Rainy Days

Hey everyone,

This week has been fairly rainy, but still hot as per the usual. I have also been free as far as work goes, it's been just English classes. So because of this I've been trying to find some things to do like the dialogue project I'm working on and making a new format for the images on my blog. I will be putting it here first and then if it works well I'll be updating all the other posts to use it. On a side note however, I'm wondering how you guys like the new comment section, I decided to switch it out because Google's comment system wouldn't let me reply to comments on my own site. Let me know what you guys think, I'm thinking about doing a few changes on here, so it would be nice to hear everyone's thoughts.

I've also been doing a bit more reading which has been nice. "Born to Win" has been a book I've had on my shelf for a while, but now I actually have the time to read it. Transactional Analysis is actually the subject I want to focus my Ph.D on, so this book has been good at fusing that field of study with Gestalt experimentation. Speaking of books I'm also planning on getting a Kindle, but unfortunately they don't ship to Timor, so if there is anyone who lives near here who reads this, hit me up!

The third picture here is from the new class my counterpart wants me to teach. It's been alright starting this class a little after my first class because I can reuse old lessons in order to save time and my sanity. In all honesty I've never taught English to adults before, let alone adults who speak a foreign language to myself. Props to anyone who does this for a living or has gone through teaching people who speak a different language from you, because it is incredibly easy to become self conscious about what you are saying.  I've asked my students and some other people I see most days to correct me if they hear me speak incorrectly, but I'm wondering if they are reluctant to do this because I'm still new and they feel like that would be disrespectful. Regardless I can tell my Tetum has been getting better and better which is definitely helping me express my ideas better.

Also this week is the 10 year anniversary of the Peace Corps having a group in Timor-Leste. So if you are from an earlier group and would like to make a comment about where the program has gone since then or about your service in general, reach out to me in the comments or through Facebook and I'll make sure to send your comment to the Peace Corps TL Facebook Group. 

Apart from those things the last few pictures are different thing's I've eaten through the last week. 😂 It's been a long week, but with IST coming up in just a couple weeks the last 6 months have seemed to just fly by. I can only imagine how fast these 2 years will fly by without me realizing it. So this week I'll be leaving you with a quote about how important it is to use that time wisely, so until next time let me leave you with this.

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. 

~Marie Curie

Much Love,

~BW

Discovery

Hello Everyone,

So this week has been pretty eventful, at least for things outside of the ordinary. I have been having class every Monday as always, but this week I've also had a Peace corp interaction. Yesterday I had a couple of people stop by to drop off some extra bug spray and to check out my room to make sure mosquitoes can't swarm in there.  Lately I've been using Soffell which is a lotion based bug repellent that has been great.  Mosquitoes haven't been the biggest concern here, but I am definitely keeping the last time I applied repellent in the back of my head.

On the note of my room I have finally broken down and bought a new mattress, which was one of the best decisions I've made since being here. I can't stress enough in you are at a Peace corp post and you are sleeping on a foam pad (like I was), then find a way to get a mattress.  I have been sleeping much more soundly and I've been feeling better after I wake up in the morning, so that idea to buy a mattress from the TL8s was a 10/10 in my book!

Classes have been going well and I've slowly been finding my groove in how and when to plan my classes. The occasional feedback from my students, juxtaposed by their scores on my placement test have kind of honed into the general starting place for my English classes. On top of that I have the first dialogue of my Tetum Dialogue series translated and am having a few people check out the phrasing to see if it's understandable. This is pretty exciting because hopefully it will get my students and others involved in the process of speaking and listening to English conversations in different environments.  The first movie I'm using is Infinity Wars and it will hopefully be a good kickoff to this project. I'll make sure to keep you all updated on the results of this endeavor.

The pictures below are kind of random, but they are all in order at least. The first one is of an insect that Badinas and I discovered that we are both convinced is a new species, so if anyone want's to throw money at us for discovering it we'll be in touch.  Otherwise if you know what it is, we would love to know. It was super weird and loved to jump around, so if you can tell us what their name is in the comments maybe we'll try to make contact next time.  The next three pictures in all honesty were fillers I took of the office because I knew I had to post today, but they look cool right?! The last one is the bed I bought which definitely set me back, at least until my travel reimbursement comes in from the Dili trip. It just means I'll have to haggle for all of the Red Velvet ice cream bars I get. lol

It's been a pretty nice week and I'm glad to have this outlet (the blog) because I feel not only accomplished after this, but also I feel reset, like I'm ready for the future. I look forward to my conversation with Osseo Sr. in a couple weeks, it'll be nice to give some more goal 3 back to the states. Well, this is the part of the blog where I say I have to go, but thankfully until I see you next time, I'll leave you with this.

Happiness, true happiness, is an inner quality. It is a state of mind. If your mind is at peace, you are happy. If your mind is at peace, but you have nothing else, you can be happy. If you have everything the world can give - pleasure, possessions, power - but lack peace of mind, you can never be happy.

~Dada Vaswani

Much Love,

~BW

A Holistic Approach

Hey Everyone,

You guys are going to love this one, I went to Dili recently for a S&S meeting and didn't take any pictures. I'll make sure to take some next time, but for now I have a few including one from me planning my English lesson on ABC's and 123's. It's been interesting planning lesson's because I definitely don't have a process down (at least not one I'm sticking to). I have found however that I am good enough at improve and public speaking that I can run through these lessons without needing to stick tightly to my lesson plan (#humblebrag).  Chilling with my friend's here in Baucau has been great and I'll give a shout out to my friends in the Foho! 

I went to the PCMO during my trip to Dili to check on my health (mostly relating to weight I've lost) and I found out I've lost almost 30 lbs.! I'm actually under 200 now which is a strange thing because not only are my pants all baggy, but I've also found myself not recognizing myself in the mirror. Mum, I'm feeling great though and she said my blood test came back showing I'm getting all the nutrients I need, I just need more calories.  Over all the trip to Dili was a great chance for me to meet up with some friends and reconnect a bit before my actual reconnect in March.

Besides that fun stuff (and the pizza I had witch made me extremely happy) I've just been doing the same ol' thing I do every week.  I got to my taxes and have been discussing a way to to use my microphone here. At this point I've had a lot of interest in a dialog series I'll be hosting on Sound Cloud and embedding here for anyone to use.  It will be a three part dialog that will be English-English then Tetum-English and finally Tetum-Tetum. This will hopefully be a nice tool for my class, but also I'm hoping it can be something future PCV's and PCT's will be able to use when trying to learn English or Tetum. If you have any ideas, or if your looking for some kind of resource I can help create let me know, because I'd love to help bring that to Timor. I've also been thinking of recording my English lesson's, but that is still tentative because dang that would be a lot of work to tack onto my 8-5!

Living here is hard, adapting to life here is hard. I never take the fact that I have a plane ticket back home on deck, but at the end of the day I look at what I'm doing as an investment in the person I will be in the future. Someone who I can trust to commit to something he plans. Someone I know will stick to their guns when the chips are down. Someone whose personality and happiness is tied to something that extends past their living situation.  I'm doing this for my reasons, but if you are reading this and have a different situation then I have some unfortunate news. Nobody can make your decision for you...

We grow up being able to rely on others to make the big decisions for us, usually our parents, but sometimes our teachers or just relying on an external locus of control to blame our circumstances for the choices we chose to ignore.  This injustice is unfortunate because it trains us to look for advice and other peoples answers to our situations. The thing is though that we are all in charge of our futures, each person is able to make the decision that would be best for them. This can be a liberty and it can be a freedom, but it can also feel like a curse because often to open a door we need to close one first.  I hope this helps you, but at the end of the day your choice will be your own and the only thing you can control after you make your choices is how you feel. Stand behind your decisions, make them yours! Don't let anyone make your decisions for you! Don't let someone take your life away from you! I'm making my decision to stay here because it's a choice I made and one I choose to stand behind. 

If you are going through something or have to make a choice that will affect your future, I hope only that you make the decision that is yours. rarely are things black and white enough to where you can know if you made the right choice, but one thing you can know is if YOU made the decision or if someone made it for you. I got to go plan a Saturday and Monday English lesson now, but until next time I'll leave you with this.

Happiness is a choice. You can choose to be happy. There's going to be stress in life, but it's your choice whether you let it affect you or not. 

~Valerie Bertinelli

Much love,

~BW