Time Flies!

I apologize that it's been a couple weeks since my last post. It has been an extremely busy couple of weeks. We had our graduation and last day of school set on March 27th and so we had a lot of things to do and get done for the end of the year. And then last week the Philippine Deped decided to make the decision that all graduations had to be before March 23rd so that it wasn't interfering with Easter week. So we now had 2 weeks to do 3 weeks of stuff. So we had to change up our entire schedule for testing and everything else to move up the end of the school year to the 22nd. It has been an extremely busy and stressful couple of weeks, but I can see the light t the end of the tunnel. We only have one more week of school, which is just so hard to believe. It seems like I just started and yet I'm already a week away from being done with my first year of teaching here.
I love teaching here, and I love my kids, and am going to miss them a lot, but I am definitely ready for a change of schedule. I am very excited for the summer and the different things that it offers me. I am excited to have a couple days to be able to just sit and relax. I love all the things that I have been able to recently and like that I don't have to search for things to do, but there has been so much stuff on my agenda for the last month and a half and then having to add even more at the end of the year as we changed our schedule has just worn me out. I am excited to just be able to relax and think for a couple days. I am also excited though for all the things I will be doing over the summer. I will be doing some traveling in the Philippines and am really excited to see more of the country and just to have some time off the island and the chance to do some fun things. In April I'm going to be going with one of the missionary families and another missionary to Donsol to swim with whale sharks. I am extremely excited for that, it'll probably be the craziest thing I do while I'm over here. We are also going to be doing a lot of hiking and exploring the land while we are there for a couple days. Boracay is beautiful, but there really isn't much to do here and not a whole lot to explore. It's going to be a really nice vacation break.
When I get back from that I'll have about a month of summer school. I will be one of only three missionaries here then and I was the only one who volunteered to do summer school. There is only one Filipino teacher who is going to be working over summer too as of right now, so I was a little disappointed in that because with only two of us it's going to be a lot busier than I was really expecting. That will definitely keep me busy over that month. I will also be running my Cagban feeding site still as well as picking up the Salvador feeding site on Wednesdays for the summer.
In May I'll be going with the other two missionaries to one of our Filipino teacher's hometown for a week. They have a big festival every year that we'll get to see as well as exploring the things around the area. We are really excited about being able to go do that and see some more of the Philippines and experience much more Filipino culture.
We'll get back from that at the end of May and have a couple weeks before school starts up again. It'll be a busy summer, but it will be full of a lot of fun and new things and I think will really refresh me and get me ready for another year of teaching. I still have a week to go but the excitement of summer is pulling me to the finish line. This next week we have our final exams and then we go into graduation rehearsal and then graduation on Friday. We're still scrambling to get everything done and ready, but we're going to make it through.
Recently I have been spending a large amount of my time working on our textbooks for next years. Some of us volunteered to put together the English textbooks for next year so that we could both save a lot of money as well as have a better quality textbook that suits us better. Two of the missionaries took up the first and second grade books. The sixth grade teacher took up the 6th grade book, and the 3rd/4th grade teacher and I took up the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade books. She focused on the 3rd grade book, I focused on the 5th grade book, and we both worked on the 4th grade book. We needed to finish them by the end of the school year so that they could be reviewed by our principal and sent off to make the books. We are putting the finishing touches on them right now and it is definitely a huge weight off of our shoulders having those almost finished. It was such an extremely large amount of work and I'm really glad I did it but it was so exhausting. I think probably the most awesome part of it though is that it has given me even more experience and knowledge. I learned a lot from putting those books together and it will definitely make me a better English teacher. I am also really excited to have those books next year instead of the books we had this year. There is so much more in these books and we were able to make them to fit how we want to teach them. I worked on the 4th and 5th grade books since that is what I am planning on teaching next year.
I have also been working on a MAPEH book for next year. MAPEH stands for music, art, physical ed, and health. It is a required subject here in the Philippines but just from what I've seen here it doesn't really get taught much. I have never seen a Filipino teacher teach any PE and even music and health I don't think gets much attention at all. I am obviously very passionate about PE and so that was the biggest reason I wanted to put this book together. It is crazy to me that these kids only get PE once a week when they see me during club time. I can understand a lot of the reasons why the teachers might not want to do PE and so I'm hoping to be able to put together a book with a lot of simple, quick, and easy ways to have physical activity in the class. I am really trying to stress how important it is, and also how simple it could be to do some things. I have started putting it together recently as we were finishing up our English books and when school is finished up I'll be able to have more time to work on it. I am really excited about it and I really hope that the teacher can learn from it and will use some of it.
I'm sorry it took me so long to get this blog out and I'm sorry I don't have more for you. I'll be able to post more once I have a little more time. I thank you for your continued support of me and of what I am doing here. Your support makes a huge impact in a lot of peoples' lives, including mine.