Simply Life.: I feel like a Princess :)

April 4, 2011

Wow, over a week finished with student teaching already! I can hardly believe it! Time is just flying by, I feel like I am missing it, like where has it all gone? I watched the PROMO video for Pacific Challenge last night, and it made me really think about the trip… I mean, where has the time gone? I feel like it was just yesterday that I was leaving the Minneapolis airport, watching the snowfall, trembling because I was so nervous for my first flight… I was so thrilled to just be on an airplane, and look how far I have come now?! I can’t believe it! I have done so much since then, its hard to even comprehend how much I have done, and how many times I have impressed myself! Just amazing…

The student teaching is going really well! I have a wonderful class with 20 kids in it. They are all lovely! I am learning a lot from them, and they are learning a lot from me! It is so interesting to see the different cultures… Just the other day the students were doing “Maths” and they were working with counting… At home, we used counters that were little teddy bears… Here, they have Koalas. J It just made me smile! Today, the students began to learn a new song.. This new song is about how to greet someone (G’day Mate!) It is just brilliant, it is so unique to their culture, and I love it. It talks about Barbeques (which is grilling in my culture), Kangaroos, silly town names like Dee Why (which is right near me!) and Curl Curl (which is also right down the road!!). It is so fun to learn these things. They also use a program called Letter Land, which is how the Kindy’s are learning the letter names and sounds. This program has a character for each letter, and there are activities that the students get to do on the Smart Boards, packets for the children to work on, etc. The children know the characters of Letter Land like the children at home know the characters in SpongeBob! It is incredible!

With the end of my first full week of student teaching, I was ready for a relaxing weekend… To my surprise, it was the ULTIMATE relaxing experience!!! My host mom invited me to lunch in Sydney on Saturday… So I took the ferry over and met with her and her brother. We first went to The Rocks markets… It was quite the market!!! I guess it is sort of centered around tourists, which was why it was so fancy! It was lots of fun though!! At the market, they had a fashion show (runway and everything!!!) So we stopped for a while to watch… Then continued to move along… Finally it was time to grab some grub, and Julie led me to my new favorite hotel of all time!!! It is the Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney… Her room, that I was lucky enough to stay in, was on the 27^th floor… She took me to the club lounge, which was spectacular!!! It was located on the 31^st floor, overlooking the Sydney Harbour. I can’t even BEGIN to tell you how amazing it was to be there. I felt like a princess!! I absolutely loved it! The service was amazing, the seats were like recliners, and the view was astounding! J

After a wonderful night in the hotel, it was time for me to head back over to Freshwater.. The sun was shining brightly, which made for an absolutely perfect ferry ride.

With all of these experiences, I feel like the luckiest girl around! I have been so lucky to be able to be here and experience all of these things. I want to thank you all for your support! I wouldn’t be who I am today without you all, and if I wasn’t who I am now, I wouldn’t be here. I wish I could share this experience with everyone…

I love you all, and miss you!

Xoxo