Happy holidays!

12.3.09 Thursday
If you will permit me another gripe, I have a serious issue with hairballs in my classroom. More than anything else, more than three-inch spiders, trails of ants, salt grime, balls of dough squashed on the floor or spilled Kool-Aid, it’s those creepy hair balls that really get all up in my grill. If you think cats are the culprits, you wouldn’t be wrong that it’s the result of grooming, but I think most of the cats get eaten here, so it’s not them. This hair is decidedly long, black and greasy, right off the combs of my students, and for some reason, it makes me retch every time I see a pile of it in the corner. It’s long because I think it’s mostly from the girls, it’s black because that’s the only hair color here, and it’s greasy because the slick, shiny gloss on most of the kids’ heads is achieved with large quantities of hair oil, haphazardly applied. GRIM! Didn’t hair oil die out at the same time as the word “swell”?

I don’t remember any point in my high school experience when I saw human hair piling up in a classroom, and I have my students clean the room twice a week. It’s awful to sweep up, too, because it naturally sticks to the bristles of the broom. Admittedly, this is not a real problem, but not much happened in the last couple weeks, and I wanted to write about something.

12.7.09 Monday
The Mormon missionaries here kindly distributed a large number of Bic ballpoint pens (the ONLY ballpoint pen, as far as Peter is concerned) to the school and community. Good writing utensils are always welcome around here, so I appreciated the gesture. Written on the stem is “Grand Resort, Tunica, MS,” evidently from some resort in Missouri. Upon closer inspection, though, I found the writing looks like this:

Grand

Resort
Tunica, MS

I noticed that a word between “Grand” and “Resort” had been carefully scratched out with a knife – “Casino.” Some diligent LDS member, possibly the guys here, had spent who knows how long erasing this word that was so incongruous to their message. That’s all well and good, but now I have an image of finding some pious Mormon in our bathroom, huddled over my deodorant, making sure that the manufacturing company is only “Procter & ______.” With a lack of outside stimulation, these are the things I think about. I need a magazine or something.

12.10.09 Thursday
While trying to refresh my students on proper nouns, I taught them the word “unique.” I didn’t realize, however, how important it was to teach them the correct pronunciation right off the bat. Now I have a whole class of kids saying “eunuch,” and I REALLY don’t want to explain the difference between the words.

12.12.2009 Saturday
Aside from the pet peeves, things are going well, just trying and failing to keep myself motivated to teach with finals a few days away. I’m done reviewing, for the most part, and I still have Monday and Tuesday classes, so I’ll have to figure out something to do with the kids for a couple days until exams. Rookie mistake.

Finals start on the 16th and finish on the 18th, then we’re (hopefully) off to Majuro. My parents are flying in on Thursday, which seems ridiculously soon. Getting a boat out of Jaluit is still not looking great, but they say that during the Christmas season, there are a lot of boats. We just haven’t seen any of them yet.

Depending on the boat schedules, it’s possible that I won’t post again until after Christmas, so if that’s the case, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year! Appreciate the snow for me, and I wish I could be there to celebrate with you!

11.30.09 Monday
Some sage words from our principal at our weekly school assembly:
(Addressing the students) “Some of the boys are still wearing earrings. Boys, if you want to wear earrings, I’ll give you a dress to wear as well. Girls wear earrings. Some men wear earrings, but those are men who don’t know what to do with themselves.”