Dengue Fever

First of all a big Terima Kasih (thank you) for all of the thoughts, prayers and messages over the past two weeks!! I was definitely feeling the love from all over the world!

Last Saturday I woke up with a fever, body aches and headache. If you get a fever in Bali, there's always the thought-Uh oh! Hope it's not Dengue! If you've never heard of dengue fever, it's an illness contracted from mosquito bites in Southeast Asia which is why we wear bug spray religiously, especially during rainy season. Any other questions you can contact Wade T. because I'm sure my parents are Dengue fever experts now ; )

The fever continued and the body aches got worse especially in my legs. It was very painful to walk. I also had no appetite so I was just trying to stay hydrated. Sunday, Michael was wonderful and went to the closest warung to get me a kelapa muda (young coconut) which is great for hydration. Well the man who usually cuts the coconut wasn't there so Michael decided to open it himself when he got home. Any guesses what happens next? Six stitches in his thumb!

Monday I was still running a fever with the headache and body aches. I took Panadol (Tylenol) but it didn't help. Tuesday I went to the doctor which turned into an all day event. I tested positive for Dengue fever. It really affects your platelet levels and mine were at 74 (normally 150-400) so they said I needed to be hospitalized.

I was in the hospital for 7 days. The hospital was really nice and the nurses were great. My room was large and private and it had cable TV! (I gave up television and movies for Lent but I don't think it counts if you're really sick!) I didn't love the IV, especially when they told me it has to be switched after 3 days. And I had to have blood drawn every 12 hours to check my platelet count. So 6:30AM everyday the nurse woke me up to take blood.

I've also learned Dengue as other weird symptoms. On day 6 my hands and feet were itchy. The antihistamines and lotion didn't work so I had a couple of poor sleeps. It also causes a bad taste in your mouth, so even water tasted bad which is not fun when you're asked to drink 3 liters a day! My platelet count got down to 43, but then started to increase on day 8! When the nurse said it went up by 1 point we did a happy dance! When it reached 70 I got to go home!!

Now I'm on the mend, still drinking lots of water and resting. I told Michael when I get my appetite back I want veggie pot pie for dinner! Next week I'll go back to school-I can't wait to see my kids! And Michael's stitches are out- he went surfing today : )

New Year!

So we have been back in Bali for a little over a week now and finally feeling back to normal (over the jet lag)! 

For starters, Christmas break was amazing. Going home after moving to a new place has a wonderful way of helping you feel grounded. We had a great time with family and friends-lots of love, laughter and of course-food! If the veggie doesn't have "fried" before it, "casserole" after it, or it's not "from the garden," then I'm not eating it! ; ) Thanks mom and Ms. Debbie for spoiling us with your good cooking! : )  

The journey back was a bit longer than the one going there. Raleigh to London (6 hours) with a long layover, London to Doha (7 hours) with a long layover, and Doha to Denpasar (10 hours). The good news is we found a lounge room in the Qatar airport so we could lay down for a while. 

When we got home, showered and had dinner, we learned a fun fact about Bali-if your house is locked up for a couple of weeks in wet season, your clothes and the sheets on your bed will mold.....gross. The good thing is with all of the rain everything is really green and beautiful! I could tell a big difference on campus-it's so lush! 

We're excited for the new year-new goals, travel plans and visitors to look forward to. I have six new kids starting this semester and lots of other new students at Green School, so there is wonderful energy on campus right now! In class we're starting Fairy Tales in thematics and a worm farm for our practical frame. We're hoping we'll be able to make food for the middle school's aquaponics program and sell the liquid gold at the school's farm stand! 

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Stay warm! ; )

Rain, Spiders and Christmas!

Just a quick update from Bali-

Rainy season is here! It rains at least once a day, December and January will bring lots of rain!! And it is hot hot hot! Not July in NC hot. More like June heat and April showers. But since we are outside all the time, we are constantly sweaty!

I saw the biggest spider of my life two days ago. It was on a small box that I picked up!! I did drop the box and run away, but I did not scream a bad word in front of the children, so I reckon I handled it pretty well! My classroom assistant took care of the beast, gently waving it away with a piece of paper. I’ve learned the large spiders here don’t spin webs, they are hunters, so they walk around looking for food...I do not like anything about this!! At least with webs they stay in one spot!

The ants and mosquitos are annoying and the spiders are scary, but then I look around at this beautiful place and try to take it all in! Right now I’m sitting in my classroom while the kids are at art. I can hear laughter, talking, a few bands of instruments, bugs, frogs, the river, and rain. Oh and of course the Christmas music I am streaming from 101.5 FM!

I am so looking forward to going home for Christmas!! But in yogi terms-I’m also trying to “stay present.” I can’t wait to be home, but I really don’t want to wish this time away! Tonight we’re having a potluck dinner for Thanksgiving, two more weeks of school and Alissa is coming to visit!! So many wonderful things are happening, so I’m balancing my excitement with focusing on the here and now! : )

Grateful

This is from a colleague and friend's status-beautifully written and so true! 

"Everyday I walk into my classroom at Green School. Our path is lined with lemongrass and our bamboo classroom is magnificent. An enormous blazing sunflower has just come out. On the way to the toilet hut is an enthusiastic pineapple growing freely out of it's cactus. Chilis, eggplants, bananas, and bamboo are growing around our wall-less-ness. We hear the winter-less wind rip through them sometimes. Most of all I love the amazing people I work with, so generous, so unafraid to show true love and care, great people. My students are an international crew of awesomeness and I am so proud of everyone one them."

Wednesdays my kids have two hours of thematics, two hours of proficiency (math and English) and two hours of Bahasa Indonesian (language and culture). I teach the first two classes, break, two more hours, then lunch with the kids. Today I remembered my Wednesday schedule from last year. It was the exact same-2 classes, snack, 2 classes lunch. The difference is now, Wednesdays do not feel like a long day!!! Of course I'm tired after work-being outside in the heat all day will do that. But it's a good tired! I think there are a few reasons it feels so different. 

1. These kids are kind, caring and value "peace." 
2. I only have 14 students! 
3. There are 3 adults in the room-I have an awesome Indonesian teacher and classroom assistant!
4. Thanks to no walls, noise is never a concern.

I guess my point is on this Wednesday afternoon is that I am feeling incredibly grateful for this opportunity and thank God everyday for bringing us to this island!  

Singapore

This weekend we made a quick trip to Singapore for a visa run. We've heard mixed reviews-some say Singapore is boring, just go for the day; others say it's great, make a weekend of it! We decided to go early Friday morning to get the paperwork done and stay until Saturday afternoon, and it was wonderful! 

Don't get me wrong-we absolutely love Bali! But it was great to get away for a bit. We joked that we had gone back to civilization! We had hot showers, went to Starbucks, Lululemon and two microbreweries.  I didn't pack a hair dryer when we moved to Bali and never bought a new one, so at the hotel I used one for the first time in months! We also pumped the AC and slept under a duvet. The best part of it all...no bugs crawled on me for over 24 hours! 

This morning we visited a church for a second time and really enjoyed the fellowship and worship! Looks like we found a winner! And on Friday at school we have BamBOOpalooza-a big Halloween carnival! Can't wait to dress up! 

Lembongan and Teacher Talk

Last weekend we took our first trip outside of Bali to Lembongan!

We caught a ferry in Sanur, a city on the east coast about an hour’s drive from Canggu; in 30 minutes we went from the normal black sand beach to white sand beach with crystal clear water! I knew the diving would be good, but I didn’t know the island would be so beautiful. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Lembongan. They had diving, snorkeling, paddle boarding, and banana boats! I went the relaxing route-$10 full body hour long massage followed by an afternoon of tanning and sunset dinner with friends. It's amazing how rejuvenated you feel after going away for a weekend! 

This next part is teacher talk! 

For starters, one of my goals for this year is to not use the printer. We have journals for math, writing, homework and thematics, and I improvise for other things. For example, I use Starfall for calendar time instead of a bulletin board (partly because I didn't have room to pack my sweet calendar set) For assessments like running records, I just keep on my computer in student folders. Homework is a daily entry in their journal like:

Find a pattern in your home.

Practice skip counting by twos.

What book did you read tonight?

Write a sentence about...

Write the four greetings in Indonesian

Of course this is easy to do with only 14 kids! 

This past week was Challenge Week. Here is an article from the Green School Newsletter shares all the activities in the different grades with pictures. http://www.greenschool.org/weekly-newsletter/sep-12-2014/challenge-week-update

The idea is to take time and assess the whole child. Challenge Week is a time to focus on intellectual, creative, social emotional and physical developments.

My teaching experience has been in NC public schools and an American school in Kuwait, so I basically have no experience in holistic education! I want to share a little bit of my reflection on this subject and try not to ramble!

What does it mean to provide child-centered education? Is my class subject-centered or child-centered? How does my schedule reflect this? 

I have always worked in a school where the schedule tells me when to teach Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science. The goal is to integrate all the subjects and for the children to understand the concepts presented. 

Now I am teaching in a school where the day has blocks for thematics, English, Math and "specials." Our next theme is Indonesian Fairy Tales. I teach first grade, when they still believe in magic. The tooth fairy visits when they lose a tooth, and when I asked last week what they want to be when they grow up, I got two princesses and a fairy. How can we teach Indonesian fairy tales in a way that is relevant to the children? So the next question: 

Is childhood its own culture? Do I speak the language? How do I provide time for kids to be kids? Should there be time for play? 

Many of my students come from a home-school or un-school setting. Some parents want their kids to play most of the day, others are ready for academic rigor. My goal is to find a balance. 

On Thursday, I put out math manipulatives with no instructions or rules for what they could or could not do-this was really difficult for me!! At one center, I put out a balance scale, where two of my students who are learning English, played for 20 minutes. They put in crayons, pencil sharpeners, erasers, then took everything out, sorted the materials, and counted how many were in each group. First-I would have never thought to have a center with a scale and art tubs! Second-they were completely engaged, talking to each other (some in English, some in their native Hungarian and Japanese) and doing math related activities! My Indonesian teacher and I just watched in amazement!

And my last question: Do we allow time for development? Is it okay if Cindy can't add yet, because she is still learning her numbers? Is it okay if Johnny can't label the life cycle of a frog? 

Last year I would have said no, it's not okay. If they don't understand it's, because they're not putting in effort to learn the concepts. One of my colleagues would say "I just want to throw out the whole schedule and do project based learning!" I think I understand why now! 

This year will be a lot more work-planning, reflecting, and research, but I'm excited to see how my teaching philosophy will grow and change! 

And to any teacher friends who read all of that-thank you! : )

My two favorite things!

I'm sitting outside (at the kitchen counter) on this beautiful Sunday morning feeling well rested. We have had an amazing weekend. Friday night we had drinks with friends, Saturday morning we went for brunch at the cafe right beside our house, then I went to a 90 minute vinyasa flow. We spent the afternoon at the beach and while Michael was surfing, I went for a pedicure at the spa right beside our house. This morning we worked out, ate breakfast at a beach restaurant and stopped by the local farmer's market. Now I'm sitting down to lesson plan...but first I want to blog about my two favorite things: the beach and good food!

First, I want to show you where Canggu (changgu) is, so here is a mini geography lesson! : )

Indonesia is in red. 

Map of Bali highlighting Canggu

And this shows the west side beaches. We live on Jl Pantai Batu Bolong. 

The beach we go to is called Canggu Beach, Batu Bolong, or Old Man's-because of the restaurant. On this map it says Canggu Surfing. Echo Beach and Berawa are right next to us.

One of our favorite places to go for food and drinks is Old Man's. They have great seafood, breakfast and happy hour.

photo from google haha 

View from our picnic table this morning. 

The beach is about a minute scooter ride away or a 10 minute walk. Right now the water is chilly, but it's clean and there's plenty of beach to lay on at low and high tide. Apparently the wet season brings trash up on the west side, so we'll see what happens.

Now let's talk about food! We're living in a tropical climate, so the fruits and veggies are amazing! Eating out is really cheap; entrees are $3-5 US dollars. There are always organic, vegan, raw and gluten free options. Most places have a list of fresh juices: watermelon, pineapple, orange, mango, papaya and banana. And at the markets those fruits are easy to find and inexpensive.

Here are some pictures of this weekend's breakfasts: 

Crate: our favorite breakfast place!

sorry Starbucks and Caribou-Crate might have you beat!

part of the menu

  

breakfast at Old Man's

fresh watermelon juice

papaya, watermelon, pineapple, mango, museli and yogurt!

farmer's market at a local yoga studio

Lucky for me, the lunches at Green School are amazing too! There's also a raw vegan cafe on campus. I've tried their frittata, key lime pie and blueberry cheesecake-all really good! 

Next blogpost: What is our school dress code?? Tropical Professional! : )

And if you suffer from OCD....I apologize for the pictures. There's no way to straighten them!! eek!