Mostly about Diving

11-24-08/11-25-08 Okay, this post is going to be jam-packed with factoids and tidbits of news (at least I hope so), to explain for the length between my last post and this one.

Last Tuesday, Hidao (our instructor) came by the school and requested that John Mark and I have a "makeup" dive class that evening. Why would we say no? So, I went--and spent forty-five minutes trying to get my ears to equalize. After thirty of those minutes, my right ear popped a tiny bit--but the left? Ah, I thought it was hopeless, especially when John Mark was totally getting everything. Needless to say (to those who know me well), I left Hidao's house frustrated and about ready to quit. I knew I was being unfair to myself by making comparisons between me and the others, but it was a very very human thing to do.

Wednesday night, after prayer meeting, I went over to Ryan and Jhan Dale's apartment to talk to Jhan Dale. Well, it was to play a car racing game (more like car smashing game, for me who can't handle curves) and it ended up being me listening to Jhan Dale. Here is the quite-streamlined story. He'd seen me return to the girls' apartment after my second dive class, and when he had taken the class, he'd had problems equalizing as well. So, after I'd played about four races (losing each time), he just turned to me and started talking about diving and stuff. I sat there, practically crying, and blurted out, "I'm about ready to quit," and he held his hand like he was stopping me and said, "Listen." Then he told me not to quit and gave me some tips on what I could do to try and get my ears to equalize. I looked at the clock, and it was entirely time for me to do crunches and pushups with Emily, take a shower, and then go to bed.

Thursday we had a full class session. We suited up, making jokes about wet suits and talking about my ears (Alan said that I needed to go deeper than "a foot"), and got in the water. I was nervous about going down--I didn't want to spend almost the entire class period trying to get my ears to equalize again! Hidao asked if I'd checked my ears yet--I hadn't, so he told me to go down and see. So I lifted my deflator and descended--but guess what? Alan descended, too, to encourage me to go deeper than a "foot." And wonder of wonders, my ears equalized and I got to do everything with everybody!

Thursday was also the day that Ryan came back from assisting with the Majuro accreditation--and lo and behold! Kevin Costello had sent me a bottle of A-1 Steak Sauce! I was so excited--partially because it was entirely unexpected. So, thank you, Kevin! I've been using it sparingly in order to maximize the length of time I'll be able to utilize it. We also appreciated the bananas that Ryan brought back for us, and the Subway sandwiches he brought from Kwaj on his way back to Ebeye. They were most yummy after our dive (because I get very, very hungry after a dive).

Sunday we dove at Shell Island (which Hidao owns) and we got down to thirty feet and practiced taking off our equipment and putting it back on--underwater. It figures, but when one's weight belt is taken off, it's a good thing to keep a hold of it, or else you'll pop to the surface (no, I did not do that, but it felt like I was going to, even when I had a nice grip on my weight belt). Also, to put on my weight belt, I have to twist in the water and be upside down (relatively) during part of the process. As I was doing it, there was this whining noise going through the water--and I immediately thought that something had gone wrong with my equipment. I finished putting on the weight belt and looked up in time to see Hidao signalling Landen to stay down where we were, and Landen nodded and made the "kill/dead" gesture (drawing a finger across one's neck). I looked up and saw the trail some boat had left behind it. So, boats are whiny underwater. Something new to add to the list of things I didn't know but now do! After the dive, I snorkeled around (because I'm still getting used to fins, mask and snorkel).

Yesterday (Monday) I attended a PTA meeting--which would probably be slightly less boring if I understood everything that was being said, and if it didn't seem like my presence was practically unnecessary. But I suppose because that "T" is in PTA that I must be there. *sigh* I now understand why my boss last year usually mentioned that she didn't like meetings any time that she had to go one. Meetings seem to be the bane of a teacher's existence--but maybe those are just the meetings on Ebeye, conducted mostly in Marshallese and go on forever after starting an hour late because we were waiting for the parents to show up. Argh Marshallese time!

Today (the 25th) we had our final dive, at the lagoon outside of Hidao's house. We practiced doing emergency ascent swimming, then went for a loop around the bottom of the lagoon. We got down to sixty feet--no equalization problems for me whatsoever! Some of the group say that we didn't get down that far, but I do know how to read my gauge--so, at least I got down to sixty feet. It was sweetly awesome! Now, if my mask would quit fogging so I wouldn't have to clear it underwater (which is still a little heart-stopping, but a lot easier). I had to clear my mask five to six times during this last dive. I saw some brightly colored fish, possibly a purple starfish thing, plenty of brownish coral (which probably would have been brighter had we not been diving close to sunset), and the shimmering ceiling of the surface. I am currently tied with Alan (2-2) at games of underwater rock, paper, scissors [same as regular rock, paper, scissors, but played underwater] (because we were taking turns doing the emergency ascent on the rope with Hidao), and have lost two games of underwater slapsies [you know, that dumb game where your hands are almost on top of someone else's and the person on the bottom tries to slap the person on top's hands). I stopped after two games because it's really hard to laugh underwater.

Tomorrow we have our final paper exam--and pay for the course--and order our personal equipment. I'm planning on getting fins, boots, mask, and snorkel. So, I need to get some grading done, compose a few emails, and go over the process of computing bottom time. More later.

First Dive and Accreditation

11/16/08 I just realized that I haven't ever described our living space. First off, most of the staff lives in one building. We just have various apartments that all face our courtyard. Our apartment is technically 2B, but no one calls it that. They call it "The Girls' Apartment". There are six apartments on the second floor--Emily the Canadian lives at the top of the stairs, and next to her lives Mervin. Next to him lives Ryan and Jhan Dale (they're brothers), and then next to them is four of the guys (Landen, Jordan, Alan, and John Mark). Next to them is us, and then next to us is the empty "married SMs" apartment, which was renovated in September and is used as the guest room. Downstairs we have the gate in the courtyard and Edwin and Jonas live in the apartment next to that. Then there's the salt water well and the very dark weight room that the guys like to use, even when it's really hot. Then there's Pastor and Rose's apartment, where they live with their eight kids. Then there's the gate that we usually use, then Abra and his family's apartment, I do believe. Around the little corner is the fresh water catchment--and then the trash monster's lair, and then back to the front gate. The stairs are in the middle, and so we have to duck underneath our "balcony" to leave the apartment. Jonas is trying to grow tomatoes on the first little landing of the stairs. There are clotheslines crisscrossing the main open part of the courtyard, and they're usually covered with somebody's clothes. (Maybe I can draw a map or something and post it. This description might not have helped you at all.)

My first confined water scuba dive was...well, it was interesting. It took the seven of us about an hour to get all suited up in our gear (our BCDs, our weight belts, etc.,) We got in the water and started working on our skills. I think I forgot to immediately equalize my ears (at least, I don't remember doing that). That led to problems later on. The first thing we practiced and demonstrated was letting our regulator go and then recovering it, clearing it, and breathing through it again. That was easy (for me, anyway). Then we did the skill of clearing a mask halfway filled. To learn how to do it, we had to let water trickle in from the top of our masks, then take a breath from the regulator, look up slightly, hold the bottom of the mask open and breath out through our noses. This was difficult for me. For some reason, it's difficult for me to have something in my mouth and breath out through my nose. (I've been practicing, however.) I'm really good at breathing slowly and deeply in and out through the regulator, but breathing out through my nose? Difficult. I think it's because when I usually have something in my mouth and breath in through my nose, I have to breath out through my mouth. That would be when I'm playing my bass clarinet. However, the skill needed for that skill is the exact opposite of what I'm used to doing. *sigh* It's a learning process. It took me a while to clear it, but I DID! Then, to learn the next skill, we were supposed to go out further, but my ears refused to equalize, and so I didn't get to practice clearing a completely filled mask (I'm sure I will at some point). Our instructor said that it takes time for some people to get their ears to equalize well. (I also think that I forgot to immediately equalize when I got underwater, like I said above.) He also said that I was descending too quickly (which, I think, is from too much weight on my weight belt). We were supposed to have our second dive last Thursday, but the class was canceled when the instructor had to go to Majuro to deal with some emergency.

Our first accreditor arrived last Thursday, and the rest arrived on Friday evening, at the same time as we SMs were holding vespers at the school. One of the accreditors, Kevin Costello, had the sermon on Sabbath morning--he spoke in Marshallese and in English, translating himself as he went along. It was about Naaman and the little slave girl and about forgiveness. We had a large potluck at Ryan's apartment and got to know the accreditation team a little bit. After our AY program, they interviewed the high schoolers that had been picked out by us and then they interviewed the four of us high school teachers. It was nice to find out that the kids' most favorite thing about the school was US! (Granted, that's the only thing they told us, but that's okay.) We spoke to them for about forty-five minutes and then our part was over. They've been working feverishly ever since, writing and writing and talking and writing, etc., etc., et. al. They leave Ebeye on Monday's noon boat, and their plane leaves Monday night at six.

Once I met them, my world instantly shrank and has continued to get smaller as the weekend has progressed. One of the accreditation team members lives two miles or so off of Southern's campus, and was telling Lorraine and I about the new Wellness Center and about other updates that have been done on campus. Another member of the team was part of the accreditation team who visited Indiana Academy on its site visit when I was a junior there (I thought he was vaguely familiar). Two others I met at the SM orientation in Honolulu in August--and then there was the last team member. Kevin Costello (the one who had the sermon on Sabbath) knows people I know from the Indiana Conference, knows people from Georgia who I worked with at Timber Ridge last summer, and was the boss of one of my friends from Southern (hi, Kevin!) He spent at least four years as a missionary in the Marshall Islands, and one of those years was spent as vice-principal of Ebeye Seventh-day Adventist School, back in the school year of 1991-1992. (I chose not to reveal that I had been a preschooler that year.)

Today was Sunday (for me). Emily and I went to the dock, worked on midterm grades (her) and on examples for the World History project (me). We ate at the "American Eatery" and watched some of the news that was on AFN. All I have to say is that the world's falling apart and we have to tell people why it's falling apart. Take that as you will. When we got back, we had to deliver something to the school and then got to play a little basketball (which is not easy in a skirt and a pair of shorts that are falling down because you've lost weight). Then we went to the apartments, and then the accreditation team took us out for dinner at Litaki (the same restaurant that Dr. Penniecook took us to two weeks ago; the only restaurant on the island other than Triple J).

Tomorrow (Monday) is a holiday, and, thus, no school. Yay for Marshallese presidents! It's President's Day, and I'm just excited that we have no school. I think EVERYONE is.

More later.

~Ashlee

Three Months and A Preview of My Sunday

11-8-08 Yesterday, November 7th, was the day that marked the fact that I have now officially been on Ebeye for three months. Three months! Seems like it was only a few days ago that I wrote about how two months seemed like some major achievement. And I am pretty sure that I'll write that four months is an achievement, and then for five months, etc., all the way until I reach home and go, "Wow! I've been home a week!" or something like that.

This quarter is the short quarter of the school year (probably because of Christmas Break), and so midterms are already approaching. I mean, we just finished first quarter grades and had conferences with the parents--and lo and behold! in our office mailboxes we already have the forms for midterm grades. I shake my head and sigh, then start anticipating writing my midterm tests on Sunday.

Our accreditors arrive this week, and, accordingly, we're having a work bee on Sunday. We're supposed to start at 9:30 AM and work for two hours, but since the church members are also going to help, it will take much longer for them to arrive, and we usually stay until everything's accomplished. Part of being the student missionary, I suppose. My classroom is going to receive a much-needed coat of paint and some electrical work. Textbooks that need moved to another room will be, and I will help clean out the teachers' workroom (and try to make it into a room where people could actually work!). After the work bee, I have my first confined water scuba dive. It's not really confined, and it's not really a dive, per se. We'll be diving in the lagoon, to learn and then to practice skills we'll need to know for when we actually go deep down. We'll be staying rather close to the surface, and that's why it's not really a dive. But the time will come, and I already have butterflies. In the evening, I will grade assignments and quizzes from Friday, enter grades into my computer, and work on those "terrible" midterm tests. And that will be Sunday, November 9th, 2008. Hope your Sunday is/was just as action-packed!

More later.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

11-6-08 Parent/Teacher Conferences. I never knew just how boring and interesting such things could be. I'm the sophomore sponsor, and so that's the parents I talk to, the parents of the sophomores. Now my sophomores are a lovely bunch of teenagers. Sure, they have their terrible moments, but on the whole, they're good kids. Of the sixteen kids I had last quarter, I had thirteen parents and/or guardians show up (one person was an older sister!). Most of the kids had okay grades, and mostly the parents were content with them. What bothered them more was the absences and tardies. I had to explain to a good number of parents (mostly mothers) why their child was late to second period in the afternoon (biology). The reason for that is that they hang outside the classroom and ignore Jordan as he tells and asks them to come in. Some of them even have absences resulting from this hallway loitering. Several of the mothers were like, "That's not going to happen anymore." One father, when confronted with his son's many morning absences and afternoon tardies, said, "I work every day but Monday, and so I ask him every night if he went to school, and he says, 'Yeah.' And why should I doubt him? I'm going to have to straighten that boy out."

It was interesting to talk with the parents of my kids, and get a feel for why they're the way they are. Mainly, the parents care, but they're not nearly as present as they'd like to be. One of the things I learned while researching the Marshallese before I came here was that they're a very family-oriented culture. For centuries they lived in large extended family units where everyone played a role, from small children to elderly adults. I think it's difficult to maintain that family connection here on Ebeye. Most people who move here do so because of the jobs they can get at the military base, which pays well but also sucks time out of their lives. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, time runs differently here. Most people I had ever talked to have called it "island time." The U.S. Military does not work on island time, but rather on precise military time. People who leave the outer islands come to Ebeye and find a place that runs on time--the ferry has a schedule, schools have schedules, churches have schedules, Kwaj has schedules. Pretty much everything has a schedule except the power outages. These schedules, if not used properly, can take over a person's life and rob them of time that they need to build relationships with their families.

Parent/Teacher Conferences was also boring. There were gaps of time when nobody showed up at all, and so we teachers talked and joked. We kept a running tally of how many parents each teacher had come (it's why I knew I had thirteen parents show). I also did crossword puzzles--about four of them, I think. It was fun. I had forgotten that I had brought a book of them with me, and so it kept me entertained, and will keep me entertained until I run out of puzzles (I only brought the one book). Ryan bought us some soda and these "fudge cake" things that had expired in May. (No wonder they were cheap!) Unfortunately, I ate one before I discovered the expiration date. (Well, Emily discovered it, but still.) I had no ill effects from it, though, and that was good.

Overall, it went well. I received permission from one mom to spank her daughter if necessary (even though she's a sophomore), and one mom told me that her daughter "has no boys in her life," which I know to be utterly false, because I've seen her flirting with one of the junior boys. One of the dads joked/complained that the mom in front him talked a lot, and then reassured me that he'd talk fast. What made me laugh the most was one sophomore's sister. I didn't know she was his sister at the time, so I was naturally confused when I said that he's a good kid in class and a nice kid, and she goes, "Well, he's annoying to me." I was like, What? So, using my sisterly intuition, I guessed that she was his older sister--and then I found out later that she was. That was a relief!

More later...

Picnics and Randomosities (Yes, I know that's not a real word!)

11/3/08 Our Week of Prayer speaker was Dr. Eustachio Penniecook. He spoke on the two lives that we can choose--either a life of life or a life of death--and he emphasized the fact that it's a choice. A lot of the kids were moved by his sermons. Last Sabbath, four of the kids were baptized (not in response to the series, but just because it was a good time to have it). Our theme song was "I'd Rather Have Jesus" and so I can officially state that I have the words of that hymn memorized. All three verses!

I also got two envelopes last week--the one with the magazines and comics and the one with PK sermon CDs. Thanks, Mom and McConnell Family! It was really awesome to open the issue of Adventist World and get the section where it has funny tidbits and excerpts from Adventist life. Why, you ask? Because of the blurb that Mrs. Trubey submitted and had published, about typos in the Cicero Church's bulletin. It was so wonderful to think that I knew exactly where that was, and who those people were. It was a nice reminder of one of my homes.

On Sunday (the 2nd), we took a boat out to Nge Nge, in order to have a picnic. Our picnics usually consist of a potluck lunch and swimming. After the fifteen minute boat ride, we climbed out of the boat and waded up the beach. Megan slipped and bashed her knee against some coral (but it's doing well now), but Emily ended up getting stung by something (we still don't know what) and had to go back to Ebeye and so missed out on all the fun. (I'm pretty sure that she'll write a blog post about her adventures of Sunday, so I'll leave that to her.) After the boat headed back to Ebeye, we had our potluck lunch and sat on the beach, talking. After a bit, most of us either did a little bit of snorkeling or went exploring. I snorkeled, but the mask I'd borrowed started leaking (I'm not sure whether I had it on properly or if it just leaks) and so I swam back to the shore. I watched the others scraping out coconut and then decided to take a walk to the end of the island and take a look at the channel (the place where the ocean surges into the lagoon).

So, off I went, with the ocean on my left and the forest on my right. The beach was rather rocky, and so I picked my way down the beach, taking pictures (some of which I will try to upload so you can see). There were lots of little pools and places where my feet got wet because I was navigating around trees that jutted out over the rocks. The waves got larger and larger as we got closer and closer to the channel--the swells and crests and crashes were huge. As they say in "Finding Nemo," the Big Blue is big and blue. ( [insert smiley face here] )Now, a few of the others had followed along behind me, making their various ways over the rocks. When we reached the end of the island, we decided that we needed to head back and so I started back the way I had come. (Everyone else decided to finish going around the island, even though we were beginning to run out of time.) The tide was coming in, and so at the places where my feet had gotten wet I ended up wading through. I made it back in one piece (albeit a bit thirsty) and we had an uneventful boat ride back to the dock.

Dr. Penniecook bought the entire staff dinner at the only restaurant on Ebeye. It's a little place called Litaki Fast Food, but the second word's a bit misleading. The food is rather expensive (but this is Ebeye, everything's expensive), but it's also good. The cooks are Filipino, and they serve a variety of foods, but only a couple vegetarian options (if you're ever thinking of visiting Ebeye). Whatever your order is, it comes with a large scoop of rice and a slightly smaller scoop of potato salad. My meal was excellently good for two reasons. One, it was cooked well and tasted good, and two, it was free for me. Free meals are incredibly wonderful to a college student (and inside, that's what I still am). What was the most fun was the conversations I participated in--it reminded me of the conversations that my friends and I have back at school. Megan, Landen, Jhan Dale, and I discussed books and movies and our students. I also met Matt, an English teacher at the school run by WorldTeach. He, Jhan Dale, and Ryan play basketball together. All of us were discussing our students' lack of motivation for learning, but also what we're doing to overcome it.

I have also started scuba diving lessons! We haven't actually dove yet, but we go to our instructor's house (he's the only certified Marshallese instructor and so he travels a lot; yes, he lives on Ebeye) and go through the chapters and take quizzes over them. Our first lesson was filled with stories about what could happen if something goes wrong, but our instructor also had the advice of "I've only seen this like once or twice in my entire diving career." Our second lesson was more relaxed, and our third lesson--well, it's tomorrow, and I hope I do well on my quizzes. We've been learning how to read dive tables (an essential tool to a diver; it allows you to know how much bottom time you can have and how much nitrogen you still have in you after you've surfaced) and that's part of tomorrow's quiz.

Today (Monday) we had a class picnic. Emily, Jordan, and I combined our class picnics into one big picnic. This was for several reasons. One, Emily and I didn't want to solo supervise our classes, and two, the freshmen wanted to hang with the juniors. So we let them. Anyway, we teachers decided that we would have the picnic at Beach Park, the only "natural" spot left on Ebeye, on the end that looks toward Kwajalein. There are a few palm trees, a nice sandy bottomed part to the lagoon, and the ocean. However, the power plant looms over part of it, and it's pretty much strewn with trash from end to end and looks like a huge sandy parking lot. We chose to have it there because the sophomores and juniors misbehave in their classes and we didn't know how they'd behave on a picnic. Usually, the high schoolers get to go off the island to one of the nicer places (like Shell Island) but not this time. Believe me, we had lots of whining and complaints about how they'd rather go to Shell and lots of blather about "Miss-ah, why can't we?" and on and on. Our simple logic of "A picnic is a privilege, not a right, and the privilege of going off Ebeye for the picnic is for students who behave" just didn't sink in. When the freshmen complained, we reminded them that they had had a choice whether to stick with us or have their own picnic some other time. Even when we tried to plan out who was bringing what was a frustrating ordeal that almost ended in them having community service instead. That didn't happen. This morning came, and Jordan and I waited for an hour and a half for them to show up (Emily stayed at home until we actually went to the picnic, because of her foot). About ten students came, but they waited across the street from the school and then complained about "starting late" when they were the ones who were late, since Jordan and I had been at school since staff worship. When we finally got to Beach Park, we realized that many of the students had just gone there instead. The girls started up the fire and everyone just hung out. Jordan and a few of the guys played Rock Golf (throwing rocks at a specified point) and the kids just dribbled in. However, only about twenty of our forty students showed up (which was fine because that meant less to supervise). We had conversations, took pictures, and ate food. There was plenty of rice, chicken, and dessert. The spaghetti came late, but the kids divvied it up and took it home. Ryan dropped by (we'd invited him) and snorkeled, ate some food, had an water/ice slush fight with some of the junior boys, and bicycled our metal chair home. The kids cleaned up and Jordan, Emily, and I went home, where Emily and I ended up dozing for about two hours (there was no power, so we just relaxed instead of getting things done). So, in the end it was fun, despite the frustrations. Yay class picnic.

And tomorrow is Parent/Teacher Conferences. I think we're all nervous...

More later.