Odds and Ends Thursday 3

I think going to Savai’i two weekends ago and the village this past weekend combined with Sunday’s fever has all just left me exhausted and perhaps just a little cranky. It’s not that I feel tired; it’s more of a mental weariness, I’d say. But the Peace Corps lifestyle does not accommodate fatigue very well, so I feel a bit like I’m crawling through the week in anticipation of a very lazy Saturday morning. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

• Let’s say you had all of your grades saved on your flash drive. And then your computer refuses to open the file, saying that your flash drives been corrupted. And, just for fun, let’s pretend you’re 5 weeks into first semester, but you’ve already had 2 quizzes. Do you ask for everyone’s quizzes back, or do you just start over with keeping track of grades and hope no one notices?
  
• Listening to Paul Simon makes me wish I liked poetry. But I don’t really understand poetry. I just like Paul Simon.
  
• My shower caddy is rusting already. You’re a shower caddy! It’s your job to be wet!
  
• School ended after 4th period today because of “sports.” I’m unclear on where these sports took place, let alone what sports were played. I might have gone, but I open up the computer lab to staff after school Thursday, and today was busy.
  
• One of my kids lost his calculator after class yesterday. It was almost surely picked up by someone in the same Year 12 class that the kid is in, but I don’t know how you pull the strings to make the calculator re-appear.
  
• More of my listening time in my house is devoted to NPR podcasts rather than music. You’d think that this was some desperate need to get news from America, but I think it has little to do with that. I think it’s the same reason that talk radio keeps me awake when I’m driving; it’s nice hearing another talking voice.
  
• Here’s a story from a long time ago that I forgot to tell. Joey, Koa, and I were cabbing to Dan’s birthday party, and after a couple minutes in the taxi, I whispered to Koa, “Is this deep-album ‘Hootie and the Blowfish’?” Koa looked at me like he thought I was high. But two beats later, the taxi driver turns up the music and says, “HU-Ti! Hu-ti and the blow-feesh.” YES!
  
• With the PSSC Meeting earlier this week, I’m still trying to make sense of all this official testing stuff that I have to do. The South Pacific Board of Education has a tendency to use very similar terms to describe things that are very different, and going through all of the paperwork we received is hard to stomach.
  
• Yes. I know that saving all my grades on my flash drive is the technological equivalent of putting all of my eggs in one basket. But what’s done is done. The question is how do I move forward?
  
• I’ve had “Just You ‘n’ Me” from Chicago in my head all week.
  
• I finally cooked the ‘Maccarrones y Queso’. The powdered cheese melted to the pan much worse than the Kraft cheese did. The pan has been soaking, but it doesn’t look like it will be very easy to get the cheese off. It doesn’t bode well for the other two boxes of Maccarrones sitting in my kitchen.
  
• When I think about how much time I spend alone in my house, it’s weird. It doesn’t feel like I’m alone that often. I would say it’s the NPR. Or the blog. Or the lizards. Or the frequent trips to town. Or being on campus all the time. Or the frequent visits from other Peace Corps. I really don’t feel like I’m alone here THAT often.
  
• Man, who recognizes Hootie and the Blowfish 12 years after the fact? And I still had a working knowledge of the ‘Cracked Rear View’ album. Sad.
  
• CD-ROMs with the required PSSC information and forms were distributed to all of the principals, and I feel like if I could just borrow that from mine, I would totally understand what I need to do. I feel much more compatible with the new technology than with randomly being handed strange packets of instructions.
  
• During my volunteer visit, Cale and Sara assured me that Choco Coffee Tim-Tam are amazing. I’ve finally tried them, and I agree. It’s almost like it’s a completely different snack cookie. It’s mindblowing.

That’s all I got for now. Some pictures below.
















My computer lab after school. Teachers are on the far side. Today was their day, and they were not happy that I allowed some of the Year 13s in to work on a big assignment they have coming up.
















These two guys live on campus here, and also attend school here. I didn't realize this until yesterday. And the one on the left is in my class. He's very nice though.
















I had a pineapple Shasta today. Shasta is available EVERYWHERE. Any small village faleoloa with a refrigerator is bound to sell Shasta. Kinda random.
















This Chinese restaurant is near my house. It's good.