[caption id="attachment_189" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Childern at First English Language School"]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03565.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-189" title="Children on the First Day of School " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03565.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>[/caption]

Today was the first day of school in Bulgaria.  I love the first day of school.  I love buying new pens and pencils, I love role-call and learning who is in your class, I love figuring out which color of notebook I want to use for each class, I love opening a textbook for the first time and I even think that I love chalkboards. Okay, frankly, I just love school.  But I especially love the excitement of the new school year.  However, the first day of school that I know from the states cannot compare to the first day I just participated in here in Sofia.

I left to my school this morning early because I was told that the buses and trams would be crowded with school children.  This was pretty good advice.  I was also to expect that students would be bring their teachers flowers--they were.  It was amazing to see little girls and boys with flowers and older high school age children also with flowers for their teachers.  One boy especially caught my eye, he was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and had the hood pulled up; he was listening to music because I could see the cords going into his hood; he was skinny and in the US I would describe him as disaffected.  He also had a compact bouquet of flowers--in pink and white.

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By this point, it was raining pretty steadily.  Admittedly not a great way to start off the year but what are you going do?  Anyhow, I got to the school pretty early but even then there was already a large crowd of students and parents forming and when I went to the front door there was my favorite guard turning people away from the school.  After my first run-in with him, I thought great... but I smiled at him, he smiled at me and let me in.  Phew. I wish I could have a real conversation with him but I guess that right now I am doing what I can do.

So I went to the teacher's room to confirm my schedule and was glad that I did.  It's changed a little bit.  Now on the first week I am teaching on Thursday mornings and on the second week, I am teaching on Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays but don't worry I am not working whole days.  I was proud of myself to be able to figure this out on my own because the schedule was all in Bulgarian (good thing I know my days of the week!).

At 9 am, the program got started.  I enjoyed this a lot.  It turns out that the<a href="http://www.fels-sofia.org/" target="_blank"> First English Language High School</a> also shares some of the physical space with an elementary school. This means that there were lots of really little and really cute little kids in their new school clothes holding flowers and umbrellas.  The highlights of the program were as follows:
<ol>
	<li>the high school band opens.</li>
	<li>then the national anthem.</li>
	<li>some talking in Bulgarian.</li>
	<li>children of different ages sign (what I think must have been traditional Bulgarian folk songs).</li>
	<li>a group of high school girls sang this strangely recognizable song which turned out to be Hanson's Mmm-Bop.  I however didn't catch on until the refrain of mmm-bops.</li>
	<li>more talking.</li>
	<li>then out come the cheerleaders and everyone is really excited for this.  I was too.  Especially when they started doing their routine to a techno piece--silly me thinking that cheerleaders could only dance to country; it must be that's what cheerleaders who go to high school in eastern Washington dance to.

[caption id="attachment_190" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Cheerleaders "]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03576.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-190" title="Cheerleaders " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03576.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>[/caption]</li>
	<li>shortly after this all of the little children start filling into the school based on their grade.  Everyone cheered for the first class and they were so cute.  This is what the first day of school should be about, always--being excited to go to school and to start learning.</li>
	<li>about this time, the older students started throwing chunks of carrots.  I learned later that these carrots were aimed at the 8 graders but while it was happening it seemed very random.  It was very strange.  I've never seen anything like it.  The teachers looked annoyed but no one did anything to stop it and I hoped that my umbrella would provide ample coverage if people started throwing carrots at me. Luckily, they didn't.  I guess that this "tradition" has something to do with the 8th graders the youngest students in the high school being new--like baby rabbits.  Sorry I don't know more about this.</li>
</ol>
After this, the program was more or less over and while I stood in the rain trying to figure out what to do next one of the English teachers came up to me and told me that all of the teachers would be going into the school to celebrate the new school year.  Alright.  I made my way into the high school.  The little kids were inside and all of the high school students were outside talking, catching up and joking around. In the teacher's room, it's about 10:30 in the morning and there was lots of food, soda and chocolate out on the table.  Everyone was catching up and I observed everyone--I am "the Native Speaker" (as the principle always introduces me) and I think that I might make people nervous to talk to me.

Anyhow, then came the last thing I was expecting.  After what I think is another welcome back to school, best wishes to you for the upcoming year and other encouraging words kind of speech, it turns out to be a toast.  Also on the table, but I haven't noticed them, are bottles of whiskey, vodka, gin and boxes of wine.  So everyone has a drink, we say a number of Na'zdraves (that's cheers!) and then everyone sits around eating and drinking for the next couple of hours.

At first I wasn't sure who I was going to talk to but then this older man who teaches Computer Science invited me over to sit next to him and we started talking.  His background is math and physics--he was really interesting.  He has a PhD in Physics and some great stories about using early computers in the 1970's where you still had to make cards that where whole punched for the computer to "read."  And luckily for me, once I was talking to him it was much easier to talk to the other teachers.

Two women that I talked to were especially fun--they wanted to know how old I was and if I was married (Zhenena li ste?).  The result of this was that one whole end of the table of women in their 40-60's started telling me about how pretty I am, how nice Bulgarian men are and that they were sure I could find someone--but that I should know he wont be rich.  There is something strangely reassuring to know that women of this age all ask the same questions and worry about the same kinds of things--not that I am in a hurry to get married.

I left the school at about 12:30pm having eaten a huge amount of homemade banichka (this was amazing and I am sure amazingly bad for me but I am still determined that I need to learn how to make this), a slice of cake, peanuts and pretzels, a piece of this beautiful bread which I can now not remember the name of and lots of chocolate.  At one point, I tried to turn down eating a piece because I had a drink in one hand and a chunk of banichka in the other and the teacher but the wrapped piece of chocolate in my blazer pocket!

I took the trolley-bus home and thought I would post right away about my first day of school.  Instead, I promptly fell asleep on the couch.  I am not used to having two drinks in the evenings let alone at 10:30 in the morning.

All in all, I can't imagine a better way to start my year teaching at the First English Language High School.