Home Alone

Yesterday was our final day of school before Christmas break.  The past few weeks have been non-stop craziness and I could not be happier about it.  At school, I had to finish out classes for the quarter because when we return to school we will have a few days of review and then midterm exams.  I managed to squeak in two fun labs with my Juniors, including a completely improvised, not sure if this will really work, idea of introducing the concept of identifying an unknown by using various white powders (flour, sugar, salt, baby powder, baking soda, and anything else you can find in a general store…) and it ended up being a huge success – much better than I could have anticipated.  I also managed to create 20 sets of tangrams made out of recycled cardboards boxes to use with my Sophomores.  And to top it all off – this whole time the choir and I were working our little Yapese butts off every day during study hall to perfect our Christmas concert (we finished one performance on Monday night, but more on that in a later post, after our second show on Saturday).

            Oh, and don’t let me forget to mention that amidst all of this going on, we also had our school accreditation visit, which involved a lot of extra organizing and cleaning of the school – on top of making sure lesson plans were immaculate and complete.  Of course, of the two classes that were chosen to be observed, my Geometry class was first up.  It reminded me a lot of the national camp inspection at Minsi, except this time I was in front of a classroom.  Overall – it went incredibly well with the sophomores really getting to show off just how much they have learned over the past few months as we reviewed for our final chapter test for the quarter.  A comment along the lines of - “You know, I don’t know how he made such a boring subject so fun and exciting” was passed on to our principal – It was a real pick-me-up to carry me through to the Christmas break.

            Now that break has begun, I am officially home alone… and yes, I have already re-enacted the scene from the movie where I try out shaving for the first time… and yes, I plan to booby trap the house with the most ridiculous possible ideas.  But in all seriousness, the girls all left for the States last night leaving me with the house to myself for the break.  I have already hosted some friends for dinner and am inviting our incredible neighbors over for a dinner get together with the priests.  I have lots of other plans that will range from some home renovations, to working in the village, to hanging out with some of my new Yapese friends, to chilling with the ex-pat family, to relaxing under the new koyeng that I helped build with the neighbors.

            Sidenote:  I helped build a traditional koyeng this weekend!  A koyeng is a small little hut shelter made out of bamboo, with a roof that is layered with woven palm leaves.  It was such a cool process to be a part of as I practiced my tree climbing skills while balancing on top of shaky bamboo sticks and trying not to fall through the roof that we had just put on.  And to make it even better, the language barrier was greater than usual and so hilarious pantomiming and misinterpretations made the construction quite the adventure.  It was awesome.  I loved just getting to work with the locals on something so traditional.

            Phew, I feel like I have so many stories to catch everyone up on, so maybe these next two weeks I will try to put up multiple short posts about some of the general adventures that have been going on over the past few weeks.   Picture post coming soon.

            Kammagar for all of the love and support.  It means the world to me.