My First Week

I have already finished my first week, but I thought I would enlighten you as to what occured. We had our stagiere meeting and got told what to wear when where, hehehe, how meals work for us, our hours, pay, keys for access to school, and name tags. Then we got to set up Market Place and A la Carte (the "fine dining" restaurant on campus). Then we set up buffets and got the dishwashing section set up as well, which I will generally use the term stewarding to refer to dishwashing related things. Gamberoni, one of the practical teachers who I have found to be somewhat intimidating, told me to be in charge of the stewarding area for that day and the next. This put me in charge of about 4 student volonteers and 3-4 other stagieres. I will admit that I felt rather honored to be chosen by Gamberoni to be put in charge like that. I did my job well, and found that generally the stagieres don't like to tell students what to do...I admit to doing more work than I should have as a "supervisor." This is something that Gamberoni pulled me aside to tell me. "Tell the students what to do, do not do it instead." After my first week in the Market Place, Gamberoni and Mrs. Rachney, my previous housekeeping teacher, and one of my favorite teachers at Les Roches, told how they missed me being there. I was rather touched, and blushed a bit.

After that week, I really felt that I was made to manage. I felt so comfortable doing it and it was a great feeling, knowing something well enough to teach others and get things done efficiently. I remembered more of what needed ot be done when I was put into a managerial role than I did when I was a student in stewarding, which I found rather interesting. All in all it was a good week. I started meeting Albert's friends, so I finally had faces to go with the names.

The one slightly irritating part of this week was when I had to find out which room I was living in. We were told to come to school the weekend before the 21st of July in order to call a number and get the key to whatever room we were assigned. I did as I was told and, hoping to get a good room, arrived at 8 am on Saturday. It turned out that the person who was supposed to take care of the keys was on her day off Saturday and we were supposed to come on Friday. In the end I got an excellent room. I'm the only stag. not in the community stagiere building. I have a nice single in a newly renovated building. They told me I would have to move when the "key woman" finished her contract and moved out of the stagiere house. They ended up extending her contract until December, so I get to stay in my awesome private room, which I am rather happy about.

All in all the start went well with minor glitches and slight disorganization on the school's part, as usual. Now that it is expected, it is not as irritating.