Our students have arrived

So, on top of some difficulty in adjusting over the last few days, David and I are both now sick. We came down with colds over the last few days, likely caused by adjusted sleep patterns, extra stress, exposure to new germs, etc. It’s more of a nuisance than a hindrance at this point, though the timing really is unfortunate. I had planned to take Leah to the St. Andrews aquarium on Friday, but when I woke up with a pounding head and runny nose, and saw that it was going to rain all morning, I opted for a quiet morning in the house instead. None of the kids are showing any symptoms of head colds yet, so I am hoping that I don’t expose them to anything and they can stay well.

Our students arrived on Wednesday and participated in some orientation activities on Thursday, and on Friday they were scheduled to matriculate and choose their courses. David planned to meet each of them during their pre-assigned appointment, so he was gone for most of the day. When he returned, I left Leah with him and ventured to the grocery store to get some drinks and desserts for the students, who were going to have dinner at our house later that evening. We are fortunate that the rental house has an enormous dining room table, so it’s not a problem to host the whole group at once. In 2011, our dining room was so small and we had so many students that when they came over for group dinners we had to assign times for everyone to inhale and exhale to keep anyone from fainting!

The students were able to locate our house, and they arrived in groups around 6pm. John wasn’t home as he had walked home from school with a friend, so in all we had 14 people. We are still a bit short on dishes, plates and glasses here, but fortunately we had takeout from a local noodle shop, so everyone was eating noodles out of a takeout container with chopsticks and it wasn’t an issue. The students seemed to be in good spirits, and if they are experiencing any homesickness or culture shock, I didn’t see it. They talked about their discoveries over the last few days and compared notes about the various halls in which they were living. Some of them are living in halls that provide a food service while others are “self-catered.” I was a bit worried that one of the students who is self-catering seems to be living off a box of cereal he bought upon arrival, but I assume that once he gets hungry enough he will remedy that without much intervention by us. We also talked about some of the travels we were going to do as a group, and shared some travel suggestions from previous students. Each of the students has some funding with which they can propose a small trip on their own or in small groups in the coming weeks, which we hope will give them the incentive to venture a bit further out, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they propose.