Paradise Re-found

I've been in St. Thomas just over two weeks now. I'm leaving at a temporary place that is located on the school's campus. So I'll be looking for a new place to live. I'm also looking for a used vehicle to buy. I'd love to get a Jeep Wrangler. The islands have tons of Jeep rental places that will sell off their older vehicles.

I arrived here on Friday August 15th. I had that whole weekend to just play around and do whatever. That Monday all the teachers had to start showing up to school. We spent the entire week planning. Then Monday August 25th all the students started showing up. We spent the entire week basically getting to know the kids. We gave them several projects to work on and plenty of other things to do. On Friday, we went on our first field trip of the year. We went kayaking and snorkeling in a mangrove lagoon. I think the teachers needed it more than the students did. We've been busting our asses all week. It's been pretty stressful (and dramatic).

Saturday, three other new teachers/staff and I took the ferry over to St. John to explore the island. We spent the whole day there. We also found out that there are ferries going to the island of Tortolla, St. Croix and even Puerto Rico. So I'll definitely be there in the near future.

Without a vehicle, my exploration of St. Thomas has been limited. The village of Red Hook is only 5 minutes walking. There are some good restaurants there as well as the ferries to get to other islands. So far the rest of my time has been spent at the beach. There's a beach called Secret Harbor that only takes 10 minutes to walk to and it's hidden so it's not very touristy. The beach is great except that there is a type of fish that will attack people (esp me). I'm not sure what type it is but it's silver and blends in really well.

Tomorrow is the first day of class. I have a feeling that the students will be pretty weak in math (for the most part). This school year will be interesting.

( Click for pics... )

One of the interesting things about being a teacher is that you are constantly being evaluated.  Mentor teachers, principals, and district employees pop in and out of your classroom without warning.  However, the ones that evaluate you the most are your students (funny because their opinions mean the least).  Students are always judging and criticizing anything and everything about yourself.  The funniest part is that the students are brutally honest.  They'll say pretty much anything to you.  And they do. "You're fat"  "Your hair looks bad today." "You wore that shirt last week." etc...

In the past two days, this has become overly apparent to me.  Twice yesterday, I was told by a student that I was ugly.  All I could do was laugh.  I think it's really funny that the students think I give a damn about what they think about me.  But they consistently offer their opinions to me.  Now one reason I didn't get onto them is because I am partially to blame for their comments. 

We just got back from our two week holiday break.  In December, I was overly stressed out and counting the days until our vacation.  The day we got out I promised myself that I wouldn't do anything all break.  With the exception of my 4 day trip to Louisiana, I basically did nothing - this includes shaving.  I felt like not shaving to see how much of a beard I could grow in two weeks.  I've never done the beard thing although I did have a goatee for a while.  Towards the end of week two, one of my roommates said that she was actually liking the beard.  Her comment and a few of the comments from my other friends helped me decide to keep the beard. 

So showing up to school on my Monday with a full beard was a huge shock to the teachers and to my students.  Here is a list of the things that have been said to me:

Lumberjack
Miner
Bum
Mafia
Hagrid (Harry Potter reference)
Evan Almighty
Jesus
Osama Bin Laden
Saddam Hussein
Grizzly Adams
Santa Claus

Those are just a few of the ones that I can remember.  Today, a student ran out of the classroom and made a HUGE scene about it.  I even had a student growl at me (I'm taking it as a complement).

I need to trim it up and everything.  I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the beard or not.  It's really itchy and I'm not really getting use to it yet. 

Sunday, I ran into an old friend from elementary school.  We ended up graduating from different high schools in the area but I remember seeing her randomly in my hometown ever since graduation.  This time when I bumped into her, she mentioned that she had some old pictures of us from our elementary school days.  She just posted one of those pics for me.  

OMG there's no way that I was ever this young and innocent.  I can't believe the difference 20 years makes.  I use to be so shy, modest and pure at one time.  What happened... [Warning: Total adorableness behind cut]

The following are about 60 or so of the 200+ photos taken during gay pride in early August.  Most of the pics are safe.  I would only consider a few of the pics as NSFW (but no full frontal nudity on guys... just asses and boobs and bulges).

Just some random pics of things around the city...


Coming up next: Pictures from Gay Pride Weekend

I've taken probably 600-700 pictures in Amsterdam so I'm going to divide them up as much as possible.  If any of them are Not Safe For Work (NSFW), I'll let you know ahead of time.

Most of the following pics are of what I saw on the free tour that I took my first day in Amsterdam.  This is the same tour company that I now work for... so this is what I now get to show to tourists when they go on my tour (plus plenty of other stuff).


Coming up next: Plenty more pics of Amsterdam and The Netherlands

Can you tell by these pics (or lack there of) that  Zurich and Brussels were my two least favorite cities on my trip?

Coming up next: Amsterdam (hooray!!!)

After getting  sick in Corfu, I headed towards Athens.  I was still deathly sick while in Athens and pretty much stayed in the hotel room and didn't see a single thing in the city.  It's okay because everyone told me that the Acropolis was being redone anyway.  They said most of the buildings were taken apart or had scaffolding on them.  So I started heading north to Budapest, Hungary (via Macedonia and Serbia)


Coming up next: Pics of Salsburg and Munich

Coming up next: Pics of Corfu and Budapest

Now that my computer has arrive, I'm going to be posting pics from my European trip.  I've got well over a thousand pics from the last 4 months.  I can't post all of them but I'll try my best.  All of the pics will be safe for work (until I start posting the pics from Amsterdam).

I had previously posted a few pics back in Dublin.  Click here to see that post about Dublin.