Two Fights and the Banquet

The last week has been a very eventful one. The drama and craziness that has gone on is ridiculous. Last Saturday night I was bored, as usual, because no one wanted to do anything. I went over to the gym and I sat through three volleyball games and couldn't play. The gym is complete chaos and can have 100 people in it Saturday night. You count and keep score if you want to go next. I was keeping score for me and some of my students. But they wandered out of the gym and didn't come back in time and so I couldn't get on because I was by myself. After I got really frustrated with that I went back to the AV room, which is usually the lamest place to be saturday night. When I came in the guys had put on music really loud and were dancing. That was fun so I got in on that. The music was really loud and the girls watched us for a little while then left to go watch some lame chick flick. Certain girls are very girly when it comes to movies and all they will watch is Miley Cyrus and romance movies. I don't mind one every once in awhile, but they get lame if you do that every saturday night. We were still dancing and having a good time when Rudy came in and told us we should move it to his classroom. We said there were only four of us and there was no point. Then Rob grabbed the ipod off the speakers and walked out the door. We put another ipod on and kept jamming. He came storming back in and started saying stuff about being immature. Tony came back with something. Tony knows just how to say stuff to piss people off big time. Rob walked over and put his hand on Tony's chest and said he had enough of Tony. I'd never seen Rob angry like this. Tony was like, "Get your hands off me!" Ben stepped in and pushed them apart. Rob said, "Get out of the way Ben. I'm mad at you too!" Ben was like, "What's the problem?" and Rob explained that people were next door and below and they were upset with our music. Ben said, "Oh! I didn't even realize it." And he turned the music off and we all went back to our computers. Everyone who was there knew how close Rob and Tony were to a fist fight. Tony has no idea how to calm someone down and he was making Rob madder and madder. It was good than Ben defuse the situation.


The next fight was just crazy. The Valentine's Banquet was Thursday night. When we all went out to eat for Valentine's Day the girls picked names out of a hat and asked us. The deal was that we would do the same and ask them for the banquet. Wednesday night we had done nothing and so we sat down and talked about it. Since we are dudes we didn't just want to leave our dates to chance. We decided to play Counter Strike to decide who would get first pick. The real reason for the whole thing is that at least four guys wanted to take Katrina. They didn't want to leave it to chance and her end up with Mitch or something. We made a complicated multi round system to narrow down the best players. The first round Ben and Zac made it to the next round. The next one Rob and I did. I'm not the best player, but given a good computer I can be competitive. My computer must have a virus using my processor because even Counter Strike had performance issues. Even so, I still made it to the next round. Damien was the last one to make it to Finals. Tony was a sore looser and kepts saying, "I don't give a s***" and so we told him he didn't have to take anyone. I don't think he wanted to and he didn't want to get stuck with last pick. Since we had two more guys that girls he and one other person was going without a date. Since Rudy wasn't there he was given that spot by default.

Tony started the it by being a sore looser and complaining so much. After that everyone that go eliminated complained a bunch. We were in the finals and Damien was leading by a huge margin, Zac was second, Ben third, I was fourth and Rob was last. Damien got a big sniper rifle that you can kill with one shot with. He would camp in a corner and take out the bots like crazy. Ben was arguing that that was cheap and the gun should not be used. Damien said this rule was not made in the beginning and he was not doing anything illegal. Ben got really annoying and kept saying, "I don't give a s***" while holding his nose. I didn't know what that was about but Damien thought he was making fun of his accent. It turn out later he was making fun of Tony. Anyway Ben realized he was pissing Damien off and that made him feel better since he was pissed off Damien was using the sniper rifle and winning the game. Damien walked up to him and said, "Stand up! We'll settle this once and for all." Damien was completely ready to fist fight. Damien has the worst temper of anyone and is the most physical. He would be the last person I would want to fight and I wouldn't have pushed him anywhere near that far because I know these things. Ben wouldn't stand up but he kept running his mouth, which was really stupid. He kept saying, "What is your problem?" I walked over there to try and defuse things and Jon said, "Ben, just be quiet!" and he finally shut up. We stopped Counter Strike.

I was super frustrated now because we were no closer to knowing we would take to the banquet. Now it was such a touchy subject I was afraid to bring it up. I was so pissed off at the immaturity that the guys were showing. We aren't dating any of them and we won't be. It's stupid that they should get so worked up that they almost get into a fist fight over it. I went to Cameron's place and hung out with him for a bit. I had gone with Alise on the Valentine's Day thing and had a good time. If I were to choose someone it would be her.

I went over to where the guys were hanging out and asked them if it was a free for all now. They said it was and anyone could ask anyone. By this time it was getting late and I had something cool in mind. I got an ipod speaker and played "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" with it over my head out in front of the girl's apartments. It was really funny becaue that was in a movie and I found it the cheesiest thing I could think of. The girls found it humorous. I went back inside and everyone said they were going to just ask some random girl. They were talking about it and they realized that that wouldn't work because several guys still wanted to go with Katrina. Also, no one wanted to go with someone who shall remain nameless. They talked about having a fight club to decide, but scrapped that idea. Finally they just all drew names out of a hat, but with a twist. The people who had made it to the final round of Counter Strike could put a name back once and redraw. This guaranteed that none of them would have to go with the one or two people they didn't want to go with. The couples were like this: Rob and Katrina, Damien and Kara, Ben and Shari, Jon and Charity, Zac and Nicole, Mitch and Lauren. Mitch was in bed so he just ended up with the last person in the hat. Of course we told the girls it was completely random and drawn out of a hat. This is a secret to be kept until the end of the year for sure. No one reads this blog.

The banquet was great. The kids showed up about an hour late, pretty standard for Marshallese. That was ok though. We ate, had Kareoke and had a good time for awhile. My 8th grade girls came about 30 minutes after that. They were really shy and didn't want to come in. At least three of them had dates from high school, but the guys didn't come over and the girls didn't go sit with the guys. It was really strange. You would never know they were going with anyone. Marshallese culture is strange sometimes. The girls wouldn't come out of the foyer and so I went and talked with them and took pictures for awhile. They finally started to feel more relaxed and we got them a table. They had all went shopping especially for the banquet and gotten new dresses. They looked very beautiful. I don't mind saying they were the prettiest girls at the banquet as a whole. No one high school class had more pretty girls at the banquet. They could have done so much better if they knew how to capitalize on it. They were constantly trying to hide and not be seen. I guess it's natural for 8th graders to be very insecure and shy. Like I said, Marshallese culture is very shy anyway.

Later that night we had a skit with Zac, Rob, Tony, and Rudy in it. The kids loved it. We had a how well do you know your date game. They chose Ben and Shari, Junior and Monolin, and two Chinese kids. It was a great cross section with teachers, Marshallese, and Chinese represented. I don't even know who won, but it wasn't Ben and Shari. Shari has a boyfriend and I'm sure we would do many times better than Ben.

The banquet was a huge success. The seniors said it was the best banquet they had ever been to. We have a group of highly dedicated teachers. From what I hear usually they have a group of teachers who mostly don't care that much. They are always slacking and trying to get out of responsibilities. I think we have done a lot for this school. From the stories we here from Pohnpei, we are doing much better than most teachers out here.