Country Livin'

Top o' the morning to ya folks. (Since I live in the country of Micronesia, I have to start saying this all the time).

More and more I'm starting to feel like a Peace Corps Volunteer.  The enduring trials of slow progress, horrible attemps at pronouncing a foreign language, and monotone diet are a constant reminder that I'm not in America anymore.  Rice, canned meat (Spam, Spaghettios, compressed beef, mackerel...), bananas, pig, and fried everything.  When I mean everything, I mean everything.  It's not the most healthy of diets, but I manage.  The way I describe it is that I'm getting in the best 'worst' shape of my life.  Let me explain.

The past 3 weeks have been filled with me doing hikes in the jungle, 50 foot cliff jumps into water, swimming on the weekends, learning how to make a local fire, becomming well versed in the use of a machete (for chopping down just about anything), mixing concrete by shovel, and (insert random physical activity here).  These people are tough as nails.  We walk around in the jungle in flip flops.  FLIP FLOPS!  Not to mention everything is muddy and extremely slippery, but no one seems to fall.  It's amazing to say the least.  This being the case, Lepen has been getting a lot of physical activity in, but it's nothing in comparison to the extent that my fellow Salapwukites go.

This is my daily schedule: wake up at 6:30am (the sun rises at exactly 6am every day), do some pushups/pullups/situps in my room, eat breakfast with cinnamon bark tea, maybe shower, walk to school, teach from 8:30 to 12pm, go back home to eat lunch, come back to school to grade papers/read to the 1st and second graders/ conduct PE for the 7th and 8th graders, lesson plan at the school, go back home to play basketball until the sun sets at exactly 7pm, watch a movie, rest on rice bags, eat dinner, go to bed.  It's a pretty good daily routine, but I might need to shake it up a little.  Sometimes monotony is well... monotonous.

Now for the part you've all been waiting for: how's my puppy doing?  Boulder is starting to become one of the many dogs at the house.  He plays with the other big puppy, picks fights with the bigger dogs, and gets beaten up pretty bad by one of the older dogs.  By the way, one of the dogs is named Saddam Hussein.  I laugh inside everytime Saddam does something bad.

The construction on my new room is finished, and I'm moving in soon.  I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished house once I get a chance.  It's a beautiful 10' X 15' room with a good breeze going through it.  Tin roof and a sturdy wooden floor.  I can't wait to move in.

2 more months until the election.  Let's see if I can get my absentee ballot sent of fast enough.

P.S. I just taught my 7&8th graders some cliche's and idiomatic expressions.  So as my students would say:

Hasta la vista, baby.