End of Week 5 already?!??!!

In all honesty I’m super bored and I’m writing this post for the soul purpose of letting you all know what’s going on in my life here in Palau. I’ve just finished filling out grade sheets to hand out on Monday and so we’ll see how that goes when the parents get their child’s first grade report. Pray that all goes well.

As for school, it’s going great except for the fact that I’m exhausted at the end of each day. I have a ton of fun with my kids, but I only wish I had the energy of a nine year old. I would then be able to do just about any thing and get every thing done that I need to in a day. What a great thing that would be!!!!

There hasn’t been a ton going on here since I last blogged. Just the general get up, go to school, grade and then go back to sleep and repeat the process all over again. There are some eating times in there and some fun, but I am very thankful once the weekend rolls around. Yeah, some variety!!! On a daily basis this is my schedule:

5:00 AM – Wake up and have devotions.
5:40 AM – Get dressed and ready to leave.
6:00 AM – Make breakfast and lunch for myself.
6:40 AM – Head to my classroom to check e-mail, straighten up and make sure everything is ready for the day.
7:30 AM – Have staff worship.
7:45 AM – Go with my kids to my classroom.
8:00 AM-3:00 PM – School
3:00 PM-6:00 PM – After school activities and grading.
6:00 PM-8:00 PM – Supper, shower, journal and etc.
9:00 PM – Asleep

Yep, that’s how my day goes Monday through Friday. Except for this upcoming week!!! In Palau their Indolence Day is October 1. So for school we’re taking off the 1st and the 2nd of October. Yeah, long weekend here I come!!! It will be nice to have a break because we probably won’t have one again until Thanksgiving.

Well, my dirty classroom is desperately calling me to clean it. Better answer the call of duty!! Hope you all have an amazing week!!

 
 
 
 

Sorry that it has been so long since I last wrote, but the reality of a teacher’s life has really been settling in lately. I got my 15th student this week, he’d been in the Philippians visiting family. He has so much to catch up on that I think I may go crazy trying to make sure that he’ll get it all done by Monday. Hopefully he has supportive parents that can help him in getting most of it done. Any way... I’m starting my fourth week of school and it is almost impossible for me to imagine that I’ve been a teacher for four weeks now and that I’ve been away from home over a month and a half. It is so true when they say that time flies when you’re having fun.

Speaking of fun, I’m having a blast if you can’t already tell from my pictures. Lately I have gotten myself involved in almost every aspect of music that the church and school can offer. I am a member of the church choir and I’m helping out with the school choir two days a week. I’ve also been put on the schedule to play the piano twice and have special music’s all before the end of December. I also have multiple performances with the two choirs that I’m in and helping out with. Talk about busy!! But it’s a fun kind of busy that I love!!

Besides being very actively involved in my God-given talents I am also preparing 3 of my students to be baptized. It’s so amazing to see their simplistic views on everything. It reminds me of how simple we need to look at life some times. I am so excited to see them baptized. Hopefully it will be sometime close to Christmas. It’s exciting to see God working through me and to see that I have at least one main mission goal in mind.

I wish this blog could be longer, but I am a teacher and I have a lot to do on this Sunday afternoon. But before I go I thought I would just share something really funny that happened this weekend.

You see, the girls that teach at the elementary school live in town right next to the school, but 3 of the girls who teach at the academy and all the guys live at the academy. We enjoy going over there ever so often so spend time together. Last night we decided to head over there to watch some movies. The academy is kind of out in the woods so they have a gate at the entrance that closes at 10 pm. We knew that we would be done way past 10 and since we did not want to get locked in we parked our van OUTSIDE the gate. This way we could walk around and not have to call someone to open the gate at what ever hour we got done with our movies. ( I hope I haven’t lost you yet!) Any way... it was around 1 am when we finished our movie and we headed down the road to the entrance and our ride home. To our surprise, disappointment and frustration someone had rolled our van INSIDE the gate and locked it. See, you have to understand something about our van. We love it for the transportation factor, but that’s where the love stops. It is the worst van I’ve seen in my life and it doesn’t lock. We guessed that whoever locked the gate decided that it needed to be inside the locked gate and rolled it inside. You can only imagine how 6 very tired girls would feel at 1 AM when our only transportation was locked inside the gate. We were not about to go and wake any one up so we went back to the guys apartment to find some bedding and a place to stay. We couldn’t stay in the guys’ apartment because it would look wrong to all those living on campus and besides there wasn’t enough room. We ended up getting 4 couch cushions, 2 mattress, 1 blanket and a few hoodies and sleeping on the floor of the staff lounge. It was really frustrating at first, but in the end I look back (on last night) and see that we have memories to last us a life time.

Well, now that you’ve seen a little bit of my fun and crazy life here I hope you can already smell the salty sea air. (That was really cheesy, excuse me please!)  I really need to get back to grading! Thanks for your prayers and daily thoughts!!
I love and miss each and every one of you very much!!!
Jolene :D