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.