1st Day of School

I survived! I think I was more nervous to start this school year than any other school year so far (even my first on.) It might be a combination of being so busy and preoccupied the last couple of weeks, feeling VERY underprepared, or any other list of reasons I haven't come up with yet....But whatever it is, I didn't feel ready for today. I didn't sleep very well last night, and got up at 5:30 to start the day. I had promised Gretchen I wouldn't give in and go to work on Sunday, and I kept my word, but that meant I still had a list of about 12 things to get done before school started today. I was at the bus stop shortly after 6, on the first bus that came by, and at school around 6:30....which gave me exacly 1 hour to get EVERYTHING done! Oh ya, and I forgot to mention that while I was getting ready this morning, all of the sudden I had a terrible sudden pain in my lower back. It hurt so bad that I thought I was going to pass out, but I didn't. So, on top of all the things I had to do, I was in pain...I managed to get MOST of my list done by 7:30, go to staff devotions and meet my kids. All 19 of them were there (always a good thing on the first day of school). The day was pretty good, only had a few meltdowns and moments of crisis. Hopefully tomorow will be better. I'm still a little behind on getting things done for next week, I barely got tomorrow's lesson plans written. But, there is always tomorrow (until it comes). My plan leaves at 7:00 Wednesday morning, so I have to leave my house at 4:30 to get there two hours in advance. So, as long as everything (for real this time) is done by 4:30 Wednesday morning, I should be in good shape.

Productive or Frustrated?

I can't believe that tomorrow will be Friday! This week has flown by, and there is still so much to do. Today started off as a very productive day. I arrived at school shortly after 6:45, and practiced the piano until 7:20 or so. After that, I returned to my classroom where I cut out all the letters for one of my bulletin boards before the staff meeting even began. My productivity continued after lunch. My classroom is actually starting to look like a classroom! However, even with all of the productivity, there is still so much left to do! Tonight I decided not to stay at school all night, in fact, a group of us decided to go to Chinatown for supper, which required a specific leaving time 5:30. I worked right up until time to leave, and was one of the first ones waiting to head to the bus stop. The only problem was, that when everyone arrived, and I went to reach for my bus card, it was missing. Where could it be? I ran upstairs and quickly searched my very messy, but productive desk, but no bus card. I searched the book shelf, and even went to the music room before heading back downstairs, still empty handed. I paid cash to ride the bus, and had a wonderful dinner of dumplings with friends. However, I still do not know where my bus card is! Hopefully it is hiding on my desk, and when I'm not so rushed tomorrow I'll be able to find it. In the mean time, my boss has offered me a ride to work tomorrow! Yeah for not having to take the bus!

Thoughts

Yikes! I can't believe that this is already Wednesday night. One week from now I'll be on my way back to the States for Ludi's wedding! This week has been crazy. I've been going to school at about 6:45 to practice piano before the day begins. The last two nights I didn't come home until about 10:00. That makes for some LONG days. And the worst part is my classroom is no where near ready for students to walk through the door on Monday! I've got a lot of work left to do! In my devotions, I have been learning about the names of God. The name I'm on this week is Yahweh. When God reveled Himself as Yahweh, He revealed Himself as a God of deliverance, freedom, promise, and power. It is the name that represents God as a faithful and wonderworking God. In Exodus 3:15 God says that this is the name he wants to remembered by from generation to generation. I find it very ironic that this is the name that the Jewish people refused to say outloud, eventually even forgeting how to pronounce it. They replaced Yahweh with Adonay, which means "master". How often do we do the same thing in our everyday lives. We may follow what God says, regarding him as master without regarding him as our deliverance, freedom, promise, and power. We serve, but we do not adore. This year (sorry, teachers tend to think in school years, not calendar years) I want to serve God, not only as Adonay, my master, but also as Yahweh.

Happy Birthday Singapore

Today is National Day in Singapore. I started my day with a swim, and then headed to school to practice the piano before church. (Are you noticing a theme in my life right now?) While I was practicing, on of the janitorial staff came and asked me how much longer I planned on being there. He said he was going to paint to stairs, so I decided that was my cue to leave. I took a bus and met some friends for church. I was a little early, so I checked out the shops under the MRT. They are new shops since I left for the summer, mostly food. I had a peanut butter sandwich before I left, but that had been an hour or two, so I decided to have a snack. I had a curry puff and bubble tea. Not sure how healthy of a breakfast that was, but it sure tasted good! After church I had lunch with some friends and then headed downtown. There was a flea market at the National Art Museum, and Hannah's roommate had a booth there. When we got there, we realized that for today admission was free, so we decided to look around. Overall, I came to the conclusion that I do not appreciate modern art. To me, it looked like a bunch of scribbling. I did enjoy the photography galaries though. It ispired me to make a photojournal of Singapore. Okay, don't know if that will really happen, but I would like to explore more of the island this year, and a photojournal seems as good of a way as any to do that. We'll see what happens. After the museum, I went to the grocery store and bought supplies to make chocolate fridge cake for a picnic tomorrow. Should be fun!

Saturday Heatlag

What a day! I think I am struggling from heatlag instead of jetlag. I did okay with the time changes and sleeping through the night, but the heat is just simply wearing me out! I slept in today, which was very nice, since I didn't have anywhere I had to be. Once I finally got up, I decided that with my brother's wedding less than two weeks away, I should probably spend some more time practicing the piano, so I headed to school. I practiced for about an hour, and decided my back and fingers needed a break, so I headed to my classroom. I wish I could tell you that the next few hours I spent at school were very productive, but that would be a lie. I'm feeling lost this year, and so I sat in my room, looking at my teacher's editions, just wondering what it is that 3rd graders learn! I started planning lessons, but that frustrated me, so I finally gave up and went back to the piano (about 4 hours later!) I practice for another hour and then decided I was through at the school. I was meeting a friend for supper at 7 and I figured the bus ride would take about an hour, so I decided to just leave a little early (it was 5:00 by this time). Since we were meeting at the national library, I figured I could look at books while I waited. My estimate was fairly accurate, and by the time I walked to and from the bus stops, I arrived at the library at about 6:15. I checked out a few books and than sat and read while I waited. Pat and I decided to have Turkish food for supper, so we headed in the general direction of Arab street. The only problem was, neither of us really knew how to get there! We wondered in what we thought was the right direction, until we finally decided to just stop and ask. We had a nice dinner, and then walked around for awhile before calling it a night and heading home. I met Pat when I went to the orphanage in Malaysia last year, and haven't seen her since, so it was nice to catch up.

One week down!

I survived the first week of "new-teacher" orientation. It has been good to get to know the new teachers before everyone else got back, but it was a lot of review. We've had meetings every morning this week, and then time to work in our classrooms in the afternoon, which is nice because I have a LOT of work to do! I have/had four people's stuff in my room, which needed to be sorted through and organized. It has been quite a task, but my classroom is starting to look like a classroom again instead of a disorganized storage unit. Today was the first day that the returning teachers had to be back. We met this morning for refreshments and then headed to Sentosa (an island connected to Singapore by a bridge) for the day. We did some really cheesy group building activities and then headed off on a GPS scavenger hunt. I was appointed the IT person for our group, which meant I was in charge of the GPS. I'm not sure I was the right person for the job, but what are you going to do? What they failed to mention was that A) the GPS doesn't tell you where there are roads, and where there are just cliffs, and B) it has a zoom button. There were about 12 clues we were supposed to solve, needless to say, we didn't finish. My team came in last place, but at least we had fun. It was a VERY HOT day, so I didn't mind sitting in the shade rather than running around up and down the hills looking for clues about the history of Singapore. And, since I had my principal and the school director in my group, I didn't feel too bad about not completing the task. After our "bonding" time, we headed back to school and had a 4 hour break before tonight's family dinner. I came home and took a nap! It was wonderful. Now we have a three day weekend because Sunday is Singapore's National Day, similar to the 4th of July. I plan to meet up with some friends and spend some time relaxing!

Back in Singapore

Sorry I've been so bad about blogging this summer! Things got pretty crazy, and I was just enjoying the time I had at home. Now that I'm back in Singapore I'll try to do better! (And maybe back track a little and fill you in on some of my summer adventures as well.) I arrived back in Singapore at 11:20 last night (Singapore time....10:30ish Friday afternoon in Iowa). It was a LONG day and a half of travelling, but overall it was fairly uneventful. My first flight was right on time but when I got to Denver, I saw right away that my next flight was delayed an hour. This was a problem because I only had a one hour layover in LA before heading to Tokyo. I was really nervous, but figured there was nothing I could do about it, so I got lunch and paced the airport, partially because I knew I would be sitting, and partially because I was nervous about getting stranded half way to Singapore. When the flight finally took off I relaxed a little. After all, there was nothing I could do. When we got to LA I started worrying again as I waited not so patiently for the people in front of me to get off the plane. When I got off, there was a flight attendant standing right outside saying "Is anyone going to Tokyo?" I said I was and they very quickly escorted me to my next plane. There were about 5 of us on the plane, so they held it for us! Praise the Lord! The best part was I didn't have to wait around a long time after boarding because as soon as we got on, the plane took off. The next two flights were uneventful, just LONG! I was fortunate though, that I had an empty seat next to me from LA to Tokyo. It was so nice to be able to spread out a little and not worry about bothering anyone else. When I finally arrived in Singapore, it was a funny feeling. It was a mixture between feeling like I was coming home and already missing home. Once I arrived, however, the real adventure began. I got in the taxi line and waited for my turn to get a ride home. When I got in the taxi I told the driver where I wanted to go, only he said he didn't know where that was, could I tell him. I said sure, as long as he got us to the AYE, which is a major freeway like road. He said that was fine as long as I told him where to go after that. We left the airport, and right away I knew it was going to be an interesting ride. His English was hard to understand, so conversation was pretty much out of the question, which wasn't all bad. But, when we left the airport, he drove in the middle of the two lanes. All the way home, he was weaving in and out of the lanes. We almost hit a motorcycle and a few cars. I just kept praying "God, please don't let me have come this far to be killed in a taxi....please let me make it home safely!" I was never so thankful to get out of a taxi! I got to my place at about 12:30, paid the driver, and headed in. I slept very well last night, it is amazing how much easier it is to sleep lying down rather than being scrunched in an economy airplane seat! :) I slept until about 8 this morning, which is REALLY good, and then unpacked and rearranged. I've spent most of the rest of today working in my classroom. Nothing like jumping back into things to get over jetlag.