School is in session.

Today wrapped up the 2nd day of school. I'm typing this as I sit at my kitchen table listening to pouring rain and watching the sky light up outside the window. I'm not sure if this is considered a monsoon or not, but I'm in for a wild and wet adventure the next few months of the rainy season!

School's alright (and I mean that in the best representation of the word 'alright'). I am still looking forward to getting further into the year and knowing the students better... as well as them knowing me better.

The past two days have been filled with rearranging the books on the new shelves. It will be great to have it all set and re-labeled soon. The students are awesome - I have some in the library each period for study hall... since the school has moved to block scheduling this year, each period is 85 minutes long. That's a long study hall!

I told the students that they should be doing schoolwork or reading... and they seriously do just that for the entire period! No reminders or anything... I thought it was natural for kids to become restless after some time... but these kids seriously just put their head down and read or work until the bell rings.

Culturally, these students respect teachers very much... but not the library. They seem to respect me so far - which I'm very thankful for... it's not something that would be easy to change and it would make my job a bit of a nightmare. Many students come to the library during the lunch / advisory periods to read and check books out but there ends up being books all over, chairs aren't pushed in, etc. I'm not taking it personally - it's a cultural thing BUT I do plan to work on this so the students know my expectations for respecting the library and... so that I don't go crazy day in and day out.


Some of the kids have already remembered my name and say "Goodbye Miss Stacia!" on their way out - that feels awesome.

Most students have chosen Western nicknames to go by. There are the usual names and then some awesome ones like Titan or Candy. I remember choosing my Spanish name in middle school... Sylvia... how boring.  :P

I knew it would be difficult for me to learn their names... but now it's in a different way from that which I expected. I can search the library's checkout system with a student's nickname but then their Vietnamese name shows... so it's difficult to keep track of. With time and some effort, I do want to learn most students' names... we have just about 200 students at the middle school so I feel it should be do-able.

Apparently my hair has made quite the splash among the students already.  :P  I never quite know whether to feel like people here like my hair and think it's cool or if they just think I'm crazy. Phuong, my assistant, had girls asking her about me and my hair... they asked her how I got my hair like this. She explained to them that my hair has been like this since I was born. I find it interesting to think how weird my hair must be for them to understand.

One of the math teachers told me that she was talking about school and the new teachers with her advisory students and she asked them if they had met the new librarian yet... apparently some of the kids said they had seen me and held their hands up on either side of their head... showing huge hair. Hahaha.

Peanuts calendar for the first day of school:

Uh oh.