I've almost completed my 2nd week in London

I haven't had too much to write about, and I wanted to include some pictures when I did, so I had to wait until I had a chance to charge my camera...so all of these pictures were taken today :)

Baker Street Tube Station

This is the station where I change from the Circle Line to the

Metropolitan Line in the mornings to go to the London Borough of Harrow

This week of work has been great. I had my first day "by myself" at my main high school on Monday and met 3 amazing students. And to anyone who previously asked, "How are you going to do speech and language therapy with students with British accents??", I heard your voices in my head when I was working with 2 of the students. We actually were working on speech production. But remember: we both speak the English Phonetic Alphabet (which means that all the sounds are actually the same, except for the different way we produce vowels, like "tomaytoe" vs. "tomawtoe"). Anyway- it's very comforting to know that all in all, teenagers are quite alike no matter where they grow up. All of them have been a lot fun and love to say, "You're from America, aren't you?"

The Speech & Language Base office at my main high school

This week I've also been able to go to 3 other schools (2 of them will be mine) with other speech and language therapists, which has been very helpful. Everyone has taken care of me, always willing to answer questions. Next week is Half Term, kind of like a week of Fall Break, where the students have time off, but it will be a good time for me to get more acquainted with the new paperwork and the way things are done.

So far this week I haven't gotten lost and I'm getting pretty good at figuring out what side of the street I need to be on if I have to take the bus somewhere (to go in the right direction). One almost-problem happened when I was the last one to get off at the hospital where I work: the bus terminated there, so the driver stopped and everyone got out. I knew I had more time, so I was gathering my things and when I tried to get out, the door would not open even though I was pushing the button. Finally it opened, but shut quickly and closed on my bag! It closed so hard that I couldn't open the doors and I was just standing there with my bag halfway in and halfway out of the bus. The driver had to come open the door for me. I think when he turns off the bus, the doors sort of lock so that no one can get on in the back without paying...but I was just glad that he wasn't about to drive off because I guess I would have had to said good-bye to all of my stuff!

Today at one of the schools I went to they were celebrating Diwali, the Indian Festival of Light, which was something entirely new to me. One of the classes put on a puppet show that taught the history of Diwali, and they had a Bollywood producer and choreographer who taught one of his latest songs/dances. I had seen this poster throughout the Underground, but didn't even know what it was for until today:

This was the last place I went today on my way home, which is actually something like 100 yds from our front door. Marks & Spencer is my favorite grocery. It's kind of weird to only buy bread, milk, and bananas instead of loading up my SUV with bags, but now I have to only buy what I can carry. This one is a "Simply Food", so it only has a smaller selection of foods and wine. I love the big M&S because it's really like a nice SuperTarget.