My plate

I always, always, always feel as if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. But by the grace of God, I always manage to make it. Here’s what my plate looks like so far this year.

1. School, of course, is first and foremost. I teach 23 classes a week in a 30 class per week schedule. I also stay after school for at least an hour on Mondays and Wednesdays to tutor. We’re working on preparing for the upcoming visit of our accreditation organization, so that keeps all us teachers extra busy as well.

2. And now, I’m a student again! I’ll be working towards getting my TESOL certification throughout this year. Online classes started last week, and that is taking up a LOT of my time. About 2 hours a day are devoted to that.

3. I lead worship for an English language fellowship that meets once a week. So this means at least 2 practices a week plus the fellowship itself.

4. Aswan and I are heading up a sponsor a child program that some students here at school started for a nearby village that I am affiliated with. So every month, I get to collect money from lots of people and go shopping for 29 kids!

5. I am helping one of the seniors here plan a charity event (tentatively in March) to support orphans in North Korea.

6. I’m also the point person for the juniors who are planning the entire senior banquet (prom). Luckily, they are a great group of kids who have really run with it! I haven’t had to do too much with this besides give input and approve things...

7. Yearbook! I still have no idea how to teach this class, but somehow, it’s coming together. Print time (aka stress time) is coming up fast!

8. I was asked to help with a once a week English club at the local university. Still haven’t heard details on that, but as of now, I’ve agreed to help out on a semi-regular basis.

9. Two Bible studies a week. One with Muslim and Christian Indonesians and one with the single white ladies. Gotta maintain some balance in my social life. : )

10. Fridays after school, I work at Koinonia, our local coffeeshop. It is insanely busy there since it’s only open on Fridays. And since the owner, Marie, is one of my closest friends and she sometimes gives me free drinks, I jumped at the chance to help out!

11. Memorizing parts of the Bible in Indonesian! Aaaaaah! The Lord’s Prayer – almost done!

12. Helping Aswan write his 70 page thesis paper. Part of it has to be in English, so I’m translating that part for him. And sometimes he gets tired of typing, so he dictates and I try to type. (It is really hard to be dictated to in a foreign language! Yeah, I speak Indonesian, but I don’t understand all the formal and technical language in his paper. Thank goodness Indonesian is so phonetic!)

13. Organizing all my school files, curriculum, and materials. I don’t know if next year will be my last or not, but if it is, I sure as heck don’t want to spend the year frantically trying to organize 4 years worth of teaching materials.

14. AMERICAN IDOL! Friday nights after coffeeshop. This is my one chance to spend some quality time with Marie and her family. And it’s also some quality time with my own culture!

15. Boyfriends take time too. Especially cross cultural ones. And it can be hard to balance that with maintaining other cross cultural friendships as well. Especially with everything else going on...

16. Knitting scarves. Aswan wants to start selling them. So now I have some motivation for knitting other than just keeping my hands from being idle. Extra money for America trip!

17. Head teacher for the student activities committee. We plan the school events. Well, mostly the students do. I just have to be there.

Well, I think that’s at least the majority of it. There’s always little things that come up like dormsitting or babysitting for someone or preparing random school projects... It seems like a LOT, but it’s really not any more than anybody else. And as always, I love every minute of my hectic schedule!