A legal (if germy) resident!

Coooool! I finally picked up my passport and visa from the Auslaenderamt, and hadn't realized that the visa is actually pasted inside the 'port. It looks really sharp -- first of all 'cause it's pretty, all pink and green with a clean white picture, and also, it just looks so cool to not only have a stamp in Ye Olde Passeport, but an actual visa to live in another country! Hee hee. Maybe I just romanticize the "Ferne." Eichendorff and I might have got on swimmingly!

(btw, the numbers and stuff have been scribbled out, thanks to image editing. :) Back, identity thieves!)



So, things is goin' swimmingly around here. Er, actually, well... hm. Found out on Monday that the school thought I had agreed to sub for both of the weeks Herr Bachmann is gone, ew. But, looking back, I should have explicitly said, "this week, but not next week," so I was kinda at Schuld for that. Plus I don't have a set schedule yet, and we had a day off on Tuesday, and it's the last week before the fall break anyway, so there was no reason not to do it. So I just sighed and went, "okay."

However, I couldn't do it Monday because, thinking I'd be open that week, I'd already arranged to visit two other classes. Tuesday was a day off, so I told them I'd happily sub from Wednesday to Friday (but put my foot down at babysitting that obnoxious 9b class again! Blaugh!). After all, I am new around there, and wanted to make a good impression. I wanted to show that I can step in when they need me. So I subbed yesterday. The 6th graders were being rambunctious, so at some point I actually had to give them a little scolding: "I am not an official substitute teacher, you know; I am only here out of choice. If you guys keep acting that way, I won't want to come back and you'll just have a regular teacher next time." (But of course I fully intended to come back.)

Well... all this leads up to the fact that, last night, I actually did come down with a sudden bug or something! Gaah! My body is definitely not being a good sport about the lack of sleep and proper nutrition, and the travel and stress. Jeez! Bodies! But anyway, had a bit of a fever last night... I tried to sleep on it and see if it would go away, but nope. I had to call the office this morning and sheepishly tell them that I couldn't come in today. Well, this is just great! I mean, no one's going to believe me. Here's the new assistant, who nobody really knows that well, who didn't want to substitute teach in the first place, who even wagged a finger at one class and said, "I might not come back tomorrow" -- not to mention that it's the second-to-last day before a two-week Fall Break! -- and now she's calling in "sick." Suuuuuure. They're all just going to think I'm a malingerer! Fantastic, just the impression I wanted to give to my new school. Well, it can't be helped. I guess I could have just taken a bus in and shown that I really was sick; but I'm already feeling better this afternoon, so maybe I'll totter in tomorrow just to try to be a good sport.