Spiritual Retreat

Indonesia has been in a news a lot lately with it's various natural disasters.Thankfully, the earthquake/tsunmai, volcano eruption, and flooding are not close to where I live! The flooding in Jakarta, is relatively close, but it happens fairly regularly because certain parts of the city are below sea level. Even though I am living in Indonesia, I really don't feel the effects of these crazy things that are happening here. I only knew about the disasters because another teacher told me. Life just seems to keep going. So, if you were worried about me, (only two of my friends showed concern...?)I want you to know that I am doing just fine!

Now to get onto more recent happenings! I just returned from the 7th grade spiritual retreat in Carita, which is a beach area in West Java. We, being the 12 teachers and 96 students, left Wednesday morning and returned this afternoon. The purpose of the trip was to encourage and mentor the student's in their walk with God. There were also several fun games that the students participated in,a dance competition (which they have been preparing for weeks! See pics attached), as well as pool time, chill time, and good food. And, we ended our evening last night with a big bon fire and campfire songs which I got to lead. The kids loved learning the news songs! I almost felt like I was back at camp, which was awesome.

Overall, it was a great retreat, and a refreshing way to get to know the students in a different setting. On the way back today, we drove through some small towns and rural areas in the mountains. The rice paddies were beautiful. I tried to snap some shots as we drove along.

From grading...to reports...to parent-teacher conferences...and back to grading...

I have been thinking about writing another blog entry for a while now, but nothing really struck me as blog-worthy. Nevertheless, anything is better than nothing.

These past few weeks at school have been somewhat normal, but also very different. For example, I filled out mid-term reports and had my first parent=teacher conferences ever. There were several frusterations and overwhelming moments, but they are all a part of the learning experience I guess.

Not only have things been interesting with work, things have also been interesting with daily life. Two weeks ago at the athletics day, I pulled a muscle in my leg. It has still been bothering me so that has resulted in a few trips to the hospital for physio and an MRI to see if there is ligament damage. I will get the results on Monday and I am hoping they will show that the injury is only muscle related. I am kinda bumed about it because I have an outdoor games event today, a Middle school spiritual retreat next week, and a 5K race next weekend. Such bad timing!

I guess it is getting to that point of the semester where I feel like I am trying to focus on tons of little things at the same time and I don't feel like I am getting anywhere. Maybe, with time, I will be able to make some small accomplishments. One can only hope!

On your marks...get set...GO!

This week Friday was Athletics Day in the Senior school. Instead of having class, all of the students took part in Track and Field events. When a new student comes to SPH they are assigned to a house team. There are 4 different teams Kintamai (RED), Krakatua (YELLOW), Marapi (GREEN), and Bromo (BLUE). Each of these names are actually named after volcanoes here in Indonesia. The purpose of the teams is build school spirit and healthy competition among the student and staff body. I was assigned to Bromo when I arrived, which I like because I love blue.

All the students and teachers came to school on Friday decked out in their house team colors. The students had face paint, colored banners, hairspray and fun colored accents. I actually bought a Bromo wrist band to support my team. Although the teachers dressed up, we were all assigned jobs in different events while the students went around to participate. I was assigned to help out with the sprints. I was busy all day: writing down who was first, second, and third for every running event. I did find some time to pick up a delicious burger and frozen yogurt from the food area though.

Thankfully, the rain held out all day and we were able to keep things running on time. The last event was the teacher/parent 50X4 relay. I ran for my team. I was excited to run a race because it has been a while. Unfortunately, I did not warm up well enough and I ended up pulling a muscle in my right quad. It was incredibly painful and I was limping for a few days. It is still a little swollen now, but I am able to walk normally which is nice. I guess I learned my lesson; although, I did stretch a lot before I ran. It must have just been a bad start.

The day actually ended with period 7. I was not too excited about teaching after such a long day in the sun and noise. I made my 8th graders do a little bit of work because they have not been on the best behavior this past week; however, we ended the day watching some ridiculous videos from YouTube. All in all, it was a pretty fun day and a great way to end the week.

Now I am going to have a few crazy days of writing mid-term reports! Eek! Not fun, but necessary I suppose. I am often amazed at how quickly time passes. Before you know it, next weekend will be here and I will have more news to share.

Everyday Life

So, there have been some gentle reminders from people that I haven't updated my blog that often lately. (I won't mention any names) :) It's true, I have been neglecting it, but I am begining to really feel like life here is becoming so normal. However,regular days can be interesting too sometimes, so I will give you a bit-sized piece of my everyday life.

Today I helped out with the track and field practice after school. Because I have had some experience with sprinting, I volunteered to offer my guidance while the students practiced their track and field events. To tell you the truth, I wasn't too excited about spending my precious after-school work time on the field, but I went on out anyways.

I did some stretching and tried to get some kids to practice their sprinting, but they seemed to be more interested in the jumping and javelin. So, I just chilled on the grass and waited for the kids to make their way over. Eventually, a few came over and I offered them some advice for their warm-up 50m. I was disappointed to see that they didn't really put much effort into the race. One of the PE teachers suggested that I race with them to give them some motivation. Whoever I beat would have to do 20 push ups. I was game and so were the kids. We lined up, me giving them a head start, and we ran down the field. Again, they weren't too motivated, so I headed back down to the start and waited for the next batch.

That quick little race reminded me of how much I love to sprint, bue also how tiring it can be! The next group of kids were more into it, so I took off down the field at the same time as them. They were older boys, so all but one boy beat me. By now, I was warmed up and ready to win. Ironically, the next group of kids were kids that I teach. They thought it was pretty funny that I was going to race them. So, we came up with a plan. If I beat them, they would do push ups, and if they beat me, i would do push ups. We went up to the line, got set, got ready, and we flew down the field. I beat all but one student! They laughed and congratulated the winner. I guess they didn't think I was that fast. :) So, I told them all to get down on the grass and i counted from 1-20 for us all, except the winner, as we did our push-ups.

The rest of the afternoon I hung out with the kids and helped where I could. It felt good to just get to know the kids outside of the classroom and show them that I am a normal person too. Somehow students always think that teachers don't do normal things. It kind of cracks me up actually because I used to think that too. Just a few weeks ago, some of my students were picking out some music for their homeroom dance and I grooved to the music a little, just for fun. One of my students saw me and was like "Ahh, that is so weird!" I was quite offended. Really? What is wrong with a teacher dropping a few moves?

I guess is is all about perspective, right?