Reflecting back

Almost 9 weeks ago. I think I'll always remember that moment when I had to say goodbye to my mom and dad, and kept waving in the security line for as long as I could. It was such a hard thing to do. It's ironic that I was entering "security" - because it felt more like I was leaving everything secure and safe in my life.

"Behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go"

"Sing to the Lord a new song, and his praise from the ends of the earth"

I'm at the 20% mark, almost 1/4 the way done with my journey here. I know it's weird to count down like that but it helps me stay in the right perspective. I'm reading a book written by Worsley on Shackleton's journey in Antarctica, and right before (spoiler alert!) they are forced to abandon their ship due to ice, Worsley says this:

"Remembering this in that dim cold twilight, surrounded by a world of snow and ice, I silently breathed a prayer of thankfulness that I had gone to Burlington Street that morning so long ago (the place where he met Shackleton), for whatever befell, I was living a great adventure, working side by side with a great man"

Worlsey was with Shackleton throughout his most dangerous and treacherous adventures, even up until Shackleton's death. He never regretted adventuring, or taking such great risks with his friend. He knew he was in the company of a great man, no matter what happened he was thankful.

I want to have that attitude in my life. I get to go on amazing adventures all around the world with my friend, the great and almighty God, and He is holding my hand through it all. No matter what happens, I won't regret my decision to follow Him, or to go where He has called me. Because I am just happy to be on a wild and crazy adventure with my friend. Even if my ship falls apart and leaves me stranded on the ice. Or, in this case, falls apart due to fungus and mold.

What happens...if I don't grade anything...ever

Very, very sleepy during Saturday Potluck. I was out. Cold.

Well, it's Wednesday - or rather Thursday now seeing as it's past midnight. I spent 5 hours today grading getting ready to finish midterm reports which go out tomorrow. So. Many. Papers. It's nauseating. If I became a teacher, as a profession, I would probably hire 100 graders. I wish I didn't have to assign any homework, ever. If I ever teach College courses I'm going to be one of those horrible teachers who has the entire grade based upon 4 exams. It's easier that way - yeah, it sucks for you, but I don't care. Haha. But no, because I'm merciful, I assign dinky little assignments due every single day! It's so tedious. I know, all you teachers are rolling your eyes. But I don't have any graders, and I have over 80 students in three different subjects. Grading is probably the worst thing in the entire world!!! The second worst thing would be getting up at 6:30AM in the morning.

You see, I have a confession. I'm a chronic class skipper. Throughout my 5 years of College, I skipped a lot of classes. Many, many classes in fact. Last Spring Quarter at Walla Walla I was taking a general 200 level Microbiology Class. Not that it's an easy class, by any means, but...I'm a science major, and this was definitely..."below me", especially considering I took it my senior year. Monday was quiz day. So guess what! Monday was the one day I actually went to class. So, for a 10-11 week quarter...I'm pretty sure I attended class about 15 times. It worked out wonderful. Yes, I got an A. I know I'm generalizing, but ... in general I think it's a homeschooler thing. Sure, there are those crazy overachieving homeschoolers that do everything perfect and make us lazy homeschoolers look really bad. But - I'm just not used to going to class every day for hours and hours! I've never, ever done that. I've never sat in a desk at school for more than 1 hour. I can't fathom it. It's disgusting. Teaching has exposed me to this horror. And, above all of this - it isn't any better if you're the teacher!!! It's actually worse. You can't zone out, 1/2 nap, or doodle on your pages. You have to be 100% (okay, sometimes 70%) engaged and focused on everything going on in your classroom - and with every single student. It's a new thing for me. So, getting up in the morning for "school" and being there until 4pm...yeah, that's weird. I can't believe you guys did that all through your childhood. That... sucks. I could barely attend 1 hour lectures every day throughout college. Oh- and a reminder - yes, I am still fairly smart and intelligent. Somehow I managed.


This is a picture of Stacey and I. Post-Grocery shopping. You see, going out into town in the back of a truck is always kind of a gamble. If it rains, too bad. Also, I'm wearing a typical Pohnpeian skirt in this photo. By typical I mean - the type of skirt worn by almost every single female on this island the majority of the time. I'm trying to fit in. The whole, blond white girl doesn't help much though.



This past week has actually been quite fun. World History is covering Ancient Greece, and American History is about to get into the Revolutionary War. Geography is still stuck talking about climates, pressures, and landforms...I like it, but they're all bored. My students are hilarious though. I am falling in love with some of them so much - the more you get to know them the more enjoyable it is to teach them! Ever since one day I asked my kids to get me food from the caf since I missed lunch, they all have been trying to bargain with me. "Miss, I will get you a juice!! How many extra credit points?", and I usually respond..."Get me one, and I'll decide later!" These past three weeks of sub work for Computer III has been so fun. I taught the kids how to play Mafia during days when the power was out. They all love it so much - they ask for it all the time. I feel bad for the new teacher...hah. They walk in every day and ask "Miss- Mafia today? Mafia? I want to be murderer this time Miss!!" We played this week once, and one of the students was the Doctor. I told him to "wake up" and he did, but because I wasn't looking at him at the time, he exclaimed "Miss, I'm over here" (which, in doing so, exposed his role to all the other 'sleeping' players) and once he realized what he did the entire class erupted in laughter and he took forever to realize his mistake. Today, my computer students all took a typing test. I told them, if they beat my typing score I'd give them ONE MILLION extra credit points. The highest score was 56 WPM. So, after wards they all pestered me to let them watch me take a test. I, being excellently skilled in so many things, scored a 98 WPM. They all gasped and ran out of the lab exclaiming how crazy I was.

Tomorrow is my first day back on my normal schedule. It's going to be so weird. Also, a challenge. I haven't taught them for a while...and I don't know where they are at, or what level of understanding they're at. It will be a bit of a struggle, but I am glad to be back teaching them one of my favorite subjects.


Today. After grading in my dungeon, aka, Room 3, for about 4 hours. I went home to a delicious meal of pasta with tomato sauce. I was home for about an hour. My roommates, never told me that I had gotten a package and it was waiting for me in my room!!! Today was such a long day....and I have been waiting for a few packages for weeks now...so when I walked into my room and saw that box on my bed I nearly cried tears of joy. It was so comforting to finally have something, something packaged from home with love sent thousands of miles especially for me. Mom sent me chocolate (which had melted, and then cooled...but still tasted so amazing), brown pasta (healthiness!), maple syrup, and some other goodies. Although the bag of advil spilled throughout the box and I spent 10 minutes sorting pills from packing material....it was still the best thing to happen all day. If you've ever been away, completely isolated from all things familiar....then you now how absolutely amazing it is to get something from home.

(and yes, this is an emotional plea for you to send me stuff)

I promise, you will get something in return!

Are you the girl that got hit by the branch?

Two weekends ago, I had an unfortunate accident. While driving back from the most beautiful waterfall I've seen yet on Pohnpei ... (insert picture)

Visiting Kehproi waterfall (photo by Stacey) I am bottom left

After this LOVELY Friday afternoon venture, we got back into the truck and headed back. Unfortunately, since we only have one truck for over 20 of us, many have to stand in the back and hold on. Well, unfortunately the roads in Pohnpei are ridiculously overgrown and have low branches - demanding frequent ducks to avoid being whacked in the face. But since the truck was so crowded it was hard to duck...so while traveling 30-40mph a low solid branch hit me diagonal between my eyes. Ow. Immediately I keeled over in tears as the pain was excruciating. Mostly, however, I was afraid I had maybe lost or damaged my vision in my left eye. We stopped and I went into the cab - my poor roommate Carley was freaked out because my tears were bloody. My vision seemed okay, and although my head was on fire and my eye was very painful I knew I would be fine. Lots of of alcohol, cleaning, and antibiotic ointment has helped and two weeks later you can hardly tell it's there! But...for about a week I looked very creepy....

Carley and I in church the next day. Church, and teaching for the entire week became a long series of "your face! Oh goodness - did someone hit you?" type questions. :)

The week dragged on but was fueled by our excitement - Friday was departure day for a weekend at Black Coral (Kehpara) - "E bon cola Kehpara" (I'm going to Black Coral, according to some of my students). We left Friday for a short trip to our launching point. The boat is owned by the school, and the first trip was taken by the principal, Mr. Edwards, all our luggage, and a couple SM's (including me). The boat ride was absolutely breathtaking. It's so amazing being in Pohnpei. Knowing you are only 6 degrees north of the Equator - the place with the most solar energy in the entire earth. Being here we are at the same latitude as Uganda, Ecuador, Singapore, and more! It's goofy, but somehow being near the equator seems like some unifying force the connects places that are on the opposite side of the globe. Knowing that here at this latitude, we all experience the same kind of weather patterns, pressure patterns, etc. It's fascinating. I wish my geography students found it fascinating...

Well, we got there after about 20 minutes and started exploring the small beautiful island that gives you a perfect view of Pohnpei! We found the "best" hammock spots and set up camp.

Photo stolen from David. View of Pohnpei from Black Coral plus a view of our transportation.

We spent the weekend enjoying "chill" time. Monday was Liberation Day so we did not have to worry about rushing back to prepare for classes. We hung out hammocks on palm trees, cut down coconuts and struggled to make fire in this wet jungle. We ate too many ramen noodles, scarfed down coconut candy made by our principle, and cherished Carl's package of smores ingredients. We stayed a total of friday, saturday, and sunday morning there. The coolest thing to do was definitely snorkeling. The water was so ridiculously clear and blue, crisp waves crashing against the coral beaches, full of sea life to discover.

Some of the wildlife I found included seeing THREE Black-Tipped Reef Sharks!! It was so amazing. We knew there were many out there, so we just went exploring, waiting, and hoping to see one. While swimming out with David I saw one just swim by about 10 feet from me on my left. My eyes expanded so fast I forgot to breathe through my snorkel. Later we saw two more, each time was just as exciting as the first. I can't wait to snorkel and hopefully eventually scuba dive some more. I've never been in water so amazing, so pure and untainted.

Yes, we got rained out of our hammocks one night. 3am rolled around and we all climbed out of our "SWIMMING POOLS" aka, hammocks. We all tried so hard to ignore being wet and fall asleep...but soon enough My headlamp turned on, then David climbed out of his tall hammock, and Marcus and Carl's headlamps turned on, lastly I woke up Carley and told her she was drowning- ha! We all cuddled up in the grass-roof hut next to our hammocks and tried to make ourselves somewhat comfortable. The next night we totally maxed out on rain protection. My hammock has a tarp attached to it, so I was secured tightly to the ground by huge coral rocks and I stayed completely dry and comfortable. All of us slept dry even though the rain poured on top of us.




We got in the boat and said goodbye to Black Coral. Home of the beautiful channel full of sharks and the entire cast of Finding Nemo. Although, after two days of salty hair and wearing slightly damp coconut stained clothes, it was nice to take a shower. Next time I'm bringing a sweater - (I used my wet, salt water towel as a blanket one night....I was so cold).

This weekend has been fairly uneventful. After a short week of being stuffy, sick, and so tired - Friday met us with open arms. Today was Sabbath, and it was fairly uneventful. We had a Potluck here at the school, and I took an enormous nap from 5-7. We just finished a THRILLING game of Monopoly. Somehow I survived for quite a while even though I managed to not get ANY properties!?? Thanks to my nap I'm wired even though it's almost 2am. I've been reading so much here, currently I'm reading "Into Thin Air" - making me feel all the more adventurous and excited about traveling, even though it's about a tragedy, err. My new goal: traveling to every continent. Antarctica cruise here I come :) Someday. For now I will just relax, take a deep breath, and enjoy the constant slightly damp and moldy-infused smell of my new home.








I'll finish this post with a couple pictures from Freshman Welcome Back Bash last Thursday Night. (TOP) - A Few of the upper class students showing off their amazing SKILLS! Well, shortly after this the branches got hot and they all dropped them, so Mr. Edwards had to quickly pick them up and take them out of the gym, hahaha. (Bottom) - some of my favorite students and I outside after the party.

Six Weeks

It's been six weeks since I said goodbye to my mom and dad at the PDX airport and started this crazy adventure. Right now I am sitting in my apartment as Carley, one of my apartment roommates chops up potatoes for our curry tonight. Most locals aren't huge fans of curry, they prefer things that aren't heavily seasoned or spicy (from my limited surveying). We love curry in this apartment - it's so good. We cook it up with rice, curry powder, potatoes, and some of our frozen vegetables (since it's impossible to get a variety of fresh vegetables here). It's so wonderful to lounge in our apartment after a long day of teaching and see Carley energetically start dinner. We all pay her back by doing all dishes, but it's nothing compared to how homey her cooking makes us feel each night!

We finished our fourth week of teaching last week. Let me tell you - it has been a blur. My schedule is as follows...roughly (with some changes as of this week).

8am - World History A
9am- World History B
Free Period
11am- American History A
Lunch
1pm- American History B
2pm - World Geography
then my last class is World History C. We stay in our classroom from 3-4 to answer questions from any students, and then we are free to go :)

I remember my first day of teaching - it was only a half day. I think most of us here were freaking out at the fact that this was only a half day, and that we would have to work this had for another 10 months, 5 days a week. Then the first full day came, and then before we knew it Friday had come and week one was over. Overall, each day seems a little less exhausting. We are molding into our roles as teachers and getting into the routine. In basically all my classes, I assign homework each day, with most of it due on Friday. Quiz day is always Friday, and last Friday all my classes had their first big test. Overall I was pleased! My averages were all great! (70-80) -except for geography, which is my main struggle.

About a week into teaching, I had started to mold into my new role as Ms. Kellar, a very strict and weird teacher. I was also kind of getting bored. Preparing all those lessons, talking and lecturing for so long and disciplining so many rebellious teenagers. During one of my classes that day, at the end of lecture when I was saying something about the assignments, I somehow got off topic and started talking about how I am fairly ambidextrous. They wanted to see, so I showed them how I can write on the board with both hands at the same time. One of my ridiculous students then exclaimed "that's why you're so sexy Ms. Kellar!" It was of course, very inappropriate, and I haven't tolerated anything like that since...but It was so random and funny that it somehow lifted my spirits. The next day in Geography class I was attempting to demonstrate what a "satellite" is. In general, a "satellite" is just something small, orbiting around something larger. So, the moon is a satellite for earth, the earth is a satellite of the sun...etc. So, I had one of my favorite students in the front row come up (he is fairly small) and I told him to orbit around me. So, he is "my" satellite. I didn't allow him to sit down, when he asked I exclaimed: "The moon never sits down, the earth doesn't stop rotating around the sun!." So I made him orbit around me for about 10 more minutes of lecture. The students were laughing so hard, and it was the highlight of my day.

Moments like that, when the "wall" breaks between me and my kids are like my daily multivitamin. It's good for me, builds me up, but don't take too many of you'll overdose.


Another moment close to my heart this month was when I was having a horrible day. There has been a lot of crap that has happened in the past couple weeks in our SM group. One day on a particularly stressful and dramatic day I went to start my first classes lecture, and my computer wouldn't turn on. BLUE SCREEN of death. It was too much. I didn't have my lectures for the entire day, I was worried about losing all my grading, and sad that I had lost my way of communicating with home. I couldn't get it to load into safe mode, command prompt, nothing. No restore options, nothing. I was supposed to do a devotional in my first class (I've been reading a devotion book by Karl Haffner) and I started tearing up. It had been one of the worst weeks of my life, and this was just too much. I started to cry. A student in the front row grabbed my bible from me and read the verse. After reading it she offered to pray, and told God to look after "teacher." It filled my heart with so much joy. Later, my computer was somehow magically restored (alright, Mr. Bryson fixed it) and I "had my life back" so to speak. :)


This week, I've had to start teaching Computers III. So I've basically been managing 8 periods worth of classes, which includes managing the substitute teaching as well. It's stressful, and I don't know how much longer I'll have to be doing this. Let's hope not long!

Just finished a weekend camping on an outer island, swimming with sharks, sleeping in a hammock and eating coconut candy :) I will write about all that later. For now I am going to eat delicious curry and be thankful for every day here on my island home.