I've already been here 10 days...

First time dipping my feet into the ocean in Okinawa =)

I've been getting used to yen, Japanese food and driving on the wrong side of the road (which most of the time feels like your in a bumper car)! People drive VERY close to one another but never honk or get made at each other, weird! I went to a few 100 yen stores which are like our dollar stores but much more popular here. I don't see the big deal about them, just stuff you don't need for 100 yen ($1.00).
I officially started work this week (ie. cleaning and preparing my classroom). We started our regular schedule, 7:45am-3:30pm Monday-Friday (I've been staying later everyday to get my room ready). I've been getting home from work after 5pm everyday. Since our school moved campuses this year our building is a MESS. Today is Friday and was our last day of preparing before school starts and things are very much unorganized still. The first day of school is on Monday 8/31! Sarah, my team teaching partner and I have been working in our room all week, decorating, gathering curriculum, planning and cleaning. We are as prepared as we can be for Monday. Our room looks great! My fellow credential alumni would be so proud of my incorporation of Rick Morris strategies into my classroom management plan and creative classroom decorating ideas =) Putting the classroom together has been SO much work, I've been exhausted every night! I'm looking forward to meeting my students and welcoming them to 1st/2nd grade Monday morning!

Here is my calendar wall with my paper tree, writing wall and student of the week wall

Front side of the classroom...keep in mind this room was completely empty when we arrived...

Last Saturday, the Japanese teacher from school gave us four new American teachers a tour of the island. We went on a glass bottom boat ride and then went swimming at the beach. The beach water is very salty, you can float with little effort and you feel like you weigh 10 times as much as you really do when you get out of the water! The beaches are beautiful, with clear water and copious amounts of colorful fish and coral. Next time we are going to bring goggles to explore underwater.

Glass Bottom Boat Ride. They gave us tea and brown sugar candy in this little hut before the boarding.

View from the road, how beautiful is this!?!Sarah, the teacher from Atlanta (who I'll be team teaching with), me, and Jessica (my roommate) at the beach. We had to pay to get into the beach and then pay to shower after.

After the beach on Saturday, I made our official first dinner at our apartment...spaghetti! It was delicious =)
Sunday we went to church with Laurie, the kindergarten teacher who is a military wife. This Saturday she is signing me in at the base so I can attend mass there. Apparently the there are no Catholic masses in English that are off base. Luckily Laurie said she will sign me in every week until I meet people at church who can sign me in. I'm really looking forward to mass this Saturday evening. I hope to meet lots of new people and to get involved in groups they may have.

Pizza Hut on base (yummy!) Can you guess which half is mine?

Laurie and her family took us to an air show at the Marine base which was open to the public. It was nice being around so many other American's. We stayed all day until the firework show that evening. There were so many neat things to see, I'm really excited to learn about the history of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. We were able to walk inside some of the planes and take lots of pictures. We ate, walked around and played some games.

This is one of my favorite pictures from that day, it's one of my screen saver's now.

This was awesome inside!

Tight fit up here!

It rained for 2 minutes then a rainbow appeared =)

I shot some cans with a BB gun

Jumper for the kids...don't ask!

He doesn't look too happy

Not sure what this means.....

Real Japanese komono's!

A high school teacher from school took us grocery shopping a few nights ago to show us some different foods. We bought shrimp, chicken, cheese, bread, water, 7-up, iced tea, instant coffee, pancake mix and soup. A little better than our first set of groceries, right? =) We have made grilled cheese twice this week.

This fish was in the seafood section at the grocery store!!! YIKES!! You could definitely smell it throughout the store!

It's hard to believe I've been here over a week already. Sometimes it feels like much longer than that. It's been hard to get in touch with everyone on the phone because of the 16 hour time difference. I usually go to bed around 10pm (6am your time) and wake up around 6am (2pm your time). If those hours don't work for you, you can always leave me a message on my skype number FREE or on my apartment answering machine. Weekends will be much easier to get in touch =) I'll keep you posted on the first week of school, keep me in your prayers Monday (or your Sunday). Miss you, keep in contact!