Parental visitation

Below are a few photos from Day 1 of our visit with my parents.  We had a little Guam history and culture lesson while they were here - a good excuse to take a home school vacation. A week has passed since they left, but we're still savoring the memories. (in between struggling to stay on top of regularly scheduled activities and unforeseen events, such as preparing for inclement weather - typhoon alert! Time to toss all the stacked bamboo for a building project and the coconuts awaiting consumption because they are missile hazards.)

Nana meets the hermit crabs.

Ominous clouds over Dadi beach

Inside the Franciscan Friary where we went for Mass.

A shrine outside the Friary.

We ate lunch in town and then visited the Basilica in Agana.

One of the stained glass windows features JPII.

Outside the cathedral is JPII on the barque of Peter. He visited here in  1982 and spoke about the evangelizing power of  families.

Another historical site - Plaza de Espana, home to Spanish governors beginning in 1693. 

Sadly, much of Plaza de Espana is in disrepair.

Looking back at the "chocolate house."

One of the lovely water plants blooming in what is left of a pond.

The former garden house was at one time the Guam Museum. 

Inside the former Guam Museum.

Part of the Azotea, the only part of the palace still standing.

Latte moved from the interior of Guam to the Senator Angel Leon Guerrero Santos park.

A Japanese cave from WWII.

Inside the cave. Is that an anime skeleton?

Tasting fresh coconut.

Wednesday night is fiesta night! Dinner at Chamorro Village.

One of the master carvers at the village.

Dancing is also a part of Wednesday nights.

... as is barbecued octopus.

More dancing.

Ending the night with scooter rides. I made them wear helmets.

Quick Takes

...because life is going by too quickly.

A couple weeks ago, I think I repeated myself 3 or 4 times in emails or phone calls inquiring “how’s life” by answering: “Same old, same old. Nothing new to report.”  Rain. School. Eat, sleep, read.

Prizes from the library's reading contest

  

Jinx.

This week we’ve had:

1. A chipped tooth.  Permanent, of course.  Dentist seems to have done a pretty good job of patching it up.

2. A call from the assistant principal’s office.  I thought he was calling me asking me to volunteer for something.  No, he had my kid in his office. My kid?  My kid!!  Discipline drama.

3. First assignments came due in my classes.  Work overload!  (But I have to brag: I LOVE my lit class: it’s small - only 11 students, which means I only get paid 75% of the pittance adjuncts earn per class – but they like to talk. And a couple of the older students have decided they want to mama the youngers by bringing in homemade goodies each night. Tuesday I brought home with me a bag of homemade lumpia for my kids – enough to SATISFY the kids. That’s a lot.  This lady really wants an A.)

4. Soccer games! Cross Country meets! Football games! Scout events -  Eagle Scout ceremony to plan! CCD started – husband and I both teaching!  Archdiocesan retreat to attend! So glad nothing here is much further than 20 minutes away. And unless a heavy downpour has just occurred, traffic is a nonissue.

5. The half marathon I’m training for is less than a month away.  I’ve been debating the merits of GU, Chomps, and Jelly Belly Energy Beans with whomever will listen.  Still have to fit in 2 more runs longer than 10 miles somewhere where I won’t have to run uphill more than 30% or run from dogs. I didn’t used to be afraid of dogs back in my school days, when I was running around farmland in Indiana.  But those loose farm dogs would usually stay when you yelled at them; boonie dogs have a mind of their own. I’ve taken to running with pepper spray and graham crackers to throw to followers.  Have not had to use the pepper spray.

6. Have I mentioned how glad I am that I’m on a tropical island for election season?  I know, that means I might be shirking my civic responsibility, but judging by the acrimony on Facebook posts, tension is high.  I might just have to fast from Facebook until November, because it's hard to avoid political pronouncements from people I barely know. I don't want to read any more ad hominem attacks.  It's a little like the playground out there - "you're a hater if you don't agree with me."

The local elections here have quite a different tone.  Guam doesn’t vote in the presidential elections, but it has a local senate and a house and mayoral elections, and it elects a non-participating senator to the national Congress.  Lots of cheerful signs are posted everywhere with smiling faces of candidates.  Most don’t mention political party. Most don’t mention much of anything, except “Vote for me!”  I suppose the candidates’ platforms will be outlined in the paper at some point in time, but it seems a much less acrimonious process than the national scene.

I say that, but I did read some strong opinions in the editorials not long ago about the views on self-determination or independence for Guam.  Apparently, the recent remarks at the outgoing Admiral’s change of command stirred some emotional reactions. 

Finally, the best news:

7. My parents are coming to visit! Ecstatic! Ecstatic!

Recent photos, or "Why We'll Miss This Place."

The trail to Lost Pond and Shark Cove.

Tanguisson Beach

Shark Cove: We snorkeled here. No sharks, but lots of three-banded
anemones, trumpetfish, and other colorful coral reef dwellers. Forgot the underwater
camera, again, of course.

Regenerating starfish.

Lost Pond, also known as Mosquito Love Pond.

Trying on a coral hat.

A monitor lizard determined not to be caught by my children.

Taste the rainbow!

The cliff next to the Two Lover's Point where a
pair of native lovers jumped, their hair tied together, to their death,
to avoid having to see the girl married to a Spanish captain.

Thorny bougainvillea is planted all over Two Lovers' Point:
the tropical rose.

Japanese love tokens.

The bell "Love Called" is part of an arch where weddings are held.

Talking with ghosts

Love this quote from an interview with editors M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt in the New York Times about the Norton Anthology's anniversary:

Has the Norton Anthology then lost its relevance?

Greenblatt: Not at all. The Norton Anthology was based on the idea that it actually matters to plunge into a comic masterpiece written in the 1300s or to weep at a tragedy performed in the 1700s. What would it mean for a culture to give up on its past? It is vitally important to remind people that the humanities carry the experience, the life-forms of those who came before us, into the present and into the future. Through reading literature we can make ghosts speak to us, and we can speak back to them. Besides — as many studies have shown — cultural knowledge turns out to be good for your career.

And so I continue to stumble through Sophocles and Shakespeare with my students at the community college, even though I'm sure they wonder whether they are getting their money's worth from this class.

Actually, I have been very happy with the way the literature class has been going. It's a smaller group than last semester, and about half of the students are older than I am, so they are happy to sit around and talk about the relationships in these plays.  Last week we had a great discussion about whether it would have been better for Oedipus to live in ignorance than to find out his sins.  The class was pretty well split in opinion.  They may have had a hard time with the language, but they picked up on the themes. They were able to weep at this masterpiece from thousands of years ago.

There seems to be a good rapport among the lit students, and one lady really brought the class to life last week by bringing in warm bunelos. I was only going to eat a bite of one to be polite, but the donut melted away too quickly, reminding me of the donuts from a bakery near where my dad used to work. He could polish off a dozen in no time because they were so airy and sugary when warm that they seemed to evaporate. Only thing missing was coffee, which I'm afraid to drink because this class starts at 8 pm.

We are going to read "Fences" by August Wilson next, because the university next door is staging it in a few weeks.   I just read it for the first time myself, and although the language may strike some students as a bit rough (it was a bit jarring to me, at least - it had crossed my mind to take my kids to the play because I'm always looking for ways to sneak some culture in them, but it's definitely too mature for the youngers), I think the students will really enjoy discussing the family dynamics.  They've enjoyed talking about how the lovers in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" fall into familiar patterns; in "Fences" I hope they'll listen to the ghosts speaking about the next phase of life: marriage and parenting - and how the songs sung by Troy and Lyons and Gabe (like the stories in the anthology) keep the characters waking up in the morning, even when it seems like they've cut themselves off from all their reasons for living.

Now if I could just figure out how to get the same energy to enliven my composition class.  I get a lot of blank stares when I ask for volunteers to read or discuss.  Maybe it's time to bring in hot donuts.

Coming late to the fan club

Melanie posted not long ago about books that you discover you love by chance - not just little known novels, but discovering in famous novels something that surprises you with its truth, even though you've heard all your life how great this book is.  And I just had one of those experiences with Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, after going through a reading dry spell.

I know this is a book you are supposed to have read and fallen in love with as a young teen, but when I first picked it up years ago I couldn’t stick with it. It seemed syrupy and plotless. I never got past the first 20 pages.

But it is on enough lists of favorites that when I saw it on the shelf at the library, I finally decided to give it a second chance and checked it out.

And of course, I’m glad I did, or I wouldn’t be writing about it.  This time around it resonated, even though I never felt I adopted Francie Nolan’s character, like I might have as an adolescent.  Maybe I am just in the right frame of mind to read this kind of episodic story.  I have only had time to read in snatches lately. Also, the setting is easier for me to place compared to the first time I picked this book up: I’ve been to Brooklyn, I’ve learned more about this period before the world wars, I’ve witnessed more poverty.  Maybe I’m in a sentimental time of month.  The writing isn’t especially beautiful, or complex. If it weren’t for some of the subject matter, it would rightly be a children’s book. Whatever the reason, I found myself craving time with the Nolans when I was supposed to be doing other things. Time for a hide in the bathroom…

To be honest, it wasn’t Francie with whom I identified, it was Francie’s mother Katie. I wanted to see what happened to her as much as anyone. She doesn’t hide her cynicism, but neither does she hide her willingness to do what she must.  Francie’s parents are the kind of people who hoped to get somewhere, or at least to have love and music in their lives, but instead got stuck because of drink and tough times. It may seem clichéd now to write about a drunken Irishman whose zest for love and songs makes people love and pity him, but Johnnie Nolan doesn't come across as a cliche.  His bravado in pulling himself together to get Francie into the better school in the next neighborhood over proved his desire to help his daughter.  

But it was Francie’s mother who pulled at my heart strings, even though Francie doesn’t love her as much as her father.  I loved the way she was so matter-of-fact about the earthy side of life (for instance, when she talks to Francie about love “as a mother and as a woman”), but also committed to pulling the family up out of the dirt – the “sordid” life that Francie’s teacher encourages her not to write about.  And the way she is willing to celebrate when something needs celebrating, even though most of the time she’s so frugal. And you have to admire her dedication to reading Scripture and Shakespeare before bed every night. Francie may have thought she loved Neeley better, but it’s clear that Katie believes in Francie. I also liked the way Francie’s mother and aunts supported each other even though they made such bad choices with men. The details about the relationships between women, mothers and daughters and sisters, are the richest part of the book.

Finally, this book provided another path for reminiscing about my grandmother who died in the spring.  It brought back the stories my grandmother used to tell about her adolescence.  She would have been about 10 years younger than Francie, and although she wasn’t so poor, she still had to share a room with a grandmother, go to work to earn money for school, and witness her parents’ loveless marriage.  Nonetheless, she had a lot of zest for life.

I want to pull out a trite message: each generation’s standard of living has improved through hard work and perseverance – and the saving power of imagination. But the book also celebrates the catholic belief that life and love are worth are the suffering they beget and sustain and undergo.  I’m rereading Oedipus the King right now, who cries out better not to have been born at all than to suffer such a horrible fate.  But the Nolans survive a lot of tragedy and don’t lose their love for each other or for life. Katie seems at time to want to give in to despair, but she holds onto her love for her family to keep her looking forward. And eventually her suffering does lessen.  She finally, like the good policeman Mr. McShane, is as happy as she deserves to be. Just like her daughter will be.

Summer's end

After a summer of indecision, our fall is shaping up. Here’s the final fall out:

We will not be moving next summer. That is the biggest news, and the most disappointing.  Another well qualified officer was chosen for the position my husband had put his name in for.  It would have been a great experience, but now it is clear that we will be staying put for the full three years in Guam. I’d like to say that I am relieved to know something at least, instead of being unsure about the future, but this was not the something I wanted to know!

The next decision: schooling. 

Over time it has become obvious that my youngest son would do better in a more structured environment.  In other words, he just doesn’t listen to me. Everything’s a battle. I don’t want him to think that learning involves warfare with your mother. He did well in school in Mississippi, so I feel good about the decision to send him to the DODEA school, which starts next week.

The 12 year old is also going to school there. He’s a more willing student, so I’m conflicted about sending him, but he is, like his older brother, motivated by competition, and he’s an extrovert.  Ironically, that same older brother, the introvert, thinks the 12 yr old should stay home because he sees that there is much to learn at home. If it weren’t for sports, I think the oldest would happily return to homeschooling for high school. Or rather, internet-schooling.

Meanwhile, the two girls are staying home by desire, which made my choice easier.  The 6 yr old is a Miss Priss and easily swayed by groupthink, so I worry about her going to school.  I know I’m caving to a wish to shelter her, instead of responding to wish to share my love of learning, but I’m hoping she’ll at least learn to like reading by the end of the year, instead of resisting it more.  The 10 year old is less girly-girly, but she also is a follower, and seeks affection and approval. I’d rather she get that from me. The thing I’m going to have to work on is keeping these two interested. I’m going to have to get crafty, I’m afeared.  Or they will defect from me and want to go to school too.

That means I’m going to have to fight the tendency to prefer to work on the classes I am teaching at the community college, which started last week.  I picked up a second class, composition, in addition to the literature class. Since I never took a composition class, teaching it requires extra planning on my part; it’s too late to teach these students to write the way I learned: read and read and read, though we’ll read in class. When I taught Freshman Composition in Mississippi, I was following someone else's syllabus. That plan didn't seem intuitive enough to me, so I'm trying something different.

After teaching two classes so far, I'm convinced my literature class is going to be fun - it's a small group, but interested and inquisitive - while the composition class is going to require some magic tricks.  I think that there might be one student who likes writing, but the rest of them just don't want to be there. Judging by their assessment essays, I'm going to have to review some basic grammar.  

Even though I struggle to come up with a plan for this composition class, I’d rather spend time planning a classroom lecture for college kids than a lapbook or display board for a 5^th and 1^st grader.   I’m hoping they’ll be happy to do a lot of reading outloud together and call it school.

While I hemmed and hawed about the school decision, summer rushed to a close.  The younger kids participated in the Missoula Children's Theater production of "Beauty Lou and the Country Beast," which they loved immensely despite the cheesiness of it.  We watched A LOT of Olympics (about Guam Olympians here).  I was inspired to race an Olympic length triathlon (1.5K swim, 40 K bike, 10 K run) last weekend, and got 2nd out of the women (out of about 5, but the first place girl was at least 10 years younger than me.)  Now walking is painful.

And we've been puppy sitting for a couple weeks for a cute dog. The kids ask for either a dog or a baby regularly. 

Yes those are Bart Simpson comic books. Summer isn't officially over.

Then sports practices began: football for one, cross country for the other and soccer for the final four.  This means I spend a LONG part of my day shuttling kids places. This does not make me happy, other than for the fact that it makes them very happy. Practice is the highlight of their days, rain or shine.

My orchid was working on its third shoot before a recent squall.

Now the broken stems from the garden are on the window sill.

And raining it is has been. Lots of rain. I thought I’d have to push the car to dry land one day, but it floated through a mini-sea on its own.  Monsoon season is here, and a typhoon system has been forming in the Pacific. I’m hoping it doesn’t have power to arrive here. We survived two years in Mississippi without facing a hurricane, and I’d be happy to leave the Pacific without ever having weathered a typhoon.



We did catch a break in the rain to take a last boonie stomp to Priest's Pools and one of the mass graves of Chamorros after they were massacred by the Japanese during WWII.

Outside of the War in the Pacific National Park's visitor center. Great new exhibit there.