The End of the World

Wow it has been several weeks since an update and the time is flying by! I have fully taken over the Algebra 2 class and have been teaching that for a few weeks now. It has been going well overall and it was kind of fun to take over a class! But is also challenging. Next week I am adding on Geometry, which is a fun class but also a much bigger class with a wider range of needs. I’ve been going a little bit crazy as I begin to plan and prepare for teaching that class. This week was a week of feeling entirely inadequate, a week of many tears and frazzled moments, a week of seriously questioning whether I have the wherewithal to pursue this as a career, and a week of much growth and learning. I hear that the transition from one class to two classes is the most difficult and that upon adding on the next two I will not feel quite so much stress. I reallyyyyy hope that’s the case. On the plus side, I can now write lesson plans MUCH more efficiently and I am gaining more confidence in my interactions with students. I’m learning a lot about my teaching style and my preferences on the various aspects inside the classroom. I am building relationships with students more and more every day. I’ll get there yet, I hope :)

Matt arrived here a week ago and that has been such a blessing! I feel bad that his first week here has been one of my more stressful and agitated weeks, but he is adjusting well and has been supporting and encouraging as always :) I am so grateful to have him here, especially at a point in which I am missing home more than ever.

His time here has held a fair amount of excitement already. The day after his arrival and the day he was supposed to move into his host home we were out to lunch at a restaurant and it began raining. Pouring rain is annoying when you don’t have a vehicle but nothing too bad. The restaurant was close to my host family’s house so at least we could make a break for it at some point and seek shelter there when we were done eating, even though all of his stuff was at a friend’s house. So we continued eating our lunch, hoping that maybe the rain would let up eventually as it often does. Sadly, it only began to increase with time, along with the wind. The restaurant has a whole wall that is open and the water was beginning to enter and soak those near the outside, so they shut the screens to keep it out. After a while the screens weren’t enough and they had to shut the gates they use to lock it up. There was no way we were going anywhere anytime soon, we thought. Then, it began to hail. I am not kidding. Matt’s first full day on a tropical island and it is hailing. First just little stones. I barely even realized it was hailing at first because it was not even in my mind’s realm of possibilities that it was hailing here so I thought that it was just raining harder. But eventually someone noticed that little balls of ice were falling from the sky. And they weren’t little anymore. They were growing. They grew from golf ball-sized pieces of hail to tennis ball-sized pieces of hail. Some people were gleefully proclaiming this to be the end of the world! The biggest hail I have ever seen in my whole life and it happened while we were in the Caribbean. It was so strange.

Once the hail stopped and the rain was reasonable enough to make a break for it we went back to my house. Then it slowed enough to go back to our friends’ house. They had no power so we just hung out and figured out the details for getting over to his host family’s home. We watched the rain falling and watched mini explosions erupt from the telephone pole occasionally, nearly catching itself on fire. All in all, it was quite the eventful day. Eventually he made it to his home and has enjoyed his time there with his family. They are very sweet, welcoming people and we’re excited to see what the rest of our time here holds!