The weekend full of ups and downs

Kaselehlie Maingko,

We are officially on our third week of school now, and I can honestly say that I love getting to know more and more about my students every day! We are finally up to 8 periods per day (so I am able to see all my classes) but they are only 30 minutes long. Although it goes by fast, I have been managing to get a good lesson into the 30 minutes every day. So far, we've covered the topics of Order of Operations, Evaluating Expressions with Variables, Combining Like Terms, the Distributive Property, and Translating Algebraic Expressions. We usually do two days for each topic, where I will give many examples and the students then have time to work in pairs on a couple practice problems. Although they were very shy at first, I can tell that they are starting to open up to me and I even have students often come to the board to show their work to the class. It's so nice to have students that genuinely love math and are excited about their education- which is a big change from my teaching experiences in the US! We've already established our classroom rules and routines, which is most important (in my opinion), especially for a first-year teacher.

Picture of my classroom before the first day of school!

This past weekend was definitely full of it's own ups and downs..... To start, I'll talk about the ups (literally). Our friends Jason and Rachel came to visit us from Madolenihmw, and we decided to go to Sokeh (a municipality of Pohnpei) and hike Sokeh's rock. This is one of the "must see" spots if you ever decide to visit Pohnpei, and it is known for it's beautiful scenic outlooks and is considered one of Micronesia's best-known geographical features. Going into the hike, I knew it was going to be difficult but I did not nearly expect what I was getting myself into. I have gone hiking before, but nothing like this, equipped with no ropes or climbing gear. We took a cab to Sokeh's and met some high-school aged kids on the road who informed us that we have to have a guide to take us up the mountain, and they generously offered to be our guides. They turned out to be super cool and I'm so glad I got to know them! It took us only maybe about 15 minutes to hike through the jungle to the base of the cliff, in which I then looked up and realized we were going to be climbing straight up the rock face which was practically at a 90 degree angle! I struggled to find secure footing and somehow managed to pull myself up most of the way, breathing heavy and shaking from fear the whole time. I've always thought that heights did not bother me, but I know now that they do! There were a couple ropes and metal poles that were put in place into the rock, but it was barely anything by my climbing standards. If I would have slipped at any point, I would have literally fallen to my death! When we got to a certain point, I was able to see the top but I was unable to keep climbing. At some point (maybe later on this year), I want to go back and conquer Sokeh's Rock, but for the day I was finished and had enough life-threatening experiences. While most of the group continued to the top, I sat at a lookout point and caught a beautiful glimpse of the side of Sokeh's. To be honest, I was very glad I was alone in that moment because I finally had a chance to just breathe and take in the beautiful scenery around me. I feel as if I need to try and do that more often, because there is so much beauty surrounding me on this island. 

Lookout at Sokeh's rock (I can't take credit for this picture, I'll tell you later!)

After we finally got back on flat ground, we headed back to our apartment (we call the Party Palace) to hangout for the night. Most of our nights consist of Red Horse (a beer imported from the Philippines that I've grown to love!), card games, and spending time with friends. That night although, came the low point in our weekend. When I woke up the next morning, I noticed that my camera and iPhone were missing, but at first thought nothing of it. Then when Rachel noticed that her iPhone and Blackberry were also missing, we thought something was up. When I searched around the outside of our apartment, I discovered my purse with all contents on the ground, and it was then that I knew we were robbed the night before. Fortunately, they did not take anything other than my iPhone and camera, and no one was hurt. It happened while we were all sleeping, which is a little scary. To be honest, I'm very surprised that this would have happened because it is not in Pohnpeian culture to be any type of distrustful or violent. Everyone here is so nice and willing to help anyone out, which is why I cannot believe that someone would break into our apartment. I do have hopes that my valuables will show up again (word spreads fast around this island!) but if not, it's not the end of the world to not have my iPhone anymore. I'm just sad that I lost all my pictures from hiking Sokeh's! Oh well. 

Overall, although there were good and bad things about the weekend, it ended on a good note. On Sunday, we visited our friends who were house sitting for another couple and got to see their beautiful house right on the ocean. I was able to watch some of the Badger game using their wifi (in which they really disappointed, but I'll always be a Badger at heart!). My favorite part of the day was going kayaking in the ocean, where we explored the Mangroves and saw some cool coral reefs and colorful fish. It was the perfect ending to the weekend. We also were able to finally setup the Wifi at our apartment, so hopefully I can be in contact more often now! Ok, time to cook some dinner and get lesson planning. Goodbye for now!


*UPDATE* Since the weekend, I've been able to snag some pictures from a friend who had their camera the day of the hike. So here are a couple photos of me during the big climb up Sokeh's Rock! 

One of our guides for the hike