MASH and Being an SM

I like watching MASH.  I liked watching MASH before I left the states, it's not something that has come just because I’ve been overseas.  I like the characters, I like the interaction of the characters, and I like the story line.  I think that everyone that has ever watched it has been able to relate with all the different characters at different times.  Something that I recently realized is I like it now for a different reason.  I can relate on a whole new level.  This cast of characters portrays people that are 10,000 miles away from home.  They are taken out of their homes, not by choice like me, but because they were drafted to do so.  Even though they are over in Korea for a different reason than I’m in the Marshall Islands, I find myself relating with them a lot.  All of us as SM’s came to the Marshall Islands to do a job, mine was to teach Science, but when I got here I got “schooled” in the art of adaptation.  I wasn’t only asked to teach science, I was asked to teach Calculus as well.  It wasn’t something I was intending on doing, but I did because I was required to do so.  All of us have ended up doing things that we didn’t intend on doing when we left the states, it's not just me.  One of the teachers went from teaching English to music to art and back to English.  I thankfully haven’t been switched around that much, but we all have had our times.  There are then the teachers that have gotten to go home early for whatever reasons.  I was watching a particular MASH episode and Honeycutt made an interesting observation, he said he “hated” the ones that got to go home early, because he was still there.  I know for sure I don’t hate the ones that have gotten to go home early, but at the same time I can totally understand what he meant.  The men and women of MASH 4077 were taken from their homes and were banded together to make a fully functional hospital, were put in the “worst” of circumstances and then were told that they had to perform sergery.  My friends and I here chose to leave our homes for 10 months, landed on a small speck in the middle of the pacific, were given jobs that most had never done, and were expected to teach students and hopefully show that God is real and working in us.  There is a lot that I don’t agree with that happens in MASH, but I keep coming back to it, not because of the bad things, but sometimes for commiseration, sometimes it feels like the characters there are the ones that understand. 

Now on a totally different subject, with my time coming very close to me coming home I’ve been very busy.  My students have been very “diligently” studying for their tests in an effort to get a good grade.  Tonight we say goodbye to another one of our teachers.  She is going home for work I think, but she is one of the ones that has been my friend all year so far.  It will be sad to see her leave, but at the same time, I’m excited that she gets to leave; it means that my time to leave is coming.  By the time that this gets posted and most of you read it, I’ll be under 10 days until I leave.  As the day comes closer and closer I realize that I have a lot to get done before I leave.  I also realize that I have to make a very fast transition to my summer, I don’t get a break, I just have to be there and start. 

I’m very excited that I’ll be getting to see my cousin’s graduation.  I was not going to get to go, but then when I changed my ticket I found out that I get to be there.  It will be a wonderful weekend, after not seeing any family in 10 months; I’ll get to see nearly all of my mom’s side of the family.  It will be a wonderful weekend, a very high weekend. 

This will be my 2^nd to last blog while I’m overseas.  The ones following the next one will be while I’m SMing again or when I’m back in school.  I’m going to keep it going since I will be gone second semester of this next school year. 

This week ended out with a bang so to speak.  Friday was our SA picnic.  We went out an island that is further out on the atoll, one that you can only get to by boat.  It seemed like it was going to be a frustrating day, the boat was late and things just started slow, but soon they got going good.  We got out there and had lunch then the students (25 of them) challenged the teachers (5 of us) to king of the dock.  That game went on for nearly two hours until all of us had been thrown into the water countless hundreds of times.  Near the end of the fun one of my fellow teachers went off and it looked like she had landed on a nail sticking out of the dock, but she came up without any blood to speak of so we kept on going.  About 20 minutes later one of the students came to me and said that that teacher needed my help, I thought it was a ploy to get me off the dock and so I was like “yeah right”.  They replied, no she cut her arm open.  My heart sank.  I swam the 30-40m back into the shore in record time.  When I got there I was surprised.  Expecting a little cut I didn’t expect the cut I saw.  It was nearly perfect, and went straight down to the muscle.  It was really clean, but you could see the skin layers, the sub-cutanious fat, and then the muscle under it.  I hadn’t taken any first aid stuff with me, neither had anyone else, so I patched it up as good as I could and told her that she would need stitches.  We got back to the “mainland” and went to the hospital and sure enough, 3 stitches later her arm looked “good as new” I guess not really, but kind of.  As for me in the whole thing, the worst that happened to me was a bad case of sunburn that still kind of hurts today, but I’m sure by tomorrow it will be feeling better

Only a bit more

There are exactly 2 weeks of school now.  The past week has been very interesting.  Have you ever got the idea that you were “holding back the tide”?  Well I can say without any reservation that trying to teach High School students for the last 3 weeks is nearly as hard as trying to hold back the tide.  Living on the ocean, that image is very engrained in my mind right now.  Everyone, the students, the teachers, and the faculty, are all ready to be done.  Last week we had another teacher leave to go back and get married, this next week we have one leaving to go to work, both had made arrangements to do so before they signed their contracts.  The only problem with those two teachers leaving is the fact that we are already shorthanded for teachers and this will only make us more so. 

There is one very interesting thing about being this close to being home.  It doesn’t seem like anyone can do anything to make someone else mad.  Everyone is just so happy to be this close to going home that they just don’t care about getting mad at people.  From experience, I’ve seen it the other way around, people getting more edgy being this close to being home, but I’m very glad that it is this way now, I hope that it stays this way until we all leave. 

Today was a very special Sabbath.  One of the church members, the president of the College of the Marshall Islands, invited us over to his house for lunch.  I went along for two reasons, first it's a meal that I don’t have to make for myself and secondly he is Filipino, they always have good food.  To all of our surprises, the food they served us was good old fashioned hay stacks.  That was something that none of us have had in nearly 10 months and all of us were very happy to see it and then to go ahead and eat them too.  Being full is something that doesn’t happen very often here, food is expensive and we don’t make very much money, so being full from lunch and it lasting a few hours is a wonderful feeling. 

When I was talking to my parents this last week, mom said something that seemed really sad at the time, but as I thought about it, it was very exciting.  Mom said that she had just sent my last box.  We live on stuff from home over here, so hearing that my last one was in the mail was kind of sad, but then I realized, that there isn’t much time left here.  After this posting I’ll have 2 more probably, maybe not even that.  With how slow the mail is here, I’ll get the box just before school ends. 

I don’t know what they call it for a person my age, but the term for the actual medical disorder is Alzheimer’s.  I know that I don’t have Alzheimer’s, but I had a very forgetful moment a few weeks ago.  Union made some new rules pertaining to living on campus and being older.  The rule states that anyone over 22 can live in a room by themselves and pay for there being 2 people in the room, among other things.  I was thinking about it and was kind of sad, I didn’t know if the administration would let me, my birthday is in October.  I then realized that I don’t turn 22 in October, I turn 23 in October.  I was slightly frustrated that I didn’t remember how old I am, but there isn’t anything here to remind me of my age, other than the students not remembering anything from the 80’s-early 90’s.  Thankfully I remembered and it's not such a big deal.  

Excitement of what's left

Tonight I was sitting in vespers listening intently to the speaker talk.  She has talked many times here and usually she is very redundant, but I try to pay as much attention as I can.  She used a verse that got me to thinking.  She used Ecclesiastes 12:1, it's a very memorable verse, it says, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them".  At this point I kind of got lost in thought.  I got slightly nostalgic and started to remember back in time, to “better” times easier times.  Back to high school and the things I’ve been taught about God throughout my life.  Remember your creator in the days of your youth before the hard times hit, that’s the essence of what the verse says.  I realized that even if I didn’t like some of the teachers that have taught me about God, I still learned about God, and then I started to take my learning into my own hands.  The things that I learned when life was “easy” prepared me for the struggles of what life is like in the “real” world.  I’ve been seeing this now that I’m out and on my own.  “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth; before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them", it says a lot for my parents, for my teachers and for the Holy Spirit.  Among other things, this year has done a lot for my faith as it deals with me.  It has forced me to step out from under the wonderful security of a Godly home to make my own Godly home, I have realized how hard it is, and have gained a whole new insight on what it must be like to be a parent in the regard of providing a Godly environment. 

At the end of her talk, she asked when you go home, remember what you have learned here and change your life accordingly.  That got me to thinking too.  I came up with the idea that her statement was based on a preface that I’m not sure was correct, at least not for everyone.  I think the preface she based it upon is that there was something wrong with your life before you came here, but I don’t know about everyone else, but I think my life was pretty good before I left, there is always room for growth, but other than that, I’m not sure, something that is going to require more thought.  Personally, I’m very much looking forward to doing a lot of the things I did before I left.  Things like lunch at Jo and Terrill’s on Sabbath, spending time with Beth, talking with old friends, talking to my parents, seeing one more sunset over the Rockies, and spending time with family to name just a few.

Excitement has been building this week.  This week brought three very special days in the process of coming home.  The first day was Monday the 27th; it was the one month until I come home.  The second day came 2 days later on Wednesday; it marked the 4 week/28 days mark.  The third day is tomorrow, Sabbath, which marks the 25 day countdown that will happen.  The next few weeks will fly by I know, sooner than I know it I’ll be heading to the airport to bid farewell to the island that has been my “home” for the past 10 months nearly.  I’ll remember the words of my Uncle Larry when he told me, “Go, do your time, and do as much as you can, then after that’s done, be ready to come home.” 

Next week is our week of prayer.  All the high school teachers were asked to speak, even given “scripts” of what to say, they are using a week of prayer schedule called “why”.  The particular day I picked was Thursday.  I didn’t pick it because it was late in the week, I didn’t pick it for its contents per se, I didn’t even read it before hand, the title caught me.  The title is “the quite shout.”  Being a fan of Simon and Garfunkel’s song “sounds of silence” might have had some sort of a draw toward this title or maybe it was the fact that silence used correctly can say more than anything, either way, I guess it doesn’t matter how I got it, the important thing is that was the one I chose.  The story centers on the life of Mary Magdalene.  Her stories in the bible are among my favorite, it shows such a great side of Jesus’ compassion.  The talk is supposed to open with the story of Jesus saving her from a stoning, I love this story, Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you either, go and sin no more.”  Wow, it makes you look at your life and ask yourself, how many times Jesus/God has said that to you, probably more times than I wish to remember.  The first time we see Jesus and Mary is of course important, but I think more than that first story is, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.  The rest of the story goes to prove that Jesus forgives us, but then he doesn’t leave us, he lives, and works with us the rest of our lives.