Random smattering of things

I bought a planner today. After college, planners were kind of pointless because I wasn’t scheduling classes and work schedules anymore. However, I think having 79 students has addled my brain and I’ve become extremely forgetful. There’s still nothing like thinking with a pen and paper. I have a Google calendar, but it’s still not working the way good old fashioned paper and pen do.

Today is the school’s “Hallelujah Day” and we have no classes. It’s like having a weekend in the middle of the week! The day is to celebrate all the school victories this school year (sports, competitions, etc.) It was quite timely because we’re approaching the end of the first term and it’s been busy! I lost last Saturday to checking test papers. Genius me gave them a 3-page test and 3-page test x 79 is not fun.

I’m hanging out in Starbucks inside Fully Booked getting fat because Hapi ditched me last night. J I stayed in the apartment because I was too lazy to go home and get up early on Thursday. Today I was just struck with how different this place has become since I was a kid. I remember when it was pretty much one big empty dirt pit thing and we drove around the big pit circle or something like that. (Foggy memory.) Now it’s like a little version of NYC, except the buildings aren’t so tall. The streets have boring names like “First” and “Thirty-Second” just like NYC. With all the foreigners, you can’t really tell what that it’s the Philippines. They just opened up an IHOP, I saw a Quiznos (neither of which are high-class in the States, but for some reason, when they come here, they’re so high-class) and they’re opening a Coldstone. In this part of town, I walk past businessmen with thick European accents, making business deals. I walk past smartly dressed women drinking coffee while creating spreadsheets on their laptops at a coffee shop. Then I cross the highway and head down into Pembo where people and tricycles overflow the place. It’s hard to navigate a car down there. I change tricycles in the main marketplace where the air is heavy with the smell of barbecued meat. The market stalls are lit up with their yellow lights and vegetables and fruit abound. It’s another world down here. Two worlds, side by side.

This month marks the 2^nd year since I moved back home. It feels like it was just yesterday, but sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. Within two years, I’m teaching my 3^rd batch of kids. So weird. I now know all the kids on our floor because the 7^th graders didn’t move upstairs yet and the 4^th graders stayed downstairs. This makes my days very interesting between 6^th graders asking about assignments, the 5^th graders wanting to know every single day if they’re going to get to do Survivor again in September and if I still bake for them, and the 7^th graders coming to tell me all their dramas of their high school oh-so-dramatic life. I am the 7^th grade shrink. I do miss the 7^th graders a lot. They were a pain last year, but they’re really funny and I really enjoyed them. They often come in during their lunch break or at dismissal to either dump all their teenage angst on me or to actually just hang out and tell me stupid jokes.

I could write a novel on middle school drama. It follows a typical soap opera, which is why I tell my kids that I don’t need TV because I get a live performance every day. (I seriously have no idea why they keep coming back just to be insulted.) The current drama hasn’t reached the Season Finale yet but this is the basic plot:

Boy 1 likes Girl 1. Boy 2 likes Girl 2. Boy 1 and Girl 2 are in the same class. Boy 2 is jealous of Boy 1 and Girl 1 is jealous of Girl 2.

Throw in everybody else and you get the idea. Oh the drama. Oh the angst. Oh it’s the end of the world as they know it! How will they ever survive??? Tune in next year to find out if they do. (Actually, Boy 1 is transferring out and Girl 2 is leaving the country, so maybe that soap opera will end in a few months… before a new one starts.)

Their performances are first rate! It usually happens when I’m in the little tiny conference room portion of the faculty room. I often spread out the kids’ notebooks when I’m checking.

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A head peers around the divider. It’s Z. Again. He slips in and plops himself down on one of the chairs.

“Miss H,” he says, dragging out the ‘h’.

Barely glancing up, I say, “Ok, what’s up?”

“Oh nothing, nothing, just wanted to say hi,” he shrugs as he slouches down, arms folded, slight smile on his face.

Another boy slips in. It’s E., Z’s shrink, also known as ‘Pineapple’ for reasons only a 12-year-old can explain. Great. I stop writing.

“Ok, guys. What’s up?”

“Can’t we just say hi to you?” asks Z.

“Uh huh. Sure,” I say, and go back to checking, knowing Z beats around the bush.

Five children scramble around the divider and crowd inside the conference room made only for about 4 people. Their voices are loud and their giggles even louder.

They proceed to tell parts of their drama, only this time, their episode is short because they get kicked out for their noise. Another day in the life of junior high.

I resume checking as if nothing happened. Who needs TV with them around?

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In other totally unrelated news, Brigette was baptized! I vaguely remember when she was born, but when she was 7, I started giving her recorder lessons. It continued for at least 2 years. Whatever I was learning in music theory, I re-taught to her also. She used to be really, really shy and quiet. Now she’s 19 and in college majoring in music education. She’s soft-spoken but not really quiet anymore. It’s been a delight to watch her grow spiritually and to become better friends with her. In fact, several of us girls got together last week and had dinner at the mall. It was really nice because we were from all different “batches” of Sunday School kids. I was the oldest and therefore the most mature. Not.

Saying goodbye to the Briones family leaving for Canada today.

Sbarro with the girls (Eunice, Jobel, Ninna, Brigette)

With Eunice and Brigette after Brigette was accepted into membership.

Brigette and Tita Mel

Summer is rolling around, but we don’t really get summer break. The term ends on the 22^nd and the kids get 3 weeks off. We get Holy Week off at least. I’m trying to cram a research paper in for the last 2 weeks, which will be difficult. I made it harder because 7^th grade is 10 times harder than 6^th grade. Thanks to the woes of the 7^th graders, I now know what is expected of them when they get to 7^th grade and I can push them harder. The only downside is that it gives me a lot more work. They wrote a mystery story a couple weeks ago and that was painful because I graded it twice and checked their drafts twice. Haha. I have no life.

In my free time (what free time??), I have discovered the joys of reading books on an iPad. A teacher was selling a first generation iPad for her cousin, so I got it. I had Kindle installed, but then last week, I discovered iBooks and Classicly. I am now reading Sign of the Four, plus several other books that I started. Haha. I can also annoy Hapi by reading Shakespeare Sonnets in a very obnoxious British accent (that nobody would ever recognize for a British accent). I used to believe that reading off of a tablet would be a pain and an insult to actual books, but then I discovered that it’s easier to eat and read with a flat tablet. J In between that, I am reading a paper copy of The Good Earth which started out good and then got depressing. Along with that, I’m in the middle of listening to “Darien’s Rise” and “Oliver Twist” which are both radio theatre productions by Focus on the Family. This all could contribute to my addled brain as I try to keep multiple plots straight in my head.

I’m pretty sure nobody but my mom or Julie are still reading this, but I have a question for my bored audience: Have you ever read the book by Tom (Tim?) Challies (sp?) about technology and the Christian? I have no idea what it’s called, but it sounds interesting. I started listening to the book study Sunday School lessons by Pastor Mark Raines via Sermonaudio. It’s a bit hard to listen to, though, because he pauses for discussion with the congregation and I have no idea what’s going on.

If you read my newsletter, I talked about a girl named Erin. She’s still having big issues. I’ve never met anyone so difficult to talk to. I think a lot of her emoting comes from just wanting attention. She’s very bitter against God. Whatever I say goes in one ear and out the other. She refuses to believe that God is good and wants “proof.” Reading the Bible is a “chore” and she doesn’t believe it’s effective since nothing “happens” when she reads it. She bargains with God and then gets mad when He doesn’t follow her bargains. I have to talk to her later this week because I think the only thing I can do to help her (besides pray for her) is to push her away a bit. She has to lose everything she is trusting in to make her realize that there is only one way. Even though she’s been exhausting, she’s also been good for me. I have had to go back to so many promises of God in the Bible and point out aspects of God’s character that show His goodness and His mercy. In doing so, I have been more in awe of Him and more convicted of how far short I fall of the mark and how useless it is to try to lean on my own understanding. I am more than ever convinced that God is good and sometimes while explaining things to Erin, it’s like learning it all over again for me. I look at the wretchedness of Erin’s life apart from God and marvel that God would choose to save ME and open my heart to believe in faith. I have been overwhelmed and staggered by the fact that He has loved me with an everlasting love. It’s incredible. It’s amazing. It’s grace.

“If You, O LORD, kept a record of our sins, O LORD, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness, therefore You are feared. My soul waits for the LORD, and in His Word I put my hope more than the watchmen wait, more than the watchmen wait for the dawn. ” (“Psalm 130”, Sons of Korah)