Updates and so on and so forth

Mom, thanks for the package! I love it! I've been pigging out on baby ruths, butterfingers, girl scout cookies, specificially samoas, but I would LOVE some peanut butter patties if the chance arises, mac and cheese, microwave popcorn, and the best of all, cadburry creme eggs!!!! Any weight I may have lost in the past 4 months was quickly regained as soon as I opened that package. When my students ask for some of my goodies, I don't even have to feel guilty when I don't give out any of it, because I just drop the line, "Tidak halal." That means, "you can't eat it because it doesn't meet the dietary laws of your religion." I knew halal would come in handy one day :)

In other news, Malaysia is the hottest place on the planet! I cannot being to describe to you all how bad my ring-around-the-collar is on all my dress shirts. The sweat rings on my pillow after a night of sleep resemble the image of Christ on the shroud of Turin. And my brand new white t-shirts all have intense deep urine yellow stains in the armpits. I cannot even ride my bike anywhere because my ass sweat is such a problem that I don't want to stand up in front of anyone!

I was playing around with my 2 and 3 year old host siblings the other day and I sweated so much I could pour drinks from my brow. It was sick. I noticed that my pants were so saturated that I had to back up against a wall because the ass sweat was so embarrassing. When I teach class my upper lip is constantly dripping with salty fluid and I can't even stand to move because my wet clothing brushes against my skin and the sensation just sucks. I didn't even know this was a possiblity, but EVERYONE here is sick because of the HEAT! I thought people only got sick in the cold, but I guess it doesn't matter what extreme it is, the body still breaks down. I thought I adapted to the heat, but apparently not. I have the onset of laringitis and I've had cold/fever symptoms for days. The heat is unbearable.

Teaching is going ok, I suppose. Before I was just assisting teachers, but now I am really a teacher. I used to teach every Form 1 and Form 2 class once a week. There are 11 classes in those 2 forms (grades). They each have English for 5 40 min periods a week and I would teach them for 2 of those periods a week. However, one of the teachers at school needs to have an operation so she has been gone from school for a few weeks now, with a few more months to go. I was asked if I wanted to teach her classes and I said yes. So now I teach 3 form 2 classes and 2 form 3 classes 5 times each every week. It is not easy!!!!! Especially the form 3 classes because they are so bad and dealing with the behavior problems usually takes up most of the class time. I'm so stressed out trying to think of fun and exciting lessons all the time. Ugh, teaching is such a challenge!

Alright, school was unsurprisingly cancelled for 2 days this week and I just found out, because that's the way they do it in Malaysia and I just don't ask questions anymore. So, now I'm trying to find out what I'm going to do for my surprise 4 day weekend... maybe go to another tropical island or maybe I'll go to KL and go wild. We'll see, I'll let everyone know with pictures later on. Take care!