A Difficult Week

This past week has been the most challenging week of my life here with MSA by far. And by challenging, I mean an emotional roller coaster of hard and difficult experiences.

My group this week was a holy terror all by themselves. To be honest, the campers were wonderful... individually. I had 3rd graders this week, which meant that they were all as cute as a button saying the darnedest things that made me crack up constantly when I wasn't trying to teach them. However, as a group in an outdoor teaching setting, having sixteen 3rd graders is quite the nightmare for one's nerves and vocal chords. They had to pea every fifteen minutes and they were constantly asking the most ridiculous off-topic questions. I almost completely lost my voice by the time they left only three days after they had arrived. But I really did love the kids. They even taught me some new dance moves strait from the hood; them being from the inner city. However, their main teachers were my two chaperons, and I have to admit I've never had a more difficult pair. I'm not even sure how detailed I can be in this blog, but let's just say I hope they never come back, and if they do; I hope I'm not here to deal with those two pills again. And can I just say that selfishness is one of the most annoying personality traits ever?!!

And that was only the first half of my week. The rest involved breaking up with my boyfriend and finding out that I had received remedial reviews from my dearly departed chaperons and was therefore asked to re-watch some of the classes I have been trained to teach and had been getting excellent reviews in.

Thankfully, all weeks must have their end. And this one ended with good friends all around me giving me more love than I knew what to do with. I still feel incredibly blessed to be here and am still very much in love with the island. It will always have a very special place in my heart. Every morning I awake with the sun and step outside to see it rising upon the waters just over Indian Rock. Sometimes there's even a pirate ship sailing by. And cormorants are usually flying in mass to feed upon some school of mackerel or sardines; a gleaming blackness across the shining waters.

This week I get a new group of fifth graders and yesterday I was taught how to sail a sail boat, so already things are looking up! I will try not to be too horribly boastful in saying how thrilled I was to successfully turn my boat around with the "boom" on my first attempt!

I am reminded of when I was a little girl taking swimming lessons with Miss Banita. She said I was a little fish who never wanted to leave the water. That feeling has returned and I don't know how I'll cope when in a month I have to leave for the desert and school once more.