week 2, the getting ready to teach process

Really silly picture of me, I'm looking at a waterfall...

We are at the top of that rather large rock, can't remember the name of it at the moment, but it was an insane climb, so fun...

August 13, 2006

Sunday, I got to sleep in, oh and it was wonderful I felt so rested when I got up. I was lazy and enjoyed reading my bible and talking to God. Around 10:30 Marla and I went down to the teacher’s room to get onto the internet. I was on the internet until 2:00 in the afternoon. I got to talk to Matt and Beth-Anne on instant messenger, along with Matt Lucio. It was really nice to talk to them even if it was only for a little bit. And I got to write people and e-mail them stuff and that was so fun. I also got to work on my webpage (sorry everyone it is not up and running yet). Then I had to go and do lesson plans…oh joy…I was so not looking forward to it, but thankfully Mrs. McGuier helped me with my lesson plans for the week and we got it done in like two hours and I was so happy to have them done. I just went back to my apartment, ate supper, and read a book (Deborah and Barak) a really good book by the way, until late in the evening. Like I thought that I would be alright going to bed at 10:30, but I was certainly wrong.

August 14, 2006

My alarm went off at 5:45 in the morning, I could not move, resetting my alarm for 6:30 I once again fell asleep. Even with getting up at 6:30 to take a shower I thought that I was going to fall asleep in the shower, but thankfully I didn’t. After my shower I had to go through the decision process of deciding what skirt to wear, and when I decided I had to pick a shirt and then I trotted out to the kitchen with my bible and prayer journal to have breakfast and God time. I popped two slices of bread into the toaster and settled myself onto one of the bar stools and waited for my toast. As I ate my peanut butter toast with honey and cherry preserves I finished reading the book of judges. Then I wrote in my prayer journal, I was very unsure about my first day of teaching.
At staff worship I sat there wondering what I had gotten myself into. I mean teaching for a whole ten months? I wasn’t sure that I would be able to do that. But at 8:15 I was heading to my classroom where a whole bunch of students and their parents were sitting waiting for me to arrive. I was so nerves when I saw them, but I smiled and opened the classroom. At 8:30 I butchered my way through my student’s names, and then we sang songs for worship (and that could have gone worse honestly) and then I read them a worship thought and wished that it was more at their level. Then I went over the rules of class, which were suppose to take 30 minutes, but it took about 10 minutes, by then I was starting to panic I hadn’t planned enough, so I took out my laptop computer and showed them pictures of my family, including a picture of my dad on his birthday, (dad one of the kids thought that you were 24 years old). Then I had them take out their crayons and had them color until recess. After recess we took a campus tour and from there we went back to our classroom and worked on a bible coloring sheet and I read to them, and then we worked on something called “my family” where the students would draw out their house and their family members and my teacher aid and myself would go around and label all the family members and we had them take it home for their parents to see. After that I had them color freely and listen to me read them small stories, many of them fell asleep and then it was time for them to leave, since it was only a half day and all. (thank goodness, I was so tired and I wanted to sleep) But I couldn’t, at 1:00 we had staff meeting and after that I went and made lunch for myself, Rice and Ramen… at 2:30 Becky and I decided to take a short nap before our shopping trip at 3:00, we were out in a matter of minutes, at 2:55 my alarm went off, but I was so tired that I couldn’t tell whether or not it was my alarm so I put it up next to my ear and suddenly realized that indeed it was my alarm and that it was time to get up. I turned off my alarm and called over to Becky who was still sleeping, it took three tries, but she finally woke up. We changed into long shorts (skirts are annoying to shop in, having to climb into the back of the trucks and all) and tumbled out of the apartment and then down to the shelter where we always waited for the yellow trucks to appear. Becky and I were like sleep walking and we were like, this is only a half day, think of what tomorrow will be like…
Shopping was fun, like normal. We first stopped at the post office to drop off and pick up mail. Since they were taking an incredibly long time Becky and I trotted across the street to look at skirts and a few other things (I found Christmas gifts for my family) I got a really pretty brown skirt and then we walked out of the store and found that the yellow fire truck had left us. Well that was really nothing new, we knew where they were going to be going (to Wall Mart) so we walked out and then joined two other girls who had been left as well and headed to a t-shirt shop and then we walked back down the street past the skirt shop to Wall Mart (it is called wall mart because it is next to a wall) When we were just 25 ft from the entrance the yellow fire truck rumbled by and Raz yelled “Hey!” and pointed at Becky and I. We smiled and then piled into the lovely air conditioned building. We really didn’t buy much of anything, I bought a tin can of honey peanuts and a cold Arizona Ice Tea (it was lemon flavor, and I was so thirsty) Once in the truck I opened the Ice Tea and totally enjoyed how cold it was. Raz had gotten the Raspberry flavor and wanted to try mine…I let him of course (it isn’t anything new to me to eat or drink water, juice, or tea after my friends) and then I tried his and I have to say I liked the raspberry flavor better. But once I downed the Ice Tea my stomach had a small talk with me…it doesn’t like caffeine all that much, because I don’t drink stuff with caffeine in it much. But it was so good, so I didn’t mind at all. We shopped around more and soon we were at our last stop and it hadn’t rained yet (that is amazing, the clouds normally get stuck on the mountains and it will rain) we ran into Palm Terres (Kelli how do you spell that?) In there I just needed two notebooks, another jar of peanut butter and a jar of jam. I wandered around and found Raz looking at flip flops (they have the best flip flops there, I will certainly have to get more of them before I leave in May) I told him which ones were comfy and which ones weren’t (although he already knew which ones weren’t cause he had bought them the week before) but in the end he found a nice pair and then we wandered around looking for things that we might need but really didn’t. Then we checked out and left the store. We were not far from campus when it started to rain, once back in my apartment I went down to the office to pick up my package (mom it came, so it takes two weeks to get here) and then I unpacked it and read more of my book, ate some supper, read some more, finished making my lesson plans better and now I am writing this. And really bed sounds wonderful, so I think that I might just go and crash. Love you all. Bye.

August 15, 2006

Well ya’ll today was certainly a day to go down in the record books as one awful, horrible, terrible day. I mean it didn’t start out bad, but I think that my students are used to me now and well they do not listen not even a little bit. I was so glad that I had God time this morning, cause I was starting to loose it. Worship went well, reading could have gone better, but then again these kids can’t read so anything will be bad. Recess was nice except remember the listening factor? Well these kids are like little devils. If any of you have worked at camp and thought those kids were bad, well I don’t think that you would last a day with 20 of these in your classroom from 8:30 to 3:00. Anyway Math was like a nightmare, I mean most of them can count up to like 10, but they will not follow directions and we did this in class together so that they would get them all right, and students still got them wrong. But these first graders do not know their numbers, they do not know how to read, they can’t remember their ABC’s, they are pretty good with copying #’s and letters off the board. They also like to peal the paint off their desks, I shouldn’t complain that much, I really shouldn’t but it is only day two and I can’t believe that I will be doing this for the next ten months, but I have been told that it gets easier…I sure hope so. I am sick of the persistent “Teacher! Teacher I’m done!” or “teacher I need help” and if I don’t come running right them I can hear “teacher, Teacher, TEACHER!” or “Teacher I was done FIRST!” Usually around this point teacher is getting rather annoyed and wants the little voices to stop, but they don’t stop they never do, but since I now know where they are all sitting and I know most of their names I can write their names on the board when they are naughty instead of loosing my voice trying to make them listen. I read to the students all the time, in all of the free time, trying to get them used to English words, but mostly I get unruly children and all of that. So don’t let people tell you that being a teacher is like the most wonderful thing ever because you get the summers off, well it might be rewarding once your students start to learning, but right now it is nothing but hard work with little reward (I’ve been grading their papers and um well we have a long way to go until they can understand even simple English) But don’t get me wrong, I do like it here and all, but I’m not sure that I am totally keen on teaching anymore, but I will not quit, hopefully tomorrow will go better then today, because other wise I am going to be one extremely frustrated and depressed teacher, and that is really not good.
But on the bright side we got our uniform shirts today. The girl’s are red, white, and blue…while the guys are blue, white, and grey. And I got paid today, and that was really nice, I put it into the school safe along with my passport, tickets, and travelers checks. That way I knew that it would always be safe and I wouldn’t have worry about where it was all the time. Basically if we loose the paper tickets we are up a creek…basically do not loose those. Very important to keep, anyway tickets for going anywhere have shot up, I mean on Sunday a round trip ticket to Hawaii was $1700.00 and well other places are also expensive and well they don’t allow carry on luggage anymore of something, I don’t know for sure but that is what we have been hearing, talk about a boring flight home…23 hours home with nothing to do, oh I am not looking forward to that. Well I still have other letters to write, mainly to Tim cause well, I ran out of time yesterday. Talk to all of you fun people later, Bye

August 16, 2006

Well I thought that Wednesday would go better then Monday and Tuesday, but that was just wishful thinking. Now if I was in the states and still working on my education degree I would give up on the whole idea of being a teacher once and for all. But since I’m not and I still believe that God put me on this island for a reason, besides the fact that he needed to teach me a few things during my stay here, and if he is trying to get my attention by giving me trials galore, I am getting to the breaking point. The problem is that I work really hard all day, like I got up at 5:55 this morning and it is um well 1 am at the moment and I really should go to bed. But things went wrong when I was entering the grades into my computer, and then I noticed that things were wrong in my blue grade book, so I had to fix that. And then I had to do lesson plans and that took about an hour and a half to complete. And before that I had to grade all of the homework cause I won’t let my teacher’s aid do it cause I want to see what kind of progress (if any) my students are making. I know many excuses about things like this, but every morning I wake up and I am excited that things are going to be different and that I will have a good class for once, but everyday my hopes are dashed, these kids just don’t listen, you can take away as much recess as you want, but they will still misbehave, and to be perfectly honest I don’t know how much more of this I can take…..on that note I am going to bed, cause I don’t feel like remembering this day.

August 17, 2006

Sleep was totally a welcome sight early this morning, but as my alarm went off at 6:20 I wished that the darkness would continue on and I wouldn’t have to see my students. I know that it sounds mean, but I hate my students…yes there are a few that I really like, but on a whole, I hate my entire class. They do not listen, they do not take me seriously, they do not understand when I tell them no or write their names up on the board. I feel like I am constantly yelling at them, until I have no voice left in order to talk to my friends when school is out. The thing is that my class is usually good until right after lunch. Around the time lunch recess begins they become little terrors and they are not fun to be around, today I almost lost it completely in the afternoon, they don’t listen and they do what they please, their parents don’t stop them at home so they don’t expect me to stop them. I honestly feel like I have been teaching for at least four months, but really it has only been four days. It isn’t that fun of a feeling, and I even told my class that I don’t like yelling at them, but that they needed to listen to me and stop their talking…they are like high schools students in little bodies, they know exactly what to do in order to get their way, that is all that they want, they want to get their way, but what they normally run into is that I am not interested in letting them get their way. But I am planning on changing a few things by the time next week comes, I mean I have never taught before and I am going to want to change how I am doing some things and other things well I will probably change them every week until I find a system that works.
I’m actually in the teacher’s workroom; I did my grading and entered the grades in both the blue grade book and my computer. Then I looked through books and found the pages that I need for next week (lots of copies to be made, I am going to keep those kids so busy next week…they will not have time to be bad) Then I checked my e-mail and after that well I am writing you! And my battery is about to die…so I will have to write more later.

August 18, 2006
Well Friday was certainly a challenge. Things would have been better if I wasn’t feeling like I was going to throw-up during class. And my students, well they were as wild as ever, but I couldn’t yell at them, my voice hurt and it so wasn’t happening. But I did get through the day, which was a good thing, cause it was an hour shorter then most of the school days and I was so sick of my kids and wanted to go and sit in my apartment. Which I did as soon as I could…and Marla who had been sick the last two days was there and we watched a movie and then did a deep clean of the three rooms of our house…after finding 4 cockroaches on different days…we decided the time had come, to clean the house really good.

August 19, 2006

Sabbath, I was so glad that it was here and the rest was great. Sabbath school and church were fun, I mean it always is, but what I want to tell you about is what we did after church. By the airport there is this huge rock that is like 600 ft tall and we climbed it. Now to climb that rock we had to start out at the bottom on the trial and work our way up. Then after a 45 minute hike we had to start climbing, but it was so fun. I followed Kat because her husband John told me to…he said that I was small and I could take the route that she took…it was safer too. So after being told to always have a hold on something I scrambled up after Kat. There were roots, tree branches, a blue rope, and a metal pipe that helped us up the first part. And then I looked up and saw the giant rock we were about to climb. Now most people would look at the metal pipe that was suppose to help us climb up the rock and say…No way…but noticing that Kat didn’t pause I scrambled up after her. The pipe that had old wiring in it must have been left over from WWII. But it certainly helped as we climbed up. Now I live rock climbing and I was certainly glad that I had taken off my Tevas for this part of the climb…more traction. I was not going to be like the other girls on this outing…they were somewhere down the mountain complaining about how hard it was and how much they hated it…no I was going to climb this rock if it was the last thing I did. Now perhaps it was the adrenaline rush or the fact that I was just toying with death (if you fell you would drop until you hit either a tree or the ground 600ft below) but whatever it was I was so excited about the climb and the fact that we were doing something this high without ropes was totally an exciting thought. But since I am writing to you, I survived and saw the beautiful scenery from the top. The ocean stretched out before us and the reefs looked awesome, you could see the tiny airport and its runway and the fishing boats and the island down below. It was so cool. I took lots of pictures and videos with my camera. I got to eat the best pineapple that I have ever had and it was so good and then we took more pictures and talked and rested and waited for the rest of the group to get up. (Which took some time…I hope those girls don’t come again with us cause they made the trip less enjoyable for those of us that had to listen to them the entire time) While we waited we explored the top of the big rock and found that the pineapple bushes will cut you…so besides the bruises that I already have I also have cuts on my feet and legs…Once the girls got up it was time to go back down…and going down was easy…like you would think that it wouldn’t be because you are going backwards down what you already climbed up…but I just felt around with my toes and held onto the pipe and all was good…even at the very end of the climb down. I left my shoes off as we made our way down, cause I had more traction, people thought it odd, but I wasn’t slipping around like they were. One girl Carrie past out on the trial, she was dehydrated and couldn’t keep the water we gave her down. She threw up along side the trail and felt better…then after 45 min. a bunch of us helped her down the trail…it took a long time but we got her down and into one of the trucks…she is right as rain today…but we were very glad that she didn’t pass out on the steep climb of the rock face…that would have been really bad…
Once we got back on campus Marla and I rushed off to the shower, she let me go first cause I was certainly the muddiest. Once I was done she got in and suddenly there was a new Marla…for some reason because of the fact that she has ADD and ADHD, when she has a lot of exercise her ADHD kicks in really hard and she gets extremely hyper and starts talking like an 8 year old or as Raz put it, she was acting drunk. It was funny but annoying too. We went out to eat and I tried fish for the first time ever and the fish burger wasn’t bad, I liked it, but I don’t know if it was the fish burger or the cigarette smoke that made me sick to my stomach, but either way I felt sick and left early with one of the other groups…but I a fine today…but for those of you who have never tried fish it isn’t all that bad and I liked it…I hopefully will be able to try more someday.

Well that was yesterday, and today I have a ton to do in my classroom and such. I am in great need of children’s books, like ones for little kids (6 or 7) and if any of you would like to send some books that would be great…flash cards for letters and numbers would be great too…I have to make my own for the kids right now…really time consuming.

Anyway I miss all of you! Talk to you later

Emily