New Directions...New Blog

Hey everyone! Been some time since I've been on here. I am home in Montana now for the summer and I have been here almost two months. In two weeks I am flying out to Moscow, Russia!! You may have noticed that my web address for this blog is pretty specific for Saipan, so I have decided to create another blog that is a little more generic for my travels. That way I shouldn't have to create a new blog every time I move to another country! I probably won't be posting much more on this blog site, so if you'd like to see what I am doing this year in Russia, look me up at my new address. It is: www.notesfromsarahslife.blogspot.com

I am very excited about Russia and the new adventures, but Saipan will always hold a very special place in my heart! I hope to come back some day!

Beam me home, Scottie

It is now officially the 23rd of June...the day I come home. It is shortly after midnight and I will be leaving for the airport at 2:45am. I am determining whether I should really try to stay awake for the next couple hours or if I should catch a little shut eye.

I have great internet access right now, so I am taking advantage of it by uploading pictures to facebook, which normally took me hours on my slow internet. I am out of my apartment, and have been staying in the spare bedroom of my pastor's home until I leave. I am so thankful they have welcomed me into their home for a couple days.

This last week has been really great. I have finished school, spent a lot of time with friends, and enjoyed the island. I had my last Street Market and really enjoyed my eggplant curry soup. It was some of the best I've yet had. I got a manicure, pedicure and a haircut for 1/4 of the cost you would pay in the States. I swum in the Grotto and it was beautiful. What an incredible place. The tide was not low, but not overly high, but unfortunately there were a ton of Korean divers in the grotto today. Not quite as relaxing when there are so many people, but it was still good.

It has been a wonderful year in Saipan, but I am ready to come home for a little while. I dread the flight, however. On the way out here I was so excited that I didn't care how long the flight was, but now I am feeling absolutely drained and 24 hours of flying is not appealing. I really wish they could "beam me home, Scottie!" I just know that on the other end of the long trip are my wonderful parents and puppy waiting to greet me!

Well I am actually kind of exhausted, so I think I will try to take a short nap before I have to get up and fly home. I hope to see many of you soon!

Managaha

I just realized I have never told you all about one of the best parts of living on this island--Managaha. Managaha is a tiny, uninhabited island just off the western coast of Saipan, and is located in the reef. The island is considered to have some of the best snorkeling spots in the world. These are a few pictures taken here. My friends in their snorkel gear are the sisters Andrea and Amanda Allen. Andrea was here visiting for a week.

My friend, Daniel, owns a small boat and he is frequently willing to ferry a few of us across the half mile of azure blue ocean to Managaha on the weekends. Half of the island is covered in bright yellow tents teeming with Korean and Japanese tourists laying on the pristine white sand getting massages. The other side of the island has slightly smaller beaches, is more private, and has covered shelters with picnic tables and BBQ pits. My friends and I usually find a quiet spot to lay around on a Sunday afternoon. It is the perfect place to read a book, take a nap, BBQ, and snorkel.

"To life, to life...L'Chaim"

I am sorry everyone that I am such a bad blogger. I will try to be better at it, but I won't promise you anything.

I am finishing up my year here in Saipan. It is amazing how time flies. I have been here for 8 and a half months and sometimes it feels like I've just arrived. I still vividly remember my first meal on the island--Oish. In my opinion, it is still my favorite place. There is just no sushi or sashimi like it. And Thai House. Their eggplant curry soup is to die for. I will miss that so much when I leave. Thursdays just don't feel like Thursdays without it.

"These are a few of my favorite things..."
Melona bars
Chocolate pillows
Sashimi
Eggplant curry soup
Mangos off the tree
Sour sap fruit
Amazing sunsets
Managaha
Watching stars up on Suicide cliff
Salty dogs at Johnny's
Meat on a stick
Oish
Saipan Community Church
Daniel's boat
Amanda Allen
$12 pedicures
The ocean and views from Beach Road
Ube flavored Otap
Ukulele music
Carolinian dances
Street Market

When the boonie dog growls, when the cockroach stalks, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel "plenty" bad.

I will miss you Saipan. You have been good to me!

But I love change. I love new things, and I get a thrill out of the unknown. I am leaving Saipan (hopefully not for good), and embarking on new things. In August, I am off for Moscow, Russia!!! I will be teaching 4th grade English, and middle school English at Moscow Economic School. I will be living in downtown Moscow and am so excited to live there. I've been hoping and praying to live in Russia for years, and the Lord is answering my prayers. As I learn details, figure out my visa requirements, and buy my plane ticket, I will try to keep you updated.

Before Russia though I have "plenty" things to do with family and friends this summer in Montana. I cannot wait to come home. I miss my family and my dog and look forward to nights that cool down in the evening. And fishing--I can't wait to get in the river--even if I never catch a fish.

Life is so good and I am so blessed.

I just spent an afternoon windsurfing with the Matson Duo! Mel and Emily are sisters and are both teachers at Cha Cha Middle School.

The surfing itself was very fun, but rather difficult actually. The trade winds can gust pretty hard and throw you off balance. But I got a few good runs in!

So I suddenly remembered something...

I have a blog! Well, a lot has happened in the last two months or so since I have posted. I am still in Saipan and still enjoying it! School is going really well. I really enjoy my students and am finding that this teaching thing isn't so bad after all. But other than teaching, what have I been up to, you might ask?

I read a really good book called The Name of the Rose that Roommate and Ian sent me for my birthday. It's by an Italian guy named Umberto Eco, and I highly recommend it to people fascinated with history and books. The story takes place in 1311 in a monastery in northern Italy and is entirely about monks, books, libraries, and murder. It is chock full of history and fascinating factoids.

I also spent a weekend on the little island of Tinian, just a mile off the shore of Saipan. Seven of us took the ferry and went to enjoy the Chinese New Year and the Tinian Annual Red Pepper Festival. We spent an entire day exploring the island on scooters that we rented. I saw the loading sites of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan and raced down one of the six massive abandoned runways that used to be the busiest in the world. It was quite an enjoyable trip.

A couple weeks ago I accepted a teaching job in Moscow, Russia! I had applied in early January and had really been hoping for the job. I will be teaching elementary ESL at the private international school Moscow Economic School. I will be leaving Saipan at the end of the school year and returning to Montana for a couple months before heading to Russia. I am looking into the possibility of exploring South-East Asia before I head back the the US of A, but we'll see how expensive it is.

I am feeling anxious to get in all the fun things I want to do before I leave here for good. I am SO excited to go to Russia, and yet sometimes I feel like I just barely got to Saipan and now I am leaving. It is a little bit sad, but I look forward to new adventures ahead!

One last thing I will leave you with. I am continually fascinated with language and words and my parents got me this great book for Christmas called the Verbivore's Feast. It gives the origin and use of many words and phrases. Here is one of my favorite that I just came upon.

"Parents Pay Through the Nose for Kid's Admission." "Phone Callers Pay Through the Nose." "Paying Through the Nose for Blogs."
These are titles of recent articles appearing in newspapers and journals from India, New Zealand, and the United States. Each story, of course, bewails the high price of a service.
The bizarre sounding idiom pay through the nose, used with gusto throughout the English-speaking world, has some explaining to do. How could this combination of words possibly have any synonymy with "pay too much" or "pay until it hurts?"
The tale commonly associated with this cliche alludes to a tax the Danes levied on the Irish in the 9th century under the code of Scandinavian rules called the Danelaw. Anyone faling to satisfy the tax assessor's request was punished by getting his nose slit; he literally "paid through the nose."

I will leave you with that happy thought! Maybe next time I will tell you all about PEZ!

School Activities and Pictures

Here are a few pictures of my wonderful students. Top left is my 4th period class on our last day before Christmas break. We had a Christmas party and they were more than happy to pose for me.

Top right is Jia and Lora.

Bottom left is me with Veronica. She was a wonderful student to have in class, but because of some scheduling conflicts she was unfortunately moved to a different class. By the way, I mentioned I might post some of these pictures and they gave me permission to use their names.

Finally, bottom left is me with Mrs. Svetlana Atalig. She is from Russia and has been giving me weekly Russian lessons! In the background of this picture, you can also see the school principal, Mrs. Borja in the bright blue shirt.

My Apartment

Here are a few pictures of my apartment. You may notice that the walls are rather bare, but that is because they are concrete and next to impossible to hang anything on. Since these pictures I have been able to use command strips to plaster a couple pictures to the walls. Hopefully they will stay. I also hope to get curtains, but I am finding it is not a big priority. At first I was always aware of how bare it looked, but I guess I have gotten used to it. This little place has really become my home away from home.

Life in Saipan

This Jake and Steve attempting to stay warm by the "fire" at Christmas dinner!

The children dancing are doing a traditional Filipino stick dance. I tried it too, thinking it looks easy...it's not. Note: rhythm required.

This is Amanda and I at Saipan Community Church's annual Christmas Feast!

This is me with Lani at our Christmas party for MHS. She has become a good friend and she is great to work with!

Wow, it's been a while

Well it has been quite some time since I last posted--sorry everyone. I have been doing really well here in my slice of paradise. Since Thanksgiving I have finished student teaching, I have finished my Jan Term class and I will be officially graduated on February first. Then I have six months of relaxation until the real work begins...paying back my student loans:(

This week I am finishing out the semester with my students and look forward to the next. The way things are set up at my school, students take a Language Arts class all year long and don't change at the semester, so I will continue with most of my students. There will be a little bit of moving around where I will lose a few students and gain a few different ones, but in a way it is nice to keep these same ones.

I have really enjoyed this semester for the most part. It has brought a lot of challenges, but also a sense of accomplishment. I was expecting to student teach, and found myself as the main classroom teacher instead. I have certainly gone through a baptism by fire in that way, and I have had moments where I never want to see some of my students again. But the last month and a half has been so good that I am glad I made the choice to be a teacher.

Sometimes teaching is a profession where you give and give and see very little reward, and other times the rewards come so unexpected and in abundance. Today I had a student make me feel like I had done something right. This young man is a part of the special education program here and he has a very low reading level. In the past he has been very disorganized and will not turn any assignments in. I have done my best to modify and help with organizational skills and I think it is starting to pay off. This last month we have been working on a huge project and he completed it on time, got all of the components finished, and did not plagiarize anything. I am so proud of him. He can definately be successful and I think he is finally starting to believe it too.

Besides teaching, life on island has been great! I had a wonderful and blessed Christmas, and I was not alone! It is great in a way that I am among other people with like professions that are also far from family for the holidays. You become family together and make a point to make the holidays special for each other.

It has been very rainy and windy here again. Typhoon season quit some time ago and for a couple of months we had little rain and lots of sun. At the end of December, however, we hit our second rainy season and it has been cloudy and cold. By cold I mean 75 degrees. I know that sounds perfect to you all, but I have actually gotten quite chilled. Because it is humid and rainy and windy, it is easy to get cold even when it is technically 75. In a way it is nice to sleep all night with the covers on and hot coffee in the morning is wonderful.

Because it has been rainy, however, the chances for spending much time at the beach have been slim. The snorkeling has been difficult with the chilly water, but soon the dry season will be upon us and beach hopping will be great again!

I will try to post a few pictures here, but my internet at my apartment is so slow that it can take up to an hour to post 3-4 pictures. I will do what I can though. I hope you're all doing well. Drop me a line sometime to let me know.