Week 4 and 5 recap!

Wow...time is flying by...and I'm not writing! Sorry!

Ok so i'll try to give you some details....

Week 4

So I finally made it to Kings Park! I'd been wanting to hit that up and if you read my morning message to my kindergartners I have a sweet photo of me with the Perth Skyline behind me. Gorgeous! Prolly one of my favorite spots of been! Just like this huge park you can walk around in. I found out they have outdoor movies starting up this week which is a pretty popular thing to do now that summer is here!

I taught my second lesson on electricity to the 6/7th graders and it went really well! I had them make circuits with their bodies and they came up with some pretty interesting results...

I also taught a math lesson on division with remainders this week. I used "Fredo Frogs" which are the chocolate candy that ALL the kids love! They thought it was pretty much amazing...well...because it was.

Friday I went to the city opera and saw Handel's Messiah. It was beautiful and I got all dressed up. You've prolly heard the song "Hallelujah" from it...its pretty popular. Saturday the American girls did a thanksgiving dinner for our host families and teacher coordinator. It turned out really nice! I cooked cheesy potatoes from scratch! yeah for my first dish! We had turkey, pumpkin, and peacon pie, lots of stuffing, chicken, sweet potatoes...the works! Each girl took one of their family favorite recipes and cooked it up! Finding some of the ingredients was a little tricky, but all in all the audiences gave us 5 star ratings! It was nice to feel like a big family :) Check out those Cheesy Potatos!!!! Sunday I went to Fremantle with the girls...which everyone here calls Freo. It was quite exciting for me because I actually ran into a guy I knew on the train, and then another girl I had met at the New Moon premier while we were shopping in the markets. I felt like I was home, running into friends where ever I go. My family plays this game where if your in a location and spot someone you know you get a point. Since I'm at a disadvantage, I would get tripple points for anyone I ran into that I knew...so Sunday was a winning day for me! I really enjoyed Freo...there were street preformers (I saw a guy do a back flip through a flaming hula hoop off a ladder...wicked I know!) and we went to the prison! Very interesting to see the cells and set up with the tall walls and such. Random funny thing...so people here call cell phones "mobile phones", so when I asked a girl for her "cell number", she started laughing and the guy next to her was like, "what are we, in prison?" haha guess I never thought of how that could be funny...crazy huh?

Week 5!

This week was a blast! I got to teach an English lesson on the book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!" I taught my kids about synonyms and antonyms and had them write their own story about Alex but where he has a perfect, fantastic, fabulous, wonderful day. They had soo much fun with the story...especially because there is a reference where Alexander wants to move to Australia...so I thought that was quite witty of my to bring and read to them :)

Wednesday I taught dance again...we reviewed the cotton eye joe, cupid shuffle, something else, and taught them some of the classics such as shopping cart, sprinkler, making the pizza, wii remote, lawn mower...ya know...the good stuff. We did it all to the YMCA so you know it was quality. Check out us grooving to the cotton eye joe! (P.S. I just kind of figured out how to insert pictures recently so I'm going a little pic crazy)

Thursday was a great day...I went beach swimming with the 6/7th graders! Thats right...I went to the beach during school hours. Part of their curriuculum for 2 weeks is go swimming at the beach every morning! I know...way jello. Except apparently its pretty common to get stung by Jelly fish. I did not...which was good! That reminds me of another funny thing..."jelly" here is considered "jello". Their "jam" is like our jelly...so when people in America say they eat peanut butter and jelly...Aussi's think Ewwwww! cause they think its peanut butter and Jello! funny huh?

The Week END!!!
This was offically a weekend of no sleep. We had our class sleepover friday...which was amazing! It was like being a camp counselor...only better! I got to lead all the games...put a bit of Camp O'Malley style into Australia. We did fox tails, heads and tails tag, Princess/Jester, Dragon tail tag, and more! The kids thought it was so great I was running around and playing with them...quote "I've never seen a teacher go down a slide!" We had a talent show where I made an appearance preforming the popular Hanah Montana, "Hoe Down Thrown Down!" (cam would be so proud!) Four of the girls here had learned it and asked me to join....Heck Yes! I was also able to impart some of my newly aquired magic skills from the summer (yeah BW!) and pass those on to the youth of tomorrow. I taught them how to send a torch (which is what they call a flash light...BA, I know!) through a table! I was actually quite impressed with their presentation. They dressed up in top hats and capes, they even had a sweet "magic table" that they decorated and put together. We had a dance party to "So What" by Pink, and i gave out glow sticks...so pretty much it was a Rave. We watch "The flight before Christmas"....you can tell by the title it was Awesome. And we played this chocolate game where you have to dress up and eat chocolate everytime you roll a six, and then if someone else does they get to come in the middle and put on the dress up clothes and start cutting pieces of chocolate that they can then eat. It was WAY intense...lots of screaming going on.
Only downside of the night was some highschoolers decided to break in and vandalize...apparently thats the cool thing to do for teens here. I woke up at 2:30am after not going to sleep to around midnight to profanities and the sounds of windows being smashed. Now you may have thought I would be scared. Actually, my first thoughts were that a cricket game was going on....then when I finally came to I was ready to run outside and give those kids a run for their money...ya know, show em a few muscels...but then I was told I had to stay inside and let the police and security deal with it because the kids had cricket bats....oh...prolly not the safest thing. Didn't get back to sleep till 4:30am....BOO! The kids woke up at 5:30am and thought it completely necessary to all come and jump on top of me...not a lie. So no sleep that night....but it was still good, and the kids didn't wake up/know about the vandel thing so it was all good.


Saturday Night I got to go out with a REALLY cute Aussi boy...my teacher set me up. haha. He had a sweet black truck which they call a "ute" here. (pronounced..."youte") He was real cool and introduced me to a bunch of his friends. We went over to "his mates" house for drinks (still think that phrase is hilarious!) and he lived right on the water with a balcony overlooking the Ocean. I had my first experience of playing Pool with Aussi rules. So get this...they don't call the balls "solids and stripes" like they should be called, they call 'em "Bigs, and Smalls", because apparently all the solids have small numbers, and the stripes have big. They have some other crazy rules that i wont get into. So they we went out on the town and they took me to a place called "Gold Bar" in Subi, and Connections in North Bridge. Another thing I learned...a Hookah there is called a "Shu Shing"....some of the guys got one of those at Gold Bar. These clubs were seriously like movie type clubs...way hot! It is just soo crazy to me how dressed up people get here! Seriously, every girl you see is in a dress, hair all did, and crazy high heels. But this time i was prepared...wore a new dress I bought here so you know I was looking good :) Kids here stay out till like 5/6 in the morning though....luckily they brought me home by 4am...but it was a crazy night!

Sunday:
I finally got to a church! I had to wake up at 6am though...so really...no sleep. It was small...like 35 people but kinda like a rock concert. The band was jamming and the paster was jumping up and down during songs. It was pretty ridiculous. It was funny though cause I didn't know what to expect...last minute connection through my families son's girlfriends brother who is in the band there...but they meet in a school building...and the church I go to in Grand Rapids meets in a school building...so that was kinda funny. I helped them set things up and got to hangout and meet most of the people before hand. It was really good...like a big family. First time I've gotten to church since I've been here....my previous rides kept falling through! But definitely worth it!

Arvo (afternoon)
I went to this place called the "Garden". Its a hip new place for "Sunday Sessions", which is basicially what most Aussi's do on Sunday...they go somewhere and have drinks all afternoon. I went to Leederville and met up with some teachers from my school. While I waited for them I was at a coffee shop and guess what I found? A PAC MAN MACHINE!!! So instantly I was playing. I found a nice pair of guys playing pool nearby to take my photo. Struck up some convo with them and found out the one guy had been to NY! small world! P.S. that reminds me...I met a girl from Midland, MI earlier this week when I went shopping down at Hilary's Harbor! (real small world) But yeah, the Garden was sweet...all outdoors, trees, a cool balcony we sat up on and talked and hung out. I just love how everything is so outdoorsy here! I did end up crashing when I got home....7pm I was out! Woke up at 7am the next day so I'm doing well now! Time to sleep though again....prolly my last blog till after my trip up North....Love you all thanks for keeping up with my crazy adventures....

Two More Weeks Till I See Your Lovely Faces!!!

Ray Ray