The End of January

Tomorrow is the end of January. This month has been pretty crazy and long. It started off with two new years eves and ends with another day at school. In between, I had my birthday, which didn't feel like the usual big affair that I typically do with my birthday but I guess it was another Samoan experience. I also had some tough days with some of my classes which has challenged me in ways I didn't think it would.

For my last birthday in my 20's, I wanted to go all out. It fell on a Friday which was great and it happened to be a long weekend. What more could I ask for. My friend Veronica arranged to rent an Aiga bus for the night so it could take us wherever we wanted to go. It was basically supposed to be our very own private party bus. And it was EXCEPT, I came down with some sort of food poisoning/stomach bug the morning of my birthday that made it very hard to have a good time. But i tried to rally, so I went out with all my friends. We blasted music on our bus (everyone singing along to Toto's "Africa" was the highlight) as we went to various bars but I just couldn't muster the energy to have a good time. I ended up going home early and calling it a night. I tried, perhaps better luck next year. My friends had fun though and that's all the matters, right? RIGHT!



As second semester began, I made a decision to be a more strict in my classroom. I felt that I was being taken advantage of by some students because I am a palagi and since I've told them that I am not going to hit them. It's also a daily challenge to deal with the fact that they can say stuff to each other in Samoan and I have no idea what they are saying. Well some of my classes started to push back. Hard. They didn't like the new Mr. Drew they would tell me. The new Mr. Drew was trying to be more serious about his punishments. The new Mr. Drew was trying to instill a better work ethic with his students. The new Mr. Drew was trying out "fun" activities to break things up in the classroom. Much to my dismay, most of it hasn't work. Perhaps I'm pushing too hard. Perhaps I should continue to push and see if eventually they give in. Perhaps I need to meet them in the middle. Who knows. But as a first year teacher, I'm trying things out and seeing what works. It's all I can do, right?



This is a picture of some kids who are pushing. I love them but not when they push.



This is a picture of two boys who are so smart and kind but enjoy putting up an "I'm too cool for school" attitude to impress their friends. I will get to them if it's the last thing I do here.

Thanks for reading. Some more posts coming soon.