Odds and Ends Thursday 74

This week has been bizarrely productive. Tuesday’s post was a bit of a lie in that I actually found marking papers a good distraction from the inevitability I talked about in Wednesday’s post. I think this is why I’m way ahead of schedule. In fact, the only reason I haven’t finished marking my year 9 science exams is because the kids don’t take the test until tomorrow morning. Oh well. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

• Speaking of yesterday’s post, sorry it’s such a downer. My writing style can veer toward dramatic from time to time, and I sometimes have a tendency to lay it on thick. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.
  
• I brought my laptop to school, and I’m typing this as I proctor the 9.3 Business Studies exam. I never see the 9.3 kids, and as I look out on them to scan for cheating on occasion, there are always at least 3 pairs of eyes staring right back at me. I will never stop being a spectacle.
  
• I bought a pound of popcorn last night. And a fluorescent light bulb. And that new tube of toothpaste last week. And I just ran out of dish soap. So many ridiculous things to be buying this late in the game.
  
• I admit I’m proud of that picture of Shakira I drew despite the fact that Jenny 82 and Kaelin thought her chest was too saggy in the original, and Luisa thinks the published version looks like Helen Hunt.
  
• The rainy season is in full effect. It rains for an hour and then gets sunny and then rains for another hour and then gets sunny. You’d almost think you were in the Bay Area, except even during the rain it’s way too hot.
  
• Speaking of heat, me and the Taraval guys are going to Chicago in January. We’re gonna burn.
  
• Yesterday I was compiling the computer studies grades for terms 1 and 3 to see who would win the prize for top mark at Prizegiving. I had a bunch of files open, and I inadvertently erased all the marks from 10.4 for term 1. Idiot.
  
• Jenny 83 is training in a village near our host village and she is doing model school with Akanese’s Year 2 class. When the trainees were in town last Friday, I asked Jenny about her school and she said, “My favorite student is this girl Agnes.” Akanese goes by the palagi “Agnes” at school. I think I may have screamed.
  
• In 9.3 just now, the sign-in sheet I passed around came back with 49 names. This is a problem because there are only 46 students sitting in the room. So I just toured the room checking off name after name. As it turns out, 3 students—Lanuto’o, Vaiaata, and Konelio—signed in twice for some reason. Something very similar happened in 9.2 yesterday.
  
• Does 11 November make anyone else think of Graeme Base’s “The Eleventh Hour”? I loved that book. The solution was so simple, and yet it took a really REALLY long time for me to figure it out.
  
• I have a rash on my chest. It’s insanely itchy. It’s all I can do to not touch it. Sorry. You’ll hear the highest highs and the lowest lows.
  
• Everyone here seems mildly disappointed my hair has grown back so fast. My vice pule looked genuinely glum. “It’s already back?” She asked with a sigh.

That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

This 9.3 student fell asleep during this afternoon's Business Studies exam.