School Pains

(Note: Written on 10/28.)
Sorry, sorry, sorry, for the extremely long break between posts. The reason for the delay is a combination of the power being out for hours each day up until this week, school related stress, and procrastination. We are FINALLY getting back to some semblance of normal this week just about a month after the tsunami, although some students and teachers are not yet back, we have adapted.

These last two weeks have been my hardest yet, far more taxing than the week of the tsunami or even the beginning of the year. I suppose that the reasoning is a combination of the fact that I have lost my initial motivation and energy that I had at the beginning of the year (now we are over ¼ done!), and that the tsunami completely wiped out the classroom management I had established. The story seems to be the same for many teachers – when the kids returned from the tsunami it was as if they had forgotten how to act at school, probably because the school was a circus for weeks after. All the energy I had invested in strictly enforcing my management plan had really started to pay off in the weeks before the tsunami. Behavior was really improving, the students knew what to do when they came in class, and they knew the consequences if they chose to misbehave. However, after a week off and a week of nothing, when we actually started to teach again it was as if they had forgotten how to act at school. I felt as if I was starting from scratch again, having to keep many students after school (many of them not showing up, which they had learned not to do before as I keep them the next day twice as long…), reign in abnormally rowdy classes, chase out kids skipping other classes and sitting in mine, find my students loitering outside, and other horribly stressful activities. Not to mention that we are still missing multiple teachers so we are always covering other classes.

This week is finally getting a bit better (which is really good because I almost lost it last Thursday) as the students are slowly getting reconditioned to know how to act in class. However, my feelings on school have really taken a plunge because of these last few weeks. I think they are slowly beginning to come back up – the good day today counteracting the atrocious day on Monday when I had to keep an entire class after school. While my energy is low, and this past week I have never dreaded going to school more, I am starting to believe that it is getting better.

Enough moping for now. On a positive note my weekends and evenings have been especially nice lately, and I find myself thanking fate that I have such good friends here to be a great support system. Thanh is my constant sounding board and many evenings I have been reassured that I am not the world's worst teacher or a horrible person thanks to her sound words of wisdom. Not to mention that on some evenings and weekends we have some pretty awesome fun. I am positive that if I had just come here to teach alone, I would have quit and ran away crying. It is completely thanks to friends here that I have retained my sanity and love for teaching (although it is hidden deep, deep, down sometimes). It has been extremely helpful to know that others are going through the same hard times, hear their solutions, ideas and their good moments to uplift. You've probably read about them but some of my closest friends here are Thanh, Rosemary, Julia, Courtney, KC, John, Cynthia, Taylor, Scott, and Jesse. Seriously, without these lovely folks I would be a mess.

This past weekend we sadly had to say goodbye to yet another of our friends, Brigit. She had broken her ankle last January and had to have surgery to install hardware so that it would heal correctly. The pain in her ankle returned after some weeks here and was accompanied by a fever. They ran some tests here but could not tell anything conclusively, and as they are concerned about an infection in the bone from the hardware they suggested that she go back to the states for more testing. So with that prognosis Brigit had to make plans to head back home to figure out what is up with her ankle, and we had a 'tofa' or goodbye party for her on Saturday. As it was so close to Halloween we also made it a costume party, and it was a blast. Almost all of our group, even those from Manu'a, were at the party at Taylor and Scott's and it was a ton of fun. The weekend really made me feel better after an atrocious Thursday and an interesting night of parent teacher conferences.

Again, I am sorry for the delay, life has been a bit rough. However my life for the next two months is looking extremely amazing, so I am confident that any hard times at school will tolerable thanks to other good parts of island life. This weekend is the Tattoo Festival at Tisa's Barefoot Bar on the east side which will be a pretty sweet time. We have the 11^th of November off from school for Veteran's Day and as that is a Wednesday it will break up the week nicely. The weekend of the 14^th Taylor and Scott are having a join Birthday party at their house, and so far all events at their house have been awesome. A week and a half later is Thanksgiving and Rosemary's coworker invited her and two friends, Thanh and me, to stay with her and her family in Western Samoa. From Wednesday afternoon to Sunday night we will have an amazing vacation in Western, and besides gifts for our hosts we don't have to worry about a place to stay or food. Some real cultural immersion! Once we get back it is less than three weeks until I fly home for Christmas! Thanks to my extremely generous, loving, kind, wonderful family I am able to come home for the holidays which is just what I need. I am so excited to see everyone back home!

Once I looked at my life in that schedule, I figured I can deal with anything that school or tectonic plates might throw at me.



Until next time, which will be soon I promise.