It's been a while! We've had break and now we are back in the thick of it. But, thank goodness, the mock exams are done and I can breathe again! My shoulders are feeling lighter this weekend. It was not the smoothest of weeks.....but let me go back even further.
Break. Lovely. Relaxing. Over.
I decided we need two weeks for breaks - something the British system has right. I was feeling relaxed and wound down at the end of the week and bump - we had an intense INSET (more on that to come) and off I went again.
The children had lots of friends to play with at Calapan and the beach so I got time to read and be still, which I appreciated. Hot season has still not arrived in all its splendour so it was cooler than usual and the sea was a little cooler (not British standards though) but as Rose still got burned it was probably just as well it was not full on sun. We went snorkelling and were cold after 40 minutes in the water!! Unheard of in March.
And I got to dive. A special thing as it will be the last for a long time. Cloudy skies meant the visibility was not wonderful and the current kept us moving but I had the opportunity to remember how much I love being down under the sea and what an amazing Creator God I serve.
My birthday! I had a good day. We celebrated with our friends up at the elementary playground with a barbecue. It was fun and interesting to see the three main spheres of my life intersect: teaching friends, mission friends and parenting friends! The kids were excited about celebrating it too. Rose organised her and Naomi to make me cards which made me feel special. She even got the paints all sorted by herself.
INSET on Monday was a little stressful for me as we are discussing the changes we are making to a Standards based curriculum (if you are British you are probably wondering what on earth we do if we don't use standards. Good question!). The general feeling amongst our American staff has not been overly positive and I have been frustrated on a number of levels. 1. Non-American staff have no choice but to adapt to an American system and we just get on with it (yes we complain to each other a bit but we do it because that's the way things are). 2. Despite what some of our staff think we get a lot more say in things than most teachers (at least in a state school system) do and 3. there comes a point when if Admin says ''jump" we just have to jump! Anyway, that's my little vent....
The mock exams did not go as smoothly this week. I'm not sure if it was because we had just got back from a break. I do know my head has been all about exams and I messed up a couple of times and other people messed up and I haven't felt like a good teacher or a good parent this week. I am very grateful that the finals are less stressful in that I only have one a day most days. Of course, they are more stressful in making sure we do everything correctly but I have learned a lot these two weeks.
And so, we are in the back straight (yesterday someone told me it's 70 days till we leave!). And yet, there is so much to think about here that we are aware that we have not spent much time truly processing the end of our term here and what needs to be done. So today as a family we went through our bookshelves and began making piles: staying here, going to a new home and going to England. It feels like perhaps we have made a start in thinking through as a family what is ahead. But there is so much more ahead. This month we have to apply for Rose and Josh's school places. Please pray that Josh will get his place.
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