Falling to Pieces

I’ve now been in New England for just over a week, and in the States for almost exactly two weeks, and the honeymoon period has well and truly ended: this here FNM video pretty much sums up my current state of mind! That’s not to say that things here are awful – far from it. Everyone I’ve met has been incredibly welcoming, open and generous and I’ve been spoiled by their generosity. I couldn’t possibly have a stronger support network, on either side of ‘The Pond’. Yet, despite all this, I am struggling with the thought of being here, or, more specifically, being apart from my loved ones, until Christmas: right now, I desperately want to come home!

True to the theme of my (recent) life passing in a blur, this past week has been incredibly busy. Kristin has shown me around her town and introduced me to a plethora of locals, paving the way for me before she leaves for the UK. We’ve run endless errands…and I’ve been introduced to my new classroom and to driving, US-style. It was at the point where I was in the school ‘parking lot’, struggling with Kristin’s SAAB, that I began to fear that everything was not, in fact, going to be fine. Driving here terrifies me: everything is so unfamiliar and I am scared that even having mastered the basics, I am somehow going to end up causing an accident by automatically heading for what I perceive to be the ‘right’ side of the road (as opposed to the *right* side of the road, which is where I absolutely should be driving!). I also had a go at driving her son’s automatic Saturn, which was much easier to get to grips with, though I still find that I’m reluctant to attempt the open road. Having always been highly independent, the reliance I have had on others thus far (nothing’s really in walking distance) hasn’t helped my state of mind!

As a platinum card holder in perfectionism, failure isn’t an option. But the inability to immediately feel confident driving here did chip my confidence, a chip that quickly became a chasm after I’d been talked through the curriculum I’ll be teaching in a few weeks’ time. The education systems in the US and the UK couldn’t possibly be more different. The focus here is very much on teacher assessment: pretty much EVERY assignment/ homework carries some credit towards the students’ grade average, which they need to pass the year (and if they don’t, they re-sit the year). If a student isn’t graded for something, they aren’t likely to do it. And grades come in a myriad of forms: homework, quiz, vocab quiz, test…and that’s before you get to the *actual* exams, like MCAS! Each have a certain percentage of the overall grade and there are ‘rubrics’ (English department: these are similar to our matrices!) for the type of assignment given. Grades equal a score out of a hundred. There are also textbooks for pretty much everything. Add to this mix a timetable which rotates through A to G days, seemingly at random and you will pretty much get the formula which sparked my allusion to Faith No More’s classic tune. We were told we’d feel like a newly qualified teacher: I feel like a newly qualified teacher who was just handed a teaching certificate when all I’d actually been doing is watching endless re-runs of Jeremy Kyle. I want to do a good (neigh – a bloody fantastic) job here, to make my own school and family, and friends proud but right now, I’m simply terrified.

I believe my current desire to say, “you know what, I can’t do this” and make for the nearest airport is born largely from my fear of failure, but also from the fact that I’m really not coping with being apart from those I care about most…[/emo] But I wouldn’t want you to think this week has been all diagonal floppy fringes and shoe-gazing – far from it.

Kristin threw welcome/ leaving ‘cook out’ on Thursday where I was welcomed and spoiled by her closest friends and colleagues. I was given a host of lovely cards and gifts from my colleagues: a Yankee candle with the scent of ‘Home Sweet Home’, a real (and I’m assured, much coveted) American League baseball, a fantastic super-sized mug adorned with Massachusetts/ Boston colloquialisms and a book of the area, so that I can decide where I want to go! Everyone reassured me that they’re going to be there for me and that I’m going to be brilliant (oh, how I wish I could believe that!!). I got further offers of tour guides and visits, plus a place to go for Thanksgiving.

On Friday, I was taken to Boston by Michelle and Michele (the former has invited me to the Cape next week and the latter will be driving me there – what lovely and generous people) for dinner, a stroll and dessert in a fab café in the Italian quarter. We saw a street festival too (the slideshow of the evening should appear above this post). Saturday saw more generosity, this time from my colleague-to-be Amber and her husband Adam, who enabled me to get to WalMart and took me to meet their friends over drinks and dinner. They then dropped me at The Raven, Worcester, where I met Michele and her friends to watch no less than four rock/ metal/ punk bands (\m/). I even scored a free pass to the next gig night!

I am therefore trying to focus on these (most excellent) experiences and the fact that I should be making the most of this opportunity, in the hope that everything will be ok in the end…as someone entirely anonymous once said: 'Everything will be okay in the end; if it's not okay, it's not the end’