Getting Ahead of Myself

When I wrote yesterday, I may have been slightly preemptive in saying that I was starting "work". While it is true that yesterday was the beginning of planning week for my school, there was actually very little work involved. Our meetings were scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m., but they really started around 10:30 a.m. The first hour and a half were just a church service with a couple hymns and a message from our minister. After that, it was time for lunch. We spent about a half hour eating butter and spaghetti sandwiches and then regrouped for the afternoon meeting. The deputy principal passed out lists of the teachers and their departments, welcomed the new teachers, and dismissed us to work in our respective departments. I met for a bit with my co-teacher at the catering school, and was back at my house by 1:30. Overall, not a bad first day. After returning to my house, I had the power company come out and fix my electricity. It was nice to have my fans back!

Anyway, I won't actually be teaching for at least a couple weeks because our school has a week of cleaning and orientation, and then I will just be doing observation for a while. Perhaps by March I will actually be teaching.

So a few other random things I thought of since yesterday...my school colors are yet again blue and white. It seems that royal blue is following me everywhere I go. RHS, CWRU, and now Pouono. Perhaps it will be an easy way to narrow down my choice of grad schools someday!

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful Christmas cards. I ended up receiving most of them in January, but it was so nice to hear from so many church friends and family members. I'm looking forward to receiving some birthday cards soon that are still in transit!

I was very fortunate to have another volunteer who was visiting America bring back a new laptop for me after mine died, so now I have a brand new little netbook. The most exciting part is now I can skype with family and friends. If you have a skype account, let me know...I would love to chat.

Fruit and vegetables are only available seasonally here in Tonga, and one of the newest additions to the market is avocado. I'm looking for a tasty guacamole recipe if anyone has one they would like to share.

Finally, here are a couple pics from the last few weeks. A banana bread that was attacked by a rogue cat, hanging out at Brandon's house in Tu'anuku, and a rainbow at my school.