i'm baaack!

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sorry it took so flippin long to write to you guys! my life has been
absolutely crazy since i have been here. i'm sitting in an incredible
boring history class that sucks up every saturday from 8-5, so i thought i
would write you an incredibly detailed update on my life instead of
listening to the soul-sucking speaker.

housing: even though my house is amazing, my landlord is really creepy...60 years old and
would bring home 2 mongolian strippers at a time. yuck. last weekend, my
roommate erik and i heard about a 2-bedroom bungalow for rent, and we went
to look at it. turns out it's awesome. we signed a 1-year lease and erik
has already moved in. the only thing holding me back from moving in is the
lack of a car. our new house is in the boonies, and erik drives a scooter,
and i certainly do not want to be stuck in the jungle with only a scooter
to get to whereever i need to go. i have been searching frantically for a
car, and it doesn't look like i will be able to get one until thursday, so
hopefully thursday i will be able to move into the new house. at the new
place, we have tangerine, lemon, lime, mango, coconut, banana, grapefruit,
and starapple trees! it's awesome. we also have a princess loft 😊

school: i am absolutely loving school. i have 6 classes per day, and i
teach the same lesson each time, so it definitely gets redundant sometimes,
but it's alright. i have the best kids ever. they are awesome. my
biggest class is 32, and my smallest is 28, so a huge handful, but for the
most part, they are all very good. for the first 4 weeks of school, i am
the health teacher. yep, that's right, im the sex ed teacher. my poor
kids are so uneducated and have no idea about anyting that has to do with
the human body. it's quite sad actually. we have had some great
conversations so far on big topics like abortion, sex, virginity, and stds.
they are just so curious! there is only one period where i have trouble,
and it is because of one student who disrupts the rest of the kids, so
clasroom management is a struggle 4th period.

the school is so short of funding the teachers have to buy EVERYTHING, even
toilet paper for the kids to use. i had to buy my own stapler, paper, ink
cartridge for my printer that doesn't work, and all the other supplies that
teachers need. the students are, for the most part, quite poor, so i have
had to buy a lot of supplies for them as well, which is ok, because that is
why i am there. it's just definitely different from the other places i
have been. my family has also bought and sent a lot of school supplies,
which have been such a huge help! it's all coming together 😊

snorkling: this is my new favorite sport. i have only been once, but it's
pretty much all i think about. we went to a little island, managaha,
right off of saipan, and i saw fish i could never even imagine. the colors
were incredible. they were so cool. we were right on the reef, so we got
to see a lot of coral and sponges too. one thing that was amazing was a
bright blue with purple polka dots starfish! this week, im going to go buy
my own snorkling gear so i can go whenever i want 😊 in november, im going
to get my diving certification too, so i can go deep-sea diving.

well, that is all i can really think about that is happening in my life
right now. sorry it took so long to let you know what is going on!

i love you all! miss you a ton!!!!!

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