Day 8

January 7, 2010

Day 8:

 

Today was a good day. My body woke me up about fifteen minutes before the rest of the group so I headed out to the Oceanside to watch sunrise. When I got in view of the sun, I realized that it was perfectly placed on the horizon: half risen, half hidden. I knew this was the photographic opportunity of a lifetime so I went back to the apartment to get my camera. I told Eric about it also so he joined me, camera in hand, to go take photos. In the time it took me to walk the 40 yards back to the apartment, the sun had risen to fully above the horizon. I missed my opportunity. Good thing the sun rises everyday; I’ll try to get it tomorrow.

            I started the teaching day by speaking to Derek’s class about the Civil Rights Movement. The next text in one of the books for one of his classes was the “I Have a Dream” speech. He asked me to come in and talk about the movement. It was a senior literature class. It’s actually not Derek, nor his mentor teacher’s, class. It’s some guy named Loren. But he got stranded in Hawaii or something after break and hasn’t made it back to Majuro yet so Derek and his mentor teacher are filling in. I gave about a 15 minute overview of racial tension in America starting with the slave trade and ending with MLK’s speech. Derek had downloaded the speech onto his computer so, after I spoke, they listened to the first half of the speech. We forgot to bring speakers and the speakers on a MacBook aren’t great so Derek walked around the class with his computer as the children followed along with the text in their books. Even though Derek was roaming around the class with his computer and the windows and door was closed to silence the sound of crashing waves and ocean winds, it was still fairly inaudible. He decided to end it about halfway through and listen to the rest tomorrow.

            After that I came over to the Middle School where it was only about 20 minutes into the first period and I didn’t have to teach until third period which begins at 10:20. I had planned for the children to work from their grammar workbooks and I would explain each exercise, do the first example and then help them individually as needed. I was excited for this because it was the first time, since I’ve been teaching here, that I could give them individual attention. Before I had a book to work from, I was making up lesson plans and writing my examples on the board. Since I had the book, I could let them work at their pace and walk around and help them with what they seemed to be struggling with. When I went into the classroom, although the books all had names on them, I realized that I would not have enough books for two classes of students to write in them. So, I had to make copies of the pages I wanted. Because I didn’t want to waste paper, I eliminated one exercise from the lesson plan and just had one paper, front and back, for each kid.            

            The lesson was from Unit 16 in their grammar books and it was about the Present Progressive form. I went on to explain how to form the present progressive in the form of a statement and then again in the form of a question by writing two different formulas (both of them were the same except the subject and verb were switched) and leaving them on the board all class. Once I felt that they kids grasped that concept, I went onto the next part of Unit 16: Wh-Questions. That section was about how to order the words when asking a question of who, where, why, when, what and how. That was somewhat harder, but given the formula that I had written on the board and the emphasis on identifying subject and verb earlier in the week, they picked up on that pretty quickly as well. I then went through some examples on the board. I would write “He sleeps” and then show them how to order the words for it to become “He is sleeping”.  I went through a few of those and then I wrote the statement “He sleeps” again and then made it into a Wh-Question “Where is he sleeping” and then “Who is sleeping”. I don’t think they picked up on the distinction between these two sentences so I think I need to spend about 20 more minutes explaining that. I’m not going to put that on the quiz for tomorrow.

            Next, I had them fill out the questions of the worksheet and that was when I got my individual instruction time. I walked around the classroom and observed who was and who wasn’t doing their work. It’s amazing how unmotivated to work some of these kids are. They will literally sit at their desk and look at me and not write a thing down all class. It’s funny though, how when all I have to do is walk in their direction, all I need is two steps, and then they start writing. They’re all pretty shy, as a culture. Some of them would shield their answers with their hands so that I wouldn’t see. I found that amusing, considering I told all of them that they would be handing them in anyway. With my first class we made it through the first side of the page and the period ended when we started the second side. With my second class, they made it through both sides of the page but the period ended before I could grade the last section.

            After teaching, I went over to the high school for gospel choir rehearsal. Now that I’m teaching third and fourth period, I missed the smaller rehearsal that takes place during fourth period. So I went upstairs to the fifth period rehearsal in the room where we have to take our shoes off. I’ve never been one to walk publicly barefooted except when I cut the grass at home. I’ve NEVER been the type to show my toes. Whenever I wore sandals I almost always wore socks with them. I think I got that from basketball. We were never allowed to play in the same shoes that we wore into the gym. So most REAL hoopers walked around in socks with flip flops. Here, it’s just too hot for all that and I enjoy the time to let my toes breathe. Choir rehearsal was great though. We finished up “Don’t Cry”. Before, we had gotten through the first two verses but today we finished up the hook and the bridge. The tenor part is pretty natural, the chords are gorgeous but our voice doesn’t have any weird intervals or anything that catches me off guard. It’s a pretty conservatively tenor part. I really enjoy being in a choir again. Like I said, it’s been seven years since I was in Chorale with Gartner. I still have a pretty good ear though. For this particular song my ear works best along with the alto section. When I sit between the tenors and the altos, considering I can hear the altos, I never miss a note (with the tenors).

            After choir rehearsal I headed to Tide Table with Professor Garrod where he had his habitual grilled cheese with cole slaw and fries and a XXXX beer, followed by a cup of coffee and banana cream pie (HAHA!! Katt Williams! If you don’t get it, watch American Hustle!). Then he dictated some emails that I typed for him. The connection wasn’t very strong so we spent the first 20 minutes figuring out why we couldn’t respond to any emails. Then, after I typed a rather lengthy email our hour was up and it hadn’t sent. So we lost it. Next, we returned to the high school for auditions.

            Auditions went well. It was one of our better days I thought. There was one alumni that came back who has acted for Garrod before. The rest were undergraduates. I think we found our Gertrude and Ophelia. The battle for Hamlet, Claudius and Laertes is a tough race though. After all the discussion we’ve had about the play, I’d rather not discuss it any further in this forum other than to say that we should have a cast by the end of tomorrow.

            Ben and I left audition a little early because we were somewhat bored and Ben had to cook. I had planned to go back to the apartment and change and grab my laptop so that I could go to the resort, work out and use the net before dinner was done. Well, neither Ben nor myself had a key to get into the apartment and Scott, the building owner that lives next door, wasn’t home. Of course neither of us have a functioning phone so we were stuck outside the apartment waiting for someone to let us in. It was right around sunset when we arrived at the apartment so we went to “the tree” and took some photos of the sunset. The last few, with us actually in them, were really good. That tree has got to be the most photogenic tree on the island. Well we still didn’t have a key so I finished up Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy on the porch and then laid down to take a nap. It was another 45 minutes before anyone came. Ally and Anna had walked from the grocery store and of course, neither of them had a key either. So I went back to sleep for about five minutes until Eric returned and let us in. I changed, and grabbed my computer as I had planned and went to the resort. I told them I would eat at the resort so that they wouldn’t cook for me. It was a highly vegetarian meal anyway; Something like tuna, string beans, broccoli, peas and a salad. I have nothing against vegetarians but I was raised on meat and potatoes and so I went to the resort to eat a juicy burger and fries. Not quite the ideal meat and potatoes but it worked for me. The gym was locked and the front desk was closed so I couldn’t work out so I just sat in the Enra Restaurant and used their free internet service. Professor Garrod, Derek, Robyn and Peter were at the resort when I got there. They were sitting outside and through the tinted windows, and the opaque lagoon water, I didn’t see them. I didn’t know they were there until Prof. Garrod knocked on the window and I got a glance of some light bouncing off of his bald head. I went out to talk with them briefly but made it a point not to stay too long. I was expecting some rather important messages and I needed to respond to most. I’m sure I seemed anti-social but when on an island living in an apartment with nine other people, working on a play with them and spending most of our free time together, I just wanted some free time to myself. Just me and my meat and potatoes. So I spent about two hours at the resort. About an hour and a half of that was spent waiting on my food to be brought to me. The leisure of service on this island is quite upsetting. I guess I just need to get with the Marshallese times and learn to chill out huh? We’ll work on that. But the burger was delicious as were the fries. Event he 7UP they brought me when I ordered a Sprite wasn’t bad. I squeezed into a taxi and got back to the apartment about 9:15. Eric, Edie, Ben, Ally and Peter were watching a movie when I got there. I took a much needed shower and when I got out most were preparing for bed. I laid my pad out on the floor and laid down to rest. Right after I crossed the threshold of consciousness and unconsciousness, Garrod came in and began questioning us on the roles of those auditioning for the play. Of course, the pictures of the candidates are all on my computer so I had to get up, get out my computer, download the pictures from today, and go through each person one by one as we discussed them. I was pretty upset. Garrod was seated on the couch above the head of where I would sleep. Edie and Anna were lying beside me looking at the computer and Peter and Derek were leaning on the couch on which Garrod was sitting. I couldn’t go back to sleep until this was finished. We eventually made it through 52 pictures and had a condensed list of people that we wanted for call backs. At 10:55 I could finally go back to sleep.