First Day of Classes

We ate banana pancakes at 7:00am this morning. All the kids made it with remnants of the excitement of arriving yesterday. The energy is more scattered and it's harder to identify whose is whom, and whether or not we are all feeding off the same forming energy or lasting on our own supply. The teaching fellows and teachers have soothed the environment before the students arrived and now it seems to be all jumbled up like a pile of those 'monkeys in a barrel' game, except the monkeys are kids trying to download google apps on their IPads off the same wifi network. Yes, it's a new day at the Alzar School, and we are slowly finding routines and niches.

On another note, Las montañas are out and about. The cirques are covered in snow as are the descending trees. The Biosphere here is relatively the same as to the high desert of Oregon; Sage brush, Lemon grass, Ponderosa Pines and all. I've seen and heard more coyotes in the last few nights then I ever have in Oregon. Yesterday, I was blessed to here some of the geology of the Long Valley County from a local that works here at the school.

"It's a fault block system" he said, "and this whole here valley is all made up of glacial deposits. You er' been to McCall? It actually sits on a terminal moraine."

This is music to me as I dream of the magnitude of glacial ice ripping and depositing this landscape 12,000 years ago. But today, I'll stay present, helping students log into schedules and other academia requirements. I'm assistant teaching my first class today! It is the 'Spanish A honors' course (insert ooh and ahh). It's something new and challenging, which is a theme I hope to maintain through out my life; just like the landscape, forever transforming.

-Lauren