Lots of volunteers are in town for the weekend, and Supy, Phil, Blakey, and Jordan ended up at my house this afternoon. We drank wine and ate cheese and played Euchre all afternoon. At one point, Jordan and Blakey left to go to the store to buy bread for dinner. I needed to get going on today’s post, and I figured it was a good opportunity for a Q&A session with Phil and Supy. Here’s what was said:MATT: So, what’s new?
PHIL: I bought a spear to go spear fishing. It’s the first thing that’s been actually exciting that I’ve wanted to do of my own accord in this country. Go spear fishing.
M: How much was it?
P: $133 WST. Tagata.
M: How about you, Supy?
SUPY: Not much is new with me. I am teaching that women’s committee class right now. It’s more work. I don’t want to feel more tied down to more work.
(Jordan and Blakey come in.)
JORDAN: What you writing down, buddy?
M: I’m doing a Q&A for the blog. How are things, Jordan?
J: Things are great.
BLAKEY: That’s a hard thing to answer in a cool way.
P: Supy and I managed.
B: I doubt it.
P: Matt can read it back for us.
J: Ask me a cooler a question. You can make up some answers for me if you want.
M: I don’t know. I feel like asking you how things are is the best way for you to take the conversation in some sort of direction.
J: Things are good. I like having people in town this weekend. We had 26 people in town this weekend for the party. It took 2 taxis. We had 3, 6, 9, 12 in each car. Plus me up front. Plus Dan and Erin. That’s 28.
B: I should call Erik to see how his party went. He has some books that I kind of want too. I don’t have his number.
M: How’s teaching?
J: See, that’s a good question.
B: I still feel pressured to answer this well.
(Long silence.)
P: I would say disappointing because I had to kick students out of class because they didn’t pay. And that sucks. Disappointing to deny someone the chance to learn. Because they don’t have 20 tala and that’s like $7 US.
J: 60 out of 80 failed my Microsoft Word test. Kinda makes you feel bad as a teacher.
S: Do they study?
J: Not really. Because grades don’t really mean anything. But I tried to tell them: this test is 20% of your PSSC grade and you have to do well on it to get do well at the end, and they just don’t care. The test was 6 pages of multiple questions. Questions like, “What is the formatting bar?”
B: I find that they move toolbars all the time on the computers. And I’m like, “You kids can’t double click, but you can move the toolbar all over the place? Weird.”
J: It’s just really upsetting that 60 of them – I got one person that got a 4.
S: How about the cheaters? They get zeros in my class, and the talkers get 1 point off every time they talk.
J: I’ve told them talking is cheating. And I’ve told them to bring one pen to class and not to use white out. None of this stupid perfectionism.
B: And they don’t call it white out either. They call it –
J: Twink!
P: It sounds like a euphemism for meth.
B: Maybe, but it’s kinda throws you off when someone asks you for a twink.
J: Or when they ask you for a rubber. It takes a beat before you realize that’s an eraser.
M: So what are you all doing tomorrow?
B: Not going to church.
J: Not going to church. Going on a bike ride.
B: Being asked why I didn’t go to church numerous times, and then eating some talo and going on a bike ride. Probably going to moe umi.
M: Moe what?
B: Moe umi. I speak in Samoan all the time. But not during class. Just to students and staff and teachers…
S: I’m going back to Savai’i.
P: I too am going back to Savai’i.
B: Are there busses to Manase on Sundays?
S: Yeah. There are busses on Sundays.
P: I’m going to not do anything because its Sunday.
B: Phil’s going fishing later!
P: Not on Sunday. But Monday, it’s on.
S: I get really tired after school.
(Long silence.)
S: I feel like tomorrow’s a waste of a day. Nothing to do except travel, right?
P: Yeah. Sleep late and then take the boat.
S: Maybe we should stay until Sunday and then take the first on Monday. But I’m not a fan of that boat.
P: I’m not a fan of either boat.
S: And sometimes the bus isn’t there.
P: So how did you get back? Did you get to school on time?
S: Yeah. I get there on time. School doesn’t start ‘til 8:15.
B: You don’t have staff meetings? We have staff meetings every morning.
J: Every morning?
B: Every morning.
J: We only have them once a week and no one ever goes.
(Long silence.)
J: I really want to drink ava out of my ava bowl.
S: It’s like $100 tala, no?
J: It’s like $500.
S: $500 tala?
J: It’s one of the big ones. It’s so nice. I sanded it down. (Looks at me) Can you put a shout out in there too? It’d be really funny if my sister-in-law read it and saw it. She’d get a huge kick out of it. Is there room for shout outs?
M: Sure.
(Long silence.)
S: What are you writing now?
M: What do you mean?
B: What does he mean?! What are you writing now?
M: Literally? What am I writing?
J: Yes! What are you writing right now?
M: Here. I’ll read it back.
(I read it back.)
M: Anything else?
B: I noticed you didn’t include what Phil said about journalistic integrity.
M: Yeah, well…
Happy birthday, Aunt Kelly! Haha.
That’s all for now. Hope your integrity is included. Pictures below.
Take 2. This time without Phil blocking Supy.
Today was fantasy baseball draft with bonus Skyping at a Lavaspot location on Beach Road.
Phil's spear.
The lizard in the bottom left of the picture hung out in the sink while I washed almost all the dishes this morning. It disappeared sometime around the spoons. I didn't see where it went.
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