Skype

My new webcam is all set up and works great, and my new skype name is silasbrinkmann (imaginative huh?). Whoever has skype should add me. I'll be on it pretty often.

Miscellany

Even while I was writing my most recent post, I sort of expected to wake up the following morning and feel a little foolish for being so overdramatic. I thought I was in a mood, and that as soon as the mood passed I would wish I hadn't been so transparent with the feelings of the moment. I considered them frivolous.

Well, they were frivolous in their way, but turned out to not be as transient as I had expected. It took me most of a week to get out of the funk I expressed in that post and get on with doing what I need to do. I have, however, seemingly accomplished this last. At least, I am once again able to wake up each morning without the passionate desire to fake sick just so I won't have to face my responsibilities.

I'm a lot less depressed and a lot more encouraged for the past few days. A lot has contributed to this: I'm prioritizing better, interacting better with more people, and getting more sleep. Oddly, another that helped me get it together a bit was the realization that I'm not the only one feeling this way. I certainly wouldn't wish that kind of despondency on anybody, but I had this nagging suspicion that it was some inherent flaw in myself that was causing me to feel the way I did. Maybe it still is, but at least I share it with at least one other teacher, one of the educated and somewhat experienced kind I so envy.

Donnie and I have decided we're willing to pay for hi-speed internet at home. It should be installed tomorrow. What this might mean to you is more pictures. What it means to me is a lot less constraint in the time I spend online, which is a huge morale booster for me (thanks in large part to a lot of you).

I'm in a little bit of a frustrating money situation, which needs to be worked out with the folks who process the money some of you are sending. I won't go into details here, but my initial reaction was a lot of anger and disgust, unproductive feelings that I need to get over before I try to deal with the situation. Please play for wisdom as I do this, and that it will be resolved satisfactorily. Please also continue to pray for more staff for Whitman. Still needed are PE teachers, and any warm bodies to monitor study halls and/or proctor exams. This would help a great deal with the abovementioned teacher stress, to say nothing of my own, for which please continue praying as well.

Praises are great roommates and coworkers, good food, good cultural experiences, and my still-unshaken conviction that I'm where God wants me. This last, especially, has gotten me through a lot.

Pride Goeth etc.

I am not a superstitious person, but I find myself sorely tempted to knock on wood or cross my fingers the next time I write a post like that last one.

I had, in a sense, been expecting it, but when it came it was still an unwelcome, even humiliating, development. On Friday, my day off, my boss, Bruce, called me. He asked me if, the next day, I would like to cancel my classes and instead have a day-long clinic on lesson planning. I agreed, of course.

It was handled in the most kind and helpful way imaginable (Bruce is a great guy). Every allowance was made for my inexperience and lack of education. The obvious intent was to help and not to chastise. Most importantly, it really did give me a much better idea of what I wasn't doing correctly and/or sufficiently in my classes. This, however, was the irksome aspect of things: I didn't want it to be necessary to improve my performance. It is a childish and unrealistic way to look at things, no doubt, and a reflection of a flaw in my personality. However, the fact is that this helpful, necessary, gracefully administered and completely constructive criticism rankled severely when it collided with my pride. Let me be clear: this was not a legitimate feeling in any possible way, it was a fit of pique. To my meager credit, I recognized immediately how silly I was being, and managed to keep it all inside, to the extent that I was praised for my attitude by Bruce.

I felt much better the following evening when Steven, Jane, and their family (cf pictures in this post) threw me a little impromptu birthday dinner, complete with a cake and presents from each member of the family. It was a thoughtful gesture, and I was deeply moved. We played a slightly modified version of pickup sticks, chatted, laughed, ate (I finally know what is meant by "goulash." I was quite satisfied) and I relaxed and got almost completely over my internal tantrum from the previous day, or so I thought. The next day went quite well, highlighted by a cake that was made for me by Bruce's wife *ahem* I mean by Bruce. It was amazing cake, some kind of sticky chocolaty thing, not too sweet but sweet enough- in a word, ambrosial. I ate so much of it I ended up taking my lunch home with me.

The week began stressfully, since progress reports came out today. This is encouraging from the standpoint that I am now 1/8 finished with the year, but made things difficult since it required me to get caught up on the (shamefully large!) amount of work which I had been procrastinating. Piling this onto a completely new and more involved lesson planning process made for not a lot of sleep. I was making some progress on Monday and Tuesday, but then I woke up Wednesday morning feeling miserably ill. Sore throat, stomach pain, the works.

I went to school that day, teaching my classes while feeling like somebody had tried to clean out my throat with steel wool, and then stayed after school for two hours entering grades (I got it done, praise God!). I went home and went to sleep almost immediately, about 6:30 PM. I woke up at 2:00 this morning feeling even more miserable and literally unable to speak above a whisper due to the condition of my throat. I slept fitfully until about 5:00 , drinking nearly 4 liters of water in the interval (I filled and emptied my 2-liter bottle twice), and then decided that trying to teach classes in my condition would be futile. So, I called in sick, for the second time in 5 weeks.

Robin (the principal and the person I called) recommended that I go to the doctor and get checked for strep, which I did. The doctor took about 5 minutes to tell me that there were no signs of any infection, and what I had were allergies. He did not say "and allergies are no reason to miss another day of work this week, you limp-wristed puling weakling," but had he said it, I would have agreed. My chagrin, beginning then and still continuing at this moment, would be difficult to overstate.

Was I honest with myself when I decided I wasn't able to get through one more day, or did I seize on the first excuse to shirk my responsibilities and loaf all day? Can a man who spends over 10% of his working days (this is a mathematically correct figure so far) lying at home sipping water and watching boring daytime TV be trusted at all with a task as important as teaching children? Or, for that matter, with any task more involved than flipping burgers or digging ditches? My own weakness and incapacity, in which (following Paul's example) I ought to boast, instead have me kicking myself in the teeth and wishing anybody but me had recieved the call to do this job.

The doctor suggested a treatment which is working well so far, so that problem is near enough to being solved. I'd appreciate your prayers for an attitude adjustment, to allow me to quit emotionally self-mortifying and have faith that, whatever my shortcomings, they are not too big for God to handle. I need to recover that Psalm 27 attitude (see the last few paragraphs of this post), and start seeing the times when I fail as an opportunity for God's power to shine more obviously through me. Pray that this discouraging week, having already maimed my faith in my own abilities, will proceed now to increase my faith in and reliance on God's. Right now, my knee-jerk response to the whole thing is one of wounded pride. Sadly, it's only wounded; God, please finish it off! I don't want it in my life and neither do You.

There is a silver lining, however. How frustrated I am when not doing my job adequately has made me realize that I love it. I don't mean this in the sense that what I do is particularly enjoyable in itself, although it can be. Rather, I love my job because it causes the kind of passion evident in what I've written here.

If I missed a day of one of my other jobs, I generally thought of it in purely pragmatic terms; what were my coworkers going to think or say, how would it affect my standing with my bosses, was I in danger of being fired, etc. When I miss a day of this job, I am frustrated at the lost opportunity to pour more of myself into it, even though that might be a painful and debilitating process. There's a sense of purpose involved in doing what I'm doing that has been extremely rare in my life up until now, and has certainly never coincided with what I spent the majority of my time on. I love my job for beginning (or at least accelerating from its previous glacial pace) my transformation from a self-centered, indolent child into a man who might someday merit the greatest description to which a human being can aspire: servant.

Updates

I haven't blogged in a week. I must be slipping. My apologies to my loyal readers (both of you :-P).

Last week at this time I was cripplingly ill. I vomited early in the morning and then slept all day. The likely culprit is some bad mayonnaise at a local snack joint. I know of two other people who ate the same item at the same restaurant within 24 hours of my doing so, and they were also sick. Fortunately, they and I both got over it fairly quickly, within one day in fact. I was back at school teaching as if nothing had happened the next day.

This past weekend was a 3-day weekend which was desperately needed and ardently desired. I must admit that I wasted a lot of it, if you consider relaxation a waste. Some things I didn't get accomplished: cleaning my room, doing laundry, doing dishes, shopping for some items. What I did accomplish, however, is higher on my priority list than any of that: I felt ready and more than ready to go back to school on Monday. I needed the time to wind down and relax without responsibilities hanging over my head, and when it presented itself, I grabbed it with both hands. This, I feel, was the correct decision, and if my mother would be horrified by the shape my room is currently in, I hope she would be mollified to some degree by the shape my mind is in.

I'm teaching about Greek mythology in a couple of classes. This is turning out to be lots of fun. The kids are definitely interested, and I love telling stories, which is what I do for most of class. Good times.

This evening (Tuesday) I was treated to dinner at Fuddrucker's in honor of my birthday. I invited a couple of co-teachers, and the vice-principal, Bruce, and his wife, Sue, were also there. It didn't make me forget home-cooked fried chicken or anything, but it was a very satisfying and congenial meal, with an unheard-of luxury for this country: ranch dressing! I couldn't have asked for a more timely present. My morale is considerably raised.

I am, generally speaking, in high spirits. My readers who also have facebook may have noticed that I read a long book, absolutely detested it, and wrote a long diatribe against it. To the observant reader, this should indicate a few things about my current situation. First, I have the energy to get really exercised over a work of literature. This is a good sign, it wasn't the case a few weeks ago. Second, I have the time to respond in written form. And third, I have access to literature, which in my case is a psychological benefit not to be underestimated.

My roommate has discovered a source of cheap steaks, and he grills them about once a week. I'm well fed, well read, working hard and pretty happy.

Observation: John Piper would love this country. A common greeting is "kiifak" or "kiif halak" (literally "how is your health") and a common response is "Alhamdulillah" which literally means "God's glory" or "ashkurallah" which means "I thank God." There is a very healthy attitude about God's involvement in day-to-day life here, which humbles me and which I am striving to emulate. Accordingly, glory to God for how well things are going!

Please pray that the school would find some more staff, even on a very temporary basis. What I've said in previous posts still applies, and there is a not insignificant risk of teacher burnout, especially among new and inexperienced teachers (by which I mean myself). Pray also for wisdom in dealing with local folks and to say the right things at the right times.

I miss you all.

Addendum

Don't worry folks, mail sent to the previously provided address will still arrive, even if the school's name isn't first. The previous address isn't the school's, it belongs to a friend of mine. However, I'll get things faster if they're sent to the school address (the one given in the previous post) and if you do that, make sure you put the school name first. We clear?

Normalcy or something

First, a couple of housekeeping details. If you want to mail me something, this is the address you should use:

Whitman Academy
Silas Brinkmann
PO Box 142011
Amman 11814
Jordan

It is IMPORTANT that you put the name of the school first and mine afterward. This is so that another school employee can pick up my mail when he goes to do that each week. If you put my name first, I have to personally cross town and go get the mail. Also, it is best not to send anything larger than a shoebox, or any DVD's or CD's.

Second, several people have commented on the same post with the same message as many as 5 times. I have structured this blog so that I monitor all the comments that come in, and have to approve them before I post them. Your comments will not show up immediately for that reason, not because there's some kind of problem, so please only post them once. That said, I am greatly appreciative that people continue to read and comment in this space: it is

I think I have begun to establish that elusive and valuable "routine" thing. I have a fairly good general idea what I will be doing at most daylight hours as far ahead as 3 weeks from now, which would have been utterly inconcievable last week at this time. I am grateful for this, as simply by existing it reduces my stress level.

This last, however, is still high. I still am not sure what to do when or how, and I definitely walk into each class each day with a great deal of trepidation. I suffered my first real major failure as a teacher on Thursday, an activity I spent a ton of time planning out, and slightly less time actually attempting because it didn't work at all. Fortunately, I got a care package from some of the folks back home which lifted my spirits considerably, and I'm more or less over it. Fortunately, my opinion of my own teaching skills was already fairly low, so messing up on this isn't as crushing or crippling I might have expected.

I'm finding it very easy to rely on God in my current position, simply because I don't have too many other options. I don't have the skills, the energy, or the wisdom to do the job I'm doing, all I have is the faith. Thankfully, so far it's been all I needed.

In an unrelated but encouraging development, the belt I brougth with me is now too big for my waist and I need to buy another one. I'm doing a lot of walking up and down hills, and apparently it's showing up in the ol' waistline.

Please pray for more teachers to volunteer to teach at the school. Right now, most of the full-time teachers are actually FULL time, with no free periods during the day. Needed are a computer teacher, a P.E. teacher, a science and math teacher for 4th grade, and several other miscellaneous staff members to do such things as monitor study halls.

Miracles and Mysteries

First, some great news. As the school grapevine has it, Mr. Park's kidneys are more or less out of danger and he is well and truly on the mend. He'll probably stay on dialysis for a few more days for safety's sake, but there seems to be no more risk of massive kidney failure when they take him off it. Also, he moved his foot. It is likely he will recover with no permanent physical damage. Perhaps more importantly, says the grapevine, yesterday someone told him a joke and he laughed at it. Scripture says a joyful heart is good medicine, and if he's reaching a point where he can laugh again, that says good things about his prospects for physical healing and better things about his emotional health. Praise God for that; the man's had one of the most crushing experiences a parent can possibly experience, and it's nice to hear about a few breaks going his way.

In other news, classes are going well, students seem to be learning what I am trying to teach them and maybe even enjoying it a bit. I am happy about this. There is a slight problem, however: I have not even the vaguest idea how it's happening.

I'm required to turn in lesson plans each Thursday for the whole subsequent week. Last week I wrote them. They were great. Phase by phase. They contained the class name, the date, the learning objectives, the instruction methods, the necessary materials, and the homework for each class. When school actually began, this is what I actually used: the date and the class name. My instruction this week in my classes didn't remotely resemble what I so painstakingly planned out last week. Something about it worked, undeniably. But I don't know what it was.

This is perhaps the scariest thing that could have happened to me. I now have to deal with a) high expectations that I have inflicted upon myself and b) my near-total ignorance about how to continue fulfilling them. I'd hate to think that I'll have to depend upon this kind of... is fluke too strong a word?... for another 140-odd instruction days. Having spent a lot of time worrying about failure, I now find that success is more frightening yet.

As I read back up what I just wrote, I'm a little disgusted by the irrationality of it all. Where I ought to be praising God for the success I've had and praying to Him for more, I am instead jittery because I can't explain the very miracle I've been asking you all to pray for. Like Peter, I'm standing impossibly on top of the water already, but all my flesh can think of to do is worry about sinking. Oh me of little faith! People who are praying for me should, I think, pray first and foremost for that problem to get fixed. Real faith moves mountains; mine, at the moment, is struggling to even move pixels around a screen.

Pause for reflection

Today I'm here at Whitman Academy for the parent/student orientation day. I've already met some parents and kids, and done some work on my classroom, which, let me tell you, badly needed some work. The school was full of chattering children reuniting after summers apart, and of smiling parents meandering around from classroom to brightly decorated classroom. However, this joyful atmosphere was tinged with an unexpected somberness, and smiles and laughter were often interrupted by tearful embraces and whispered condolences.

Juhae Park was a pretty young Korean lady with a huge heart and eyes that laughed when she spoke. She attended Whitman last year and was planning to stop by the event today to see her friends before going to the Black Forest Academy in Germany this fall. I've never met her. I know all this because I just attended her funeral. On Thursday, Juhae was with her family in the nearby Wadi Mujib park, a canyon with a river in it. She slipped and was sucked under a waterfall where she drowned. Her father, attempting to rescue her, suffered a mangled leg and the unimaginable trauma of being trapped a mere few feet from where his daughter was dying.

One minute, so vibrant and full of life, brimming over with plans for the future, loving deeply and deeply loved. The next, an empty husk of a body. I didn't know Juhae, but her death is another reminder (like the 35w collapse) of how fragile a gift life truly is.

Juhae was the Lord's, and is now with Him, but please pray for the Park family as they mourn. Mr. Park, especially, is racked with guilt for not having saved his daughter, and is seriously injured (there is nerve damage in his leg which prevents him from moving that foot, and the massive muscle damage is causing his kidneys to fail.). Pray also for those of my coworkers who knew and cherished her, and who are trying to find time to grieve amid the pressure and stress of getting ready for the first week of school.

Any day, hour, or minute on earth could be your last one. Don't waste them.

All Good Things...

It's been a pretty relaxing couple of weeks here in the desert. I read a couple of decent books, met people, learned some Arabic words, and generally recuperated from the exhaustion I was dealing with by the end of the English school. By the end of the ~2 weeks I had free, I was getting sick of sitting around home and doing nothing. So, when the Friday the 9th came around I was pretty content to go and meet my coworkers.

In what may be a typical circumstance, plans for a "staff retreat" were shelved at the last minute in favor of a "staff day" which involved a few classic get-to-know-you games and some general explanation of the rules and guidelines for doing my job. I also discovered that everybody at the school has one of the following: A Ph D, a master's, teaching certification, or teaching experience. Oh wait, not everybody, quite; I'm the only person teaching this year without one of the above. This is, I must admit, pretty intimidating. Everybody tells me not to worry, this happens all the time. Well I think I'm going to continue worrying, thank you very much. I work better when I'm nervous than when I'm complacent.

On Saturday, my roomates and I, along with two local guys named Taariq and Ahmed, drove about an hour from Amman to a canyon in some limestone hills near the southern end of the Dead Sea. We packed a picnic lunch and our swim suits and hiked up the canyon for about an hour. It was pretty cool in several senses of the word; the bottom of the canyon only got direct sunlight in places, and not for very long. We found a huge boulder with a waterfall coming over it that more or less filled the whole canyon (maybe 12 feet square). There was a dry space at the bottom of the waterfall which would have been perfect for for eating our lunch and resting. We were 5 young men. Naturally, we spent 20 minutes trying to find a way up the waterfall with all our stuff without getting soaked, and then ate our lunch at the top of the waterfall less than 15m from the otherwise perfect spot. A man has certain principles, after all.

We built a makeshift dam out of rocks to form a pool about 18 inches deep and all just sat there in the water eating food and smoking nargeela (that's what they call it here, but I'd have thought of it as a hookah. It's the only manly way to smoke peach-flavored tobacco, so it's cool with me). It was a good time, and even though I spent the whole day outside, I'm not sunburned. On the hike back down, we built another dam just because the first one wasn't good enough. Some might consider this a waste of time and effort, but they are probably women or Frenchmen. It was IMPORTANT.

So, staff bonding followed by male bonding followed by Christian bonding, and that's my weekend in a nutshell. Starting tomorrow I'll be writing my curriculum for this year with lots of help from Julia, my immediate superior at the school. Please pray for me this week as I head into this uncharted territory and will need help to make it happen. Vacation is over, the grind is beginning.

A Beautiful Juxtaposition

At about 12:30 this morning I left home, and got in a serveece (a kind of taxi). I got out of the serveece at the bottom of a big hill, crossed a teeming marketplace full of the shoutings and shriekings of vendors trying to sell cheap clothes to people who don't need them and can't afford them. I then walked up another hill. I turned down a dusty street and walked past a construction site where a bunch of bronzed, muscular Arab workmen were tinkering with a balky cement mixer (using, I add, what sounded like some pretty unkind language, although I haven't learned any of those words yet).

Proceeding past these normal, everyday sights, and following the directions I'd been given, I went further down the street and went through a nondescript little door into... what can this strange place be?

A dizzying kaleidoscope of horribly clashing overstuffed furniture is scattered haphazardly on a concrete floor. In the middle of the floor, a small circular bar boasts Jose Cuervo, Chivas Regal, Bacardi, Jim Beam (remember, alcohol is very rare here), and perhaps every coffee variation ever devised by the mind of man. Hanging above the bar is, of all things, a disco ball that must be a yard across. But it's not spinning, it's just kind of hanging there. By the bar a shaven-headed goateed guy in a t-shirt and baggy jeans is putting the moves on a slim pale dark-haired lady in tight leather pants, occasionally stopping to wave away the thick cloud of cigarrette smoke that threatens to obscure his vision. His Iberian-flavored English blends into a murmur of conversation in at least four languages, while throbbing trance music creates a pleasant level of soothing white noise. On a couch to my right, a group of college-aged girls in colorful tank tops chatter happily over their forgotten textbooks. Off in shadowy corner, a white guy with a scraggly chin beard and earrings is furiously typing away on a battered old Gateway notebook, pausing occasionally to sip from his iced cappucino.

10 seconds ago I was in Amman. Jordan. Middle East. How on Earth did I suddenly get transported to Uptown?

It's called Books Cafe. A sign out front (I swear I'm not making this up) proclaims it "Fresh as a Daisy!" In the basement there's a bookstore, and though the prices are outrageous ($15 for a used paperback) I'm thrilled. It's the first bookstore I've been able to find since I arrived.

So, my morale is high. There is a staff retreat for Whitman Academy that starts on the 9th. Classes actually start on the 2oth. Until then I'm on vacation, and I intend to make the most of it. At this moment, I am at peace.