Moral Victories After All

I was fortunate to have a number of things go well yesterday, partly in response to my devoted attention to them.  First was my school attachment: I visited yesterday to check on the statuses of the two projects I have going right now, namely (1) the collection of ideas for classroom math activities, and (2) phase II of the library reorganization project – designating students to take responsibility for managing library activities and maintenance.

For the first, I met with the teacher in charge of math curricula, who informed me that he had brought up at the last staff meeting his intention to divvy up activities to other teachers in order to field test them.  Unfortunately, it seemed that the Carnival troupe that had prepped for the parade in his very classroom earlier this month had wreaked some havoc on it, scattering desks, papers, brooms, mops, and various implements of destruction until the original printout of activities was nary to be found.  That's okay; I'll acquire a new copy, this time at the school's expense, to replace the old one.  Hopefully the program will get off the ground soon.

For the second, I met with the teacher in charge of Student Council elections, who informed me that she had begun the nominating process, but elections are not scheduled until the end of this month, and may be pushed back due to schedule conflicts.  But she assured me that as soon as it is nearing completion, the students that will be designated Library Monitors for the term will be selected and announced, at which point I will be expected to orient them as to their duties and scheduling for the remainder of the school year.  So this project is also on track, if subject to the timetabling of another related activity.

Also a decision of mine was to get in touch with a gentleman on island who was a footballer and who would have inroads to weekly pickup games in town.  So at 8:30 on Tuesday night I visited the fields on the other side of town to partake in a weekly get-together of guys, many who had either played or were currently playing on the national team or on their respective high school team.  It was, in short, very intimidating.  I was mostly outclassed, and such an offense can hardly go unpunished.  I bruised my ankle early in the evening, and to add further insult to injury, I was frequently confronted with my poor ball handling skills, slowness to react and inability to make sufficient space.  In essence, the speed of play far exceeded what I was used to in the States, and the arrangement hardly qualified as a friendly game when all was said and done.  So I'm currently debating if attending again is in my best interests.

Lastly, I was returning home from work on Monday, and my route happened to pass by a gathering of twenty-something boys.  But I was inadvertently following behind another twenty-something guy who was walking to work at the brewery.  So when I passed, they did not yell to me, but instead asked the guy in front of me for "a dollar."  I could tell he wasn't just fooling, or being sarcastic, because of the guy's response: "Naw, man, you know my pockets empty."  No grin or laugh, just a polite dismissal.  But the fantastically unforeseeable part was that he didn't ask me!