First Day of Class

This morning, bright and early, I walked into my first class of the semester, put my things down, and then said to the class, "Good morning! Welcome to American Culture, if you're not here for that, then you're in the wrong classroom." I expected lots of exuberant head nods, but instead all sixteen of my students stared at me like I was growing a second head.

"Um..." said one student hesitantly, "This is supposed to be American English." My brilliant, confident smile started to fade.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Are all of you here for American English? Not American Culture?" Of course, that's when they began exuberantly nodding.

"OK... um.... just a second." I said, and I ran downstairs to the department secretary's office, feeling a sense of impending dread.

I knocked, and feeling stupid, I told the secretary that my students were all under the impression they were in a different course than the one I was prepared to teach. She checked her schedule, and-- sure enough-- I was supposed to be teaching American English, not American Culture. 

Joy of joys, what a way to start the day!

So there I was, with sixteen students waiting to hear about a course that I had not prepared for at all.  Thankfully, I did actually teach the American English course last semester, so I quickly ran to the printer and printed out a few copies of my old syllabus, and I happened to have my laptop with my lesson plans on it with me, so after explaining the situation to my students (who took it in stride, bless them), I winged it. After class, I quickly updated the syllabus and e-mailed it out to everyone.

The problem is, since I'm not a permanent teacher at ELTE, for some inexplicable reason they can't grant me access to the on-line system that manages course registration and student information. To find out who is in my class, or even what time or where my classes are, I have to ask the department secretary. Before I left for the break last semester, the department chair told me I would probably be teaching two sections of American Culture -- at some point, that must have changed, and I just never got the memo.

Luckily, at this point, literally nothing phases me anymore. One time in Mozambique. I thought we had a month left in the trimester, and my colleague informed me that, in fact, the class I was going to teach an hour later was the last time I would see my students for the year. One time in San Antonio, my students were so advanced that they blew through the material I had planned an hour for in five minutes, and I just made stuff up for the rest of the fifty-five minutes. Then of course, there was the time that I was sitting at the school in the middle of nowhere with a dozen girls ready for an overnight field trip, and our bus driver canceled on us, leaving us stranded. So, in the grand scheme of things, messing up on Syllabus Day isn't really the worst thing to happen.

Still, it felt a little bit like that nightmare that I'm sure everyone has had, when you show up to school and there's a test you forgot to study for, or you go to work and you're supposed to give a presentation that you didn't know about.

I also got splashed by the bus and soaked with muddy water on the way to work, and I've come down with a cold just in time for the start of school. You got anything else to throw at me, Spring Semester? BRING. IT. ON.