Monday, August 15, 2011

First Day Survived!



The first day of middle school has come and gone. He survived it. We actually got out the door on time without any trauma this morning and trust me, that is a blessing in and of itself around here. He even let me take a picture of him using his 3DS before we left. It's not the best quality but at least we have one. We made it to the school with no problems. No train. No crazy traffic. Kind of scary, actually.

When we got there we parked across the street and walked him in. We wanted to make sure he got into his first class with no difficulties. We met his first hour teacher briefly. She's very nice. Sean said she's his second-favorite teacher after his guitar teacher. She is from Germany and has a cool accent. Sean said she's very understanding about it and will slow down if the children are having trouble with it. It's not that strong of an accent but many of the children are not native English speakers and Sean has trouble with accents because of his speech issues. Evidently the two go hand-in-glove. He has a little bit of trouble saying her name but I told him if she says anything about that he needs to let her know why and that he is trying to say it correctly. Science is his first class. He sits at a table with 3 girls. He said he will probably get along well with at least two of them since they also like Wipeout.

After science he has humanities. Not much to say about that one as he didn't have much to say about it. The teacher he was originally assigned is not there as she had a baby and is taking this year off. He has a substitute and there is another lady in there as well. He has no clue what either lady's name is. He says they didn't say. I think he must have missed it because I can't imagine teachers not announcing their names but maybe they didn't.

Then it was time for lunch. He starved, but he's still alive to tell the tale. I had advice from some seasoned mothers of middle-schoolers to send him with lunch, however, he resisted so....he went without one. He stood in the line until it was his turn to enter his number into the machine (don't ask, I have no clue). He entered it and it didn't work. He entered it again and it still didn't work. They wrote his number on a post-it and told him to stand in the line. He stood there for almost the whole half hour. Finally got his lunch and took one bite and they got cleared out. On the upside, he put the time in line to good use and now knows his matric number by heart. That's pretty much the only bad part of the day at school.

After lunch he had math. He said it wasn't too bad. They did 5 problems--an addition, a subtraction, a multiplication and two division. He only had to fix one of the division problems when they went over them. We figure that's pretty good--80%. He said his teacher in there seems pretty nice also.

That was it for his core subjects and then he had his two electives--guitar and media arts. He said he was a little nervous about them going in because there are 7th and 8th graders in them as well but that it seems to be okay. He had already met the guitar teacher the other day as I related in my previous post. He said he was wearing a Wolverine tie today. He's a pretty cool teacher. He has all sorts of cool superhero posters up in his room and he also has two Cubs posters in there which went a long way with Dad. They will probably be getting their guitars on Wednesday.

His last subject of the day was media arts. He wasn't too sure about that one but the more he thinks about it the cooler he thinks it is. They do all the advertising for the school concerts, plays, dances, etc. They are also in charge of the yearbook. He was a little concerned because they use Macs in there and we are PC people in our house. We explained to him the reason for that with all the graphics and stuff they will be using. I asked him how close we were to getting the pronunciation of his teacher's name correct the other night and he said it for me. We were fairly close. He said she had a pronunciation key for it written on the board and she had them practice it a couple of times. I asked him if she was Italian and he said, "She grew up in Yuma. She spent 5 weeks in Italy this summer though." He is impressed with her. She showed them a few pictures from Rome and The Vatican. He is also impressed with the fact that this is her first year at Utterback and she is coming over from Pueblo High. His figuring is that if she is good enough to teach in high school for four years that she is more than qualified to teach in middle school. I'm not arguing with his logic. I hope he's right.

Today after school we met him by the Dasani machine in the main hall but after this we'll park across the street in the dirt lot. He no sooner got in the car but he told us that he had a list from his science teacher of supplies he needs. He was very pleased that many of them were things we had already packed for him and some of them we already had at home. We only had to buy a few things. We stopped at Walgreen's and picked them up. We didn't get him colored markers because he has some. However, when we went to get them tonight we found that they have joined the Green Lantern shirt on the missing list. So John will get him some after school tomorrow. No big deal. Tonight when he gave me the papers from guitar class to read and sign though, we found out that we have to buy clothes. Sean was extremely concerned about that, especially the fact that he needs another pair of shoes. He just about lost it over the shoes. I told him that we will get him his clothes before his first concert, no problem. He relaxed a little bit about it after that but I think it's still bothering him a little bit.

That's it for the school but we almost had major disaster shortly after we got home. I mentioned earlier that I had used his 3DS to take a picture of him. Well, I also took the SD card out of it to post the picture up on Facebook when John and I got home this morning. I put the SD card back afterward. I did it all just as Sean has taught me and thought nothing of it after doing it. I will not do such a thing again. John and I were sitting outside before he left for work and Sean came to the door with 3DS in hand. "Dad, Netflix isn't loading on my 3DS." Mom got worried. "NOTHING'S LOADING!!!! WHAT DID I DO?!" Bursts into tears. I ran in and threw my arms around him to calm him down. I told him that it was my fault because I took the SD card out to share his picture with everybody. He was frantic because: 1. That is how he gets, 2. He has a LOT of downloaded games on that card and 3. He was worn out from the day. I managed to get him to quiet down somewhat and had him take the SD card out and put it back in. Thank God it worked and everything loaded after that. I must not have had it seated correctly in there. I'm glad it worked because if it hadn't we would have had a miserable, horrible night around here.

That's it for the events in our corner of the world. I hope you are all having a good week so far. To those of you whose children have already started I hope it's going well and to those of you whose children have yet to start, I hope all goes well on their first day.

9 comments:

MsCaroline said...

Wow, big day! Sorry about the lunch situation...at least you tried, right? Scary situation with the DS thing, but glad it worked out. As I was reading that story, I did think how unfortunate it was that it happened after such a long and stressful day - that would have set me off, too! Overall, though, the day sounds good. Oh, and about the shoes - definitely wait until as close to the concert as possible - can't tell you the numbers of dress shoes for orchestra, band, and choir that my boys grew out of between concerts! Glad he survived the day, and seems like he's pleased overall - and you're doing ok, too, right, Mom? ; )

Karen said...

Not a bad day at all...my kids are usually too excited to eat on the first day of school anyway. Arrive home starving! The teachers all sound like they made a good start with him, too. I can imagine the stress level when the DS didn't load right away, panic usually ensues around here when something like that happens! And right after a stressful day makes it even worse. Definitely wait on the shoes....and remind him that he only has to wear them for the concert so it won't be so bad. Many is the time my kids have worn the comfy shoes right up to the last minute, putting the special ones on in the car as we arrived!
Gotta go...wasting time that I need to clean. Have 2 friends arriving tonight for a beach day tomorrow. My first of the summer and most likely my last as well! Why is is that people who live near the ocean never go to the beach?

Wilma said...

He's winging it again on lunch today. Hopefully it goes better. He's taking lunch for the rest of the week though--IF he will tell me what he wants to take. John has already said that they better get this lunch thing straightened out by the beginning of next week or he will be having a little chat with them.

As far as the shoes, I'm not sure he will be getting dress shoes, per se. I'm pretty sure they will be black tennis shoes. Remember, this is AZ. You can wear shorts or jeans almost everywhere and teacher didn't say anything about style, just color. Your kids would love it, Karen, jeans are acceptable (and common) in Mass. LOL He's concerned with the cost of having to get a second pair of shoes and clothes that he will only wear for concerts.

As far as the beach, I don't know the answer to that but I've heard it many times. We have lots of beach here, just no ocean. haha

karen said...

Black tennis shoes are perfect actually. Josh wears his for "dress" as well. Meaning to Mass, usually. He had only a pair of black sneakers until the spring when we bought him white ones because the black look funny with shorts. Then he switched pretty much to flip flops without wearing the white shoes. Good news for now, since he has clean white shoes for the fall. Also bought 2 pairs of cheap secondhand shoes since he needed a mismatched pair of dress shoes for his play costume. One is actually a pretty nice pair of dress shoes for $8 and the other we will sell to the theatre group for future costumes. Also cost about $8. Play opens tonight....I'm excited!

Wilma said...

Sounds like a good deal with the shoes. Sean won't wear flip-flops. He can't stand having something between his toes. I only wear them to the pool. Not because I can't stand the feel but because my feet hurt to walk in them for more than a little bit. :(

Hope the play goes well. We'll want a review and pictures, you know. *grin*

Karen said...

The play went great...both Josh and Katie were awesome. Pictures will probably come after my niece posts her pix and I pirate them to my facebook account. Third night of 3 running around like a crazy person...very tight schedules all 3 nights and lots of tension. All done now, clear sailing for a while! Josh has flip flops that go over his foot...nothing between the toes, he hates that, too. Like you, they hurt my feet so don't wear them either!

Wilma said...

Glad to hear the play went well. Sean had an old pair of mules that used to belong to me--they were just plain leather, nothing female-looking. He's worn them for several years. They fell apart this summer but he was still wearing them. When he got his new school shoes he realized how uncomfortable they were and asked it we could cremate them. We told him no but that he was more than welcome to pitch them into the trash. He actually did so when we got home. LOL

Rovie said...

good luck with your schooling sean...

visiting here wilma.thanks for your kind comments...

Wilma said...

Thanks for stopping by, Rovie. I enjoyed reading about Macky. I also read your blog about Bella. That's quite a story about her birth.