2009 Starts Off Slow

The happy irony of the events of yesterday is that I had spent Friday night downloading pictures from Phil’s camera. This is especially exciting because it gives me something to post today since I can’t get another camera until tomorrow at the earliest. Phil’s camera has far more memory than mine did, also he often gave his camera to one of his sister to take photos and different events. This means Phil has a pretty awesome bank of pictures to choose from, and I think there are some good ones.

2009 has been rather unremarkable as of yet. Here are some less than interesting things that have happened since the new year:

• It has been rainy since I arrived back in Apia. It was mostly overcast when I got off the bus yesterday, and then it rained really hard for about 5 hours last night, and then today hasn’t been much different. This has prevented me from doing laundry today so instead I napped.
  
  
• Friday night, Phil and I had a laid back evening. We played Connect 4 for a bit. It turns out that you can play two versions of Connect 4; the slow, thinking man’s Connect 4 and the fast, careless Connect 4. We found the latter to be much more exciting.
  
  
• There was only one CD in the Savai’i Peace Corps office Friday, Gwen Stefani’s “The Sweet Escape” album. I admit this is a guilty pleasure of mine, and it is perhaps the most exciting development of 2009. It’s just been that great around here.
  
  
• I had peanut butter and jelly for dinner last night. One strange thing about grocery shopping in Samoa is that buying in bulk doesn’t necessarily mean paying less; things aren’t necessarily cheaper by the dozen. A 300 ml jar of peanut butter might be $4.80 and the 600 ml jar might be $10.60. It’s weird.
  
  
• Really, I can only scrounge around for 4 bullets worth of material. This fifth bullet is simply to point out that 4 bullets really aren’t that many.
  

In any case, life is a bit slow around here right now, but January should shape up to get more interesting as I think lesson-planning will be a mad dash. Koa tells me that there is a big EFKS teacher conference that happens at my school, which should be fun. Cale and Sara are housesitting near where I live, so I think I’ll be hanging out with them at some point. And hopefully I’ll get a bike before too long. Most of group 81 has their bike now, but not me, and I’m a little annoyed about that, truth be told.

In any case, it does feel like January is working toward something, and that’s all I ask of it. I hope things are well. Pictures from Phil’s camera below!

Oh… also, happy birthday, Natasza!

Phil's cousin(?), Onosai. He speaks very little English and doesn't actually understand the what his t-shirt says.

Phil's camera does cool things like this. This is from early training.

For some reason, Blogger insists on posting this picture in portrait though it is shot in landscape. Annoying. Top to bottom: Akanese, Tuese, Me.

Dylan.

Me and Paul. Hotties.

Another landscape to portrait snafu. Top to bottom: AJ, me, Jordan, Chris, Supy, Paul.

Me at the siva in Tafitoala dancing with a lady who asked me to dance.