Odds and Ends Thursday 6

With all the partying last weekend, I’ve spent the week recovering, and I have yet to be able to catch up on sleep. I feel like the last couple days have been one yawn after another, counting down to Saturday morning when I can sleep in. It seems somewhat appropriate to teach high school in this state of mind since it’s essentially the same way I carried myself during my own high school career. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

• Last Wednesday at the Chargés’ house, a man visiting from the American embassy in New Zealand proposed a parlor game in which we were to figure out who the only non-American was in the group of guys from the U.S. Navy that were there that night. He claimed it would be easy. The second part of the game to figure out where the man was from. He said we’d be able to narrow it to 2 countries easily. None of us actually solved this riddle, and no solution was ever provided.
  
• I went to paddling last night with Jordan and a bunch of Australian volunteers. I wore my Obama t-shirt, and left it on the sea wall when we went paddling out. Everyone else wore t-shirts on the boat, but I hate wet clothes. But when we returned, my t-shirt was gone. Biking home half naked is worse than a wet t-shirt.
  
• My bedroom here is hot. There could be hurricane winds blowing through Samoa, and air still wouldn’t circulate in my bedroom. I took a nap in there on Tuesday, and even with the fan on, there’s nowhere for the air to go, and it really felt like I was in some sort of slow-cook oven.
  
• The first Common Assessment Test for my year 12 students is coming up on 7 April. The test will be a file management practical in which they’ll have to create sub-folders inside of folders and save text files in specific places. So we’ve been practicing for that all week. Yesterday Vincent finished his task very quickly, and his partner Ofisa started his turn. I turned away for maybe 20 seconds, and Ofisa was finished. When I asked how they’d done that so quickly, Vincent rubbed his hands together and said with smile, “Technology!”
  
• I’m not sure why, but at lunch today, the year 13 math teacher asked me how to simplify a problem that involved radicals being added in the added in the denominator. So I multiplied the top and bottom by the difference of the radicals to get difference of the squares in the denominator. Done and done. The teacher asked if I wanted to teach year 13 math. No. No I don’t.
  
• The students working in the kitchen during Interval on Tuesday noticed that I finished my muffin quickly. So they brought me another one. And I finished that one quickly too. So they brought me a third. It was AWESOME. This situation repeated itself on Wednesday. But then today I only got 2. Most of the other teachers decline any additional muffins. Whatev. I’ll be the fatty.
  
• I was going to give my year 12 and 13 classes their final test in Computer Theory today, but when I went to write the test last night, I looked at Dylan 78’s and Sara 79’s tests, and realized that my students would cry if I put that in front of them. So I moved the test to next week, and then I gave them a “quiz” with Sara/Dylan caliber questions, hoping they can step it up. My year 13s took it okay. My year 12s took turns giving me nasty looks for the entire 50-minute period.
  
• I’ve had Queen’s “Fat-Bottomed Girls” in my head for the last hour and a half.
  
• There was an earthquake somewhere in the ocean near Samoa this morning, and around 9:15, I got a call from the PC Medical Officer telling me that a tsunami warning was in effect and instructing me to ride my bike uphill. But my year 13s were in the middle of the killer test. So I told the PCMO I’d go after class. She said to text her when class ended. I told my students about the tsunami warning. It took a couple seconds for them to translate my words. And then there was brief alarm. But then I assured them things would be okay and they should continue working on the test. And then before I could ride my bike uphill, the tsunami warning was canceled. Done and done.

I hope you aren’t being canceled. Pictures below.

Update!: It turns out that earthquake struck near Tonga, which has been experiencing a lot of volcanic activity lately. The quake registered a 7.9 on the Richter Scale. Wowa. That's a big one! I would defend my ignorant bliss attitude from earlier today, but then I'd be on shaky ground. Get it? Ha.
















Stock image of the muffin and tea that we get during Interval. I could eat, like, 3 of them.
















This pregnancy test box was in the middle of my path on the way home from town the other day. I'm not sure why I was fascinated enough to take a picture, but I guess it's not every day that a pregnancy test lands in your path. Makes you wonder how it got there. But I do like that it was made in the USA.