Intrams = Intramurals

One of the first things I learned about Easter College, specifically the high school, after I arrived was that each month of the school year has a theme which culminates at the end of the month with a celebration of that theme.  I arrived at the end of August to find out that it was Filipino language/culture month, and spent the first Monday of classes watching an assembly that was almost entirely done in Tagalog.

I've been in the Philippines now for over a month, as strange as that is to think about, and that means it's nearly the end of another month, with another theme's celebration.  For September, the theme was Intramurals, the sports and games.  Each grade has been organizing itself into a team that will compete against the other grade levels at various sports and activities, until at the end of the week we will award one class the ultimate winners.

Academic classes were canceled this week as we spent Monday and Tuesday finishing the preparations.  Starting Wednesday morning, the games begin with a cheering competition at an assembly, before teams begin to break down into individual players and smaller groups each going for a different sport or activity.  And I've been enlisted as a judge for some of the activities, including judging the cheer-leading and modern dance competitions that begin and end the week.

Wednesday:

 The intramurals started with a parade from the local Baptist Theological Seminary, a street up and over from Easter College's main entrance.  Theoretically, it was supposed to begin at 7:30, so I was in the faculty room at around 7 that morning, making sure I had things together before I walked over to the parade start point with Ma'am Kana, one of my co-teachers in CE classes.  Of course, I forgot to include Filipino Standard Time into my calculations, over and above the standard, "it's high school students, add 15 minutes to everything."   I think we started marching at around 8:15-8:30ish.  And yes, I mean we.  I hadn't been expecting to be a part of the parade, but as soon as it started I found myself roped in and walking with the high school principal, Ma'am May, and the school chaplain, Padie Alice.  I haven't been in marching band since before high school, when I first learned that a series of late nights is not a good idea for little Margarets who want to stay sane and not sick, but it really is amazing how much stays with you, even after 13 years has passed.  The second the drum and lyre team started playing, I was marching.  Knees up, toes pointed, back straight, arms flat to the side: the whole works of being in marching band.  If someone had handed me a flag there would have been drop spins to the beat the whole way back to the college.  As it was, I think I highly amused Ma'am May and Padie Alice.

When our march was over, we were in the gym at Easter college and the students had each processed to their section of the stands.  There were introductions, Ma'am May had a short speech about this year's theme (Greek Gods and Heros), and there was an intermission dance number performed by the college cheer/drill team.  Then the hardest part of my day began, I had to score everyone's banners and cheers! 

And the cheers.  Color me very impressed with the complexity of the routines and the level of organization.  These are grades with between 100 and 80 students, they've had about a week and a half to rehearse, and they were all impressive.  I was glad that I was one of three judges, as I would not have wanted the entire decision resting on my shoulders.  The eighth grade class won first place, which was incredibly fun to watch.  They realized as soon as we'd called the seniors for second place that they must have won, and there was this almighty shriek of glee from 100 voices all ringing out at once.  They'd had these shiny paper plate hats for their cheers, and just like at an American graduation, the second they realized it was over and they'd won that contest, those hats flew. 

After the cheers were all done and the winners announced, it was time for the actual games to begin.  It started with what the faculty called parlor games; most of them similar to the kinds of relay races and somewhat silly games that get played at school field days or family reunions.  Some were familiar, like the three-legged race or the straw-and-ring relay.  Others were more Filipino in origin, like Paper Fish race, where the students had to try moving a paper fish by waving/slapping a poster behind it.  On the whole, slapping the ground with the poster worked best, but even at their best the paper fishes tended to not move in straight lines.  A student might weave back and forth along their line several times before they got the fish to go the correct distance out and then back again.

At the same time as the parlor games were going on, other students were heading outside to try different games or activities.  There was tug-of-war, more straightforward races, and other games or adventures.

I spent most of the afternoon not actually watching the games.  A group of seventh graders decided they were going to get to know me outside of class, and that it was high time I started learning Tagalog.  I now have a list of several different random nouns, a few question words, and two adjectives that I need to memorize.  I can also now sing "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" in Tagalog, as long as I cheat and look at my vocab list beforehand.

Thursday

Thursday's games were more of the same.  The students were mostly done playing the parlor games, and a good chunk of the day was spent with more formal sports tournaments, like men's and women's basketball and volleyball.  I brought my knitting along to keep my hands busy as I watched, and that's probably what led to most of Thursday being spent with more of my seventh grade girls away from the sports activities.  You see, about four of them were absolutely fascinated with the whole concept of knitting, and with what I was doing with my project.  They were so fascinated that they asked me to teach them how.  Luckily, I brought plenty of needles and some extra cotton yarn along, though I hadn't planned on using them quite like this.

The afternoon was spent with my seventh graders in my little kitchen, teaching four girls how to knit themselves bracelets using the garter stitch.  It was also spent just relaxing and getting to know my students, and letting them get to know me as a person, instead of as the somewhat intimidating teacher who comes in to their Friday English-Speaking class to tell them that they are pronouncing words wrong.  I loved it, loved getting to relax and let them ask questions in their own time, about things they really wanted to know about me and where I came from. 

Friday

Friday was the last day of intramurals, which meant wrapping up the last few games, double-checking scores, and then one last hurrah of an assembly, with the modern dance competition as the last bit of earning points before they announced which grade level would win overall.

As with Thursday, I didn't end up watching much of the sports activities.  I sat with the seventh graders, this time braiding hair as much or more than knitting, and chatting with a few of the boys about books and history (their choice of topics, not that I was going to argue much about a chance to geek out on those subjects). 

The final ceremony started out with a laugh, as Sir Bastian, the school biology teacher, gave us his version of a modern dance routine.  It takes a brave, brave man to be that willing to go all out and embrace the ridiculousness, to bring us all into the joke that he was making, and he earned every single cheer and laugh he got in the process. 

After Sir Bastian relaxed all of us, it was time for the Modern Dance routines.  And I thought judging the cheering competition was bad.  The dancers were all incredible, and all very different.  Some were telling more of a story within the song, while others were just incredible uses of their bodies to convey a general emotion or theme.  I have no idea how I managed to objectively score any of it. 

The rest of the assembly was about announcing the winners from every game, and then announcing the overall winner.  The students enjoyed at least the last part, but for me the fun really had been more in the experience of the week, of letting myself relax and get to know the students without having to always be Teacher Margaret.  I think it was good for them as well to get to see me like that. 


More to come in later blog posts, as some very cool things have been happening with and around me this week, but I think this post was long enough just talking about Intramurals.