My relaxing weekend

On Friday my homestay mom, Heather, picked Kelli and me up from campus and took us to the mall. We had a wonderful lunch at an upscale cafe--I had a chicken cesear salad and an orange juice and spent $27.... yeah. But it was delicious. We spent the majority of our time just wandering around the mall. I passed a book store and The Great Gatsby caught my eye. Only $4 so I bought it. (Took me a couple days but it was quite interesting. I am intrigued to see how they did the movie.) On Thursday Heather introduced us to a British sitcom called The Inbetweeners. It is crude and hilarious and we finished the first season in one sitting. While we were at the mall we decided to pick up the second season. We have started watching it and I tell you--the things those boys get in to!! Sometimes I don't want to look but I'm so shocked that I can't look away. Saturday was wonderfully relaxing. We had plans to get down to Brisbane and explore South Bank and see the markets... but it rained all day. In the late afternoon Heather and Kevin were looking up fun things for us to do and they found..... KARAOKE!! I was so excited. I love karaoke.

Kelli and I tried our best to contact all the girls and some of our new QUT friends to join us. A lot of people showed up and nearly everyone sang! We spent a good five hours talking and laughing and singing songs. When it was time to go we all went up on stage and sang Sir mix-a-lot. I don't think anyone in that bar had ever heard the song before because they were laughing and gawking at us. It was one heck of a time though. We went straight to bed when we got home because we had plans for a barbecue and some beach time the next day... If it wasn't raining.

Thankfully the skies were blue and the air was warm when I woke up Sunday morning because I needed some good time in the sun. We met all of the other girls and families at the barbecue around 11:00. People were already setting out blankets and some of the guys were cooking the meat. It smelled delicious! I talked with a lot of students from the QUT campus who had decided to join us and they still can't get over our accents. Haha. At one point some of the young boys wanted to play duck, duck, "goose" (gray duck!) and I decided to join in. Bad idea. I was not wearing shoes and those boys were quick! I took a turn around a chair and ninja rolled onto my back then instantly got back up and started running. I wish I had it on video. Unfortunately it did scrape my back and legs and also gave me a couple bruises. We left the barbecue a little early and moved down the beach to a more open area. It was a beautiful sight.

 We even had some friendly visitors while we were relaxing! These little hermit crabs were everywhere. No matter where I moved I couldn't avoid laying my towel over their holes. They kept trying to get out and I could feel them under me. It was interesting!

I am glad I was able to go swimming because the water was wonderful! And it didn't burn! Every other time I have been in the ocean my skin has burned; but not this time. It was warm and I really enjoyed the waves. Except when the water got in my mouth. That truly is a horrible taste.

And that was my wonderfully relaxing weekend! I can't wait to meet my teacher and all of the students! Till next time!

The Zoo!!!

I am so excited to pet a kangaroo and a koala! When they first told us about going to the zoo I didn't know how hands on it was and wasn't that excited to go. After all the stories I couldn't wait! We met at the station about 8:00 and took the 35 min bus ride to the zoo! It wasn't a horrible morning. It was warm but the clouds were all over the sky; rain was in the forecast. The first thing we did was take pictures in front of some signs!

We all attempted to mirror Steve's action shot... this was the best one ;) I was a bit unaware. As you can see we are all in our tshirts and the sun is shining! It didn't last very long. As we walked into the zoo we met an array of interesting animals. The first was a cockatoo, then a shingelback, and then a koala :) I was a bit nervous meeting the koala.

We saw so many interesting animals! I have always loved the zoo and this one is going to be hard to beat. I have never been able to interact with the animals before and if there was a time you missed seeing any of the animals chances were you would bump in to them walking around the zoo with their keepers. I loved petting the kangaroos and feeding the elephants! The kangaroos were in their own special area and they were free to roam around and do what they pleased. They were all so tame. It was a bit intimidating meeting them. I was sure one would come over to me and give me a good kick. I don't know for sure how many kangaroos there were, but it was a lot. In the same area they also had wallabies! They look like small kangaroos :) After we spent time with the kangaroos we headed for the elephants and walked through the koala area to get there. They weren't behind glass in their own exhibit - all of the koalas were hanging out in the trees that we walked past. They had one special area for us to take pictures with them. It was amazing!

After we fed the elephants we made our way to the crocaseum. I have no idea if I spelled that correctly.. but it is where we went to see the crocodile show! We arrived a couple minutes early so we decided to lather up on SPF and eat our lunches... we were about two bites in when it started to down pour. We had very good seats up front in the open so we had to decide on giving them up and moving into the dry area or dealing with the rain... we stayed. Our guide was across the arena watching us and said it was the funniest thing watching all of the Americans trying to put on blue ponchos as fast as they could. Thankfully the rain did not last that long, but we kept on the classy blue ponchos just to be safe. The show started with a beautiful introduction with birds (and a short skit about a drunken buffoon trying to wrangle a poisonous snake and getting bitten and dying. In other words we shouldn't try and wrangle snakes if we find them). Then came the crocs!! I was very uneasy watching the guys irritate the crocodile.. they got very close at times. All in al it was a fantastic show!

 The afternoon was spent in the gift shops, eating, and trying to avoid the down-pouring of rain. It was a long and tiring day but I was thrilled to have been able to see so many wonderful animals! Before we left the zoo we were able to visit the zoo hospital. There was a specific area for visitors to view into the holding and operating rooms. There weren't any operations going on while we were there but there were two adorable koalas recovering. One poor guy had been attacked by a couple dogs and was brought in. The other was hit by a car and had fractured his neck. The koalas are everywhere in Australia and they are injured all the time. Thankfully they have the Zoo hospital which is run on donations :)

I apologize to those of you who are reading my blog and wanting pictures. I have uploaded some in this blog, but the majority of my pictures I have uploaded to my facebook account. I will start adding some pictures as I go! :) Thank you to all who have been reading. I hope I'm not too much of a bore. I would have more beach stories if it would just stop raining. I'm afraid it's going to flood!

Joining QUT Classes

Today (Wednesday) was more of a free day. We met on campus and were immediately greeted by some lovely volunteers giving away free loaves of bread! It was wonderful. Apparently the campus has biweekly donations from local business that they give away to students. I was surprised at the lack of a line! You could just walk right up and grab something. We spent the morning avoiding the rain and searching the web for the Australian curriculum. It isn't too different from the American curriculum. I was able to find the year one standards that I will have to be teaching next week. I can't wait to find out what the students already know. We were given about three hours to do this and many of us finished in 30 min... so the rest of the morning was spent chatting with friends and updating blogs. It was the afternoon where we had most of our fun!

We were given the opportunity to sit in on a technology class and a science class. If these would have been lectures I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. Being as it were, the students were all giving presentations :) We learned about legobotics and how they teach kids without them really knowing that they are learning. It is something I would love to become more comfortable with and see if I could incorporate it into elementary classrooms. From the presentation it seemed that it would benefit upper middle school and high school the most. We were also informed about how we can utilize facebook and pinterest for our classrooms. I have already found the immense benefits of pinterest when it comes to education. There are so many wonderful and creative activities to build understanding as well as ideas on how to organize your classroom. As an elementary education major I would not use facebook in my classroom because students should not have accounts at that age.

Flat Stanley and me on QUT Campus :)

Science was my favorite class. We sat in on two presentations that the students had put together. We were a certain grade level and the presenters were our teachers and taught us a lesson. Both of the lessons were very fun and hands on. The first lesson involved using balloons, straw, and string and creating balloon rockets. The second lesson focused on beach erosion. We learned why it happens and then in small groups we were given a specific tool and we had to figure out how to slow down or stop the erosion, Our group had sand and using latex gloves we created sandbags. It was brilliant. We all had a grand time :) We all definitely enjoyed the science teacher as well. Her name is Jenny and she will be escorting us to the Zoo tomorrow!

After our homestay families picked us up it was an easy night. I love dinner time because our homestay dad, Kevin, is an experimental chef. Everything he makes is pretty much just thrown together and he rarely writes down the recipe. It is also a time where we all talk about our day and just about everything else. I have never experienced a dinner like this before. I love how close we are all getting because of it. We keep having to re-discuss our plans for the weekend because the rain is not letting up. I have to say my vision of beaches and sunshine is not playing out as well as I hoped. I am still going to be a pasty white Minnesotan when I get back home :( I hope it is beautiful at the Zoo tomorrow!

Caboolture Campus

I want to start by saying I cannot believe I forgot to mention my roommate! Her name is Kelli and she is pretty awesome. I was completely unaware that I would be having a "sister" during my stay but it has been amazing. She is very outgoing and we get along very well. She is working on her birth-grade 3 license and is from Kansas.

Now on to our first day of orientation (Monday) which was very eventful. One of the highlights was having to learn how to write in Australian. We were given whiteboards and markers and practiced writing the alphabet. The letters all look the same (except the lowercase k and the uppercase G) but instead of being rounded like we write our letters in the US they are more jagged. It was a hoot and I realized that I can write in Australian much better with my left hand. (Also, many of their words do not have z's instead there are s's. Realize = realise. and their z is pronounced zed when talked about in isolation. So pizza is spelled p-i-zed-zed-a... it's the little things!)

Flat Lincoln and I learning about the Australian schools and all of their abbreviations.

The second highlight of the day was when we were able to sit in on a first year assessments class. It was exactly like the assessment course I took in the states. The great part was the girls sitting in front of us kept slightly turning their heads and giggling. We had no idea what they were doing until after we were introduced to the class as "American visitors". They turned around and told us we had the--I'm not kidding here--coolest accents!! I about died. I said no, our accents are pretty lame. You all have the cool accents. It made my day. The last highlight will be more exciting for my teacher friends... but we were given two strategies to help us teach in the classroom. One strategy was the Six Hats. Each hat is a different color and represents a different way to look at a situation in order to analyze it. For instance the white hat has you look at the obvious facts about the situation. The other strategy is called the Thinker's Keys and has 20 ways to get students thinking about situations differently. For instance, you start the class off by giving them an answer to something and the students have to come up with five questions that would make sense with the answer.

So far I have only seen the college side of the educational system and have had a peek into what the elementary system is like. I noticed that the classes we sat in on were darn near mirror to the ones I had sat through in the states. They teach the same theorists and strategies which makes it a lot easier to transition into their schools. Many of the classes were giving presentations and it was easy to see that they were all student centered and hands on. Even being an adult I was very engaged with the lessons they were teaching us as ‘year five students’. With all of these it is easy to see that they value each individual’s learning needs instead of a uniform way of teaching all students.

What I have seen and read so far about the elementary system plays off what we saw in the college classes. They are very student centered. There are many breaks throughout the day for students to play outside and have breaks from learning. The teachers also have ‘non-contact time’ away from the students. From my understanding this time comes in increments throughout the day and not just in one time chunk. This is time for the teachers to prepare their lessons.

I am looking forward to Monday when I get to meet the students. I have brought along a book from MN about the North Woods in order to help the students understand where I am from—and the fact that it is still snowing there, in April. I have not had the privilege to really work with such a young age and I am looking forward to the challenge; especially after our Australian handwriting lessons. I feel slightly nervous about teaching year one students when I write in a different dialect so to speak. I will discuss this with my teacher the first day and see if she would like me to attempt to write more like an Australian.

The campus itself was beautiful. A lot of outdoor spaces to hang out and relax and it was so GREEN.  still can't get over the green. Sources from MN say that there is snow in the forecast. Horrid. We will be able to explore more of the campus on Wednesday during our visit as well as sit in on some of the classes. I'm excited to see how they compare to back home!

Today (Tuesday) we took the tram to Brisbane and went shopping! I was very excited because I was able to talk to my family in the morning before I left :) I purchased lots of gifts for family and friends and also made quite a ridiculous purchase for myself. But it was worth it. It is a little coin purse, real leather, that I found at the UGG store. The design caught my eye. It has the map of Australia on it. I spent more than anyone should on a coin purse but it is beautiful. The fashion trends are very different from what we have in the states right now and I hope they don't make their way over. High wasted shorts that show half of your butt cheeks.... I'm pretty sure I would be picking wedgies all day. They do NOT look comfortable. By the end of the shopping I was so tired. The tram ride back went by fast - an hour both ways.

On our way to Brisbane!

A beautiful sculpture/mural above the shops in the main part of the mall.

The center of the strip had some restaurants and it was lined with shops.

Now I am just sitting here waiting for 6:00 because I have a date with my homestay family, my roommate, and maybe another girl from the program. We are going to see Host. It sounds pretty good :)  ADD IN: the movie was great! I loved all the actors. When we got to the movie theatre the gentleman selling us the tickets asked us where we would like to sit. I just looked at him. I have never been to a movie theatre that sells seats. What a wonderful idea! The employees can see how many seats they have left and where they are. An easy way to catch the kids sneaking in.

I promise I will upload pictures when I get back from the movie. Not like anyone will know.. It's 2:30am right now!:)

More orientation into the Australian curriculum tomorrow and then the Aussie Zoo on Thursday!

Arrival!

WOOOEEEE!! That was the longest flight of my life. HAHA. It started out great! Kirsten (my elementary education travel companion) and I got all checked in and ready to board the plane. As we were head into the plane to take us to Dallas I notice the pilot and think, "what a great opportunity for flat Stanley!" I asked the pilot if he would take a picture with flat Stanley, he said no. Instead, he let me sit in the cockpit while he took the picture of flat Stanley and me in the captains chair!! It was amazing! The layover in Dallas wasn't too bad. Kirsten and I just grabbed some BBQ and checked out the Dallas Cowboys store. I was able to access and Skype my Grandpa, so I know it works! Although, I am now 15 hours ahead of minnesota so be wary of the time when you call... please.

The flight to Dallas was only three hours. A cake walk. I had no idea that the flight down to Australia was going to be 16 hours. I'm glad I was able to sleep through most of it. Not the most comfortable sleep I've had but it was fine. I was able to watch Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, and Cloud Atlas the rest of the time. It went surprisingly fast! I had my shoes off during the flight and when I put them back on when we landed I realized my feet had swelled. What a weird experience! I was so excited when we landed! It was still dark (5:30am) and raining a little bit. But it was WARM! No snow :)

It was amazing how fast I started to notice little differences. I was looking for the restroom and they were all labeled "toilet" and when we were looking for the exits we noticed that they were all labeled "way out". Little subtleties.

Our guide picked us up from the airport and we were able to visit her home and freshen up; which was wonderful after the long flight. It was 7:00am and we weren't scheduled to meet our homestay families until 11:00 so our guide took us out to see a couple sites in Brisbane. We went up to a lookout and saw an amazing view of the entire city. It was breathtaking! The city was bustling and so GREEN! After that we went into the center of the city and watched the sailboats on the river. I could have sat there all day but we needed to get going to meet our families!! I need to add in that at this point I'm starting to sway from sleep deprivation.

As soon as I met my family I knew that it was going to be a wonderful stay! They are such welcoming and fun people! I have already heard so many stories of their childhood and how they met and got married!! And they are so accommodating! They bought lots of nummy gluten free foods for me. It was very kind. By the time we were ready to make dinner I was shaking! I took a short nap on the couch while it was being prepared and was apparently woken to have dinner--which I consumed and have no recollection of doing so.. But I feel much better today. Not so tired.

We have a full day of shopping in the city tomorrow and then the Australian Zoo on Thursday where I will be able to hold a koala and pet a kangaroo! I haven't figured out how to upload the pictures yet but as soon as I do I will get them up!!

7:20 in the morning your time Minnesota, but 10:20 here... time for bed!!

Preparing for departure.

I am about to depart on a life-changing journey. About five months ago I decided to apply for student teaching abroad. There were four destination choices but I was mainly interested in Costa Rica and Australia. After a very intense twenty minute interview and two weeks of constantly checking my email I was invited into the Australian Program. I immediately accepted and began my first obstacle--funding. Although very stressful and time consuming I utilized my resources and paid for the entire semester! I recently found out that I will be teaching in a first grade (year one) classroom for three weeks in Morayfield, Queensland. I  could not be more excited!

I am leaving for Brisbane in just a couple days. I have nearly everything packed and ready to go but I cannot shake the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that keeps telling me I FORGOT SOMETHING! It has been an experience all on it's own trying to pack for a month long trip since I am leaving 30 degree weather and lots of snow and arriving in sunny 80 degree beach weather! I keep throwing my long sleeve shirts aside while saying aloud, "You will not wear this. It is too warm." What a concept!

I have visited the Mall of America a couple times this week in search of wonderful gifts for my home-stay family and my cooperating teacher down in Australia. I am proud to say I have found a couple of good gifts! I am going to keep them on the down low for now. I will disclose their awesomeness after they have been presented. I wanted to find a gift that was somewhat original, directed towards the Minnesotan culture, and would be fun to keep around. I truly hope they enjoy them!

I have heard so many wonderful things about Australia from past students and the exchange students from the Caboolture Campus in Australia. I am looking forward to meeting many new people, experiencing a new culture, and teaching with a different curriculum.

I wanted to get started on this blog before I left, I will do my very best to update and add pictures as much as possible!

Oh I almost forgot! The classroom I just finished my first part of student teaching with in Bloomington, Minnesota has just started a Flat Stanly unit! So, for my first week in Australia I will be taking pictures and having adventures with Flat Lincoln (my mentor teacher's son)!! :)

Next time I post will be from the land down under!!