New Beginnings (Written 2/9/07)

Today we had our opening school mass which basically meant we had a half day and then a church service in the FaleSamoa. We got two periods of class in before the kids went to singing practice for the service (they've had singing practice during period 7 all week long – never seen so much singing practice from a congregation!) so that meant I had a little time before the service begin. During that time I gave Adam (the other main computer teacher) a little overview on how we put images on the computers so I don't have to install a new OS from scratch every time something happens to a computer around here. Now you may be asking, "So is Adam your counterpart?" The answer is yes and no. Yes, he's my counterpart in the fact that he's the only other teacher semi-qualified to teacher the senior level classes (Year 12 and 13) so as far as the curriculum goes, he knows computer studies very well. But no from the standpoint that if a computer were to break down, he would have trouble fixing it because I do all the computer tech stuff after school and he usually goes home with his wife at that point. But someone having a little bit of know how doesn't hurt, hopefully after we're done with the 4^th computer lab Kevin will look into getting a dedicated computer teacher.

Anyway, after we had our little tech session it was time to go up to the FaleSamoa and have our opening mass for the school year. It was a typical Catholic service for the most part, the only difference was that Kevin revealed who the head boy, head girl and prefects for this year were. Now last year when we did this, I had no clue who the kids were and  didn't have any connection with them. This year, since these are my year 12 students from last year, I was really happy with the folks that were elected. I've been around them and know they'll do a good job. What a difference a year makes. Once the service was over, everyone gathered at the bottom of the FaleSamoa to open the new Chapel that will be used by the students (Kevin wants to have a mini-service every morning, we'll see how that goes). They had a ribbon cutting ceremony for the opening and the Archbishop (who is a former student of Chanel) blessed the chapel, so it was a nice little affair. Once the opening was done, the school day was done and to watch the students bolt for the buses you would have thought the world was ending! They literally swarmed around the bus that was waiting for them so I was glad I didn't have to go to town.

We had a little lunch for the guests who came to the service and to see the opening. One of the people that I met (who Kevin knows) was a guy named Peter, who owns ACS (a small electronics store in town), works with the Rotary Club and is a US Citizen who's retired in Samoa – quite an interesting fellow to meet at a school function! Well we were talking for a bit and he started revealing to me the fact that he knew quite a few people in my group: Dianne, John, Holly, Charles and Ryan – there's that LOST affect happening again. Someone who you think is a totally random encounter has multiple connections to you that you don't even know about! We talked about the IT program with Peace Corps and how it should work and how it is working – and the best compliment he gave to me was "The school is really coming back to life thanks to those computers". Just to hear that someone outside the school actually appreciates the hard work that goes into getting these computers up and running and realizing (at that moment) that I'm a part of the revitalization of Chanel College – makes the hard work worth it. Once lunch was done, Kevin gave a few of the guests a guided tour of the computer labs and they were all quite impressed with the look, how many we have and the fact that we can get students on a computer 5 days out of 6 (we work on a 6 day rotating schedule). All in all, it was a good relaxing day of new beginnings – for the chapel and for the computer labs. The best part about the day was the fact that I got a ride into town, was able to do my errands and got back to school before 3:30pm – usually that's the time I get into town and have an hour to do my errands before the shops close.  L8r.

PS – an update on my Year 12 students, I seem to be having a little bit of a breakthrough with them. I had a quiz for them on Thursday and gave the results back today and while we were going over the answers, I got a lot more participation out of them without doing to much teeth pulling. Now my only problem seems to be that the boys don't like participating at all – going to have to get that mindset out of their head that girls are the only ones who answer questions in class (or they're just to cool to answer questions). Another week, another challenge.