tennis with...sour punch straws

in the pics...
Riverfales: At my friends’ jane and olsen. They have some river fales. Very nice. This is the view from one of the fales.
Rockpath: I carried some of these rocks to make this path. Lots of good muscle building work. I want to do more.
southernLily: I could get the name of this container ship(?). sometimes the resolution on my digital camera is good. Sometimes the quality of the picture is bad. I still have not figured out how to control the camera completely.


11/2
When I stay in Apia during the weekend I like to go to a church called Peace Chapel. They have good music—drumset, keyboards, guitar, bass, and singers. They’ve played some of my favorite Christian music—songs that I just want to listen to. Not sing. Aborb. I just like to listen a lot of the time. Here are some notes from that sermon (lauga) that struck me:
To seek you diligently; commit my life; living with zeal; if there is no pain, no sacrifice; righteousness means right-standing with God; the word “extol” came up a few times…

New fact for the day: in German only rich people play tennis. I’m glad I grew up in America. I love to watch and play tennis! A little with JICA volunteers I need to play again—soon.

My friend Kat was telling me she wants to be like a coconut tree—flexible, but also very strong, able to withstand the storms. Hmmm…yoga practice does just that. But why do so many Christian people associate yoga with something “bad?” there is the spiritual side, but I have found it to be a very good stress reliever and a system of health that works for me. I miss going to power yoga class. I also miss burning lavender in my room. I wonder if my incense burner made it to Astoria…

I’m house sitting for Kat this weekend. A nice little place with a hyper kitten, and a lot of ants.

This heat is making me wilt…




10/29
Take a pee, see a shooting star. I was outside doing the business tonight when I looked up. In the 10 seconds it took I saw a star shooting down towards the horizon. Wow! Good timing, huh?

No matter how much cleaning I do in my room—sweeping, mopping, wet, or dry—the sand, dirt, and wood dropping from the termites always return the next day…well, it had been 5 days when I came back, but it’s a never ending battle. I’m surprised I had the motivation to clean Friday but it was cleaning/workday here at school, so there was cleaning “momentum.”

hmmmmm...it's hot. I was watching the lightening over the ocean a few mintues ago. it seems to be moving out to sea. a few hours ago it was almost overhead, and I could hear the rumble of the thunder. no thunder now. I was playing swipi (a card game popular in samoa) with Emmi, the 6 year old. it was nice to sit outside and feel the cool breeze, what little of it there was. The mosquitoes are a little less swarming than earlier when I was trying to grades tests outside.

I ate some more sour punch straws, that came in the package from my mom! along with sour skittles, some books, a nice shirt for school, some smoked salmon, and raviolli of all things. a good package. Tonight was more elegi and taro for dinner. I'll need to have some tea to offset the effects. we'll see. Listening to Bob Marley (music from shane). i'm not so attached. that's OK.

Today was the written final for computer studies. I started marking year11. so far I'm not impressed. The scores are a lot lower than the midterm. Year 11 seems really cheeky, but did they study that little. Highest overall score so far is 56 (out of 100) and that was one of my "best" students. why are the scores so much lower. is english that bad at year 11?