A Game Night, Cheaters, and Getting Ready to Go Back

2-22-09 We have been plugging along, students (hopefully) studying and teachers teaching. This last Thursday night (the 19th), eight of us went to another school on the island and had a game night with two Americans who are also working on Ebeye. One is Amy, who works at Gem School, and the other is Matt, who works at the public school. We all brought food, and because we had done so, started at the Marshallese time of 6:00 PM (really, it was 6:40 or so). We ate and talked and had a very fun time playing games.

Despite the fact that I enjoy being on Ebeye, I have started making my preparations for my return in May. I have conversed (through e-mails) with my adviser (who calls me "beautifully organized"), and I'm excited about registering for classes in March. There was no power on Saturday night (we were doing various activities and it randomly went off; it came back for about fifteen minutes, then stayed off the rest of the night) and it didn't come back on until almost eleven in the morning on Sunday. Because we were electricity-less this morning, I sorted through my books and papers and tried to figure out which ones I will be sending home via the US Postal Service. Now I just need to sort my clothes into what's going home and what's staying here. I'll leave that to some other time, though.

I graded Friday's vocabulary quizzes and sorted through the mess that the world history tests had become. It all started when about five of the eleven students decided to pretty much blatantly cheat on their tests last Tuesday--but to have finished their tests in order to create some odd loophole that got them out of trouble. They were wrong. I was, to say the least, not pleased. I went back to the apartments and created two new tests from the old test and gave it to them on Wednesday, after lecturing them about cheating. You see, I want them to do well. That's true, but I also want them to be doing their best. Doing their best is NOT defined as cheating so they can get a good grade. I would rather have them earn D's than cheat to get B's. I told them that, when they cheat, they make it difficult for me to keep one of the expectations I told them they could have of me: that if they needed help, I would do so. Of course I don't gauge everything by their test scores, but it does factor into how well I think they're understanding everything--and if they're all getting high scores because they're cheating, I can't entirely know that they don't understand. So I graded those new tests--giving extra credit to those who hadn't cheated, and giving the score from the second test in place of the first test's score to those who cheated. *sigh* I hope they learn that cheating isn't the answer. I also explained to them that I knew what they were doing and began giving them examples of the things they did to cheat because I had seen it done. (To be honest, I have only cheated once in my life. It was a first grade spelling test, and the consequences were such that I have never cheated again.) Their mouths were slightly agape as I explained (and sometimes demonstrated) their various behaviors. They each wore a look of "Whoa, I didn't really know that she knew that!" Sometimes I think that students believe their teachers to be completely stupid, and that sort of stumps me. How else would we be able to catch them in the first place?

I do think that I will be glad to move back from teacher to student in August, in order to more fully learn how to be a teacher. I already appreciated my teachers, but I think I definitely more fully understand and appreciate them. It's hard to believe that there are only three months and a week left of my time here on Ebeye--it feels like the time has sped by, like the days, weeks, months have been grains of sand slipping through my fingers, caught in a sea-breeze. There are still days when time seems to drag, but those times are no longer the majority (they were more of the majority in September, or October). My students keep asking me if I'm going to miss them, and my answer is always (and will always be) an emphatic YES.

More later.

A Mousy Tidbit of A Story

2-16-09 Recently, Emily received a box that included a package of mousetraps. At this, our entire group of apartments rejoiced. You see, we have mice--and not the kind that you coo at while they blink at you while sitting contently in an aquarium. No, these mice are bold mice who steal bait from traps and scamper across the floor almost whenever they want, the type of mice who scatter like cockroaches do when a light is flipped.

Two Saturday nights ago, Emily and I were staying up late, talking, when Emily thought she saw something move into Lorraine and Megan's bedroom, where they were sleeping. We thought it was nothing, until the something ran into OUR room. It was a big skinny gray mouse, and it immediately darted into our closet. Emily jumped up, stuck her feet on the desk in our room, and climbed up onto her top-bunk bed. I dashed out to the kitchen and grabbed the dustpan and tiny broom. I went and tried to drive it out of the closet--but I found it on my suitcase and jumped backward. It skittered across the floor and hid behind our dresser. I tried to scared it out and it tried to hide in the gap between my bed and the wall. I scared it out again and it ran back into the closet. I scared it back under the dresser, then erected barricades and Emily and I turned off the light and went to bed. The next morning, we were sitting in our front room when it dashed out of our room, ran around the edge of the room and dove into the hole that it has in the wall.

Then Emily got the mousetraps. We eagerly set them up last Sunday night, and thought that the mice would just steal the bait once again. Unfortunately (and fortunately) we were wrong. We had all just gotten into bed when we heard a loud SNAP and frantic squeals. We had caught one! The four of us were sad that it had to die, but glad that it would not being running around our house and leaving droppings on the counter beneath our drying rack. We would rather have clean-ish dishes than one live mouse.

More later.

Seedy Thoughts and Liberation Day

2-12-09 We haven't been able to go diving yet. Driving downpours at what's supposedly the beginning of rainy season has stopped us (so far) before we've started. It's a little irritating, but hey, that's what life is without the Weather Channel. Some of my kids did fantastically well on their midterms, while others weren't so fantastic. In fact, I'm compiling my sophomores' midterm grades, and it's starting to be a bit depressing. What's frustrating is that I see their potential--and yet I also see them waste their potential by not doing their work or completely skipping my class most every day (as one sophomore has done).

There are days here on Ebeye when it feels like the group of us are accomplishing nothing (well, except getting hot, sticky, and frustrated). Those are usually the days when we come back to the house, flop onto the table chairs or the one sofa-ish chair we have and just sit there, feeling like we've been drained. Every single one of us (myself very much included) has had those days, although some people have those days more frequently than others.

I was contemplating this the other day, while I was trying to figure out what I was doing for staff worship. Then I remembered Emily's plants. She had told her mom that she missed greenery (we all do), and her mom had responded by sending these little plants that you can grow in a tiny pot. We all watched as the seeds were planted and water applied. We even set it on the windowsill so that it would get the benefit of the crazy amounts of sunshine we get. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. It looked as if it was ended before it had even started. The poor tiny pot even got knocked over and rummaged through by our not-so-friendly mouse who lives in our apartment, and we set it back up and hoped. One day, little green sprouts began poking up out of the soil. All of a sudden there was a sudden rush of tiny plants in the tiny pot. It was truly exciting to watch, and I was egging the little plants on, hoping that they would keep growing.

Unfortunately, they grew too fast and haven't done too well, but that's beside the point I want to make. What I realized is that those little potted plants are sort of like the mission here on Ebeye. Sure, there's some mighty good scientific explanation on why seeds sprout, but we still don't really understand how it works. So the thought that came to me was that being here on Ebeye is like planting seeds--we may not see what's happening, and it may look like nothing's happening, but something is. We just may not see the results during our time here. 2nd Thessalonians 3:13 also came into my head: "But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good."

Monday was Kwajalein Liberation Day, celebrated in remembrance of the United States winning the atoll during World War II. I had breakfast at about 7:30 or so, then showed up to school at eight, where there were staff and a few parents working on creating our school's truck-float. Kids began showing up at 8:30, toting the sandwiches, water and soda that they had been told to bring, (but I'm quite sure that most of the high school students did not show up until 10:00 or so). Around that time, we walked to the place where they had us line up in order to have a "parade." We waited for an hour in the hot sun before we got moving, and in all actuality, the parade was a turn around the corner and into the main event ground. A group of people (which included the RMI president and the US ambassador to the Marshall Islands) spoke for two hours or so, even though all of the kids couldn't hear them because of the wind and the ill placement of the speakers. I was lucky enough to be in the tent's shade (although some of my fellow teachers weren't so lucky), but I still developed a terrible headache (despite drinking water when I could). The ceremony did not finish until 1:45, and then we were able to partake of the food the kids had brought earlier. I ate four sandwiches and tried to cool down. I was feeling better, and went back to the apartments to change. Walking home almost wiped me out. I had to sit in our nicely air-conditioned apartment, cool off, and sip water slowly.

I eventually made it to Beach Park, where races for the school kids were being held. I still felt pretty poorly, and so I ended up sitting on the bench under our tent, watching people's bags and telling kids to stay away from the ocean (which started to lap onto Beach Park while we were there). Eventually, I felt a little better and ended up watching Lorraine finish her race in first place, with Emily taking second place, having run all the way from near Shell Island. I'm sure that was one long hot run, and even though I had wanted to do it, I was glad I hadn't.

I walked with Emily back to the apartments because we wanted to drop our things off before going to see the boys play in the championship basketball game. Unfortunately, we missed it, but the guys won, narrowly beating the team from the high school on Kwajalein. We walked to the school and Emily kept trying to cool off and stretch. We talked to some of the girls and then went back home, where we took showers, watched a movie on Emily's laptop, and then went to bed. There was no school on Tuesday, due to the desperate need for recovery from Liberation Day. I slept in, went to school and checked my e-mail, and basically hung out the whole day.

Then we went back to school on Wednesday, and now it's Thursday. I'll hopefully post this on Friday, barring power outages. More later.

Um, My Mom is Making Me Do This...

2-1-09 No, really, she is. Sorry about the hiatus between posts, but nothing really has happened in the last two weeks that I felt worthy of mention on this here blog. Well, nothing of great interest has happened in the last two weeks--maybe minor interest, but nothing spectacularly great. However, my mom has bugged me that I haven't posted anything in "three weeks!" and so I'm trying to come up with something to proffer. (And, Mom, it's actually only been two weeks. This week is week three, and I'm posting this.)

I have decided to take the Advanced Dive course. Today (Sunday) we were supposed to go diving on a deep dive (past 100 feet), with the added plus of the dive being from a boat. (Both are types of dives that we have to take as part of the course.) We woke up this morning with the skies gray and heavy-bellied with clouds that were wind-whipped and pouring rain. We quickly decided that diving was a no-go for today, for the rain makes the water very cold (relatively, of course), and traveling anywhere by boat in such wind would have been miserable, difficult, and probably foolhardy. So we didn't go--and, even though I did want to go diving today, I am glad that I did not. It has rained on and off all day, and the winds haven't died down. For what's supposedly the beginning of the dry season (although I don't know the exact date of its start), it sure has rained a lot today! My shower tonight will be freezing cold, but it will be fresh water, and that will be very nice.

This week is midterms, and I'm in the middle of writing tests and filling out paperwork. I think I have almost completely exhausted my supply of books to read in my "spare" time--I've read a couple of the books more than once, though.

Maybe I should just post some more pictures. Yeah, that seems like a good idea. To iPhoto I go, so that I may choose which pictures you see below! More later.



The books that I teach out of (as well as my poor waterbottle that has been so abused by accident)



Emily showing off one of our new sponges (we had used our first sponge until it practically fell apart.)



Oronia and I at the school picnic (O-row-nee-ah)



Jeo, with one of his normal grins