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.  

Down to 4 week now

There is a line from a movie that particularly made sense today.  The line comes from the movie Batman Begins.  The truth about the movie is that it has some very profound thoughts mixed around with a lot of other things.  The line comes from Ras al goul (sp) and says something like this: “Criminals rely on society’s forgiveness of crimes.”  Now granted this line in my analogy isn’t talking about criminals the same context that the movie was used, but the thought is still the same.  Students rely on the forgiveness of administrations for punishment.  As I’ve been teaching this  year I’ve seen one thing after another that has proved that in some cases the teachers and in others the administration slips up in the punishment of students.  Both teachers and administration get tired of punishing the same problem with the same punishment and that is where students tend to see that they can continue doing what they are going to do.  I think this might be coming to light just because of the fact that the school year is nearly over and we are all tired, teachers, students, and administration.  The other part is the fact that here, most all of us are going to be going home in the next 2 months, teachers and administration alike.

This whole ranting came to be because of the HS teacher that is leaving today decided that she didn’t care what she did today, so let students stay in her classroom even when the class period was over.  When I asked the administration if they wanted more names of students that didn’t arrive at classes because of being in that particular teacher’s classroom they said, “There are already so many students on that list.”  Yes, I know there probably are, but where is our consistency?   

I know I’m a math teacher, but I didn’t realize until yesterday that 4 comes before 5.  I’ve been counting down until I get to come home.  I guess maybe it has been so long in coming that now that it's here, I can’t quite believe that it's here.  Now that there is only a month of school left and only a few days more than that until I come home, I’m realizing that my time is limited.  I guess that realization comes with sadness and happiness.  Don’t worry, I will be totally psyched when I climb the stairs from the tarmac to the airplane, (yes, you walk across the tarmac to get on the plane here) but I have to admit now that I’ll have some sadness as well.  I’m not sure the sadness will come right away, I have this feeling that it will come when I have some time to think about it in my elongated layover in HI.  That is where it will finally hit me that I’m done, when I have time to think.  Or if it doesn’t happen then, it might not happen until I have some alone time sometime in the summer.  I don’t know when it will come along, but it will.  I have some good news though; one of my senior students might be attending Union in the fall, so I might have a slight reminder of what it was like with him there.  I’m really hoping he gets accepted.  

Tough Week

Today in one of my classes, I had my students just working on an assignment.  I was working on grades while they were working.  I’ve been posting grades so that I don’t have to keep a running tally of who has missing work.  The students themselves can do that, I thought it would take some stress out of my job.  I’m not sure whether it will or not.  While I was working diligently on my grades, one of my students, Xiaofeng, came up and asked if she could ask me a question.  I always laugh to myself about that, they just did, but I said sure.  She then proceeded to not ask a direct question, she asked an indirect question, which started like this.  I’m 20 years old this year and only in 10^th grade.  I was thinking, where this is going, maybe I should tell her I’m already dating someone, but didn’t say anything.  She went on to say I really want to be a senior this next year, what do you think I need to work on to get to be a senior.  As with all Chinese students, they need work on English.  I told her that, and we planned on how she can do that well.  We talked for the better part of the class period about English and how to learn English better.  I was kind of curious about why she came to me, but it became evident as we continued talking.  The reason she came to me is I’m the teacher that took time to teach her and get her up to speed in my class when she first came to school.  She told me that she really trusted me and didn’t mind talking to me.  There are times that I think that I’m not doing anything here, other than the obvious, teaching science, but then from time to time, God reminds me that I’m doing a job for him here. 

 

I got something from UC yesterday.  One thing I got was a sheet of crazy quotes; I thought I’d share some with you:

·         A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

·         “We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: how much clean air do we need?”

·         “Once you accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy”

·         “I love deadlines, I especially love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by”

·         “USA Today came out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75% of the population.”

·         “Lack of brains hinders research”

·         “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were ever supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.” –Ms. Alabama, in the 1994 Ms. Universe contest when asked if she wanted to live forever.

·         “’And now the sequence of events in no particular order”

·         “The world is more like it is now then it ever has before”

I really like the last one, but then the one from our Ms. Universe is pretty good too.  They say kids say the darnest things, but I think celebrities say the stupidest things. 

 

I think I’ve learned a new lesson.  The sad part is that it has taken me 9 months of teaching to learn.  I’ve learned what teaching actually is.  It's not so much instilling as much knowledge as you can so that students can pass a test.  We as teachers do want to instill knowledge, but I think more than instilling knowledge I want to teach students how to teach them to do it for themselves.  You know the story, give a man a fish feed him for a day; teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime.   

 

From what I’ve heard we are about to become more pressed for teachers.  From what I’ve heard one is being transferred to another island, another one is going home because the other one is being transferred.  They have been getting involved in a way that is against the rules here.  So we will be down two more teachers it sounds like next week, 2 weeks later we have one more leave, and a week after that we have another one leave, so by the time it's all said and done we will have had 7 teachers go home over the course of the year.  Some have been medical, some have been slightly selfish, and others were negotiated when they signed their contracts.  It kind of makes me wish I would have negotiated a sooner date when I signed my contract, but I guess I’ll be home as soon as I can. 

 

From what I’ve been told, the dry season is officially over, it lasted about 2.5 months.  I guess the fact that it has been raining every day for like 2 hours over the course of the day is the reason why the dry season is over.  The rain couldn’t have come at a better time either.  All the water on the island is gotten from rain water and we were getting low.  God has been amazing at keeping the water here so that we haven’t had to ration water.  Just about the time that it seems like we are going to have to ration water, we get a really good gulley washer that fills our tanks up again, and we are out of the red.  Its amazing being over here, we rely on God so much more just for the things we need here, food, water, sleep.  There have been a couple of times where the island has nearly run out of food, you go to the store and all you see is bare shelves, it's kind of disconcerting.   But luckily God brings another boat to refill the island and we make it through the time. 

 

Ok, this is an internal correction.  The teacher that I thought was going to go to Chuuk is just going home as is her “boyfriend”.  I don’t know all the reasons and all, but that is what’s happening.  Regardless of where they were going, the result doesn’t change, we are still down 2 more teachers.

6 week mark

I got an interesting call today.  It wasn’t necessarily interesting because of the person who called, but because of the content of the conversation.  When I came over here I was told that I should write this blog to keep everyone back at home updated on what’s happening in my life.  Up until this morning, I didn’t know that anyone other than just a few people read it.  As those of you know that read this blog on a regular basis, I’m coming home earlier than expected.  This change in flights was prompted by a few things, but one major thing it allows me to do is attend my cousins HS graduation.  I had thought that by posting it here it wouldn’t make that much of a difference, but the call I got this morning told me that apparently there are more people that read my blog than I thought.  I had intended on keeping my coming home early as a surprise to a few people, mostly my family that would be at the graduation, but as I got to thinking about it I was wondering if I shouldn’t tell my aunt and uncle about it so that I didn’t in any way steal my cousin’s thunder.  So my mom took it upon herself to call my aunt.  Well my aunt enthusiastically told my mom that she already knew and it was all good.  My mom was somewhat surprised and asked how, well, the phrase “you heard it here first folks” is pretty correct, apparently my aunt is just another one of my faithful followers. 

 

I’d like to take this time to thank everyone who has been following my blog.  I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to update it as often as I’d like to, but I do it when I can.  I look forward to the time when I can tell you all stories fact to face of how God has worked on me and through me. 

 

I look forward to seeing you all when I get back to civilization.  I hope you are all doing well.  

Another week down

Last week was a particularly fun week.  The week seemed long until I got to Thursday.  When Thursday got here I was excited for two reasons, first it was a half day because of parent teacher conferences, and secondly it was because I was going to go take pictures of the island MCI (Mass Casualty Incident).  We went out to the airport and got ready; I got out my camera and started taking pictures.  I was listening to what the leaders were saying, because I like being involved, but I knew that I wasn’t going to get to be involved, it was not my program, so I had consoled myself that I was going to just take pictures.  As I was walking around I was confronted by a guy aptly named Chief.  He asked me what I was doing and what my expertise was.  I told him I was a EMT and trained in Hazardous Materials.  He then asked me if I would be willing to evaluate the event.  I asked him what area he wanted me to evaluate; he told me triage, ambulance operations, and hospital operations.  I was excited, I was hoping I could somehow help out, but ended up getting an unrestricted pass to the airport for the drill.  I got to evaluate how the system worked and got to have fun telling what I thought.  I got to ride to the hospital in an ambulance with lights and siren blaring. 

 

Being from the main land where we do things a lot different, I was quite reticent about how they did things over here, but after seeing it first hand how everyone works together, my mind is set at ease for how they work over here.  Really it's not any different than we work in he states, maybe they have different equipment, but the same thought and planning goes into their drills and SOP’s that we do in the states, so overall I’d give their Emergency personnel a very good grade. 

 

For all those who know anything about how they do school over here, we are just now finally on break for spring break.  It's very late, I don’t know for sure why it is so late, but with only about 1.5 months of school left we are taking a week off, it couldn’t have come soon enough, this break was needed very much for both the teachers and the students.  The students have been testing all of our nerves.  I think it's the adding of it being near break to it being near summer.  Really it feels like summer is just around the corner, and I guess for some of you it is.  I half envy you guys, but at the same time I wouldn’t give up my position here for anything, well, maybe I should say it would take a lot. 

 

This week had some rather exciting things too though, on Wednesday it passed the 2 month mark for when I get to come home.  There is a story around that that I need to tell.  We have 3 snow days built into the schedule.  Yes, they are called snow days.  So they are now seeing that we aren’t going to be using them for snow or anything else for that matter and now the school moved graduation back.  I was scheduled to leave the night of graduation, 1 June, but when they moved it I was thinking about changing my ticket.  I talked to my vice-principle and he said it shouldn’t be a problem.  I went to Continental and asked how much it would cost, expecting it to be like $100 or so, but they said that it was free, to that I was very thankful.  They also told me something that was less than thrilling, they said that I couldn’t change my ending airport.  When I made my return trip reservations they said that I should be able to change it to Denver since that is where I’m working this summer.  They informed me now that I had to fly back to Chicago, well that’s about 1200 miles from where I need to be, so I ended up having to change my tickets to 27 May so that I can get back to Chicago and then drive out to CO.  There is a silver lining to this problem, just like normal.  Since I having to leave that early means that I get to attend my cousin’s graduation in Laramie.  I’m pretty excited about that.  It also means that I’ll be getting to see a lot of my family a lot sooner than I had thought I would.  You don’t know how good that sounds to someone who has been 12000 miles away from family and those I love.