Thursday, October 29, 2009

Odds and Ends Thursday 31

I coasted through last couple weeks of Term 1, which was not ideal, but I got through it. But if term 1 was coasting, term 3 is barely eking by crawling on my fingernails. Granted there was a bunch of time off for Swine Flu and Tsunami Recovery, but other than that, school seems to have been going non-stop since we came back in June. Yes, I know, you work in a corporate job and you have to work the whole year and blah blah blah. Yeah, I’ve been there. I’m just saying I’m ready for a break. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:
  • I took a practice LSAT late Monday night, and was consequently exhausted on Tuesday. And then I spent downtime Tuesday—i.e. sitting in the back of the classroom observing the student teacher—reading through practice questions. It was overkill, and my brain was fried Tuesday night. Thus the late post.
  • I was teaching my year 13s last night, and I asked for a common file extension for a graphics file. Marie yelled out, “J-B-G!” So I asked her to clarify. “B as in Boy?” I asked. “B as in Bicture, ” she said.
  • The door in my classroom has yet to be fixed, so the lab has been operating without air conditioning all week. This has separated the men from the boys as far as true interest in computers goes. I’ve invited the year 10s in after school all week, and many are very excited until they find out there’s no air conditioning. After that a sizeable portion lose all interest. I see how it is.
  • I got a new t-shirt at Mr. Lavalava’s yesterday. It has a logo for Woody’s Beach Taxi in Mission Beach, California. It’s a sweet t-shirt, and it fits well, but I haven’t decided if Woody’s is real. Maybe Google will know.
  • Last Sunday was the monthly tea after mass. There was pizza and popoesi and egg rolls. Best monthly tea ever.
  • Christmas plans are finally beginning to materialize.
  • On that note, the Christmas season in Apia seems a lot less strong than it did this time last year. Maybe I’m just in town less, but I feel like it was full-on by the time we came back from the village at the end of October. This year, I’ve only heard two Christmas songs so far:

    • A kid playing deck the halls on the keyboard outside Cappuccino Vineyard; and
    • A car drove by the other night with a techno reggae version of silent night blaring.

  • My student teacher filled her quota of lessons on Tuesday this week, but I told her she could keep teaching classes as much as she wanted. She agreed to teach some of my classes only if I didn’t come and observe. I found this deal satisfactory.
  • The “Mad Men” DVDs have commentary on every episode. Occasionally there are 2 commentary tracks. Who has time for all this?
  • With Halloween only 2 days away, everything (i.e. my costume and party plans) are still way up in the air. Last night I gave up on the feather boa idea, only to swing right back toward it today. But tonight hasn’t gone so well, so back to the drawing board. Party plans are equally bleak. Last year’s party was great, and in an attempt to recreate that, we wanted to hold it in the same place. But that place wants to charge a $20 cover, and a bunch of volunteers are not down with that. We’ll see what happens.
  • Whatever happens, group 82 won’t be there. They’re staying in the host village for 4 weeks. 4 weeks! We never stayed in our host village 4 consecutive weeks. And these poor kids were going into it for the first time. They barely knew what to pack! My heart goes out to them.
That’s all I got. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















Tui and Marie laughing on Saturday.















This pack of dogs came tearing out of the police station parking lot.  They're difficult to see and a bunch are behind the van.  But they were clearly up to no good.















Fun with the macro lens.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go as Peter Parker, aka Spiderman. You have the glasses and the spider arms.

Anonymous said...

It's good to know that somethings never change. Digital cameras, cell phones, and internet access may now be ubiquitous in Samoa, but the difference between the "hard" P and the "soft" P will remain elusive forever.

Anonymous said...

I still have a hard time with that darn 'P' or 'B' issue here in the States. My husband would say is P in Pig or B in Boy, I said P in Pixie. Good memory times.