I am finally over my cold!! I was so bummed on Sunday when I couldn't go diving due to my head cold. Every diver knows that going diving when sick is like a death sentence...so I stayed home and graded. I got a lot done...as far as diving....maybe next time which will hopefully be next weekend.
This week was a really great week. I finally came to the realization that God needs to be the ultimate center of everything in my life. I have found that no matter how many times people may tell me to make him the center of my life and how much I try to tell myself that He needs to be...I just needed to figure it out on my own. And this week, I'm not sure how, but I did! I already feel much better about a lot of the situations in my life such as with my students, their parents, roommates, my family, and being away from home. God has sent peace to my heart and as I write this I have tears in my eyes for the joy and surrender that I am experiencing. I always get so irritated with people telling me how to "find God" and how to give up control...and though I will probably still get irritated when people tell me how it is, I now FEEL His peace. This peace God has given me is just overwhelming and though it will not be easy to maintain this feeling, I have true faith, for the first time in my life, that God will carry me through and that He is in COMPLETE and TOTAL control. What a great feeling!
All of these feelings made my week so much better and caused me to have great fun with my kids. Yesterday was International Day and as a school function we had a food fair type thing with all of the students countries represented. Anyways, my class went to the fair at our specified time and we had a blast! We tried all kinds of food and played with origami and what not from all these other countries. The countries represented were the Phillipines, Palau, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia. It was so cool to see my kids dressed up in their native wear and to have them run to me, grad my hand, and take me to a booth saying "Teacher teacher come try this food...it's so good, we eat it all the time at home." What a great time we had! I tried all kinds of random foods, some really tasty, some not so much, but the bonding between me and my students was priceless.
In the end all that's left for me to say is I am so grateful for the peace, relaxation, and fun spiritedness that God has bestowed upon me this week. Thank you for letting me share all of this with you and I pray that you will find your way in your spiritual walk with the help of God's REDEEMING LOVE.
Much love to all until next time....:-D
Friday, November 14, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
2 weeks in a nutshell
So it's been WAY too long since I've written and for that I truly apologize. I will try to recap the last couple weeks but for the short version... I've been yelled at by a crazy parent TWICE, fallen out of my hammock (huge bruise to prove it), watched some great basketball, totally rearranged my classroom, and had a surprise day off of school.
Now for the long version...
2 weekends ago (the weekend of parent teacher conferences)was a long weekend. It was the most amazing long weekend because my housemates and I were able to do some real exploring of the town we live in and we found some pretty interesting stores. There are a lot of souvenir shops and a lot of knock off brands of Chanel, Dior and other such expensive brands. There are also a lot of creepy, nasty, unhealthy looking dogs and let's just say I stay far away from them. Since it was around Halloween time there were a lot of costumes out...we had a lot of fun trying them on and taking pictures. The workers were just laughing and probably thinking "those crazy Americans." Oh well, it was fun. :-D Pictures are posted as well. On that long weekend we also went to the championship game of the National Filipino basketball league here in Palau. We had a few friends on the Surangel team so we went and cheered them on. THEY WON!! Good times.
This past weekend was nice and relaxing...to enjoy that relaxation I decided to go outside and lay in my hammock and read a nice book. We set up 3 of our hammocks out on our porch and sometimes we sleep in them and sometimes we just relax out there. Anyways, on this particular night, I went out to read and got in my hammock...sadly I did not realize that the rope on one side was thinning out from being outside so long and from so many people laying in it. Needless to say it snapped and I landed on my bum...huge bruise...hurt a lot...pictures on the link. Enough said.
I also took the opportunity of a new month to redecorate my classroom and to rearrange the students desks. It feels so refreshing to have new decorations and what not. It's all decorated with fun Thanksgiving type stuff. I love Thanksgiving...my favorite holiday.
Last but not least...today (Monday) at about noon the school office got a phone call from the president of Palau's office saying that the president was declaring tomorrow (Tuesday) a national holiday due to the elections so we should cancel school for the day. HAHA! Unfortunately, by the time we as the teachers got the news school was already let out for the day. So we each had to call the parents in our class to let them know of the free day tomorrow. So...SURPIRSE! NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!
Well that's all for now. Next time I will stay on my toes and not wait 2 weeks to write again.
love to all...until next time :-D
Now for the long version...
2 weekends ago (the weekend of parent teacher conferences)was a long weekend. It was the most amazing long weekend because my housemates and I were able to do some real exploring of the town we live in and we found some pretty interesting stores. There are a lot of souvenir shops and a lot of knock off brands of Chanel, Dior and other such expensive brands. There are also a lot of creepy, nasty, unhealthy looking dogs and let's just say I stay far away from them. Since it was around Halloween time there were a lot of costumes out...we had a lot of fun trying them on and taking pictures. The workers were just laughing and probably thinking "those crazy Americans." Oh well, it was fun. :-D Pictures are posted as well. On that long weekend we also went to the championship game of the National Filipino basketball league here in Palau. We had a few friends on the Surangel team so we went and cheered them on. THEY WON!! Good times.
This past weekend was nice and relaxing...to enjoy that relaxation I decided to go outside and lay in my hammock and read a nice book. We set up 3 of our hammocks out on our porch and sometimes we sleep in them and sometimes we just relax out there. Anyways, on this particular night, I went out to read and got in my hammock...sadly I did not realize that the rope on one side was thinning out from being outside so long and from so many people laying in it. Needless to say it snapped and I landed on my bum...huge bruise...hurt a lot...pictures on the link. Enough said.
I also took the opportunity of a new month to redecorate my classroom and to rearrange the students desks. It feels so refreshing to have new decorations and what not. It's all decorated with fun Thanksgiving type stuff. I love Thanksgiving...my favorite holiday.
Last but not least...today (Monday) at about noon the school office got a phone call from the president of Palau's office saying that the president was declaring tomorrow (Tuesday) a national holiday due to the elections so we should cancel school for the day. HAHA! Unfortunately, by the time we as the teachers got the news school was already let out for the day. So we each had to call the parents in our class to let them know of the free day tomorrow. So...SURPIRSE! NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!
Well that's all for now. Next time I will stay on my toes and not wait 2 weeks to write again.
love to all...until next time :-D
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