Pictures Speak a Thousand Words

Walking to our first day of school :)

Real men wear skirts aka ie's

Chels' classroom

First day of school assembly

Clean house!

Our compound on a pretty day

We kind of love this dog.

Bigmac's for the win.

Blunt's Point Hike Part 2

I officially feel bad for all of my high school teachers

Teaching. It’s definitely not as easy as I would have thought. With that being said, I didn’t get a whole lot of “teaching” done the first week of school.  Come to find out I have two proficient Algebra I classes, one mainstream Algebra I with 9^th, 10^th, 11^th and 12^th graders, one mainstream Algebra I with freshmen and one geometry with 10^th, 11^th and 12^th graders. We had an assembly on Monday and a minimum day so classes were about 20 minutes each.  Twenty minutes was pretty much enough time to get names and contact info. That’s all.

The names were probably the hardest part about my first day. My longest is something like 15 letters. I’m so so thankful for nicknames although some students are adamant about being called their full names. I’m working on it.

Aside from the names, classroom management is going to be tough in 2 or 3 of my classes. I have VERY full classes (25-28 students) and it’s quite the challenge to get them all on task and quiet. On Tuesday I went over Mrs. Chelsia’s classroom rules and my consequences. This got most of my students behaving a lot better. I’m really trying not to smile too much and to be on the tougher side these first few weeks. They say it’ll really help with management in the long run but boy is it difficult for me to act like a crazed authoritarian.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent giving assessments to my students. The difference in comprehension, even among the same grade level, is insane.  It’s going to be a huge challenge trying to help kids comprehend basic math and to challenge the students who already understand when they’re in the same class. I’m going to have to get creative with bridging this gap.

We had a long weekend (Friday-Monday), which was SO appreciated after our first week. We got caught up on our cleaning, went to town and got McDonald’s, went into town again and hiked Blunt’s Point, read a whole lot and spent some much needed time relaxing. While it doesn’t sound eventful, it was pretty much the perfect weekend.

Week 2 begins today (Tuesday) and I’m hoping to actually get some teaching done. I’ll be working on basic skills for about a month with all of my classes. I don’t really see the point in jumping on to new material when most of my students have trouble with addition, subtraction etc.

Other fun facts:

The kids here are definitely super cheeky! Saul got asked if he was “going out with me on Thursday” by one of his students.

Today one of my students asked if my husband calls me his seniorita (he was dead serious) because he's half Mexican. lol

I'm a senior class advisor for rallies etc.

All this walking we're doing is getting me in shape :) (yesssss!)

I lost my keys for the first time in my life (booooooooo.) and have been incessantly bothering our principal to lock/unlock my room every morning and afternoon.

One of my freshman students said that the trash can was Blake Griffin and then proceeded to walk over drop his trash in and say that he's Tim Duncan dunking on BG. Love it! :)

I love the cafeteria lunches. Can anyone say free food? It's like mine and Saul's dream place.


-C

Fagatele Bay

This was written last Sunday (August 25, 2013).. enjoy:

So school is finally starting tomorrow! We were supposed to start the week before last, but it got delayed for a week due to "sanitation issues," and then delayed for another week because they weren't able to get everything ready in time. After the two weeks of essentially extra vacation, we will finally begin tomorrow. I think Chelsia and I are both ready to go (and pretty anxious) at this point, and we are both really hoping that it actually gets going and we don't get delayed again.

That being said, the delay was actually pretty convenient for me as it gave me time to settle in to my new school, get my class room set up, and start planning out how I'm going to go about teaching my new interesting courses. This last week off was especially helpful as it allowed Chelsia and I to get over a nasty little cold that snuck up on us last weekend. We spent most of last week not doing much, only coming to school when we had to and lesson planning at home. Then finally on Saturday when our symptoms abated to the point where we could fathom leaving the house for a recreational activity, we decided that we were going to get out and dedicate the whole day to having fun.

We started out the morning by going into town and having brunch at Don't Drink the Water. It's a nice little place that is right on the ocean in the harbor. It was well air conditioned, so it gave us a pleasant escape from the heat. They also had superb coffee at a reasonable price (it's the first coffee I have had that was not the instant "just add water" variety). I have to say that the ambiance/coffee was much better than the food. We both had omelets, which were adequate (a little undercooked). I wasn't too disappointed until my wife decided to ahead and make her own omelets this morning which completely blew theirs out of the water. What should I expect though, my wife is an excellent cook! :)

After brunch we walked down to Samu's and got a quart of Oreo Cookies n Cream ice cream. This is by far our favorite ice cream on the island and Chels has been pining to get a quart and take it home. I have been against trying to do this even though she has been trying to do it for weeks. It sounds like a reasonable request, but it can take up to an hour to get from town to our house on the bus due to the constant stops and requests to take alternate routes (faamolemole routes). We actually got it back without it melting too much so I have to admit that she was right in making me get it (so if you ever live in Leone, know that you can get a quart of Samu's home on the bus).

After we took our ice cream home we decided that we were going to go on a hike, and it ended up being a blast. We hiked from sliding rock (a fun local spot we had been to before) to Fagatale Bay. It took us about an hour to do the hike over the mountain to Fagatale Bay. It was a pretty intense hike, and we had to go up and down some pretty steep hills though the jungle. We felt like we had to be lost a few times because it was taking so long but we just made sure to keep the sound of the ocean on our right side and just keep on trekking. I have to admit that I'm a little bit out of shape and the hills were tough (I won't speak for Chels, but she was breathing pretty hard too). Once we got there we decided to spend some time at a beach called "Small Beach." It is a beautiful, secluded white sand beach with crystal clear water. There was about twenty feet of sand under the water before the coral started so we were able to do a little swimming. It was so nice to take a break in the cool water on such a hot day. We plan on going back soon with our snorkel gear so we can explore the coral a bit.

Well enough blabbering, now we are going to go home and get ready for what will hopefully be our first day of school tomorrow (ahhhhh!!!!).

First here are some pictures from our fun day yesterday :)

At the swimming hole near sliding rock.

A huge hermit crab we stumbled upon during our hike.

Fagatele Bay from up on the mountain.

We hiked from the top left of the map, down to sliding rock and then up and over to the "small beach" at Fagatele Bay. On the way home we hiked out down Futiga Road and walked the main road back to our house.

Chels at the entrance to Fagatele Bay.

Epic fail.

-S