Welcome to my blog on my year (July 2010 - June 2011) in the Marshall Islands! The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a Micronesian nation composed on 29 coral atolls and 5 islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. I am here on the Dartmouth Volunteer Teaching Program which you can find out more about at this link: www.dartmouthrmi.com. I am staying in the capital, Majuro, and am teaching two sections of 7th grade English Grammar/Writing and English Reading at Majuro Middle School (MMS). I am living in dorms on the Marshall Islands High School (MIHS) campus, where MMS is located. If you have any other questions please feel free to email me at l.andrew.rayner@gmail.com, and thanks for visiting my blog. I update on Sundays as regularly as electricity/internet availability permits.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

And Now For Something Simple and Endearing...

Here are three of my favorite pieces of art from my students that I have accrued over my time teaching here in the RMI. For some reason, these are all from my 104 class, which is NOT my homeroom. Go figure. The picture of me was just for fun from one of my girls (pre-hair change, as you can see). The other two comic strips were for when we were learning about main ideas and supporting details and I asked the students two write stories using comics. As you can see in the strips, my boys are heavily concerned with me finding a girlfriend/wife. They have offered to "give" me to their sisters. I graciously declined.






Things have been pretty intense around here this past week. Keeping up with class, learning lines, trying to stay on my workout schedule, cooking, reading for pleasure, becoming newly obsessed with the show "Breaking Bad" (which is so good; Mandy and I literally sat down and watched the whole first season this past Saturday without meaning to do so), and trying to find a job (if you know anyone hiring in marketing, advertising, or law, let me know!) are not a good balance. Something has to give, but its the leisure stuff that is keeping me sane. I guess this is the balance that life requires that I was always told about. Oh well.

This past weekend I took the undergrads to Enemanit. I had not been since my birthday! It was an incredibly enjoyable experience, as always. There were also two new helicopters that had been sunk by the island that Dan Moore and I were able to check out.

See you next week!

Bar lo kom,

Andrew

1 comment:

  1. It's so interesting how children view marriage in other countries. The children and teachers in Ghana would always ask me why I was not yet married. And don't even get me started on my Indian relatives.

    Maybe Americans are the strange ones for putting it off for so long and putting ourselves first.

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