Um, aloha?

November 28, 2005 – 9:52 PM – Psst, how was daylight savings time?

I keep forgetting to mention this, but this year was the first in my life during which I did not fall back. The entire concept of daylight savings time is inconsequential for a country that lies 7 degrees above the equator and the length of whose days changes by a maximum of probably like 25 minutes throughout the year. Thus, I did not have daylight savings time, which seriously screwed with my time calculations. As if being on the other side of the Earth and across the international date line weren’t enough, I now have to calculate an extra hour’s worth of difference. Try this thought experiment on for size. Have you ever noticed that we (as in people in the States) consider EST to be “ahead” but PST to be “earlier?” Isn’t that kind of weird? Well once you’re across the dateline EST is both considered “ahead” and “earlier,” which totally screws with my head.

I finally went on a real dive. I dropped $95 and chartered a boat to take me an hour and a half away from Majuro to Arno, an unspoiled outer island. The two dives I made were pretty damn spectacular. It’s a pity I don’t have an underwater camera. The fish was an afterthought compared to the coral. We’re talking like, elephant-sized coral composed of every color of the spectrum. And the coolest part is actually looking up. While snorkeling you get the impression that coral is just what’s on top. However, coral actually lines the entire continental shelf all the way down to who knows where. Thus, when you look up from 70 feet below, all you see is coral coral coral to the surface. It’s quite a sight, especially with the sun rays filtering through the water.

The yachties have also arrived in the Marshall Islands. I never knew this but many people who own yachts actually live on their yachts. It’s not just a little vacationmobile. It’s their home. Anyways, supposedly it’s hurricane season further south so the yachties have been pushed further north to avoid sinking their homes. While in the Marshall Islands, they recruit volunteers to be crewmembers and help them race their yachts against one another. The rest of the WorldTeach volunteers have already participated in races and have nothing but rave reviews. I myself have been unable to participate thus far because the races have always coincided with work, but I’m hoping to make it next time. Imagine me as a member of a yacht club. Har!

December 3, 2005 – 7:38 PM – Thanksgiving

Yes, we managed to celebrate it. Yes, we had Thanksgiving outside. Yes, it was 83 degrees outside when we celebrated Thanksgiving. Yes, our Thanksgiving meal included coconut, breadfruit, and pandanus. But damnit, it was still Thanksgiving.

One of the volunteer’s host family decided to host a big Thanksgiving celebration in order to make all of us American volunteers feel more at home. Roughly 40 people showed up and we collectively devoured two turkeys with assorted traditional and tropical fixings.

Moreover, my school also hosted a Thanksgiving party for the faculty members. That party was actually really cool because the faculty of my school is actually incredibly diverse (I may have posted about this earlier but I’m too lazy to go back and check). Marshall Islands High School could very well be the only public school in this country in which the faculty is not majority Marshallese. Integrated with the Marshallese faculty is a healthy smattering of Japanese, Filipino, Fijian, and American teachers, along with singular representation from other countries such as Nauru.

Therefore, our Thanksgiving party, which was a potluck, featured food from every imaginable corner of the globe. I consider myself a pretty well traveled eater and even I failed to identify about ¾ of the stuff I consumed that day. Truly awesome.

In teaching news, the TOEFL looms over my head like a large albatross. I have a little over a month left to prepare my little army of students for battle. The results thus far have been promising. I have two students who, when initially diagnosed, scored in the low 500s and have since improved their score by roughly 80 points and are now threatening to crack 600. Best of all, everyone seems to be improving to some degree.

My greater concern is walking them through college applications themselves. Most of my students intend to enroll in the College of the Marshall Islands first before heading off to a 4-year school elsewhere. They’re easy. The difficult task is helping the students who wish to go to school in another country next year. There aren’t too many of them but almost all of them have never seen a webpage before and simply don’t have the “college radar” that most students in the United States are forced to have. They’re unaware of exactly how many criteria exist with respect to selecting a suitable college and it can be difficult explaining why College A is different from College B and why they would offer different experiences.

All of this means that my schedule has been stretched tighter than a fat man’s shirt. My work day lasts from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Monday afternoons I have a faculty which lasts until ~5:00 PM. I have an hour and a half to relax and eat before I have College Prep from 6:30-8:30 PM. Tuesday afternoons are reserved for newspaper club meetings which last until roughly 5:00 PM which are followed by weekly WorldTeach check-ins with our field director. Thursday afternoons are College Prep again followed by producing WorldTeach’s weekly radio show in the evening. Friday afternoons are debate. Every other Saturday morning is dedicated to giving practice TOEFL tests. Somewhere in all of this I have to grade papers and plan lessons. Yeah, I’m pretty busy. But hey, I graduated from the U of C. I can do busy.

Nevertheless, despite the time crunch, this endeavor of mine has already proven to be one of the most worthwhile experiences in which I’ve ever participated. Working with the College Prep students alone has been awe-inspiring. The stories they have to tell are down right astonishing. Remember Jane from a few months ago? Yeah, the upcoming adopted valedictorian? That one. Well, I’ve talked to her a bit and learned a little bit more about her. She has precisely eight brothers and sisters. Her older sister, whom I introduced previously as another very talented student, suffered a rather tragic fate. She also graduated as the valedictorian and received an RMI scholarship (awarded to RMI citizens to attend college abroad, worth roughly $25k a year). She was accepted to and attended a school in Seattle. However, she had to leave before her RMI scholarship arrived because school was starting. She never received her money. Instead, she was forced to drop out and now, three years later, she is a mother in Hawaii. She is 20 years old.

No doubt aware of her sister’s fate, Jane has adopted an unwavering focus and is the most voracious worker I have ever seen, including all U of C students. You can guess what kind of student she is, attentive, participatory, responsible, disciplined, never misses an assignment, etc. However, I also learned that she has to wake up at 5:00 AM in the morning every day because, in addition to living very far from school, her mom works the opening shift at her job and must open for business at 7:00 AM. Thus, she drops off Jane at the school at 6:45 AM and then heads off to work herself. Jane then waits over an hour for school to begin. After school Jane goes to where her mom works and waits for her until 5:00 PM at which time they go home. Despite all this, Jane has yet to miss a day of school, an extracurricular activity, a weekend College Prep meeting, etc. Think you could do that? I couldn’t.

And there’s hundreds like Jane. She’s just one. Almost all of my students could tell a similar story, and yet there they are in front of me wearing their uniforms, sitting in rusted desks inside a classroom with two working lights out of sixteen, wielding borrowed school supplies and ready to take notes. It’s enough to make me feel as if I really squandered a lot of my opportunities.

Thus, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d like to give thanks to all of my 107 students. Thank you for making me appreciate what I have and inspiring me to work like hell.