Sokehs and Weekend Newsy News

Yesterday we climbed Sokehs rock again. The view from the top is phenomenal. We went to church in Kitti instead of Kolonia because we were supposed to have SM Sabbath there the past 2 weeks but we were doing SM Sabbaths at Kolonia both those weeks. This past week went fairly well. My kids brought in decorations and we decked out the classroom with lights, ceiling hangings and tinsel. It looks really cute. During handwriting and math time we've been listening to Christmas music. I like the music and as an added bonus it keeps the kids quieter. It was a hot week and Mr. B was in Guam. The school really felt his absence. We were glad to have him back on Friday. His birthday was last week while he was gone so we had a surprise party for him last night instead. It was a lot of fun. I like the times when everyone can just hang out and not worry about all the things we have to do for the next week. Tomorrow begins the last full week before Christmas break. The Christmas program is a week from Wednesday and I think it'll be really good. My kids are singing "Angels We Have Heard on High". It's hard to believe that the school year is nearly half over. I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing as a teacher to be honest. I have learned a lot though, especially about kids.
Well I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas season. Those of you in school, good luck with those finals!
Things I've learned in Pohnpei:
1. getting mail is in the top ten most exciting things in the world
2. riding INSIDE a car with a seatbelt is overrated

Thanksgiving and other Randomness

So maybe this is a bit late for Thanksgiving, but hey, life is busy. Last Thursday night we had a big huge feast with all the SMs, the Benjamins, and some of the locals as well. I’ve never seen so much food in all my life. It was delicious and a lot of fun too! We sat around and chatted after the preliminary stuffing of ourselves. I missed having Thanksgiving with the family, but I had a good time here too. Last Sat. we had SM Sabbath and it went really well. We had a big potluck after church and then just lazed around the rest of the day because it was raining too hard to go hiking. The big excitement for the week was that we decorated our apartment for Christmas and consequently busted out the Christmas tunes! Nothing like a little bit of Kenny G and Jackson 5 Christmas to bring the spirit of the holidays. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is so soon! I’m looking forward to seeing Riki and Ross and having some time to play and relax! School really saps you of all energy. Just keeping up with my 3^rd graders is a full time job, and then I have to try to teach them something on top of that! We made snowman, candy cane, and Christmas tree nametags on Friday. They were asking me what sledding was like and how you could ice skate on a pond without falling through the ice. I realized that I have experienced so much in my young life. Although being here I admit makes me feel ancient. I am over twice as old as the people I spend the majority of my time with, trust me, it can make you feel old in a hurry. Well I hope your Thanksgivings were delicious and enjoyable!

Things I've learned in Pohnpei:
1. ants will get into your food, nothing can stop them, they have the force.
2. Being willing to do something is more important than being good at it.

Rainy Days and Mondays

Contrary to the song, made popular by the Carpenters, neither the rain nor Monday was depressing to me. Monday was a holiday so there wasn’t any school, and the nearly constant rain this week I rather enjoyed. For one, it’s been very cool outside, and secondly, I enjoy falling asleep to the rain. This week was a good one. We had varsity practice and also went to a meeting to discuss the upcoming b-ball tournament yesterday. I think our team can do well if we practice hard. The tournament is during Christmas break, it should be a lot of fun. My class is doing pretty good, this week they were really into making paper spiders by tracing their fingers. I have to admit they are kind of cute, I have a few hanging in my classroom. I went to Kapinga Village on Wednesday to help with the Band-Aid clinic. I haven’t gone in several weeks and I missed it, so I tried to make some time to go. Hanging out with the kids is fun, they are so energetic and loving. To those of you that I promised bumpy black zories for Christmas, the search continues. Palm Terrace and the few other stores I’ve looked in don’t have them in stock right now, but hopefully they will soon!
Today I am especially thankful for the genius invention of the Sabbath. Nothing compares to the utter relaxation you experience knowing that you don’t need to be doing lesson plans, grading, cleaning the apartment, or various other activities. I love being able to just unwind from the week on Friday evening and look forward to Saturday too. Today after church we went to a waterfall following lunch. Since we’ve had so much rain recently the waterfall was HUGE! We have been to that same one before but last time it was quite a bit smaller, just lightly cascading down the rocks. This time it was pouring over the edge. The current was really strong up next to it. It was so much fun to swim around and hang out.

Things I’ve learned:

1. A hug from a student can melt away a lot of stress
2. There is nothing prettier than an ocean sunset
3. Bananas are a major food group

Insectopia aka Nah

The school fair was on Thursday of this week. Wednesday we spent a good share of the afternoon preparing for it. For the 3rd grade booth Maribel (the other 3rd grade teacher) and I hosted a game where you race ping pong balls down a pvc pipe by squirting them with water. It went well and we made quite a bit of money. The fair was a lot of fun, and also a lot of work. At the end I was so tired!!! Friday morning we packed for camping and headed out around noon. It was a long and fun boat ride and Nah, the island we went to, was beautiful. The sand was so fine and white and the water was clear. It was really awesome....until sundown. We were snorkeling around sunset so I didn't notice right away, but huge swarms of insects started coming out all over the place. Getting out of the water and getting changed meant getting eaten alive. Even standing directly in the smoke of the fire didn't help. These bugs aren't like mosquitoes where you can see them and swat at them, they are like microscopic and EVERYWHERE. After dark the insects went away a bit and I was ready for bed. We were sitting on the beach just chillin when the rain started, just a sprinkle, but I've been here long enough to know what that leads to. We all dove under the tarp before the deluge hit. So much for sleeping in my hammock. I rescued my food and 5 gallon bucket full of clothes/gear and settled in for one of the longest nights of my life. Despite the pouring rain, the relentless biting of the insects, and the palm branches poking me, I wasn't miserable, just not comfortable enough to sleep. I think mostly it was the bugs. I ended up wrapping myself with my sheet into a cocoon of sorts, which was much too hot, but necessary to ward off the insects. After tossing and turning and listening to the rain for most of the night I finally slept for a few hours. At dawn 2 boatloads of itchy, wet, miserable people loaded up and drove off. I wanted to stay until the second load because, hey I'd survived the night, I might as well stay the day and enjoy the beach, so why not? Those of us that stayed walked part way around the rather large island. We saw eels hunting for fish in the low tide, which is really awesome to watch by the way. In the midst of this show another rainstorm hit. We tried to find cover under a tree, but to no avail, we were soaked to the bone in a matter of minutes. Hiking back was fun though, there is nothing like trudging through the jungle in the midst of a downpour. We got back to camp, waited out the storm under the tarp and then packed up and left. We finally arrived back at the school sometime mid afternoon. I slept a good share of the evening to try to make up for last night. It was an experience for sure, not one that I'm eager to repeat, but still fun to have experienced. School is just the same as always, we have our evaluations coming up pretty soon so that is something to be thinking about, but other than that we are just cruising into the middle of second quarter. I think midterms are coming up here in a week or two. Well that's about it for my weekend adventures. From reading my blogs you'd think my life is all about scuba diving and camping, but in reality those are the things I deem most worthy of writing about. I suppose hearing that I eat PB&J everyday for lunch or that I had to kill world's biggest spider in my room one morning, or that the ship brought oats last week is equally exciting though. In conclusion, I'm itchy and I miss you all, but life is good. It's November already which means that Dec will be here soon which means that I get to see Ross and Riki!!! I'm excited, and itchy.

Finally November

This week was another short one. Apparently November is full of short weeks. I’m looking forward to it. This week started out rough and continued much the same. I’m glad we had Friday off, I think I might have gone crazy otherwise. On Halloween a bunch of my kids came to the apartment for trick-or-treating. They were cute in their costumes. On my day off I mostly read and sat around, it was relaxing. We also went out to The Village with everyone for breakfast. That was fun to just chill and hang out with all the SMs. I don’t get to see the high school teachers much during the week. Today we played ultimate frisbee for a while and I took a nice long nap. The annoying thing about napping here is that I always feel ants crawling on me so I wake up to slap them all. Last week I got a package from WWU with a bunch of notes from old friends and stuff, it was fun to read those! I’m glad it is finally November. October was one of those months that just seemed to never end. This week is the school fair, similar to the fall festival at home. Our class is hosting some ping pong ball race. It should be a good time even if it is a lot of work. Last week when we had Wednesday off I tried my hand at break making for the first time. I’m quite pleased with the results if I do say so myself. I didn’t have all the right ingredients, but it turned out alright and it is a lot cheaper and healthier than buying pre-made loaves. Well, I’m off to see what fun there is to be had this evening!

I'd like to be, under the sea...

This weekend was a 3 day weekend because Friday was parent teacher conferences instead of school. I didn't have any angry parents or anything, so that was good. After conferences, we loaded up the boat and headed to Black Coral, an island not far from the main island. This one didn't have much sand and it was TINY, but very relaxing to get away from school and everything for a short while. We sat around all day Sabbath and snorkeled a bit in the channel near the island. This morning we went diving right by the island. I got to use my own BC this time which was nice, and I actually had weights too! I saw about 4 reef sharks (one of which was a baby, very cute) and a sea turtle for a fleeting second. It was down pretty deep and was moving fast so I didn't get a good look at it. Our dive was pretty long and fun, also uneventful, which is generally a good thing when talking about scuba diving. I'm not looking forward to school tomorrow because I'm really tired, but hopefully I'll get a good night's sleep and make up for this weekend. I slept on the hard wood floor of our hut the first night we were there because it was so hot that I was burning up in my hammock without any breeze. The 2nd night was much better as it was raining and windy. I hung my hammock from the low rafters of the hut and slept really good, but I'm still pretty tired from everything. Well, back to school tomorrow, we have Wednesday off because of U.N. day, which will be a nice break in the middle of the week. Our leaky shower got fixed this weekend as well, so now we don't have a permanent puddle on our bathroom floor anymore. So much to be thankful for if you really think about it. Sometimes it's hard to look on the positive side though. One quarter down, three to go!

Things I've learned in Pohnpei:
1. Teachers deserve the utmost respect, they work hard
2. Balance is key to happiness
3. Cabbage salad is salad nonetheless

Sahwertik & Sahwerlap

This weekend was a very busy and fun one! I'm very pwang (tired) from all the festivities. On Sabbath we hiked to two waterfalls down in a gorge. It was a steep but beautiful hike. The first one was super tall, maybe like a few hundred ft and gorgeous. It had a nice deep pool at the base and sheer walls surrounding it. We had to hike up the river to get there too, which proves interesting when your shoes have very little traction. Nothing more than a few more bumps, bruises, and scraped knees to add to the collection though. Saturday night we had a b-day party for one of my roommates which turned out to be a lot of fun also. We even did some salsa dancing. On Sunday we loaded up the boat and headed out to Palikir Pass for some scuba-rama. It was only the 2^nd time I’ve been diving here. I had to use someone else’s BC due to a time constraint and various other issues. The BC was several sizes too large for me and I had nothing but 2 small rocks for weights, but somehow everything ended up working fine and the dive went well. It was kind of scary diving without any instructor, just a dive buddy, but all went well and I even saw 3 reef sharks! After a while Tina (my dive buddy) and I met up with Mr. B and Raymond and they took us down pretty deep to see the sharks. I dove to about 85 ft, which is the deepest I’ve ever gone, but that’s where the sharks were, so that was fun to see. That is pretty much the summation of my weekend. It was a lot of fun and I felt ready to tackle yet another Monday. This week has been going fast luckily. We have Friday semi-off. By that I mean that we don’t have school, but we do have parent teacher conferences since report cards come out on Thursday. After school we are supposed to go camping at Black Coral, nothing is for sure yet though. We caught one of our many resident mice a few days ago, one down, 2 more to go! A new quarter has started this week. It is somewhat of a relief to be able to start fresh, but starting over can also be stressful. The ship with the copier ink still hasn’t come, so we are using the small copier still which means that we can only make copies for certain things. It makes grading papers harder because they mostly do work out of the book, but I have 2 high school graders do most of that, so that is nice. Well I hope you are all doing mwau (good) and I’d love to hear from you! Oh, the pictures are of Karen and I at Sahwertik (a waterfall) and on of me and my TA Eileen. She's awesome.

Its been a long time since I've posted! Last week on Friday it was our elementary school picnic. We went to a man made beach called Nihco Marine Park. The kids absolutely loved it. They played in the water and tried their best to coax me into the water with them. I gave in eventually. It was a lot of fun, but planning things like that take so much work! Calling parents for rides to a from the park and getting supervision and collecting money, it was a long process. This week went slowly for me. It was a rough week because our copier is totally out of ink until the next boat comes. It is very hard to teach 3rd grade without worksheets of some type, let me tell you. I did a whole lot of "in class" work and gave points based on participation. This week looks to be another creative lesson planning week as well. I'm getting more used to school, but there is always something to surprise you, like when the kids get hit in the face with a swing and have to go to the hospital to get stitches, or when you have an irate parent yelling at you in front of your students. Always something to deal with. This weekend was a welcome break, only to wake up this morning feeling horrible. I tried to go about my day and just ignore it, but I nearly passed out in my classroom, so I decided to go back to bed. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be recovered enough to teach. Last weekend was very fun though. We hiked through the jungle to a waterfall and played there for a while. It was not the prettiest one we've been to, but still a lot of fun, and the hike was gorgeous. Sunday a few of us went canoing through the mangrove mazes in a channel. That was soo cool! Some of the passageways wind on for a long ways, it felt like touring the Amazon or something. It's hard to believe that it's nearly October already! The days go painfully slow, but the weeks usually go pretty fast. Well, I've got science tests to write and a huge stack of papers to record so I'd better get to work. I miss you all, thanks for your comments and prayers!

Weekend at Ant

This last weekend we had 4 days off! Monday was Teacher in Service Day and Tuesday was Liberation Day. Because we had such a nice long time off, we decided to go camping at an outer island. We left Friday immediately after school and took an hour long boat ride to the atoll (called Ant). On our way there a huge pod of dolphins swam next to our boat and accompanied us for part of the way. They were so cute!! The ocean was kind of crazy in such a small boat, but it was a fun ride. I was soaked by the time we arrived. I scouted out some good palm trees and set up my hammock. By the way, sleeping in a hammock- fun , yes. Comfortable, NO. Just thought I'd clear that up. We ate mostly pancakes and ramen noodles the whole weekend. It was so nice to be on a sandy beach and be barefoot all weekend! There were crabs everywhere too, you had to be careful where you stepped! Saturday we played on my slack line and snorkeled most of the time. I saw an octopus while snorkeling! It was really cool. I've always wanted to find one. So, it turns out that the tiny strip of exposed skin between my rash guard and board shorts, yeah, that needs sunscreen too. Ouch. I think I was actually one of the least sunburned of the bunch of us, but I hurt a bit on Monday and used aloe very liberally. We went scuba diving Sunday afternoon just before returning to Pohnpei, which was fun. I didn't see anything fabulous, but it was the first time I'd been diving since my checkout dive in February so I had fun. It was such a chill and relaxing weekend. I think it's the first time since I've been here that I've really really enjoyed myself. I wish we always had four days off for every weekend! School is going alright. Some days are dare I say "good", and some are not so much fun. Today would be the latter. I think they put a shot of caffeine in the lunches sometimes because my kids were bouncing off the walls today. If any of you get a hankering to send me a letter, or even a package, be my guest, it would be much appreciated. My address is -
Pohnpei SDA School
PO Box 518
Kolonia, Pohnpei 96941
FSM, Pohnpei
I always appreciate mail, it brightens my day like you wouldn't believe! Thank you for all your support and prayers!

Happenings

This week went by fast. I was super busy all the time trying to figure out grading, calling parents, and mustering up the energy to teach. Things are starting to get into a routine now, but there are still new challenges everyday. My kids seem to find a new way to misbehave or something new to complain about everyday. My evenings are filled with grading and recording after which I go straight to bed because I am exhausted! Occasionally I find time to go running at the track or play soccer if I put off grading for a blessed few hours. Last night was the Freshman welcome party at the gym. The kids are crazy! A few groups did some dancing for entertainment. They all brought a bunch of very delicious food too. It was pretty fun, especially because I never see the high schoolers, I'm always with my class. I like them a lot, sometimes, but after 7 hours everyday of loud rambunctious little kids I'm ready for a break. We got paid yesterday and went shopping. We finally got a mop for our apartment and some more food. It's amazing how fast the money goes! After vespers tonight John and I climbed into the neighbor's star fruit tree by the church (they don't mind) and we harvested a whole bunch of star fruit. Some of it wasn't quite ripe so it has a bit of a sour tang to it, but it is pretty delicious! Sunday is a work day for us so we'll be working around the school and our apartments probably fixing up stuff and general cleaning. I am so glad it is the weekend. God sure knew what he was doing when he made a day of rest! Thanks for all the emails and comments, it really makes my day to hear about how you guys back home are doing! I miss you all!

Week of Blessings

This week has been full of blessings for me. Compared to last week it was a lot easier. However, that does not mean it was a breeze. Hear ye, Hear ye, Teaching is HARD WORK. It is definitely not a job that you can "leave at the office". Teachers work 24/7 it seems like. Anyways, I spent all week just trying to live a day at a time. There are times when I want to put tape over every child's mouth and tie them to their chairs, and then there are times when nothing makes me happier than an unexpected and definitely undeserved hug from one of my students. My days are rollercoasters of negatives and positives, but I have been slowly, and I mean very slowly learning how to be a better teacher. I started to get sick towards the end of the week, but luckily it never developed so I still could go to school. That was one blessing, secondly, we finally got hot water!! I hadn't had a hot shower in at least 3 weeks, it was great to actually feel very clean. I still take mostly cold showers because of the heat, but to at least have the option of making it slightly luke warm is super nice. Plus, doing our dishes in warm water seems so much more sanitary. As if that wasn't awesome enough, I got a much needed and very pleasantly surprising phone call a few days ago. I also received some very encouraging emails with some great advice from previous SMs and teachers. I appreciate all the emails I receive, you have no idea how much it means to me! Then, today, as I came into the office, bemoaning the fact that I still had a whole day ahead of me before I could rest for the weekend, I spied a nice big package with my name on it!! It was the most exciting piece of mail I have ever received. I mean, this thing was everything I needed and more, stuffed into a cardboard box! Needless to say, although life is still rough and I still am not used to all the responsibilities I have, I have a lot to be thankful for this week. Tomorrow we are planning to go to a different church than our usual one and a few of us our singing "Give it all to Jesus" for special music. After church I've heard rumor of a potluck, I sure hope it's true!!

Week one finished!!

One week of school done with and only about 36 left. I've learned a lot about teaching this week that I sincerely wish I had known before school started. My week was rough to put it lightly. I love my kids, but trying to teach them is very difficult. I've never been so happy for a weekend as I am right now. Today we went to another waterfall, this one was very spread out, it cascaded down a huge pile of rocks. you could climb up it and sit underneath parts of it. It was super fun. I actually got a little cold coming back to the school. That is the first time I've been cold since I got here, that is, except for the shower, which still doesn't have hot water. We have a few new apartment mates, a mouse who live under the oven, and a cockroach, well, he used to live in my roommate's closet, but he was eliminated with a shoe last night. We had pancake night at our apartment last night with all the SMs after vespers, which was a lot of fun too. Hopefully next week will go a little smoother than this last one, keep me in your prayers!

School Pictures

Here are some pictures of my students. I now have 21 kids. Three new ones just showed up today. I guess it's pretty normal here to have students show up days or even weeks late. Today was the first full day of school and it was very stressful. Having to control and even try to teach 21 eight year old barely English speaking children is quite the chore. I had fun overall though. I have a lot of grading to do though, so I'd better keep it short. Oh, and today one of my kids had ramen noodles for lunch....complete with a pack of Kool-Aid! Yup, I'm definately in Micronesia.

First Day Of School

Friday was the first day of school. I was super nervous all morning. I have 18 kids in my class. They are all adorable and VERY high energy. I hope I can keep up with them! I had a lot of fun on Friday although I didn't actually teach anything because it was the first day and it was a half day. We mostly went over the rules and practiced procedures such as walking in straight line quietly and entering the classroom in a non-chaotic fashion. I gave them a few assignments to see where they were at in some subjects. They are not up to 3rd grade standards in Reading for sure, but I'll do my best to work with them. On Sabbath we hiked up to Sokehs Rock. It was the most gorgeous hike I've ever been on. It's a steep hike up through the jungle for the first half, and the second half is pretty much like rock climbing with only a metal bar to hang on to for support. It was super fun. The view from the top is indescribable. After the hike we played b-ball against the youth again, us SMs won 4 games in a row! Today we spent the morning getting ready for school and the afternoon snorkeling at the reef. I got to use my new scuba fins for the first time. While we were there chilling in the boat it started POURING rain, it actually kind of hurt it was so hard, so I jumped into the ocean since it is much warmer and less painful than the rain. Tomorrow we start the first full day of school, and the first full week as well! My roommate made banana bread with chocolate chips in it yesterday with my overly ripe bananas and I cannot stop eating it. We also made haystacks on Sabbath afternoon, and I made homemade flour tortillas, yum!! We have been doing many cooking/baking experiments this past week, most have turned out well luckily. We even fried some parrotfish the other day, it was delicious!

School Happenings

The last few days have been pretty much nothing but lesson planning and cleaning my classroom. It's so much work! School hasn't even started yet and I'm tired! We went shopping again today and now we have a little more variety of food, I've been eating mostly rice and oatmeal for the last week. Some of the other SMs are getting their Pohnpeian driver's licenses and they were practicing around town today. I played soccer with some locals and other SMs last night, which was fun. It makes you sweat so bad though! Right now they are building a new apartment and so they turned off the hot water heater, so we have cold showers, which sounds like it would feel good since it is so hot here, but it's pretty shocking early in the morning. It is SOOOO hot here during the day from about 9-4:30ish. After that it's a really nice temp. and it's pretty comfortable, but during school hours I'm going to melt. The other night it rained REALLY hard, I mean, rainstorms in Cali are nothing compared to this, it was amazing. I love the rain here. It rains almost everyday and most nights for a while at least. There are geckos living in our apartment, just running around, and there are HUGE spiders here too, and they jump really far too. I was chasing one around Jen's classroom with a broom, it took me forever to kill it! Well I've got tons of lesson plans waiting for me, so I'd better get to work!

Waterfall/Sokehs Ridge

Yesterday we went shopping for food, had a staff meeting, and then piled into the two yellow trucks (which we stand in the back of and hang on for dear life) and headed out to a waterfall. Driving anywhere is always an adventure, you have to duck so you don't get hit in the face with leaves, and hang on, especially if Sam is driving! The waterfall was beautiful!!! You had to jump about 20ish feet into the basin, it was very fun! The water was pretty warm too, but still refreshing. After the waterfall we changed and then headed to vespers. This morning we went to church and then went hiking at Sokehs Ridge. We were going to climb Sokehs rock, but it rained really hard this morning so it would have been dangerous. It was a super fun hike and it rained really hard while we were there so it got slippery. We are going to play b-ball against the local youth in a few minutes.

Day One

We flew out of Hawaii (where we had orientation) on Wed. morning and arrived in Pohnpei Thurs afternoon. I'm staying in apt. 6 (for those of you who that means something) with Ashlee, Lacy, and Karen. I have my own room, which was a surprise. Last night the locals had a HUGE potluck for us SMs and we got assigned to our host families. The kids here are incredibly cute and the people are so friendly. The food was very different, some I liked alot, others not as much. After the potluck we sat and talked to people for a while and then went to bed. This morning we had breakfast with some of the other SMs and we are going to have our first staff meeting to talk about all the details for teaching and that stuff. The pictures are from Hawaii and a few from yesterday.

The countdown

On July 29 I'll be flying to Hawaii for the island missionary orientation. I'm excited that Riki will be going with me at least that far, and I'm even more excited that John Stewart is coming to Pohnpei with me. This week has been very bittersweet for me, probably more bitter actually. I've had to say goodbye to so many people that I will probably never see again. I've never had to do that before, and it's not fun, at all. Hopefully as I begin to plan what to pack and prepare for leaving I will be more excited. I know this is what I want to do, and I feel that I'm very ready for an adventure and a challenge, but it is still scary and hard. Keep me in your prayers!