The ups and downs of life

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9/27/08
This week I have a pretty good story, but first I’ll give a basic update. The class schedules have finally been finished so I know when I’ll be teaching as soon as the form 1 students arrive at school. I also saw the list of form 1 students that were assigned to Asare Bediako. There are 200 new form 1 students that are supposed to be coming by October 16, but I’m not sure if all of them will end up coming. Apparently the school requested 260 form 1 students. If you count the dinning hall, we only have 11 classrooms plus the computer lab. Each form has 4 classes, and we only have 3 forms this year so that means we need 12 classrooms for every class to have its own. We do have a classroom block that is partially built and will add 3 more classrooms, but construction has halted because there is no money to finish it right now. The local government officials stopped by the school to look at the building under construction, and it turns out they are planning on giving the school the money to finish the building. I’m not sure, but I think the fact that there is an election coming up had something to do with the officials helping the school out. Either way, it will be great if the building got completed because we really need the rooms, especially considering that in 2 years there will be 4 forms and a total of 16 classes.
Until the form 1 students show up, I’ll be teaching the form 2 core math classes. Since I found out what classes I am going to be covering at the last minute, we spent the first class session giving introductions and getting to know each other a little bit. I let the students ask me any questions they had about me or America. The students were really interested and particularly excited that I play soccer. Even after the class was done, the students want me to stay so they could ask me more questions. I’ll start into the math stuff next week, and we’ll see if the students are still as excited about class.
Ok, time for the funny story. This is kind of embarrassing so it probably isn’t a good idea that I’m putting this on the internet for the entire world to read. But it’s not like I’m important enough for many people to read this, and if this happened to any one of you I’d want to hear about it. So it was just another school day and I didn’t have any classes so I didn’t have much to do. Mostly I sit around the teachers lounge or the computer lab and read or play computer games. I went into town to grab some stuff and on my way back to school I stopped by my house to drop off the stuff I got. My mind was wondering. Without thinking about it I threw the stuff on the table on my veranda and left to go back to the school. I had just started the walk to the school when I did my routine pocket slap, the one I usually do before I leave the house, to make sure I had everything (my wallet, cell phone, and keys) when I realized that I didn’t have my keys. In a rush, I stopped daydreaming and was focused on the present. I quickly returned to my house to find the door to the veranda locked and see my keys sitting on the table next to the bananas I’d just bought. I couldn’t believe what I did. I never lock myself out. I found myself in a similar situation to the bathroom incident of a couple months ago, only this time I was trying to get into the room instead of trying to get out. I assessed what resources I had and used my fine tuned McGyver instincts to decide a course of action. Since my veranda is screened I figured that pushing in a corner of the screen would be the easiest and least damaging way to get in the veranda. Within a couple of seconds I was through the screen and had the door unlocked. In no time I repaired the screen and it was like nothing had happened at all. I’m just glad no one else saw the ordeal because I’d never hear the end of it. I did learn a lesson from the experience and I promptly hid a spare key to avoid having to break into my own house again. Now that I have a spare key, I probably won’t ever need to use it though.
Right now I’m in Kumasi at the KSO because a car came up from Accra and I finally got some mail. I also got the money I need to get my new fridge so I should have a fridge again some time this week. To my great surprise, I got a letter from Jenny that was the first letter she wrote and was sent on June, 17. I figured the letter was lost but, apparently it just got thrown in the slow lane. I also got a long awaited package that I hoped had my ipod in it. The box was torn along one side. The chocolate and headphones were there, but my ipod was no where to be found. I guess we should have listened more closely when they said not to send anything valuable in the mail. It’s not even that my ipod was very valuable, it was pretty old and I’ve already replaced the battery once, but I’m really bummed out that I can’t listen to any of the country music it had on it. I guess my first mistake was not bringing my ipod with me originally. Considering where I am, it is clear that an ipod isn’t a necessity of life, but man I wish I could listen to all my music from home. At least I have a laptop and can watch movies on it. I’ve gone this long without an ipod, so I guess I can go the rest of the time without one too. Things could be worse though, with my lost letter from Jenny was a mix CD that she made me so I now have 19 songs to play over and over and over and over and over again. If you’re feeling sorry for me, I can always use chocolate to cheer me up.

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