First Semester Complete

That's right! The first semester has officially come to an end.  All final exams have been administered and graded, goodbyes and see you laters have been said, and all final reports have been submitted.  I have flown through the first half of my time as a college instructor, and I am still so thankful for the experience I am getting to have here.  I was blessed with students that I absolutely adore, and I think I can say that I cherish each and every one of them.  They all had something unique to bring to the classroom and many things to teach me.  I will never forget these wonderful guys and gals!

MS099 take one

MS099 take two - can't leave out Mavrick!

MS100

BU098

If anyone's counting, yes one of my classes is missing.  I completely forgot to take a picture on the last day.  Bummer! :(

I gave the same bonus on all of my final exams: Tell me at least one thing you liked about this class and one thing that you did not like or you think I should change.  It was one of my greatest decisions.  It not only gave me a chance to get some good feedback for use in the future, it also wrapped up the semester on a high note and left me excited for another in the spring.  In 1st grade terms, they filled my bucket until it overflowed!  I came here to hopefully serve them and give them the best education I can offer, but they have given even more to me in return.  They have shown me the joys of teaching older students and confirmed that teaching can be a lot of fun.  They have shown me great determination, perseverance through all sorts of obstacles, and some of the highest quality of work I've seen.

There were times during the semester that I would wonder if I really needed to be here.  Is there really a need for me to be teaching here?  Am I really making any difference?  Do the students even understand me?  But as I read their final comments to me I was reminded that God did bring me here for a purpose.  Even when I feel inadequate, He graciously works through me to accomplish great things.  By His grace I am different from other teachers they have had.  The fact that I show up every day, on time, with a lesson prepared is apparently something some of them have sadly never experienced before.  I know God loves them so much and has shared  that deep love for them with me, and I think they can see that overflow.  It may be late in their years of education, but I am delighted that God would use me to finally give them the chance to know that someone believes in them and wants the best for them.  I'm going to miss teaching them, but I'm excited to continue building relationships with them as I see them around campus next semester.  I've already had several of them e-mail me so we can stay in touch; made my day!  Plus I'll be getting a whole new group of wonderful students in January!  I can't wait!

But for now I am going to enjoy my nice, long Christmas break.  I love being a teacher! :)

For further blog-reading entertainment, you can check out my latest Mango Escapade race as well:

KBP 5k

Christmas is Coming!

I received a text message from a friend first thing in the morning on December 1st that read "Merry Christmas!"  I thought it was funny to be so early, but appreciated it anyway.  Then I got to my first class and all my students started wishing me a Merry Christmas.  Apparently as soon as December hits here it's time to start wishing all a Merry Christmas.  And all the decorations started going up at all the stores.  I found it fun to make a collection of all the various decorations around town.

 

 

 

I've even already gotten to make a Pohnpeian version of a gingerbread house.  Our theme for Chi Alpha last week was "Home Sweet Home"  One of our activities was to work with our group to build a house out of sweets.  What made it Pohnpeian?  Instead of gingerbread or graham crackers, we used coconut biscuits!

Just getting started.  How do we get this icing to hold it
all together?!?!

Serious construction going on.

My group getting started!

We went for an interesting design.

It was like the wall of Jericho :)

Another group going for the triangle design.

A home of many rooms

Decoration time!

We had a happy home

I felt like held my breath the whole time in fear that one
more piece of candy would bring the whole place down.

By far the most creative feature of the houses.  I can't
claim this as my group's but we were all impressed

 When time was up these are the houses each group had constructed:

 

 

 

Then probably the highlight and greatest joy of my weekend was Sunday afternoon.  I had heard that Santa was in town and would be coming by to throw out candy to the kids around 2.  At 1:30 the sounds of excited kids and waving plastic bags could be heard out on the street.  They were all excited for Santa to come by!  I didn't want to miss out on the fun either, so Laurel and I headed down to join the excitement.  We ended up waiting for quite a while, which meant an awesome opportunity to have some fun with the neighborhood kids.  They taught me some of their songs and games and then I taught them some of mine.  It filled me with a joy that only little kids can bring and I think I had been missing for quite some time :)

A Pohnpeian version of the "Miss Mary Mack" type
hand slap

 

This one somehow incorporates paper, scissor, rock at the
end and the loser ends up getting their cheeks pinched
like crazy :D

 

I think this poor guy ended up with some sore cheeks

 

 

 

Yes, we play in the middle of the street and
just yell "sdosa!" when a car is coming

I was slowly catching on

Anika is ...

precious!!!

I led the Hokey Pokey!  Put your head in and you shake it
all about!

I think we were about to start the chicken dance

Just about the time we had exhausted all of our songs and games we heard the long awaited sirens down the street announcing Santa's arrival.  The kids started going crazy; screaming, running, shouting!  I just stood laughing as the mini parade came by followed by a mass scramble for the candy.

Notice it's not just kids out there eager to grab candy

 

Santa's float

Cheerful candy throwers

And now watch the true chaos/excitement/scramble unfold:

Young and old alike stuffed their bags or their pockets.  It was so great to watch!

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the local volleyball tournament.  I discovered that's the place to be on Sunday afternoon.  I really enjoyed being out there with everyone and watching all the teams play.  They've got skills.  Lori is on the D-Town team (Daini girls), so I got to cheer her on!

They came out strong in game 1

 

Spike!  Check her out ;)

Nice bump over for a point for D-Town!

To round of the Christmas cheer of the weekend, Maryanna and I put up a little Christmas tree in our living room and strung lights all the way around the porch.  I just love being in a room where the only light is coming from a Christmas tree.  

 We're the first ones on the street to get our lights up because Maryanna says "we have spirit".  Even though it's as warm as ever I do feel like I'm in the Christmas spirit already. 

And I thought you might enjoy ending this blog by listening to a praise song from the Yap outer islanders in my church.  I love hearing all different tongues singing praise to God of all the nations!