"Excuse me, Miss"

Today was the first day of our field placement. Before we could even walk into the school, we had to present the office with our criminal background checks from the FBI. Guess what? I passed! I'm not a criminal. : ) Anyone who wants to walk into the school must pass said background check. The classrooms are very small compared to the schools in the States. There are also lots of things in the hallways because there is no room in the classrooms for it. The grades in England are referred to as years. Year 1 is kindergarten, year 2 is first grade, and so on. I was put in the grade 6 classroom with Katie and another student. We didn't have much of a chance to work with the kids this first day because they were scheduled to go swimming. So, we walked about a mile to a near by high school and the students swam for an hour or so. By then we had just enough time to walk back to school before having to return to Hope ourselves. It's a 30 minute walk each way so I have been perpetually sore, despite ibuprofen. But I'm not complaining, I'm having much too good a time for that.

It's so incredibly adorable to hear all the students talk with their accents! It's awesome! They are so polite and call everyone "Miss." I made friends with a boy named Levi. On the way back from the pool, he told me about how he likes chihuahuas but his mom says that they are rats. In fact, this one time he saw a chihuahua that had a big head and a skinny body so it looked like a mad scientist. He also told me about the dog whisperer and the Isle of Man (not sure if that's what it's really called but that's what it sounded like to me through the accent) and how the cats there have no tails. He is one cool kid, that's for sure!

After our first day of placements, we had our own class. It seemed pretty long but I survived it. After dinner, we all just hung out in a room and talked and played games and just had a grand old time. There is a pretty awesome group of people here and I'm glad to be a part of it.

The weather is perpetually gloomy and feels the need to rain at any random moment. Not like that stops us from having a blasty blast!