Done again

Wow. Long time no written update. I guess pictures can only count for so much.

Graduation occurred about two weeks ago. I was actually in charge of coordinating it this year since the people who had previously no longer work with us and the principal was off-island. There were some ups and downs but, all in all, I think it was a success. We received a lot of praise for “modernizing” graduation. We added a few special marching maneuvers and the students chose their own recessional song, some hip-hop diddy called “Walk It Out.” I spliced it together with the first 15 seconds or so of pomp and circumstances and segued between the two with a record scratch sound effect. The result was the students marched with the hesitation step for the first fifteen seconds before freezing and then strutting out the rest of the way. It worked surprisingly well, and the audience really seemed to enjoy something different.

Hmm, has anyone even seen Friday Night Lights? It’s a movie about a town obsessed with high school football. The opening scene is the head coach looking at his “big board” of players and moving little name placards around to create his depth chart. The ending scene is the head coach taking the name placards of the graduated seniors off the wall and throwing them in the trash can. Every time I go in the office, that’s how I feel. I took down my calendar and printed out a new one. I created the “2007-2008” folder in my computer. I’ve even started throwing away the college/scholarship/financial aid information of those who aren’t going or didn’t finish applying on time. I mean, this is what’s supposed to happen. I’m sure more experienced educators take this in stride, and I would too if I had been doing this for a decade or so. But right now, it still feels a little more significant. Each year is still a big deal and throwing away those names and that information is still a big deal.

Now that school’s out, I’m teaching summer school at Upward Bound. It’s not bad, though I would have appreciated a little break between the end of school and the beginning of Upward Bound. Because we started late and ended late, the first week of Upward Bound actually coincided with graduation week, the combination of which had me running around very frantically. However, it’s calmed down a bit now. At the end of July I’m going on the annual Upward Bound outer island trip. This year we’re going to Ebon, which also coincides with the 150 year Jubilee, marking the 150^th anniversary of when the missionaries first came to the Marshall Islands… yeah, I know.

My oldest host sister is back from college in Seattle (I applied her last year). I asked her how it was. The first two things she said is that it’s really cold and that she’s tried of white people asking her to hula.

Yesterday my friend Dave and I tried to make it out to the airport to see off our friend, Natalie. We were told the flight was at 3:00 PM. We made plans to catch the 10:30 AM shuttle to the airport. For the first time in, well, forever, something in the Marshall Islands happened early and the shuttle left before we got there at 10:30 AM. We decided to catch the other shuttle leaving at 11:00 AM from the other hotel. For the second time in, well, forever something in the Marshall islands happened early and that shuttle left before we even got there at 10:45 AM. Just before we were about to shell out some money for a taxi ride, the shuttle came back from the airport. We asked if it would be leaving again and the driver said he would be getting some lunch and then leaving again at noon. Dave and I decided to spend the taxi money that we had just “saved” on some milkshakes and then hop on the shuttle at noon. Come noon, the driver remembered that he was in the Marshall Islands and didn’t show up on time. Dejected, Dave and I reluctantly hailed a taxi and rode to the airport. When we got there, we discovered that Natalie had given us incorrect information and that the plane actually departs at 1:00 PM and that she herself had literally just boarded the plane. Dave and I gave each other the, “Wow, the past 2 hours have been really shitty” look and spent the rest of the day watching Die Harder 2 because we had just seen Die Hard 4 and thought it was entirely too awesome.