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.

On Sunday we went to a water park called Wave Jungle. It was a blast! Water parks here are definitely not like the states. They really don't have rules or if they do they don't really stick to them. Their all about fun here in Saipan. For instance there were three of us girls waiting in line to take the tubes down a slide and one of the life guards waved us over and had all three of us connect together and go down backwards in the slide. It definitely added to the excitement. Only one problem... we could only go down it about 2 times before we would start to feel sick! Bad things happen when you’re going backwards, in circles, in the dark, down a slide. One of my favorites was the toilet bowl. You would go down this slide and then it would shoot you out into this "toilet bowl." If you watch carefully, you will see that I go so fast that you barely see me go out of the tube and if you tuck your legs in (so I’m told) it helps you to spin. When I first tried the toilet bowl I was so confused at where I was when I fell. I was expecting the water to be shallow so I could push off but it wasn't and it didn't help that my bottoms had fallen off from felling in head first! All the sudden I felt someone grab my arm and its the life guard and he says "Are you ok!" Haha I wanted to get out of there as quick as possible mainly out of embarrassment that a lifeguard had to save me because I fell in a toilet and couldn't get out!!!!We weren't experts at it but some of the people that worked there showed us some tips on how to do it and they could go around the bowl at least 4 or 5 times! It was a great end to the weekend!

So it's been awhile since I have written. The first week of the school year was pretty stressful. I had a few parents breathing down my neck about homework and things that they wish I would do differently in class. It took a long time to find common ground with a few of the parents but as of now things are running a little bit more smoothly.

I love my students very much. Although I must say by the end of the day my kids have pushed me to my stress MAX. They love to see how far they can push me but in return I just give them more laps for P.E. I always tell them that by the end of the year their going to be the most fix kids in the whole school! But for some reason that doesn't really excite them all that much.

My kids are so sweet to me! They bring me mangos, cupcakes, and just today I got chocolate chip cookies! Some days I swear I would never become a teacher but then there are those days that I couldn’t imagine if I weren’t a teacher. Teaching definitely has its ups and downs. I mean I’m not saying that I only like teaching when I get things from my students but sometimes I feel like my students could care less if I was teaching them or not. But then there’s those days when a student will draw me a picture or write me a note telling me how much I mean to them and it helps reassure to me that I might be doing an ok job.

Well usually when I am not in school I am at the beach. On weekends that is pretty much where I live. I sleep at home and go to church and then I go straight to the Ocean. In some parts of the ocean its very shallow and so the water is so so warm. It’s sometimes as hot as a hot tub and I’m not exaggerating when I say that. There’s this one part in the ocean where you have to walk in knee high water about 3-4 football fields to get to the waves! The ocean here is sooo beautiful and pretty blue!!! We haven’t been able to snorkel but probably next week we will go to this island where there’s tons of fish.

Sharla, Holly and I are the volleyball coaches here at the school. There’s practices in the blazing heat every Monday, Wednesday and games are on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. This Tuesday was our first game. It was very close but we lost. Fortunately on Wednesday it was a different story and they won! It was pretty exciting because I guess they usually don’t start winning their games until about 20 games into the season. After hearing that we were pretty excited our team was off to a real good start!

This weekend there is a drama group retreat and 3 of the girls in our class are sponsors so my roommate Sharla and I will have the house to ourselves for the weekend. It will be pretty quiet without the girls around so will have to find some fun things to do!