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.