Tuesday, April 28, 2009

April 28, 2009!

I have student who loves to use exclamation points in his writing. Usually he uses them after his name, (i.e, K!) but today he wrote on his quiz: April 28, 2009!

I had to laugh. Maybe he has something right about the world. Maybe just for a moment we can be excited that today is April 28, 2009!

Monday, April 27, 2009

Bread and Cheese

Today I ate rice for breakfast, rice for lunch and rice for supper. Then I watched an Oprah show about the best sandwich shops in the states. This was all very very cruel.

Friday, April 24, 2009

10 Mini-blog Entries in One

These are all little blog entries combined.

1. Last night I dreamt there was a storm so wild that I was blown by the wind into the air and I "flew" until I found a tree to hang onto.

2. The smell of rotting mangoes on the walk to the cafeteria makes me happy. It is the smell I remember from living one month in Hawaii when I was six.

3. I killed all of my house mate's fish yesterday. I was pretty upset when I came home to find their bloated bodies floating on top of the fish tank. I had turned off their oxygen supply and forgot to turn it back on.

4. This week I learned that ruthless used to have an opposite--ruth. So you can be full of ruth! (Full of mercy.)

5. I'm thankful for journals. I woke up Thursday morning feeling discouraged. I went through my journals and read the entries for the last year. I was reminded that God has been with me through all my ups and downs and He is still with me!

6. I laid awake last night thinking about how much I hate the weather in Thailand in April. Miserable. My air con does work, but the sound of it keeps me awake.

7. My favorite place to think is on my floor. I spread a blanket on the floor at the end of my bed and think there.

8. I have the following written on my desk at work, "Anij yokwe yuk". (The last work is not pronounced yuck, but yuke.) It's Marshallese for "God loves you." I don't know. I scribbled it there a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I just needed the reminder.

9. My student wrote the following sentence today that puzzled and amused me. He wrote, "Stop going down cheeseless tunnels." I wonder why.

10. I'm so grateful that the school year is wrapping up and yet I'm in complete denial that I'm going home.

Monday, April 6, 2009

A Teacher's Life

I've been grading papers for two days. I figured out that I have graded around 108 pages worth of papers (3 different sets of papers). I've read some pretty interesting stories and some heart breaking stories as well. (I always struggle to know what to do with the the heart breaking stories.) Grading, more than almost anything I do as a teacher, takes the most of out of me. I can plan for class when I'm sleepy, but it is almost impossible for me to grade when I'm tired so I save days like Sundays and holidays to just grade and grade some more.

So this is how I'm spending my Chakri Day--grading!

The funny thing is is my department is hopping with activity. I keep asking myself--is this really a holiday? There are five other teachers here and a handful of students. At least I can't feel too sorry for myself. Misery loves company and so here we are (almost) the whole department working on a holiday.