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.