General Update

There's a lot going on right now round here. Today is the start of Losar, the Buddhist New Year, so a lot of the Tibetan and Bhutanese kids are dressed up and leaving later to go celebrate. But, this year because of the Chinese crackdown on Tibet this past year, it's a very somber celebration. It's still cool to see a bunch of kids wearing traditional clothes. We also had the counselor speak at assembly yesterday, talking about Ash Wednesday. He culminated by pouring ashes and garbage on his head in mourning of the violence around the world and the pollution of our campus and town. Pretty rockstar prophet stuff, there.

In other news, my classes are going fairly well. I've finally finished covering Hinduism, much to my relief. I won't have to hear constant corrections on my pronounciations and facts. The truth is, Hindus practice their religion in a ton of different ways, so trying to nail concrete things down is tough. If I only taught what was universal to all Hindus, I'd be done in 2 days. I have 6. At least Buddhism is a little more straightforward...

Biggest teaching surprise here (besides the three times a day I get to drink tea) is that i kind of like my ethics class. Apparently none of the kids actually signed up for it, but they seem to half-way enjoy it. I'm getting better at thinking like an ethicist, too. A student told me that he shouldn't do his assignment because they cut down trees to make paper, and I told him that facts don't equal values.

Otherwise, I'm adjusting fairly well here. I've started teaching volleyball to a bunch of middle schoolers once a week, and I've taken up helping organize the Spanish Club.