A Day In The LIfe

So the past week we have been staying at the UPH’s (the Christian university) “practice” hotel. It’s kind of funny actually. The students receiving a tourism major here have to work and manage this little “hotel” (a.k.a. 16 random hotel-looking rooms located on one end of a building that is also full of classrooms, admissions counselor offices, a home economics kitchen, and more). The shower in our room is quite intense... it gives not only me, but the whole bathroom a good wash as well, and the ants just happened to find my toothbrush today : ). But, don’t think for a minute that we have it bad. The beds are super comfy, and the room is very spacious. We have even been given money for them to take care of our laundry, and it comes back nicely folded in a bag. (The only downer is they seem to have lost one of my bags of laundry, but the man working is unable to decode my English :) I also immensely enjoy the birds eye view of the rugby field. So far I have watched two rugby games! The first day we were here, everyone was napping, and I looked out the window and saw some guys warming up for a soccer game. So I grabbed my lesson planning materials and thought I would review my lessons while watching the game. Turns out, it was the Indonesian national rugby team scrimmaging to see who would play in the upcoming tournament. An Australian lady explained some rules of the game to me, and I had fun figuring how it all works because I’ve never seen rugby played before. Today, I got back from school and saw that the Indonesian team was playing China’s team, so I headed out to watch. It was pretty intense and Indonesia ended up loosing 26-32.

On to more important things...I thought it might be interesting to fill you all in on my daily schedule. So here it goes... Alarm goes off at 6:04 (thank you Grandma for the handy dandy travel alarm clock!). Hop in the shower, get ready, eat some cereal in the little hotel coffee cup with the mini hotel coffee spoon (our only silverware) and then head downstairs at 6:45 to catch a ride to SPH. We arrive at SPH at 6:52 and head to our classrooms. I really like that the school building was constructed in a way where only the classrooms are totally enclosed, and everything else is open to the air. I must admit I do make sure to shut my door and crank up the air right when I get to my room : ) I then look over my lesson plans, grab some materials, have my devotions, and at 7:45 I meet with the 9 other teachers to pray. Science Experiments is my first class. At 8:00 my students arrive, and we join with Caitlin’s class across the hall to have devo’s. We each only have 6 students, and although I was disappointed that there were only 6 in my class, I now am actually very thankful. I have gotten to know them all quite well, and we can do a lot of things we wouldn’t be able to do with more students. That class concludes at 10:45, at which time I head down and eat lunch, and then go to Outdoor Science class which begins at 11:15. I help another teacher teach this one until 2:00. At 2:15, I go to help out with basketball camp until 4:30. At 4:30 all of us usually work out and head back to the hotel. Tonight, we were invited over to a UPH teacher’s house for dinner. Her and her husband are both teachers at the UPH teacher’s college and are originally from Canada. They have taught here for 4 years. After dinner at night, we usually all work on lesson plans, and then go to bed around 11! It’s a good time, and a wonderful learning experience. My lessons have surprisingly been going really well, and I think I over-planned a bit too much. I’m still using lesson ideas from day 2 for tomorrow’s class, and when I could be using day 4 ideas. The students seem to be enjoying it!

Well, time for bed! I’ll write again soon!

Love,

Liz