Good News Bad News

Good news: the right engine on the 767 worked.
Bad news: the left engine didn't.

Thus began my trip back to teach for a third year in Vienna. We were flying over Lake Michigan when the captain announced that we had to make an "unscheduled landing" back in Chicago. We started turning around, and landed about an hour after we took off. The announcement was a little creepy, I must admit. But the landing was without event. So I ended up getting back to Vienna on Sunday, a day late, after my flight was rescheduled with British Airways (instead of Austrian Airlines).

We had staff meetings all this week, and I met a lot of the new teachers. (The school usually turns over about 30% of its staff every year; this year we have 12 new staff members). Yesterday I finally buckled down and started planning lessons and decorating my classroom a bit. In addition to my usual 9th grade physical science, 11th/12th grade physics, and 11th/12th grade precalculus, I get to teach my favorite subject in the world, freshman geometry. Anyone else who was once in Mr. Samide's geometry class at Wheaton North knows at least one good reason why I became a teacher.

I'm anticipating having the dream (nightmare, rather) that I usually have in August about this time: I'm at school, my classes are about to start for the first day, and I have absolutely no idea what my lesson will be. Thankfully, that doesn't generally happen in real life.

The students start school on Thursday...