Thursday, the 26th January, was Australia Day. We celebrated it in my class by learning about Australian Flags: The National Flag, Aboriginal Flag and Torres Strait Islanders Flag. We sang the Australian National Anthem and I Am Australian. (The latter is the better of the two if you ask me.) One of my students is Australian, and she presented a PowerPoint presentation that she prepared about the things that make Australia special. Her mother prepared Australian bites like ANZAC cookies, dampa, ripple cake, toast with Nutella and toast with Vegemite.



What is Vegemite? It is yeast extract. Beyond that, I don't know. Either you like it or you don't. There is no middle ground. I like. I've eaten a piece of toast with it everyday since Thursday.

The Chinese New Year was also recently celebrated. My class celebrated it a couple of days early. The new year was on Sunday, so we had our celebration on Friday. 2006 is the year of the Dog. I was born in the year of the Dragon.



Below is who I am according to the Zodiac:

People born in the Year of the Dragon are healthy, energetic, excitable, short-tempered, and stubborn. They are also honest, sensitive, brave, and they inspire confidence and trust. Dragon people are the most eccentric of any in the eastern zodiac. They neither borrow money nor make flowery speeches, but they tend to be soft-hearted which sometimes gives others an advantage over them. They are compatible with Rats, Snakes, Monkeys, and Roosters.

We cooked a stir-fry in class and steamed some rice. A Taiwanese student in my class brought two dishes that her mother prepared. One of the students made a dragon, and we went outside to have a parade. Friday was a perfect day until 10 minutes before school let out. One of my students had a severe asthma attack. I did not even know he had asthma. He's new this semester. Apparently, he's also allergic to peanuts. His mother did not include that on his list of allergies in his file. One of the dishes prepared contained peanuts, and I informed the class of this. Well, he ate it anyway. I was terrified. He was terrified. He could not breathe. Thank goodness his uncle arrived at the end of the day and was able to rush him to the nearby clinic.

Don't worry. He was ok. I called his home over the weekend to check on him. He was fine in class today.

Across
4. City of birth for King and Coca Cola.
6. King was admitted to this college at the age of 15.
8. Tennessee city where King was assassinated in 1968.
10. Said, "I do," to King in 1953.
11. He won this award at the age of 35.

Down
1. ..."they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their __________..."
2. In 1959, King traveled to India to study this man's philosophy of nonviolence.
3. Woman who did not give up her seat on the bus.
5. Magazine that named King "Man of the Year" in 1964.
7. Memorial where "I Have a Dream" speech was delivered.
9. Rock band U2 recorded this song in the eighties in honor of King.

The cross word puzzle was edited out of the page that we contributed to last week's newspaper. I thought that it was pretty good so here it is. Have fun!

I'm having ipod troubles. I've had my ipod Shuffle since the end of May 2005, and I'd fallen in love with it. I loved that it was so small and sleek. The feature that I loved the most was that it did not need any cables to connected to a computer. I could just plug it into a USB port. I used it as a flash drive and as a music player. Out of no where yesterday it stopped working. It still plays the songs that are on it, but it is not recognized when I plug it into my computer or anyone elses. I cannot retrieve information I had saved on it or change the songs that are saved on it. I've read my owner's manual and go online for assistance, and NOTHING! I'm disappointed. I'm biting my nails again.

Here are the monsters!

I have the privilege to spend many hours each day with these thirteen fabulous kids. The last week and a half have been fantastic. We've been studying Martin Luther King, Jr. They made dioramas of the famous "I Have a Dream" speech and wrote speeches about their own dreams for the world. We're studying current events this quarter (we study them every quarter, but this quarter, we are building our unit around them), and I'm letting the students play a big role in the direction we move over the next nine weeks. So far so good. We're being published in the newspaper tomorrow!!! I have a friend who works for the Samoa News, and she helped us get an opportunity to contribute to a sponsored page. We created a page about what we've learned about MLK. Two of the students' speeches will be printed, a student contributed a crossword puzzle, and we made a timeline of MLK's life. We also included an exerpt from the "I Have a Dream Speech," and there will be exerpts from the other students' speeches. The biggest deal to the students is that a photo of our class will be printed (in color, no less) on the page. I'm excited for them. It's a big deal to me, too. I cannot wait to see the paper tomorrow.

You gotta love Phase 10!

Celeste and I spent most of the day in bed watching movies. We watched A Lot Like Love and The Perfect Man, to little romantic comedies that were not so great, but, at the same time, were not so bad; they both had their merits. I usually HATE Ashton Kutcher. I was pleasantly surprised by him in A Lot Like Love. I loved the kind of relationship that his and Amanda Peet's characters shared. I want to be best friends with the one I fall in love with and do fun and crazy things together.

The Pefect Man really was not so good, but it was fine for a lazy day on top of an air matress. I've had a relationship with a person who is afraid to let anyone get too close (I think I'm often that person.), and I know how fantastic it is to finally open up and trust someone.

Amy, Luke, Celeste and I all played Phase 10 tonight. What a great game! I lost (surprise, surprise). Thank goodness I'm not too competitive or a sore loser. It was fun. I cannot play Phase 10 and not think of the trip Melissa, Kyazze and I took to Zanzibar a year ago. We played many a game on the beach. It's nice to play indoors and not worry about the wind blowing the cards away.

Oh what a night!

Can't you see the postcoital bliss in our faces? If only. Celeste and I are just borrowing an idea from my dear friend Jennifer (who, by the way, is freezing her booty off in Iowa) and taking honeymoon photos on her new air matress. No matter what the hooker might try to tell you, there is absolutely no sex in Celeste's bedroom, no sex in Celeste's bedroom, no sex in Celeste's bedroom.

It's a three-day weekend thanks to the dear man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We just finished watching a movie that left us quite unimpressed, The Upside of Anger. It is on several top 10 lists for 2005. God, what a bad year for film.

I LOVE SAMOA!!!

The Bitch is back!!!

School started back today, and it was a good day.

My class is quite different than last semester. Four of my students have left for other places, and I have two new students, two Samoans (a brother and sister) who just moved back from Salt Lake City, Utah. My class is much more gender-balanced. The four students I lost were all male.

It is amazing how much one student to affect the whole class. One of the students that I lost was one of the most difficult people I ever worked with. He was not a bad kid, he just suffered from a complete lack of judgement. I expended so much energy defusing issues that he cause. I was wearing me out, plus I was losing so much time that I could have used for teaching. I was actually quite fond of this student, and I'm going to miss him. However, there is already an obvious difference (a good one) in the classroom. I think I'm going to enjoy his absence.

Two of the other three students that left the school were also quite difficult. I find it an odd stroke of luck that the three most difficult students from last semester are all gone. I hope I'm not being too optimistic, but I really thing this semester is going to go quite well. If today was any indicator for the rest of the quarter, it is going to be an enjoyable time.

FYI: The psycho parents transferred their kids to another school. I hope I never have to deal with them again. In fact, I really hope I never see them again. They really make me sick. I'm throwing up in my mouth right now typing about them.

At the LAUNDROMAT:

There's wireless internet at the laundromat. Who knew? Actuallly, someone in the area has wireless at his or her home and did not password protect access to their service so my laptop can pick up the signal. Lucky for me. Wireless internet at a laundromat... What a fantastic idea! I mean, one has to spend a couple of hours there to complete washing and drying. It would be a great service. I know that would bring customers to a laundromat in some areas: a cyberlaundromat. I'll add that to my list of ideas for getting rich for early retirement. Put in an espresso machine, magazines, and some boardgames, and it would become a great college student hangout. Laundromats have always been kind of sketchy places to me. Not even middle class. Maybe I just choose sketchy places to do my laundry. (I always get the lowest prices per load.)

Back to work. I've got to complete my unit plan for next school term. It begins on Monday.

Omo, Unilever’s international-brand washing powder

Omo is a blue detergent powder launched in 1954, and became the Unilever spearhead in the synthetic detergent market. New Blue Star Omo was introduced at the end of March 1963. Today, Unilever is aggressively promoting Omo all over Asia and Africa, packaged in quantities down to 35 gram. Unilever’s brands Persil, Omo and Skip (other Unilever brands include the pre-war brand Sunlight, Sun, Vim and Surf) are engaged in fierce competition with Procter & Gamble's washing powder brands for pole position in just about every world market.

P&G was the first to use one brand name for its leading detergent (Tide) in some countries and another brand name, with a different package (Ariel) in the others. Unilever copied this policy. The company markets Surf in many countries and Omo in the remainder. The products are almost identical. But the packages are dissimilar enough that retailers stock Surf in the same section with Omo, often at the same price, so consumers must believe they are different products.

My favorite price! How could I pass it up? I bought two boxes.

It's my birthday, and I'll be fly if I want to.

I decided to treat myself to a birthday outfit from gap.com that I won't see for another two weeks (or more). Why did I not just go shopping on the island? Good question. I have a question for you: Where would I go? Yes, there are shops on-island where I can find t-shirts; however, there are no retail chains here, and clothing boutiques the deal in clothing that's my style are pretty much non-existent. (What is my style, anyway?) The next big problem that I have with shopping for clothes in American Samoa is that nothing fits. (Okay, saying nothing is not 100% true, but trying to find something that I like that fits is almost an impossibility). Samoans are known for being large people. You know how sizes usually go S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL (for the hefty ones). You can buy XXXXXXXXL (8XL) shirts here. I kid you not.

I wanted a new outfit for the new year. Check out the trousers I purchased for myself from gap.com above. They are a bit dressy, but I'm tired of wearing jeans. I figured they'd be versatile. I could dress them up or down. Anyway, I had a big problem finding a shirt to accompany them. It's winter in the US so the online stores only have long-sleeved shirts in stock. I ended up only getting a belt and some boxers with my trousers. This is where you can help. If you want to send me a birthday gift (Did I mention it is my 30th? Yeah, I'm getting up there.), how about considering a short-sleeved, button-up shirt, size small, that would look nice with these navy blue trousers? I don't know if you can tell, bu they little pin stripes. For an idea, observe the shirt the model is wearing in the photo. Something like that in a short-sleeved version would be nice. If you'd like to surprise me, my address is:

P.O. Box 326
Pago Pago, AS 96799

Happy birthday to me!

I thank my lucky stars it really was not so good.

I saw it at the bakery at KS supermarket. I've been trying to eat a more healthy diet, but you know cheesecake can really be good for you. Right? I saw it through the glass in the bakery, and it started to sing out my name. It was so cute looking up at me, and I could tell that it wanted to come home with me. I was sold. I bought it.

Dinner was great, chicken breast and couscous with a Coke Zero. I really have to eat more veggies. I need to get more vitamins in my diet. Time for the cheesecake. I took it out of the cute little box it came in. To truly understand this moment, you have to truly know me as the cheesecake fan I am. I adore good cheesecake. I have to stress the good. I'm usually apprehensive about eat cheesecake from unknown bakers because a bad piece of cheesecake can really ruin my day (or evening as it was). I took my chance with the Korean baker at KS Mart because it's been a while since I've had a piece, and I already explained how cute it looked staring up at me through the glass. (I really have to stop going shopping when I'm hungry.)

Oh the drama. I took my first bite and almost threw up in my mouth. D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G! It was like biting into foam rubber with an essence of cream cheese and lemon extract? You can't judge a cheesecake by its appearance, no matter how cute it looks through the glass.

An afterthought: I’m watching Party Party on Bravo. Some people should never be allowed to have children.

On the sofa watching Beaches, the 1988 film with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. Well Barbara’s character has just died, and Bette’s “Wild Beneath My Wings is playing in the background. Melodramatic, but I love it. This was my favorite movie when I was in sixth and seventh grades. I used to cry every time I saw it. I don’t easily cry, but movies do it to me sometimes. Maybe I just hold so much in that I subconsciously allow myself to let go when I’m in the darkness of a movie theater or alone watching a DVD. I remember watching Tim Burton’s Big Fish two summer’s ago. I was home visiting on a little break from Uganda and Peace Corps. I was watching it on the television in my mother’s bedroom. When it ended, I just started crying. Tears were rolling down my face, and I could not make myself stop. I laughed at myself, and the tears still came. The last film I watched that made me cry was Crash. I cried at least three times during that movie.

That’s enough about crying.

Am back in business with a new look for 2006.

So much has occurred in my life since my last post. I don't want to go into all the details because they are complicated, and I don't feel like spending so much time at the keyboard typing. To summarize, I almost left American Samoa. I was offered a dream position teaching in Uganda. I went as far as telling my boss that I was resigning. I told most of the people close to me that I was leaving. Circumstances have changed. I'm no longer leaving. I still have a dream-job offer, but for August. I'm going to complete the year here. It's going to work out best for everyone this way.

I continue to do a lot of soul searching. I'm trying to find balance and be happy with my decision, happy where I am in life. I usually do not have such a hard time doing that. This has been one of the strangest experiences of my life. I usually have no problem finding my place in a community and establishing my life where I am, but it has been difficult for me here. I wallowed in self pity for a while, but I'm shutting the pity party down.

On a positive note (see I'm trying), I gave myself a new digital camera for Christmas, so I can post photos to my blog again.

Happy New Year!!!