On Being a Rubber Band

In case you were wondering, no. This is not a post about how I've been turned into a superhero who can stretch like elastic. So you can all put that rumor to rest. Finally.

This is a post about how I feel stretched like a rubber band, physically, emotionally, and . . . teacher-ly?

We'll start with the physical stretching. My arm feels like it's about to fall off (extreme hyperbole) after carrying a bucket of water from our house to the garbage dump (a.k.a. the burning pile). Why was I carrying said bucket of water from the house to the garbage dump, you may ask. Good question. Said bucket that I carried from said house to said dump had two rats in it. From our house. And they were rotting. Lovely. A perfect Monday evening activity.

I'm also feeling stretched in my emotions. Trying to keep up any form of relationship from half-way around the world is challenging. And even though I'm glad I'm here, my thoughts are frequently stretching across the ocean between us to my family and friends who are there. And that's tough.

The third way that I'm feeling stretched (but certainly not the last) is in my teaching. It is difficult to be a teacher. Especially when you are trying to do awesome, fun activities and all your students do is complain. Take, for example, my fifth graders. We have been reading a unit on catastrophes. We've been learning about earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, etc. This unit has stretched across subjects into reading, social studies, and English. As a wrap-up, instead of a test, I decided to create a fun assessment. The students could write a script for a news cast and be a team of reporters reporting on a catastrophe that they make up. We'll use my FlipVideo and some extra time out of class to record it and then show the finished product.

The first thing my students do? You guessed it. They whine. "Awww, Mr. Warren! I don't like my group! They picked the catastrophe that we called dibs on! He pushed me! My head hurts!" Awesome. Nothing like a bunch of whining to take your (in my opinion) great idea and make you want to run kicking and screaming from ever doing anything like it again. But we're persisting, and there are now rules against complaining. My patience has been stretched enough.

The nice thing about being stretched, however, is that it's really tough to going back to the way you were before. You always come out of it having grown in new ways. For example, tomorrow, my left arm is going to be way huger than my right because of the stretching of the muscle.*

Thankfully, too, we have a God who is able to keep us in His hands. I know that all of this stretching is for a reason (well, except maybe my arm), and that He has a great plan in all of it. So even though I'm feeling like a rubber band, I'll let Him keep stretching me.

*This may or may not be true.

Of Tea, Tolstoy, and Trashy Magazines

I'm not sure what I would do if tea didn't exist. I'm fairly certain I would be dehydrated 75% of the time. I just love tea. Currently, I've been adding cinnamon to just about all my tea (in an effort to grasp the elusive (at least in Africa) "fall" feeling). It's so wonderful to have a cuppa while attempting to get through one of the longest novels of all time.

That's right. I'm finally reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. One would think that after all of the "Warren Peace" jokes I've gotten over the years, that I would have read it sooner. I did try. . . once. . .
but now I'm reading it for real. And I have to in order to meet my goal of "2 Tolstoy novels" by the end of the year (also, 4 Dickens, 3 Steinbeck, and 1 Shakespeare. I have 2 Steinbecks and 2 Dickens left after the Tolstoy). But just to give you an idea of how amazingly long it is, I am not marking my progress by thirds or fourths or halves like I do with "normal" books, but by tenths. And even the tenths seem few and far between. On the plus side, it finally started getting interesting (on page 195).

On a completely random note, I went to Ethel's house today with Kyle. Ethel is the 4th grade teacher here, and she lives right next to school, so she invited us over for lunch. It was wonderful! I love Nigerian food. Turkey in pepper stew poured over rice and beans. Mmm!

While we were there, we found the Nigerian answer to America's Cosmo magazine. I can't tell you the name because the front cover has ripped off, but here's a quote from a "Question and Answer" page:

"Q: If you catch your husband in bed with your younger brother's wife, or your wife in bed with your younger sister's husband, what would you do?
Paul Eze's Answer: There is no course for alarm; since that is the man she loves. I won't fight her, but I will tell her to go with him, if not, I will kill her."

Wow.

Just wow.

On Being Too Nice

Sometimes, I am too nice.

Usually, I am too nice.

And as we can learn from the wisdom of Little Red Riding Hood, "Nice is different than good."

One of my failings as a teacher comes from my desire to have my kids be in a good mood and cheerful rather than disciplined for their wrong behaviors. It's not a good practice. It's pretty serious. And to be honest, I'm not sure I know how to fix it.

Currently, in an endeavor to quit being the teacher-that's-so-nice-that-his-students-walk-over-him, I've started focusing on my classroom procedures. I'm praying that this works (a little help in that wouldn't hurt). I've changed (almost completely) the way that my classroom is set up, and hopefully it won't be long before I'm praising God for giving me the strength to show the tough love that these students need. I'll keep you posted.

Which Tells of the Author's Imminent Travels

Saturday, August 28th. That's the day that I'll be saying goodbye to the good ol' USA for another year.

Sunday, August 29th. That's the day that I'll be saying hello once again to Nigeria.

In some ways, this summer has flown by, but in others, it seems that it's been ages since I was living in Nigeria. I'm excited to go back and apply the things I learned through my first year of teaching/living abroad.

(By the way, sorry about my poor blogging skills this summer. I'll get more into it once I'm back in Nigeria (at least that's the goal). Look for another set of postcards soon.)

On Sin and Realization

"I don't love you, Mommy."
My nephew said this today to my sister. He's three so he says a lot of things that he doesn't really mean ("I have to potty!" Not always. "I'm a tiger covered in paint!" Nope. "I was a little African child." Definitely not.), but today I was deeply saddened, almost to the point of tears, by his sin. He not only disobeyed his mom, but he told her that he didn't love her.

I know I've seen him sin before, but this struck me so strongly today because he knows better. He knew that what he said would hurt even before he said it.

How often do I do the same thing to my Father? My behavior constantly says, "I don't love you, Daddy." Kinda sucks to re-discover that nasty little trait about yourself.