Tsunami Big Wave Wednesday, Sept. 30

Today started out pretty normal. My class had chapel. We got up and sang some songs. Then one of my girls played the Ucayali and sang. It was actually really good. The principal had a meeting with some of the teachers while I was having chapel. We had a tsunami watch. First we did a drill and got everyone in the court yard. He explained that at 9:45 am there could be a tsunami wave, but they didn't expect it to be big and the tide was out so that helped too. If it was going to be big, we were suppose to go upstairs. We watched the ocean a lot, but didn't see anything big. As the day went on I kept looking out and the waves kept getting bigger and bigger. The "break" right in front of my classroom is called Graveyards because if you surf there it'll be your graveyard. In seconds you can be in ankle deep water. The waves were so long and huge.

Of course after school I run out there and paddle out. Dameon, Zac and Tony beat me because I had to give a test to a student who had been sick. Cameron and I paddled out together. The waves were bigger than we had ever seen them out here. When I got there Zac was raving about a tsunami wave going down his throat and carrying him around the whole island. Dameon said it was a solid 8 foot Hawaiian, which means it had a 16 foot face. It broke way out from where they were surfing and took everyone away. We were to see more of those. Most of the waves were in the head and a half to double overhead range. Once in awhile a set would roll in that was a solid triple overhead and we'd paddle like crazy and duckdive. A couple times I didn't make it through and I got thrown into the washing machine. It's crazy in there. By the time you can paddle back out you are a good 300 yards away from where you started. It takes 15 minutes against the current to paddle back to where you were. 20 seconds in a couple triple overhead waves will do that.

I was able to catch about 4 waves. One I didn't set good and it was really choppy and I got thrown off the back when I was trying to drop in. Another wave just ended up being total junk. I jumped on one big, but choppy wave. It didn't have a sweet line, but it had a line. I was hauling butt down and I head Cameron yell, go faster. I looked back and saw him on the same wave, going the same direction behind me. It was pure hotness. Then I caught the wave of the day. I was in the perfect spot. I felt the board pull and stood up going left. That is back-hand for me meaning my back was to the wave. I'm not as good that way. A sweet line opened up and it was completely smooth. I made the drop and pulled into it. I was in the perfect spot. For the drop I was balled up grabbing rail. I came out of it a bit and stood up a little for the ride down. I came out the other end and yelled so loud everyone could hear me. Dameon said it was a really sweet ride. Unfortunately, Ben was not paying attention for that one and I've got no pics. But it was the ride of the week. It felt so good.

Teusday, September 29th

Sunday Ben and I went down to Laura, which is the other end of the island. The island is very narrow and a lot of the time you can see the ocean on both sides. But it is pretty long. It took us an hour to get down to Laura, and we aren't even on the other end of the island. We can go 20 minutes car ride the other direction. It makes a big half circle with some islands making up the other half of it. We spent some time with the couple from Laura. I don't think they hang out with Americans much and they seemed to enjoy Ben and I hanging out with them. We swam out past the reef, which took us 20 minutes. It was so far, even though it looked close. There were lots of fish and Ben saw a mantaray. At first I did a couple dives down to 30 or 35 feet. Then something moved in my head and I started getting sinus squeeze really bad and I couldn't even break 5 feet after that without my head feeling like it would explode.

Monday was a pretty typical day. We did our usual school work. For Music class we were suppose to come up with a cheer for our class. The kids wanted to make a dance, but they didn't come up with any ideas. I had some random ideas that I was trying to piece together. Today we had another chance to finish it. I talked to Zac before hand and got some ideas for a cheer and put them together with some of my ideas. We started off in a circle beating a rythm by clapping and stuff. We walked around in a circle singing "We will, We will, Rock you!" Then we stopped and I asked, "What time is it? GAME TIME" Everyone echoed. "Are my dogs in the house? ARF ARF" "Who are we? SHRENS" The Shrens is their basketball team. I have no idea what it means. Then we all put or hands together and yelled. Rudy took some video of it which he'll clip together. At some point it'll go on the internet. That was super fun. I have a lot of enthusiasm and I jumped around and acted stupid which hyped the kids and they yelled really loud and it turned out way better than I thought it would. 7th Grade still ended up beating us in the "competition" with a chant that rimed and some break dancing. You can't win everything.

Welcome Back Party Time, Sept. 25th

Praise the Lord this was a four day week. It's so nice to have one of those. Last night, (Thursday), we had a welcome back party for the high school. It took forever for people to start showing up. We started an hour late. We had games where the classes got to compete against each other. The Sophemores ended up winning. They had the best turnout I think. The Freshman did too. The Juniors barely had anyone there. Shari, the teacher who heads us SA, came up with all these crazy games. They had to sit on balloons and pop them and two people run with their legs tied to the other person's leg. They played musical chairs with the guy's knees as chairs. The most fun one was Dance Freeze. DJ Zac played music and when it stopped everyone had to stop dancing, if they didn't they got eliminated. I was a bit shy at first by I finally loosened up and started dancing too. Since it's an SDA school and the people over here are more careful about that stuff than we are in the states, the dancing was clean and everything. No one had seen my moves before and the other SMs thought it was insanely entertaining. I found it quite enjoyable. I love to dance. After the games, we had a small talent show. Some of the girls did Hawaiian dances and the the guys did the Soulja Boy Dance. A couple of them could actually break dance pretty ok. A lot of them were embarrassed about it I guess, so they wore masks and wouldn't tell anyone who was up there. Some of the teachers figured it out and talked to the kids, but they denied it was them. Maybe they just didn't want the teachers to know, idk.

This morning I got up early with Dameon and Tony to go surfing. After staying up late last night, I didn't want to, but Dameon harassed me until I came out. I'm glad I did. The waves were weird, but a lot bigger than they have been lately and pretty clean. I got some sweet rides in. I wish I had taken me short board. I took my fish because I thought the waves would be really small like they have been the last few days. I ended up having to try some crazy drop-ins on a shallow reef with a board way to thick and long for it. It was ok because I didn't get any new cuts on the reef, which actually surprised me a lot.

Internet!

Yay! We got high speed internet here at the school. Some of us thought that would never happen. We've been promised for a long time. The only downside is that we have to pay by the megabyte or minute. It works out to 10 cents a minute or $1 for 10 megs. As long as you don't download more than 10 megs in 10 minutes, paying per meg is the better deal. Still, it's expensive either way. I'll probably be going back to RMI, the resort that has internet. You can buy steamed rice for $1.25 and use the internet all afternoon. But it can be really slow. I haven't been able to get Skype to work more than three times, and even then, I couldn't here the other people a lot of the time. It'll be nice to make phone calls here. With phone cards being 49 cents a minute, even paying by time is cheaper than calling on a landline. From what I've heard, Skype VOIP doesn't use much bandwidth so if you pay by the meg you can talk for a long time. We'll see, I can't wait to make phone calls on Sunday.

Sickness, Tuesday, Sept. 15

I've had a hard three days. Sabbath morning I got up and went to Sabbath School. When I woke up I had a headache, but I didn't think much of it. The longer I stayed in SS the worse I felt. When that was over I went back to my apartment and slept until 1:30. After potluck, I slept and watched Planet Earth on Principal Grant's couch. His house it air conditioned so it's the hang out spot for Sabbath afternoons. In the evening I felt better so I didn't worry about it.

Sunday morning I woke up and went to the AV room to do some grading. I started feeling bad around the same time. I layed on the couch most of the day and did my lesson planning when I felt good for brief periods.

Monday I got up and felt good so I ate a nice breakfast. We took our classes over to the school next door because they had a Navy Brass Band there. The show was really good but part way through I started feeling bad again. I went back to my room and layed on my bed. I sweeted quite a bit the other days, but Monday was crazy. I was poring sweet and I wasn't hot. I took two showers in an hour and I just stayed wet. Finally it blew over and John-Dale took me to the hospital. They took blood and urine samples and said it would be ready the next day.

Tuesday felt better, but I was still tired. I taught until 1 pm and then went to the hospital. It took me an hour and twenty minutes to go through all the red tape, but finally they told me I had an infection someplace, likely sinus'. They gave me anti-biotics for $17 and let me go. I just took the first ones and I expect them to work quick. When I've had sinus infections in the past it has always cleared up quickly with medicine.

I'm feeling better and things are looking up. It's tough to be sick and have responsibilities. I hope I can get well and stay there for awhile.

Another day... Sept 9th

This is hump day and I'm so glad. The first half of the week was pretty stressful. Monday went ok, just a normal day. Tuesday three of my students got caught drinking alcohol on campus. I found out they had been drinking all morning in class. They found a drink that was clear like water and put it in a water bottle. I'm really surprised I didn't smell it. I usually pick up that kind of stuff. I guess they kept it closed all the time. I was trying really hard to hold back my joy when they got sent home. They are the trouble makers and my class ran so smooth the rest of the day without them. People were quiet and did their work. That was short lived because today the worst trouble maker shows up. The principal told him not to come back without his uncle or whover he's staying with. He pretty much just ignored that and showed up anyway. Even when he's not doing anything overtly bad, he's just really loud and disrupting. I'm not sure where it centers, but it's really hard to lecture because people talk really loud. I don't know if it is a cultural thing or what, but it's very hard for all of us SMs to get used to. It appears to us the kids have a total lack of manners. They can be really disrespectful at times. The high school teachers have the same problem. I think the younger grades are the worst though. This isn't whispering to your friends, this talking very loudly while someone is up front. It can be very disturbing especially in a block room that echoes really bad like my classroom. I don't know what to do about it. I don't think I should have to punish people for that because it's just basic manners, but I think I'll have to.

Anyway, enough complaining. Yesterday I went out surfing and that made the day so much better. The waves were a pretty good size, but choppy. Ben got some fanastic pics. Rudy came out for the first time with snorkel gear on. He was having a blast dodging waves and stuff. I came surfing in on one and they were hanging out right where I have to go so they could get some sweet pics. Rudy hesitated and didn't know which way to go and I almost took his head off. I was trying to go around him, but the wave was super choppy and I cleared this lip that came up out of nowhere. Fortunately he ducked down just before I took his head off. I have a great picture sequence of it that Ben took while the whole thing was going on. Crazy.

It's been rainy and windy lately. Can't really complain since at least it's not super hot out. I don't mind the weather at all.

One more thing that has been bugging me is cooking in our apartment. I end up cooking almost every meal. Ben cooks some, but no one wants to cook for five guys. There ends up being about four freeloaders. The new guy, John, cooks for himself every single meal. He's a good cook, but never wants to share with us. I just make basic stuff for the group. It's not that hard to put water on to boil. John has a free period right before lunch and I don't see why he can't start something cooking for the rest of us. Anyway, I've grumbled a little about it, but maybe I'll just have to sit down and have a talk with everyone. Ben sees it too. We may talk to everyone together.

Nice Three Day Weekend

For the US it was Labor Day. For the Marshall Islands the Friday before Labor Day is Girbal Day, or something like that. I think it is basically the same thing, but they celebrate it with fishing tournaments all weekend. More on that later.

Friday I got caught up on grading and slept all day. I was recuperating from a cold. I felt better in the afternoon so I went out with the guys surfing. The waves were coming in really big sets, but it was super windy out. Everything was so choppy it was hard to paddle and stand and everything. I got a handful of decent waves. Dameon came out and started pulling into big waves. He kept falling, but that didn't stop him from paddling into everything that looked halfway decent. I was more careful and only ate it bad once. I got worked really bad and I collided with my board as I got mixed up in the "washing machine." Fortunately, it was safe surfing because the waves were mushy and the water deep. I didn't really feel like I came close to the reef at all. We had some sets that looked at least 10 feet, though. It was a big day. The constant wind for two or three days kicked it up. Ben came out and we got some super sweet pics.

Sabbath was pretty much a repeat of the last Sabbaths. Church, potluck at Lenny's, sleep, read, hangout with friends. This time Rudy and I went down to the bay and took some time lapse video. Unfortunately nothing happened in the bay and so it was very boring footage. Right at the end a storm came up. We stuck it out for awhile and then walked back in the rain.

Sunday morning the surfers got up bright and early for dawn patrol. We got so excited about the big, and this time clean, waves that were out there we surfed way too long. Not because we had anything to do, but because the tide went out while we were out there. I quit paddling for stuff because I got scared. I think I only got one wave that day. I know what waves I can drop in on for sure and that day they were pitching pretty good. On a normal day I'm not scared of getting pitched, but when it's that shallow it's just really sketchy. When we first went out it was shallow so I was careful. It just went down hill from there. By the time we finally paddled/waded in, there were huge rocks sticking out everywhere and it was super sketchy. Dameon and Cameron stayed out longer than Tony and I. Dameon landed on a rock on his way in and cracked his board. He just got the stuff to fix it today. In addition to that, when he fell on a wave he got a small chunk taken out of his foot by some coral. This bled really bad until he could get it stopped. It didn't seem to bother him much though.

In the afternoon we went to Enemanat. We rode on a man's boat who is director for the Olympics for the islands. He is really nice. On the way back he took us by the weighing in for the fishing tournament I talked about earlier. They had a bunch of 60-80 lb fish and one 103 lb Marlin. It was amazing. There were teams representing all the islands and one for the US. The US did pretty good with three big fish and some smaller ones. Miss All Micronesia was there. Tony, Zac, and Cameron got pictures with her. She was there taking pictures with all the fishing teams.

Longest Four Day Week Ever

Well, maybe not the longest, but a lot longer than I had planned. I was excited at the beginning of the week because it would be short. Monday started me off bad. In the afternoon I started getting a sore throat. I took a bunch of medicine and went to bed early. I think it helped because I woke up the next morning with congestion, but I felt pretty good. I had a few problems with the kids that day, but I don't remember it being too bad. I do remember this one guy taking my bathroom pass and taking off and wouldn't come back until our spelling bee was over. He was scared I would make him get up front. I don't think it's possible to make anyone here get up. They would rather get a bad grade than speak in front of people.

Wednesday I was excited because the week was halfway over. I was to find out that my problems had just begun. The whole day I had behavior problems with about three of the guys. This one kid is not all there and I think he has ADD really bad. He takes off every few minutes and disappears with the bathroom pass. Then three people were leaving at one time with the pass and when two came back it was ripped in half. These guys wouldn't do their class work and wanted to talk and joke really loud while everyone else was. At lunchtime one of them, Johnny, disappeared for good and didn't come back. Art is the last class of the day and I take them to another teacher because most of us know nothing about art. On the way over two guys cut class and leave. I alerted the security guard and he was able to find them right outside the gate a few minutes later. They got sent to the principal and got suspended from school.

I knew that today I was going to have to deal with some issues. I woke up feeling worse but I knew I had to go. Johnny shows up with an ear ring in his ear and quite an attitude. He was more than willing to go to the principal. His uncle had given him a note that said he left at lunchtime because the security guard took his lunch and he had to go eat. When we finally got to speak to the principal, the note wasn't much good to him because he left at lunch time and never came back! If he was a little late it would be understandable, but since he never came back he didn't really have anything to say. We found out he lives with his Uncle who teaches Kindergarten at a public school. The Principal told him that he would have to bring his uncle back with him to come back to school. This was already his second time skipping class, so he'd already used his get-out-of-jail free card. I didn't have any trouble with him the rest of the day.

Unfortunately I lost my voice as the day went on. I assigned a bunch of work and made it through the day. I slept two and a half hours when I got off work. I feel better now. I'm super stoked I have a three day weekend to get well. I'm going to sleep a lot.