Its Been a While...Sorry

I will try to catch you all up on this month events. It’s been quite a rollercoaster of a month…

 I look forward to March every year. On the 5^th of this month every year since 1988 I and loved ones get to celebrate the day I came into this wonderful world. Steph was the first one to call me. She realized it was still the 4^th over here but followed it up by saying “hey, it’s your birthday here in your homeland”. The next day I woke up to many texts from my “homeland” all saying the same message “Happy Birthday. Miss and Love You”. Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Twenty three is usually one of those unexciting birthdays…but I got to spend my 23^rd birthday on an Island and I was getting scuba certified. Which bring me to my first topic…..

Scuba Diving

I am unfortunately still not certified. Due to weather conditions our schedule was pushed back a day which left us with two dives to come back and do another time. I however, still have three dives to do before I get my certification. Don’t dive when you have a head cold. Your ears won’t equalize and you will come up to the surface with your French instructor, Fabian, saying “don’t worry but you have blood coming out of your nose”. I attempted to do dive number two after my first dive but my ears didn’t want to. So I hung out on the boat with the two Samoan mates and had to endure through the standard fesilis by samoan tama (questions from samoan boys). Where you come from? You like Samoa? How long will you be here? (which is always followed up by a wow that’s long time) and then you will get asked one of the following…or all of the following: You like Samoan boys? Do you have a boyfriend? You want a Samoan friend?....and then they laugh really hard with their friends for 15 minutes. By the age of 13 these boys know these questions and will ask any palagi girl. I make up different answers every time now.

Anyways…so the diving I did do was great. It was really awkward at first and I kept confusing the signal for going up (thumbs up) with the okay signal (could also be mistaken for a bad word in some countries). I use the thumbs up every day, it signals “all good” or “yes” never do I use it to say I am going to ascend. Fabian became frustrated with me but the best part about scuba is you can’t talk, so he couldn’t yell at me.

            I live two villages away from the dive place so I should be able to finish up  my certification by the end of April.

Next Order of business…”Your Birthday is not until next Friday”

My great friends were very concerned that we couldn’t celebrate my birthday together. So we designated the following weekend to be my Birthday. My dear friend Rachel didn’t even call me on my birthday, her response was “your birthday is not until next Friday”. If you knew Rachel then you know its nothing to be offended by. My birthday on March 11 was amazing. A group of us got together and had a wonderful time catching up and talking/venting about village life.

 I hear everything everything is good in three’s. Me Rachael and Lindsey have become close and sometimes it sucks having them on the other Island. But Digicel is so great and I will usually use my  30 free texts on them. I also didn’t get their permission to write their names on my blogs, but I hear they have been talking about me too.

And now lets talk about the Aoga….School

I finally feel like I am getting through to the students…well that’s how I feel today. It truly is hard work trying to figure out what works. So far my list of what doesn’t work trumps the list of what does. I think I am handling it well though, I realize that this semester is all about trial and error. Well hopefully it is just this semester. I have finally taken over year seven English. The teacher was a little confused as to why I wasn’t using the curriculum. But uh  I can’t say the things I want on here about that. My first goal was classroom management, my first and hardest goal to achieve. It’s hard to find something that works for students who are used to getting hit when they do something wrong or when they don’t do something wrong. I am still a bit confused at times when I see the punishments going on. But for me,I have found that embarrassment works. Sometimes I make the year 8 boys come up and hold my hand while I’m teaching. The worst is if I kick you out. No one wants to leave let alone be kicked out of the “cool” teacher’s class. The good news is, I am finding things that work.

Now for all you teachers out there…I am sure you have heard of co-teaching. For all you non teachers out there; co-teaching is a variety of methods to teach a class with two teachers. I have discovered a new co-teaching method…

Introducing: One Teach One gives a self Mani Pedi

A couple days ago I was doing a English lesson and the other teacher was supposed to be observing me so we could review my lesson and discuss it. Ten minutes in I looked over and she had her foot on her lap and was scraping and filing her toenails. Twenty minutes later I went to ask her a question and she had switched to her finger nails. I think this method came from some grad students doing research at the cosmetology university. I just don’t know why  we didn’t learn about this method in our training.

I love the laid back free spirit attitudes of my fellow teachers. They are so generous as well. They generously made me the soccer coach of the school. Now don’t get me wrong. I am up for competition and I love soccer. However, these kids don’t play soccer, never have. So with my limited Samoan, I must teach these kids how to play. No Problem….especially since I was just informed that the only rules are handball and out of bounds. That makes it easy. These kids should fell honored to have HFS MVP soccer play as their coach. Two weeks until our first competition. Samauga will be number 1.

..now if anyone wants to donate soccer shoes…that would be greatJ

So life is good. I am healthy and well. I will try to update more often. Trips into town have been limited this month.

Enjoy the pictures

Peace and Love

Im Okay!

The Scuba Crew

Our lovely instructor Fabian...likes to look like a mime when he goes for a dive

KPOD

Year 7 doing their English Centers

Year3