Heaps of Fun

So they use the word ‘heaps’ a lot over here! I don’t really know if I properly informed you all of my host family but I have a most mom, Tracy, and her cute daughter, Monique. Today I was telling Monique I wanted her to help me practice my Australian accent and using Australian lingo and phrases. We talked about how I can use the word ‘heaps’ cause they use it very often here! Hopefully I’ll remember everything so I can bring it back to the states!

Today was a great day. I just love my teacher and the whole teaching staff at the school. Most of them are all married and have their own children but there is one girl that is 25 and she and I connected right away! Her name is Kerrie Anne and she lives in Kingsley (the same part of town as me). I think I spoke about her in yesterday’s post but I am just so thankful to have her close by. She said she can give me a ride to and from school which is so nice because otherwise I would have to take the bus. I think her and I will be great friends. Connie and I were able to be a little more productive in the classroom today. We are expecting about 26 students tomorrow and I am so excited to finally meet the kids! There are more boys than girls and they have some interesting names! Hopefully I’ll be able to learn their names quickly!

I’m sure I’ll have much more to talk about tomorrow, today was just a pretty low key day. As soon as I got home from school Monique and I went down the street to her best friend’s house (which is the same house that Catie from Bama is staying in). We got in the pool for a bit to cool down and then we went on a walk with the kids. Catie’s host family has 3 – Luke, Stephanie, and Briana. I’m so thankful to have all of them so close. When Catie and I were walking around the lake the kids were riding their bikes and we felt like moms with our children! Allison and Rachel, if you are reading this, it reminded me of this summer when we went “power walking” like the moms do! J

Happy Groundhog Day to everyone tomorrow! Im planning on talking to the children about it tomorrow as part of my introduction. Ill let you all know how it goes! When I asked my teacher if she knew about Groundhog Day or if it would be alright if I told the children what is, she didn’t even know what a ground hog was! As I am typing this, my spell check is automatically changing Groundhog Day to capital letters which means it recognizes it as a holiday or something! It’s going to be really neat for me to share stuff like this with the children and also to learn about their holidays that we don’t have!

Psalm 91:11-12

First Day of School!

My school is off the chain! Seriously, I feel so blessed to be at this wonderful primary school! Everyone is so kind and welcoming! My teacher’s name is Connie and she is great! She has been teaching for a long time (there is another teacher there who used to be one of Connie’s students!) She has just taken me under her wing and I know I am going to have a great experience at Greenwood. Today and tomorrow are teacher work days and the students come for their first day on Wednesday. I am a little bit worried about one thing though: they don’t use Fahrenheit, they don’t use pounds, they don’t use inches or miles. I know I can figure out the conversions but I’m a little nervous about having to teach math if I have to do a lesson on metric system or degrees or something like that. Also some of the words are spelled differently here. They don’t really use z’s as much as we do. They write things like organise, recognise, colour. Just typing those three words my spell check automatically changed them to the way that we normally spell them. I’m sure I will have more to say about that as the term progresses. Wish me luck that I won’t look too silly trying to figure it out in front of a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds!

When I got to school this morning I saw the principal right away which was good to see a familiar face. I went to the school last Friday to see if anyone was there and I was able to meet him and he showed me around and told me a little about the school. Anyway, he took me to my classroom to meet Connie. When I got to Connie’s there was a young teacher there (maybe only a year older than me) and her and I connected right away. She was Connie’s student teacher last year and ended up getting a job at the school this year. Her classroom is right across the hall teaching a year 3/4 split class. (She has mainly year 4’s but there are about 6 year 3’s which I think means they are pretty advanced for their age and can be in the same classroom as the 4^th grade) My class is just all year 3 and I think they are expecting about 25-30 students in our class. The school systems are a lot different than ours as far as zoning goes. Basically the principal told me that all of the children in the Greenwood area get first priority to go to Greenwood Primary but if he has room in the school he is not allowed to turn down anyone from another part of town that wants to come to that school.  

After school I went to run some errands with Tracy and Monique to get Monique’s school supplies for the year. The shopping centers here are SO clean! I can’t wait to go shopping soon because everything is so neat and orderly. Even though our malls are clean too, the ones here are just so much better! I don’t know what it is but everything here just seems so much nicer for some reason.  They have this little food place called Pretzels2Go it seems like it is similar to Auntie Annie’s but they have pizza pretzels. The pizza crust is shaped like a pretzel and it has cheese and pepperonis on it. I haven’t tried it yet but hopefully I can soon! Also after school today Catie came over (she is another COST student that lives 2 doors down from me) and we went on a walk around this beautiful lake in the neighborhood. It took us about an hour to walk all the way around it but it was very nice out and we hope to do that every day when we get home from school. We’ll see how long that lasts though J.

I want to thank you all for the comments and emails that you have been sending. I am so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends and I am continuously praying for all of you back home. Since I have been here I have realized how glad I am to be raised in a Christian home. If I didn’t know God, I would not be able to get through this right now. I am so thankful that I have Him to lean on and talk to throughout the day. The devotion that I read every morning seems to have the perfect thing for me to hear for that day. I just can’t express how happy it makes me feel that even though I feel sad that I can’t talk with all of you like I normally do, He is still with me and it is so comforting. I haven’t been to church here yet but Tracy said we are going to a Catholic Church in Freemantle this weekend with one of her best friends.

I hope to be able to Skype soon! The school has wireless and I think I’ll be able to bring my laptop in the morning and use it before school starts. I get to school every morning at 8 but school doesn’t start until 8:45. That will be about 6pm for you all. I will keep y’all posted on that so that I can schedule some Skype dates!

Thanks again for all your prayers, love and support! I love getting your emails and comments, keep ‘em coming!!

Genesis 28:15

I'm Here!

Hello Everyone!! I am so happy to finally have Internet up and running so that I can keep in contact with all of you! We are still trying to figure out the whole skype thing but hopefully I will be able to have many skype dates with y'all soon! I miss everyone so very much and I can't wait to see all of you when I come home on Easter weekend. Maybe I will see all of my pandas at the Alabama Theatre on Good Friday?!?!

Anyway, everything has been so great here so far. I have gotten homesick a little bit but now that I have been able to check my email and facebook, I feel a lot better. Tomorrow is my first day at school. It will be the start of a new school year here so I finally get to see what teachers do on the first day! I know my Cohort C girls are going to be jealous of that because we have no idea what to expect! But no worries, I will take good notes and let all of you know what we need to do with our own classrooms. I will be teaching year 3/4 split class with about 25-30 students I think. I went by the school on Friday and met with the principal. He gave me a tour and the campus is beautiful! I say campus because there are about 6 blocks (small buildings) that each of the classes are split up into. I will have to take some pictures to give y'all a better idea of what I am talking about. I'm sure I will have lots more to say about my school in later posts.

The weather is boiling hot! We had a cyclone (hurricane) last night which cooled us down for a bit with the rain but not too much. I have a nice fan at the foot of my bed that keeps me cool all night. I got to go for a swim today in the Indian Ocean! The weather was beautiful and it was nice being out and about. I went with my new friends Catie and Catherine (both from Bama) Collin (from Easter Illinois) and Erin (from Ohio) and my host sister, Monique.

I still have lots more to tell but we have limited amount of Internet and I don't want to hog it all. I will post something again tomorrow! Love to everyone! If you want to call me I do have a cell phone over here. I'm not sure how much it will cost you but I would love to hear from any of you if you want to text me or call me. The number is 0011 61 8 435 104 926. Daddy, maybe you can comment to make sure that is correct? I think it is but I'm not entirely sure. Also, send me emails!! I can use email and this more than facebook so I prob won't get to post as many pics as I wanted but we'll see.

Please let me know how things are going in the states, I love all of you and hope to hear from you soon. Thanks to all of you who have already reached out to me! I feel blessed to have all of you in my life!

Is this real life?

Hello all! I have been talking about this for quite some time but I have finally decided to go ahead and make my blog. I hope that this will be an easy way for everyone to keep up with me while I am in Perth, Australia! I was a little hesitant about making this because I don't feel like it is very personal, I would rather be able to email, write letters via snail mail, or skype but I guess this is a pretty efficient way to get the job done and I am all about efficiency! However, if you want to communicate with me through email or skype I would like that very much! 

It took me a while to figure out the title of my blog but I think it fits well with the purpose of having it. I have taken a recent liking to using idioms as much as I can and according to idiomsite.com "Variety is the Spice of Life means The more experiences you try the more exciting life can be". I have had some pretty cool experiences in my life already and I plan on having lots more! I hope all of you will try as many new things as you can especially if you are close to my age because, I mean, it's college, right?!

In case I haven't gotten a chance to tell you what my plan is, here you go:
Currently, I have moved back home and I am completing my first two weeks of student teaching at Vestavia Elementary West in Mrs. Hicks' 3rd grade classroom. Today was my first day and it was great! We have lots of connections because she knows lots of Lebanese people, and well, in case you don't know, I am Lebanese. Anyway, I will be there until January 14 and then I will take a few days to relax at home and spend time with the fam. Then I will head to Auburn for the ARI training which is held Jan 18-20. I plan on staying through the weekend to spend as much time with the Frumps, Cohort C, my sweet Pandas, 09 CC's, Breakfast Club gang, Cam Newton and the team and anyone else that I am forgetting. If you go to AU and are reading this you best make plans to see me while I am there! After I say my goodbyes to the AU fam, I will make the trek back to Birmingham to say goodbye to family and friends that are here and then I will head out on Tuesday the 25th! I will fly to Dallas then LA then Brisbane then Perth! Hopefully, I'll do lots of traveling on the weekends and see as much as I can while I am there! When I return to the states on April 21 I will pretty much just be getting ready to graduate and try to figure out what to do after I get my diploma on May 9th!

I can't make any promises, but I will try my best to keep this as updated as possible! Leave me comments so I know what's going on with all of you, too!

Shalom