Creativity Week

Most schools refer to it as"spirit week", here they call it Creativity Week.  Since I am the SA adviser it was my job to organize and lead the event.  Spirit week, if you aren't familiar with it, gives a chance for the kids to dress up and have fun.  Each day has a theme.  The SA officers decided on crazy hair day, twin day, career day, character day, and class color day.  It was so fun to see the kids dress up, and they LOVED not having to wear their uniforms.  From colored hair, to scientists, to little red riding hood we saw it all.  We dressed up too, we even  painted our hair for crazy hair day!  A good thought, but very unpleasant to get out! On Wednesday I spent three hours making Belgian Waffles for the geography class.  We just finished studying Europe and they had never tried waffles before, much less Belgian waffles. They loved it!  They were all gone in a matter of minutes even though I made over 40!  It made the 20 minutes of trying to make egg whites peak by hand worth it.  The best part of the week was Friday.  Friday was one of those days this year I will never forget, it might even be my favorite day in Yap :).  We only had two hours of classes and then I was in charge of games for all grades(k-12).  It was extremely chaotic!  I didn't think it was going to work for a while, but slowly everything started to come together.  We paired the youngest students with the oldest students to make teams.  They were so cute!  My seniors did a great job of being role models, the 1st graders kept calling them "mom" and "dad" and hung out with them in the senior classroom during lunch.  We played relay races, three legged balloon game, and staff vs. student soccer!  I thought I was going to lose my voice trying to organize them!  But despite the high schoolers complaints and grumblings I saw them smiling and laughing and I know they had fun :).   The end of the day was the best.  It was REALLY hot, one of those days where it doesn't matter what you do or where you go you can't escape it.  So, I convinced a few of my seniors and the elementary students to help me start a water fight!  We were out of balloons so we collected water bottles and buckets.  Once it started it caught like fire!  In a few short minutes I was soaked to the bone, clothes and hair dripping; it didn't matter that we couldn't possibly get any wetter, the kids still thought it was hilarious to get the teachers!  At any given second I was surrounded by elementary students dumping their water bottles on me and yelling "we got Ms. Rychelle!!" :).  We finally got the high school to get involved too, I got the elementary to help me dump water on them.  That is when it got really crazy.  Sabrina and I had one 11th grader who kept getting us!  He was so sneaky! We kept trying to get him back but he ran way faster then us!  He even found ice water to dump on us, that was quite shocking. After school was out some third graders waited outside my room saying "Ms. Rychelle please come outside we have a flower for you" of course they just dumped water on me, but they did give me a flower later. At the end of the day when we sent them home for the weekend we were soaked to the bone and extremely sunburned but it was worth it.  With every water bottle that was dumped on my head I could see the love from the students in the big smiles on their faces.  It was one of those days that makes the hard ones worth it.  No matter how frustrated I become with them some days, I love my students and I love the memories I am making with them.  The longer I'm here the closer I get to them, and the closer I get to the date on my return flight.  That is a day I'm not looking forward too, for now I will try to dwell on the time I still have here.  I will save every card I get from the elementary saying "Ms. Rychelle I love you" and remember every conversation I have with the high schoolers because this is a year I never want to forget.