First Impressions

Note: the following are my personal opinions and are in no way affiliated with my scholarship organization.

Hello, my beloved public. I hope this reaches you healthy and happy.

Today was my first day in the school, and as I have for the last 17 years of my life, I dressed for success in a brand new back to school outfit. As I walked into the teacher's lounge and took a deep breath, I sensed my change in status. In my old high school, we as students were never allowed to step foot on the sacred threshold of the teacher's lounge. If we had a question for a teacher (which I often did, because... well... that's the kind of student I was), we had to walk down a long carpeted corridor and wait at the door to the lounge patiently for a teacher to grace us with his or her presence. It was common knowledge to never go past the carpeting and only a few students could boast the privilege of having stepped into the non-carpeted area of the teacher's lounge.

4 years after graduating high school, I stood in a teacher's lounge with a cup of coffee, listening to the hustle and bustle of teachers and feeling deliciously grown up. I was informed that every teacher in the school is addressed with the familiar "Du" instead of formal "Sie" and was told to address my colleagues by their first names. Colleagues??? I have colleagues???

My mentor teacher warned me when she met me in the hallway that the students were a little quiet that day and she took me into the classroom. I'm not sure if the class she described had stealthily escaped the classroom and been replaced by their more energetic doppelgaengers (evil twins) or if they had each downed 4 Red Bulls a piece while my mentor was getting me, but any remnant of their quiet selves seemed to have dissolved into thin air as I entered the classroom. The girls chatted eagerly amongst themselves as the more vocal boys audibly vied for my attention. The rest of the boys starred at my chest.

"They are just excited to have such a pretty, young teacher," my mentor informed me.

I wasn't exactly feeling pretty, but all of a sudden, I felt very, very young and somewhat helpless. My mentor had told the students that I couldn't speak German so they would be forced to speak English with me. Although I respect the intent of this lie, it didn't exactly work out. Most of my students could not string together more than a couple words of English, so communication in English was very difficult. However communicating was not the most difficult of my problems. The especially perceptive students soon noticed that I was following what they were saying in German (but not the Turkish they whispered amongst themselves) and guessed that I could speak German.

Darn my expressive face.

Then, they decided to test out this theory by making outlandish statements and somewhat offensive statements to provoke a response from me. And I didn't know "any German," so I couldn't be angry.

Nombre de Dios, this looks like it is going to be harder than I thought.

As I made my way home from school and reflected on my day, I realized three things.

1. I have so much more respect for my teachers for learning all the names of the kids in their classes now that I have to learn over sixty new names... many of which are Turkish. Did you know that the Turkish alphabet has 29 letters? I learned that after a girl spelled her name with a letter I didn't know. Who would have thought that at 22 I'd be learning the alphabet?

2. I am going to learn Turkish. It sounds like a pretty language... and it might be helpful.

3. I may be allowed in the teacher's lounge, but I still have a lot to learn.

After I made these three conclusions, Pride and Prejudice popped in my head because my PLS brainwashed condition is permanent. Before settling on the name Pride and Prejudice, Austen considered First Impressions as the title, and I wish she had decided in favor of this title because her work shows the universal truth that everyone judges books by their covers. It's so easy to come to a resounding conclusion about certain people based on the initial meeting. Elizabeth judged Darcy based on his initial bad behavior. However, she missed out on a lot of happiness for a long time because she was blinded by her initial judgment of the man she would end up loving.

This year is going to be challenging. I harbor no delusions about that fact. I am going to have to be patient when students who are supposed to be conversing in English with me, speak to me in German. Likewise, I am going to have to be patient with teachers who speak English with me instead of German (ARGH!). However, any good thing in life does not come easily, and I look forward to getting to know my students and colleagues better. This year is also going to be full of joys and I look forward to being a teacher and being taught myself.