Just an Ol' Fashion Update

So I am sitting here at the kitchen table after a nights work of marking and recording quiz scores and figured I would add my two cents to the blog. As I sit here I am enjoying the smell of dinner which Stacey is so lovingly preparing since I am having a productive night of school work. Coupled with the smell of garlic and onions sauteeing is the sting of fresh varnish, slowly drying on the two new dining room chairs delivered yesterday (only 10 weeks after we put in the order) which was the result of Stacey pestering our local carpenter every half an hour to send them here from town now that they were finally finished.

Due to issues with that carpentry project I took on one of my own, installing boards in our closet to give us some shelves. We have two beautiful and large closets, one in each bedroom, that have been great for odds and ends because while they have the runners for shelves, there was not a single board in place to set a book, bag or box upon. Since there is some minor construction at my school I worked out having a 12 ft board dropped off at my doorstep. My Deputy 2, who is also our Agriculture teacher (Mr. Oriokut), is awesome and also scrounged up a saw for me to use. On both Saturday and Monday I spent an hour or so measuring and cutting two foot sections off of my plank adding three shelves in my tool closet.

My handy work is exceeding not only my own expectations or thoughts of what is possible, but also the thoughts of those at home. While calling back to the land of cheese to give the best friend pep talk to Michael the morning of the wedding I got the quip "Tony, I never knew you were so handy." Necessity is the mother of all skills. And if he wants help with projects around the house when I get back he should be careful with his criticisms. Just Kidding, Michael.

Speaking of the home front, I do want to say congratulations to both Michael and Amelia. This is the event I am most disappointed in missing while being abroad, but I know the Markons were well represented and I have gotten full updates and pictures from the family. It was good to know Brandon kept up tradition as well. Enjoy the honeymoon, ours only beats yours by 719 days.

Also I will have to say I have felt great I have been able to catch more than just my Mom and Dad on the Sunday night (or afternoon for you) calls. It hasn't always been easy to keep in contact either from technology issues, busy schedules or absent mindedness on our part, but the amount of people I have been able to hear voices of and share my experiences with has really made my day. Also remember skype works really well for chatting (typing) and ok for calls.

But now on to life in our sleepy complex. My school term is wrapping up with exams this week and next. Very shortly after that we have some language and technical training for Peace Corps and thanks to the Ministry of Education and Sports we have added a new wrinkle. Late last week we found out that instead of ending the term on the 13th of August we will now be ending on the 6th as well as starting our new term on the 23rd of August. We get a whole two week break, YAY!

In all reality this really sucks.

We get to cram all of our grading into one week, get to go to training for one week and have one more week to prepare for beginning of term exams. Also that leaves only a few days to prepare for new lessons and new classes.

Teaching this term has been a real roller coaster. The S2s are great some days and an absolute handful the next. Classes have been interesting as well because I am still working on a balance with how I structure the lesson. So far it has been dominated with lecture because I only see them once a week for each subject. It is hard to cover both content and practical work with only a 80 minutes a week. Next term I will probably have them more and will change up some of my lessons. The bigger development will simply be switching days in which I have the S2B class. Each class is broken into two streams and right now the only day I see the S2B is on Monday. Monday is also market day and the most common day to skip class. Rarely has attendance been over 50% for my afternoon lesson on Mondays.

The S1 class has been absolute hell. I will save those stories for latter in the year if I ever want to recall them at all. Any semblance of the generic African child striving for education to better their life, is only happy to have a school to go to and just needs someone to give them a chance, has forever been dashed from my mind with the actions of the students in that class. Some days I feel like I could be working with inner city youth.

Things will change a lot, especially with my familiarity of the school, staff and students, for next term. The problem is the time for me to adjust has just been thrown out the window. I do have some big goals for next term. I started a small discussion group just to give students more of an avenue to talk with me and I want to push that more next semester. I also want to lead some athletic program, either football or disc, and try to get some interest drummed up for a club of any kind. I will be working on computer literacy with my staff as we have installed a computer in the staff room and I have been slowly plotting ideas for each level of computer experience. I will also be helping guide the slow, but well intentioned development of a student computer lab. Top this all off with more presence in the S4 preparation for the UNEB exam and my calendar is looking pretty stacked.

I am really jacked for IST because it will be the first time our group is all together since the day after swearing in. And while there is work on the horizion, I am starting to get a feel of what I am capable of, what my school might be able to handle, and where I might be able to squeeze my square peg into the circle that is St. Theresa's Okunguro.