Roll On

Remember all of that talk about losing it? Well… I finally lost it. I was especially irritable one day, and my students were being especially obnoxious. Bad combination. So background to this story, one of my favorite and sweetest students, also a Glee Club member, got jumped and beat up over the weekend by a group of other high school boys, 2 of whom were my other students. The student victim, who would come and chat to practice English with me almost every other day at lunchtime, actually came to me personally and told me the story, and I realized that the bullies were the same students who infuriate me on a daily basis. So Monday comes, class begins, and a few of the boys grab the library newspapers and start cutting them up for some other class project… that was the beginning of the downward spiral. Usually the kids are so responsible and scared of touching the property of other people, and everyone knows the newspapers are for reading in the library only, so I was shocked by these selfish acts, and reprimanded them then. Next, as others are working productively on their group project, one of the trouble-making bully boys starts throwing paper balls and another boy, I continually ask them to stop, repeat it in Visayan, then eventually say “if I see one more paper in the air, I will go get the principal.” The evil bullyboy looks directly at me and throws another paper at his friend. The whole class nervously gasps, then I burst out of the room angrily… then immediately break down outside of their view. The vast majority of Filipino students are so polite, I had never experienced anything like this blatant disrespect before, and I felt completely powerless. I start crying uncontrollably, and the worst part of this is there is NOWHERE to be alone at my school. People even look into the bathroom stall holes. Not a proud moment… but I knew this teaching thing would be hard sometimes. I brought in my intimidating counterpart, who gave them a good and terrifying scolding. She also gave me some wise seasoned teacher advice; to next time make him eat the paper ball… seriously. Haha, but really, she made me feel a lot better and talked about how all teachers have that moment at some point. I had those boys teach the class for the next couple of days to see what it feels like… they also had to clean the bathrooms. I was having a good hard cry after school that, when Tiny Tim came on my iTunes party shuffle...and made me chuckle... that is precisely why party shuffle is the bomb diggity. Those students are acting a bit better now in class, but they still get me pretty riled up daily. It is hard for me to be so angry with them though, when I know they are having problems at home and only acting out for attention because of that. Although, I know of other students who have horrifying home life and are angels in school, so I don’t know if it is an excuse to misbehave so.

To continue with my whining, I went to a 3 hour and 45 minute mass last weekend. Seemed like I would never get a break. This was a mass of “Youth for Peace,” with many different schools involved to touch on the war in Zamboanga of Mindanao, Philippines, and the other turmoil around the world. This was a good idea in theory, but 4 hours of sitting and standing and singing outside in the Filipino sun was actually a form of disgustingly smelly torture… but not a single student complained.

Some cool stuff is also happening of course. We had the giant Girl Scout and Boy Scout encampments and parades last weekend, I got to finally spend some time with the Elementary school cuties and do some crafts. This is all similar to the Girl Scouts of the U.S., except everyone buys their patches here instead of earning them and actually being able to perform skills… so the rich kids have all the patches and fancy uniforms… so messed up and pointless, I know. Philippines…you are killing me. One fun day though, I got to take some of my seniors on a fieldtrip to Asian college in the city. This is a trade school, so it was interesting to see their campus with rooms for practicing bartending, elderly and childcare, and hotel management. The other teachers and I had a photo-shoot in every room when the students were on the tour…so beautifully Filipino.

The Wee Girl Scouts!

Something I have always feared finally happened last weekend. I stepped on a spiny sea urchin. It hurt soooo much initially for a few seconds, but then was not too bad except that the spikes broke off deep inside my foot, and there was no earthly way to retrieve them… but I was semi productive with my bedridden day and designed/painted two original masks for Hillary and I to wear at the Masskara Festival this year. I was pretty proud of myself. Tiny pieces of the spikes are still way up there, but I figure they will work themselves out eventually, and it does not hurt anymore. I even went running the other day with my chubby sissies. Nicole did really well, and I only had to give Mariz a 5 minute piggy back ride on the way home… once we get home, I turn my head for a moment, and look back to see Mariz hand deep in a jar of pure chocolate and finger feeding herself… what a waste.

Sea Urchin = Ouch.

MASSKARA 2013 uniquely made by me

So with the giant spiders, freezing cold bucket baths, pesky mosquitos, constant smelly sweatiness, snarky students, and so much more that terrorize me all the time, many things make me laugh here… very hard. For example, the way Filipinos look like they are having a silent seizure when they laugh really hard (a distinguishing Filipino lovable trait), or my sweet and quiet, homosexual host brother wearing a shirt that has a male outline holding a rooster and a female outline holding a cat with the lines, “Nice cock,” and “Nice pussy,” and family dance parties, student high school awkwardness, and my student writing “suck” for every time she meant stab in her murder mystery story, and the story about Shakira’s army fighting evil with their secret weapon……..the Hulk, which were both turned into their plays later on. I am actually in a constant state of amusement/joy/horror.

A bunch of volunteer agencies in Dumaguete planned a big beach cleanup for International Coastal Clean-Up Day. It went really well, besides all of the human feces and giant dead rat with a puncture wound actually oozing out some nuclear bright green goop… not a pleasant sight. The part of the beach where my group went was a squatter area, and there were a bunch of cute kids who started watching then helping us clean! They just started throwing all the seaweed in the bag, but we taught them that just plastics and trash are harmful to the ocean, so we take them out. I was in charge of 5 boys and 2 girls from the “Little Children of the Philippines” orphanage. It was also nice to see all of the LCP boys again, who my brother worked with. They were as cutely affectionate and crazy rambunctious as usual.

International Coastal Clean Up Day @ Dumaguete Beach

Shaberry, the CRAB, and us

The next week of classes ended with our district sports competition. Cathy and I were in charge of table tennis…my neck is still sore. I am having my students write their own dramas in groups. I lovedddd the creative ideas they had, edited all of the grammar, and then they memorized and performed. They were so charming! I almost peed my pants at certain moments. Like when one group had made this giant tree prop and you could see it entering behind the curtains and hitting people every time it was brought in… and when a stick was thrown out looking like a snake…and so many other times when things did not make sense, like a random throwing of shoes… so many weird creative things they used for props since they can’t afford much…and mostly just the funny “deer in headlights” faces of my students when they made a mistake or forgot their lines. I love them so.

This past weekend was an AMAZINGLY entertaining time and finally some freedom and fun from my never ending 50+ hour work weeks. The new batch of PCVs just got to their permanent sites, and I am pretty sure, our Negros Island has all of the cool ones, well that is what they tell me, haha. It was super cool surfer Bayawan Charlie’s birthday, so it was a good excuse for our first big group-get together. Harold fed us yummy snacks of fish kinilaw and chicken feet, then drinks at Hayahay, ending with videoke of course. There are no new education volunteers near us, most all are coastal resource management, and Chris was so excited we finally got a few more boys to even out our ratio… you should have seen all the football talk at our first family dinner…until the beers started flowing then Chris proposed to Larry, the newbie named Rocky publically proposed to me, and the sloppiness only increased until the survivors (Me, Vicki, Michelle, our Filipino friends, Ivory and Noel, and my new adorable German tourist friend) continued singing videoke early into the morning while the newbs, initially who were offended by my calling them newbs, then proved my point by all passing out in the videoke room… but honestly, I am very fond of them, and I am so excited for this next year! Since my newfound foreign friend, Martin, is a sports and economics teacher at home in Germany, I decided to bring him to my school to teach my classes for a day, so he could get more cultural experience than just the touristy stuff. He is 6 ft. 7 in, and was a big hit with the students and a terror to my little sisters. We then headed to Siquijor with friends for a weekend of cliff diving, typhooning, and no power… leading to cooking over the fire, hours of intellectual conversations, and my face actually being physically sore from smiling so much. We may or may not have traversed almost the whole island by motorcycle. The whole weekend flashed by like a dream with a soundtrack by Avicii, then it was back to school to celebrate World Teacher’s Day with many presentations, flowers, and delightful homemade cards.

Rowdiness.

Martin, Me, and class JADE

So, once again, and as always, my days are riddled with euphoria next to calamity. I am learning how to deal. The best coping method to be found so far has to be magical weekend getaways (make up for every bad moment) or venting with other volunteers who share the same frustrations. Seeing their bright and shining excited faces put a new inspiration in me… Let the good times roll…