School is coming

The beginning of the school year is quickly approaching and my days keep getting busier. This is my last week of preparations before my students come to school. This week is actually one of my least favorite weeks of the whole school year because of how busy it is. Today we had to go across for the welcoming ceremony for the new school year. All of the teachers are invited to a short program to bring in the new school year. For most people it’s a nice short little drive to get to the ceremony. Unfortunately, I’m not so lucky. It takes about two hours for me to get to the ceremony and teachers had to be there by 7:30. After the ceremony was completed we had to head back to our schools to prepare our rooms. 

After the welcome ceremony we were told that we needed to come back on Tuesday and Wednesday for teacher workshops. These workshops began at the same time as the welcome ceremony, which meant that another round of early mornings for us. As the week progressed I could feel myself slowly getting exhausted. I can say the transition from summer to work has been a little rough. We also have been so busy with meetings on the main island that I have had barely anytime to get my classroom ready. It currently looks like I have a mountain of things to complete before Tuesday morning when classes begin. We had a staff meeting today and were informed that our school day hours would be changing this year. We are going to be starting school earlier so that we can finish the day earlier. I can honestly say I was a little excited about this. I am very much a morning person and the sooner I can be done with my day the better. We are now starting school at 7:30 and will be finishing at 2:00.

Lastly I began my master’s classes this week. Holy moly. I forgot what it was like I to be taking college classes again and it was a slight wake up call. Most days this week I will be working/-preparing classroom until four. Quick go home and shower and send Lusi off to choir practice. Enjoy the two hours of peace to do my homework when they are at choir. Then by nine o clock I am usually asleep because I have to get up early. Tomorrow will be the worst day. We have to be at the wharf at 430. (insert crying face). Lets just say I am not looking forward to tomorrow at all. And if we don’t attend the function tomorrow they will hold our paychecks… so cant even call in sick.

Hope you are all having a great week.

Pray that I don’t go crazy from everything that’s going on.

With Love,

Abby

Preparing for the school year

The weeks leading up to the first day of school can be long and tedious but when you’re finished it seems all worth it. I have been spending most of my time lately preparing my room for the upcoming school year. Over the summer I brainstormed exactly what colors and bulletin boards I wanted. I also prepared an all-new curriculum and set up for my classroom. After spending many hours working on schoolwork, it’s all starting to fall into place.

The first thing on my agenda was getting a new paint job for my classroom. The teachers before me spray-painted on the walls and then all the teachers after them tried to paint over it but you could still see the spray paint under the coats of paint. Along with the normal wear and tear of classroom where kids draw and touch everything. So I decided to go with a dark grey color to cover up everything from the past. Lusi and friends just finished painting the room yesterday. Thank goodness I didn’t have to do it all by myself. And it looks awesome!! After they finished I noticed that the bookshelves looked gross  but I didn’t want them grey. So another trip to ace tomorrow to find some very bright colors to make the book shelves stand out.  

Today I also had to chance to get the room a little more organized. I had shipped a total of eleven boxes of school supplies here over the summer. So I spent a large majority of the day unpacking those boxes and finding places for them inside my classroom. (Mom and Dad I have a whole shelve in my closet full of binders didn’t realize I did that many!!) Even though my room is far from clean or even close to being ready for students I am starting to see progress.

I also finally got all of my suitcases unpacked and my house looks like it did before I left. It’s so nice this year being able to have a house to go to and relax. Last year I spent one week stuck in hotel and the next week living with the world teachers while my house situation was being figured out. This year I just had to get my keys back and everything was where I left it. Also big news I purchased a mifi, which allows me to have Internet at my house! Yay. I already tried it out and it works perfectly for face timing. No more running around the village looking for Internet!

Miss you all back home already!!

With Love,

Abby

Back to island life

I finally made it back to my island home. After twenty-four hours of traveling I made it back. Overall I had a good day of flying with just a few delays in my flights. When arriving in American Samoa you have to go through customs, which is a small building with no air conditioning. As I spent most of my summer in air conditioning standing in a building with very little airflow and extreme humidity was a face of reality that I was back to the heat. My bags were one of the last ones to come out and by the time I got out of security I was dripping with sweat and running to the air conditioning in the car. I may have been a little spoiled this summer. After an hour drive and fifteen minute boat ride I finally made it back and got some sleep.

After getting a few hours of sleep I decided to make my way to town to purchase a few groceries and pay some bills. While I was driving Lusi goes you’re not in the states anymore you need to slow down. Yeah, the thirty-mile an hour speed limit makes it seem like it takes forever to get anywhere and my patience for driving slow has disappeared. After we got a carload of groceries and paint for my classroom we headed back home for the day.

After we got back to the island we picked my bags from Lusi’s house. I stayed at his house for the first night since no one had been to our house or cleaned it. When we walked into the house our jaws may have dropped just a little. We had left the house super clean before we left in hopes that it would stay clean. Jokes. Some little creature, a rat we believe. Tried to scratch through the kitchen table and leave its droppings everywhere in the house. After a good hour of cleaning we finally got the house looking back to its normal self. After the big day of shopping I was exhausted and fell asleep at six and woke up at five. At least I finally got caught up on my sleep.

Today we are going to the school to start preparations for the new school year.

With Love,

Abby

Year Three

I can’t believe that I have been a teacher in American Samoa for two years going onto my third year. It has been an experience that is hard to put into words. I feel like sometimes I am living two lives. I have my life in the states with my family and friends that I have known for years. Then I have my life in American Samoa with all my friends and family out there. I have grown to know so many amazing people over this experience. Each year seems to bring some really high highs and some really low lows. I can feel my self-growing as a person each time I face something unknown. When I look back on the time I have spent on Aunu’u, I think of many accomplishments I have made and some not so good moments.

As I move into my year three and I am days away from going on a very long day of flying. I am very excited for the upcoming school year. I have spent more time then one would like to admit preparing for this school year. I am trying to rebuild my curriculum to something that I am familiar with and am comfortable teaching. The way that most teachers teach out there is not how I studied to teach in college and I want to bring what I learned in college to the classroom. I also finally had the funds to actually make this possible. Being a volunteer teacher made it extremely hard for me to do that because funds for resources were very limited. So I am hoping for a great year of learning in my classroom.

This year I once again will be changing grade levels. This year I will be teaching fourth grade and I have nine students. I teach all subjects except Samoan. A Samoan teacher teaches Samoan, since I know very little about their culture and language. This year I am also going to start taking my masters classes. Fingers crossed that I can find decent Internet to complete my classes. I am a little worried about that but we will see what happens. I am taking my masters in teaching English as a second language along with educational leadership.

I am excited for this upcoming year to see what it holds. This is my last year as a teacher in American Samoa as a contract teacher. I am really going to try and take in the beauty of the island and the people I know. I also ask that you pray for my students for the upcoming school year as it will be a change for them never having an English speaking teacher who knows very little Samoan. I hope that it can be a great experience for my students and myself.

With Love,

Abby