Two weeks is TOO much to write about!

So I tried to write about a week ago and then my browser froze up (for one of the first times since I got my mac) and I lost it all. No fun!

I am now in a new classroom with a teacher that has a LOT of the same personality traits as me which is nice. Her kids are fun, she's fun, and she even let me go out to lunch with her and some other teachers for her birthday last week! She makes me feel right at home and volunteered to take Chels, Laur, and I somewhere in a few weekends just for another adventure!

My last week in my first class went great.. the kids were SUPER sweet and we had a ton of fun. I had some trials and tribulations as well, but they ended up throwing me a party, which was cute. A few of the girls made me really sweet cards and there was cake and balloons and writing all over the boards and everything. They filled out evals for me and actually told me EVERYTHING I bulletpointed on my last entry. Go figure! I'm SPOT on with my reflecting, so that's good!

I've been reading some REALLY good books, but am officially run dry, so any recommendations would be gratefully accepted! I just finished Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns and then watched the movie of Kite Runner tonight... it was GREAT!

Last weekend (like, 9 days ago), we pretty much just bummed around town. Saturday I went for my 8 mile run and then Annabel's friend was in town, so she, Nisha, Chelsea, Laura, and I hopped in her car and drove to Eastbourne (across the bay... about 30 min) to get some CHEAP fish and chips wrapped in paper and ate it on the beach. It was so relaxing and wonderful. That night, Laura and I went to a movie (it was really bad... I slept through most of it) with John.

Sunday, Laura and I took an adventure to Lower Hutt to find this Mexican restaurant I found out about at the Food Show and had been salivating over ever since. After about half an hour of walking, we finally found it. It was REAL Mexican. Expensive, but real. Delish!

Last week absolutely flew by. I don't know how but all of a sudden it was over! I love my new sydicate, but I every so often walk past my old classroom to see my old kids and it just warms my heart. They're too sweet!

On Friday, we left class early so that we could catch the 2 PM ferry to the South Island. Chelsea's teacher drove us down there and I binge ate because I was so nervous about it. The last time I was on a ferry, I was with Morten in Denmark and I got so sick that I had to drink alcohol and mix it with Benadryl just to get myself to pass out so I wouldn't have to think about it. Well, as luck would have it, the Cook Strait is one of the rockiest and roughest water passages in the world since the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meet there. We sat at the front of the boat (my first mistake) and about 20 min into the ride I was feeling sick. I had to move myself to the back of the boat (even though I took two dramamine) and in between streams of consciousness, I saw people puking and smelled it as well. It was disgusting. And rough... to say the least. BUT, we finally got there and Margaret, a woman that my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Steve stayed with over two decades ago when THEY came to New Zealand, was waiting for us outside the gate.

More on this tomorrow... I'm getting tired!

First placement... CHECK!

Phew. Tomorrow stars a whole new adventure, a whole new placement, and the second half of my experience here in New Zealand. I just calculated it out.. and we just past the halfway mark of our trip. Time has been flying by and there were so many moments this week where I found myself thinking, "Wow... yeah.. I could live here. I could do this." What an awesome realization to have. Since the first couple weeks were so hard, it was hard to see myself here, but especially yesterday I had a glorified moment where I just couldn't see myself anywhere but here. But more on that later :)

My kids didn't really "excel" persay in the cross country. Our best runner decided to run slow in his race because he "wanted to get 100th place". What an achievement. Especially since he could have gotten somewhere in the top 20 if he had tried, haha. I yelled and cheered a LOT for my kids.. they did a really good job. I taught them the "bunny bunny" game while we were waiting for the group that was running to show up at the finish line. I took lots of pictures and some video as well and made a movie for my students out of it. It was super cute and I think that they really liked it.

On Tuesday, my kids TRASHED the room during morning tea and lunch, so I told them Wednesday morning that they were kicked out of the room for morning tea and lunch for the rest of the week. We talked about why, but they were still INCREDIBLY angry at me. Like, so angry that they couldn't wait until I was out of the classroom, haha.

Tuesday night I emailed my teacher just to let her know that it's not fair that the school put me in the position of "teacher" instead of "student teacher" for my kids. She wrote me back with some pointers of what I could have the kids do and all that, so that was really nice. Then she said she'd make sure that I had a reliever until she came back on Friday, just to give me feedback since it was my lead week anyway. During assembly on Wednesday morning, one of the teachers in our team pulled me aside and asked what she could do to help support me because she felt bad at it wasn't fair. I just told her I needed feedback, so she pulled the substitute that was there for my teacher that day out as well and asked her if she could do that. And she did! I actually didn't teach until Wednesday afternoon (because morning is Enrichment), but when I did, she asked me for something that she could watch for, which was really nice.

During Enrichment, I went to the primary school that Laura and Chelsea were at just to check it out. I observed our friend John's classroom and it was super funny. When he kids are sitting on the carpet, he makes them sit with their legs folded and their arms folded as well. SUPER ADOR. He taught a swimming lesson which was cute, too. He runs a tight ship, that's for sure. He was incredibly organized, however, and the kids knew what they were doing at any given time, which was really nice. Then I biked back to my school in the pouring rain, almost got hit by a car (biking on the other side of the road causes difficulties sometimes...) and got back to my classroom to find all of my students (who had been kicked out) hanging around inside. I got SOOOOO angry and kicked them all out (we had some whiners... but none of them actually came up to me to talk to me about it), so I finished their little cross country video in that time.

An incredible weekend in NZ...

This past week has just been a whirlwind of emotions. Things have been a little tough at my school because my teacher has been sick, so I pretty much taught most of last week on my own. It was good, it was bad, it was ugly, but all in all, I learned a lot from it. Most of all I learned:

• I have to be clearer with my instructions
• I can have fun and still be strict
• I have a long way to go, and that's the "beautiful" thing about teaching
• I won't be perfect right away (which is frustrating.... but I have to accept that)
• Kids are incredibly forgiving
• When I want to get mad at the kids for a good day, most of the time I realize that they were bad because of something that I did (or didn't) do.
• My supervisor is incredible because she has all kinds of good things to say!!

My supervisor came in on Thursday afternoon and everything went BEAUTIFULLY. I felt so comfortable and confident and had really planned a great afternoon. Friday didn't go as well, but all of the kids are working on computers and there just weren't enough computers to go around. It was stressful.

This past week I've been working on applying for my teaching

license. It's been a real pain in the butt because I have to get it notarized and then sent back to the UW. It wouldn't be a problem, but the US doesn't recognize notarization without authentication from the US Embassy. Which ALSO wouldn't be a problem, but the Wellington embassy (Wellington IS the capital by the way...) doesn't have the service I need... so I have to send it to the Auckland Embassy. What a pain in the butt!!!! So now it's going to cost a lot of money and unneeded hassle, but at least it's all figured out now.

Friday was Quiz Night at my school. Laura and Chelsea came, but it turns out that 6 people that had signed up didn't end up coming... so there was a small crowd of us.. maybe about 15? It was still TONS of fun and I had a blast. And it was all at the school (which, by the way, has a beer fridge that they use on Friday afternoons after school is over... LOVE it!) That evening, I was finally able to pinpoint why I was so sad here, even though I should be happy every moment of every day... and it's because there are so many BIG things happening back home (aka graduation, emails from my students back home, my sister's and cousin's graduations, my parents' new house getting built, etc...) that I had to miss and it was making me feel really lonely! I decided I needed to start filling the time with adventures, so that's what I did!!!

Saturday, I went for my 7.5 mile run. I thou

ght it was going to be super cold, so I took a hat and layered up (it was also supposed to rain). Turns out it was one of the nicest days we've had here, so I was sweating, dehydrated, and my muscles all tensed up big time. I was pretty miserable. So I took two days off (whoops!!) Ah, well.... my body isn't used to all this stress on it!!!! From here on in, everything but the BIG runs (still have 8, 9, and 10 mile runs left on my training schedule) should be a breeze because I'm FINALLY in shape. Let this be a lesson to me: DON'T STOP RUNNING. IT'S TOO HARD TO GET BACK INTO IT!!!

After the run I spent most of the day laying around doing nothing. I was in SUCH pain, lol. But later that night, our friend Nisha bought us tickets to SAVAGE (let me see your hips SWING!! yeah... he's a Kiwi!!!) vs. Scribe (also Kiwi) concert. It wasn't really my type of music, but beforehand, we went to Annabel's friend's house. I am such a dork and probably sounded like a complete idiot, but the second we walked into the house, from what I saw (and smelled), I felt like I was a character on That 70's Show (which was right at home since it took place in WI!) There was this huge circle of chairs, couches, and love seats in this huge open room with a table in the middle with people dressed like Eric from the show. haha. It was TOOOOO funny and we spent the night laughing at the things these guys said. They're good people, but I don't think I could ever live life day to day like t

hey do. Luckily, I have the choice not to live that way and, Lord willing, I won't have to be in a crunch for money or food in my life. Of course, they CHOSE to live that way, so it brought a little bit of comic relief to the situation, but now that I think about it, it was quite humbling. I'm really lucky...

The concert was LOUD and I was exhausted still, so I went home early (after some lovely BK, of course). I woke up Sunday morning and went to the Food Show 2010 at the stadium. It was incredible and

BEST of all, I got a picture with MasterChef New Zealand (he's a school teacher in the South Island at an Intermediate school who went on the show just to see how far he'd get and he won!!!) I was so star-struck and felt like such a dork, but HAD to get my picture with him and the runner up. It was UNREAL!!!

So I ate my face off for a good hour and a half and walked away spending way more money than I thought I would on stupid things like MAGICAL SHAMMYS (ooooooooo), but that's alright! I took the train to Johnsonville to meet up with Chels, Laura, and Annabel, and then we hopped in Annabel's car and drove up the west coast!

The weather yesterday wasn't so great, but we listened to some tunes and took some fabulous pictures of the Tasman Sea and the mountains on the west side of the country. I FINALLY saw sheep (I know.. how did I last this long without seeing any!?). We went to a beach for a bit, but it wasn't what I think a beach is... so it was a cool experience for me to have. It was covered in twigs, branches, black sand, bricks, tires, all KINDS of stuff. It was just really interesting. It almost made it feel more real.... there's some kind of beauty of a beach just being what it is... without any changes from us. (Well... I guess maybe the bricks and tires were from us...) We found a hostel and took a pretty long nap and then headed off to some delicious dinner (Just talking about all this food is making me feel sick! haha).

This morning we woke up, ate (surprise surprise!), went to a beach for a bit for some pics, then drove to an "outlet mall" (so... just a bunch of stores on the same strip of a street that all just happened to be outlet stores) where I got some running clothes and a headband... whoohoo!! I'm getting awfully excited for my next weekend adventure. The people we met this weekend were incredibly friendly and all wanted to hear our story and how we ended up here, which is so sweet. I feel so loved and important here and it makes me want to be a friendlier person back home! (However, I guess back home it's hard to tell who's vacationing and who's living.. here, our accent pretty much gives away that we're 'vacationers').

Today when I got home, I had so many awesome emails from an ex-boyfriend, some wonderful friends, and my cooperating teacher from the States (thank you, Susan!) and it just put me in the BEST mood. It's always nice to know that even though I've far away, I haven't been forgotten :)

Tomorrow starts my last week in this classroom. My teacher will be gone until Friday so I'll be taking "sole charge" most of the week. However, sole charge includes the cross country run tomorrow (which will most likely take all morning) and then the kids have technology in the afternoon, so I won't see them most of the day. Then Wednesday morning, they do Enrichment, so I'm going to go see Laura and Chelsea's classrooms, which will be fun! So I'll really only have Wednesday afternoon (where they're going to be doing artwork) and Thursday with my kids... but we'll figure out something for them to do! Then next week, it's on to a whole new teacher, a whole new group of kids, and a whole new experience.

Time goes by...

So every day when I get home, I think about writing in here, but then I prefer watching a few episodes of Scrubs so that I don't actually have to think. I've gotten pretty busy at school pretty quickly (which is good because I can't sit there and just watch anymore). I planned for and am teaching this whole week and next week I think. I'm getting observed on Thursday, so that'll be good. Things at school have been kind of nuts and all over the place and right now I'm just trying to keep my head above water. I'm struggling with a lot of things educationally-wise... like the fact that I want to have fun at school and make jokes and make sure my kids are having fun, but I also need them to do what they're supposed to be doing.

Last weekend we hung out in Wellington. I did a whole lot of nothing. While reflecting on it, I realize that that was probably the best thing I could have done. The weekend before that, Laura, Chelsea, and I went to wine country (this dinky little town, it was totally cute). We stayed at a little campground in a tiny little cabin and it was totally cute. We spent Saturday sleeping and then went to the town's movie theatre to see Nowhere Boy, which was good and fun. We loved the little town. Sunday, the weather was better, so we went biking through wine country and actually spent most of the day at an olive oil place. It was delllliiiccciooouusss.

Last night we went to a restaurant here in New Zealand called "Burger Wisconsin". Yeah... that's right. We were so stoked. Chelsea and I wore Wisconsin gear and everything. The food wasn't so good, however. To eat it, we went to the top of Mount Victoria and sang some songs in good company with some of our new friends here. It was so fun!

Yesterday at school, my teacher went home sick, so I got to teach all day. A lot about it was really good... I was pretty much thrown into the deep end, and I at least kept my head above water. It was really the best way to learn. I started out the day with one kid getting a wire stuck in his mouth. Like, REALLY stuck. So stuck that I had to get in there with a pliers to get it out. Meanwhile, he was crying because "we were never going to get it out" and he'd "be stuck like this forever!". The second I got it out, he started laughing and was all happy. And I was covered in his drool and blood. Yeah... as you may suspect I was NOT laughing. In fact, that's about the time that I brought out the dreaded behaviour (yeah, behaviour, haha) book. It was awesome. Mean Ms. Cram was on a rampage. But then the kids impressed me with their teamwork during fitness and during lunchtime rec where they won their nuke 'em ball game (kind of like volleyball but easier). But... once we got back into the classroom, it was rough. Maybe Mondays are always rough? It was quite the struggle. Ugh.

I'm hoping today will be better. The kids didn't get a whole lot done the whole afternoon yesterday, which upset me. We'll see how today goes....