Mostly About Diving (but about the weekend, too!)

3-8-09 This week was action-packed. I say that rather literally. I went back to school on Tuesday, but still wasn't feeling incredibly up to par. Wednesday dawned, and I did feel better. I also ended up in the lagoon, trying to make up my Underwater Navigation dive. I'm still a bit shaky on the usage of my compass, but I do have a little confidence in my counting of kick cycles. Thursday was even better. We had two dives planned--the first to a plane (or what's left of it) in the lagoon, and then a dive for about an hour later, after the sun had set.

Yes, I did just say after the sun set. Part of the advanced dive course is at least one dive at night, and our night dive was on Thursday night, after we had swapped our almost-empty tanks for freshly filled ones and munched on a roll or two while the sea-breeze blew and chilled us. I was equipped with my normal gear, plus a heavy-duty flashlight. Oh, that is one sweet flashlight! Hideo told me that he has been using it on the same battery for three months already, and the beam is still very bright. We suited up and stood on the beach, waiting for everyone to arrive so that we could get into the water, go down, and have a look around.

Being underwater at night is entirely different than being underwater in the day. It is both terrifying and thrilling (and I would not have missed it for anything!). We had our lights on and went down about twenty feet so we could look for fish and see the coral. The coral opens up at night to feed, so it's nothing like the hard branches we see during the day, but rather the polyps are like little fingers raking food out of the water. If I had turned my light off, I would have been in utter dark. Inky pitch-black dark, the sort of dark where you can't see your hand in front of your face. It's rather disorienting because a diver cannot use the sea floor as a guide to depth, and can never be quite sure where their hands, feet, and fins are. Happily, bubbles provide an up and a down. As it was, the lights only illuminated so much. We swam. I made sure to keep close to the group because I wanted to (and we were supposed to try to, anyway). I saw a fish that looked quite similar to Gil from the movie Finding Nemo (except that he was a good deal larger than my hand (or so it seemed). Some of my fellow divers saw a shark, but I didn't. Before we had gotten into the water, I had not wanted to encounter any sharks (it did not help that Lorraine was humming the theme from "Jaws"), but as we were diving, I realized that I really did want to see a shark (and still hope to see one before May).

Friday Emily and I had vespers. She arranged the song service (and got Jordan to play guitar), and I spoke. I've been reading 1st and 2nd Kings for my personal devotion, and I was really struck by some of my thoughts that I had concerning Ahab, king of Israel. Despite God trying to reach him through prophets and warnings, Ahab decided to be focused on the negative and to be "sullen and displeased." (The NKJV states that exact phrase at least twice!) To get his mind off of what God's men had said, he decided that he wanted to make a vegetable garden, and, for convenience, he wanted it right where Naboth's vineyard was. Naboth was completely within his rights to refuse the king's request that he give the king his vineyard, but Ahab goes home and sulks about the fact that Naboth would not give up the vineyard. Jezebel saunters in, tells him that he's the king and should be cheerful, and promptly goes out and arranges things so that he can have Naboth's vineyard. My point was that sometimes we humans decide to not deal with our issues directly and try to divert our attentions elsewhere (and sometimes those diversions are thwarted, because God wants to draw us closer to Him). I told my own story about having to choose between keeping Sabbath or going to a band contest, and ending up challenging people to listen to what God says and to draw closer to Him. Then we closed with a song and prayer and went our merry ways.

Jordan and I (though I must admit that it was mostly Jordan this week) planned for our AY program. We hit upon the idea of seeing how well people at the program knew each other, and so we had this list of random things and had pairs of people try to guess what the other person's favorite this or that were--and were not surprised when most people failed at even some of the most basic things. Then we doled out Scripture verses and had people read them and report on what the verses were about (and they were all about how God knows everything about us). Our challenge was that, even though God knows us so very, very well, we don't know Him as well as He would like. To get to know Him better, there are a few options: Bible study, prayer, nature, learning about Him from other people. The challenge was that we should try and get to know Him because of how well He knows and loves us.

Today (Sunday), we again went diving. This time we went diving at Shell Island. We geared up at Hideo's and went to Shell and went diving. Although, it was not nearly as simple as that may seem. First, Landen, Megan, and I were the first three into the water, and when Hideo got in, we followed him out to where we were supposed to be. Then we discovered that Lorraine and Emily F. were still near the shore. Hideo headed back towards shore and told us to wait there. That would not have been difficult except that it was high tide and the waves were decently sized and smacking us in the head repeatedly. I was glad for my snorkel and mask. Finally, he got back out there, and we went under. I descended pretty well. My ears equalized decently, although once or twice I had to kick furiously to stay at the depth I was in order to get my ears to clear, but I finally made it down to 110 feet. We swam around and through the same wreck we had been to before (the time we went diving with Pastor Rich), and then Hideo showed up and it was time to head up toward the shore.

This is the part where it got very interesting. I had been keeping an eye on Emily F. and Lorraine (since at one time or another they were both my buddies), but also kept close to Megan and Landen. However, Emily and Lorraine were together, so I kept close to Hideo and began swimming uphill. We had reached about sixty feet when Hideo asked where Emily and Lorraine were. I looked around and then shrugged. They were together and being buddies, so all was good, right? I looked back toward the ship and saw two shadows emerging from the blue gloom and pointed. Hideo turned and went to them. I noticed that Emily was pulling Lorraine along, and that Lorraine was holding her snorkel in her hand as if it were the Olympic torch or something. The second thing I noticed was that Emily was having to share air with Hideo, and upon wondering why, I realized it was because she had been underwater longer than we were. We swam and swam, and I kept looking back to see where everybody was. The current must have taken me slightly off course, because the others disappeared. I had to surface and look around. Upon seeing them, I re-descended and met up with them. Soon I was at the point where I had to switch from tank air to my snorkel because my tank was getting low.

Once we were back on land, I got the whole story about why Emily and Lorraine had been so far behind the rest of us. There is something that is a potential hazard of diving to depths of 80 plus feet, called nitrogen narcosis. To put it in the simplest terms I can, a diver's brain gets loopy off of the nitrogen they've been breathing under pressure. It can happen to anyone and can be affected by multiple factors like weight, age, experience, current fatigue, wrong breathing, and physical fitness. Scientists still don't truly know why it happens (so says my dive textbook). Divers call it "getting narked." It doesn't (to my understanding; it's what the book said) do permanent damage, but the reason why it's dangerous is because it can impair decision-making, ability to recognize and respond to danger, create undue anxiety (or euphoria) and end up with a diver doing things that they shouldn't. Therefore, it's dangerous not because it damages one's brain, but because it impairs it and could lead to mistakes with permanent consequences.

Well, Emily was running low on air because she had been down longer than the rest of us, and when she buddied up with Lorraine, she informed her of her low air, like buddies are supposed to. Lorraine just hung there in the water. Emily had to get her attention, ended up pulling off her snorkel (that's why Lorraine was holding it like the Olympic torch), and had to drag Lorraine toward the rest of us. She had to share air with Hideo because she was below 500 PSI. Lorraine explained that she had been totally fine when she suddenly was light-headed and couldn't decide where she wanted to go. The thought of sharing air with Emily never even entered her head, even though her alternative source of air was right where it was supposed to be. She just wanted to lay on the sand right there at sixty feet and chill, but decided against it and kneeled instead. (Still not a good thing, by the way.) She said her head did clear once we ascended far enough (ascension's the only "cure" for getting narked) and then felt really stupid, even though it could happen to any of us. (She is completely fine now, by the way. She wanted me [since I said that I was going to write about it and she was okay with that] to tell everyone who would be worried about her that she's okay now.

Now we're gearing up for third quarter final exams. I got my third box and it was very nice to get. Yay for new flip-flops! It's hard to believe that it's almost the end of the THIRD quarter, and that there is only one quarter left until I head back to Michigan City (and then to camp!). More later.

Some Pictures

The kitten the apartments have adopted and me (I took this photo with a wriggling kitty while I was walking.)



A cool thing I thought up to explain linking verbs to the seniors



The school gathered for Monday morning assembly

Sick and Tired, A Long Weekend, and Boxes!!

3-2-09 I have been feeling a bit poorly lately. I started feeling truly horrid during church last Sabbath (February 28th) and ended up lying in bed with a wet cloth over my eyes while everybody else was packing up to go to Bigej (the island past the channel) again. I wanted to go, but eventually decided against it, because I felt like I had a fever and wanted to try and be well in order to go diving. So most everyone left, and I was alone in our apartment.

It was very quiet. There were other people in the apartments, sure, but it was still very quiet. I found myself missing everybody and wanting to be on the boat crossing the channel. Hopefully there will be another chance before I leave in May. I was tired, but I was also extraordinarily hungry. I made myself food and ate it while listening to a sermon off of my laptop. Afterward, I had my own little sundown worship, and then I listened to some music and stretched out on my bed, thinking that I'd listen a little bit and then do something to entertain myself.

Ha. I woke up about ten, twenty minutes later, and realized that the best course of action would be to get myself to bed. Which I promptly did. I think I was asleep by 8:00 PM or so, and, for the most part, slept until eight the next morning. I made myself breakfast and ate it most happily. That was one of the things that was a blessing and an annoyance of being sick-ish. I had a fever or so because my body was trying to fight something off, but that made me tired and hungry all the same. I didn't know what time everyone was going to arrive back, but I decided to try my hand at making one of the recipes that Megan has given me: her black bean soup. Very yummy, and I figured that everyone would be hungry after arriving back from the camp-out.

So I made the soup and waited. When everyone finally got back, I started feeling worse again, so I ended up in bed again. The only problem with the soup I made was two-fold: I had made it too early in the day, and so by the time they got back, the rice had soaked up much of the liquid; and two, it needed more chili powder, but I hadn't put too much in because I thought we were close to running out (we're not; we have another whole little bottle of the stuff). Other than that, people liked it!

Our dive class last night was canceled, and that made me happy, because I had already decided that I still wasn't up to diving. You're not supposed to do it when you're sick, and though I suppose that usually applies to blocked sinuses and such, I figured that being so tired probably wouldn't be a good thing. So I went to bed around nine and slept until about nine this morning, because today was a holiday. Well, Sunday was the holiday (Nuclear Victims' Day), but the authorities that be (not our school) canceled Monday's classes. I was hoping to go on the dive today (for our class), but since I still had a slight fever (but it HAD gone down since Sunday) and felt sort of tired and bad still, I missed class today. Which is a bummer, but I can easily make it up (which very much thrills me).

Also, a short time after they all had returned from Bigej, our (the girls') air conditioner decided to up and quit working for some reason. Happily, we had an electrician join our crew a few weeks ago, and he looked at it last night, and worked on it today. (So, yes, we spent a night without our AC. Big deal. Thanks, Mom, for all those summers without AC in Indiana. I completely mean that in a non-sarcastic way.) Boyet fixed our air conditioner by doing something that I could never attempt to do without training. He took another AC's controls and replaced the controls that had gotten fried by the rain, then rigged up something that would drain any future water away from the controls. It's pretty cool. And it saves the cost of buying a new air conditioner.

I haven't gotten anything graded from the things that I collected on Friday, but at least my lesson plans are done (I did them on Friday, too). At least I'm starting to feel better. Yay! Back to grammar on Tuesday.

Oh! Almost forgot (but didn't). I got two of the three boxes that my mom sent me a week or so ago last Thursday. I very much appreciate the clothes and reading materials (already finished the Readers' Digests, AFM and Adventist World). Maybe this sounds a bit weird to those of you who read this, but there is a particular sort of happiness that comes from clothes that fit well. Anyway, I haven't broken into the Girl Scout cookies yet (remember, I've been a bit sick and trying to fight it off, so a nix on the sugar), but I will soon and I plan to share, just like I usually do (and like I promised). Hopefully the other box came in this weekend and I'll be able to get it tomorrow (Tuesday).

More later.

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