Marine science, earth & space, and biology

So, this is going to be short even though there is sooooo much to say. Leone High School is certainly it's own place.  I could go on and on, but I'll keep it brief.  Over the summer, kids broke in to classrooms, drank, had bonfires with the textbooks, etc.  Josh has one of the rooms that got broken into, all the lab equipment destroyed, but he cleaned it all up today and it's a nice room now- 2 rooms actually, 1 lab room and another lecture.  I'll have plenty of updates on Leone throughout the year, so I'll leave that for once I actually know more.  

BUT I finally got my schedule!!! At first, it was my nightmare- 2 chem classes, 3 physical science classes, and 1 biology class. If any of you know me, you know that the first two of those are not exactly my strong point.  BUTTTT since Josh was given my dream classes- 1 marine science, earth & space, and biology, we talked to the right people and made the trade.  Unfortunately 3 preps is going to be a TON of work, but I'd rather do it in subjects I enjoy than those I don't understand at all.  However, I'm a little freaked out about having 3 preps now; that means at least 15 lesson plans per week, all due on the monday before. Interesting that our department says they tend to give 2-3 preps to the new students (us), and 1-2 for the experienced teachers who are not going to have other things like classroom management disasters to deal with.  We also have 2 teachers who will be out between 2-3 weeks at the beginning of the school year, who I think we'll have to sub for in our prep periods. So our schedules will be filled with 6 classes a day. No wonder the students here have such problems, what kind of message does absent teachers send to them? I wouldn't be motivated to show up either, if my teaching being there was a crapshoot.

All I know is, what I can control is what goes on within MY classroom. And although classroom management may be a living hell for the first month, hopefully I can be strict enough in the first 2 weeks to make an impact and set an example for the rest of the year, but I know other Worldteachers have struggled with that and have had it hard the whole year and got walked all over.  But my classroom is my place, and no matter how messed up this system is, nobody can take that away from me.  (although time in the classroom may be cut short whenever admins feel like going home early).

Additionally, so we have lots of geckos in our house all the time, and they make obnoxious noises. Kristina tried to catch one the other day to bring it outside. But she chopped off it's tail by accident. Whoops. 

Gecko's fine though.  Eventually will post picture of the Purcell's property!
Got my address:
     Sara Cleaver
     P.O. Box 982768
     Pago Pago, 96799
     American Samoa

As difficult as some aspects may be, I think it's going pretty damn well.  I'm living in tropical paradise, I have the best bananas I've EVER eaten in my life growing in my front yard ready to pick and eat whenever I want...YA MON!