Check it out!! STERLING AND ALEX RIGHT HERE ON THE INTERWEB!!! Postin’ a new blog before even a month has gone by!!! Record breaking time!
Once upon a time there were two devilishly handsome young men living on an enchanted island somewhere in the deep blue sea, west of an imaginary time altering line. There, they worked as masons laying the bricks of knowledge into the foundations of small children’s minds. Some would say they were minstrels of intelligence weaving melodies of mathematics through the noggins of the youth. On one bright day, a team of knights from the mystical kingdom of Guam came to test the young men and their fellow minstrels of knowledge to determine whether the good king could bestow upon the school the high honor of AAA Accreditation. After surmounting many obstacles and facing numerous challenges, Yap SDA School received a three year accreditation!!!! YAY!!!!
This be Alex. Yarr. In case you missed something, Sterling was trying to say that the Adventist Accreditation Association threw six people onto Yap to act as an accreditation board. We didn’t get raving reviews; in fact, the board was quick to point out a myriad of things we could fix or improve. However, we did get a good enough score to net three years more as an accredited school.
Last week, one of Sterling the Chivalrous’s students invited him to wrestling practice. On Thursday, Seth, Sterling, and I hopped into the back of a white truck filled with jolly islanders and set off across the island to wrestle. As you all know, we invented wrestling, so we were right at home at practice. We went through a crazy routine of rolling, sprinting, and using each other as mini jungle-gyms. Stretching consisted of a combination of dancing and punching your muscles. After getting to the actual wrestling exercises, we played an interesting game of “duck, duck, goose.” Instead of trying to tag the other person, you slapped him until he found a place to lie down. It’s too bad that we won’t be here for the Micronesian Olympics. There’s no question that they could use our technique and raw power.
Sterling again. Now that we’re done talking about all those serious things, I’d like to take a few minutes to write you a comical little story that happened to us just a few days ago.
On Sunday morning, Scott, Alex, and I hoped into the school’s green sedan and sped off toward the prison to sing some songs and have a small worship service. After we had finished at the jail, we all climbed back into the car and started back to the school. Alex graciously offered to let Scott drive even though he doesn’t have a license. We figured, being that we were on Yap, no one would give us any trouble. We were wrong. Scott missed a stop sign and suddenly lights appeared behind us. Scott pulled out a shot gun and shot the tires out of the police car. Then he pushed the bat button and our car began to soar through the air. Actually, I guess that didn’t happen. We just pulled over. I tried to switch seats with Scott but realized that I didn’t have my license on me and neither did Alex who had driven us to the prison. The police officer turned out to be a friend who works at the local hardware store as well as a firefighter and cop. We sat on the side of the road for about 20 minutes in our cool little sedan with Yap SDA printed in block letters on the side. All our students drove by and laughed at us. The officer gave us a citation and drove our car back to the station. The citation was pretty cool because it had a list of about 20 different mistakes you could make like running a stop sign, driving intoxicated, driving without a tail light, and so on. We got two checks for missing the stop sign and driving without a license, but no matter how many checks you got, the fine was still just $20. Back to the story, I went into the station to make my one phone call. There I phoned the school office to get someone to pick us up. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, no one was in the office and that was the only number any of us knew. In the end our cop friend drove us back home. It was all quite an adventure.
Ooh-de-lally! Alexander here. What we say in our blog is 100% true, 30% of the time. I hope our loving audience appreciates our imaginative, immature, yet semi-accurate accounts of what goes on here. A last note: we still appreciate your emails, packages, and calls. We don’t have much time left here. “Only 22 school days left,” the German was informing us today. Looking back, we see how much some of you have done for us, and we are very grateful. You can’t have our firstborn sons, but we will gladly give you our thanks. Thanks much.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Police Wrestling Accreditation
Check it out!! STERLING AND ALEX RIGHT HERE ON THE INTERWEB!!! Postin’ a new blog before even a month has gone by!!! Record breaking time!
Once upon a time there were two devilishly handsome young men living on an enchanted island somewhere in the deep blue sea, west of an imaginary time altering line. There, they worked as masons laying the bricks of knowledge into the foundations of small children’s minds. Some would say they were minstrels of intelligence weaving melodies of mathematics through the noggins of the youth. On one bright day, a team of knights from the mystical kingdom of Guam came to test the young men and their fellow minstrels of knowledge to determine whether the good king could bestow upon the school the high honor of AAA Accreditation. After surmounting many obstacles and facing numerous challenges, Yap SDA School received a three year accreditation!!!! YAY!!!!
This be Alex. Yarr. In case you missed something, Sterling was trying to say that the Adventist Accreditation Association threw six people onto Yap to act as an accreditation board. We didn’t get raving reviews; in fact, the board was quick to point out a myriad of things we could fix or improve. However, we did get a good enough score to net three years more as an accredited school.
Last week, one of Sterling the Chivalrous’s students invited him to wrestling practice. On Thursday, Seth, Sterling, and I hopped into the back of a white truck filled with jolly islanders and set off across the island to wrestle. As you all know, we invented wrestling, so we were right at home at practice. We went through a crazy routine of rolling, sprinting, and using each other as mini jungle-gyms. Stretching consisted of a combination of dancing and punching your muscles. After getting to the actual wrestling exercises, we played an interesting game of “duck, duck, goose.” Instead of trying to tag the other person, you slapped him until he found a place to lie down. It’s too bad that we won’t be here for the Micronesian Olympics. There’s no question that they could use our technique and raw power.
Sterling again. Now that we’re done talking about all those serious things, I’d like to take a few minutes to write you a comical little story that happened to us just a few days ago.
On Sunday morning, Scott, Alex, and I hoped into the school’s green sedan and sped off toward the prison to sing some songs and have a small worship service. After we had finished at the jail, we all climbed back into the car and started back to the school. Alex graciously offered to let Scott drive even though he doesn’t have a license. We figured, being that we were on Yap, no one would give us any trouble. We were wrong. Scott missed a stop sign and suddenly lights appeared behind us. Scott pulled out a shot gun and shot the tires out of the police car. Then he pushed the bat button and our car began to soar through the air. Actually, I guess that didn’t happen. We just pulled over. I tried to switch seats with Scott but realized that I didn’t have my license on me and neither did Alex who had driven us to the prison. The police officer turned out to be a friend who works at the local hardware store as well as a firefighter and cop. We sat on the side of the road for about 20 minutes in our cool little sedan with Yap SDA printed in block letters on the side. All our students drove by and laughed at us. The officer gave us a citation and drove our car back to the station. The citation was pretty cool because it had a list of about 20 different mistakes you could make like running a stop sign, driving intoxicated, driving without a tail light, and so on. We got two checks for missing the stop sign and driving without a license, but no matter how many checks you got, the fine was still just $20. Back to the story, I went into the station to make my one phone call. There I phoned the school office to get someone to pick us up. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, no one was in the office and that was the only number any of us knew. In the end our cop friend drove us back home. It was all quite an adventure.
Ooh-de-lally! Alexander here. What we say in our blog is 100% true, 30% of the time. I hope our loving audience appreciates our imaginative, immature, yet semi-accurate accounts of what goes on here. A last note: we still appreciate your emails, packages, and calls. We don’t have much time left here. “Only 22 school days left,” the German was informing us today. Looking back, we see how much some of you have done for us, and we are very grateful. You can’t have our firstborn sons, but we will gladly give you our thanks. Thanks much.
Once upon a time there were two devilishly handsome young men living on an enchanted island somewhere in the deep blue sea, west of an imaginary time altering line. There, they worked as masons laying the bricks of knowledge into the foundations of small children’s minds. Some would say they were minstrels of intelligence weaving melodies of mathematics through the noggins of the youth. On one bright day, a team of knights from the mystical kingdom of Guam came to test the young men and their fellow minstrels of knowledge to determine whether the good king could bestow upon the school the high honor of AAA Accreditation. After surmounting many obstacles and facing numerous challenges, Yap SDA School received a three year accreditation!!!! YAY!!!!
This be Alex. Yarr. In case you missed something, Sterling was trying to say that the Adventist Accreditation Association threw six people onto Yap to act as an accreditation board. We didn’t get raving reviews; in fact, the board was quick to point out a myriad of things we could fix or improve. However, we did get a good enough score to net three years more as an accredited school.
Last week, one of Sterling the Chivalrous’s students invited him to wrestling practice. On Thursday, Seth, Sterling, and I hopped into the back of a white truck filled with jolly islanders and set off across the island to wrestle. As you all know, we invented wrestling, so we were right at home at practice. We went through a crazy routine of rolling, sprinting, and using each other as mini jungle-gyms. Stretching consisted of a combination of dancing and punching your muscles. After getting to the actual wrestling exercises, we played an interesting game of “duck, duck, goose.” Instead of trying to tag the other person, you slapped him until he found a place to lie down. It’s too bad that we won’t be here for the Micronesian Olympics. There’s no question that they could use our technique and raw power.
Sterling again. Now that we’re done talking about all those serious things, I’d like to take a few minutes to write you a comical little story that happened to us just a few days ago.
On Sunday morning, Scott, Alex, and I hoped into the school’s green sedan and sped off toward the prison to sing some songs and have a small worship service. After we had finished at the jail, we all climbed back into the car and started back to the school. Alex graciously offered to let Scott drive even though he doesn’t have a license. We figured, being that we were on Yap, no one would give us any trouble. We were wrong. Scott missed a stop sign and suddenly lights appeared behind us. Scott pulled out a shot gun and shot the tires out of the police car. Then he pushed the bat button and our car began to soar through the air. Actually, I guess that didn’t happen. We just pulled over. I tried to switch seats with Scott but realized that I didn’t have my license on me and neither did Alex who had driven us to the prison. The police officer turned out to be a friend who works at the local hardware store as well as a firefighter and cop. We sat on the side of the road for about 20 minutes in our cool little sedan with Yap SDA printed in block letters on the side. All our students drove by and laughed at us. The officer gave us a citation and drove our car back to the station. The citation was pretty cool because it had a list of about 20 different mistakes you could make like running a stop sign, driving intoxicated, driving without a tail light, and so on. We got two checks for missing the stop sign and driving without a license, but no matter how many checks you got, the fine was still just $20. Back to the story, I went into the station to make my one phone call. There I phoned the school office to get someone to pick us up. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, no one was in the office and that was the only number any of us knew. In the end our cop friend drove us back home. It was all quite an adventure.
Ooh-de-lally! Alexander here. What we say in our blog is 100% true, 30% of the time. I hope our loving audience appreciates our imaginative, immature, yet semi-accurate accounts of what goes on here. A last note: we still appreciate your emails, packages, and calls. We don’t have much time left here. “Only 22 school days left,” the German was informing us today. Looking back, we see how much some of you have done for us, and we are very grateful. You can’t have our firstborn sons, but we will gladly give you our thanks. Thanks much.
Monday, April 12, 2010
We got a bunch of visitors!!!!!!
Herro. I am Sterling. Thank you for your joyous applause. I would like to take this beautiful moment that you and I are now sharing to formally and profusely apologize for the neglect that has been so evident and unjustified in our infrequent updating of this blog. We are sorry. Perdonanos. Pardon us. We ask humbly for forgiveness.
This is Alex. It has been over a month since we last updated this blog. Much has happened in the last month and a half since we wrote. For instance, a couple of American ambassadors came and visited us at our humble, yet better-than-any-other, school. We felt pretty special when we heard they were coming. We even dressed up for them, even though it’s pretty stupid to dress up in the heat and humidity of Yap. The ambassadors checked on how we were doing. They asked us questions and let us ask them questions. It was a darn good treat to be able to hear news of the outside world. We asked about America, world news, policies, bills, and other things. They answered the questions willingly and we, in turn, answered their questions on what we thought needed to be changed or put in motion on Yap. I’m bored from writing about this, so I’m passing the keys to Sterling.
GOOOO AMERICA!!!!
I never get bored writing to you lovely people back home. I’m not mean like Alex. I love you all very, very much and I don’t even know you all. Not too much has changed here. It’s still hot and Alex and I still look real good. One day we were warned of an incoming Tsunami!!! I was pretty excited about the idea of seeing a huge wall of water come crashing into the island. It would have been bad though I think. From all my long years of experience and wisdom I have learned that tsunamis are bad. later we were warned of an incoming Typhoon!!! But that didn’t happen either. I’m getting really tired of having my hopes of adventure dashed on the proverbial rocks of not having things happen…… wow that was a lame sentence. I’m bored of writing.
Alex now. Pastor Rojas of the General Conference came to Yap. This guy’s pretty cool. He’s got the most impressive moustache we’ve ever seen, and he packs the wisdom to back it up. He and Pastor Jano (from the Guam-Micronesia Mission) were here for a few days to check up on us and to take care of some business. Sterling and I had the privilege of taking Pastor Rojas all around Yap on a picture-taking, moustache-toting tour of the island. He was able to give us some very good advice on various issues, as well as tell us some very entertaining stories about this or that. It was a blessing to have him here, and he spoke (and played) for us before he returned home. Much thanks, Pastor Rojas! Sterling’s turn.
Sterling say, “Shout out home skillet!!” Which is English means: It was very nice and educational to have you come and visit us here on our beautiful island of Yap. We wish you many blessings and a life filled with never ending mustache hair.
We’ve had many great visitors in the past few months. Our most recent was Canvasback!!! Since I work for them I’m obligated to tell you that they have a great website which can be reached from any modern computer with internet access. The address is www.canvasback.org. There you can find great mission stories and pictures!!! That’s my parents’ website!!! I’m very proud of my parents.
Anyway, Canvasback’s visit was amazing. Along with a team of orthopedic surgeons, nurses, and dentists, they brought along a few of the most important people in my life. Aw!!! Yeah they brought our good friends Kelli, Doug, Cameron, and some new friends like Doug’s girly friend Christina, this dude Tanner, a cool girl Camille, and another cool girl Jessy. Also, Chris Howell, the fearsome Judo master, carpet dyer, and part time super hero came along mostly to beat me up. I think that’s really his motive for coming on all the mission trips we’ve been on together. Luckily my army of 6th graders protected me from a serious beat down. I knew they were good for something.
The team remodeled the middle school classrooms while also doing a week of prayer and a VBS program. They did excellently on both jobs. GOOOOOOOO CANVASBACK!!!!! Actually the youth team is called Canvasback Extreme which adds a cool and hip sound to the name. Alex’s turn!
Gracias, Sterling mi hermosa. Since the last time we wrote, the third quarter at Yap SDA School ended, which meant we had to tackle finals and parent-teacher conferences. Some of our kids did well; others didn’t. However, as teachers we can see that both our teaching and our students’ grades have improved overall. One of my kids had a GPA of less than 1.5 first quarter. I made the decision not to drop him down a grade and to keep him in grade 4, and this last quarter he achieved a GPA of over 3.5! Not all of my students have improved so drastically, but I still see growth and it makes me feel incredible. As for the conferences with parents, they went well. At least for me, they did. It is nice to be able to be the professional one as you sit across from someone a couple times your age and tell them that you know what you’re doing.
Only a few days ago, we (all of the guys from our apartment) got back from our spring break on Palau. We were surprised to see how different the country was from Yap, even though they’re both islands in the Pacific. Palau has nice roads, real street signs, ‘air con,’ multi-story buildings, restaurants, and ‘plenty’ people. We were blessed in many ways and we felt like God had a lot to say to us while we were there. We experienced many things there, including (but not limited to): Jellyfish Lake, where we were able to swim with a multitude of virtually harmless jellyfish; the Rock Islands, which are a myriad of small islands made of (you guessed it) rock which seem to float on the surface of the candy-colored turquoise water; Peleliu, a Palauan island state of 600 people which saw some terrible and bloody conflicts during World War II and still sports rusted tanks, war torn buildings, and a plethora of other artifacts; the I-Don’t-Know-The-Name-Of-It waterfall, which was fun and refreshing; Palau Mission Academy, the SDA high school on Palau which enrolls many students, some of which we befriended and played soccer with; the stellar student missionaries in Palau; and more. I realize that this list is getting too long to be engaging anymore, so I’ll let Sterling finish off. We may or may not post pictures for y’all.
This is Sterling signing out for Sterling and Alexander’s Bogus Adventure. We hope to write again soon. We love you all and we miss you. Peace yo!!
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