S.?

Things continue to go well here and I am finding myself busier everyday. My father’s last e mail to me finished with him saying, “Don’t work too hard.” Unfortunately, this does not seem to be a part of my job description at the moment. What really interests me is that the busier I get with the things that I am supposed to be doing, the more other opportunities that I feel like I cannot pass-up appear.

Opportunities I have taken advantage of:

• 
  I start tutoring this Wednesday for one of the students from Anatolia, an affiliated school, whose mother works at Pinewood. I will make 15 euro an hour. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on my perspective at any given time, they only want to meet with me once a week. On one hand this is great, it means way less prep for me, on the other hand, it kind of stinks because I will not make as much money, and on one foot, I do not know how effective or helpful I can be in just one hour a week. We shall see.
  



• During the first week of April I have agreed to take a paid substitute position in a 9th grade science classroom. My mentor teacher from 7th grade will be gone for a full week and has asked me if I would be willing to take over her classes and has passed it with the head councilor for me to receive substitute pay. Now this is not a lot of money, but it is some still.
  



• I have agreed to join a committee at Pinewood that will be headed by the language arts department. Their goal is to work on a program that reinforced writing across the curriculum. The principle of the school asked if I would be interested in joining, as she had read in my student teaching application that this is a specific interest of mine. This was one of the stresses in my education in the language arts curriculum of Kent State and my role on the committee will be to watch, learn, and contribute what few ideas I have of my own.
  



• I was invited to practice with Pinewoods High School Football (I will never be able to call it soccer again) Team by the coach, who is also the 7th grade language arts teacher. I chose to accept and my first practice was on Friday. Now, for everyone that is unaware my professional football career ended when I was about eight; I decided that swimming up and down a pool had more of an objective than running up and down a field chasing a ball. So, I spend 12 years swimming in chlorine; oppositely these young men have chosen to chase the ball for a multitude of years. I want to stress this point because it quickly gives you an idea of how talented these players are and how utterly awful I am. I am a pretty fast runner, I have plenty of stamina as I have been running everyday for about three weeks, and I am pretty agile on my feet; unfortunately, I lack any kind of ball handling skills and I do not really understand football strategy. These seem to be very important aspects of the game. For the way that I play the ball may as well be a brick and my strategy is to confuse the other team and my own team-mates with my lack of strategy and organization (mind you this rarely gets them). But, as the gear fiend I am, I have bought shoes, socks, shin guards, and a jersey, so I’m committed.
  



• I have been asked by the principle to turn in a letter explaining my interest and qualifications for a job at Pinewood on Monday and she would like an official resume to turn into the board within two weeks. Pretty crazy. I need the resume for my seminar class that I am taking from Kent and will be able to use this for both applications.

Needless to say, things are busy. I don’t sleep too much and have grown to love Italian and Greek coffee (I know what I said about Greek coffee before, but since then I have had a Greek prepare it for me and it was very good). I am currently working on my science curriculum that I start on Monday, I am in the middle of a book study that I am working on with the sixth graders and I have to start working on a book unit for the advanced group; thankfully it is on the Hobbit, which I have read more than a few times.

I am a bit nervous about the science unit due to the fact that my mentor teacher, while wonderful and nice, is a bit old fashioned and obviously set in her ways, she has told me so. I have to teach a unit on ecology in between two and three weeks. I know it is possible because both Keith and my Mother have pulled off such a feet; however, I am finding it a daunting challenge due to the amount of information and the expectations of my teacher. But, it has to be done so it will be done.

I have taken a few trips since we last talked; Panorama, Anopoli, and Pella. Panorama is a suburb a little ways past Pinewood. The town is situated on the hills outside the city and it’s worth visiting for its name-sake. Anopoli is the general area that surrounds the city wall. Back in the day the wall used to provide the protection for the city; now, however, the city has grown so much that the wall falls in the middle of the city. Pella was supposed to be one of the main day trips from Thessaloniki; however, when any of you come to visit I will not take you there. It was simply a heap of stones piled on the ground. The museum there was pretty sweet but really small. The scenery surrounding the city of Pella is amazingly beautiful and I would like to go up into the mountains that you see in the background, somewhere up there is Pinovo, the climbing area that I want to start going to, but I did not have the opportunity did not arise. What is in Pella, is the best taverna I have ever been to, the food was awesome, cheap, and plentiful. The owner was great and he even gave us a ride back to the bus stop.

Well, I have spent too much time on this post and have taken away from my time for work; the days are cool and beautiful as my life here continues. I can only hope that next month will go as well as the first.

Stay sane and let me know what’s going on.

Peace, Love, and Happiness,
Ian