Let the partying begin!

On December 2, 2006 the staff of Harvest Ministries gathered at the beautiful Westin hotel for our annual Christmas party. We had a nice buffet dinner and an enjoyable skit and caroling time followed by a short challenge from Pastor Herron. Below are some pictures of my friends and me from that night.

My roommates, Kelly and Elizabeth, and me.


My friends, Julie and Lisa.


Doug, Karen, and Jake Abels.


Me and April.


Pastor and Mrs. Herron.

Seaside Concert at the Hilton

This year I got to participate in the Guam Symphony and Chorale concert at the Hilton Resort. It was a really cool opportunity to sing under the tent in front of Tumon Bay and Two Lover's Point at sunset. The "Chorale"--only 4 sopranos, 4 altos, and 1 tenor this year--sang a medley of Christmas carols with the orchestra providing accompaniment.










One of the highlights of the concert is the appearance of Santa Clause riding a caribou. Children thronged around him as he rode around the circumference of the crowd. I followed him the entire distance around trying to get a good shot and finally got this one back near my original seat!

After the concert and as we were running to the car because we were late for church, I snapped this picture of Tumon Bay in the moonlight. Guam is so beautiful! "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." Psalm 19:1

Thanksgiving

I had a very relaxing Thanksgiving. The break started when we got out of school early on Wednesday. We had a special dress up day and fundraiser for the senior trip called Pilgrim and Indian Day. Many students wore costumes and the teachers got a free lunch if we wore an outfit too. It's a lot of fun. Some of the teachers go all out with their creative get-up.

On Thanksgiving Day, I got up relatively early (especially since both my roommates were still asleep--that usually doesn't happen!) and made sweet potato casserole. Last year I learned to put a pan underneath the sweet potatoes so they don't explode and ooze all over the stove, and this year I learned to put tin foil over the pan so my roommate doesn't have to spend all night scrubbing the pan (sorry, Kelly!). I also learned to buy sweet potatoes early so I don't have to use 20 minuscule ones instead of 6 big ones. The casserole turned out really well, though, and everybody loved it.

Dinner at Doug and Karen Abel's house was special as usual. Karen does a fantastic job of organizing the food and displaying it in a pleasing way. After dinner Doug led in a testimony and song time. There were several HBBI students at the dinner and they love to sing! It is always a lot of fun to sing with them. This is a picture of my two HBBI "daughters," Youlean and Sincer.

Later that afternoon my roommates and I headed down to Agat where we were going to stay overnight with the Webbers, a couple from Harvest that was housesitting at a beautiful home by the ocean. We were hoping to see a beautiful sunset, but unfortunately, it was raining out at sea and the sky was cloudy and gray. Just being by the ocean was relaxing, though, and we enjoyed talking with the Webbers and another family that was visiting for the day.

We stayed in the guest house, which had two bedrooms, a bathroom (which had a serene face painted on one entire wall!), a living room and a kitchen. We slept in, read our Bibles, and then watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Mrs. Webber spoiled by bringing us coffee and breakfast. After a leisurely breakfast, we went kayaking out on the ocean and looked at the coral through the clear canoe Elizabeth and Kelly used. I loved trying to catch the waves as we rode back in. We stayed at the Webber's until late afternoon. By the time we got back to Agana, we could tell there was going to be a beautiful sunset that night! Oh, well. We had a great time on the beautiful, clear day-after-Thanksgiving.

Mid-December Madness

It's been so long since I've blogged, I hope I can remember how to do it.

I've been teaching Twelfth Night recently, hence the allusion to Shakespeare in the title of my post. I do love Shakespeare; I wish I could teach more of him, but alas, the semester is ending soon and with it our exploration of a couple of his great plays. My seniors are in for a doosy of a semester exam. If any of them are reading this, I hope they take the warning and study. (In class I've been encouraging them to study, so don't be worried that I haven't told them.)

In between writing recommendation letters for several seniors tonight, I'm going to try to post some recent pictures of things I've done lately. I've had a busy month and a half since I last wrote, so I need to get some pictures up before I head off for Christmas break, which will mean more pictures!

Linda, Kallen, and Grace read the parts of the Weird Sisters in Macbeth Act I. The witches are described as having beards, so the girls came up with a creative solution. We were able to go to the auditorium for class one day to act out scenes from the play--one of my favorite activities of the year. The students always have a great time, too.

Botched Joke--Whatever!

John Kerry has a history of not saying what he means to say or of denying that what he said is really what he said. Instead of simply apologizing for his inappropriate statement, Kerry is now trying to blame the media for "misinterpreting" his comment. If you're interested, you can read James Taranto's commentary and research here. And why is it okay for Kerry to make jokes about the president, but not about the military? Since Bush is the Commander-in-Chief of America's armed forces, Kerry's comments about Bush's leadership in the war are against the military. I would not want someone so unsupportive of my sacrificial work to be my Commander-in-Chief. Furthermore, slandering the president not only harms the military but it also hurts the entire United States.

The sunshine is back, too!

This morning we had no school, and this afternoon and evening were parent-teacher conferences. My roommate and I celebrated our few hours of freedom from the classroom by going to the beach. Have I mentioned recently that I love living on a tropical island?

I'm back

I was out of school for over a week; first, I was sick with the flu and then laryngitis and a sinus infection. Since I don't have internet at home, I have not been able to blog. I seriously doubt I would have done any writing anyway, since there were times I could barely hold my head up. But I'm back in school now, and although I still don't feel completely better, I am much better than I was last week at this time. While I was out, I did quite a bit of reading. I greatly enjoyed G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who was Thursday. If I tried to explain the plot, it would thoroughly confuse you, so I won't try. But the book is well worth the read. I read an annotated version by Ignatius Press which has a very helpful introduction. I love Chesterton's style--he uses a lot of alliteration, even in prose. I also read Condi: The Condoleeza Rice Story. I was already interested in her because of what I had seen of her on TV, and I came away with an even stronger admiration for her. She is a fascinating lady. Before deciding to study Russian history and language, she was a Piano Performance major and had considered a career as a concert pianist. When she was my age, she was finishing up her doctorate in International Studies at the University of Denver and then started teaching at Stanford. She served on the National Security Council during the George H. Bush administration and then returned to Stanford to become the provost. Now she is the National Security Adviser. The White House has a concise bio of Dr. Rice, but I encourage you to read the book for a more complete picture of this talented lady. I took a break from the more serious reading to read the second and third books in the Mitford Series: A Light in the Window and These High, Green Hills. I actually read both books in one day--almost 800 pages! The books are from the perspective of an Episcopal priest, Father Tim, in the small village of Mitford, North Carolina. I love the characters in these light, easy-to-read novels. I appreciate Father Tim's realistic, often humorous, responses to the situations and people he meets. I'm going to check books four and five out of the library to read this weekend. I just finished Theodore Dreiser's Jennie Gerhardt this morning. I do not recommend this book unless you want to be seriously depressed. Dreiser's deterministic pessimism is overbearing and leads to a very unsatisfactory conclusion. This is the sort of book I'd like to write a paper about because of the nature imagery and philosophy, but I don't know if I could stand re-reading it so closely. I read Dreiser's Sister Carrie in grad school and rather liked it (in a weird academic way); I don't remember the philosophy as being so in-your-face pessimistic. My roommate asked me why I read books like Jennie Gerhardt. I am trying to expand the breadth of novels I read to include more of the classics but also lesser known works by important authors. I didn't want to end my study of serious literature with my graduation from graduate school. In fact, I think I have an even greater desire to read more now that I teach literature. Sometimes I am familiar with only one work by an author which I studied in high school or college (sometimes even twice in college), but I have read little else by the major authors. I am trying to read more by the authors I teach so I can have a greater understanding of and appreciation for the works that I teach. For example, I teach "The White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett, but that is the only story I have ever read by her. The next book on my reading list is Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs.