The past few days have been ridiculously hectic. Besides our daily workshops and orientation sessions, I have been trying to secure my teaching position and make my house into a home. The days have been long (waking up at 5:50a and not slowing down until after 11p) and jam packed.
Our house didn't come with anything other than the bare essentials - beds, table, couch- so there have been many trips to the various island stores that carry home goods. Our excursion to Cost U Less (a smaller version of Sam's Club) was pretty successful, and Julia and I had to use a flat bed to get everything to the car. Every spare space was used to fill up the SUV. From organizing cubes, to trash cans, to food, we got a little bit of everything. Since we don't have a car and don't want to abuse Kaleo's generosity, several more stops at Forsgren's will be necessary to finish decking out the place.
The stressful part of the week has come from securing a teaching placement that I am happy with. Julia and I both signed on with WorldTeach to teach in our specific areas of expertise, architecture and electrical engineering. We thought we were going to be at the vocational high school until we discovered there wasn't a real need; there were already well established teachers with our subjects at the school. We had to stick up for what was best for ourselves and after many meetings, phone calls, and debates, we were reassigned! Getting used to the Samoan way has been a challenging. School starts on Monday and it's not unusual that I just found out my official placement on Tuesday. Things here are not as well structured, organized, and planned out. Teachers don't get their classroom keys until just 3 or 4 days before school, and we might never see an official roster for our classes. So in the next 4 days I have to conquer my plan for the year and start lesson planning to the extreme! I'm so thankful, however, that the DOE was willing to work with the 2 of us in order to make sure that our needs were met. I will now be the architecture and drafting department for Samoan High School! Go Sharks! And I'm so enthusiastic about being able to teach more students and have the opportunity to forge a new program at the school. (Samoana has well over 1000 kids compared to VoTech's 350). They have never had a successful architecture program there, so I will get to develop the curriculum from the ground up. Exciting! They are putting a lot of faith into us, and I can't wait to get started! I will, however, have my hands full. Samoan kids are known to be tough and rowdy in the classroom. With many of my students standing well over 6 foot (compared to me at 5'1") and over 200 pounds, I'm going to have to muster up some extreme classroom management skills and a strict attitude.
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