Beginner reads New World Finn

in the pics: a grave in front of my Samoan family's house (with a big clam shell on the top of it), a busy day in Apia (cars and busses), me trying to catch the reflection of the water through the windows of the busses as we wait at the fish market.

2/25
Today: had Suimai lead hangman. I want the students to lead more activities. She did well.

Had teachers tutorial—2 hours—I lectured about hardware, did worksheet, talked about the homerow, then we did a mouse tutorial, finally Typershark, the typing program I use at school. We did a lot. I’m proud of the teachers.

Got some sleep, switched the brakes on my bike!! Now right hand brake is the rear brake, also put my old pedals on my bike (the ones with toe straps) for the many hills in samoa.

Now I sip ginger tea, milk, and honey. Today was a good day.

Another product straight from USA—Louisiana hot sauce. Supposedly “one drop does it” but I put 12 or 15 drops on my curried mutton, pig, and taro tonight. It’s not really that hot.

No fa’ipula (ripe bananas)—not much, of a breakfast. Heavy food—I still am losing weight. I’m being fed well though. Heard to get veggies and fruit.

I’ll never get used to flies on my ankles. I wonder what they find so exciting about my ankles. I guess a constant sweat would do it.

I’ve been talking with Leiataua about the kids’ ability to express themselves, not only in English, but even in Samoan. When kids grow up never being given the opportunity to share their thoughts/expression of themselves, getting to secondary school with that expectation won’t happen. It feels like two different forces pulling at the kids: express yourselfß student àdo as you’re told.

Some things I miss: getting hugs (my ASC friends are very good huggers; tasting yogurt on my tongue; the smell of good Mexican food; ice cold milk (the 1% Garlick farms kind); my special smoothie; playing tennis; talking about deeper stuff—other than where I am from and how many people are in my family and if I have a girlfriend/wife or not; crisp cold sunny NE weather; a good game of ultimate Frisbee; having some quiet and alone time; hiking on Indian head trail with mom; playing tiles with my grandparents.


2/21
My mom sent me a copy of a finnish newspaper called “new world Finn” words I like: literacy, persistence, cooperation.

I think it’s going to be hard for me to respect teachers who hit kids. I remember giving a hard stare to the principal after the smack down on Friday. I know Samoan culture is very big on respect, but I don’t think teachers should hit kids...end of my story. So this is the situation and I guess I’ll be staring hard a lot..whatever.

I just finished writing (by hand) my lesson plan for the week. All my handwritten stuff is scratches and sketchesàthe computer makes it neat. Maybe teachers will get to the point where we can type out weekly plans. One of the teachers finished typing her yearly plan last week. I was very impressed.

Samoans really like violence it appears more in newspapers. Cant’ we just skit the violence? Samoan culture is ahead of American culture in many ways.

Samoans always ask me for money—and never pay it back—although my samoan father paid me back, but already there are three other instances of giving and not being paid back. (update…well this is the way it is…I don’t give money anymore).

(Ou te misia lava outou) I miss you all. I think it’s finally sinking in how long I’m going to be here. But also how much work I have to do—teaching wise.


2/19
mmmm..the latest package from my mom arrived today…4 packages of sour things, 2 pillow cases with Finnish on them, power adapter, 2 sun magazines (good reading), 2 bags of rubber bands, foot fungus killer, a finnish newspaper, news from home (large storm ravages, LNG debates boil over), and a valentine day’s card. Make that two—I got one from my grandma and grandpa too. (mealofa lo’u tina I Amerika)

being a total beginner. My students are total beginners. I’m still backing up up up up…up right now we are learning how to use the shift key to make capital letters—or should I say I assumed they already knew how to do that. I’m surprised everyday—how much computer knowledge is ingrained into me, and pulling it out (sometimes kicking and screaming) can be a challenge.

I’ve had the first quizzes—and collected the computer books students write notes in. very interesting to see what gets into their books. ONLY what I write on the board or have on a diagram. One student had “computer stutles” instead of computer studies on her cover. I mentioned that if they have good typing skills, it would be easier to find a job. Only one person answered that correctly on the quiz. The finnish language has a lot of long words and names. I hadn’t seen any long words or names in Samoa until this one:
Lauiulaaepouitoalefalenaiamoa—a woman’s name.

Eseroma (the vice principal) says it's very expensive for parents to come to principal to ask for forgiveness for their kids smoking at school. It’s a respect thing I guess. Not sure if it’s a saving face kind of thing. My principal said she will give one more chance out of respect for the parents—not the kids. Kids get more slaps and 5 days of hard labor—cutting grass with a machete.

2/17
It’s 11pm Sunday evening and I feel like crap (lots of green stuff coming out of my nose) so this may be short. Yes, I did get this yucky bug from my weekend adventures.

Friday I was swimming in the bay inspecting giant clams with my (Samoan) dad. Some are more than 10 years old. The fisheries department help set it up. One was dead—we wondered why. Sun sets over flashy silvery, blue, gold, orange reflection of water. I also saw a whole pile of rocks stuck together with cement and a cinder block with wire and cement—to simulate coral and try to regrow it—a lot of coral loss=a lot of fish and other sea life dying. Had second dinner with visitors from Australia.

Sat was my first paopao experience. Paopao is a Samoan Canoe—with a stabilizer bar running along side. I don’t know the technical term. I went to stay with the science teacher’s family across the bay at a village called Matafa’a. very pretty. Very small—only one small store. Very shallow water—close to the coral. Met family, and then rowed out past the reef to the open ocean. (I think I may have already typed this_) so a long story short: the shirt I’m wearing gets wet, wind howls, I get cold with cold, wet shirt=getting sick.