Curiosity Hurts

Aww the mystery of the stapler. Have you ever wondered how hard you have to push before the stapler actually staples? Were never really quite sure. Instead of using paper to test it out, we usually try our finger. I mean, it just makes the most sense. We press it down on our finger just lightly, and then a little harder, and just a little more until …BAM!!!!! You have officially stapled your finger. Well that’s exactly what happened to one of my students today. All of the sudden out of no where I hear, "Miss, Miss!!! Jason stapled his finger!" I quickly race over to Jason's desk; although think it was probably just a little poke. Well I believe Jason got a little more curious than most kids normally do because he down right stapled his finger. As I looked at it closely I could see that his finger was dented in from the staple. My first thought was to pull it out but if the staple he bent over inside his finger then I would rip out his skin. After looking at Jason with tears streaming down his face, I couldn't do it. I quickly rushed him to the office to get some advice as to what to do. The secretary looked at it and with a little quick tug pulled it out! Ok… so maybe I wouldn’t make a great nurse but I do know one thing and that is, I don’t think Jason will be so curious next time about those staplers.

Back For Round Two

I never thought that after coming home for Christmas it would be so hard to leave home and go back to Saipan. I cried for the whole flight from Spokane to Portland. As much as I wanted to stay at home and not go back, I knew I had a job to finish back in Saipan.

I arrived in Saipan at 1:20 am. I was soooo tired!!! Although I must say I did get a lot of sleep on the plane and on my way from Tokyo to Saipan I had a whole row to myself, which I did get punched for by Sharla when we landed.

On Monday I came to school and quickly found out that I had a lot more to deal with than I had intended for. When I left Saipan for Christmas break I had 14 students. When I came back I had 18 students, which is the max amount you can have then each classroom and soon found out that I had 2 more in 1st and 2nd waiting until there was an opening in my class. I was a little overwhelmed with where to put them but after a few adjustments it all worked out. My new students are all from Korea and all have quite humorous personalities. Most of them will all be leaving in a few months to go back to Korea. They only stay for a short time to learn english. So as of now I have a very busy schedule!

Yesterday we went on a little hike through the jungle to a place called "Old Man by the Sea." It was quite the adventure through the steep terrain and mud. As the group was going down the hill I thought I would take a little short cut, and that I did. I ended up sliding all the way down the muddy hill past everyone. I must say though it was a lot faster than the other way.
When we got down to the beach we knew we had reached our destination because there in all its glory sat the big bolder that looked like an old man… hints the name "Old Man by the Sea."

Alex wanted to be sure our food would not
blow away!















How we left the house!















The worst of the storm that we saw

Typhoon Warnings

Last week was quite the adventure! On Friday we were told that a big typhoon was to be hitting Saipan Early Saturday morning and evening. At the end of the day on Friday we had to take everything in the school and move it up at least 2 feet just in case it flooded. Our school is very close to the beach so it would have been very likely that our school would have been flood if the typhoon was as bad as expected. The storm was set as a category 4 but was slowly moving into a category 5. For those of you who don’t know what that means (believe me I had no idea until I heard we had typhoons here), a category 4 is max wind speeds of 135-155 miles per hr and a category 5 is considered a super typhoon which has max winds or 156 or greater. Just a little info to help you understand the size of the typhoon. Well anyways after we picked up the school we had to go home and pack up anything and everything that was "valuable" to us. When they told us this we just laughed because pretty much everything that we had brought was valuable to us, in that if we didn’t take out most everything we brought then we would have absolutely nothing and people in Saipan would end up seeing 5 naked white girls because our clothes would have gotten blown away.
Our house that we are staying in was not safe enough enough at the time for the winds that were to come so we had to go stay at a different compound. It took us a bit but we quickly packed up our clothes and food and moved out for the weekend.
On Saturday when we woke up there wasn’t really any wind or rain so a few of us got ready and went to church. When we arrived at the church we were informed that the typhoon looked like it was heading north and might actually miss us. As we continued to wait for the storm to pass, we were then informed that the police were going door to door and telling people that there was a tsunami warning and to go up to higher ground just in case. So yet again we had to pack up our things and head to another house that was up on Capital hill. The storm ended up just barely missing us thanks to all the prayers. We are now unpacked and safe in our house again. Very little damage was done.