5 weeks

Posted in Site, Overall by Dom on February 3rd, 2007

Monile, yeah yeah. 5 weeks. That’s how long it’s been 5 weeks. I’m glad to be back near some “civilization”, i.e. internet, electricity, etc. Also glad we got paid again, I was definitely running low, definitely. My daily routine has become:

5:30am - waking up, breakfast
7:00am - school
1:35pm - “knocking off” schools out
3:00pm - work out
3:30pm - bathe
4:00pm - start dinner
5:00pm - clean dishes
8:00pm - bed

That’s my general day. In my free time I play guitar a lot. A lot. A lot. I put new strings I got from chris on just before comeing here last time and they are noticably dying. I’ve written six songs. They range from crappy to mediocre but I like them all and that’s what really matters. It’s a lot more fun to play your own stuff I’ve determined. Food, I eat real healthy, not. I did get 4 packages yesterday, mostly foodstuffs, thanks mom and dad. That will be huge. My diet currently lacks a lot of protein. For breakfast it’s cookies and peanut butter and a cup of tea. Lunch is three peanut butter and honey sandwiches. And dinner is rice with tomatoes and onions, and whatever spice I feel like using, curry, lemon pepper, etc. Water for drink, and no snacking normally. I’ve probably lost some more weight but there’s not a scale around.

Teaching is a lot of work. Not as fun as I was hoping but still enjoyable. It’s hard when they don’t understand the question you are actually asking. For instance it’s hard to get across the concept of estimation, that you DON’T want the correct answer, only something close. They take a lot of time working out the correct answer and then wonder why it’s not actually “correct.” I’m glad when those days are over.

I teach forms 1 and 3(freshman and juniors, respectively) math and form 1 physical science. I’m not the biggest fan of the physical science text book due mostly to it’s lack of depth, but it may be appropriate, I don’t remember much about high school physical science. One particular gripe is the fact that newtons laws aren’t mentioned at all. I know I’m moving a lot faster than I expected to, in it. My math classes are pretty good though, I’m going over quadratic equations in form 3 and approximations in form 1.overall they don’t ask too many questions but when they do I normally go off on some crazy tangent than they don’t really comprehend, such has friction heat due to air at high speeds of the space shuttle during re-entry. They didn’t follow that one. I don’t really feel like I’m that great of a teacher, but I guess I’ll get better with time.

I’ve also started a math club. It meets wednesdays and really messes up my routine but it’s a nice way to divide the week. What happens is, they’ve given me topics they want to work on, and I come up with a problem from one topic in each from. Write it on the board and give them some time to work on it and then I solve it. It really feels more like a magic show because no one asks questions and when I solve a problem they all clap. Though I don’t think they are clapping for me, more for themselves because they got it right, but it feels like it’s for me because I pulled a rabbit from a hat or made someone levitate. It’s nice

I read a lot of books, Crime and Punishment was excellent, not at all what I expected and I’ve borrowed The Idiot so I can see if I like the rest of his books. Dostoevsky, or something like that. Also The Count of Monte Cristo was great. I had an abridged version though and I would like the read the unabridged now.

I’ve also got some tentative vacationing plans. I am considering cliff diving during the first break with some others, and going to Zanzibar on the second break. I think those should be a nice change of pace and a way to make the most of my current geographical situation. There was also a bar that you have to hike to I’m considering hitting up, but I don’t remember the name of it right now.

Also, the anti-malaria drugs were really messing with my head, depression, insomnia, seeing “things.” So I’m on something different now. What that means though is that I don’t really know how accurate my experience in the past five weeks has actually been. Hopefully it will be like the good days always on this new stuff but I doubt it. We’ll see. Oh and seeing “things” means too many double takes a day. Like when you thought you saw something out of the corner of your eye and then you look and it’s nothing. I would do that 2 or 3 times for the same thing, only like 20-50 times a day. Anyway it should be better now.

I want to thank everyone for their letters and continuous suppport it’s huge, especially on the bad days. I always appreciate hearing from everyone so feel vely flee.