Pictures are here!!!

I took some shots during a Senior Bible Class a while ago. Here are some of my shots (unedited).

Karolline in Bible class

Roxana and Najee taking their tests

Evan getting ready for class

Jaymee asking a question about the test

Students taking the Bible test

Roxana working hard

I also took some pictures at Faculty Families too... this was the best I got:

Mumu and Anthony playing DDR as David W. looks on

Sabbath afternoon of Parents Weekend was the Choir and Band concert. Band had a few selections and the Choir sang some pieces and there were also a couple duets and a trio. My camera battery died about half way though the concert so missed some stuff.

JoDee and Adam B.'s duet

Mr. Baker directing the band

Jaymee and Sara's duet

(then the camera died)

Saturday evening the seniors had a play (a "Friends" episode... The One Where Ross Can't Flirt)

In the "livingroom"

Tim M. as Chandler getting ready for his date with Monica (Karolline)

Sorry...

No pictures yet... time has gotten away from me yet again and we returned a bit later to campus then I had expected. So maybe tomorrow I'll get pictures posted... I hope.

Break was pretty restful and relaxing. I got to sleep in, eat yummy food, and spend time with family. We spent Thanksgiving day at some friends' house and had TONS of food. Sabbath Grammie came to our house after church and we had another Thanksgiving meal. Saturday night Adam, my cousin, invited Karolline and me to go bowling with him and a bunch of other people. It ended up there were only 5 of us. It was fun. We bowled for about 2 hours and had some good laughs.

We headed out a little late this morning to meet the bus. The bus wasn't there when we got there but we didn't have to wait very long for it. One of the students thought that the bus wasn't supposed to be there until 1 instead of 12:30. We waited for him for an hour and then it was decided that we would meet them at the next rest-area on the thruway. We met them ok and were on our way. It seemed to take forever to get back but that's because we waited so long for that student and then there was a lot of traffic in a few spots that moved VERY slowly and the roads weren't the greatest in some areas. But we made it safely and picked everybody up without any problems.

Tomorrow starts our School Spirit week. We're starting with "Sports Day". I'm not sure what I'll do for it yet although Adam thinks that all of SA should go all out with our dress this week... I'm eager to see what the students come up with for all the days. One of the days is Dress like a Faculty and I had a girl tonight tell me that she's going to go as me and wants to borrow some of my clothes. The other days we're having are: Class Color Day, Mix and Match, and I can't remember the last one (and they aren't in happening in that order either).

Anyways, I should probably get ready for bed here before to long. I really will try to get the pictures posted tomorrow night.

Before Thanksgiving Break

I'm on Thanksgiving break! I've actually been on break since Monday. I got a day more then all the rest of the faculty... I was supposed to be there for a meeting on Monday but my ride was leaving Sunday morning so I got permission to leave early.

Last week was pretty busy. I'd dare to say perhaps a bit busier then normal. I worked in the cafe two afternoon/evenings and in the office and preping for class the rest of the time.

My second photo class went okay. I had gotten online and found this website that you can enter in words and clues and it will put them into a crossword puzzle. I did that with 20 words that I thought would be important for them to know. I also made a word scramble in case they had a hard time with the crossword puzzle they could ask for the word scramble and then have a word bank for the puzzle. I didn't realize that it would take the entire class period for them to complete it. Most of them finished it... there were a couple boys who didn't do much during class. One of them I spoke to about 3 times about sleeping in class (I nearly sent him back to the dorm). And the other boy just didn't do much. I then gave them a homework assignment. I'm having them research a famous photographer and write a short bio on them and then pick at least one photo by that person that they like and tell me why. They have two weeks to do this assignment if you count the break. I typed the assignment up for them after class and handed it out with a little note on the bottom saying that they had until 3:00 the next day to finish and turn in the crossword puzzle or they would get a zero. Dad told me that I was being mean/hard on them. My thinking was that if they would have worked on it during class like they were supposed to then they could have had it done before they left. We'll see how badly they twist my arm about it during the next class.

I spent most of the day on Friday making tickets for the musical the drama team and choir are going to be performing for Christmas (Dec. 20 at 4:30 if anyone is interested). There's four different kids of tickets/seating we're selling and we wanted to be able to sell them during parents weekend and start getting the word out. When I got most of the tickets done, I headed to the cafe to make 14 pies for dessert on Sabbath. I was there through supper and had a short amount of time to get home and changed before vespers. I ended up waiting for my parents to get there before heading to vespers about a half hour late. Vespers was good and we got to visit with people for a bit too.

Sabbath we went to Sabbath School but I left almost as soon as we got there to go help Rozita in the cafe for a little bit. I made it back to church in time for church. Three of the students got baptised and one more stood saying that he'd like to take lessons :D

Sabbath afternoon the choir and band had a concert. They did a pretty good job. I was really impressed with the choir. They reminded me of how they used to sound years ago. So many guys tried out this year she couldn't accept them all because there weren't enough girls to support them! They sounded great! The band sounded pretty good. Especially when you consider how many beginners they have this year and how little time they've spent on these pieces.

Saturday night the seniors had a program. They served supper and performed and episode from "Friends" (The one where Ross can't flirt). They did a good job and were very amusing. They then had the senior auction (the auction the seniors for four hours of work). They made quite a bit of money for their class. Then they had a little talent show. They had a couple duets, a funny little skit, and a group lip syncing class Jeremy & The Tempters. They were HILARIOUS!!!

Sunday we had breakfast and then a staff/parent meeting before splitting into individual parent teacher conferences. I didn't have any of these... I just sat through the general meeting. Then we said our goodbyes and headed home.

Monday I took Grammie to an appointment and did some errands for Mom and did some shopping with Karolline. Yesterday I spent the day in my PJ's and it felt wonderful to do absolutely nothing. Today I've done some stuff around the house and I'm about to go make a cheesecake for tomorrow.

I'll hopefully post some pictures later tonight or tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Teaching for the First Time

So like I said in my last blog, Thursday was my first time really teaching a class. The class had been meeting in the computer lab and that just wasn't working for me. There's way to many distractions for them working in there. The Bible Room is right across the hallway and is open during that time so I got permission and moved my class into there. I had a few inquiries about why we were in there now but they didn't really seem to mind the switch.

I began class by giving them the handouts I had made and then I gave them their new journals. They were extremely excited about the journals which surprised me a bit, but it also made my heart happy to see them excited about something having to do with the class. I then gave them the writing assignment. There was NO complaining!!! One of the girls told me that it seemed like a real class now. As they finished their assignment I told them to start reading through the handouts until everyone was done. I had two boys fall asleep at that point and I went over and woke them up and told them to get back to work. Then, I told them I had one more thing for them to do and they could either do it in class or as homework. The promptly asked if they were going to have more homework if they did it in class and when I said no they all opted to do it in class. So, to help me get an idea of assignments THEY would LIKE to do I had them write down three ideas for assignments I could give them or stuff we could do in class. Some of them came up with some really good ideas. And of course you'll always get someone who says something like "Free class time to do whatever we want".

When everyone finished on of the girls asked me how you change a couple things on the camera. I had them all come to the front to see it on the one camera I had there. I explained how it can change from camera to camera and showed them what a few of the things in the viewfinder was. After all that I told them that we were going to be going into the computer lab to try and watch a couple videos. The videos didn't work in the lab so I had them read the information that will be covered in the videos (which I'll show them this week). By the time they were done that there were only about 10-15 minutes left in class and I told them they could check email or do other homework until the bell rang.

Searching for something to Teach

I spent ALL day yesterday online reading through forums, looking for handouts, looking at sites that had ideas and information for photography teachers, and a number of other things. I found a few videos on youtube.com from a guy that has his own website that has photography lessons all typed up. He had a video on aperture, shutter speed, and exposure. He explains them quite well in just a few minutes each. I think I'll show them the videos and then try to answer and more questions they have on it. I want to make sure they understand. I then went to his website and the first lesson has a bunch of questions about what you want to shoot, what you want to use your photography for, and a ton of other things too. Tomorrow I'm going to have them write responses to all the questions. I bought each of my students a journal last night and I'm planning on having them write in them every week during class and I'd like for them to carry them around to write down ideas or questions they think of during the week. They'll probably hate me for it but I think it will be good for them to realize some of those things.

Last night Nina and I went out for supper and had to pick up a few things at the store. I wanted to stop in at the mall to go to the bookstore and see if they had any photography books that might be helpful. They had a small rack with some clearance books on it and I quickly found two digital photography books! I was quite happy to find something so cheap (one was $7.99 and the other was $4.99)!!! I got the $7.99 one because it looked like it would be the best and I'll use it for myself when I get back to school. I wish I could've gotten them each one but I don't have that kind of money and there were only 4 or 5 of them there. Anyways, the book has several different sections in it including equipment, Lens and focusing, light, composition, fixing your images, advanced correction and creative editing, and one on printing and sharing. I think it'll be helpful to both me and the students.

I'm not working in the cafe today because Mrs. Stanton is coming in. I'll be down there tomorrow through Sabbath though. So, for today I'm planning on going through the book a bit more and pinning down exactly what we're going to do in class tomorrow.

A Fun Evening

Adam and I were on supervision duty this weekend and had decided to have a class against class volleyball tournament for the Saturday night activity. But with some people gone on the leadership conference and even more that went home we weren't sure how the tournament would go. So at the last minute we decided to set up one net and have whoever wanted to play volleyball and other people could play basketball or just sit and socialize.

Nina, BJ, Adam, and I all played volleyball against the students. The beat us the first game then the students played each other again before asking us if we wanted a rematch. We ended up playing two or three more games with them and I think we won all of them. During one of the games, Adam, who happens to be something like 6'4, ran up and spiked the ball and one of the girls, somewhere around my height, blocked it and sent it back to us (we missed it). She was SO shocked (along with the rest of us). I think she walked around with her jaw on the floor for 5 minutes.

After the games we started kicking people out and Nina found what she called "golfball numchucks" which was a small rope with a golfball on each end. She hit me on the back of the leg with it and asked if it hurt. I said no and she did it again with the same results. The third time she did it she missed my calf and wailed my knee. It didn't hurt too bad at first but I have a very prettily colored bruise on my knee.

After all of that Adam, Nina, and Karolline all came over and we ate peanut butter pie and played Apples to Apples with Laurie. We didn't start playing until 9:30/10:00 so we were all getting a little tired. EVERYTHING was funny to all of us. I haven't laughed that much in a long time. We picked on each other, laughed at each other and ourselves, and laughed at the cards we played. During the first game Nina and Laurie were getting all the cards and Adam and I went for the longest time without any at all. At the end of that game Adam told us that the green cards we got are supposed to describe you in some way or another. We had a good laugh about those too. The second game we decided we'd play to 17 (people here seem to like random numbers). Adam and I did better that game. Karolline and Adam were in the lead for a long time and I still had a hard time getting cards in the beginning. But I ended up making a big come back and won. We laughed at the green cards even harder after that game. Nina had cards like "nerdy", "violent", and "easy" along with some others. I told Nina that the "violent" and "nerdy could be a bad combo especially because of the "golfball numchucks" earlier. Laurie had "puffy"... that's the only one I remember of her's because she made such a big deal about it through the whole game :) Adam had "flirtatous" and some others I remember laughing about but not what they were. I can't remember any of Karolline's. And I had "distiguished" and "dirty" to name a few.

Anyways, Adam and Nina didn't leave til a few minutes after midnight. We had a good time and had some good laughs. I hope we can do something of the sort again before too long :)

Pictures from Home

Here are some pictures from my weekend in Vermont.

The view from the covered bridge looking towards Simon Pierce

Adam really focusing on the water below

Quechee Gorge (where my lens cap was laid to rest :P)

Nina smiling at the covered bridge

Laurie on the wrong side of the railing

Adam and Nina enjoying themselves

Glass Blowing at Simon Pierce

More glass blowing

Adding "Teacher"

Well, it looks like I will be adding "Teacher" to my resume. One of our teachers is having to leave due to not having the right forms to remain in the US. He was the photography teacher among other things and I was asked today if I'd take that over since I'm the most qualified to do it.

I found out this and several other things this morning. Among them would be my change in schedule. My schedule will be changing because the teacher leaving also helped in the cafe a couple nights a week. Since he's gone one of the ladies that used to help down there a few years ago is going to come back. However, she already has another job and the days she works changes from week to week. So every week I'll have a different schedule... at least I'll know what it is a month in advance I guess.

On to happier news. I was able to go home this weekend with 4 of the other faculty/staff members. My home church was having a cider and donut social (we press our own cider and make our own donuts). We left Friday evening and got back Sunday evening. I got to show them a few of the sites around my house and just had a lot of time to visit and relax. We all enjoyed ourselves a great deal.

This weekend I'm on supervision again. I'm still not going to be on with Mr. Raymond (the guy I'm supposed to be on weekend supervision with). Adam will be switching with Mr. Raymond. Adam is also the other SA sponsor... and as SA sponsors we're thinking this would be a great opportunity for SA to plan and lead the Saturday night activity. We're having a SA meeting tomorrow evening and we're going to bring this up to them. I hope they are willing to help us out.

Speaking of meetings... I have one that's going to start shortly so I better be off! I'll be posting some pictures from the weekend soon.

Week(s) in pictures

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks.











Girls Soccer








More Girls Soccer











Joel at the cold and rainy guys soccer game












Sapati going for the ball














Front of the Administration Building


















Our guys lined up before the championship game










Alex B. playing in the big game











One of the 6 deer in my back & side yard (I get to see some almost every morning)

Championships

Working at a boarding academy makes life BUSY! There's always something to be doing and somewhere to be. Yesterday was the first full day I've had off in over 20 days. I slept in a bit, watched the Sabbath school lesson on 3ABN, showered, and made some food. Around 4:30 Adam picked Laurie, Nina, and I up and we went the two hours to the soccer championship game. Our guys team made it but the girls didn't.

The team we played was almost undefeated this whole season. Our team was the only team to beat them. And our girls team was the only team to even score against their girls.

The game last night was pretty crazy! In the first 20 minutes of the game Jeremy C., got hit and the wind was knocked out of him. They thought it was asthma for a minute and ran an inhaler out to him. It took him a couple minutes to stand up but he was ok, though he didn't play the rest of the game. In the second half one of our guys had the balls, one of their guys kicked the ball, our guy fell, and then their guy kicked our guy in the stomach. He had been playing dirty before that and we were happy to see him finally get a yellow card. Another one of their players got a yellow card for tripping. Our team got one or two I think... mostly for talking back to the refs.

It was 37 degrees at the game. We were freezing sitting on those medal bleachers for 80 plus minutes! We got in the car and cranked the heat but it still took us a while to warm up. We were going to stop somewhere for some supper on the way back but we didn't know that the town the game was in was out in the middle of nowhere so the best we could do was taco bell. But we had a good time and a few good laughes.

As for this week, Wednesday is the beginning of homeleave and I'll be going to my cousin's house. We're going to a concert Wednesday night and I'll spend Thursday hanging out at their house. Then Friday I'm going to go to cosmotology school with my friend, Adri. And I'm not sure where I'll be for the weekend but I'm looking forward to not having to worry about anything for a few days.

Pictures!!!

I'm FINALLY posting some pictures! Soccer has been happening since the first week of school. I think their first game was the second week of school. The academy has joined some sort of league this year and they are doing fairly well in it. I finally got to take some pictures of one of the games last week or the week before so here are a few.

This is Robyn. She's the daughter of the
guy's dean. I think she's 4.

Getting better

It's been a while since I posted and quite a few things have happened. First of all, the power cord to my laptop died over a week ago (part of the reason I haven't posted). I was using it the last time I was at the farm for the weekend and all of a sudden it beeped that the battery was low and it shut off... and I couldn't get the cord to work again.

We had a homeleave that started last Wednesday and went to Sunday. What a blessing! The last time I was home was in June for about 2 1/2 days so it was good to get back there. I didn't get to see many people but it was nice to see my puppy and parents. I was only home Wednesday night until Friday morning. Then my parents and I headed to a balloon festival in Glens Falls, NY. The weather was perfect (other then being a bit chillier then I would've liked) and we got 5 flights in while I was there. I flew Saturday evening and got to pilot (I'm working on getting my lisence to fly) on Sunday morning.

I met the bus and came back here Sunday evening feeling much better then I had in weeks. I made it through Monday in the cafe with practically no issues with the kids. Yesterday I was on supervision with Adam again and there was another soccer game. Things went pretty well over all with supervision duties and our team won the game :) Today was the first day I've had all my kids in the cafe in at least a week I think. I had to get after a couple of the boys but didn't have major issues. I'm not sure if its because they are really starting to settle in and do what they are supposed to and respecting me or if its just because I'm feeling like I'm in a better mood. Whatever it is I praise God things are getting easier!

The friends I'm making here are wonderful! I got to spend some time off campus this morning with Nina, the assistant girls dean. We did a little shopping for ourselves and picked up some stuff for the girls dean before heading to a little cafe for some refreshment :) It was fun to be able to hang out with another girl around my age.

Before break, Adam told me that his friend got married a little over a year ago and him and his wife moved to Korea to teach English. Not long ago she started hurting all over and the doctors weren't sure what it was so they came back to the states to try and figure it out. It turns out she has a very advanced stage of skin cancer and they only give her about 6-7 months to live. I mention this because I think its cool how people that don't even know this couple are so willing to lift them in prayer. My mom forwarded me an email yesterday telling their story and asking for prayer. I replied to her and said that this was the same couple Adam is friends with. Mom told me later last night that they have also been added to the prayer chain at my church. I'd also like to ask you to remember them in your prayers.

Anyways, now that I have a camera I will try my best to get some more pictures from around here to post. Thank you for your prayers and support :)

A few sights around campus

Just thought I'd share a few pictures that I took today of the campus before the batteries completely died.

Center of campus facing the church and the lake (the Ad Building would be behind us)

The school bell at the center of campus

Capman Hall (boys dorm)

Soccer Games & Proposals

I had my first supervision duties with Adam (math & science teacher) yesterday evening. It also happened to be the first soccer game(s) of the year. The soccer games threw the days schedule way off. Classes were adjusted so everyone was out by about 3:30 in time for the games. The girls played first and lost 2-0 and they guys won 3-1. They all had fun and there were no injuries :) After shewing everyone back to the dorms after the games, I also headed to the girls dorm. I hung out in my sister's room until it was time for me to do worship. Worship ended around 7:50 and shortly after I headed back to my house.

I said that I'd explain a bit more about the proposal the SA officers came up with so here you are: They proposed to the faculty to have two of the SA officers have SA as their job (all the students work part of the day here). The proposal started with only one officer but they later decided to ask for two possitions. The president, Caleb, and the secretary/treasurer, Adam, are the two that are working for SA. As faculty, we had a few conserns about this. When SA has a big event, like Y-Owasco, Fall Festival, or a banquet, there is plenty for the boys to do to get ready and we would probably be able to keep them pretty busy for work. But when there's not much going on we were worried about them wandering the halls, hanging out with people that shouldn't be there, or being a distraction to others. This was solved by requiring them to produce a slideshow or a bulletin board with pictures on it bi-weekly, the week they don't do the slideshow/bulletin board they are to put out a short newspaper, and third, SA has to organize and lead out in at least one activity a month. So, I'll probably be helping them get things organized a bit starting out and then as they get a handle on things I should be able just to look over and approve/disapprove things.

Today I'll be back in the cafeteria from after lunch until after supper. Days like today make for some LONG days... but that's what I'm here for... partly. In coming here, I wanted to be able to make connections with the kids and be a friend to them. The past few days I've felt like the only kids I've been in contact with are the kids that I supervise in the cafe and those that are in SA. I still don't know all of their names and I feel as though all I do to some of the kids in the cafe is yell at them because they aren't doing what they are supposed to do. I pray that this weekend I'll be able to get aquainted with the other students a bit better and start to build relationships with them. I think getting out there and socializing with them is something I'm going to have to work on and do all year. I want to be able to reach the kids and help them grasp a better understanding of who God is.

The Beginning

This school year I'm working at my high school, Union Springs Academy, as a task force worker. My duties here with include, but probably are not limited to: working in the office(s) in the ad building, working in the cafe, Student Association (SA) Sponsor, Yearbook Sponsor, and until something else is figured out or the assistant girls dean arrives I'm helping in the dorm.

Our pre-preweek, most of the faculty and staff went to Camp Cherokee up in the Adirondacks for a couple days. They were having a pastors and teachers retreat there. We had worship all together in the mornings and then divided up... pastors stayed in the chapel, elementary teachers headed off to the cafeteria, and the academy staff went over to another building and if the little kids were in the room we met in we would sit out on the porch until they were done then move inside for our meetings. We went over different school policies and how to address some sorts of issues while we were up there. We met in the mornings and after lunch we had one more meeting before having the afternoon off for some relaxing. However, the whole time we were up there it was cold and pretty rainy. Luckily the only afternoon we were there (Monday) it cleared up enough to sit on the dock. I journaled for a while and read a bit before heading back up for supper. Tuesday we had worship and meetings in the morning and after lunch finished packing up and headed back home.
The rest of the week was filled with a few more meetings, some students came to preregister, getting the ad building cleaned and presentable, and getting whatever else done we could.

Preweek brought the RAs and SA officers to school. We had more meetings, more cleaning, and more work. The faculty figured out registration would run, which evenings we would be on supervision for supper and rec, which weekends we would be on supervision, and did some other stuff too. The SA officers, with a little help from the sponsors, figured out what to do for handshake, decided on a theme for the year, did some necessary shopping, proposed an idea to the faculty and got it passed (more on this later), and helped out in some other areas as well. Everybody did cleaning.

I moved into my faculty house the Wednesday of preweek and had my sister over almost every night and Silvia, one of the faculty members kids and also a senior, over a couple times. They seemed to enjoy it and have both asked to come over again since.

Sunday was registration. I was supposed to be to the Ad Building at 8:30 to get setup for registration at 9:00. Sometime between 8 and 8:15 I got a phone call from Andrew (he's the vice principal and alumni and development director) asking me to get there as soon as I could because he had a bunch of extra stuff he needed help with since Mr. Baker (the principal) wasn't going to be around. Mr. Baker had been taken to the hospital the night before and was waiting to have gallbladder surgery! I got there as soon as I could and helped out until registration opened and I took my place selling books.

Sunday evening was handshake. Everyone went through line by class and met everybody else. After meeting everyone we had them break into their classes once more and do the human knot. When they were done, they could come over to our SA booth and grab a float then go socialize for a bit.

The beginning of the week was a bit of a blur with orientation, working in the cafe, having an allergic reaction and being a bit out of it because of medicine, and everything else. There were a few times I was thinking "What in the world am I doing here?!" or "What have I gotten myself in to?!" But I can see God working already. Partly because I've been here all summer and have seen some of the struggles the school has been trying to deal with and fix. The enrollment is up this year from last and there are still a few that might be coming. Even though Mr. Baker wasn't there for registration things went well and we made it through ok. And He seems to have blessed us with what seems to be a pretty amazing team of faculty this year and a good student body.