Two Months

Saturday, October 2, 2010
9:34 PM in Kolonia, 3:34 AM at home

Wow, I cannot believe I have been here two months already. The time flies quickly. Things have been busy here lately… stressful… rewarding… I am glad to be here. It’s been a quiet Sabbath, one which I have needed. I’m not quite ready for next week to start. Tomorrow will be gone, and Monday will be here before I know it, probably with me still more unprepared to teach than I’d like.

I spent the majority of last weekend in the hospital. I spent Saturday night there with a couple other SMs; I figured if I wasn’t going to get much sleep back in the apartment, I may as well stay at the hospital. I got a 20 minute nap in. It was a pretty good night, although the morning was pretty rough for Brian. Hard to watch at times. The air evac doctors finally arrived and all 40 of us followed the ambulance to the airport and waited until the plane took off for Guam. Then we went back to the school exhausted.

The GMM Coordinator was visiting us last weekend, which was excellent timing, and took all of us SMs out to eat at this cool place called The Village. I had been pretty awake all night and most of the morning, but as soon as I ate all I wanted to do was sleep. Needless to say, none of my grading got done last weekend.

I went into this school week tired and behind, and barely prepared to teach my classes. God has been giving me words to speak, because I have somehow managed to have enough words to fill all my class periods and cover everything that needs to be covered. Chemistry’s been the most fascinating to watch myself teach. We’re going through electron configurations right now, and they actually seem to be getting it. I know it’s not me coming up with the words, it has to be God, because I remember saying something to them in lecture about period trends, and writing it up on the chalkboard. I kind of blinked and had to take a step back for a moment, because I realized that I never knew that concept before, and somehow I had just explained something to my students that I was unaware of. At least one person is learning chemistry over here: me!

Tuesday one of my student’s mothers came in to see how he was doing. That was intimidating and enlightening at the same time. She asked how he was doing. I was like, “Uhh… he could be doing better.” She asked what his grade was. I told her that I didn’t know it off the top of my head, but I did know that “he hasn’t been turning in much homework.” She was worried about his progress because this is only his second year in an English school. I wish I had known that a whole lot sooner! She asked for back work, and I said I would look into it. I checked on his grades that night and realized that he was one of my invisible sink-dwellers, and that his current score was a 26%. Yeesh. He is supposed to take a make up quiz next week. I’m not sure how this is going to turn out.

Wednesday was bad timing. They told us high school teachers that morning that we would be subbing for Brian until he gets back. Now, I love my EMT buddy, and I want him back and healthy as much as the next person, but now I would really appreciate his return. I have not had time to catch up and prepare for my own classes this week, let alone try to teach another. And I’ve been on lunch duty all week, so the timing could not have been more stressful.

Lunch duty has been a blur of business, too. I’ve probably handed out close to 50 demerit slips and had 15 confiscations this week. I’ve also helped one girl who fainted, and gotten my hands bloody twice cleaning up elementary students. I realized this week I’ve seen a lot of unconscious people in the last two months. And I’m not just talking about my napping students.

Thursday night was the freshman welcome party. That was an interesting and entertaining event. The poor freshman. My little Hamlet was one of the SA leaders in charge of it, and was calling up freshman and teachers to come up and do different stunts. He had one of the students sing the Barney song with one of the math teachers. Another student had to dance to Thriller with the biology teacher (these people love M.J.) I got to show one freshman how to do pushups (‘cause I’m “the best physics teacher in the world!”) Haha, lucky for Hamlet, I’m creating the entire next physics quiz out of that moment. I can’t wait. Two students came in and did a traditional fire dance, which was a pretty amazing feat – I actually was able to get some clips of it. It was pretty awesome to watch.

Anywho, somehow I survived the week, and pretty soon I’m sure I’ll find myself at the end of the next. Life is busy, but it is good here!