All right, in movies you see these phenomenal teachers who love every one of their kids – even the ones who you just know will be spitting in your burger five years down the road. These super-teachers get their students to care about great literature and classical music. They teach them the value of hard work and high moral character. These teachers mold young minds into scholars in the sole pursuit of making the world a better place.
I’m not one of these teachers.
Don’t get me wrong; I try dang hard to be this kind of teacher. I try with all of my might to be patient when a kid is smacking gum in my face and then pretends that he doesn’t even know what gum is when you ask him to spit it out. But man, it’s tough to not snap in that situation.
So here’s the thing; some kids are easier to teach than others. Some kids want to be there, and others don’t. There are kids who will burry their nose in a book and get to work the minute I even think about giving instruction.
There are also kids who, even as 14-year-olds, need someone to hold their hand through even the simplest of stuff like sharpening their pencil.
I’ll say, “hey, Randy, why exactly are you chasing Jear around the room?”
“Nothing, teacher,” he’ll say, “I was just sharpening my pencil.”
Those kinds of kids are frustrating and getting to them is probably the mark of if you are a good teacher or just someone who puts on the collared shirt every morning.
Now there are some days when I am this funny, cool teacher who makes even Randy laugh and bend over his book with the business end of his pencil to get some stuff done. If I could be this guy every single day then I would never have a problem again in my life. I’d win the Teacher of the Universe award like every other week.
Sadly this cannot happen.
Number one, the guy it takes to get to some of these students needs to change it up every single day. One day the funny jokes might get Randy to work, another day it might be stern looks and consequences and still another day it could simply be a pat on the shoulder and a, “hey, I’m glad you made it to class today.” Some days I just don’t know what road to take. Not to mention, it gets really confusing if Randy needs one sort of teacher and Jear needs another.
Number two being a super-teacher is exhausting. There are days when I am tired – enough said.
Sometimes these tough-case kids will figure out ways to get out of my class. “Mr. Tim, I think I have pink-eye,” or “Mr. Tim, my mother told me to go home to clean,” or “Mr. Tim, I think I left my pencil in the other class.”
And sometimes, Lord help me, I just let them go even though their eyes are clear, their mother had no way of telling them to come home and their pencil is clearly behind their ear.
Then, when they leave the class, both of us think we got the better end of the deal.
I know, I know, it’s the wrong way to look at things. And maybe there is a future version of me who will be getting kids to write to their local senator about the environment instead of drawing phallic symbols on their neighbor’s notebooks. Right now though, super-teacher or not, there are just some days that Randy and me need a break from each other.
Hollywood, if you want to make a movie about my teaching, you might have to wait a couple years.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
M&M's
"In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, M&M's."
"Mr. Tim, what did you say?"
"I said, 'in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.'"
"You didn't say 'Amen.'"
"Yes I did."
"You said 'M&M's.'"
"No I didn't."
"Yes you did, and Jesus heard you."
"He did?"
"Yes, and Jesus hate you now."
"Jesus hates M&M's?"
"No, he hates you because you said 'M&M's'"
"I said 'Amen'"
"No you didn't."
"Monica, go sit down."
"Mr. Tim, what did you say?"
"I said, 'in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.'"
"You didn't say 'Amen.'"
"Yes I did."
"You said 'M&M's.'"
"No I didn't."
"Yes you did, and Jesus heard you."
"He did?"
"Yes, and Jesus hate you now."
"Jesus hates M&M's?"
"No, he hates you because you said 'M&M's'"
"I said 'Amen'"
"No you didn't."
"Monica, go sit down."
Friday, March 14, 2008
Ruckus
We’re studying the Titanic in class and I was trying to give the students some idea of how excited the world was to see this ship take off. I decided to do a little role-playing. I divided the kids into two groups, kids who pretended to be on the giant ship and kids who were supposed to be saying goodbye to the ship. Edlynn was the newspaper reporter taking photos, Bella was the mayor christening the ship and Mikaa and Winton were two famous actors eager to be among the first to ride on this fabulous new ship.
“OK, you’ve got to be waving your hats, you’ve got to be blowing kisses, you’ve got to be so excited that this thing is about to sail,” I said.
From the back of the class, Sallyanne raised her hand.
“Oh, you want to be something? Well, OK, I guess that you can be married to Nathan over there on the ship and you’re saying goodbye to him.”
The class exploded. I’m not kidding; the class went crazy. Some kids were covering their mouths and saying “ohhh,” some were on top of desks snapping their fingers and some were laughing so hard that they were on the floor.
It was like Kurt Cobain came back from the dead and soloed for a Nirvana reunion tour. It was like the Marshall Islands just scored a goal in the World Cup final. It was like every kid in the class was just told that later that day Akon was going to play a surprise concert in the lawn.
I’ve never seen anything blow up that big.
Nathan ran from the classroom… I’ve no idea where he is now. Maybe he’s taking refuge with the CIA under the pseudonym “Smith.” Meanwhile, Sallyanne just sank her head into her desk and started balling.
The whole thing was ridiculous.
My stomach twisted. One crying girl, one running boy and the rest of the class threatening to jubilantly riot; it was Wednesday and suddenly the weekend seemed years away.
After a good five minutes I quelled the rebellion and let them out to lunch.
“If you happen to see Nathan,” I called after them, “tell him that I can offer him safety and amnesty.”
Now I was stuck with a pre-teen girl balling in the middle of an empty classroom. I had no idea what to do. Should I try and hug her? Should I sing to her like in the musicals they all love? What if I just gave her a dollar?
“Are you OK?” I asked. “I am sorry.”
She had her head down on her desk and I lowered down until I was eye-level with her.
“You want some candy?” I asked. She sniffed and nodded yes. I gave her some gum and she left rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. I walked home to lunch alone.
Then when I got back to class Sallyanne popped out of nowhere with a big smile on her face.
“Hi, Mr. Tim,” she said.
“Hey,” I said.
Kids are so weird.
“OK, you’ve got to be waving your hats, you’ve got to be blowing kisses, you’ve got to be so excited that this thing is about to sail,” I said.
From the back of the class, Sallyanne raised her hand.
“Oh, you want to be something? Well, OK, I guess that you can be married to Nathan over there on the ship and you’re saying goodbye to him.”
The class exploded. I’m not kidding; the class went crazy. Some kids were covering their mouths and saying “ohhh,” some were on top of desks snapping their fingers and some were laughing so hard that they were on the floor.
It was like Kurt Cobain came back from the dead and soloed for a Nirvana reunion tour. It was like the Marshall Islands just scored a goal in the World Cup final. It was like every kid in the class was just told that later that day Akon was going to play a surprise concert in the lawn.
I’ve never seen anything blow up that big.
Nathan ran from the classroom… I’ve no idea where he is now. Maybe he’s taking refuge with the CIA under the pseudonym “Smith.” Meanwhile, Sallyanne just sank her head into her desk and started balling.
The whole thing was ridiculous.
My stomach twisted. One crying girl, one running boy and the rest of the class threatening to jubilantly riot; it was Wednesday and suddenly the weekend seemed years away.
After a good five minutes I quelled the rebellion and let them out to lunch.
“If you happen to see Nathan,” I called after them, “tell him that I can offer him safety and amnesty.”
Now I was stuck with a pre-teen girl balling in the middle of an empty classroom. I had no idea what to do. Should I try and hug her? Should I sing to her like in the musicals they all love? What if I just gave her a dollar?
“Are you OK?” I asked. “I am sorry.”
She had her head down on her desk and I lowered down until I was eye-level with her.
“You want some candy?” I asked. She sniffed and nodded yes. I gave her some gum and she left rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. I walked home to lunch alone.
Then when I got back to class Sallyanne popped out of nowhere with a big smile on her face.
“Hi, Mr. Tim,” she said.
“Hey,” I said.
Kids are so weird.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Nose to the Grind Stone
It took my fellow teacher Dan Caccavano seven hours to upload a video to You Tube this weekend. He started after dinner in the Marshall Island High School office and around 2 am he decided that it would be a good idea to just leave it overnight.
Such is the life on a coral atoll.
The movie is a little over six minutes long. I am no expert on computers, and I have no knowledge of kilobytes, megabytes or snakebites for that matter, but it seems to me that seven hours for a little over six minutes seems ridiculous. That is an hour to upload a minute. I guess more that a minute if you are trying to be exact, and as this is journalism, I suppose I should try. Let’s see, if the movie was six minutes and 20-some seconds then that is about 1.12 hours for every minute of movie uploaded. I don’t know if that is right, but what, you come to me for mathematical precision?
Cut me some slack already.
So that movie is part one of a five-part student-generated documentary series on a Shakespeare play being put on here by the high school. It is done every year and is organized by a volunteer group out of Dartmouth.
Dan is in charge of teaching kids how to edit movies, and make the documentary alongside the play.
I don’t see Dan too much anymore. He spends most days after school hunched over his computer screen, toying with clips and sound bytes, or instructing students who have never even held a camera how to counteract over-exposed frames.
This year’s play is “A Comedy of Errors,” so Dan falling asleep and drooling over his keyboard until 2 am while the screen cheerfully tells him that it will only be a few more minutes seems fitting. However, if you let me get philosophical for a moment, and if you made it this far into the column I doubt you have much choice but to just read on, maybe the seven hours is only appropriate.
In this country nothing is easy. It is the curse of a third-world country desperately trying to pull itself into modern contention in a few short years. Cell phones regularly drop calls, noting ever comes on time, and the internet moves like a snail on a frozen sidewalk. So Dan and his students making this movie was not easy either. There was a lot to learn. A lot of mistakes to take into account. I mean, when you are capturing and importing video for the first time there are bound to be mess-ups. Multiply this by about 20 high school students who have had very limited access to computers their whole life and you can see that there were bumps in the road.
They learned though, they got through it and now part one of their video is on You Tube for the rest of the world to see. Knowing your way around a computer is a vital skill in the developed world, and now these kids who worked will be able to show something online to anyone they want. They can say, “look, I did that.” Plus if people only could put up stuff they had to wait seven hours to upload, then maybe there’d be a lot less crap on the net.
And maybe if you added up all of the hours they put into it then seven hours uploading doesn’t seem so bad.
Dan is exhausted though, I think I’ll buy him a cup of coffee, oh and here is the link to the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akHfCEu_iDg.
Such is the life on a coral atoll.
The movie is a little over six minutes long. I am no expert on computers, and I have no knowledge of kilobytes, megabytes or snakebites for that matter, but it seems to me that seven hours for a little over six minutes seems ridiculous. That is an hour to upload a minute. I guess more that a minute if you are trying to be exact, and as this is journalism, I suppose I should try. Let’s see, if the movie was six minutes and 20-some seconds then that is about 1.12 hours for every minute of movie uploaded. I don’t know if that is right, but what, you come to me for mathematical precision?
Cut me some slack already.
So that movie is part one of a five-part student-generated documentary series on a Shakespeare play being put on here by the high school. It is done every year and is organized by a volunteer group out of Dartmouth.
Dan is in charge of teaching kids how to edit movies, and make the documentary alongside the play.
I don’t see Dan too much anymore. He spends most days after school hunched over his computer screen, toying with clips and sound bytes, or instructing students who have never even held a camera how to counteract over-exposed frames.
This year’s play is “A Comedy of Errors,” so Dan falling asleep and drooling over his keyboard until 2 am while the screen cheerfully tells him that it will only be a few more minutes seems fitting. However, if you let me get philosophical for a moment, and if you made it this far into the column I doubt you have much choice but to just read on, maybe the seven hours is only appropriate.
In this country nothing is easy. It is the curse of a third-world country desperately trying to pull itself into modern contention in a few short years. Cell phones regularly drop calls, noting ever comes on time, and the internet moves like a snail on a frozen sidewalk. So Dan and his students making this movie was not easy either. There was a lot to learn. A lot of mistakes to take into account. I mean, when you are capturing and importing video for the first time there are bound to be mess-ups. Multiply this by about 20 high school students who have had very limited access to computers their whole life and you can see that there were bumps in the road.
They learned though, they got through it and now part one of their video is on You Tube for the rest of the world to see. Knowing your way around a computer is a vital skill in the developed world, and now these kids who worked will be able to show something online to anyone they want. They can say, “look, I did that.” Plus if people only could put up stuff they had to wait seven hours to upload, then maybe there’d be a lot less crap on the net.
And maybe if you added up all of the hours they put into it then seven hours uploading doesn’t seem so bad.
Dan is exhausted though, I think I’ll buy him a cup of coffee, oh and here is the link to the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akHfCEu_iDg.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Wow
OK, so it is already March 10... Almost exactly three months until I am home... Time is speeding up and on some levels I look forward to going home and on some levels it is scaring me how fast living happens.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Nuclear Victims Walk
Any given day is just a series of moments strung together...
Suddenly everyone started walking. There was no call over a speaker or countdown; everyone just got tired of sitting in the rain so we walked – hundreds of us.
It was still too early in the morning for the sun so we walked by the thin halos of naked light bulbs dangling here and there from houses. People spoke in low, feeling voices that took the place of eyes.
“Mr. Tim, Mr. Tim?” Anahko asked me.
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
Last Friday was Nuclear Victims Day here in the Marshall Islands. School was cancelled and on Saturday morning, at 5 am mind you, there was a walk from the end of the atoll to the urban center of Majuro.
As I walked my students came and went, talking to me for a few moments before running off. Above us all the stars came in and out of sight as the clouds washed and swirled around. Sometimes rain came.
Every now and then I looked down at my tee-shirt (I was wearing two of them) to try and figure out in this dim light just exactly what its color was.
The reason I was on this walk was that every one of my kids said they would be doing it. So, despite the ungodly hour I was walking. Besides, there was a free tee-shirt for the first 100 walkers.
Long before there was a walk, in February of 1946, Commodore Ben H. Wyatt the military Governor of the Marshall Islands, asked the people of Bikini Atoll for permission to do nuclear testing on their tiny speck of land. He said it was “for the good of mankind and to end all world wars.”
The testing eventually led to this walk.
During the walk dogs barked at the mass of people coursing up the road and I gripped my dog stick tight. My kids laughed at me — they think it’s funny that I’m afraid of dogs. I’d show them the scar from the dog bite I got when I first arrived to demonstrate how unfunny it is to me, but I think that its placement would not have the desired effect. I was bitten on the bum.
Just as the sun was getting around to telling me that my free tee-shirt was maroon in color we reached the end of the walk. Hundreds of people converged on a field from the both directions of the island, people milled around and waited for organizers to hand out the breakfasts of oranges, hard-boiled eggs and doughnuts.
Stuff like this rarely strikes a chord with me. We have a big, dark history as a human race and doing something like a walk very early in the morning, just doesn’t seem to do the actual tragedy justice. My walk was just a bunch of nice little moments capped off with a free tee-shirt. It seemed sort of silly.
Then again, claiming to end all world wars by bombing someone’s homeland into oblivion seems sort of silly too. The Bikinians, as I hope we all would, chose to abandon their home for a greater good. To them it wasn’t silly, they left behind a home that due to radiation of the food supply, they still haven’t returned to. Now, 62 years later, the Bikinians hold “local” Government meetings hundreds of miles from the atoll of the governed. Some spend their days trying to convince the US Government that their injuries due to the nuclear fallout warrant compensation.
Just a bunch of little moments added up...
And so last Friday we just suddenly started walking. It seemed like a good idea, it had started to rain, and maybe everyone on the walk wasn’t doing it for any great and noble reason of remembrance, and maybe it doesn’t add up to the real and terrible tragedy, but maybe you just got to try to piece together little things like waking up early, walking with like-minded people and thinking about it all just a little bit and hope that it adds up to something more.
Suddenly everyone started walking. There was no call over a speaker or countdown; everyone just got tired of sitting in the rain so we walked – hundreds of us.
It was still too early in the morning for the sun so we walked by the thin halos of naked light bulbs dangling here and there from houses. People spoke in low, feeling voices that took the place of eyes.
“Mr. Tim, Mr. Tim?” Anahko asked me.
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
Last Friday was Nuclear Victims Day here in the Marshall Islands. School was cancelled and on Saturday morning, at 5 am mind you, there was a walk from the end of the atoll to the urban center of Majuro.
As I walked my students came and went, talking to me for a few moments before running off. Above us all the stars came in and out of sight as the clouds washed and swirled around. Sometimes rain came.
Every now and then I looked down at my tee-shirt (I was wearing two of them) to try and figure out in this dim light just exactly what its color was.
The reason I was on this walk was that every one of my kids said they would be doing it. So, despite the ungodly hour I was walking. Besides, there was a free tee-shirt for the first 100 walkers.
Long before there was a walk, in February of 1946, Commodore Ben H. Wyatt the military Governor of the Marshall Islands, asked the people of Bikini Atoll for permission to do nuclear testing on their tiny speck of land. He said it was “for the good of mankind and to end all world wars.”
The testing eventually led to this walk.
During the walk dogs barked at the mass of people coursing up the road and I gripped my dog stick tight. My kids laughed at me — they think it’s funny that I’m afraid of dogs. I’d show them the scar from the dog bite I got when I first arrived to demonstrate how unfunny it is to me, but I think that its placement would not have the desired effect. I was bitten on the bum.
Just as the sun was getting around to telling me that my free tee-shirt was maroon in color we reached the end of the walk. Hundreds of people converged on a field from the both directions of the island, people milled around and waited for organizers to hand out the breakfasts of oranges, hard-boiled eggs and doughnuts.
Stuff like this rarely strikes a chord with me. We have a big, dark history as a human race and doing something like a walk very early in the morning, just doesn’t seem to do the actual tragedy justice. My walk was just a bunch of nice little moments capped off with a free tee-shirt. It seemed sort of silly.
Then again, claiming to end all world wars by bombing someone’s homeland into oblivion seems sort of silly too. The Bikinians, as I hope we all would, chose to abandon their home for a greater good. To them it wasn’t silly, they left behind a home that due to radiation of the food supply, they still haven’t returned to. Now, 62 years later, the Bikinians hold “local” Government meetings hundreds of miles from the atoll of the governed. Some spend their days trying to convince the US Government that their injuries due to the nuclear fallout warrant compensation.
Just a bunch of little moments added up...
And so last Friday we just suddenly started walking. It seemed like a good idea, it had started to rain, and maybe everyone on the walk wasn’t doing it for any great and noble reason of remembrance, and maybe it doesn’t add up to the real and terrible tragedy, but maybe you just got to try to piece together little things like waking up early, walking with like-minded people and thinking about it all just a little bit and hope that it adds up to something more.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Let Down
Man, I was planning to go to Arno to go surfing but then some mean sickness came a knocking....
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Getting To Know People
I’m beginning to realize something about people. When you first meet them in the grocery store, on the sidewalk or at a party, you are only seeing about one percent of them – if that.
OK, OK, maybe there are moments where lightning strikes and you find yourself being sucked through a wormhole and you are suddenly in love or something. Maybe then you can see something like five percent of who someone is right off the bat — but I doubt that because you need time.
As I get older and older I see my parents as people just like me – not just as infallible beings of love, justice food and warmth.
I recognize that they are people too, with different aspects to their personality that I have never seen before. It is the same for my cousins, my siblings, my friends, and every teacher I have ever had and now it is true for my students.
I started out knowing about zero percent of them and maybe now I am at seven percent— but that’s iffy.
It is easy to never get to know people. There is a huge temptation to write people off with in moments of meeting them. You do it when you cross the street to avoid that group of teenage boys with bandanas and backwards hats. It happens when you decide which seat on the bus you want to take. It definitely happened to me with every single student who walked through the door to 6C.
Well, it happened shortly after I could tell them apart with some consistency as they all wore the same exact school uniforms.
However, right after I knew them by name I placed labels on their foreheads (not literally of course, just in my head).
JD, you who lit a candle in the middle of class, you are forever to be known as “6th Grade Flunkie With No Real Future.” Theodore, you who learned the word ‘loser’ from a movie and called me one behind my back in the first few weeks of school will be “Smart-Ass.” Rebecca, you who secretly listens to dirty rap songs on your CD player while I am giving instruction and then ask me with five minutes left in class what we we’re supposed to be doing, you are christened “The Attitude Kid.”
Well, you may think you know where this is going, some big-life lesson on how I have learned to do a better job of not judging people when I only know a small percentage of who they are, but that is not where I am going at all.
Well, maybe I am going there a little bit, because I do think that it is important not to judge people too harshly for what they may or may not seem to be in the first few moments of meeting them, but more of what I want to talk about it how I have begun to get to know my kids more and more.
JD has some sweet dance moves on top of that candle-lighting affinity, Theodore has not missed one spelling word the whole year so he is defiantly not a loser and Rebecca loves to help me clean up the classroom after school as she pumps herself up with some thick beats.
So, now that I am safely at, let’s say a 10 percent level with my kids, I am excited to get to know what else I have yet to discover about them.
Lets just hope it’s not some hatred for people pale and tall.
OK, OK, maybe there are moments where lightning strikes and you find yourself being sucked through a wormhole and you are suddenly in love or something. Maybe then you can see something like five percent of who someone is right off the bat — but I doubt that because you need time.
As I get older and older I see my parents as people just like me – not just as infallible beings of love, justice food and warmth.
I recognize that they are people too, with different aspects to their personality that I have never seen before. It is the same for my cousins, my siblings, my friends, and every teacher I have ever had and now it is true for my students.
I started out knowing about zero percent of them and maybe now I am at seven percent— but that’s iffy.
It is easy to never get to know people. There is a huge temptation to write people off with in moments of meeting them. You do it when you cross the street to avoid that group of teenage boys with bandanas and backwards hats. It happens when you decide which seat on the bus you want to take. It definitely happened to me with every single student who walked through the door to 6C.
Well, it happened shortly after I could tell them apart with some consistency as they all wore the same exact school uniforms.
However, right after I knew them by name I placed labels on their foreheads (not literally of course, just in my head).
JD, you who lit a candle in the middle of class, you are forever to be known as “6th Grade Flunkie With No Real Future.” Theodore, you who learned the word ‘loser’ from a movie and called me one behind my back in the first few weeks of school will be “Smart-Ass.” Rebecca, you who secretly listens to dirty rap songs on your CD player while I am giving instruction and then ask me with five minutes left in class what we we’re supposed to be doing, you are christened “The Attitude Kid.”
Well, you may think you know where this is going, some big-life lesson on how I have learned to do a better job of not judging people when I only know a small percentage of who they are, but that is not where I am going at all.
Well, maybe I am going there a little bit, because I do think that it is important not to judge people too harshly for what they may or may not seem to be in the first few moments of meeting them, but more of what I want to talk about it how I have begun to get to know my kids more and more.
JD has some sweet dance moves on top of that candle-lighting affinity, Theodore has not missed one spelling word the whole year so he is defiantly not a loser and Rebecca loves to help me clean up the classroom after school as she pumps herself up with some thick beats.
So, now that I am safely at, let’s say a 10 percent level with my kids, I am excited to get to know what else I have yet to discover about them.
Lets just hope it’s not some hatred for people pale and tall.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Sweet Friday
Well, today was a very good Friday because the kids were all stoked on learning, we laughed a lot, i saw some dance moves from Bryant and then we all chowed down on Valentines candy thanks to the Wilkensons!
Today was the day WorldTeach should have come in and shot promotional photos for their website.
Today was the day WorldTeach should have come in and shot promotional photos for their website.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Kind of a Big Deal
Well, there was a big happening this weekend in Majuro. A huge cruise ship, the likes of which have not been seen in this part of the world for the last five years, came and docked for a three-hour stay.
Majuro intended to capitalize on the opportunity and organized a market of local goods for the people who disembarked to get their land-legs back after the four-day journey from Hawaii. There was an article in the paper and a buzz in the air.
I walked down to the shindig at around nine in the morning and as I stepped outside I was surprised to see a cranky, grey day spread out against the sky. Big, bawdy clouds called thunder back and forth and threatened each other with rain; which was strange because it had not rained up until that point for three weeks. Some of the volunteers were actually running out of water.
I thought to myself, naw, there is no way that it is going to rain on the one day that Majuro gets a ship full of rich tourists.
It poured.
At the market everyone was out in full colors. Fresh fruit and baked goods were on display, tables laden with shells were propped up and rows of authentic Marshall Island tee-shirts were hung in rainbow spectrums of color that were clear contradictions to the black day.
When I stepped into the middle of the market, I could hardly believe my eyes. There were more white people crowded into this little place than I had seen cumulatively in the last six months that I have been here. They walked around in pairs and spoke a language I could understand! They were fascinated with the American presidential elections! They needed to wear sunscreen in the Micronesian sun (although not on this day).
My friend Ben and I giddily walked around with our eyes wide and our smiles stretched across our faces like hammocks. I was dying to talk to someone. I felt like I was at a middle school dance.
I talked to some people and some people talked to me. They spoke of a fear of leaving the market because they might get robbed. They talked about how they were eventually headed to Hong Kong. They said it was a shame about the weather.
I found myself bored. Whatever, who needs them?
Who were these people coming onto my island with gold jewelry and completely impractical clothing and talking like they had already written this place off? I wanted to tell them all about the people, how they were so nice and caring it made you feel guilty, I wanted to tell them about the sunsets, how this must be the place where God exhibits his best work, and I wanted to tell them about the dizzying underwater geography of the coral reefs.
Hold on a second. My island? Who did I think I was?
I guess that between touchdown in July and now this has become a little more than a place I work and a place I play. This has become a place I live, a place I have a home.
So even if the cruise ship was a big happening, if they were too snobby to give my home a chance, then good riddance.
I am glad it rained.
Maybe I am being too harsh. I too ere on the safe side when traveling. I know in Europe I had to dig my money out of a small purse-like thing I kept strapped to my bare chest. The Italians still laughed at me though.
I believe this is called localism.
Majuro intended to capitalize on the opportunity and organized a market of local goods for the people who disembarked to get their land-legs back after the four-day journey from Hawaii. There was an article in the paper and a buzz in the air.
I walked down to the shindig at around nine in the morning and as I stepped outside I was surprised to see a cranky, grey day spread out against the sky. Big, bawdy clouds called thunder back and forth and threatened each other with rain; which was strange because it had not rained up until that point for three weeks. Some of the volunteers were actually running out of water.
I thought to myself, naw, there is no way that it is going to rain on the one day that Majuro gets a ship full of rich tourists.
It poured.
At the market everyone was out in full colors. Fresh fruit and baked goods were on display, tables laden with shells were propped up and rows of authentic Marshall Island tee-shirts were hung in rainbow spectrums of color that were clear contradictions to the black day.
When I stepped into the middle of the market, I could hardly believe my eyes. There were more white people crowded into this little place than I had seen cumulatively in the last six months that I have been here. They walked around in pairs and spoke a language I could understand! They were fascinated with the American presidential elections! They needed to wear sunscreen in the Micronesian sun (although not on this day).
My friend Ben and I giddily walked around with our eyes wide and our smiles stretched across our faces like hammocks. I was dying to talk to someone. I felt like I was at a middle school dance.
I talked to some people and some people talked to me. They spoke of a fear of leaving the market because they might get robbed. They talked about how they were eventually headed to Hong Kong. They said it was a shame about the weather.
I found myself bored. Whatever, who needs them?
Who were these people coming onto my island with gold jewelry and completely impractical clothing and talking like they had already written this place off? I wanted to tell them all about the people, how they were so nice and caring it made you feel guilty, I wanted to tell them about the sunsets, how this must be the place where God exhibits his best work, and I wanted to tell them about the dizzying underwater geography of the coral reefs.
Hold on a second. My island? Who did I think I was?
I guess that between touchdown in July and now this has become a little more than a place I work and a place I play. This has become a place I live, a place I have a home.
So even if the cruise ship was a big happening, if they were too snobby to give my home a chance, then good riddance.
I am glad it rained.
Maybe I am being too harsh. I too ere on the safe side when traveling. I know in Europe I had to dig my money out of a small purse-like thing I kept strapped to my bare chest. The Italians still laughed at me though.
I believe this is called localism.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Salmon For All
A Columbia River salmon swam out into the Pacific near Astoria and on his way to the normal Alaskan hunting grounds of his ancestors he took a wrong turn, or got caught in a freak current, and was swept away from the cold waters he had known. Suddenly he found himself around the bright corals and clear waters of Micronesia. He blissfully darted around paradise before a hook yanked him back to reality – well, death really.
OK, so I know that didn’t happen, but how else can I explain the cold hard fact that I ate delicious, fire-toasted, pink and flaky, oh-so-succulent salmon on a Saturday evening on a coral atoll thousands of miles away from the Northwest?
It came from Oregon, and it was fresh, not frozen.
A week before my fortunate stumble into taste-bud heaven, my friend Dan and I had been talking about what our first meal would be when we stepped off the plane into the US again. Hamburgers? Indian food? Italian? Nope, strike all of those; we both said that our meal would have something to do with the Oregon specialty of top-notch salmon.
“I am going to go home, get a sweet cut of Chinook, and grill is up with some onions and a little salt and eat until I fall asleep,” Dan said. And I agreed, nothing sounded better than that.
Alas, our dream was at the very least four months off. That meant four months of ramen, expired Cheerios and 99-cent-a-pound potatoes. Enough to make you want to cut your taste buds out in other words.
Then, God, luck, random chance or whatever other greater power you hitch your life to, decided to step in.
Some friends and I spent the day down at the bridge surfing. I was on shore taking photos when some men came out to watch. We got to talking and they told me that after we were done, we should cross the street and join in a little barbeque they were having. When Dan and company exited the water, exhausted with arms like noodles from paddling so much, free food was the perfect cure.
At the house we were having a few beers when a man drove up with a huge big-eyed tuna in the back of his truck. The thing was every bit as long as 5’11” Dan and so heavy that he could only halfway pick it up.
“This is a Marshallese specialty,” the man said. “If you bought this in New York, you’d be paying big bucks.”
We ate the amazing sashimi that the man skillfully cut from beside the spine of the monstrous fish and thought our luck could not get much better; that is until the man took out his cooler carefully packed with cuts of salmon practically glowing in their sunset-pink hue.
Our jaws dropped.
“Brought this back with me from Portland last week,” the man said. “In a cooler. I would have had more, too, but they took about half from me in Hawaii.”
The rest of the night was spent in a food-induced delirium as we picked our way between two rare kinds of fish.
I had no idea you could check a cooler of fresh fish on a Continental flight. I guess I know now what one of my pieces of luggage will be on the way back.
A big-eyed tuna took a wrong turn East of the Marshall Islands, got caught in a fluke current and found himself swept away from the warm waters he’d known and into the silt-laden, muddy waters where the Columbia river meets the Pacific Ocean. He joyously used his superior speed to feed on the smelt before a hook yanked him back to reality – or death.
OK, so I know that didn’t happen, but how else can I explain the cold hard fact that I ate delicious, fire-toasted, pink and flaky, oh-so-succulent salmon on a Saturday evening on a coral atoll thousands of miles away from the Northwest?
It came from Oregon, and it was fresh, not frozen.
A week before my fortunate stumble into taste-bud heaven, my friend Dan and I had been talking about what our first meal would be when we stepped off the plane into the US again. Hamburgers? Indian food? Italian? Nope, strike all of those; we both said that our meal would have something to do with the Oregon specialty of top-notch salmon.
“I am going to go home, get a sweet cut of Chinook, and grill is up with some onions and a little salt and eat until I fall asleep,” Dan said. And I agreed, nothing sounded better than that.
Alas, our dream was at the very least four months off. That meant four months of ramen, expired Cheerios and 99-cent-a-pound potatoes. Enough to make you want to cut your taste buds out in other words.
Then, God, luck, random chance or whatever other greater power you hitch your life to, decided to step in.
Some friends and I spent the day down at the bridge surfing. I was on shore taking photos when some men came out to watch. We got to talking and they told me that after we were done, we should cross the street and join in a little barbeque they were having. When Dan and company exited the water, exhausted with arms like noodles from paddling so much, free food was the perfect cure.
At the house we were having a few beers when a man drove up with a huge big-eyed tuna in the back of his truck. The thing was every bit as long as 5’11” Dan and so heavy that he could only halfway pick it up.
“This is a Marshallese specialty,” the man said. “If you bought this in New York, you’d be paying big bucks.”
We ate the amazing sashimi that the man skillfully cut from beside the spine of the monstrous fish and thought our luck could not get much better; that is until the man took out his cooler carefully packed with cuts of salmon practically glowing in their sunset-pink hue.
Our jaws dropped.
“Brought this back with me from Portland last week,” the man said. “In a cooler. I would have had more, too, but they took about half from me in Hawaii.”
The rest of the night was spent in a food-induced delirium as we picked our way between two rare kinds of fish.
I had no idea you could check a cooler of fresh fish on a Continental flight. I guess I know now what one of my pieces of luggage will be on the way back.
A big-eyed tuna took a wrong turn East of the Marshall Islands, got caught in a fluke current and found himself swept away from the warm waters he’d known and into the silt-laden, muddy waters where the Columbia river meets the Pacific Ocean. He joyously used his superior speed to feed on the smelt before a hook yanked him back to reality – or death.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
I Am Waterman
Well yesterday I took up windsurfing. Add this to surfing, sailing, snorkeling and spear-fishing and I am really not sure what I will do with myself when I get back to the P-Town...
Sunday, February 3, 2008
To My Teachers (And for Aunt Laurie)
Dear every teacher I have ever had: I am sorry. I am sorry for any problem I ever caused. I am sorry for eating Doritos in Spanish class junior year of high school, for pushing down Sam Hudson in fifth grade and for sticking my gum to the bottom of my desk in seventh grade science. I shouldn’t have written my name on the wall, I took far too many bathroom passes and throwing wads of paper instead of listening to the lecture is not OK.
From the bottom of my heart, from the greatest depths of my soul and with every tiny cell in my body I apologize.
Teaching is hard – really hard.
I wish I had a better way of saying this. Teaching is like solving a math problem but every time you take your eyes away for a second all of the numbers change. Teaching is like getting to a party too early or telling someone about your favorite book at a basketball game. People nod, pretend that what you say makes sense and then want to get back to their lives already. They’ve got parties to prepare for and games to watch.
Some days are great, don’t get me wrong. Some days I am the funny teacher, and I get through to the kids and we all laugh and go home feeling fuzzy. A lot of times though, that just isn’t how it is. Kids cut class, trick you into saying cuss words in Marshallese and cheat on tests.
It can be very frustrating. For section D, getting to my class on time is a struggle. I am clueless as to why because I am literally right next door to the class they have the period before. They need only to stand up and walk next door. For many of them, mainly the boys, this proves too difficult because of the alluring pull of the stairwell.
Don’t ask me why the stairwell is appealing. It smells of urine, it is dark and I get the distinct feeling it is haunted.
On Thursday I got fed-up and I told my kids that if they came to my class late the next day, then I was not going to let them in. They didn’t believe me and the next day there was a group of six boys who knocked on my door 20 minutes after the bell had rung because they had been hanging in the stairwell.
“No,” I told them in my best impression of a no-BS voice.
“Mr. Tim, what about the spelling test?” they asked me.
“Sorry, I told you yesterday you need to be on time.”
For the next ten minutes the kids I would not let in for class exhibited all of the signs of a 60’s peace rally. They sang unifying songs against me, they rattled my windows and even went so far as to yell out how words were spelled during the test.
“Well, it looks likes the guys outside are giving you all free answers,” I told the class. “That is going to make their zeros seem even worse.”
The yelling of answers ceased.
When class ended the group of renegade students were waiting for me as I walked to lunch. Their leader, a boy named Kersey, told me he didn’t like me and then unleashed a fury of grammatically incorrect English cuss words.
I was shocked and taken aback. I wanted to shout back and show him how real English speakers cuss. Instead, I did the first thing that popped into my mind and I blew him kisses.
Kersey went home for lunch without cussing again.
I felt happy that I had won the battle, but exhausted and worn-out. I didn’t want it to be like this. I wanted to peruse stories at leisure with willing and eager students as we discovered the joys of English.
Now I know that it is not going to be like that. I am sorry, teachers, I know I could have behaved better for you all.
From the bottom of my heart, from the greatest depths of my soul and with every tiny cell in my body I apologize.
Teaching is hard – really hard.
I wish I had a better way of saying this. Teaching is like solving a math problem but every time you take your eyes away for a second all of the numbers change. Teaching is like getting to a party too early or telling someone about your favorite book at a basketball game. People nod, pretend that what you say makes sense and then want to get back to their lives already. They’ve got parties to prepare for and games to watch.
Some days are great, don’t get me wrong. Some days I am the funny teacher, and I get through to the kids and we all laugh and go home feeling fuzzy. A lot of times though, that just isn’t how it is. Kids cut class, trick you into saying cuss words in Marshallese and cheat on tests.
It can be very frustrating. For section D, getting to my class on time is a struggle. I am clueless as to why because I am literally right next door to the class they have the period before. They need only to stand up and walk next door. For many of them, mainly the boys, this proves too difficult because of the alluring pull of the stairwell.
Don’t ask me why the stairwell is appealing. It smells of urine, it is dark and I get the distinct feeling it is haunted.
On Thursday I got fed-up and I told my kids that if they came to my class late the next day, then I was not going to let them in. They didn’t believe me and the next day there was a group of six boys who knocked on my door 20 minutes after the bell had rung because they had been hanging in the stairwell.
“No,” I told them in my best impression of a no-BS voice.
“Mr. Tim, what about the spelling test?” they asked me.
“Sorry, I told you yesterday you need to be on time.”
For the next ten minutes the kids I would not let in for class exhibited all of the signs of a 60’s peace rally. They sang unifying songs against me, they rattled my windows and even went so far as to yell out how words were spelled during the test.
“Well, it looks likes the guys outside are giving you all free answers,” I told the class. “That is going to make their zeros seem even worse.”
The yelling of answers ceased.
When class ended the group of renegade students were waiting for me as I walked to lunch. Their leader, a boy named Kersey, told me he didn’t like me and then unleashed a fury of grammatically incorrect English cuss words.
I was shocked and taken aback. I wanted to shout back and show him how real English speakers cuss. Instead, I did the first thing that popped into my mind and I blew him kisses.
Kersey went home for lunch without cussing again.
I felt happy that I had won the battle, but exhausted and worn-out. I didn’t want it to be like this. I wanted to peruse stories at leisure with willing and eager students as we discovered the joys of English.
Now I know that it is not going to be like that. I am sorry, teachers, I know I could have behaved better for you all.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Game of the Year
I coach the Rita Elementary School sixth grade basketball team. We play other local elementary schools and I just want to say we are awesome. We call ourselves the sharks and we have about three pairs of shoes between the 10 of us – and that’s counting me.
We don’t run the fastest, we don’t shoot the straightest and heaven knows we don’t have the tightest ship on floor, but last weekend, for a game we were the best team in the world.
We went into the game 1-3 with our only victory coming from a team that was depleted because of some nasty plight with the flu. Before that one win we had been humiliated by two other teams and forfeited a third game because we couldn’t get enough players to the game in time. Our team psyche was a little down and as we watched Uliga Elementary School go through their warm-ups with the laser precision of the Phoenix Suns a ripple of fear slinked its way down our collective spines. Look at their three-pointers – they are strong enough to shoot them. Look at their lay-ins – they actually make them. Look at their passing – people catch the ball.
Some of the kids who were not actually playing in the game but who had come to be our cheerleaders came up to me with their heads hanging low.
“We are going to lose, Mr. Tim,” Lani said. “They are very good.”
“We will not lose, Lani,” I said and suppressed a gulp of fear.
In the world of Marshall Islands Elementary coaching, this game was a career-making game. This was the kind of game that people would praise or ridicule the coach for years to come. It was Uliga up against Rita. A grudge match of two neighborhoods barely a five-minute walk away from each other. Everyone knows that you play hard against other teams but you play with your teeth bared and claws out when it is against your neighbor, your rival.
I led my kids through our scrambled warm-up. We tried to emulate Uliga’s precision but the Sharks, well the Sharks are more concerned with watching Laijab trying a behind-the-back-into-the-net lay-in (zero chance of success) or watching Johnson try and talk to one of the girls from Uliga (a pretty much sure thing).
Anyway, the point is that I was trying to get them to make lay-ins and they were only concerned with cracking each other up.
At least they were not nervous.
In the few minutes after tip-off I saw our team make a basket for Uliga after confusing which way they were to go after tip-off, run into a ref and go down by 15 points. Things were not going well…
So I called a time-out. I had seen coaches on TV do this from time to time and I figured that at this point that would be the best thing to do. We huddled in close and I kept my message short and to the point. Stop shooting three-pointers, you will never make them, stop trying to do behind the back passes, Steve Nash you are not and please, please, please do not sit down on the court to rest when the other team is shooting free throws!
I don’t know what happened but soon enough after that the RES Sharks had taken a two-point lead after getting to the line and making good passes. I found myself jumping up and down on the sidelines and barking at refs. On the final possession with seconds ticking down to zero, Laijab grabbed the most amazing rebound I have ever seen this side of the Pacific and the buzzer sounded.
The kids ran in, I was hugged and high-fived and I found myself huffing and puffing as much as my kids.
I don’t want to brag or anything, but we pretty much rock out here in the Marshall Islands.
Go Sharks!
We don’t run the fastest, we don’t shoot the straightest and heaven knows we don’t have the tightest ship on floor, but last weekend, for a game we were the best team in the world.
We went into the game 1-3 with our only victory coming from a team that was depleted because of some nasty plight with the flu. Before that one win we had been humiliated by two other teams and forfeited a third game because we couldn’t get enough players to the game in time. Our team psyche was a little down and as we watched Uliga Elementary School go through their warm-ups with the laser precision of the Phoenix Suns a ripple of fear slinked its way down our collective spines. Look at their three-pointers – they are strong enough to shoot them. Look at their lay-ins – they actually make them. Look at their passing – people catch the ball.
Some of the kids who were not actually playing in the game but who had come to be our cheerleaders came up to me with their heads hanging low.
“We are going to lose, Mr. Tim,” Lani said. “They are very good.”
“We will not lose, Lani,” I said and suppressed a gulp of fear.
In the world of Marshall Islands Elementary coaching, this game was a career-making game. This was the kind of game that people would praise or ridicule the coach for years to come. It was Uliga up against Rita. A grudge match of two neighborhoods barely a five-minute walk away from each other. Everyone knows that you play hard against other teams but you play with your teeth bared and claws out when it is against your neighbor, your rival.
I led my kids through our scrambled warm-up. We tried to emulate Uliga’s precision but the Sharks, well the Sharks are more concerned with watching Laijab trying a behind-the-back-into-the-net lay-in (zero chance of success) or watching Johnson try and talk to one of the girls from Uliga (a pretty much sure thing).
Anyway, the point is that I was trying to get them to make lay-ins and they were only concerned with cracking each other up.
At least they were not nervous.
In the few minutes after tip-off I saw our team make a basket for Uliga after confusing which way they were to go after tip-off, run into a ref and go down by 15 points. Things were not going well…
So I called a time-out. I had seen coaches on TV do this from time to time and I figured that at this point that would be the best thing to do. We huddled in close and I kept my message short and to the point. Stop shooting three-pointers, you will never make them, stop trying to do behind the back passes, Steve Nash you are not and please, please, please do not sit down on the court to rest when the other team is shooting free throws!
I don’t know what happened but soon enough after that the RES Sharks had taken a two-point lead after getting to the line and making good passes. I found myself jumping up and down on the sidelines and barking at refs. On the final possession with seconds ticking down to zero, Laijab grabbed the most amazing rebound I have ever seen this side of the Pacific and the buzzer sounded.
The kids ran in, I was hugged and high-fived and I found myself huffing and puffing as much as my kids.
I don’t want to brag or anything, but we pretty much rock out here in the Marshall Islands.
Go Sharks!
Monday, January 21, 2008
Halfway Home
My time volunteering here in the Marshall Islands has come to a very critical point. I am no longer counting the months I have been here and am rather counting the months until I go home. In the beginning conversations would go something like this.
“Wow, can you believe we have been here for a month already?”
“Yeah, that is crazy.”
Now those interactions are a bit different.
“Wow, can you believe we only have five months left here?”
“Yeah that is crazy.”
I am past the half-way point folks, and I am not sure how I feel about it. Like a college student in his senior year I am thinking about the next step while I am mid-stride.
That’s the perfect situation for a fall.
Growing up is a strange thing. Like a plastic bag in a wind storm, it is hard to pin down. Last year, as I was just leaving the kiddie pool of college to be dunked in the ocean of the “real world,” my good friend Gina asked me what the meaning of life was.
I told her some answer I heard once in a movie so I could seem wise. Inside I was secretly screaming with every tiny fiber in my body the same question.
Suddenly my life wasn’t defined by 9 am classes, big dining halls and text messages telling me where the best party was. People had jobs to go to, I had insurance bills to pay for and no, my new boss at the Pioneer was not interested in giving me an extension on my assignment because of the mean bout with the flu I had just gotten over.
All of the things I used to have in college suddenly served to remind me that life was forever going to be different. I found myself wishing that I had savored it more instead of being in such a rush to get out of there.
I don’t want that to happen here.
I don’t want to wake up in six months and think that while being home is nice, wasn’t that sweet when I went surfing in my front yard in just a pair of shorts? When the overpowering Oregon fall rains sweep in and I am facing yet another gray day, I don’t want to regret not hiking to the next island over at low-tide and watching the sun play hide and seek in cartoon clouds from my hammock.
I have five months left. That’s five months to go to as many different islands as possible. That’s five months to learn as much Marshallese as I can. That’s five months to joke with my students, to spearfish, to snorkel, to wear flip-flops, to sail and to live in a tropical coral atoll thousands of miles from anywhere.
Maybe if Gina asked me today what the meaning of life is I would have a better answer. I could tell her that while I am not sure, I have an inkling that it has something to do with opening your eyes every morning and deciding to discover the day.
And while that might sound like a tag line from a Hallmark card, it works for me. The next step back into the “real world,” the United States, might be even more shocking to me this time around, but I know one thing — during my next blustery winter Oregon day I will not be thinking, “I wish...
“Wow, can you believe we have been here for a month already?”
“Yeah, that is crazy.”
Now those interactions are a bit different.
“Wow, can you believe we only have five months left here?”
“Yeah that is crazy.”
I am past the half-way point folks, and I am not sure how I feel about it. Like a college student in his senior year I am thinking about the next step while I am mid-stride.
That’s the perfect situation for a fall.
Growing up is a strange thing. Like a plastic bag in a wind storm, it is hard to pin down. Last year, as I was just leaving the kiddie pool of college to be dunked in the ocean of the “real world,” my good friend Gina asked me what the meaning of life was.
I told her some answer I heard once in a movie so I could seem wise. Inside I was secretly screaming with every tiny fiber in my body the same question.
Suddenly my life wasn’t defined by 9 am classes, big dining halls and text messages telling me where the best party was. People had jobs to go to, I had insurance bills to pay for and no, my new boss at the Pioneer was not interested in giving me an extension on my assignment because of the mean bout with the flu I had just gotten over.
All of the things I used to have in college suddenly served to remind me that life was forever going to be different. I found myself wishing that I had savored it more instead of being in such a rush to get out of there.
I don’t want that to happen here.
I don’t want to wake up in six months and think that while being home is nice, wasn’t that sweet when I went surfing in my front yard in just a pair of shorts? When the overpowering Oregon fall rains sweep in and I am facing yet another gray day, I don’t want to regret not hiking to the next island over at low-tide and watching the sun play hide and seek in cartoon clouds from my hammock.
I have five months left. That’s five months to go to as many different islands as possible. That’s five months to learn as much Marshallese as I can. That’s five months to joke with my students, to spearfish, to snorkel, to wear flip-flops, to sail and to live in a tropical coral atoll thousands of miles from anywhere.
Maybe if Gina asked me today what the meaning of life is I would have a better answer. I could tell her that while I am not sure, I have an inkling that it has something to do with opening your eyes every morning and deciding to discover the day.
And while that might sound like a tag line from a Hallmark card, it works for me. The next step back into the “real world,” the United States, might be even more shocking to me this time around, but I know one thing — during my next blustery winter Oregon day I will not be thinking, “I wish...
Friday, January 11, 2008
Scandal of the Decade
I think that most scandals are touched off with some tiny slip-up. Some action or phrase that could have been easily contained, but for whatever reason was not and the avalanche was triggered. In Watergate for example, a whole mess of trouble could have been avoided by simply being more careful with flashlights.
In section 6B it was a smile.
Johnson Nelson (names have been changed to protect the innocent — namely me from ticked off parents) is the coolest kid in sixth grade. He is the trend-setter and the best basketball player in the school. He started wearing one of his sleeves rolled up and within days everyone was doing it. He oiled his hair one morning and then the next day the tiny store across the street sold more coconut oil than candy for the first time in its history.
On top of all of this, Johnson is one of the smartest kids in sixth grade too. This can be a dangerous combination because not only does he know that he can get away with anything socially, he can also barely work in class and still outscore everyone.
Usually, to his credit, Johnson is a very good kid. One of my favorites. He likes to laugh and joke with me and most of the time, he will humor me and my remedial assignments. I was always glad to have the popular kid in school on my side.
Kids listen to me because if they don’t I will send them outside or quietly wait them out. Kids listen to Johnson because, well, he is Johnson.
Saying no to Johnson as a sixth grader at Rita Elementary School is akin to telling Michael Jordan that while you are flattered by his offer of court-side seats to the NBA finals you would rather not go.
However, since returning from winter break, there was something different about Johnson. He was not entirely sold on me being the “cool teacher” anymore and like an actor who peaked at how the script ends, he suddenly seemed to know that whether I gave him a 100 percent on the next essay or a zero, the impact on him later in life would be minimal. He came from a well-connected family, already was far ahead of his classmates and 20 years from now he would have a comfortable life regardless of me.
Well, I would have noticed nothing out of the ordinary if it was not for Johnson’s sparkling smile. I was collecting their essays on winter break. When I collected Johnson’s essay he flashed me his effortless smile — it made me look twice over his paper.
It wasn’t his paper at all. His friend Theo had written the whole thing for him (like I said, when Johnson asks you to do something, if you are a sixth-grader, you just do it). I compared the false paper with the one that Theo was turning in just to be sure— the same handwriting, Johnson had cheated.
This discovery made me examine all of the other papers with the scrutiny of a post 9-11 airport. There were other forgeries. I found two other of Johnson’s friends with papers written by someone else.
And it was all tipped off by a little smile.
I wish I could say it is all better now. I wish I could tell you that all of the kids involved had learned a lesson, but you’ll have to wait on that because I am not entirely sure.
I had a big talk with Johnson, all about how he was the coolest, smartest kid in class and he needed to be a good example. He cried and I felt horrible.
If only I had never seen that smile.
In section 6B it was a smile.
Johnson Nelson (names have been changed to protect the innocent — namely me from ticked off parents) is the coolest kid in sixth grade. He is the trend-setter and the best basketball player in the school. He started wearing one of his sleeves rolled up and within days everyone was doing it. He oiled his hair one morning and then the next day the tiny store across the street sold more coconut oil than candy for the first time in its history.
On top of all of this, Johnson is one of the smartest kids in sixth grade too. This can be a dangerous combination because not only does he know that he can get away with anything socially, he can also barely work in class and still outscore everyone.
Usually, to his credit, Johnson is a very good kid. One of my favorites. He likes to laugh and joke with me and most of the time, he will humor me and my remedial assignments. I was always glad to have the popular kid in school on my side.
Kids listen to me because if they don’t I will send them outside or quietly wait them out. Kids listen to Johnson because, well, he is Johnson.
Saying no to Johnson as a sixth grader at Rita Elementary School is akin to telling Michael Jordan that while you are flattered by his offer of court-side seats to the NBA finals you would rather not go.
However, since returning from winter break, there was something different about Johnson. He was not entirely sold on me being the “cool teacher” anymore and like an actor who peaked at how the script ends, he suddenly seemed to know that whether I gave him a 100 percent on the next essay or a zero, the impact on him later in life would be minimal. He came from a well-connected family, already was far ahead of his classmates and 20 years from now he would have a comfortable life regardless of me.
Well, I would have noticed nothing out of the ordinary if it was not for Johnson’s sparkling smile. I was collecting their essays on winter break. When I collected Johnson’s essay he flashed me his effortless smile — it made me look twice over his paper.
It wasn’t his paper at all. His friend Theo had written the whole thing for him (like I said, when Johnson asks you to do something, if you are a sixth-grader, you just do it). I compared the false paper with the one that Theo was turning in just to be sure— the same handwriting, Johnson had cheated.
This discovery made me examine all of the other papers with the scrutiny of a post 9-11 airport. There were other forgeries. I found two other of Johnson’s friends with papers written by someone else.
And it was all tipped off by a little smile.
I wish I could say it is all better now. I wish I could tell you that all of the kids involved had learned a lesson, but you’ll have to wait on that because I am not entirely sure.
I had a big talk with Johnson, all about how he was the coolest, smartest kid in class and he needed to be a good example. He cried and I felt horrible.
If only I had never seen that smile.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Complaining
Stay with me for a second while I whine.
Seriously, I just need to complain for a little bit... It will probably be therapeutic for me and maybe it will be entertaining for you.
So this last Monday was a sad day for me. It marked the end of my Winter Break and brought my nose down close to the grindstone again. Don’t get me wrong — I enjoy what I do. It’s just that I was not quite ready to leave the hammock lifestyle of making the ever tough decision of either napping or reading all day.
Yeah, yeah, I am sure that I am getting no sympathy from all you Oregon folk shivering through another frigid, grey day but still, stay with me for a second.
I went from spending every day laughing with my family and girlfriend to saying a tearful goodbye in the Majuro airport with like 30 Marshallese people watching. By the way, that is no exaggeration, there were so many people watching me that I felt like I should have charged admission.
Sniff, sniff, “I am going to miss you so much, Tiff...”
Sniff, sniff, “I am going to miss you so much too, Tim..”
And out of the corner of my eye I can’t help but notice people watching with mouths gapped open and eyes wide... All that was missing was previews and popcorn.
So that is another reason why going back was so tough on Monday. I went from having this huge fun time with a bunch of people I loved visiting all of these beautiful places that made me feel like I was walking across the cardboard face of a postcard to telling Christy to stop spitting spit-wads at the wall. It felt like the day after a really good party.
Talk about a hangover...
And here is the thing, my kids were all right there with me. Joanna didn’t have her usual spark-laden attitude, Josephine only told me “whatever” once and Laijab didn’t make one inappropriate comment about wanting to make Tiffany his wife.
Everyone was flat.
So I struggled through Monday, came home and calculated how many days until I got on that fabulous air-conditioned flight and got back to my loved ones.
One hundred and fifty six days. Dang.
On Tuesday I decided to try something a little bit different. I decided to just be completely honest with my class.
“Hey class,” I said. “The reason that I have been grumpy is because my whole family and my girlfriend all just left and I am feeling pretty dang sad about it all and I am just a little bit frustrated... How about all of you?”
They stared at me for a while. They raised their eyebrows. I felt like they were making the same face my Dad did when I offered to take his car off his hands for the night when I was 16. Like, “did you really just say that?”
“What does grumpy mean?” Christy finally asked.
“It means when you are kind of fed up and just want to growl,” I told them and made a lion-like rumbling in my throat. The kids laughed and suddenly there was life. At least I had that going for me.
“We miss Ms. Tiffany,” Christy finally said.
“Me too,” I told them.
“What are we going to do now?”
“Lets learn about poetry.”
“That is so boring Mr. Tim.”
“Just stay with me for a second, class,” I said.
There was that attitude I loved...
Seriously, I just need to complain for a little bit... It will probably be therapeutic for me and maybe it will be entertaining for you.
So this last Monday was a sad day for me. It marked the end of my Winter Break and brought my nose down close to the grindstone again. Don’t get me wrong — I enjoy what I do. It’s just that I was not quite ready to leave the hammock lifestyle of making the ever tough decision of either napping or reading all day.
Yeah, yeah, I am sure that I am getting no sympathy from all you Oregon folk shivering through another frigid, grey day but still, stay with me for a second.
I went from spending every day laughing with my family and girlfriend to saying a tearful goodbye in the Majuro airport with like 30 Marshallese people watching. By the way, that is no exaggeration, there were so many people watching me that I felt like I should have charged admission.
Sniff, sniff, “I am going to miss you so much, Tiff...”
Sniff, sniff, “I am going to miss you so much too, Tim..”
And out of the corner of my eye I can’t help but notice people watching with mouths gapped open and eyes wide... All that was missing was previews and popcorn.
So that is another reason why going back was so tough on Monday. I went from having this huge fun time with a bunch of people I loved visiting all of these beautiful places that made me feel like I was walking across the cardboard face of a postcard to telling Christy to stop spitting spit-wads at the wall. It felt like the day after a really good party.
Talk about a hangover...
And here is the thing, my kids were all right there with me. Joanna didn’t have her usual spark-laden attitude, Josephine only told me “whatever” once and Laijab didn’t make one inappropriate comment about wanting to make Tiffany his wife.
Everyone was flat.
So I struggled through Monday, came home and calculated how many days until I got on that fabulous air-conditioned flight and got back to my loved ones.
One hundred and fifty six days. Dang.
On Tuesday I decided to try something a little bit different. I decided to just be completely honest with my class.
“Hey class,” I said. “The reason that I have been grumpy is because my whole family and my girlfriend all just left and I am feeling pretty dang sad about it all and I am just a little bit frustrated... How about all of you?”
They stared at me for a while. They raised their eyebrows. I felt like they were making the same face my Dad did when I offered to take his car off his hands for the night when I was 16. Like, “did you really just say that?”
“What does grumpy mean?” Christy finally asked.
“It means when you are kind of fed up and just want to growl,” I told them and made a lion-like rumbling in my throat. The kids laughed and suddenly there was life. At least I had that going for me.
“We miss Ms. Tiffany,” Christy finally said.
“Me too,” I told them.
“What are we going to do now?”
“Lets learn about poetry.”
“That is so boring Mr. Tim.”
“Just stay with me for a second, class,” I said.
There was that attitude I loved...
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Goodbyes
Well after having my girlfriend and family around for the last few weeks, it is coming to an end today. In a few hours I will go to the airport and wish them a safe flight as they go back to Oregon, Starbucks, cold weather, Burgerville, fresh fruit, new music, reliable transportation, TV, snow, skiing, stress and leave behind the Marshall Islands, hot humid weather, snorkeling, coral reef fish, taxi's that cough and sputter, rice and chicken for every meal, agonizing boat rides, dancing children, flowers, shells, inefficiency, poverty to the extreme and fierce dogs.
It is a blessing and a curse the modern era we live in. Family and friends can travel thousands upon thousands of miles and be on your doorstep, where ever that may be, tomorrow but by the same miraculous concept they can be taken away in the same amount of time.
Much love to all and hug the person next to you --- unless he looks dangerous in which case RUN.
It is a blessing and a curse the modern era we live in. Family and friends can travel thousands upon thousands of miles and be on your doorstep, where ever that may be, tomorrow but by the same miraculous concept they can be taken away in the same amount of time.
Much love to all and hug the person next to you --- unless he looks dangerous in which case RUN.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
This is My Fresh Start
This is my admission to you — sometimes I am not the best person I can be. There are times when I can be a better, but I simply choose not to be. When I look back on those times where I messed up, I burn with regret.
For example, sometimes I lose my patience with the kids here in the Marshall Islands when all they really need is just that much more love.
“Mr. Tim, do you like Akon?” Laijab asks me.
“Get back to your seat, Laijab, we are having a test,” I say.
“You like his new album?”
“GET BACK TO YOUR SEAT!”
I could have, and should have, handled that differently. I could have told him that I was going to give him a great big bear hug if he didn’t go back to his seat. I could have tried to dance with him, I could have sang to him, I could have done a hand stand or I simply could have asked him again to sit down — anything would have been better than getting angry with him.
Also, sometimes I am not the nicest guy to my family when they have flown thousands of miles to a tiny speck of coral floating in the Pacific even though they have been my biggest supporters in this life of mine and I owe almost all to them.
“Tim, we want to leave at nine tomorrow,” my aunt Glenda says.
“Nine is so early,” I whine.
“Well, it is not that early,” she tells me. “When we went to Laura Beach we left at eight.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I snap. “I was driving!”
If I could rewind that tape it would be different. Maybe a “thanks for the suggestion,” or a “well, to be honest that seems too early for me, do you think we could go a little later?” would have been more appropriate. No one deserves to be treated rudely when they are simply trying to help with planning.
There are many other things I did in 2007 that I am not proud of. I didn’t write some of my best friends half as much as I should of, I sometimes littered when I didn’t see a trash can, sometimes I pretended in conversation that I had read a book when in reality I had not even touched that book, I secretly liked to gossip when I openly condemned it, I drank orange juice straight from the container — even when it was not my orange juice, it was my roommate’s, and I had no right to drink it, I lied, I cheated at card games, I settled on bad lesson plans when I could have made good ones and I judged those I don’t know just to name a few.
You know what though? It doesn’t matter. Something incredible happened. January first came and left and it wiped my slate clean. In the middle of the street, as one of the first people in the world to bring in 2008, I kissed my girlfriend, danced to Marshallese rock-a-billy music and breathed the sweet smell of a fresh start.
The fact that the sweet new year fresh start reaked of drunk-man vomit did not dampen my optimism.
I won’t be perfect in the new year — nobody well — but I will try and improve as much as I can.
Whoever invented New Year’s was a genius. He put a reset button on life. There are many things we cannot control in this life. We have no say who our parents are, if we are smart or dumb or if we are tall or short but what we can control is what we do when that reset button is pressed. It is our chance to try and improve.
This is my admission to you — I plan on trying my hardest.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
For example, sometimes I lose my patience with the kids here in the Marshall Islands when all they really need is just that much more love.
“Mr. Tim, do you like Akon?” Laijab asks me.
“Get back to your seat, Laijab, we are having a test,” I say.
“You like his new album?”
“GET BACK TO YOUR SEAT!”
I could have, and should have, handled that differently. I could have told him that I was going to give him a great big bear hug if he didn’t go back to his seat. I could have tried to dance with him, I could have sang to him, I could have done a hand stand or I simply could have asked him again to sit down — anything would have been better than getting angry with him.
Also, sometimes I am not the nicest guy to my family when they have flown thousands of miles to a tiny speck of coral floating in the Pacific even though they have been my biggest supporters in this life of mine and I owe almost all to them.
“Tim, we want to leave at nine tomorrow,” my aunt Glenda says.
“Nine is so early,” I whine.
“Well, it is not that early,” she tells me. “When we went to Laura Beach we left at eight.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I snap. “I was driving!”
If I could rewind that tape it would be different. Maybe a “thanks for the suggestion,” or a “well, to be honest that seems too early for me, do you think we could go a little later?” would have been more appropriate. No one deserves to be treated rudely when they are simply trying to help with planning.
There are many other things I did in 2007 that I am not proud of. I didn’t write some of my best friends half as much as I should of, I sometimes littered when I didn’t see a trash can, sometimes I pretended in conversation that I had read a book when in reality I had not even touched that book, I secretly liked to gossip when I openly condemned it, I drank orange juice straight from the container — even when it was not my orange juice, it was my roommate’s, and I had no right to drink it, I lied, I cheated at card games, I settled on bad lesson plans when I could have made good ones and I judged those I don’t know just to name a few.
You know what though? It doesn’t matter. Something incredible happened. January first came and left and it wiped my slate clean. In the middle of the street, as one of the first people in the world to bring in 2008, I kissed my girlfriend, danced to Marshallese rock-a-billy music and breathed the sweet smell of a fresh start.
The fact that the sweet new year fresh start reaked of drunk-man vomit did not dampen my optimism.
I won’t be perfect in the new year — nobody well — but I will try and improve as much as I can.
Whoever invented New Year’s was a genius. He put a reset button on life. There are many things we cannot control in this life. We have no say who our parents are, if we are smart or dumb or if we are tall or short but what we can control is what we do when that reset button is pressed. It is our chance to try and improve.
This is my admission to you — I plan on trying my hardest.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Happy New Years
OK, this is a novelty for me! I am using wireless internet! This means that you all are getting a post a few seconds after it left my brain, traveled through my arms and into my fingertips (sorry for the spelling mistakes). Happy New Years! Here is a fun little fact, I am here in the Marshall Islands in the first time zone in the world... This means that I will experience the new year aproximatley 19 hours before any of you! So, greetings from the future... If there is any big bad thing that happens in 2008 I will call you all and tell you to be ready.
My family are all stuck under the covers in their hotel rooms fighting a stomach virus, so their new years will not be so great...
Meanwhile, Glenda is looking for her next big adventure... I wouldn't be suprised if she stayed behind to master outrigger canoes...
Go Ducks
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
My family are all stuck under the covers in their hotel rooms fighting a stomach virus, so their new years will not be so great...
Meanwhile, Glenda is looking for her next big adventure... I wouldn't be suprised if she stayed behind to master outrigger canoes...
Go Ducks
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
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