April 3, 2004

hey there!

    it's a quiet, wet saturday morning out here and i've been writing a letter to a friend, reflecting on my teaching style and experience thus far.  after all, the reason i am here is to be a teacher.  so i thought i'd share some of these thoughts/stories with you all.

    on friday i gave a test in science, and so i needed to come up with a way to help the students review for the test.  i hate the conventional "review sheet" in which a bunch of terms are listed and it's up to the clairvoyance of the students to decide what exactly they should know and understand about those terms.  i'm a big fan of review games, and i've done many variations of a simple question and answer review game.  this time i needed something different.  and, thus, wham-o was born.  when you get down to the heart of it all, wham-o is basically bingo.  but bingo is a tired, worn out name and i needed something new and exciting.  the students were given blank wham-o boards and a list of terms/ideas from the chapter.  they got to fill in their boards with the terms.  i pulled out the definitions/descriptions/clues out of a box and they had to figure out which item i was talking about.  and, like the good ole game of bingo, if they had the item on their board, they covered that square.  but the fantastic part of the game was that if they got wham-o, a simple exclamation of "wham-o" would not be sufficient.  oh no, no, no, that's much too sedate.  if you want to win at wham-o, you have to slam your hands on the table, and shout "wham-o, oooka lakka lakka" while waving your arms above your head.  if it's not enthusiastic enough, you can't win.  ohh, what a riot!  it was so much fun!  but more than just entertaining miss longest, i hope it was actually a good review for them.

    also a few weeks ago, we started class by doing the chicken dance!  it was 2nd period and they were all looking like death warmed over, so i needed to wake them up.  and what better way to wake up than clapping and flapping?!  :-)  we've also done "i'm a little teapot," the hokey pokey, and "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" several times.

    sometimes i wonder if i'm not better suited to be a kindergarten teacher instead of a high school teacher.  sometimes i think to myself, "what the hell am i doing?"  but, ya know what?  who says you have to be serious and boring and lecture and not crack a smile just because you're teacing high school?  i've realized that just because so few other people teach this way, that doesn't mean that it's "wrong."  i think a part of me still hasn't outgrown being a teenager, and so i am still that child in class; using ridiculous voices, making crazy faces, singing, dancing, saying whatever comes to my mind.  i didn't get any real training to become a teacher, so i'm just doing what comes natural to me.

    almost a year out of a college and nearly 5 years out of high school, i have not yet forgotten the pain of sitting in a classroom and listening to a teacher drone on and on, sounding like one of the adults in the charlie brown cartoons.  i have not forgotten what it's like to make it to the end of the class, look at my notebook, see only doodles, and realize that i had no idea what had gone on in that period.  so perhaps bad students can make the best teachers.  my high school teachers knew that.  they saw it.  at the end of my senior year, they told me i'd be a teacher.  i adamantly rejected any such ideas.  i thought it was more of a curse than anything else.  but i understand now.  i see what they saw.  wow, it all makes sense now.  by being voted the class clown of my graduating class, i could have just as easily been voted most likely to be a teacher.  all those days i spent entertaining from my desk were actually a preparation for the days that i'd be entertaining from the front of the class.

    entertainment.......that's really what teaching boils down to.  that's my theory, anyway.  good stand up comedians usually leave their audiences with lingering thoughts, stuff they that come up later during dinner with friends, or on the golf course or just any ole place.  if you keep someone's attention for long enough, your message will sink in.  it will come up later.  that's what teaching is all about.....keeping those students entertained long enough to let the "knowledge" seep in and find a place to stay.

    and even if they're not having fun, i know that i am.  a girl was wearing a winnie the pooh t-shirt the other day, and so i randomly started singing the winnie the pooh song while leading stretches during fitness.  while talking about a "buffet style" approach to religion, i told the freshmen about my job at hometown buffet during high school.  i still sometimes get that feeling at the end of class reminiscent of my days as a student when i thought, "what the hell did we do today?"  but now it's because so much goes on, so much fun is had, and so much of it is completely natural that it doesn't even feel like i'm doing a job.

    i'm still chuckling to myself over this new realization of how right my teachers were in high school when they told me i'd be a teacher.  after successfully graduating college with a degree in theology and NOT education, i thought i had avoided their curse.  little did i know i was walking into it head-on, all along.  and, on that note, i'm outta here!  hope to hear from you!

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May 3, 2004

     if you find my friends, could you let me know?  i suppose i should have seen this coming.  now that it's spring in the u.s., i suppose everyone is rushing to get outside and enjoy the nice weather.  and over here on this side of the world where it's been blazing hot for the past 9 months, i'm left wondering where all my friends have gone.  it's like they've disappeared off the radar screen.  it's the end of the school year and things are getting crazy.  i guess some folks just don't have as much time anymore to keep up communication with people so far away.  i try to keep reminding myself that some people just don't know what it's like to be so far away for so long.

    back in the states, school is ending and my friends will be moving back home or to yet another location.  i've been here for 9 months and i will continue to be here for a while longer.  this is the first time in a long time that i've stayed in one place for more than a few months.  i had grown used to the shuffling back and forth life of college, but now i am just staying put.  it's a strange feeling.  i'm trying to figure out summer mailing addresses for my friends; meanwhile, mine remains the same.  it's like i have some sort of consistency in my life right now.  weird.

    as for school.....we're counting down the days!  11 days of classes and 3 days of exams left to go!  the students are turning into ripe punks and they're pushing me past my limit on a daily basis.  this afternoon in class i had two students putting fake tattoos on their face while they were supposed to be doing group work.  after class i talked to one of them about it and he had no clue that it was something he shouldn't be doing during class.  and then he was walking away from me as i was trying to talk to him.  aye yai yai!  teenagers!!

    culture day was thursday.  it was pretty interesting.  there were some really cool dances and songs and stuff.  they also killed a pig and cooked it up pohnpeian style--in an umwh (pronounced oom); which is a bunch of rocks that have been sitting above a fire for a while.  so they put the pig on top of the rocks and then cover it with banana leaves.  overall, it was a fun day.  the next day was rival day.  that was a total disaster and i am hoping to soon forget it!  i had unfortunately volunteered to be a judge, and that required me to be present at the finish line for all of the events (or merely just be present if it wasn't an event with a finish line).  so i was on my feet and out in the sun from 8 am until 3:30 pm.  there was a severe lack of organization and competency!  the day started off on a bad note with the freshmen (i was also one of two coaches for the freshmen team, but that didn't last long b/c of my duties as judge).  and then there was a handful of sophomores getting in my face and yelling at me in the afternoon after i had to take one of their cds that featured some raunchy lyrics.  and it all culminated in me leaving the field about an hour early because i was feeling so bad--probably dehydration.  i went home a took a wonderful cold shower and hit the bed like a ton of bricks!

    fortunately, all that misery was made-up for over the weekend.  fred, deirdre, and i went into town and had an awesome time hanging out and relaxing at the house of a couple that works part-time at merip.  they were away in thailand and deirdre has  been house-sitting for them.  we got to cook our own meals and listen to music on a great stereo (i miss music and being able to listen to a stereo and just lounge around my room).  lots of fun and very relaxing!

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May 9, 2004

    it is finished.....for now!  as soon as i get done typing whatever it is that i will type in the next few minutes, then i'm gonna save all this bidness onto a cd and ship it off to my folks this week.  too often when i get to working on a project and get excited about it, i have trouble getting to a point where i can stop and say, "okay, i'm done."  but i'll have to do that eventually or no one else will ever get to enjoy it!  but hopefully i will update this and make some changes at some point.

    there are seven more days of class and three days of exams.  yes, i am counting the days!  i feel like i've been in "countdown mode" for a long time!  a few weeks ago it seemed like the end was just around the corner.  i was sure the remaining weeks of the semester would go by in a flash.  instead it's been a slow, painful death.  well, perhaps not a death.  but it has just dragged on and on.  i am looking forward to beginning my "vacation," if you will.  it would seem absurd to call it "summer" because how would that be distinguished from the rest of the year?  it's always summer here!!

    friday night after dinner and doing a bit of writing at my house, i went up to the admin. building the check the mail.  while i was up there, i ran into enrick as he was talking to ann, the assistant director.  i said, "enrick!  are you getting in trouble again?!"  but fortunately, there was no trouble.  so i asked him what he was up to and he said he was trying to get a dollar.  he need one more dollar in order to buy a $5 phone card to call his parents--he hasn't spoken to them since christmas.  i said that i could get him a dollar if he'd just wait until after i came down from checking the mail.  so when i came back down, he and i walked down to my house.  as we went down the steps, he said to me, "are you some kind of angel or something?"  i was just like, "um, no."  i once gave him some money to buy a stamp and now money to help him buy a phone card and he thinks i'm an angel....good to know he blocks out all the times i get on his case during class for being out in la-la land!  he was so excited that he was going to get to see my house.  he couldn't believe that i would actually let him come inside.  we got to the house and he asked again if it was okay if he came in.  i said he could as long as the closed the door behind him so the bugs wouldn't come in.  .... so i went into my room to find a dollar and when i came out, he was sitting in the rocking chair in the main, completely making himself at home.  it was such a funny sight!  he had been expecting to find to find a tv and a dvd player in the house and all kinds of way cool stuff.  instead, he found a plain, messy house.  he told me, quite frankly, what a mess it was and let me know that we needed to clean! . . . and....he was right!  our house was a wreck!  so i cleaned on saturday.  did a lil' sweepy-sweeperton around the main room and cleaned the nasty green algae fungus gunk off of the louvers!  it's muuuuuuuuch better now!

    well, it's sunday night and i need to get things ready for class tomorrow.  a big pat on the back to anyone who has actually read down this far on the page!  way to go, you!  hope life is well where you are!  take care, be good, and find happiness!!

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May 15, 2004

hey everybody!

    well, have ya missed me?  or did ya even notice that i was "gone."  for those of you that live to see my name in your inbox, i apologize for my virtual absence.  things have been sort of topsy turvy lately (ya know, i'm not really sure what "topsy turvy" is supposed to imply, but it seems fitting, so i'll just go with it)  we're down to the final week of the school year!  amen sweet jesus!  the seniors finished early and graduated today.  so that takes care of them; they're gone and out of the way!  what we're left with are all the underclassmen that are now trying to envision themselves in those same green robes, getting that diploma in a few years.  for some, that'll be sooner than later.  but for my poor freshmen, they still have a long way to go!  first......we have to finish this school year.  class on monday and tuesday, then exams wednesday, thursday, and friday.

    yours truly is not excited about making or grading exams!  this dislike was compounded this week when our dot matrix printer got attitudinal and decided to go on strike.  the dot matrix printer allows us to print onto carbon paper and make "dittos."  for those of you not familiar, dittos are copies produced via a beastly, archaic machine that involves a big metal drum, a hand crank, and "duplicating fluid."  and just so we can all be clear on what sort of heinous beast i am talking about, i attached a picture for your viewing pleasure.  in an odd sort of way, it reminds me of the bicycle i had long, long ago.  it was not a fancy 21 speed or anything like that.  it had no gears.  i called it a 1-speed.....that one speed was as fast as i could peddle!  in a similar fashion, the ditto machine has a variable page per minute output...however fast you can crank, feed the paper through, and get the gods to smile upon you and make your work fruitful.  as i once told a friend, it's a step up from the printing press, but many years behind a copier.  carbon paper and manual labor unite in replicating bliss to make faint, sometimes illegible copies of whatever it gets its hands on

so allow me to guide you through the process.....

first)  print your document (or hand write it) onto carbon paper via the ever-so-slow dot matrix printer.

2)  separate the two sheets (one is completely carbon and the other only has carbon impression of whatever was printed or written) and put the one with the "document" onto the metal drum in the middle of ye old "ditto machine"

next)  give a few ceremonial cranks to "prime it" (aka, get all the intricate parts fully wet with duplicating fluid and also get your muscles warmed up for all the cranking--notice the crank on the right side of the photo)

iv)  step back and do a few stretches of the deltoids and biceps.  ya don't wanna hurt yourself!

fifth)  approach the machine and push the top sheet of paper (notice the paper tray in the front-center of the picture) towards the drum and crank once.  the sheet is pulled through, and with any luck a legible ditto has been made  if the words are faint, then give it some more priming cranks.  repeat this step until you have produced a satisfying number of dittos

F)  reload the dittos into the paper tray, remove the carbon document from the drum, and run all the dittos through one more time.  this helps to darken the carbon and makes it easer to read

finally) perform a cool-down routine and thank the duplicating gods and goddesses for treating you favorably on this day

    so....why am i telling you all this??  as i mentioned at the beginning, the printer has gotten defiant and refuses to print.  i did everything i could possibly think of to try to fix the problem, but nothing produced results.  so where does this leave me?  a)  it leaves me very defeated for the fact that i couldn't get the printer to work, and 2) it means i'm going to have to hand-write my final exams onto carbon paper and use those to make dittos.  we have a small copy machine in the registrar's office, but we're discouraged from using it b/c of the cost of the toner.  so....this should be a fun adventure.  on thursday night i wrote up a two-page review sheet for science.  only problem is that those two pages haven't covered all the material for the exam.  with the prospect of hand-writing two long exams looming in the future, i don't know if i'll have the fortitude to attempt a part-two of review sheet pandemonium.  oh well!

    it's saturday night and i'm trying not to think about tomorrow, because tomorrow i'll have to start coming up with questions for these exams.  oh the woes of being a teacher.  and i can't forget that on monday and tuesday we're going to have to continuing reviewing.  perhaps there will be a reprisal of 'wham-o oooka lakka lakka.'  but the end is near....that's my motto........the end is near! ;-)

     i'm also attaching a picture of my most lovely self....about a month ago i went to "quiz nite" in town, sponsored by the rotary club, and i ended up winning a chair as a door prize.  the chair i'm sitting in in the picture is the chair that i won.  i was so excited, you would have thought i won the lottery!  most of the other people there work for the goverment, at the college, or the embassy, so door prizes to them weren't such a big deal.  but, man, when they called my name, i was hootin and hollerin!  if ya can't get excited about a way cool free chair then you don't deserve it in the first place!  :-D

     well, i guess that's all there is to say from this side of the world.  life is still going well.  can you believe i've been gone for over 9 months??  don't cry for me (argentina)....i know there's a terrible void in your life without me around, but you've gotta be strong....for the kids!  HA!!!  what the heck am i talking about??  i don't know.........and THAT is a sure-fire sign that i need to end this email.  hope you're doing well.  i'd love to hear from you!  take care.

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June 20, 2004

    i was in town for two weeks and now it's time to get back to work.  all the staff had to leave campus to make room for the jesuits of micronesia coming in for a retreat/conference.  and while the jesuits were retreating here, we were havin' a retreat of our own in kolonia.  we were joined by the jvs from chuuk as well as one of the jvi staff members from d.c.  once the retreat was over, we were left to our own devices in town, with rule of the jesuits' house.  they have cable tv.  now, it's not the sort of 100 channel cable tv that i'm sure is common by now in the u.s.  there's about 20 or so channels, but that's 20 or so more than we get at pats.  it was like being teleported to a whole new world....we had power all night long, could eat any time we wanted, and had access to the outside world via a television!  amazing!  mostly, we watched sports and news.  television still isn't all that alluring, but this time i think it was the sheer novelty of it that was attractive.

    but, ultimately, being in town isn't all that great.  the third harry potter movie hasn't made it to the theater, yet.  and i don't find kolonia to be all that entertaining.  so i'm glad to be back home at pats.  however, that does mean i have to get my butt in gear and start working again.  just before we left for kolonia, fr. greg "dismissed" two volunteers (a married couple) and sent them packing.  one of them, earl, had been the other half of the computer department.  but now that he's gone, it looks like it's just me.  this adds quite a bit to my "things to do" list for the next two months.  first of all, i've gotta get all the computers and "stuff" down to the new computer center.  that should take a half a day or so, depending on how many people i can get to help.  then that stuff has to be put away and organized to some extent.  the computers still need to have software installed.....that's sure to prove a tedious and lengthy task!  and then once that's all settled, i'll be trying to figure out the new fandangled thingies for the maintenance and repair portion of the curriculum.  we got these fancy pants things called heath kits.  and they are computers that create certain problems and break down and blah, blah, blah.  well, they do all these things if the instructor (ahem, that'd be ME!) tells them to do so.  looks like i'll have to be figuring out how to boss around a bunch of super sophisticated computers!  should be fun and interesting.  i'm hoping for minimal frustration.  those are the big tasks for the next two months.  and i know there will be little odds and ends that come up.  guess i might not do as much reading and guitar playing as i had anticipated.  oh well!

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June 30, 2004

today i had one of "those moments." it's a possibility that you haven't had the pleasure of experiencing one of "those moments." and, truly, that would be sad. but, alas, my moment....i left the administration building and was headed down the hill for the computer building. the top of the hill gives an amazing view out onto the lagoon and the surrounding hills. the amazing scene must have been a result of the time of day and the angle of the sun, or something like that. it's one of those sights that makes me speechless. all i can do is break out into a smile that engulfs my face and say, "wow! i live on an island!" and then as i walked back to my house, i looked up at all the greenery surrounding me and all the towering trees. i thought of how tiny this island is compared to most other pieces of land, but how small i felt when i had to tilt my head far back to look up at the top of the trees!

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July 3, 2004

hello all!
    today i was thinking of the old hair club for men commercials and the line at the very end where the newly un-bald president says, "and not only am i the president of hair club for men, but i'm also a client." you're probably wondering why in the hell i would be thinking of such a thing. well, for one thing, it's entertaining. for another thing, my mind works in mysterious ways and i really don't need an explanation for whatever random thought enters my head. for a third thing, with all the hair that is ending up on my hairbrush and in the shower drain, i feel like i could start a hair club and just adhere some of my hair onto the bald domes of men. but, the real reason i thought of it is because of my new "title" around here at pats.
    i am now the head of the computer department. i don't know if the "computer department" has some sort of fancy classification like "computer technologies," or "computer maintenance and applications," or my suggestion of CRAP (computer repair and applications). but, fancy name or not, i'm in charge of it! and not only am i the head of the department, i am the entire department! (that's where the not only am i the president, but i'm also a client thing comes to mind) yeah, um, i'm the only teacher for this new, fledgling department that will kick-off in august. i've tried to remind them that my major in college was theology, but that doesn't seem to have any effect. and, so, if they're okay with giving me this responsibility, then i suppose i'm okay with taking it. however, it can be sort of nerve-racking to be THE person that gets called on when a computer goes on the fritz and then be expected to perform some sort of computer cpr and get the thing up and running again without losing any of those all important documents that, somehow, have no back-up. the fun part, though, has been that i've been getting to arrange the new computer building however i want it. yeah, you may think "whoopty freakin doo"....but hey, i've gotta find something to be excited about, right?? i got some guys to help me and we took two trips and loaded up the flat bed with boxes of stuff to take down to the new computer building (from here on out, i will just refer to the building, if necessary, as crap, because that's my preferred acronym and it's easier that "the new computer building." i'm attaching a picture taken from the front of crap) so then once all this "schtuff" is down at crap, yours truly gets to unpack it and move it around to its new home. it was sort of like a sick christmas where you get the same gift over and over again. we were fortunate to get quite a few computer systems donated. so i've been putting those in the room on the right (with air conditioning.....chaaaa ching!!!) and testing them to see that they're still working. unfortunately, we had originally put all those computers in the room on the left, so i had to carry them, one by one, over to the other classroom. so, on the left is where we will have the "computer lab," to teach typing, word processing, desktop publishing, and other sorts of applications. the classroom on the left will be used for a hands-on lab in which the students will be taking apart computers and learning about their "guts" and what makes them tick.
    soooooo....me and my theology degree are now spending the weeks reading up on computers. there is an enormous textbook (1200 pages of scintillating computer knowledge) that goes with one of the classes and i have started to read some of it. it's not quite as exciting as harry potter or dirk pitt, that's for sure! aye yai yai! how do i get myself into such things?? who'd have thought that tinkering around on my own computer (and the computers of any college friends that were desperate enough to let me have a look 'em) would have led me to be the computer guru and head of the department for an entire school?? makes me think of bugs bunny: "he don't know me very well, do he??" haha! oh well.....i guess i'm the best of what's available and so i'm more than happy to do what i can.
    on to something different.....all the students left campus after exams were over. so it's been pretty quiet around here, sort of like a ghost town. i miss the little buggers!! now i just get up and go to work in the morning. i sit in a room full of computers, all by myself. no matter how funny i am, i, alone, cannot entertain myself as much as a room full of students. they come back around the 20th of august, and i'm looking forward to it. does that make me the weirdest teacher ever, or what?? i remember all my teachers in high school saying how they wanted the summer to last forever. and here i am, about 5 weeks into my summer vacation and i'm talking about how i'm excited for the students to return??
    i can't think of much else to tell you. all the funny stories have sort of come to a stop now that the students are gone. so i guess i'll leave you now and continue with my saturday afternoon. it's about time for me to pick out the book of the week. i'll be in touch. feel free to do the same! ;-)
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July 7, 2004

hellooooooo!
    this email will be sort of an addendum to the update i sent over a week ago. being out here, i often feel like i'm "the last to know" what's going on--either in the world, or just in the lives of my friends. and suddenly somebody's news becomes a thing of the past by the time it reaches me. so i am trying to keep you current and up-to-date with my comings and goings....and yadda yadda yadda.
    for a change of pace, i'm going to start this off with a carefully selected quote. (and by 'carefully selected' i mean that i did a topic search in encarta and picked from the best of the lot) denise mccluggage, a race car driver in the u.s. says, "change is the only constant. hanging on is the only sin." never thought i'd be quoting a race car driver, but there you have it!
    as i head into my second year on pohnpei, i am also headed for some new changes. to avoid being vague for too long, i'll just get to the chase....i've decided to end my contract with jesuit volunteers international and become an independent volunteer with pats. i don't know if this is supposed to be big, shocking news or not. i'm not leaving pohnpei, i'm just leaving jvi. i guess i will first answer the question of "so what does this mean?" and then i'll try to give you an answer to the question of "why?"
    the logistics of what this decision means are quite simple. a) i'll be moving out of my current house and into a different place on campus. there are two options right now, and fr. greg and i are trying to work out which place i will move into. either place is a stone's throw away from where i am right now. 2) i won't go on anymore jvi retreats. third) i'll be covered by on pats' insurance policy instead of jvi. d) pats will pay for my plane ticket instead of jvi. iv) i won't be involved in any of the other "jvi things" like weekly spirituality and community nights. ...so i think that part is pretty straightforward. i just want to make sure it's clear that i'll still be teaching at pats. i'll still be living on campus. i'll still be here for another year (if not more). and my name will still be rachel longest. :-D
    so....now the "why?" i guess i could start by explaining that i often hate feeling as thought i'm being forced into things. i cling to my ability to think for myself and hate feeling as though that's being threatened. and with jvi i felt i was being forced into something that wasn't natural. the 4 components of jvi (community, faith, simplicity, and social justice) are important to me, but i need to be able to interpret them and live them out in my own ways. but i wasn't really feeling that freedom with jvi. if somebody tells me to jump, instead of saying, "how high?" i'll most likely flatten myself on the ground in attempting to do the opposite of jumping. i felt like jvi was telling me to jump, and i was hitting the ground. i don't think i'm defiant, i just like to do things "my own way." i don't have bad feelings towards jvi (neither the people nor the organization). it fits some people very well, and doesn't fit others.....it didn't fit me.
i also felt really uncomfortable as a "jesuit volunteer." i felt i was being treated differently and thought of differently (by people here and by people in the states) because of being associated with jvi. i don't want to gain things because of a title or an organization. this decision does not change who i am. but sadly i think that some people may not regard me in the same way because i am no longer associated with jvi. and i actually enjoy that thought. i don't want the hype or undue credit just because i signed up with some organization. people should let their expectations and judgments of me be because of who i am, not because of who sent me.
    my heart wasn't into jvi. my heart has been into teaching and being at pats. since i have arrived, i have felt like a pats teacher, not a jesuit volunteer. i don't do things unless i'm into it completely--heart and all. and when i come across those things that i'm not "into," i have to find a way to get into them, or get out of them. in this case, i saw the best decision would be to get out.
    i had been thinking about making this decision for quite a while, and i am relieved to have finally come to a conclusion. as denise mccluggage says, "hanging on is the only sin." i've needed to make this decision for a while. i've hung un for too long, wondering if this choice was really necessary and best for me. and i finally realized i need to make this decision for me and for the other jesuit volunteers here. it's not fair to them to have someone in their community that isn't really committed to it.
    so i think that's the best i can do for a explanation. i tried to condense it down as much as possible. all i have left for you is a simple request....for those of you that are cool enough to send me things in the mail, you can now stop writing "jesuit volunteers international" in the address. it was never really necessary in the first place, but now it'd just be incorrect. besides, that's just one less line you have to write on the address! ya know, while i'm at it, i might as well flash my address across the screen and use some subliminal messaging, trying to coax you all into putting some correspondence in the mail.....
rachel longest
c/o pats
po box 39
pohnpei, fm 96941

soooo....thanks for listening. i hope you feel informed now. take care......and don't be afraid to let go....change is constant, afterall! ;-)
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July 14, 2004

and in addition to all that, i want to throw-in a little something i wrote today in an email to a friend...

while i was on our end-of-the-year retreat a little over a month ago (it was on the retreat that i made my decision to leave jvi), i spent a while watching a gecko crawl around some bookshelves. the gecko would run back and forth across the tops of the books and occasionally go to the edge of a book and look up. there was another shelf right above the gecko and i'm sure he could have made it with a simple jump (geckos do a damn good job of jumping and walking up walls and things like that! it's wild!) but it was like he was too afraid. so, often he ended up walking to the end of the shelf, and climbing up the side to the next shelf. and while i watched this go on, i wondered if that was sort of what it was like for god to watch us when we're afraid of taking a bit step. being removed from the situation, god can see that we'll land, but it's hard for us to get that sort of perspective, so we go the long way around, the safe route. and that was when i realized i needed to jump for the next shelf. to hell with stumbling over the tops of books and wondering if i could make the leap. i figured it was time to go for it!

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July 20, 2004

    so, lately there have been pigs all over campus, and they've really been mucking things up. tearing up the grass and now there's mud all over the place. there's a big troop of them that are hanging around and we can't get rid of them. whenever anybody sees the pigs, we chuck rocks at 'em, but that just moves them along to another place to eat up. it's illegal to have pigs un-penned, and we can't get the owners to do anything about it. one day augustine and james caught a pig and they were tying it up, to keep at the piggery (yes, we have a piggery where we keep and feed pigs, then kill them when they're tasty! hee hee!) until the owners wanted to come and get it. well then the lady who owns them came along and was yelling and was all pissed off, so the guys let the pig go. (i was there for this, but it was all in pohnpeian...but it was still interesting and entertaining) so....there's all these pigs around campus, and we hate 'em and want to get rid of them..........and just a few minutes ago, i was typing an email and i hear a pig squealing outside. i figured the guys caught another one and were tying it up. so i stepped outside to see what was going on. and there about 20 yards from my house, was a little piggy being attacked by about 4 or 5 dogs. the pig was in the middle and the dogs were all around biting and chomping on its legs and ears and pulling. i have to admit that it was really funny to watch. and i wasn't gonna do anything to stop it b/c we all want to get rid of those damn pigs. the dogs actually broke the skin and there was some blood on the surface (not spewing, though). and they didn't kill the pig, just roughed it up a bit. one of the pohnpeian men on the staff came over and shooed away all the dogs and picked up the pig and carried it away. i have no idea what he was planning to do with it. i just thought it was so funny b/c it was almost as if fr. greg or augustine or somebody had told those dogs to go after the pigs. i had never seen them do that before. it was like they knew the pigs were bad and wanted to get rid of them!
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July 25, 2004

    this will be my last entry before i send these latest updates to my parents.  and today i am writing from the comforts of my new home.  yesterday morning i moved my things and now i think it's safe to say that i'm "all settled."  my new place is grrrrrrrrreat!  i love it!  for starters, my bed is super comfortable....totally puts the last one to shame.  a "bed" consists of a wooden frame sort of thing upon which a rectangular piece of foam rests.  some foam is thick, or perhaps "dense" would be a better word, and these make for the best beds.  other mattresses are made of a much weaker, less dense foam that seems to provide no cushion or support.  so, in essence what you get is a night's rest on a piece of wood with a small buffer of fabric in between.  my old bed was of this second variety.  my new bed is of the first variety.  and not just that, but there's two of these mattresses on this bed!  they're each an inch or two thick.  lemme tell ya i slept sooooo well last night!  it was magnificent!

    but wait, there's more....i have a fan that is so quiet and actually does its job.  excellent.  i now have a small bedside table--instead of using a tupperware container!  there's also a desk!  and now i have windows that face the lagoon so i am hoping to get some great breezes swinging through here.  so basically, this place is great!  this is just the icing on the cake of my decision to leave jvi.  this place is only 20 or 30 yards away from where i used to live.  it's sort of like being back in college and living in a suite.  i share the 'house' with another woman, but we each have our own exterior doors.  and we share the bathroom in the middle.

    and that's pretty much all i have to say.  my new living arrangement is pretty much the only news from out here.  all is well.  new volunteers will be arriving in a week and a half and the students will be back in a month!  crrrrrrazy!

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August 7, 2004

     the other day, as i was sweeping around the computer lab, i looked outside and saw 'tumor dog' (more on her later) walking around, and that gave me cause to reflect on the presence of the animal kingdom here in the past year. as i began to think about it, i realized the many different ways my life has been affected by animals of all different sorts while on pohnpei. i'm beginning to think that maybe there were some creatures on the ark that noah unloaded after realizing he didn't want them. and where did unload the outcasts? yes, that's right, he made a little stop off in the pacific and unloaded the "excess baggage."
    first, to quench your curiosity, i'll start with tumor dog and all her canine friends....tumor dog is quite a site to behold! this dog is sooooo ugly. she gets the name "tumor dog" b/c of this nasty looking black sac that is hanging down on her left side. when we arrived just a year ago, the black sac (we just assume it's a tumor), was a bump on her side, about the size of a ping pong ball or maybe slightly larger. now the tumor is hanging down and nearly scraping the ground! i think it's time to start taking bets on when it's gonna fall off! we're all mesmerized at the small surface area with which the tumor is attached to her body! it's like looking at a full water balloon hanging down at her side! and then there's all the other bajillion dogs on the island. deirdre, fred, and i have speculated about the people to dog ratio because there are seriously so many dogs here. i've come up with a way we can collect some data (use those little clicker-counter thingies they use at amusement parks, drive into town, and one person count all the dogs he or she sees and another person count all the people he or she sees). but, without any real research, we've guessed the people to dog ratio is anywhere from 6:1 to 3:1. seriously! the dog population here is ridiculous! and they're all ugly! they fight at all hours of the day and i'm sometimes awoken by their nightly brawls. i admit that, when i hear them, i think to myself, "somebody better be dead in the morning!" you can read in travel books about the nuisance of dogs on pohnpei and the authors always suggest throwing rocks at the dogs. and of course this seems to be an awful thing until you've been here for a while. and then it becomes much more normal. i won't name names, but there's another volunteer that has a strong loathing for "black and white dog" and will run after it just to pelt the dog with a rock or two! (aren't we awful??) dogs that don't have names get named by our "tribunal"....there's tumor dog, black and white dog, and tweeker dog. oh! and have i mentioned that all the dogs on the island will just lay in the middle of the road and barely bat an eye when a car or a huge truck is steaming along towards them. of course, the automobile always slows down or goes around the dog. so although the road into town is almost completely paved from here, the numerous dogs still make for a slow trip.
    next, there's the pigs...over the past few months, pats campus has become the stomping grounds for a gang of pigs. they're tearing up the grass and turning the whole place into their own little mud playground. the pigs are owned by someone in the village, but aren't being penned up like they're supposed to be (it is illegal to not pen up your pigs). so here at pats we've been trying a variety of methods to get rid of the little piggies and make them go "whee whee whee" all the way home! fr. paul has taken a liking to spraying ammonia at them via a super soaker. one day, some of the guys caught one and were tying it up when a lady started yelling at them, so they let it go (i think the lady was a relative of whomever owns the pigs). the rest of us just go for the traditional rock chucking whenever a pig is within range. it's yet another sport that quite exhilarating but probably won't be in the upcoming olympics.
    let us not forget the geckos. they come in a variety of sizes and colors. some have bright blue tails, others have a brown body, some are green, and some are more of a translucent variety, almost like you can see right inside them. maybe they're albinos! most are small, and the ones i've seen that are bigger i think are actually "lizards" and not geckos. geckos are kinda like house pets around here. they're on the walls, the ceiling, the windows, the floors, and just recently i found one inside a computer! they're quite entertaining to watch, but the downside of the gecko is their poop! they poop all over the place! tables, chairs, sinks, windows, floors, on books, just wherever they are when nature calls! an interesting feature of the gecko is the way they can leave behind their tail. one time i had a gecko running around my room and i chased after it, trying to catch it. well, i only caught it by the tail and it wiggled free, left the tail in my hands and scurried along. it's a defensive mechanism of sorts. they just grow a new tail. and i hear they can even drop their tail just if they are frightened, so it doesn't require an outside force. (by the way, the tail i had in my hands kept moving for about 10 seconds after it was separated from the rest of the gecko! cool, huh?!)
    and, of course, there's also the cockroaches. i've learned to recognize the smell of a cockroach so i can tell when one is in the area, even if i can't see it. i took a proactive approach to the cockroaches right off the bat. the first time i saw one, almost a year to the day, i lept up after it, chased it around, caught it in my hands and chucked it out the door. it's much cleaner than squashing it--they can leave quite a mess when killed. and, yes, the rumors are true, i have had a cockroach or two crawl across me in my sleep. it's an eerie sort of feeling, but quickly remedied by a swat of the hand. i take quite pleasure at sending them sailing across the room into the wall! :-D
    as we continue down the foodchain, there's also the abundant ants and mosquitos. a trail of ants along the wall or floor is always a good indication that someone wasn't very careful when eating...the smallest crumb of anything edible (including a dead gecko or cockroach) will summon ants for miles. so the good part about that is that you know when you need to do a better job of cleaning.
    and speaking of the foodchain....have i mentioned the abundance of animal on my plate in this past year? yes, as some of you know, i affectionately refer to meals at pats as "the best feast." turkey, ham (fresh pig from the piggery!), chicken, fish (head, eyeballs, tail, everything still intact!) vegetarian is an unknown concept here. one of the new jvs that just arrived is vegetarian, and so far he's been managing. i'm interested to see how this progresses. a volunteer that's been here for a year was also a vegetarian when she arrived. that last for about a week. and now she is summoned to the dining room by the sweet smell of bacon in the morning or gushes over the great ham or ribs or whatever meat dish we're having! :-)
    also of mention are the chickens that cross the road to get to the other side (right in front of the van i'm driving!). and goats hanging out on the side of the road, chewing something green & leafy. plus all the fishies i see in the ocean when i go snorkeling. and there's also coconut crabs that wander around. oh, and we've also got a smattering of birds flying around. but they're not really the tropical variety you'd expect. nothing like toucans or that sort of thing.
    ummm, i'm sure i'm leaving out some group, but i think you get the idea. dr. dolittle would be in heaven out here!! there's lots of stories i could also tell you all about, but i figure every once in a while i need to take some time-out to give a sort of a run-down of the details of pohnpei. sort of an 'educational/informative' thing. so, there's your lesson for today. i'll try to write again soon and add some more levity to your day. cuz i know how much you all live for the sight of my email beckoning you from your inbox. it's almost like it's so exciting that you don't want to immediately open it b/c then the fun and anticipation are gone. i hope this one did not disappoint.
    alright, well i'm outta here! take care. and, in the words of bob barker, "remember to have your pets spayed or neutered." for the love of god!! doooooooooo it! (okay, well maybe i should direct that more to the people of pohnpei!)

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August 23, 2004

and when i say this "year," i really do mean it...the other day, fred and i realized that we've nearly been here for 13 months! wowza! i'm a second year teacher.....it doesn't seem possible. i won't leave pohnpei for another 9 months, at the very least, but, from knowing how quickly this past year went, it seems like this next one will just speed by in the blink of an eye.

at long last, the students have returned to campus and this place buzzing once again. classes began on wednesday of this week. it was only a three day week, but i am wiped out already! the week leading up to the beginning of school was very busy for me. i was finishing up things in the computer lab, trying to get everything ready for classes (more about the classes later). just 5 days before school was to begin, my new "computer goodies" arrived in the mail. so last weekend was spent installing software till my eyes bled, cutting cables for a classroom network, cleaning, organizing, and working out any new problems. the final product is what you see below. the curtains were done by another volunteer (but i got to pick out the fabric! it's hard to tell in the picture, but there's definitely an orange presesnce in the fabric--even more so on the windows to the left that you can't see) i am still working on some issues with some of the computers, but for the most part, everything is running smoothly.

    as i told you all during the summer, i am the head of the computer department, and the only teacher in the department. so it's up to lil ole me to teach all the classes for the juniors that are in their first year of their trade/specialty studies (since this is the first year for the computer dept, i only have juniors in the department. next year there will be juniors and seniors.) the junior class has been trimmed down quite a bit--there are only 16 left! and just three of them are going the computer route. so....every afternoon it's me and three guys in the computer lab for about 3 hours! technically, there are two separate classes that i am teaching them this semester. but so far it is blurring a lot and it's just become one big class. i've got them started on a typing tutor program and they're learning some basics about windows xp. plus, they're starting to learn about the different parts of the computer and how to disassemble one. most of the time, they're working at their computers and i'm sitting around doing whatever i want. the best way for them to learn this stuff is to just do it. so this leaves me with a lot of time on my hands during class. i mean, i do teach them stuff and i prepare things for class. but there's also a lot of work time for them. and that's my afternoons! it's weird to be in class until 4:15 every day. plus, i'm down here in the computer lab, shut off from the whole world, it seems. so far i feel like i hardly see the students, or even other teachers! it's definitely been a big adjustment.

in the mornings i have religion with the freshmen. they are a fun bunch and i've really been enjoying them so far. i've got them laughing already, so that's a good sign that things should go pretty well. plus, they all look at me (last year it took a few weeks for some of the kids to dare to look at me while i was talking), and a bunch of them are already answering and asking questions. so we are leaps and bounds ahead of where i was last year with the freshmen. also, i'm a lot more comfortable in the classroom now, so i think that makes a big difference. last year i was sort of on an even playing field with the freshmen b/c we were both new to pats. but now i have one year behind me so i'm feeling a lot more relaxed

aaaaand, i'm also teaching a computer class to the sophomores in the morning. this is the group of students i had last year, so i am so excited to have them again. sadly, though, it will only last for the first quarter. this class is to just give them an idea of what the computer trade is all about. they have one of these classes for each of the four trades, rotating at the end of each quarter, so that at the end of the year, they'll hopefully have a better idea of which one they want to do. it has been an interesting experience to work with students that have never even touched a computer before. i've set their hands on top of the mice, and used my hand to guide them along in learning how to move and click. it's quite a challenge to teach something that comes so naturally to me and i often find myself asking, "where do i even begin?!" but eventually they'll all be pros and we'll be doing some really cool stuff.

this is old news, but i never told you all about it......about a month and a half ago, i finally got moved out of the jvi house and into a different house, about 30 yards away. below are pictures of my new living quarters. my room is on the right side of the house. there is a woman that lives in the room on the other side. we each have exterior doors, and share the bathroom in the middle. it's a great place and i absolutely love it!

   
and just in case you were curious....THIS is what i look like now! 

i've been hearing that it's pretty hot where some of you all are. and to that, i can only say, "mwaaaa haaaa haaa!! welcome to my life!" it's been blazing like an oven here lately....and all these tin roofs don't make things any better. most buildings at pats have a tin roof and then a ceiling inside, so there's a bit of insulation and barrier between the tin roof and the poor unfortunate souls underneath. this is not the case in the staff dining room. it was like we were being cooked in there today. and the classrooms!! aye yai yai! those things are like saunas! i had college professors with pit stains and some forehead perspiration, but we're talking miss longest is drenched in class! (minus computer classes b/c we pamper the computers with air conditioning) was that too much info??

the big talk lately has been about the likeliness of this being a year for el niño (which, according to chris farley, is spanish for the niño) el niño can cause a lot of rain and flooding in south america but it also leaves a pretty heinous drought in the pacific over here. i did a little extra reading on it this morning and if you're interested in this "weather phenomenon" you can check out http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/el-nino-story.html (i'm sure there's lots of great resources about it on the internet, but this was what i found in a quick search)

now i'm going to go off on my merry little way to continue saving the world, one computer at a time (that's my new motto!). take care and enjoy the olympics and the coming of autumn (in case you're wondering....no, i haven't seen the olympics. we don't have cable tv at school. just a tv to watch movies on)

in the computer we trust.........NOT!!,
rachel

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September 26, 2004
kasalehlie!
    the days just keep passing me by. i've made it through a whole year of constant summer and you all are now back at the beginning of autumn. so much changes and, yet, so much stays the same. we've made it through a month of school, survived a rampant case of the "pats flu," and fell in love with the hokey pokey all over again. life is good.
    i just finished assembling the brand spanking new, cushy, rolly office chair that i ordered for the computer lab. and now i can finally say that i made it to the big time! after wasting away the entire summer and past month of school in a folding chair, i have moved up the ranks and now i'm in pneumatic gas lift heaven! so, at long last, the chair of the computer department has a worthy chair to sit in!
and so now that i'm cushy and comfy....on with the show.....before i even had the chance to decide it was time for another check-in with you all, i had a friend track me down and let me know that i'm overdue for some new stories. my apologies to those of you that have been getting restless to hear about the life and times of my second year at pats. i hope my stories will not disappoint.

     i have a story that i think is absolutely hysterical, but i think it might creep out some folks. but i'm not gonna let that stop me...>> about two weeks ago i went down to the computer lab before class with the sophomores and when i went into my office, i saw a little rat/mouse scurrying around. so i sort of chased it around, not really knowing my purpose of the chase. some of the students heard me say, "aw, man, there's a rat in here!" so a few came in there to check it all out. then gentry, enrick, and i get the rat cornered behind a cabinet we had pulled away from the wall a bit.....the rat runs and sees me, turns around, runs and sees them, turns around, and does this a few more times. i had my foot down, blocking off it's pathway between the wall and the cabinet. enrick and gentry were on the other side, blocking it from getting out over there. well, after a few trips of back and forth, it musters up its courage, scampers over my foot and into the open range of the office. enrick had previously picked up a big, thick computer book and asked if he could use it. so, as the mouse is high tailing it for safety, enrick lets the book fly and chucks it right smack dab at the rat's tail. DIRECT HIT!! so now the rat is sort of stunned and trying to recover from it's whomping. plus, the book is pinning it down by its tail. it's sort of squirming around, trying to get loose, but no such luck. so then i go over to it, squeeze it by its sides with my thumb and index finger and pick it up. it wriggles around a little bit in my fingers, but i hold on to it, take it to the door, and chuck it outside. it was so hilarious! the best part was enrick's on-target shot with the gigantic computer book! i'm sure half of you are thinking, "YOU ARE SICK!!" right about now....and, i guess maybe i am. i don't know. maybe being here has warped me, or maybe i was always this crazy. i'd vote for me always being this crazy. but the students all got a kick out of it, that's for sure.
    and speaking of the students getting a kick out of the things i do.....i think i'm having schizophrenic attacks during class! there's no telling what sort of accent, facial expression, demeanor, or crazy dance i'm gonna break out with from one minute to the next during class--mostly during freshmen religion. yet again i've been doing my best to make the exodus, babylonian exile, annunciation, birth of christ, and calling of the apostles into something exciting and entertaining. i figure that the folks up in heaven are either laughing with me, or getting their lightning bolts ready to take me out! the other day i asked the students to make up a story about jesus' childhood b/c we don't hear much about his younger years in the bible. i was expecting to get some pretty hilarious tales of mischief and misused divinity. instead i got descriptions about how jesus was such a good kid and always prayed and did what his parents told him to. boring. so i wanted to give them an example of what i was looking for, so i just made up a story, out of the blue, in class. i don't know where i come up with this stuff.....but the general gist of the story was that jesus woke up suuuuuper early one morning and couldn't get back to sleep so he went for a run. he wasn't looking where he was going and ran into a man carrying a chicken. the guy let go of the chicken and it flew away. so the guy was all mad at jesus and made him come to the house and do work to pay back the money from the chicken that flew away. so jesus had to clean out all the chicken poop from the coop and put it by a tree for fertilizer. and so jesus ended up using his "special powers" to make all the chicken poop find its way to the tree without even having to pick up a shovel! pretty ridiculous, eh? of course the story was complete with different voices and dramatic acting by yours truly. ...... i used to think it was the students that got me sidetracked and going on to tangents, but now i think it's all my doing. i lllllove going out into left field and getting on random topics! i've decided that teachers tend to get better the longer they spend teaching not necessarily b/c they're more familiar with the material but b/c they're bored by the material and they have to find new ways to keep themselves engaged, too! or maybe that's just how it works for me.
    and if we're still not convinced that i'm a new breed of "teacher," well then how about we throw in my sleep over at the girls' house/dorm on thursday night of this past week! on wednesday night i had to walk a few girls back to the house after our music club meeting. i stopped in at the house for a minute just to say hi to the girls. a few asked if i wanted to spend the night. i couldn't then, but i promised i would come on thursday night. and, true to my word, i stayed with them the next night. it was a pretty hilarious evening. gave me an even deeper insight to those girls. i helped juleen with her geometry, talked about music with the girls, watched some wash their clothes, and told stories to the freshmen and sophomores about what the sophomore girls were like last year. and then i also told the sophomore girls with the freshmen girls are like this year. a bit later, pricilla (whom we call "pee wee") insisted that we tell riddles. they had some pretty good ones. the girls are supposed to be quiet and in bed at 11 pm, but the house mother isn't always strict about it (they're are actually 2 house mothers, and the one that was there on thursday night was the less strict one). so some of them were up chatting past 11:30. ole miss longest had to hit the hay around 11 or 11:15. actually, some of the girls were encouraging me to go to bed b/c, "you have to teach tomorrow!!" i just think it's hilarious that these high school girls want their teacher to come spend the night with them! i am definitely in a different world!
    and when i'm not having sleepovers with the girls, saving the school from computer meltdown, making up stories about jesus, or banishing rats from the computer lab, i can be found helping coach the girls' volleyball team or making music with the "music club." i'm really taking a liking to volleyball; and it's especially nice b/c it gets me outside and moving around. the music club is lacking direction and organization, but there have been some fun jam sessions.
    well, i've got some work to do, so i ought to skeedaddle. don't let me be the only story teller, okay? lemme know what you're up to. and don't even try to tell me that you're not doing anything or that nothing exciting is going on!! that excuse isn't valid!
take care! peace out!

orange ya glad,
rachel

P.S. if you think you've had enough pohnpei stories for one lifetime and you'd like to stop getting my emails, please let me know!!!

P.P.S. my apologies to anyone who was offended by the mere idea of making up stories about jesus' childhood or anyone who was offended by my made-up story, in particular. more than anything, it was supposed to be an exercise in creativity. i figure god gave me my sense of humor, so he shouldn't be too upset about me putting it to use.

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November 1, 2004

friends and family,
    happy halloween and congratulations on coming to yet another conclusion of daylight savings time! i don't think it could be possible for us to save any more daylight out here. we're just 6 degrees off the equator . . . so things are pretty even-steven in the daylight category.
    to say that i have "big news" would be putting it mildy. at least, i think so. on october 18, the staff was informed that pats would be closing in december of 2005. two weeks prior to that we had been told that pats would be closing, but the timeline was unknown. unfortunately, that timeline has been filled-in and it's not as lengthy as some would like. our current seniors will graduate in may. then at some point during the summer, the current juniors will return to finish up their final year of academic and trade classes and graduate in december. just them. no other students. so this means that our freshmen and sophomores will not get to graduate from here. they'll leave in may and never return as a pats student. right now it's unknown what will become of this place once it's no longer a high school. as i walk around the campus, i have difficulty imagining it as anything other than pats high school; as anything but a place that is buzzing with life and all the surprises of a collection of high school kids. the school isn't closing for financial reasons. rather, the jesuit superior of micronesia decided there were greater needs not being served, and he needed to pull the jesuit manpower from this school in order to shift focus to other areas. i'm not too sure what those other areas are, however.

  this news came just as i was getting all hyped up with the conviction of staying here for two more years to continue teaching. now what am i gonna do? that's the big question for lots of people around here.....staff and students alike. what next? the freshmen and sophomores are really upset by the decision. it has been difficult for me to listen to them say, "it was my dream to graduate from here. and now my dream is gone." how am i supposed to respond to that? there are other high schools they can go to. but they don't want another high school! they want this one! they want the technical training. they want the spiritual aspect of the education. they want the friends they've made. but, sadly, that is not to be. the students are disappointed, but they are carrying on, and many are determined to get everything they can out of the time that is left.
    the staff was told on a monday about the news and we had to keep it a secret until the students were told on friday. that was probably the worst week i've had since coming here. i had to lie to the students and keep information from them; even though i was used to telling them pretty much everything! the students were to have a meeting during the last period of the day with the principal in which they would be told the news. i had prepared a slide show of the freshmen retreat to show them (just the freshmen) during our religion class that day. when i was finishing it up the night before, i nearly had tears in my eyes, going through those pictures and knowing they'd be gone in may (and hoping they wouldn't leave sooner than that!) i care so much about those kids and i just have a hard time wrapping myself around the idea that in may they'll go their way, and i'll go mine, and that'll probably be the last time i see them (despite many of their declarations of, "i'm gonna come to kentucky, okay ms. longest?")
    so now the pressure is on to make every day as much fun as possible. only seven months left! let's give it all we've got. i've started doing "life lesson friday" with the freshmen in religion class. i spend more time just hanging around with the kids. i've had a few lunches in the student cafteria--and i plan to do more of that. it just doesn't make sense for me to stay here until the school closes in december. with only 15 students in the junior class, the teaching responsibilities can be taken care of by augustine, fr. greg, and fr. paul. augustine can do the remaining computer classes. just when i thought i'd have two more years of the pohnpeian life . . . NOPE!! looks like i'll be out of here in june. after being here for 15 months, the remaining 7 seem like they're the length of a brief vacation. and then what?? i have no idea!
    so....that's the BIG news . . . and in other headlines . . . .
    ms. longest was asked to resign from doing music at mass on the grounds that she is not a professional singer. longest complied with the request despite the fact that there were no plans in place for someone else to work with the students on music. when asked about her reaction to the decision, longest declined to comment for fear that she might get all fired-up and start saying mean things. she continues to sing with students on wednesday nights as a part of the "music club" and takes-part in defiant jam-sessions with other teachers and students in her office after study hall. you can take her music out of the church, but you can't take it out of her!
    additionally, ms. longest was diagnosed as having a small ganglion cyst on the top of her left foot. and after 3 consecutive afternoon trips into the hospital, she was able to schedule a time to have the cyst removed. the minor surgery is scheduled for october 9th. the procedure will involve a small cut on the top of the foot, removal of the lump, and stitches to close up the incision. when asked for her thoughts on the ordeal, ms longest said, in her best arnold schwarzenegger voice, "it's not a tuuuuuuuuumor!"
    turning to more tragic news . . . a gecko was found dead inside the power supply of a pats computer on the morning of october 22. the gecko had apparently crawled inside the computer case and had nestled into the power supply. when power was turned on, the gecko shorted-out the power supply and left this world to meet his maker. he left behind a stinky corpse with a singed tail. by the afternoon, when the junior computer students came for inspection of the crime scene, ants had begun to assemble and were looting the food stuffs. no survivors have come forward . . . which is a good thing b/c the pats computer department is planning on suing for damages done to the power supply and punitive damages done to the students that are being left computer-less for the time being.
    and our final story today is about the miraculous three-day weekend going on at pats this weekend. for the first and only time this semester, pats is enjoying a day off. there was one day earlier this semester that classes were cancelled b/c of the death of a local leader, but that, of course, was not planned. all students went home for the weekend and the campus is eerily quiet. the staff is enjoying time to relax, go kayaking, read books, do laundry, and watch dvds. let's hope this break will give them enough of a re-charge to make it through the rest of the semester.
    and that's all for tonight's top headlines. thanks for watching. stay tuned for some crappy reality tv show that you'll undoubtedly watch even though you claim to be completely appalled by it! take care.
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November 30, 2004

bonnie raitt wanted to "give 'em somethin to talk about," but i'm just trying to figure out something for you to read about.

i suppose i could start off with a recent triumph. okay, it's not exactly something i will put on my resume or what most would consider a success worth noting, but as you've all come to see, things work differently out here. anyhow, my latest accomplishment was catching "tumor dog" on camera!! some of you may recall me writing about tumor dog in an email from this summer that expounded upon the variety of animal life here on pohnpei. well, at long last, i caught tumor dog with my camera and i've attached a picture for your "viewing pleasure." :-D

and speaking of tumors . . . as you may recall from my last email, i had a non-tumor removed from my foot--that was nov. 9th. during the operation, the surgeon discovered that the cyst was wrapped around a tendon in my foot (kinda like a donut). and so the cyst had to be cut in order to remove it . . . which was a bummer for me b/c that meant it was no longer cool to look at. so i didn't take it home with me. if it had the fluid in it, i would have kept it. well anyway, the first few days were pretty painful b/c i only had a prescription of tylenol to defend myself from the sharp pain in my foot! that was . . . ummmm . . . no fun! eventually, fr. greg was able to pick up a new prescription for tylenol with codeine. i was on crutches for a week, but now i'm back in action. i had another crazy run-around the week after surgery at the hospital, trying to get my stitches taken out. ask me about it when i get back, and i'll tell you all my great hospital stories . . . through this whole adventure, from start to finish, i made six trips to the hospital!! . . . and since this email has already gotten off to a random start, and i seem to be headed in a bizarre direction having already attached a picture of tumor dog, well, i might as well keep the fun going and attach a picture of my un-tumor foot. enjoy!

and for all you die-hard fans of "pohnpei o pllllllllenty," there is good news. my website has just received another update and makeover! so i highly recommend you wander over to http://home.insightbb.com/~jrlongest/ and check it out! the pictures there are much more enjoyable, i assure you. and, yet again, there is a page for this year's sophomore class. we created it as a part of my computer class.

this past friday we had an all-day, all-school 3 on 3 volleyball tournament. deirdre came up with the idea a few weeks ago, and it was going to be on saturday, but then it turned into an all day thing for the whole school. the day was rainy, but that made it fun. two of the three courts were on grass . . . which quickly became mud. i helped her organize things, but also managed to get on a team--albertus, dicot, and warren were my teammates. we didn't take a team picture, but i do have a hilarious picture of warren (from a set of pictures that tom took with the freshmen while i was miserably holed-up in my room after surgery)--so there, enjoy that picture while you're at it! it was a double elimination tournament, and my team managed to win just one game. but that's better than nothing. i had a ton of fun when my team played on the muddy courts. i got to relive my days as a goalie and dive for the ball. and just so you know, i didn't dive and catch the ball . . . i dove and hit the ball over the net or to one of my teammates. overall, it was a lot of fun. it's just a shame that the first annual volleybal tournament has to be the first, last, and only.

and, on that note . . . perhaps some of you are wanting to know how things are going at school . . . i'm apprehensive to say that things are starting to settle down now. because whenever i've felt that way over the past month and a half since the announcement came, something has happened to shake things up all over again. we have had 8 students to be kicked out or transfer since they were told about the closing of pats. and it hasn't been all at once, either. one here, two there, another one here. as i've told some of you, it's sort of been like slowly ripping off a band-aid. for now i think things are stable. we are two and a half weeks away from the end of the semester. so i believe the students we have now will be here until this semester is over. but then the big question looms of how many will return after christmas. it's been sad to see so many go lately. i don't want to have to think about more of them leaving. but in the meantime, we gotta keep on keepin' on.

soooooooooooo.....yeah, i got nothin. i've run out of stuff to say. i feel like i've even let myself down by not having any really hilarious stories. all work and no play makes rachel a dull girl. i hope life is well back in the us.
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December 21, 2004

kasalehlie!!
    happy first day of winter to you all! as you can see by my attached "christmas card," winter is being especially harsh around here. and by "harsh" i mean blazing hot!! perhaps this picture will bring some warm thoughts your way.
    life is good here on the island. yesterday i graded my fourth and final exam and turned in the last of my grades. this christmas break thing has been positively wonderful so far. i've been getting lots of rest and haven't done much of anything. friday was the last day of exams and then we had the student christmas party in the evening. that was a lot of fun, as always! on saturday we went into town to sing christmas carols at the hospital and jail. it was an extreeeeeemely wet day! so we had a group of very soggy carollers--as you can see in the other attached photo. we sang in four different wings in the hospital and as we left each spot, i looked behind us to see a puddle on the floor from where we were standing. but, such is life in pohnpei. a little (or a lot) rain won't stop us!
    tonight is the staff christmas party and yours truly is "santa's little helper." however, i think i'm actually taller than santa (fred)--making me not such a little helper. while we were out shopping on saturday, we scoured the town to find a beard for ole santy clause--somehow the one from last year has disappeared; so we have the suit but no beard. but, alas, there was no beard to be found. however, santa's helper is resourceful and sharp as a tack, and found a stunning mop that will make an excellent beard for the jolly ole man. (pictures will come later.)
then for the next week i'll be just relaxing around here. it's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it. my friend julie is coming to pohnpei on the 29th, so there is lots of fun to be had.
    and so goes my second christmas on pohnpei. i've stopped counting how long i've been here....it's been a while, that's all i know. some people have asked me how i'm feeling about leaving here in june. is it any surprise that i have mixed emotions about it? i'm not disappointed anymore that i have to leave. i've accepted the fact that it's time to go and move on. i'm not ready to get up and leave now, but i'll be ready by the time june rolls around. i won't exactly be running for the plane (at least it doesn't come to that), but it will be the right time. it will be tough to leave this place, but that's just how life goes. i'll be looking forward to seeing you all once i return. and if anybody has got any ideas of what my next job should be, i'm open to suggestions.
    wherever you are and whomever you are with, i hope you have a wonderful holiday season. you may not have a tropical paradise in your back yard, but hopefully you have enough good folks around you that it doesn't matter. you're all in my thoughts this christmas. take care and enjoy your inner child during this holiday season!
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January 8, 2005

so . . . here we are . . . 2005. another year has gone by. a fresh, new semester has begun at pats. this year marks the school's 40th anniversary, and also it's last year. i can get to school matters in just a bit. but first . . .

for those of you that are still curious, allow me to set the record straight and let you know that pohnpei was not at all affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami is asia. because of the lack of news flow to us down here, i was not aware of the tragic events until a day or two after the events when i received an email from my grandma asking if we were all okay. i was quite confused so i went online to check things out. for those of you that have gone to your maps to try to find pohnpei in relation to the area of the earthquake, you have undoubtedly learned that the pacific is a huuuuuge area and this island is a mere speck of dust. sri lanka is quite a ways away from where i am. and for that, i am very thankful.

and now on to other matters . . .

deirdre, cristin, and i gave the cooks the day off for christmas and took care of the cooking for the day. this meant that we also got to pick the menu. waldorf salad, crab rangoon, fajitas, apple pie, and toll house pie aren't exactly your typical christmas fare, but we have ham and turkey all the time! it was time to satisfy some of our cravings of the past year and a half! we were somewhat limited by the food selection in town, but i must say i thought the meal was the best one i've had in a lllllllllong time!

julie flew in on the 29th. she was here for just 9 days, but we managed to jam-pack that time with lots of stuff. she helped us put together monte carlo night (aka a kids' casino) for the local kids on new year's eve. a wild and crazy, but fun night. we went to the waterfall down the road. climbed sokehs ridge near the airport--the attached picture is of julie and i on one of the japanese guns on the ridge left over from their occupation of pohnpei. kayaked to nan madol. went to joy island for a staff picnic (attached picture is of deirdre, cristin, and me). julie also got to come to class with me and witness "ms. longest," the teacher. i think it was kind of entertaining, or perhaps a bit confusing, for her to see me as a "real teacher."

classes began on wednesday. i'm always grateful to start a new semester in the middle of the week because those first three days somehow feel like an eternity. i am teaching 5 classes this semester. i still teach religion to the freshmen, computer skills to the sophomores, and word processing/spread sheeting and computer repair & maintenance to the juniors, and i've added a computer skills class with the freshmen. this leaves me with just one 40-minute free period every day. but i'd rather be busy and doing something than sitting around with my finger up my nose. midway through last semester i began pleading with the principal to let me be the one to teach the freshmen computer class (but that was odd, in and of itself, that the chair of the computer department had to practically beg to teach a computer course. shouldn't i be the one deciding that in the first place??) i got what i wished for, but there have been moments in this first week that i've wondered if i was in my right mind for wanting such a thing. oh well!

there's no time for questions like that . . . of course i'm not in my right mind! i never am! but, most importantly, this is my last semester at pats, and the last semester for all my students except for the three, junior computer students. so i am hoping to really put a lot of effort into these next five months. deirdre and i were talking the other night about wanting to do stuff in our classes that "they won't get anywhere else." there are certain topics and lessons that will be covered at their next school. but what won't they get?!

so with my religion class i am continuing to do "life lesson fridays" and i'm also beginning the semester with group projects on world religions. after hearing a number of them express ill feelings towards muslims without the slightest knowledge of islam or its people, i want to try to open their minds beyond their own little world and hopefully get them to see beyond the actions of a few people and see other religions for what they truly are. with the juniors, i am going to try to cram in as much useful computer knowledge as i can this semester. i am sort of making up an extra, third class for them that covers a variety of things. and with the freshmen and sophomore computer classes, it's the same story . . . pack it all in! teach them as much as i can! i am starting with the very basics with the freshmen and it feels almost condescending to give them lectures like, "this is a monitor. it's like a tv. and the computer is like the vcr. you can play a movie in the vcr without turning on the tv, but you won't be able to see it. same thing with the computer. you don't have to turn on the monitor. but if you don't, you aren't going to see anything." but some of these kids have never ever touched a computer before; and so even though it feels like i'm treating them like babies, it's actually very necessary to start with such basics. it's so incredible to have a room of high school students and watch some of them use a computer for the first time. it's practically unheard of in the u.s. that a high school freshman wouldn't know his or her way around a computer. but here it's a common story.

another thing to look forward to this semester is the continuation of the pats outdoor movie theater. on the friday night before exams of last semester, cristin and i put together a movie showing for the students. we used a laptop, video projector, and projection screen to show "harry potter 3" outside of the library. we brought popcorn and cookies and had quite a few students come. people brought out blankets and chairs and watched the movie under an amazing, starry sky in the pacific! it was a blast! on the students' first night back this semester we showed another movie, but this was rather hastily put together and without the publicity and build-up of the first one. we're planning to continue doing this every other week this semester.

so . . . here i go . . . headed for my last semester at pats. just 5 mere months left on this little orange (but really very green) island. i'll save that topic for another day. for now, i'm out.

rachel
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February 3, 2005

last weekend i went to town for the day with cristin, fred, and tom. on the way there, we got a flat tire. for reasons unbeknownst to us, the van's jack had been removed. so after a while of standing around and hoping someone would pull over and help us (not to mention that we were waiting for the kid that was hanging around there to return with someone who could help--we pulled over in front of a tire repair place. it happened to be "closed." but there were a few houses around, so we figured there had to be someone around there . . . but no! either that, or the kid just didn't understand what the hell we were asking him to do) tom flagged down a passing car and we asked to borrow his jack. well, he was apparently in a rush (i've never known a pohnpeian that was in a hurry to do anything! for real! everything is always . . . "take rest. relax. have some coffee." but this guy seemed to have somewhere he needed to go), so he got out the jack, handed it over, and set up a place for us to meet him at on our way in--it turned out that it took us so long that he drove back by as we were finishing up. so then we had a jack that wasn't designed to work with our crazy, blue & white japanese van and a nice, uneven coral road as the base of support for the jack that was going to be hard enough to use in the first place. the jack kept on pushing up at an angle, which was scary to watch, so then i got in and drove the van a few feet onto some pavement that looked like a more flat, stable surface. replacing a flat tire is usually a pretty simple thing, right? in this case, i'd have to disagree. the van fell off the jack twice throughout the whole ordeal--one of those times was after we had just taken off the spare tire, so it landed on the axel instead of the tire. doh!! just when we were nearing the light at the end of the tunnel, some guy shows up from out of nowhere and is not only curious, but wanting to take over the operation. so this dude works his way into the thick of things and finishes up. not really necessary, but appreciated, i guess. and then right about that time the guy who loaned us the jack shows up. he's probably thinking, "stupid americans!! how long and how many of them does it take to swap a tire?" but lemme tell ya, things can get pretty messed up if you don't have the jack that goes with your vehicle!

later that day, we stopped by the jesuit house in town. and on the table near the entrance, there was a book titled, "why oh lord?" for some reason, all of us found this quite funny. maybe because it seemed so appropriate at the time. but, whatever the reason, it launched me into dreaming up a scenario of a dramatic reading of the book, with a group of people in the background intoning "why oh lord?" and so then i started doing a little "intoning" of my own for the others. and, for some reason, it seemed to fit. it seemed like my crazy way of singing "why oh lord" was just the perfect way it should be. and when i say "perfect" i mean like an "eerie, creepy" sort of perfect. (if that makes any sense) i would attach an audio file, but i figure it's not worth it. :-)

the reason i tell you this, is because, like i said, "why oh lord?" seems like a question that could be on the mind of many around here lately. students are still transferring and being expelled. the other day, i think we calculated that 18 students have either transferred or been kicked out since the beginning of this school year. that's more than the number of sophomores that we started with!! we now have 14 freshmen, 12 sophomores, 15 juniors, and 24 seniors. the circumstances behind the departure of the ones of the last week and a half have been especially disheartening. but i'm not gonna air the "dirty laundry" of our students throughout the depths of cyberspace. it's amazing, though, the things they hide and keep inside. i know it's in the nature of teenagers to keep secrets and be a bit mysterious, but micronesians have made an art of it. for one thing, they're repressed to the nth degree. there's just so much that they've been sort of "trained" to not talk about. i have no idea what's goin on with these kids and then news comes out and we're all blown away!

and the chorus sings out, "why oh lord?"

am i crazy? is this school crazy? . . . those are more like the questions we ask. oh wait, here's a good one: "you've got to be kidding me!?!?" i'm especially fond of that one. there are days and weeks when i think i've heard it all. then something else comes along and it seems too proposterous to be true. but it's not proposterous . . . it's pats. something that makes the high school drama of pats different from the high school drama in the states is that incidents aren't just personal and private or isolated events. because we all live together in this tiny little bubble, we are affected by the decisions of one another. pain, joy, disappointment, mistakes, successes, responsibility, everything is shared. these students don't go home to their parents at night. some of them don't even have parents to go home to on the weekend because they are from other islands. so sometimes we have to fill-in. maybe we don't always do the counseling, punishing, raising, or providing of parents (at least not all the time), but i'd say i at least do the worrying of parents. when i walk out of the classroom in the afternoon, i don't get to go home and separate myself. my conversations here, my letters to home, my thoughts in the morning, afternoon, and evening . . . they're almost always about pats. a hazard of the job, i suppose.

before i go . . . i'll tell you about something that's a bit more fun. cristin, tom, and i are now heading up a yearbook project. ya know . . . why not?! some of you may think it's a bit late to begin such a thing, but those of you that think that either underestimate our abilities or just don't realize how small pats is. we've come up with a plan to put together a 40-page yearbook. we've got a quote from a place on guam and i managed to talk fr. greg into providing free yearbooks for all students and staff. sweet deal, eh? yesterday we had a meeting with students and quite a few came. i'm excited about it and it sounds like the students are too. i find that pictures have a way of capturing the good times, and preserving those pictures also keeps those memories alive. so that when we all look back on this place, we'll remember the good times. let's hope, anyway.

i hope you're thawing out okay. i think we must have had groundhog for lunch today. hope he had enough time to check for his shadow before he was thrown in the frying pan!

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February 14, 2005

Happy Valentine's Day!

    this weekend was a good one!  on friday night, we showed 'hidalgo' to the students on the "big screen."  i'm always amazed when we show these movies and we get no rain during the movie.  pohnpei is a land of plentiful rain . . . and it's totally unpredictable, too.  but the three times we've watched a movie outside so far, it's been clear skies.  i love lying on the ground, watching a movie, and then turning my head skyward and seeing a sky chock-full of stars.  it's just great!

    then on saturday morning, deirdre, fred, tom, tom's friend, and i drove to kolonia to get groceries and then to seinwar to be picked up by a boat and taken out to black coral.  black coral is a small island just past the reef on the west side of pohnpei.  it is a marine protected area . . . so the fishies are pllllllentiful and quite big!  there are about 10 small huts on the island, and we had one right on the edge, with a nice view of the main island, the sunset, and the sunrise.  and, as luck would have it, there was no one else staying there, so we had the place to ourselves--minus the three-person family that lives there and runs the whole operation (but the husband and wife were gone most of the time).

    the snorkeling was excellent!  i even saw a few sharks!  the ocean continues to amaze me and the whole world that exists just beneath the surface of the water is mystifying!  i love it!

    the time at black coral was nice and relaxing.  we had to keep forcing ourselves to talk about things other than school.  and, at times, that lead to complete silence because we couldn't think of anything else.  but it also lead to some interesting conversations.  at one point we wrote a group story, in which we passed around pen and paper and each person would write a paragraph and then pass it on to the next person.  it was . . . ummm . . . an interesting story!

    and, finally, tom's friend, heather, was leaving pohnpei on sunday night/monday morning, so i told tom that i would go in to town with him so that he would have someone to ride back with him.  the flight leaves around 1 am--hence why it'd be good to have a driving buddy.  instead of being the driving buddy, i ended up being the driver.  which is fine with me.  i like driving; although the van is pretty wimpy and the steering wheel is on the right side, but we drive on the right side.  the more i drive here, the more afraid i become of what it will be like to drive in the us.  i can't imagine having more than one lane of traffic going in one direction!  and the speed!  yikes!  i think i'll freak out the first few times i'm on the highway in the states!  all those cars driving so fast!  what a mess.

    well anyway, we got back to campus around 1:30 or something.  and that's a heck of a lot later than i usually stay up on a 'school night.'  so, naturally, i'm missing a bit of "oompf" today.  but that's alright, i had a good time . . . and it was sort of fun to be up late.  i feel like such an old fart because i'm always going to bed early out here.  so it's nice to break that up every now and then.

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March 4, 2005

as some of you may know, i spend my weekday afternoons with three, young, micronesian males. aj, francis (aka jun . . . pronounced like 'june,' which is short for junior . . . and i mean 'junior' in the fact that his dad has the same name.  not as in the fact that he's a junior in high school.), and jimmy. they are the only students in the actual computer trade at pats. there are basic computer skills classes for the freshmen, sophomores, and seniors, but these are the three that are "specializing" in computers. unfortunately the freshmen and sophomores will not get a chance to pick a specialty. and perhaps what is more unfortunate is that these three guys (the stooges, as i often call them--but not to their faces) have only me for their trade classes. the other departments have at least 3 teachers; but most have a few more than that. down here in computer land, it's just me. so, every monday through friday, from 1 to 4:15, it's just me and them. the www in our classes is not the world wide wed, rather it's the weird white woman. and the cpu is not the central processing unit but the crazy person upfront.

and considering i spend so much time with these three, i figure i should tell you a bit about them. i've attached pictures of each of them. and i should tell you that these pictures are ones that they edited themselves. it was part of an exercise in attaching files in email. i sent the photo to them, told them to edit it, and then attach it back to me. and these are what i got!

in one afternoon of classes, i spend an amount of time with them that is equivalent to what their academic teachers (english, math, religion, or physics) spend with them in an entire week. so, then, one week for me would be five weeks for their other teachers. so you'd probably think that these guys and i have gotten to be pretty close, right? three hours a day, five days a week . . . and this has been going on for six months already. . . .

well . . . there's not exactly much bonding or story telling or buddy-buddy time going on around here. those three hours in the afternoon are my time for solitude and silence. and it's not because i haven't tried! these guys just won't talk to me!! they're just quiet guys (as are many micronesian youth). as i've said before, the nature of learning about computers involves hands-on learning and a deep involvement in whatever you're doing. but, still, i at least like to listen to music or chat every now and then when i'm working at the computer. but not these guys. it's all business. i even gave them headphones and a blank cd (with which they mixed their own cd) for christmas. but i haven't seen any of that stuff resurface since then. for reasons that i cannot understand, they are perfectly content to sit quietly at their computers and just work for the whole afternoon and not say more than 10 words. one of my favorite things about these guys (and by 'favorite,' i really mean it's the most amusing thing they do) is that the three of them will stroll in here together around 1:02 (class begins at 1:05) and each of them will say, "good afternoon, miss." it reminds me of the, "hello . . . hello . . . hello" of larry, moe, and curly. it's like a chorus. one of them right after the other. sometimes i wonder if they know my last name because they always just call me miss. it's bad enough that i've added a "ms." in front of my last name, but i consider it even worse to drop off the last name and just become "miss."

i try to strike up conversations with them, but my questions often go unanswered. and there are rare occasions when they will ask me questions. usually it's just something as simple as, "miss, are you going down for weekend?" translation: are you going to kolonia this weekend? it seem preposterous that we spend so much time in silence together. but it's the reality of the situation. lately, one of them (aj), has started to show up in my office during evening study and tries to strike up a conversation with me. i know this is because he doesn't have any work to do and he doesn't want to sit in study hall AND it's rare that i have students asking for help from me (because they have no homework to need help with). so he'll saunter into my office and sit down at a chair in front of the desk, say hello, and just sort of sit there. it was sort of baffling the first time he came in--he was actually somewhat chatty that night and bothered to ask, "so miss, how's your life?" but now it's just entertaining.

so far, i had been writing this email during some of my solitude with the stooges. but then in the course of that time, we took a break and while we were gone, the power went off. it was off for about 25 minutes, giving us some "quality time" together. jimmy offered to clean the white board and monitors--and he soon recruited jun to help him. and in the course of cleaning and sitting around, we jumped from one conversation to the next. but it was fun. more than what can be expected for a typical day. we were talking about them getting tattoos before their graduation and they asked me what i was doing after graduation and i had to remind them that i'll be leaving in june and won't be around for their graduation. i think they were actually a little disappointed.

so, anyway, that's a little insight into my afternoons. me and the three stooges. we are an interesting combination. somehow we manage to make the whole thing work.

and turning now to other news . . .

believe it or not, there is actually a drought going on right now here on pohnpei. we've gone a few weeks without substantial rain and it's starting to be a problem. the spring we get our water from is not supplying enough water, so we are in the process of tapping in to the well on campus. "water hours" will be established in which the water will be "on" for different parts of the campus at specified times. such a system has already gone in to effect in kolonia. we need rain and we need it soon. but when it does finally come, landslides are likely to come along with it (this bit of knowledge i acquired during my chat with the stooges today). i guess it's because things are drying up so much now when there's no rain, and then when it does come, the hills will sort of fall apart once they get water again. as tom would say, we just have to "hope for the best."

well, folks, it's time for me to bring this to a close. it's friday afternoon and i think we're going to play some frisbee to celebrate the beginning of our weekend.

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March 8, 2005

the following is an excerpt of an email i recently sent to a friend.  i think it is a pretty good description of some of the things i've been thinking and feeling lately. . . .

    you see, lately i've just grown to the point of almost being fed up with email. sure it's a great "technological advancement," and a wonderful way to keep in touch across the globe. but when it's your primary source of communication for sooooo long, it starts to get old! i've grown tired of writing emails and waiting for people to respond. mostly because that wait often never ends. i think part of my disdain for email comes from the fact that it is supposed to be so easy to use (and, well, it is) but then so many people seem to be incapable of using it. well, what i really think is the case is that people are perfectly capable of reading their new messages, but just won't bother to send some of their own.
    and so, here i am, writing to people and wondering if they're ever going to respond. mostly, i'd say it's emotionally exhausting. and i'm starting to wonder why i even bother. if i did what was logical then i would have shortened up my correspondence list a long time ago. why do i bother writing to people repeatedly when they won't write to me once? what kind of fool am i? i've obviously set myself up for such a disaster. so the fault is my own. you know that phrase george bush botched up that says, "fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me." ? well, i should be listening to that a bit more in my own life. shame on me for putting myself out on the line so many times and continually being let down. maybe i expect too much. i don't know. i feel so dumb. so pathetic. so naive. why have i wasted so much time trying to maintain relationships with people that obviously don't want the relationship to be maintained??
a few weeks ago i was on aol im and an old 'friend' im'd me. this is someone that i don't consider a friend anymore. she and i worked together at a camp for the summer while i was in college. we were great friends and then things fell apart. i basically got ditched for her boyfriend and i don't want to have anything to do with her anymore. not to mention that i don't think i was even myself when i was her friend. so, yeah, she starts talking to me on IM and i didn't have the slightest desire to talk to her. i don't want to be her friend anymore. but she was telling me about her best friend committing suicide and she was saying how much she missed me and all that had been going on made her think about friends and people and how important they are and stuff. so i couldn't exactly just blow her off. i tried to keep up my end of the conversation, i guess. but ya know what? even though i consider our friendship to be over, and i don't really want to communicate with her, if she sent me an email, i'd respond to her. i don't think i'd have it in my heart to just ignore it! very rarely does an email come to my inbox that does not get responded to. maybe i'm a rare type of person that thinks it's only considerate to write back to people. letters in the mail is sometimes more difficult. but, i'd say that about 96% of the time i write back to people that send me something in the mail. but much to my disappointment, i haven't gotten a 96% return rate on what i send out. but, i suppose i shouldn't expect so much. it's better to give than to receive, right? and we give b/c it's good to give. we don't give b/c of what we'll get in return. right, rachel??
    so with me spending my time and my energy trying to keep up with people from the middle of the pacific ocean, it makes sense that if those efforts aren't reciprocated, i'd be pretty disappointed. and i think that's where i am now. let's see . . . this is month # (excuse me while i count it up) 20 of me being here. and i think i've finally hit the breaking point. and by "breaking point," i am referring to the point in which i'm ready to give up on people and stop writing to them. on the other hand, who am i kidding? i think i've come to this same "breaking point," about 3 times already since i've been here and very little has changed. i'm leaving this place in 3 months. and as excited as i am about seeing friends, why should i go see people that i haven't heard from in 2 years? mostly i'm asking these questions to myself, not to you. so don't worry. these are more like rhetorical questions. but i think that maybe if you get to 'hear' some of my rhetorical questions, then that will help you understand the place i'm at. i wonder who my friends will be when i get back? who will be the ones that welcome me home and call me up to see how i'm doing or want to get together with me??
    i realize that, for most people, long distance relationships are hard. but aside from the few other teachers here and a few students, all my friends are a long ways away. some people get taxed by one or two long-distance friendships. well i've got about 50! the students and teachers have become my friends here. but there is still so much that they can't be for me. so much that they can't replace. so yeah, i have friends here. but the people i am closest to are still far away. very far away. blah! usually people have close friends around them and then some other friends that are further away. so there's some sort of balance there. having good friends nearby that you can call up or go hang out with gives you some balance of the folks you can't see as often. well, my scales are tipped quite a bit. not so much balance. and that lack of balance is starting to wear me out.
    and everything i've written already gets magnified by my job. having some emails or letters to read would give me some sort of buffer from work. but instead, i sit in this damn computer lab all day long, often in silence (like right now, for instance). i hate computers. i feel like i'm going crazy every day. like i'm manic or something. one of the best things that has happened lately has been my time spent figuring out my trip back to the us. (yeah, there have been some other good things and maybe i'll tell you about them another day. but figuring out when i'm getting out of here has been about as good as it gets!) most of the students are out in left field and don't give two shits about school right now--especially b/c the school is closing.
    and so i'm wrapped up in all these thoughts of, "i can't wait until <this> or <that>" but lately i've begun to worry about what if <this> and <that> don't happen. what if things don't work out like i hope. ya know? i have all these hopes of what my life will be like once i'm not a teacher at pats anymore. but what if i'm just a sucky person and i'm still sucky when i go back to the states? what if the problem isn't pats or pohnpei or computers or teaching?? what if the problem is me?? i mean, i suppose i'll have to deal with that if that's what it comes to. but that'll be pretty depressing if it turns out that all my troubles here weren't necessarily related to the situation, but rather it was all my own fault.
    okay, anyway . . . . so you want to know if i will forgive you. well, considering you're one of very few people to even acknowledge an absence and apologize for it, then, yeah, i'd say you're back in the circle of trust. at least you now have some insight into the pain of being ignored. it's not fun. i appreciate and accept your apology. i just wish that you weren't in and out of my life all the time. i feel like you're very present for a week or two. then you disappear for a few months and then pop up again at random. so i guess some consistency would be appreciated. but whatever. but, at some point, the apologies will have to stop. it's kinda like my students. they do the same things over and over and then apologize for it. interruptions is one example. i'm always being interrupted when i'm helping a student or when i'm talking. i just don't get it. i'll clearly be talking to a student and then they say my name over and over again as if i'm just supposed to drop everything and rush over to them. well i do end up putting my conversation on hold b/c i have to tell that student not to interrupt me and point out what is obvious--that i am busy with another student. and then he or she will apologize, "sorry, miss." and sometimes it just drives me batty to hear their apology. yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good to apologize. but sometimes i'll say, "don't apologize. show me you mean it. and stop doing it." you know? does that make sense? so....the next time you disappear, don't bother apologizing and begging for my forgiveness. don't make such a big deal about it. i mean, it's nice to know that you realize you've been gone. but instead of spending a whole big long email to say "sorry" and "will you forgive me?" just write me and let me know what you've been doing in that big long gap since i last heard from you. don't focus so much on the fact that you've been gone. instead focus on what you've been doing while you've been gone. tell me more about that and less about how sorry you are.

whew!  that was a lot!  having finished writing then, and then reading it over again, i get that sort of satisfaction that comes when i read something i've written and i can feel like i really put myself on that piece of paper.  honestly, totally, and completely.  it has been tough to be far away and to feel abandoned.  and i feel like i need to admit that and also let you all know that.  maybe that's been the problem.  maybe i haven't said it.  and maybe i should.  i want to hear from you.  i need to hear from you.  if you think i'm being strong and totally separated and completely independent, well then you're wrong.  i'm not.  being thousands of miles away isn't always fun and easy.  i miss you all.  and perhaps if i said that, then maybe you'd know.  and then maybe you'd know that what i need is to hear from you.  or maybe not.  maybe i'm just fooling myself some more.

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March 10, 2005

    I don't know why the urge is hitting me so late in the game, but I'm now wanting to make an effort to add updates in here more frequently.  Maybe it's because I recently figured out how I could update the site from Pohnpei instead of mailing a disc back to my folks.  Or maybe it stems from some feelings surrounding my looming departure from PATS.  Or maybe it's because I'm being encouraged to write a book and I figure the best way for me to write a book is actually write in the moment, rather than in retrospect.

    So that was a bunch of maybes.

    It rained a lot yesterday.  And, as I write this, more rain is starting to fall.  It's great having the rain back.  It rained throughout most of the night . . . I slept so well!  LLLLove it!  My major dilemma now is that I have a bunch of laundry to do (I was hoarding it on account of the water shortage) but now it seems to be raining to often that I won't be able to get it dry when I hang it outside.  Kinda like, "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it."  But, ya know, I can wear some dirty clothes.  I'm just glad this island has gotten some rain.

    Well, dinner is in an hour and I've been here at the computer lab for entirely too long today (as always).  So I'll head back to my house, hang around in my hammock, and read.  Sounds lovely, don't you think?

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April 2, 2005

    some emails i have received recently have included parting lines of "can't wait to read your next update." so i guess that is the subtle way of some people to tell me they're waiting for another chance to live vicariously through me. ;-) so....here i am....in the computer lab on a saturday, going over the past month here and trying to pick out what i should tell you about this time around. i've attached three pictures that i think can help me summarize the high points of march.
    the picture "stevie and me" was taken one afternoon when a former student stopped by for a visit. stevie transferred from pats last semester and now goes to a public high school that is about a 15 minute walk from here. he has come around a few times since he left. seeing him is always great, but it saddens me to hear him talk about his school. the first challenge of most schools in micronesia is getting the teachers to come to school. and this is also true of stevie's school. but even if his teachers come, he's in classes that he's already taken at pats. at christmas time, stevie wanted to come back to pats, but apparently the principal wouldn't allow it. his transferring from here was sort of a necessary evil so that he could ensure a spot for next year at his new school. so anyway . . . stevie's easter break started much earlier than ours, and he stopped by on a friday afternoon to say hello. he strolled down to the computer lab and came in to chat for a bit. he asked me to print some pictures for him and asked if we could take a picture together to print out, too. it was great to see stevie again. the week before, i purchased my plane ticket, so we talked a bit about me leaving. and i began to wonder if i'd see him again before i leave. i hope i'll run in to him again. but now he knows when i'm leaving, so perhaps he'll drop in again or swing by the airport when i'm on my way out.
and so that brings me to one of the major events of march . . . i bought my plane ticket!! it's a relief to have it done and out of the way, but also a reminder of how little time i have left here. i'm leaving pohnpei on may 28th. it's like that date is now burned in to my memory and i think of it every day. today i turned my calendars over to april and thought . . . "may 28th . . . less than 2 months." it's kinda like every day is now seen in terms of how far away it is from when i leave. well, maybe that's a drastic exaggeration, but it is something i think about. certain events over the past year have gotten me to the point wherei'm ready to go, but it will also be sad to leave this place.
    my dad was here around easter time. we went to all the usual spots on pohnpei that you would take a visitor to. (one of those was an overnight trip to black coral. see attached photo of dad and me) and each time i was at one of those places i thought, "hmm, i wonder if i'll come back here again before i leave." i'm not one to be big on "oh this is my /last time/ for this or my /last time /for that." but it's kinda different here considering i'm in such a far-away location and who knows when i'll come back here next.
    when i leave pohnpei, i won't be going straight back to the us. first i'll stop in yap for a few days. there are some pats students from yap and i'm hoping to see them while i'm there. after yap, i'll go to guam for a few days. there i'll be staying with the jesuits and just bumming around the island. there is a student that left early in the first semester that lives on guam, and i'm hoping to see him while i am there. from guam, it's on to the big island (hilo) in hawaii for the last part of my vacation. cristin (another teacher here) lives on hilo and has invited me to come stay with her. she promised to take me surfing and hiking up volcanoes. but eventually all my island adventures will come to an end and i'll have to return to the really big island of north america and the lower 48 on june 12. i'm looking forward to my trip through the pacific and a chance to see some other islands. it's gonna be tough to leave the island life . . . . but i am also excited to return to the change of seasons. and just in case you are curious (which you probably are), i do not have a job for when i get back, nor do i have any shred of an idea of what i'll do. but if you have any suggestions, i'm open to hearing them.
    thursday was culture day at pats. the students give presentations and do dances from their home islands. it's a very interesting and entertaining day. for the most part, their dances and clothing demonstrate the history of their island. but, there are some cases in which these things are still going on in the island. i've included one picture of a few yapese students as they prepared to do a skit about the stone money of their island and then a dance that was done in times of war. it puts the students in a whole new light. they seem so grown up when they're talking about the "culture" and history of their island and dancing and screaming like victorious warriors.

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