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Finally Settling
I've been in the new place for one month now... 5.5 months on St. Thomas. The freedom away from living on school campus is wonderful. The new view is amazing. Most evenings I sit out on the balcony and watch the sun set. My roommate has found me several times home with the lights off and just sitting out here. The roommie is great and has introduced me to several nice people. I'm getting to meet people now. My car is nice and fun to drive around the island. Moving and getting a car at the same time killed me but I made it through to payday. The first four months were really slow. But now I feel like I'm settling in.
Teaching has been a little challenging but I'm happy doing it. It's almost surreal sometimes. I feel like I'm a Dharma Initiative teacher. There's a jungle like area near the top of the mountain where I live. I wanna explore this one path in the woods to see if there are any hatches or old research buildings up there. It's creepy looking. The only bad thing about this place is the crazy sounds coming from the neighbors below us. They've got some loud sounding animals: peacocks, roosters, goat, large birds. Some nights it sounds like Jurassic Park. I keep looking over there to see if I can see their raptor cages. With those and the frogs croaking, there are some pretty amazing sounds like a Soothing Sounds of Nature CD. I didn't start sleeping well until I moved here.
Everything is more expensive here. $7 for a half gallon of milk. When it's that expensive, buying organic milk at 30 cents more isn't that bad. Haircuts, automobile title switching, dinner at restaurants, etc... I was having too much fun at the beginning with going out to dinner. I've since had to slow down. The two things that are, strangely enough, cheaper down here: Liquor and the movie theater. Going to see a movie costs about $6. The experience there is bizarrely familiar to the scene with Brenda on Scary Movie. I turned around to see who behind me was talking. I imagined that I would see a person on the back row firing up the BBQ grill.
I've had several firsts on St. Thomas: scuba diving, sailing, boat trips, field trips with students. I love diving and am moving up in the diving world. I'll start working on rescue diver soon. The sailing experience was fun but it's not going to be something that I'm crazy about doing like diving. It's amazing how much fun you can have by getting on a boat down here. That's what I'm planning on doing this summer. I wanna island hop around the Caribbean - visiting different islands and diving.
This has been the first school that I, as a math teacher, have been able to take students on field trips. We've gotten to take them kayaking through a mangrove lagoon, to an art show, to a beach for a clean up day, sailing, hiking, scuba diving. I really enjoyed that when I was a kid. Travelling to France and Italy with my french teacher was an amazing experience as a teenager. I'm enjoying it from the other side now and have been loving it even more.
Despite all of this, I'm not sure if I want to stay here or not. I keep going back and forth. Maybe if things had been this good when I first moved here, I might be waiting to stay here more. It's been a roller coaster and I'm afraid that we're about to start going downhil again. I'm gonna give it more time.
Teaching has been a little challenging but I'm happy doing it. It's almost surreal sometimes. I feel like I'm a Dharma Initiative teacher. There's a jungle like area near the top of the mountain where I live. I wanna explore this one path in the woods to see if there are any hatches or old research buildings up there. It's creepy looking. The only bad thing about this place is the crazy sounds coming from the neighbors below us. They've got some loud sounding animals: peacocks, roosters, goat, large birds. Some nights it sounds like Jurassic Park. I keep looking over there to see if I can see their raptor cages. With those and the frogs croaking, there are some pretty amazing sounds like a Soothing Sounds of Nature CD. I didn't start sleeping well until I moved here.
Everything is more expensive here. $7 for a half gallon of milk. When it's that expensive, buying organic milk at 30 cents more isn't that bad. Haircuts, automobile title switching, dinner at restaurants, etc... I was having too much fun at the beginning with going out to dinner. I've since had to slow down. The two things that are, strangely enough, cheaper down here: Liquor and the movie theater. Going to see a movie costs about $6. The experience there is bizarrely familiar to the scene with Brenda on Scary Movie. I turned around to see who behind me was talking. I imagined that I would see a person on the back row firing up the BBQ grill.
I've had several firsts on St. Thomas: scuba diving, sailing, boat trips, field trips with students. I love diving and am moving up in the diving world. I'll start working on rescue diver soon. The sailing experience was fun but it's not going to be something that I'm crazy about doing like diving. It's amazing how much fun you can have by getting on a boat down here. That's what I'm planning on doing this summer. I wanna island hop around the Caribbean - visiting different islands and diving.
This has been the first school that I, as a math teacher, have been able to take students on field trips. We've gotten to take them kayaking through a mangrove lagoon, to an art show, to a beach for a clean up day, sailing, hiking, scuba diving. I really enjoyed that when I was a kid. Travelling to France and Italy with my french teacher was an amazing experience as a teenager. I'm enjoying it from the other side now and have been loving it even more.
Despite all of this, I'm not sure if I want to stay here or not. I keep going back and forth. Maybe if things had been this good when I first moved here, I might be waiting to stay here more. It's been a roller coaster and I'm afraid that we're about to start going downhil again. I'm gonna give it more time.