Mind the Gap: Induction

     Induction in America mainly means to be welcomed or introduced into some special society/club/group. In England, it probably still means the same thing, but they use it a little differently. As in today. I went up to the school for an induction and met with my cooperating teacher and head of department - aka orientation. They seem very nice, and I am excited to begin working with the Social Sciences department! Being given a timetable (class schedule) and a booklet to introduce the department (including their Common Core Standards), we explored the little piece of hallway that these teachers call home (sort of). Ha. The classrooms are very nice with carpet floors, and most of them have a SmartBoard.

     Anyway, my schedule will be quite different than school in the States. First, there are only five class periods in a day if you don't include the registration period (homeroom/mentor-ish type time). Students sit through two one hour classes first thing then take a twenty minute break. After this, students have two more classes then lunch (which is FIFTY MINUTES LONG. I'm looking forward to not having to suck my food down in 20...). After lunch, students have one class then they have registration period, which only lasts 20 minutes. Then they are finished for the day!

     Oh, I forgot to mention: I will be given the option of tea (ew, sick nasty) or coffee (DE-licious) during break. I feel like we should adopt these methods in the States.

     ....well wait til we see what I think on Monday; I might not like it.

     After my meeting, I had to go and run a few errands (Yes, I did end up buying The Dark Knight Rises. I know you all had been wondering [I almost typed y'all...I'm trying to use proper grammar over here so I don't get made fun of even more for my accent].) I also went and exchanged some money (I feel broke due to the exchange rate). After this excursion, I bought my train ticket to Scotland. And then I looked at my bank account. And my jaw dropped. [insert mini freak out here]

     I had been told before I boarded my plane to England that everything was more expensive here. And it is. Mainly I feel like it is due to the conversion from pounds to dollars. 1 English Pound = 1.5 (give or take) US Dollars. So, if you spend say, 40 pounds, you actually used about $60. Or say you bought a 162 pound round trip train ticket and ended up spending almost $300.

     No worries. I got over my freak out, and I won't be living in a box for the rest of my stay (the Harts wouldn't dare let me - they're wonderful people). But this was a definite wake up call, and I now have a set budget for the rest of my trip. I feel very grown up in doing so (you may applaud here...or breathe a sigh of relief, whichever you choose).

     So, I then decided to go back home and not buy this really cute dress I saw in Tesco (if I have enough money at the end of my stay, I'm definitely buying it). I spent the rest of the day at home working on studying for Praxis, looking up bus times and prices around Britain, ate dinner, and watched two and a half British shows. These were the soap opera Coronation Street and a show called Broadhouse (the half being their equivalent to America's Funniest Home Videos). I'm very behind, and have no clue what's going on, but my two host parents did try to explain the plots to me as it went along. The shows were quite interesting and of course, full of drama (how could a soap opera NOT have drama?).

     Last, I took a few pictures today as I explored town: