JVI Retreat - Camping and Island Walk, and Halloween

Hey everyone. First of all, I'd like you to note that there is a new link on the side of this website, called My New Pictures. All it is is a continuation of the same website I was using to show pictures, only the first account ran out of room for free uploads. So I started another one. There are pictures of the camping trip, which I will now explain:
So we have two retreats during the year that involve only our JVI community: Joe, Adrienne, Jackie, Chris Dwyer, and myself. We do all the planning and make the decisions of how it is going to run. For instance, should we go to a remote island and relax or camp out, should there be a priest with us, is there a theme, is one JV organizing everything or all of us? For this one, we decided that, even though a trip to another island would be very relaxing, we wanted something different and we wanted an experience that would be good for community building. What better way than to go camping. We'll go to an island in the Spring. Also, each of us would lead in prayer and reflection at different points along the retreat and there would be no priest with us this time. We just didn't know who to ask, everyone was pretty busy, and it would have been better if it was just the 5 of us for camping.
After leaving campus after the honors assembly, with our backpacks and machetes ready to go, we followed Rutan, a worker here at Xavier and a good friend of ours, to his house through the village of Sapuk. By village I mean there are a few scattered houses made out of wood and tin that you can get to by following narrow trails in the jungle. There aren’t any main roads you follow to get to some of these houses. After walking through some properties and jungle, the bush became thicker and we stopped passing by houses. We started ascending and the trail consisted of a path where the plants were less than 3 feet tall. It was very beautiful, and on this particular afternoon it was very humid, so we were all soaking. We had to navigate through the jungle, all uphill, for about 45 minutes. If we were on a road it probably would have been a 15 minute walk. Even though the sun was setting, there was enough light for us 6 to walk through the jungle. At one point, the canopy was so thick that it was like night time.
We stepped out of the bush into a clearing and we saw the top of this hill about 300 yards away from us, and there was nothing but very tall grass that we had to machete through. Rutan left us, and we continued making our way up the steep hill, cutting through grass.
As we reached the top (not the tip top, but it was flat enough) it was pretty dark. We found a good rocky yet flat part to put our bags down. In front of us was a beautiful view of the eastern part of the island (check out the pictures of the sunrise.) Xavier was right in front of us. About a mile or two away, of course. There was a pretty steep drop at this part too, but we were safely away from it, and it wasn’t a complete drop, just a very steep rocky slope. Behind this view was a huge plain of this tall grass, with a few coconut trees. We didn’t know how far back it went because it was dark. So we found a flat spot on some soft ground in the grass, and made a small fire on this rocky part overlooking the island.
We had tuna and two cans of Chef BoyarDee, which was pretty awesome. We had some water, but not much, because we didn’t want to carry so much. We were only going to camp out for one night.
Each community member had a turn to lead reflections. After dinner I went, and after my prayers, I handed out thank you notes and letters to the other JVs that were written by their students. The two days before the retreat I collected as many letters from students as possible, asking them to thank their teachers and say nice things to them. We divided up the letters and read them, and they were really nice and heart warming. After that we all fell asleep on the nice hard rocks, with a gentle breeze blowing over us. Halfway through the night I left to go into the tent to try and get more sleep. I was the only one to sleep in the tent that night.
At 5:30 Jaclyn woke me up to tell me that the sun was rising. We all silently watched the sunset rise (check out the pictures). There were some clouds, but it was still very beautiful. We also got a good look of what was actually around us. We saw how far back the grassy hills/plains went. After a quick breakfast of leftover cookies and a morning prayer, we walked into the plain, drank some coconuts that Joe got for us by climbing a tree, then we headed up the hill even more to check out the Japanese guns (check pictures). It was about a 30 minute walk through the tall grass to these guns. There were about 5 of them spread out across the top of this hill, all of them rusted and covered with grass and moss. But we got some good pictures of one.
After packing up, we left the hill at around 8:30. Hiking back was interesting, since we got lost and we were literally making out own path through the thick jungle. We got so lost that we ended up finding ourselves on the complete opposite side of the hill we originally started from. We met up with some very kind locals. Joe speaks a little bit of Chuukese. Whenever you bump into someone, they offer you cocounuts by climbing the nearest tree and throwing some down. We each drank about 2, and another stranger came and handed us a freshly picked watermelon. We were kind of late for returning to school (we needed to start on our walk around the island) but it would be impolite to not accept their hospitality. After sitting with the locals for a while and drinking coconuts, we headed off to Xavier, but not the way we came the day before. We ended up being on the wrong side of the hill Xavier is on, and we bumped into another nice family (by bump into I mean we stumbled across their house). We managed to tell them that we were looking for Xavier, and they understood. We had to keep saying we were “Sensei Xavier”, sensei meaning teacher in Japanese (remember teenage mutant ninja turtles? Good.) or else they thought we were tourists. A mother, her son and her daughter stopped what they were doing and we followed them through some trails back to Xavier. The son, who was probably 9 years old, climbed a 30 foot tree for us to give us more coconuts. We got to Xavier around 11:30. After a quick change of clothing (I was smelly and sweaty, but there was no way I was showering) and a quick lunch, we packed some water and some snacks, and headed off for our walk around the entire island.
The way we did the walk was that we were doing a live Stations of the Cross. We would stop at certain points and talk about the station and have a little reflection on it. All in all, the walk was about 12-15 miles long, and we started at 12:30 and returned to Xavier around 8:30, completely exhausted, soaked from sweat and the occasional rain storms, and our legs and feet were killing us. But the walk was amazing, since we got to see all the different parts of the island, from the really poor areas deep in the jungle to the nicer communities closer to the downtown area. People were very friendly, and they loved seeing a bunch of white people walking around the island. When we told them what we were doing, they were shocked, and offered us rides. We stopped a few times to eat and rest, but the stops were not that long. Unfortunately, it got dark around 6 and we still had a little less than 3 hours to go. We had to get out of the downtown area before dark because apparently it isn’t safe. It isn’t necessarily safe to walk in the dark on the main road at certain areas. The problem here in Chuuk is how people get drunk more often than not. We only bumped into two drunk people who wanted my sunglasses and Joe’s hat, but nothing happened, and that was earlier in the day. We were very lucky not to bump into any belligerent people in the dark. But we safely returned at 8:30, we showered, and I cooked some of the pasta I received in a package. Walking around the island was a great cultural experience, and it was a great way to spend a day away from the beautiful and safe hill Xavier is on. We always passed little children, and every single kid on this island is beautiful and extremely cute. Every one. They are always so playful and curious and really sweet, even if you can’t speak their language. I could play with them all day.
So that was the retreat. Physically exhausting, but it was challenging and a good type of exhausting that I found very refreshing.

Halloween

Just a quick description of Halloween here. The students take the haunted house very seriously. It was the Junior’s year to turn the Xavier building into a haunted house. They spent the whole afternoon working on it. Without a doubt, one of the best haunted houses every. They dressed up, had spooky lights, jumped out of every corner, made many detailed props like coffins, an exorcism table, scary things. You had to crawl through on place and the kids grabbed you and it was pitch black. The JVs and I got really into it, almost like a giddy type of scared. It was a lot of fun, except for some reason they had some red paint on the floor at the place where I had to crawl. I hope it can come out of my shorts.
We also went down to the video store to get a scary movie. On the way, we saw many groups of kids and teenagers walking in their costumes. They weren’t elaborate, mostly just face paint and a few masks. But it was really cool to see everyone out after night. They all yelled Happy Halloween to us, and we yelled it back. The video store was crawling with kids and other people. Chris and I pretended to be scared of the kids’ costumes, and I think they thought that was funny. Then we saw Ju-on, the Japanese version of the movie “The Grudge”. It is a FACT that it is the scariest movie ever made, ever. Don’t see it if you have heart problems or want to sleep for the next few days. Dwyer had to move his mattress into my room cause he was scared, and I’m glad he did, cause I was freaking out. Creepy!! Ok, enjoy the pictures. Take care.

Guess what...

I haven't worn shoes or socks in over 2 months. Just slippers, or zorries. Or mostly bare feet. I play basketball with no shoes or zorries. They are a bit cut up and have a few blisters, but they're getting tough. Also, my thumb cast officially comes off in a little over a week, Halloween, actually. I'll update pictures after then. Some of the boys just went downtown to pick up things for the haunted house. That'll be fun.
It's also been over 2 months since I had a DP. I'll live.
Peace!

Faculty Retreat (Spear Fishing Adventure #1)

So the first quarter is officially over. Friday night we had a meeting in the chapel to begin our 24 hour retreat. It was not a silent retreat, but we had to do some exercises to look over the past few days and weeks. That night we just bummed around, chillin on the porch. When the power went out at 10:30, we just went to the roof and it was pretty bright since the moon was almost full. And that's when I ate turtle for the first time. The two Chuukese teachers, Joel and T.R., brought some turtle and had it with soy sauce, hot sauce and lime. It's pretty good. It basically tastes like salty, soft pork. So I ate turtle. It was pretty awesome.
Saturday we got up early to leave campus around 7:30. The entire faculty left the campus (I'm still not really sure who was in charge of the kids.) Anyway, we all piled into this flatbed truck that we have, loaded a bunch of food and water, and made our way downtown to someone's house who lives on the water. We loaded up a big boat and took a 15 minute boat ride to another island in the lagoon. The water was so clear it was amazing. It was a beautiful day, too. I posted up new pictures so you can see. When we got to the island, we couldn't just go directly to the beach, but we had to go all the way around because there is only one enterance to the beach. We stop the motors when we get to the coral, and there was a narrow canal that the boat can fit through where the coral was blown up to allow boats to pass through. Some of us had to get out and push the boat through the shallow water.
The island is pretty big (probably half a mile wide) but people lived on it, so we only could stay on one section of the beach. Still, it was beautiful, and they had some shady areas for us to sit in and there was plenty of shade frmo the trees. CHeck out the pictures. So basically we had a group prayer, time to reflect, a one-on-one with other faculty to share thoughts, lunch, and more quiet time. In the afternoon I went snorkling (I made sure no storms were coming this time) however this time I brought the spear! Usually when you go spear fishing you have this big rubber band that you attatch to it to make it shoot out, because you can't really throw it underwater, which is what I was doing. So I really didn't go spear fishing, but I had a spear with me and I went snorkling, trying to poke at little fish whenever I could. Also, when you go real spear fishing, you do it at night, with a flashlight underwater, when the fish are sleeping. I'll do that one day. So when you see the picture of me with the spear in my hand, I'm just practicing spearing leaves next to the shore, nothing that cool. But snorkling, as usual, was a lot of fun. Many beautiful tropical fish. It's scary when you get to the point where the floor drops 50 feet, but that's where all the fish are. Adrienne said she saw a shark, so Chris and I started looking for some, but unfortunately we didn't find any. Next time.
Then we had mass outside, and the family that owns the island came with dinner. Two of their daughters go to Xavier, and I actually teach both of them. So we had a very delicious meal, ate under the moon light, then headed home. It was actually pretty hard to get out of the island since we had to navigate through the coral using flashlights. If we hit any, well, we could have punctured the boat. It was a great time overall.
Today I'll be doing some major grading. I have to grade the tests, plus do profile grades. Profile grades are when the teachers rate the student's Compasion, Integrity, Responsibilty, and Initiative and hand them in as grades. So that will take a while to do. Tomorrow, monday, we have off to do some more grading. I expect to be done today, but tomorrow I really need to plan far ahead for my lessons and get ready for an awesome 2nd quarter.
As I was writing this, I was on sports illustrated.com, reading the updates of the ND USC game. They just lost. I'm really upset about that. 61 yard pass with a minute and a half left?! ND, the game was yours! Ah! Any good movies coming out? Am I missing anything important in the world?
Keep in touch. Peace
AJ

Teaching Thoughts

I thought now would be a good time to reflect on my teaching experiences. Today is Sunday, October 09, 2005, and this upcoming week is the last week of the first quarter. That means that we’re all trying to squeeze in assignments to give the students more chances to bring up their grades, we’re calculating all of the grades, and getting ready for the faculty retreat next weekend. For me, this means the coming of a new era in teaching. The first few weeks of teaching were, in all honesty, a trial run. It was an experiment. That doesn’t help my students much, but come on, we all know I was thrown into the fray of the teaching battlefield, willing but inexperienced. I have learned a lot in these past 7 weeks of teaching. I am eagerly awaiting the second quarter because I can finally change my pace, some of my teaching methods, and my whole planning in general.

So here are some thoughts for current teachers, new teachers, and those thinking about teaching. I’m not saying that I will about to impart any wisdom for new teachers, but these are just my experiences that I would like to share.

First of, I got some feedback from my Juniors last week that I would like to share. I asked them questions such as, “How challenging are the assignments I give out?” “Are my lectures and assignments clear?” and I asked them to list some general problems with the class and specifically me. Some examples I wrote for them to choose from were “The Professor speaks to fast” “The Prof.’s examples are too complicated” “The Prof’s outside help is not helpful.” Things like that.
Generally, my Juniors like my class, they like how I present the material, and they understand what I’m trying to say. Here are some common problems I need to work on, however:
-I speak way too fast.
-I move through some lessons too fast, especially going over new vocab words.
-I need to spend more time on vocab words, for instance, using them in sentences (however, sometimes I even have trouble with that. Yeah, I’m college educated.)
They also complained that I do not do that many fun things in class. I lecture too much, or I do not change up the assignments. I’m tough on them, meaning I am trying to get them ready for college, but maybe I should have a fun assignment every now and then, and get less serious. No too fun, though. Some wanted to play outside more. Typical high school student comment, I think. But those are the main things I need to fix.

Reflecting on the pace of my lessons, I really need to slow down. Someone once said it’s not about how much information you know, but how well you know it. For my Junior English Skills, I should maybe slow down a little. We had our two big assignments (Descriptive Essay and Personal Narrative Essay), and I have the whole second quarter to work on the last two (Expository Essays and Persuasive Essays).
My Sophomore World History class, however, is not going well. I cannot wait for this quarter to be over. As I have mentioned before, I was supposed to teach the sophomores everything they were supposed to cover their Freshman year in a few weeks. Those weeks turned into an entire quarter, so I’m a little behind in general. I haven’t even started the Sophomore Year curriculum yet. I rushed through too many things with my sophomores, and there is a huge gap between really smart students and students that have trouble with English and studying. But after talking to Anne, our principal who graduated from Notre Dame 4 years ago, said that it is OK to slow down and even skip chapters if I needed to. That made me feel a lot better, so I’m going to be a lot more selective in what I teach and spend a lot of time on what’s important instead of trying to frantically teach them everything they should know.
So after this week is over, I will slowly move into the Romans, which is actually part of Freshman Year, but I don’t want to rush through the Romans.

My friend Kristin Wheeler sent me an article about this book someone wrote about what makes a good teacher. This author read over a hundred autobiographies and examined their thoughts on their teachers. He discovered three common things memorable teachers had: 1) knowledge for their subject, 2) care for the individual student, and 3) a unique character. I think the first quality is lacking with me, because I am not experienced at all. I usually learn what I teach the students a week or a few days in advance. There have been those fun days when I learned my lesson the night before. Those made for fun lectures. The second two I think I have down. I love office hours and having informal conversations with the students about their classes, the subject, and life in general. I do a good job helping the students who come in for extra help. I encourage that a lot. The unique character part…well, I assume I have a unique character, but I cannot really put my finger on that. Hopefully my students can sense that. But that first quality comes with experience.

So this first quarter was a roller coaster ride, but I’ve learned a lot. I will definitely slow things down and go over the lesson a lot until everyone gets it. I will also try and work on trying to teach multiple intelligences (teaching the geniuses of the class as well as those who are struggling) and I will need to vary up my lessons.
I have the reputation for giving the hardest quizzes in the Sophomore class. They dread my quizzes, which I think is great. It really makes them study and take these things seriously. The sophomore class is a little, well, troubled compared to the rest of the school. We think it has to do with a new type of selection process that started with that year, and the Senior class last year was apparently really spoiled and had an awful attitude, and the Senior class usually mentors the freshman class and leaves a big impression on them. The sophomores don’t like to try that much, and their attitude in class is a bit sub par. My quizzes certainly wake them up. They keep telling me that my quizzes are like tests. I respond, “well, just wait for the actual tests!” Then they look like they have a big stomach ache. It’s a great look.

I’ll let you know how the faculty retreat goes next weekend, and maybe I’ll add to this blog. Give me your thoughts on teaching if you are a first time teacher or an experience one. I’m learning, slowly but surely.
Peace
AJ

New Student Entertainment

I cannot beleive it's October already. As I'm writing this, the rest of you are still in September (unless you're in Singapore). Speaking from the future, October is very similar to the month you're all still living in, so don't get your hopes up.
So let's see. What's new? Well, a definite shout out to my uncle Charlie who sent not one but three packages of goodies. Lots of chips, cheese salsa, and garlic tabasco sauce. They come in flavors? My uncle is the best cook around, incase you didn't know. So that was awesome. There is your shoutout. You can have one too! Send me CD mixes (got some from Sotz and Quinn) and pictures are an awesome thing to recieve. Students love seeing pictures. They all love to make comments of my pictures of the beach in Greenwich: "how come the water is so black?" "Why is the sand so dirty." Yeah, I get it, CT beaches aren't as good as Pacific beaches. Who would have known. Also, good books are a plus. Now is a good time to pick up reading. Send me books that have changed your life.
Ok, enough about showering me with gifts. Yesterday was New Student entertainment, which means that half of the day on Friday was spent watching sophomores, juniors and seniors putting on dances and skits for the freshmen, transfer students and new teachers. They mostly pick on the Freshmen. These students prepared for many weeks. It was kind of a waste of time, because when they could have been studying or practicing drama, they said "oh, we have practice for the dances." But you know they didn't really need to be practicing every day. It was just a waste of time for them, which all high schoolers would welcome.
Aside from that, it was a very good show (there are new pictures posted up for you to see). They decorated the gym with baloons, streamers and lots of palm leaves. The dances were either very traditional Pacific dances, which were awesome to watch. They others were rap battles or "You Got Served" dances, which were also pretty entertaining, but after the third one, it got repetative. The skits were funny for a bit. The students got a huge kick out of it, of course, but after the 5th skit that involved boys dressing up in drag, it got a little stupid. I feel so old, criticizing these highschooler's idea of really really funny times. Oh well. It was generally a good time. A nice half-day.
Today, Saturday, was a great day. It was very sunny and not humid at all. I got some grading done, found a nice book calle "Spirituality of Imperfection", and the best part was when I went with Joe to his host family this afternoon. He baked some cookies for them, and he, Jackie and I took a short 5 minute walk into Sapuk (the community XHS is situated in), walked through the jungle until we made our way to a small clearing with very small, run down houses/shacks. Chickens and pigs were walking around all over the place. The time we spent there was relaxing, but Joe does not know much Chuukese, so it's hard to communicate. After a while of trying to talk back and forth, we followed one of the young boys that lived there to a nearby church where the mother of the family - also a worker at Xavier - was preparing for tomorrow. We walked further into the jungle and ran into a bunch of veyr young children playing in on the pathway towards the church. Since the adults were praying, we just sat outside for about an hour, just watching the kids play and have fun. It was a really enjoyable and refreshening time, since I rarely get off campus, and just getting away from my office or the punk highschool kids is a very welcoming time. The time flew by, just sitting there in the shade, laughing with the kids. It seems like we didn't even need to know the same language.
This is one of the challenges of being here. Xavier is great, and that is my work, but sometimes I do not get a real sense of Micronesian culture or a real third-world atmosphere up on campus. I want to get out more into the neighborhood. No matter what my intentions, I do have to realize that no matter what my interaction will be, it will be somewhat voyeristic. I dont want that to be the case, but it will be regardless. I'm not living in the neighborhood, I'm living at Xavier, which is still incredibly different from the lives we're used to, but it is also apart from the surrounding Chuukese community. Social justice, I was told, is very hard to discover or encounter here at Chuuk. So getting off the campus whenever I can will give me more of a taste of the world I'm really in, but it will still not be enough. I need to think of ways to work towards really connecting with the culture and life here.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Check out my pictures. Thanks for the packages. Love you all
AJ