Snow Cones, Boiled Bananas, and Corned Beef

Started out Friday morning working in my classroom for a couple of hours before our faculty meeting from 10am-12pm with our administration. We received access to our current class rosters, but from my current understanding those are bound to change throughout this first week of school. I currently have between 24 and 29 students in class period. I also am officially teaching 4 sections of Earth and Space Science (primarily juniors) and one section of Marine Science (primarily seniors).

I found a great new quote today that really does emanate one of my big philosophies I am incorporating into my classroom. I thought it would be perfect to center above my chalkboard. 

"The scientist is motivated primarily by curiosity." -Irving Langmuir

I also decorated the bulletin board that is above my classroom door. Think my classroom is the only one that has one up there. I put some more quotes similar to the one I just shared with you.

I also spent some time perusing the Internet for some general ideas and found some things I'd like to use in class. One is the Earth Science Picture of the Day, this will be great in my classroom for many reasons. I can see us using it on a regular basis to spark class discussion, and I mean come on... they're photographs. I love photography :-) Check out the linke below if you're interested:
http://epod.usra.edu/

Andrea and I started walking toward Cost U Less after work to pick up a few groceries. A pickup drove by and I realized it was Christopher - one of the brothers that sang happy birthday to me that night, so big wave, big hey, and big smiles. This all happened in like 2 seconds, haha. Then, I decided to try my hitch hiking skills for the fun of it, so stuck out my thumb as we slowly walked, and luck be have it a nice guy pulled over and dropped us off at Cost U Less. My first successful hitch, which is culturally acceptable here. Happens all the time.

Came home and relaxed for a while before heading to our first family dinner. Our landlords had invited us the day after we moved in to their "back to school" dinner for the kids. Ese had told us we were part of their family now, so this is only the beginning. Ese's daughter Ata drove us, and when we first arrived everyone was sitting around the fale, and introductions were made. Lots of family, so I cannot list all of their names yet.

A song was sang and a prayer given. Then, dinner was served including sausage, green beans, rice, homemade muffin, juice, and water. So much food! It seemed to keep coming.

Snow cones were served, and most of the kids were finished or even started on a refill before I even started on mine. haha Eating away and realized this was no ordinary snow cone. There was ice cream at the bottom! What a combination I had never seen before. Delicious, even though my tummy was rather full.

This is the five of us that are living on Jack and Ese's family land - Andrea (form Lincoln), Hannah (from LA), Stephanie (from New Jersey), and Melanie (from Chicago).

After dinner, Joe stood up and welcomed us to their family. Then, Jack (who is also the matai/chief of the family) told us that the family gets together the first Sunday night of every month for a meal together and sometimes music and dancing follows. Can't wait to partake in more. It's so amazing to see the family together, and there are so many. Large families are common, here. It's also cool to see them all sing together. Everyone here has beautiful voices. I chatted with some of the kids before dinner and then again after. All in this photo are siblings, and it's not even all of them. There are 10 kids in their family. I talked with EJ, Jaden, and Jasmine. Such a fun night. I'm glad we were able to go and can't wait for the next one.

Woke up Saturday morning and decided to wash my laundry, and my mom would be proud to see that I'm drying them outside. Gotta save that $1.25 to dry them when I can. ha

Andrea saw this bottle in my room and asked "Do you know that this is fabric softener not laundry detergent? I bought one the other day thinking it was laundry detergent. I told her it's all in Spanish, and I could read every word. Yep, I knew it was fabric softener. haha It was kind of cool to find something written in Spanish, I hadn't expected that but still cool to see that I still can read a bunch of it. I do officially claim that Spanish is my second language meaning I can read, write, and speak it.

We took the bus to the Koko Bean, where we had been invited to meet some people from the Samoan Baptist Academy (SBA) for lunch. We met 5 volunteers who are down here teaching at that school. All of them come from the south, except one from Massachusetts. I didn't realize there were other volunteers like us teaching, so that's kind of cool. They were all really nice and had some good chats about what brought us here. Got a ride in the back of Allyson's truck as she had joined us for lunch and lives right next door to our Leone volunteers. She was the field director here two years ago. Played some volleyball matches and just hung out for a while. I even played in my skirt. haha. Fun times. My team won 3 times, by the way. Granted we had Tao on our team, and he the was volleyball superstar. Tao is one of the neighbors to the volunteers who are living and teaching in the village of Leone. Got a ride back with our new acquaintances from SBA. Two free rides today... Woot!

I picked up a can of coconut milk the other day as Sina had told us that she liked boiled bananas with coconut milk, so when we came back to the apartment (after our visit in Leone) I boiled some bananas. I was pretty proud of making pouring holes in my can by using my pocket knife. Can't say I've ever done that before. haha.

We had some green beans and boiled bananas covered in cinnamon coconut milk (we added some cinnamon). Doing some experimenting.

I had called the church I went to last Sunday to see if I could get a ride for Sunday morning, and they said the van would be there to pick me up about 9am. Madeline came with me, and we were the first pickups, but we had a full van by the time we made the rounds before arriving at church. Richard, the guy I spoke with after evening service last week, was our driver.

Little Jeffrey (the Pastor's son) did some coloring before church started, and he gave me this:

One thing I like about the service I've been attending is we do a bunch of hymn singing to start, followed by the pastor's sermon, and then a few more songs. Singing hymns has always been my favorite part of church where I feel most connected, and when you're in the room with these people who sing with so much power and truth you are part of a great experience. Piled back in the van for the trip home, and we were extra full to start. The girls rode on our laps. Tala and Tasha were up front with me, and Rita (Tala's twin sister) is hiding back there with Madeline. Madeline (from Puerto Rico) has been staying at our place in Pava'ia'i until she leaves for Tau, one of the outer islands, where she will be teaching. The van was a lot of fun. The youth were singing on our way home in the back.

As we were pulling into Pava'ia'i, Richard asks what we're going to eat for lunch. "ummm... maybe some more boiled bananas". "Really, what else?" "ummm... we don't know yet". Then he proceeds to gift us with this large can of corned beef. Very nice of him, and he said it's a nice thing we're doing being here and serving. He also said this should probably last us a while, and I believe he is right.

So, we had corned beef sandwiches with our boiled bananas for lunch.

As we got off the van Richard asked if I wanted to come back to evening church again, and I said "sure, if you don't mind picking me up again." 

After lunch, I felt a bit tired for some reason and decided to lay down for a while. Started a movie, but I ended up taking a little nap before doing some searching online. I found another cool photography website: http://9wows.com/ Then, I listened to some music - Casting Crowns to be exact. 

The van picked me up again at 5:10pm. Yes, I went to church TWICE two weeks in a row. How many of you back home think that sounds crazy? I was there in the morning from 9:45-12 and then 5:30-7:30. That may sound like a lot, but it hasn't felt like it. I sat with Lillian and Suila (sisters from Fagatua) at evening service. Suila attends college on the mainland, and will be leaving next Monday. They're really nice girls.

Tonight, the hymn section asked for favorites from the congregation. Sidenote: there are more youth sitting in this church on Sunday than adults (A really interesting experience for me. It was sort of the opposite at my home church). Then during the Pastor's sermon, he mentioned a couple verses that really caught my attention. I mentioned earlier that I listened to some Casting Crowns before going back to church, and one of my favorite songs is "Courageous". Joshua 1:6 "Be strong and of a good courage". As it was read, I immediately thought of the lyrics of "Courageous" in my head and had a big smile on my face. I was amazed to think how I had not listened to this song in quite a while, and then here I did on this particular day. 

Here's a link to the song if anyone is interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkM-gDcmJeM

Alarm is set for 5:45am. Figured it wouldn't hurt to go in a little early on my first day of school as a new teacher. Here we go!