The teaching life

It has been a while since I last posted, mostly because I have gotten really busy with school. It shouldn't be an excuse, but I'm going to go ahead and use it as one. Let's just say I would rather spend my time swimming and exploring than writing about doing those things.

School officially started a week from yesterday, on Tuesday. We had Thursday off, and Fridays end at 1:40, so we really only had two and a half days last week. I actually liked that because I could do all the boring stuff like rules and procedures and I didn't have to spread it out over an entire week. I started real material this week, which is exciting! It is only Wednesday and I am absolutely exhausted from teaching all day every day so far this week. I'm on my feet for a long time, and I never really thought about that aspect of it. Teaching is overall going well so far. I've had a couple behavior issues, more with certain classes than others, but for the most part the students are good. I am trying my best to learn names, especially since I consider that one of my weak points usually. I have a couple classes down, but the students are also all in alphabetical order, so I'm afraid that once they move I won't remember them anymore. I can't wait to get into more material because right now I'm still on the boring basic science things that we have to get through in order to learn the cool stuff. The students here are a little behind normal high school students in the US in every area, but especially their English, so I'm having to do more review and spend more time on the basics than I normally would. The short school day also makes things difficult. I have each class for 45 minutes a day (theoretically...), and only 35 minutes on Fridays. The automatic bell system doesn't work, so a person literally has to ring the bell every time. This means that class could end anywhere from 10 minutes early to 10 minutes late, so class time varies a whole lot. Usually it stays within 5 minutes, but it's always kind of a guessing game.  The worst is my class right after lunch, because that bell almost always rings late and my students don't really like to show up on time. You would think they would because I have a short graded assignment at the beginning of every class, but I'm still getting a few strolling in late every day. They can go anywhere during lunch, and the school is outside, so they can roam wherever, which means they often don't make it back in time. I'm definitely learning to be extremely flexible with my lesson plans. Another thing that makes things interesting is that all we have to work with is a chalkboard and chalk. As a science teacher, this is really bizarre to me. What could be considered a lab space is just a bunch of wooden tables. I have a bunsen burner (singular), but nowhere to get gas from, and zero safety equipment. I really don't want this to be a list of complaints, but for those of you that a curious about what high school in Kosrae is like, this is what it is like. In a way, it's kind of nice, like you're going back to basics and you have to figure out how to make it interesting without anything to work with. It's definitely difficult, but I'm learning so much and I'm really getting challenged to be creative, so I think it is a good thing.

When I haven't been teaching, I've been doing all sorts of fun things! We went back to Yekela waterfall, which was amazing again. There wasn't as much water running, so I'm glad I got good pictures last time. The tree climb was more fun this time because it was a little less scary the second time. We sat at the top for a while and just hung out on the rocks in the running water a little higher up at the top of the waterfall. I haven't gotten over the fact that we can just head to a waterfall after school. It's such a normal activity here, but I hope I never get over how awesome it is that that is what our Friday afternoons consist of. Another day, we biked to a sandier beach area and just went swimming and hung out for a while. I really wanted to lay out, but I'm rocking my rash guard and board shorts because of the modest culture here and getting a really attractive farmers tan :) Last night we went night fishing, and it was really fun! Jess's host parents took us all out with them. You basically just walk around in the shallows with a flashlight and either a spear or a machete and lift up rocks and then stab the fish you find. We mostly caught small ones, but it was really fun and I was so proud of myself for catching a few! Another thing about being outside at night here: the stars are unbelievable. Being on a tiny island in the Pacific is absolutely crazy. You can see so well! I've sat outside a bunch of times to look at the stars, and I kept looking up last night when we were fishing because they are so cool.

This post was kind of a random jumble of my thoughts and experiences over the past week. It's getting pretty late here and I have an early morning yet again tomorrow, so I'm going to call it a day and try to post again soon!