thursday. november 3o 2oo6

this is a late post, but i wanted to document the day to remind myself later of what happened. hmm let's see. at midnight, kayla sent a text msg wishing me a happy birthday. around 7am, hanbeen sent me a text msg saying "happy butt day"....hahah what a dork. minutes after that, i received a phone call from my parents. it was nice getting to talk to them over the phone. i hope you like pictures because i figured since i was taking pics for my bday, i might as well take pics of the school. when i first arrived at school, i had a bag of jen's 4h 1st prize-winning cookies sitting on my desk. they're so good that i limit myself to eating just a couple per day, so it'll last longer. i also got a bday card signed by some of the teachers. designing stuff like this is classic kayla. during 1st period, i usually have remedial teaching. but daylan took her class to new life homes, so i had free time to get on aim and receive many birthday wishes from friends back at home. sorry i'm too lazy to look back on all my aim logs to see who left me msgs. i also spotted a few msgs in people's info wishing me a happy bday. thanx yall!!! on my way to 2nd period (geometry), i saw dain and sunny (korean girls) standing outside waiting for something. since i was walking with kayla, i just assumed they were waiting for her. when we reached them, the two girls sang happy bday to me in korean =] that was a nice surprise. here's the card they gave me from dain, sunny, and momoyo (japanese girl). i've never gotten a bday card in a language besides english or chinese, so this one is special to me. shortly after, kwame approached me and gave me a crossword puzzle. all the clues are related to nba basketball. he's a huge fan of bball, and i have a reputation at wns for loving bball. he put alot of time and research into making this thing. when i finally walked into my geometry class, i found vicky and natalie drawing on the board. in case you can't read it, it says WE SHOULD WILL HAVE A PARTY. they drew a cake, sang happy bday, and erased the candles for me after i blew them out....hahahaa. here are the five geometers i get to teach every day. we promote the nerd movement in this class. from left to right... there's josh who i call eragon because he loves those books. brandon is funny because he started doing this fake twitch to mess with the other kids in the class. he's also quite the athlete. we're gonna miss him very much when he leaves at the end of the 1st semester. daniel is our stereotypical nerd. he loves math and reads ahead when he's bored. he probably knows more computer languages than i do. when i gave the manuals for the TI-82's to him and brandon, he went nuts programming. natalie is the gap girl. she wears that sweatshirt every week. i actually met her before any of the other students because i was invited to her home for dinner early on. and finally there's victoria the canadian. we tease her for the way she says the word "poor". and every time i use the variable Z in a math problem, she corrects me by calling it Zed. GO GEOMETERS!!! as i was walking to my bible class, i noticed all the guys circling around me. next thing you know, they picked me up by my pants. it was the most monstrous wedgie of my life. they lifted me so high that i would've been able to grab a bball rim. ok i have a confession to make. because it was my bday and all the guys were so hyped about it being my bday, i decided to make it a fun day. i let some of them play bball outside, and the other half stayed with me to play mafia. it started pouring, so the bball guys ended up coming back. after bible, we headed to lunch down at the bandas. i dunno if i ever shared this, but this is where we eat lunch every day. as you can see, it was pouring like krazy that day. during lunch, heidi bought me a coke out of the goodness of her heart. having the money to buy a coke is a big deal around here. every day some kid is begging another kid to buy him/her a coke. kwame gave me one of his oreos because it was my bday. he loves his oreos. it's quite an honor to get one from him. and no, he doesn't walk around normally looking like that. btw, he's 12yrs old in 9th grade. here are some of the people i sit with at lunch. i think i'm the only teacher who consistently sits with the students every day for lunch. it's great getting to know the 9th grade boys over lunch because i don't get them in any of my classes. after lunch, i have study hall with the 7th graders. most of the time, the students are rowdy, and it takes forever to get them to settle down and do their work...but not these two. heidi and kate always obediently get out their work. i think that alone earns them a picture on my site =] the school day pretty much ended with me tutoring joe. he actually works faster and more efficiently when i stand further away from him. for him, the less distraction the better. ok now that all the pictures have been shown, i wonder how many people actually read this text at the bottom. well after school, i was really tired and headed home to crash. i didn't expect anything to go down because kayla had been intentionally mentioning my surprise bday party being on saturday...dork =P anyways later that night, brad called me up to go to Crave. this place WAS awesome because they had really good fastfood for super cheap. i ordered a beef tortilla wrap and chicken tortilla wrap. they were sooooo good. the funny thing was i saw a sign next to the register that said prices will be changed on december 1st, which means we came on the last night of cheap prices. the beef wrap got jacked up from 100 shillings to 180. punksters! after crave, we headed to junction to chill out. i had some hot chocolate and unsuccessfully attempted to get on the internet. we didn't have much to do, so we headed to the girls' house to hang out. brad and i sat with kayla, jen, and alison. it's always nice to just sit and chat. i'm usually quiet, and people probably think i'm tired or bored. but i actually enjoy everybody's company. i'm a simple man. and thus concludes the first day of the 29th year. p.s. oh yea, thank you mom, natalie, kathy, and cynthia for sending me email =] ::: :::

chooseday. november 21 2oo6

thanksgiving is coming up this thursday. and when i think of thanksgiving, i always think of the three F's...family, friends, and food! well this year, i won't get to spend it with family. i've been told that there is an enormous body of land and water that separates us. the same goes for the friends back home. i still remember feeling really tired and sick last year from black friday, and friends came over and cooked =] *drool* i love stuffing. pumpkin pie is sooooo good too! ah man, i got into the food part of this already. ok refocus steven. as far as the friends here, many of them got invited to families' homes for thanksgiving. it's kool with me though. i'm not that close with those families. alright so food is the last of the F's. i will try my best to honor the final F. because i don't have an oven and because i wouldn't know how to cook, bake, roast, whatever a turkey even if i had an oven, i will resort to the next best thing...chicken =] i'm gonna buy a nice juicy chicken and rip that sucker up. since i'll be eating alone, i'm using all ten fingers baby! if i manage to pull this off, i'll have a happy thanksgiving. as far as spending time thinking about the people and things i'm thankful for, it's been an on-going thing for me. for those who don't know, the entire month of november marks thanksgiving for me, similar to how december is christmas. so i've been thinking of yall alot more than usual recently. God has really blessed me with each and every one of you. so to my family for enduring me, my girlfriend for...ah cwap i don't have one of those, my friends at home for supporting me, and my friends here for encouraging me...merci, gracias, arigato, asante, THANK YOU FOR BEING YOU!!! ::: :::

monday. november 13 2oo6

i find alot of joy in seeing these pictures. i hope to see them when i get back. james is now one month old, which is easy for me to remember because he was born on friday the 13th =] ansley is growing so fast. she has so much hair now. what a cutie!!! oh yea, alfred if you read this, can you remind me when her bday is? thanx. also here's a great article on newly found documents that belonged to Dr. James Naismith. i think it's amazing how a person can come up with a game, and it would eventually become one of the most played sports in the world. ::: :::

saturday. november 11 2oo6

i've begun tutoring a korean student named myoung chul. his parents are missionaries for a church from korea called yoito full gospel church...i think. i was told they have 600 pastors. of course, some of them go out to other countries to preach. that's nuts! today the boys soccer team played in an Under 14 tournament consisting of 16 teams. for an undefeated team, it was heartbreaking today for them to lose their first game ever. but i think it's good to lose at least once in your lifetime. it places more value on wins in the future. the teams were split into four groups of four teams. the top two from each group move on to the next round. unfortunately we won one, tied one, and lost one. it put us in 3rd for our group, so we went to the losers bracket. however, i am happy to say that the boys tore it up by winning four games in a row to earn fifth place in the tournament. beginning and ending at ISK (The International School of Kenya) is a kool way to end the soccer season. good job guys! ::: :::

saturday. november o4 2oo6

today wns had a Bazaar. it's a one-day event where people set up booths in our parking lot and sell stuff. since many families are missionaries, they come and go pretty often. so it's a good opportunity for them to sell all their used stuff for cheap prices. it reminded me alot of the masai market on sundays in front of yaya. you can bargain and stuff, so it was fun. basically it's a gigantic garage sale. there was also food served during lunch. gabe's brother (graham) on the left and andrew on the right put on a karate demonstration to promote their karate academy. and of course the kids can't resist playing soccer when they're at school. because of the girls bball season, the girls try to play any time they get a chance. it often turns into a girls vs guys thing. there always ends up being like 10 guys vs 5 girls. so the teams end up mixing, and they'll play 7 vs 8 people. oh yea, i also added a video in the VIDEOS section to give you a better idea of the type of kids i work with every day. be sure to check it out. and this is just random. i had to take it. i had been walking around for awhile deciding if i wanted to buy anything today. i saw a zelda gba game for about $10, but i passed on it. then i saw a skateboard in decent condition for about $10 too. but i really wasn't in the spending mood. so i left to eat and hang out with the students. when i went back up to the parking lot, jay (the boy selling) offered me the skateboard for 270 shillings, which is just alittle under $4. there have been moments while walking home, where i wished i had a skateboard to speed up my travels. so i can now officially say that my first set of wheels in kenya is a skateboard, not a bike, motorcycle, or car. ::: :::

wednesday. november o1 2oo6

wow i can't believe i'm writing a post in the month of november already. aside from my own place, i can't believe i've slept over at four other homes in the span of one month. i don't even think i've ever done that in a span of a year! anywayz, this week has been draining me bigtime, and it's only wednesday =O first we had a game versus rosslyn on monday. that was exhausting and frustrating at the same time. we got hammered pretty bad. today it had been pouring all day. this is the coldest day ever since i've arrived. last time it rained, we postponed the game. but today, about two hours before gametime the sun came out and dried up the court. we had a game versus RVA, who we've already played before. last time we played them, we lost 21-8. this time around we lost 25-19, but i could care less that we lost. it was the best game that our girls have ever played this entire season. i'm so proud of them. the defense was awesome. they made alot of smart moves with passing the ball and making good shot selections. we had kept the score 19-18 for awhile. we would've won, but we got sloppy near the end with foul trouble. regardless, our girls resembled a competitive basketball team today. i'm abit tired from playing bball last night over at rosslyn. every tues night, brad and i try to head out to rosslyn to play ball. i say "try" because when he goes out to sudan occasionally, i don't have a ride out there. last night was the first time i'd played in awhile, so i pushed hard to get back into the rhythm of things. i needed that because i refuse to lose my game when i get older. it's a good thing we played also because we got invited to join a team for a tournament this upcoming sunday. alright imma crash early tonight to make up for 3 days in a row of bball. ::: :::