Cheering

Every school I know of here has one day a year in the spring when the entire day is devoted to competition among the school with a variety of races. Some high schools and most primary schools don't have a track & field program so it is not always redundant. GHS benefits from our close proximity to The National Stadium and because we have no playfield we hold Sports Day at the track. There are the normal events such as the 1500m,800m,400m,200m,100m, and several relays as well as a teachers 50m and 3-legged race. There are also a few fun races such as the apple eating, bun & cheese eating, and needle & thread relay. It's a good day's worth of activities!

This year I just took photos and helped with scoring. I was actually the "Official Scorer" but since I wanted to take photos, the practice teacher helping me ended up doing a lot of the work. I enjoy the challenge of sports photography, but I didn't get many great shots. I was able to get out of the sun and under the officials tent between events but most of the time was enjoyed near the track trying for some great photos. My new camera has twice the megapixels that my old one had so I get about half the amount of photos on my 512MB memory card. That was a little frustrating because I had to limit my photos and couldn't shoot in burst mode as often. I got about 130 for the day and the battery still had more than half of it's life left.

Show Off

There was a free concert at Devon House the same evening. It was put on by the US Embassy to celebrate Black History Month and featured an American blues singer, the Jamaica Big Band and some other acts. I wanted to go and I know other volunteers were there but I was just too tired after helping with clean up I didn't get home until the time the concert started. Being the shut-in I am, I just stayed home and went to bed early.

Pelican Bar

I tried to get out early on Friday morning but only arrived downtown before 9am at the buspark. Today it would be a minibus taking us for the first leg of the journey. As I sat in the bus waiting for it to fill up there was the usual bickering of sellers and other usuals. A muscled young man pulled a knife on a woman seller in an argument but the other men nearby held him back as he feigned a struggle against them. The knife seems to just be there to prove manhood and I have seen it so much now that I believe most do not plan to use it but just want the other to back down. Yes, there are still plenty that do use it but seeing one is really not such a big deal anymore provided I am not seeing the tip of it pointing in my direction.

After about an hour in the bus and we were on our way. After leaving the downtown buspark as full as possible, we went on to Santa Cruz which is about a two to three hour drive. After I had to remind the driver that he owed me change, he could not find all the change so I heard the familiar words "mi owe you". Now, of course he was in a hurry to go because he still had more stops to go and he wouldn't want to keep the other passengers waiting. It wasn't much money at all but it reminds me why I prefer to just stay in my home - no one to deal with. From Santa Cruz I got a route taxi (with 4 other passengers) and headed to Black River. Fairly uneventful so far, I arrived in Black River and found the taxi stand for Parroty. Once in the taxi, I called Jeff to ask where I should come out and he told me to just ask the taxi driver if he knew where Jeff lived. Gotta love small communities for knowing everybody - sure enough the driver knew Jeff and knew right where to drop me. Walking down the short lane to Jeff's place we were ambushed by several children hiding behind the bushes to scare us. The main reason Jeff locks his doors is so they don't hide inside the house!

That afternoon we went out to the Pelican Bar for the first time

When I left the bus around 8pm I noticed quite a few vehicles parked on the side of my street. Some were more expensive than I am used to seeing such as a BMW and a Land Rover. I thought this was odd as the building next door is sometimes used as a church but I did not hear the usual chorous of voices eminating from the windows. I stopped by the shop to buy some credit for my phone and the lady says to me "A building just burned down near to your house you know.". I turned to look where she pointed and I saw the top of a building with smoke still rising slightly. She went on to tell me it was a furniture store and it was mostly out by now.

Upon reaching home I found the landlady, her daughter and a friend sitting outside talking and they were quick to fill me in. Earlier, the flames were reaching into the sky and a neighbor had come down help. He got onto the roof with the garden hose and wet it down to keep anything from catching. The landlady had knocked on my door, but found me gone. One their side of the house, the bed had been taken apart and valuables started to be moved onto the veranda. When the fire department arrived, they brought no water and the hydrant was dry, so they had to leave for water and come back! I didn't hear of anyone hurt but I'm sure the building is a loss.

Since everything turned out alright, I wish I had been around to get some pictures! Still some excitement though.

Close-up of spider

Not a lot of interesting things to mention but the teaching thing is going fairly well. I'm not teaching much in the grade 8 right now. They don't really like I.T. so much in grade 7 and 8 because it's all theory. I took a damaged hard drive open to show them the inside last week. Most of the time it's just bookwork.

For grade 10, they don't usually want to listen very much so I generally sit there and wait for it to be quiet. This means we don't get a lot accomplished unless the other teacher is in the room to quiet them but it's the students that won't have the information they need on the test so it's up to them. May not be the most effective, but it keeps me sane.

Grade 11 is working on their SBA's which for I.T. is a project using Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access with the data files linked between the three. I've never taken advantage of the formulas in Excel so I am at a disadvantage to help with that portion. I'm trying to learn as I go but it's the instructions of the assignment that give me the most trouble. I'm not always sure what the assignment is asking even if I can figure out the technical side. Remember, grade 11 is normally considered the last year of high school here so the SBA's are pretty important.

The computer club is going fairly well. We're still working on SQL and they are getting it fairly well. We have a small database set up on the school computer for testing and hopefully we'll get into some more programming soon as that will make some more of this make sense to them.