in this belly of a whale

The other day I saw a tuna as big as a couch.

Two things have come into my life and made it infinitely better: a hammock and a class set of textbooks.

The hammock now lives in between two of the three palm trees in our backyard, right where the ocean breeze blows. My new favorite activity is lying in the hammock and thinking about how busy my life used to be, and also how from directly underneath palm fronds look like giant stalks of celery.
Maybe someday when I am busy I will think about lying in the hammock.
Anyway, it is a great hammock.

The class set of textbooks is equally exciting. I came across about 40 almost brand new environmental science books. I'm teaching geography, but they are close enough. And now they are in my classroom. And I was so visibly excited about announcing this to my students that they now think textbooks are cool. Hooray. The discovery coincided nicely with the beginning of second quarter, too, such that I may even pass for appearing quasi-organized.

Teaching is still going well. My big secret is that I really like my students. Their big secret is that they let me keep thinking they don't know that. Second quarter will fly by because there are only six weeks in it, only two of which are full five-day weeks. Then next semester will probably fly by in the way that premature nostalgia makes things fly by. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go lie in my hammock.

Happy fall, New Englanders!

And happy Homecoming, Amherst! Eat some tea rolls for me.

The next post will be full of photos.

Sam

My Year of Self-Improvement

whistling: check

riding a bike with no hands: ch-ch-ch-check

blue in green

Things have begun to feel oddly normal around here lately. This really means I've changed to the point where things have begun to feel normal around here, which probably means that it will be strange to be elsewhere after this, but that is not a problem for right now.

One thing that still feels foreign is how everyone is at the mercy of the weather. It's still the dry season here (so it only rains about once a day), but when it rains it really rains. Like, it rains too hard to have a conversation, or to see anything, or to sleep. Sometimes it feels like someone very large is hanging out in the clouds with a bucket and a hairdryer. Anyway. When that happens, you just stay inside (or under a tree) and wait, and then it stops, and that's just that.
Maybe 'at the mercy of' conveys the wrong idea. Maybe it's more that the weather very much informs daily activities. Sunny days are perfect for hang-drying clothes, so everyone does laundry. Vaguely overcast days are good for biking around and buying food. On rainy days many of my students coincidentally stay home with headaches. etc.

Even though the island is small, there's still a lot left of it to explore. I sometimes have to remind myself of this when I've spent half the day in bed reading, but that is what Sundays are for. Yesterday my roommate and I biked to the marina by the airport for a friend's birthday barbecue, and watched the sunset over the water from inside the water. I should post more photos. The next entry will be for photos.

The latest winner of my students' inappropriate t-shirts contest was a shirt that read: Why go to high school, when you can go to school high?

At least it was sort of clever.

Ok, time to go grade some (really really really cool) poster projects. One of the big highlights of my stay here has been receiving letters in the mail, so if you are looking for a way to fill some free time, write to me! My address is:

Sam Hesni c/o WorldTeach
PO Box 419
Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia 96944

note

I must post because just now I successfully whistled for the first time in my life. There were no witnesses, but it happened. So now you know that even though I haven't blogged in a few weeks, I have been busy working towards very important things.

Things are going well. In the spirit of October, we had a gloriously overcast day yesterday, so that was a nice change. The first quarter of school is coming to a close, and my music kids are putting on a concert this Friday, and the cat that lives outside our house had kittens, and the store by our house has papaya again, and life is good.