Holy Hot Sunday

It's a hot one in AmSam today. I'm being completely honest when I say that the last two weeks have been relatively cool. We had sun maybe one or two days, but other than that, the sky was overcast, it rained a lot, and there seemed to be a breeze sometimes. Now, we're back to normal weather and temperature around here: blazin' hot!

As I sit here, typing, trucks are passing by with Samoans piled up in the back, all in their church clothes. It's quiet. A few birds chirp here and there. I don't think our dogs have even barked (chances are they have, and I just don't even realize it anymore). It is yet another typical Sunday.

Last week at school, we went through "Accreditation." I had never heard of this process before coming here, but now that it is over, I understand it a little more. Basically, our school was visited by a team from Hawaii that wanted to see if our school should be accredited for 2, 3, or 6 years. This means that when students graduate, their credits will actually mean something - they can go to college, or get copies of their transcripts for jobs, etc. Obviously this is a big deal. Accreditation came and went and we passed, although we won't know how many years we have received until June or July. Now life at Leone HS will go back to normal.

2 months from today, I will be packing to go to New Zealand!
3 months from today, I'll be saying goodbye to my little island in the South Pacific.

For now, I'm still soaking up every moment that I can. I'm keeping busy at school - still reading the HG (Hunger Games), Speech Fest just happened on Friday, and well, school is school!

Speech Fest was an island-wide festival that was held at Tafuna High School. It was an all day event and featured categories such as a play, script writing, oral interpretation of poetry, oral interpretation of drama, monologue, original speech, etc. It was a great day and several of our students placed - exciting!

Here are a few pictures:

One of my students designed this entire bulletin board for me - saved me a lot of time and she did a great job!

One of my completed HG bulletin boards. The movie pictures were and still are a big hit!

Another completed bulletin board - full of amazing student work!

Take a very close look at this picture...

...yeah, I know, right?! I have a couple seniors in my classes (tsk tsk for failing last year) and one of them sketched this picture of Katniss. It's amazing!

My friend, Courtney, teaches at Manu'a High School on the island of Ta'u. This means that since everyone scattered last July, I've only been able to see her 3 times since. I was ecstatic that we got to reunite at Speech Fest! We're very hot and sweaty - the island was roasting alive on Friday. And yes, I'm wearing the school uniform (I was told to do so). Turns out, I was the only LHS teacher that wore the uniform. "Miss, you look like a student!" "Oh, I thought you were a student!" "You look like you're 17!" "Why did you wear that, everyone is going to think you are a student?" Oye. Heard that all day long. : )

Our script writing group - all 4 are my students. They did an AMAZING job and I am so proud of them!

LHS kiddos and myself. One of the girls laughed when she looked at the picture, "It's funny because we're all black and you're white!" Yep.