First week of class

"First Day of School' Outfit

Since everyone on Facebook was posting their 'First day of school' pictures, I thought I'd post mine. This past week marked the first full week of classes for UCU. Though officially we started the week prior, the culture of many Ugandan institutions is that you don't really need to go to class the first week (however, UCU is trying to change this mind-set). For me, this meant that I showed up to class as scheduled with basically no one else there. Thankfully, at least half of my students came on the second day of class and, also thankfully, God has made me quite flexible. I had anticipated this 'no-show' to be a possibility, so I just laughed it off and revised my second lecture a bit to not get behind.

Students thus far seem attentive to my lectures, though I am not sure if this is due to my teaching skills or the fact that they find my accent difficult to understand :). I'm hoping for the former, of course. Thanks to my colleagues back home, I have some excellent class material to draw from. This way I'm not starting completely from scratch. 

Part of my class schedule will include taking students to the clinical site to do patient interviews and health assessments. They seem very excited for this and it will be a great opportunity to get them more hands-on experiences right in the beginning of their program (a luxury we often do not have in the US due to various restrictions). Besides clinical, they also come for 4 hours of lecture and 1 hour of lab practice each week. Having never taught a class completely on my own before (at Bethel we do a lot of team-teaching of courses), it has been a little bit daunting. I find myself obsessing too much over a lecture and worrying that I'm missing important content. Hopefully these feelings will abate as I settle into my work.

Clinicals will most likely start this week. The facility we are going to be at is new to me, which will make this experience some-what more stressful. So, I will be thankful for any prayers you send my way :) 

Hard to believe September is already half gone. Without the cool Fall weather to mark the changing season, I mostly just feel like I am in a perpetual summer. What a shock it will be to return home in December having to face the cold and snow of winter without the pleasant Fall transition. For those of you in the upper Midwest, drink some apple cider for me :)