Wow, I am so tired of being under the weather! I am so not used to this and I'm not a good sickie! :-)Besides having a stuffed nose, I now have back pains and stomach pains. I've been having trouble sleeping as well with the back pain. It makes me very appreciative of the normally good health I enjoy and I have told myself that I need to be more thankful for good health (when I get better). Yesterday, I rested in the morning and then headed over to a friend's house to help her clean her house as she is moving to Melbourne to get married. Two other friends met us there, so it didn't take us too long to get the house mostly in order. I was quite worn out by the time I got back from the cleaning, and so I spent the evening relaxing in my chair watching a movie we had rented from the library.
Dad spent the day doing census stuff again. He had to read through his training information so that he could make sure he was ready to do the training of his collectors which will take place a week Friday. He's getting a bit anxious at how much he has to do in the time he has to do it in, but I keep telling him that things will be fine - he works hard and wants to make sure that he has all his i's dotted and t's crossed.
Today, I had a six hour meeting with Chantelle at our house. She came over so that we could plan out our term three. It will be ten weeks long - doesn't sound too long, so I am sure I will be counting down the weeks as we go along. :-) We were able to do a rough plan of our literacy units, math units and theme units. We came up with a lot of ideas together and I think we have a good plan set out. We still have to make it a bit more specific in some areas, but it's a place to start. We won't start this plan until the second week for the most part. The kids don't start until the Tuesday and we will need time to get things photocopied, etc. I also want to buy some baskets like I used to have in Canada. Because I want to do centres (they call them 'rotations' here), I will need a basket for each group which means 15 boxes: 5 for language, 5 for math and 5 for the theme. It was actually a little bit exciting doing all the planning and I hope that things will pick up in the classroom and be a more positive experience.
Dad spent his day mostly out of the house - he has to contact people at about 12 establishments who he will train to be census collectors at these establishments. The reason Dad's collectors won't be doing this at these places is because people come and go often from these places - they are short-term accomodation like hotels, backpacker resorts, etc. He also has a nursing home in his area which has to be done by the people hired at the nursing home due to privacy issues. Dad was able to visit four of these places today and will be trying to get out and see the rest some time this week.
We had the missionaries over for dinner tonight - even though I wasn't feeling well (they had a delicious honey/mustard chicken meal and I ate mashed potatoes with ketchup and chicken noodle soup), we did manage to get in two games of cribbage. :-) We spent the rest of the evening watching tv - boy, our lives are getting pretty boring, eh? :-)
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Boy, am I ever glad that I am on holidays! The next two weeks will be heaven! :-) Friday was our last day for two weeks and one day to be exact - the teachers go back one day before the kids do. The students weren't too bad on Friday, although James, who is a little different (we think he might have some form of autism), was really 'off' on that day. He tends to want to do things when he wants to do things and doesn't like to be told what to do when if he is not ready to do it. I finally had had enough of his behaviour and so I took three stars off him and he missed his playtime at first break. He was fine the rest of the day. I can see that I am going to have to be much firmer with him once we get back from holidays and that goes for the rest of those 'challenge' children as well.
The 'stars' thing is a classroom management tool which the previous teacher had started. Each day every child starts with three stars beside their name on a chart and every time they do something they are not supposed to do, they have to take a star off the chart. If they lose three stars, they have to miss their recess time. I was talking with my TA, Sam, the other day and told her that I wanted to do something to show those who make good choices that I appreciate them. So, when we get back, I am going to have another chart in the classroom. If a child does not get any stars taken off them by the end of the day, I will let them give themselves a stamp on the chart and when they get so many stamps, I will give them a sticker. I am not really a sticker kind of teacher, but I want to do something for those who always do what they should be doing.
Dad spent the day doing census stuff again. He finished sorting census forms into the seven areas, he read what he had to do to train his collectors and got the stuff together which he will need to use during the training of his collectors. He also unpacked one of our boxes which had the computer tower in it - he wanted to get this done so that he could finally have access to some files which he needed and also to be able to connect the printer to the tower so that he doesn't have to take his laptop into the office every time he wants to print something.
We had take-out Friday night as neither Dad nor I wanted to cook dinner - we just had hamburgers and fries from the local convenience store. We then flopped into our chairs and watched tv for the evening. There's not much on on Friday nights until 10pm when 'Law and Order' comes on, but even though that's one of my favourite shows, I was so tired by about 10:30pm, that I told Dad I was taking myself off to bed.
Yesterday was one lazy day for me - I told myself that I wouldn't do anything school-related yesterday and I didn't. :-) I watched some tv and took a bath and read my book. I was reading a book called 'Midwives' about a midwife who was taken to court when she cut open a woman who she thought was dead so that she could save the baby (the pregnant woman had no pulse). I got about half way through the book and although it was an interesting story, I just found that it went on too long - so I turned to the end of the book to find out how the story ends. Then, I started ready my new book 'Caleb's Crossing' which is based on the life of the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College (in Martha's Vineyard in 1665). The book was on a few book club lists, so I am hoping it will be a good read.
Dad went to a census area supervisors' training meeting yesterday from 9am - 3pm. The district manager had to make sure that all of the supervisors knew everything which their collectors have to do. For instance, they discussed how to do the census with people who are on boats in a waterway or those who are in hospital on census day, etc. They were provided with lunch which was buns, cold cuts, cheese, salad (tomatoes, lettuce) and juice which was nice. Dad found that the training was good as there were a few things which were confusing to the supervisors and some of the supervisors were unsure of what to do in certain situations (like what to do if you run into a homeless person).
I woke up with a cold today, but went to church anyway. It was interesting how things turned out. Our Sacrament meeting was on the Holy Ghost, my Sharing Time lesson was on the Holy Ghost and Dad's High Priest group lesson was on the Holy Ghost - I thought that was cool that we were all be teaching or talking on the same subject. :-) When we got home from church, I had something to eat and went straight to bed for a nice, long nap. Dad Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa while I was napping. They are still at the campsite in the interior of BC and loving it. They will be heading back to Surrey this Thursday. Believe it or not, their month of vacation is up. There is no change in Grandpa's health which is good news, I think.
Tonight, we watched the movie 'Lean On Me' - I have seen it before, but I saw it when I was at the library picking up a book I had on hold and picked it up, too. I was just in the mood for a feel-good movie and this is one of them. It's basically the story of how a school principal came into a high school which had gone to the dogs (drugs, etc) and only 33% of the students were passing the basic literacy test. He sent all the druggies, etc, away and within a year 75% of the students could pass the literacy test. It's based on a true story of a school in California in the mid 80s. I really enjoyed it and so did Dad.
The 'stars' thing is a classroom management tool which the previous teacher had started. Each day every child starts with three stars beside their name on a chart and every time they do something they are not supposed to do, they have to take a star off the chart. If they lose three stars, they have to miss their recess time. I was talking with my TA, Sam, the other day and told her that I wanted to do something to show those who make good choices that I appreciate them. So, when we get back, I am going to have another chart in the classroom. If a child does not get any stars taken off them by the end of the day, I will let them give themselves a stamp on the chart and when they get so many stamps, I will give them a sticker. I am not really a sticker kind of teacher, but I want to do something for those who always do what they should be doing.
Dad spent the day doing census stuff again. He finished sorting census forms into the seven areas, he read what he had to do to train his collectors and got the stuff together which he will need to use during the training of his collectors. He also unpacked one of our boxes which had the computer tower in it - he wanted to get this done so that he could finally have access to some files which he needed and also to be able to connect the printer to the tower so that he doesn't have to take his laptop into the office every time he wants to print something.
We had take-out Friday night as neither Dad nor I wanted to cook dinner - we just had hamburgers and fries from the local convenience store. We then flopped into our chairs and watched tv for the evening. There's not much on on Friday nights until 10pm when 'Law and Order' comes on, but even though that's one of my favourite shows, I was so tired by about 10:30pm, that I told Dad I was taking myself off to bed.
Yesterday was one lazy day for me - I told myself that I wouldn't do anything school-related yesterday and I didn't. :-) I watched some tv and took a bath and read my book. I was reading a book called 'Midwives' about a midwife who was taken to court when she cut open a woman who she thought was dead so that she could save the baby (the pregnant woman had no pulse). I got about half way through the book and although it was an interesting story, I just found that it went on too long - so I turned to the end of the book to find out how the story ends. Then, I started ready my new book 'Caleb's Crossing' which is based on the life of the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College (in Martha's Vineyard in 1665). The book was on a few book club lists, so I am hoping it will be a good read.
Dad went to a census area supervisors' training meeting yesterday from 9am - 3pm. The district manager had to make sure that all of the supervisors knew everything which their collectors have to do. For instance, they discussed how to do the census with people who are on boats in a waterway or those who are in hospital on census day, etc. They were provided with lunch which was buns, cold cuts, cheese, salad (tomatoes, lettuce) and juice which was nice. Dad found that the training was good as there were a few things which were confusing to the supervisors and some of the supervisors were unsure of what to do in certain situations (like what to do if you run into a homeless person).
I woke up with a cold today, but went to church anyway. It was interesting how things turned out. Our Sacrament meeting was on the Holy Ghost, my Sharing Time lesson was on the Holy Ghost and Dad's High Priest group lesson was on the Holy Ghost - I thought that was cool that we were all be teaching or talking on the same subject. :-) When we got home from church, I had something to eat and went straight to bed for a nice, long nap. Dad Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa while I was napping. They are still at the campsite in the interior of BC and loving it. They will be heading back to Surrey this Thursday. Believe it or not, their month of vacation is up. There is no change in Grandpa's health which is good news, I think.
Tonight, we watched the movie 'Lean On Me' - I have seen it before, but I saw it when I was at the library picking up a book I had on hold and picked it up, too. I was just in the mood for a feel-good movie and this is one of them. It's basically the story of how a school principal came into a high school which had gone to the dogs (drugs, etc) and only 33% of the students were passing the basic literacy test. He sent all the druggies, etc, away and within a year 75% of the students could pass the literacy test. It's based on a true story of a school in California in the mid 80s. I really enjoyed it and so did Dad.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
It’s so hard to know what to expect each day at school these days. My challenge girl, Mia, was 'off' yesterday - as in she got in big trouble and I have to remember to write up what she did. First of all, she got into trouble at lunch and then, on our way back, she was going to come through Chantelle’s room to open my door from the inside. Summer W. had asked me if she could do it and I said ‘yes’. When Mia was told by Chantelle that it was Summer’s turn, Mia flipped out and ‘ran away’. I could see where she was and asked one of the TAs to watch my class while I went out and talked with her. She finally came inside, but it was so frustrating. She is an aboriginal girl and so, after school, I spoke with a teacher who works with the aboriginal children at the school and told her that, after the break, I would like to speak with her about ways I could possibly work with Mia and her immaturity. Today, both Bailee and Mia were away and I thought it would be an easy day - WRONG! The kids are so ‘off’ and not just mine - the other teachers are feeling the same thing about their kids. They tell me that this happens because it’s the end of the term. I am hopeful that after their two week break, things will get better.
I felt bad for Chantelle today - a parent whose child cannot handle being outside (too aggressive) had spoken to Chantelle last week and had agreed to the different strategies they were using with their son inside and outside of the classroom. However, earlier this week, the parent became frosty and asked for a meeting with a variety of people re: her son. After school today, both parents, Chantelle, and two behaviour specialists met and the mother ‘went off’ and said that she didn’t want any special treatment for her son because she didn’t want him centred out. Once the interview was over, the mother asked to speak privately with Chantelle. She asked Chantelle if she could remember what she said to Billy when the mom took him out of school early for an appointment one day. When Chantelle said ’no’, the mother said that Chantelle had said “well, maybe at the appointment, you (Billy) will find a brain”. When Chantelle told Pam and I this, our mouths dropped open - Chantelle is the sweetest person. I told Pam later (when Chantelle wasn’t there) that I wish it had been one of us who the Mom had taken on - we are both seasoned teachers and older as well and have thicker skins. Poor Chantelle, who is young (23) and in her first year of teaching just teared up as she told us about the meeting. I told her that things would get better as she gained more experience. I also told her that I would be in her classroom tomorrow morning when the parents brought Billy in in case there were any issues. She was appreciative of my offer. Each of the past two days, I just came home and flopped onto my chair and sat there for the night.
Dad has been back at it these past two days - he thinks that the next six weeks will be full-on for him re: the census. He has so much preparation to do - not only with getting ready for his meeting with his collectors, but also trying to connect with the people in the public places where people pay to stay (eg: nursing home, caravan park, hotel, etc.). Someone in those places (someone in charge) has to give out the census forms to people staying there on census night. Dad has to train these people so that they know how to do what they need to do on census day. Dad also did ‘Meals on Wheels’ today - a new guy has started and they have paired him with Dad and Dad says that this guy is really good and they get through the route really quickly. Dad spent some time at the Family History Centre last night with Bill, the first counsellor in the Bishopric - once Bill got to putting in some of his family names into the program, he caught ‘the bug’ and he and Dad spent a couple of hours doing genealogy. Dad gets really excited when people ‘catch the bug’ as it is likely that these people will continue to come back and use the genealogy library. Tonight, at SES, they did another search exercise - they were “looking” for a little girl or signs of a little girl in the area they were searching. They found a rather large rag doll which was the only thing which had been hidden. Once they found the doll, the team stopped to talk about what they would do if they were really in this situation and, as it turned out, they decided that they would send a female in to talk with the little girl as little girls tend to feel more comfortable talking to a woman. Dad was a team leader and he is beginning to feel more comfortable being a leader in these practices.
I felt bad for Chantelle today - a parent whose child cannot handle being outside (too aggressive) had spoken to Chantelle last week and had agreed to the different strategies they were using with their son inside and outside of the classroom. However, earlier this week, the parent became frosty and asked for a meeting with a variety of people re: her son. After school today, both parents, Chantelle, and two behaviour specialists met and the mother ‘went off’ and said that she didn’t want any special treatment for her son because she didn’t want him centred out. Once the interview was over, the mother asked to speak privately with Chantelle. She asked Chantelle if she could remember what she said to Billy when the mom took him out of school early for an appointment one day. When Chantelle said ’no’, the mother said that Chantelle had said “well, maybe at the appointment, you (Billy) will find a brain”. When Chantelle told Pam and I this, our mouths dropped open - Chantelle is the sweetest person. I told Pam later (when Chantelle wasn’t there) that I wish it had been one of us who the Mom had taken on - we are both seasoned teachers and older as well and have thicker skins. Poor Chantelle, who is young (23) and in her first year of teaching just teared up as she told us about the meeting. I told her that things would get better as she gained more experience. I also told her that I would be in her classroom tomorrow morning when the parents brought Billy in in case there were any issues. She was appreciative of my offer. Each of the past two days, I just came home and flopped onto my chair and sat there for the night.
Dad has been back at it these past two days - he thinks that the next six weeks will be full-on for him re: the census. He has so much preparation to do - not only with getting ready for his meeting with his collectors, but also trying to connect with the people in the public places where people pay to stay (eg: nursing home, caravan park, hotel, etc.). Someone in those places (someone in charge) has to give out the census forms to people staying there on census night. Dad has to train these people so that they know how to do what they need to do on census day. Dad also did ‘Meals on Wheels’ today - a new guy has started and they have paired him with Dad and Dad says that this guy is really good and they get through the route really quickly. Dad spent some time at the Family History Centre last night with Bill, the first counsellor in the Bishopric - once Bill got to putting in some of his family names into the program, he caught ‘the bug’ and he and Dad spent a couple of hours doing genealogy. Dad gets really excited when people ‘catch the bug’ as it is likely that these people will continue to come back and use the genealogy library. Tonight, at SES, they did another search exercise - they were “looking” for a little girl or signs of a little girl in the area they were searching. They found a rather large rag doll which was the only thing which had been hidden. Once they found the doll, the team stopped to talk about what they would do if they were really in this situation and, as it turned out, they decided that they would send a female in to talk with the little girl as little girls tend to feel more comfortable talking to a woman. Dad was a team leader and he is beginning to feel more comfortable being a leader in these practices.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
It's been a bit of an interesting week so far. Yesterday (Monday) turned out to be a really good day at school - the kind that brought a smile to my face and reminded me of working at R. J. Lee in Brampton. Then, today (Tuesday) was not a good day -- oh, my, what a rollercoaster I am on! The most challenging boy in my class (Baylee) has been away for two days and the challenge girl (Mia) did really well on Monday as far as behaviour goes - so, that's why that day went well. Today, Mia was totally 'off' - actually, she did really well during the morning, but as soon as she didn't get her way for something, she became defiant and that was it for her. I spoke with her mom after school today and she told me that she is trying her best at home to discipline Mia appropriately. I suggested she try taking away something from Mia that she likes when she misbehaves. She told me that Mia really likes the mp3 player that she got for her birthday (can you imagine......a 5 year old getting an mp3 player!) and the mom's comment was that Mia is just getting used to her mp3 player. Sheesh - I am beginning to agree with the teacher who said the other day that adults should have to take a parenting course before they have children. No wonder this child is defiant when she doesn't get her own way. I know it's easier to give in to a child than to discipline or teach them to make correct choices, but I found that if you work hard at it between the ages of 1 and 3, it's so much easier after that. I am still thinking seriously about trying to get a job (supply, part-time or full-time) at the private school around the corner from here - I can imagine that it would be much easier and similar to teaching at R. J. Lee.
It's great having Chantelle there to talk with and to plan with. She and I see things so similarly and can easily run things by each other and/or moan and groan about kids and/or parents. She is going through a bit of a tough time with one of her parents at the moment and often needs me to bounce her frustrations off. I am only too happy to listen to her and share with her my experiences from teaching. Also, when you talk with someone else about what you are going through, they often can help you look at things in a different manner or they can also help you to validate what you think about the subject. Chantelle is young and so hasn't really developed her sense of knowing how good she is as a teacher. She's not great (I don't even think I am a great teacher), but she has a lot going for her - yesterday I had to remind her of that - she was beginning to doubt herself and I told her that she needs to remember that she is very talented and organized and motivated and puts a lot of effort into what she does.
I haven't done anything when I have gotten home from school both last night and tonight. I am feeling better each day, but I still don't have a lot of energy, so I decided to just relax and take it easy and get my energy levels built up again. It's really nice having Dad around - he has been taking such good care of me! :-)
Dad is back to spending his time doing census stuff and our moving boxes stuff. He spent Monday going through our boxes bringing in my teaching supply boxes so that I could look through them to find books which could be used to teach in the next term at school. He also got his tool box set up and some of his tools are now in it. He spent some time sorting out the training materials for his collectors - they need to study from them before they do their training from Dad which is in a week and a half. Dad attended a meeting with other census area supervisors and their district manager. It was an opportunity for them all to discuss any problems they were having, how things were going in general and to give hints on how to make things go better. Today he spent the day sorting the actual census materials for the census and began delivering the training materials to his census collectors - some of them have come to our house to pick them up and one Dad has had to drop off at the collector's house.
Dad had a cool thing happen on Monday. He had to put together his collectors' satchels - there were two plastic supports which went in the satchels, but it was hard to figure out where they went in and then when Dad figured it out, it was hard to actually do. So, after putting together his seven collectors' satchels, he took a few pics of how to put them together and wrote up instructions on how to do it. He then sent it to his district manager and suggested that she might want to share it with the other supervisors. One of our friends from church who is a collector, but not one of Dad's collectors, received the email which Dad had sent to his manager who had forwarded it to other area supervisors (with a note which read "Our resident engineer has prepared this for us. Many thanks Mike), one of which who had obviously passed it on to our friend, Christine. Chris sent Dad an email which said "Thanks, Mike. You are a legend. I had a feeling it was you they were talking about (when she read the email about the resident engineer). So, that was nice for Dad to be recognized for his work.
It's great having Chantelle there to talk with and to plan with. She and I see things so similarly and can easily run things by each other and/or moan and groan about kids and/or parents. She is going through a bit of a tough time with one of her parents at the moment and often needs me to bounce her frustrations off. I am only too happy to listen to her and share with her my experiences from teaching. Also, when you talk with someone else about what you are going through, they often can help you look at things in a different manner or they can also help you to validate what you think about the subject. Chantelle is young and so hasn't really developed her sense of knowing how good she is as a teacher. She's not great (I don't even think I am a great teacher), but she has a lot going for her - yesterday I had to remind her of that - she was beginning to doubt herself and I told her that she needs to remember that she is very talented and organized and motivated and puts a lot of effort into what she does.
I haven't done anything when I have gotten home from school both last night and tonight. I am feeling better each day, but I still don't have a lot of energy, so I decided to just relax and take it easy and get my energy levels built up again. It's really nice having Dad around - he has been taking such good care of me! :-)
Dad is back to spending his time doing census stuff and our moving boxes stuff. He spent Monday going through our boxes bringing in my teaching supply boxes so that I could look through them to find books which could be used to teach in the next term at school. He also got his tool box set up and some of his tools are now in it. He spent some time sorting out the training materials for his collectors - they need to study from them before they do their training from Dad which is in a week and a half. Dad attended a meeting with other census area supervisors and their district manager. It was an opportunity for them all to discuss any problems they were having, how things were going in general and to give hints on how to make things go better. Today he spent the day sorting the actual census materials for the census and began delivering the training materials to his census collectors - some of them have come to our house to pick them up and one Dad has had to drop off at the collector's house.
Dad had a cool thing happen on Monday. He had to put together his collectors' satchels - there were two plastic supports which went in the satchels, but it was hard to figure out where they went in and then when Dad figured it out, it was hard to actually do. So, after putting together his seven collectors' satchels, he took a few pics of how to put them together and wrote up instructions on how to do it. He then sent it to his district manager and suggested that she might want to share it with the other supervisors. One of our friends from church who is a collector, but not one of Dad's collectors, received the email which Dad had sent to his manager who had forwarded it to other area supervisors (with a note which read "Our resident engineer has prepared this for us. Many thanks Mike), one of which who had obviously passed it on to our friend, Christine. Chris sent Dad an email which said "Thanks, Mike. You are a legend. I had a feeling it was you they were talking about (when she read the email about the resident engineer). So, that was nice for Dad to be recognized for his work.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sorry I haven't written since Tuesday, but unfortunately, I have been sick. A little preamble.....on Wednesday, I had an issue with a young boy who was defiant and that night, I couldn't sleep wondering how I was going to be able to go through all this again like I did with the boy in the grade two class last year. I got about 3 hours sleep that night and I guess my immune system was low and on Thursday, I came down with a fever. That night, I went to bed at 6:30pm and slept through until 6:30am Friday morning. I went to school with a sore throat and sore ears - Dad bought me some lozenges to suck on and I took some Tylenol every few hours. Friday night, I sweated so much that I had to turn the comforter over in the middle of the night and put a towel on the sheets (twice) and change my pillowcase. I went to bed on Friday night at 7pm and slept through until 7am yesterday morning. I spent Saturday sitting on my comfy chair with my comforter up around my neck watching tv. I took a long nap in the afternoon and spent the evening sitting in my chair again. The pain in my throat was so bad yesterday - I was taking a Tylenol every two hours and you know how much I HATE taking pills so you can imagine how painful my throat and ears were. And to top it off, I didn't even have ANY desire to have chocolate - now THAT's sad! Today, I am feeling a little better - my fever is gone, but my glands are still swollen and my throat still hurts. I am taking one Tylenol every four hours and that does help.
And to top it off, the boy who was defiant on Wednesday that I worried about dealing with for the rest of the year, was fine on both Thursday and Friday - sheesh! :-) Thursday and Friday teaching days were okay - there's another defiant child, a girl, who had a hissy fit and I took outside of the science room and told her I was going to take her back to the classroom and she started saying 'no, no' and settled back down. I have to say that the experience of teaching here in Hervey Bay has made me appreciate teaching at R. J. Lee so much!!! There are so many issues with these kids and it makes it much harder to teach them. I seem to have lost my love of teaching here which makes me so sad as I absolutely LOVED teaching in Canada - every day, I loved going in and helping the children learn. But, there, I was actually teaching, not managing the classroom. Both Chantelle and Sam said that they think I have to be more tough which I don't like to be, but I am going to have to be, I think. But, it makes me sad to not enjoy teaching - it's all I have ever wanted to do and it was such an amazing experience living my dream in Canada. It's not a dream doing it here - the other night I even thought of getting a job outside of the teaching field - that really surprised me when I thought about that - made me sad, but I can understand why those thoughts came into my mind. We shall have to see how the next week goes.
Dad spent Wednesday doing work around here: mowing the grass, trimming around the edges of the lawn, weeding, spraying for insects, clearing the outside wall vents and filling them with powder so that wasps and ants won't build their homes in them and spraying the attic for spiders. On Thursday, he couldn't do 'Meals on Wheels' because he had to be home for the guys who delivered our stuff - yep, it's finally here - all our lovely stuff which has gone around the world practically finally arrived - and it all fit into the garage with just enough room to fit the car in. We have been able to live here without any of this stuff so far and so we will go through the boxes/containers a little at a time. I do know that I want to get into my school books boxes as we are starting a unit on fairy tales after the school holidays and I know I have a couple of books which can help with our planning of that unit. Dad is also anxious to get his tool box out of its wrapper and get his tools into it. Dad spent Friday at the Family History Centre - it was a very quiet day so Dad was able to get a lot of computer updating done. Yesterday, he mostly just hung around the house doing stuff on the computer and waiting on me. :-) His census forms were delivered - 42 boxes of them! Luckily for us, we have no furniture in our living room and so all the boxes went in there.
So, that has been our very (un)exciting week here. I am sure that this coming week will be a much better one! :-)
And to top it off, the boy who was defiant on Wednesday that I worried about dealing with for the rest of the year, was fine on both Thursday and Friday - sheesh! :-) Thursday and Friday teaching days were okay - there's another defiant child, a girl, who had a hissy fit and I took outside of the science room and told her I was going to take her back to the classroom and she started saying 'no, no' and settled back down. I have to say that the experience of teaching here in Hervey Bay has made me appreciate teaching at R. J. Lee so much!!! There are so many issues with these kids and it makes it much harder to teach them. I seem to have lost my love of teaching here which makes me so sad as I absolutely LOVED teaching in Canada - every day, I loved going in and helping the children learn. But, there, I was actually teaching, not managing the classroom. Both Chantelle and Sam said that they think I have to be more tough which I don't like to be, but I am going to have to be, I think. But, it makes me sad to not enjoy teaching - it's all I have ever wanted to do and it was such an amazing experience living my dream in Canada. It's not a dream doing it here - the other night I even thought of getting a job outside of the teaching field - that really surprised me when I thought about that - made me sad, but I can understand why those thoughts came into my mind. We shall have to see how the next week goes.
Dad spent Wednesday doing work around here: mowing the grass, trimming around the edges of the lawn, weeding, spraying for insects, clearing the outside wall vents and filling them with powder so that wasps and ants won't build their homes in them and spraying the attic for spiders. On Thursday, he couldn't do 'Meals on Wheels' because he had to be home for the guys who delivered our stuff - yep, it's finally here - all our lovely stuff which has gone around the world practically finally arrived - and it all fit into the garage with just enough room to fit the car in. We have been able to live here without any of this stuff so far and so we will go through the boxes/containers a little at a time. I do know that I want to get into my school books boxes as we are starting a unit on fairy tales after the school holidays and I know I have a couple of books which can help with our planning of that unit. Dad is also anxious to get his tool box out of its wrapper and get his tools into it. Dad spent Friday at the Family History Centre - it was a very quiet day so Dad was able to get a lot of computer updating done. Yesterday, he mostly just hung around the house doing stuff on the computer and waiting on me. :-) His census forms were delivered - 42 boxes of them! Luckily for us, we have no furniture in our living room and so all the boxes went in there.
So, that has been our very (un)exciting week here. I am sure that this coming week will be a much better one! :-)
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Yesterday, winter was over - today, it was back! :-) Yesterday was the Queen's birthday and so we had the day off school. We started our holiday off by having brunch with our friends Robyn, Geoff, Rob and Rosalea. We were going to meet at the beach and have brunch there, but decided that since we weren't sure what the weather was going to be like, that we would meet at Robyn and Geoff's. We all brought something 'to the party' - our brunch was so sumptuous! We had eggs, bacon, fried mushrooms, tomatoes and onions, and pancakes with frozen berries and ice-cream and freshly squeezed orange juice - YUM, YUM!!! :-) Most of the food was cooked on the barbecue and one of the things they make here is called 'Toad in the Hole'. First, you use a glass to 'cut' a hole out of a slice of bread, then you put the leftover part of the slice of bread on the barbecue, then you crack the egg into the hole and put the cut off part of the bread on top. Once the egg is cooked long enough, you flip the whole thing - they taste really good - take a look at the photo below to see what they look like on the barbecue.
We had a great time eating, talking and laughing together. Once we were finished eating and washing up, we drove down to the beach and took a walk along it. It was a beautiful sunny day with a clear blue sky. The tide was really low - I don't think we've ever seen it so low. As we walked along, we saw these star shapes in the sand. Rosalea picked at one and it was a starfish (a small one) under the sand. When she turned one over, the little legs started to move feverishly. It looked so cool - we checked out a couple more as we walked along the beach. Rosalea threw a few back in the water. One of them that we put back down on the sand started to walk a ways and then just dug into the sand. I was so enthralled with all of this - I have never seen anything like it.
Today was my first day in the Prep class at Torquay State School. There are 24 children in the class, although there were about six away today. There were a few 'challenge' children today - a couple of boys and a girl. The rest seem fine - a little chatty, but pretty good at listening and they love listening to me read stories which is always good since I love to read books to them. I am trying to keep things pretty much the same for the next two weeks - time for them to get used to me and for me to work out how things have been done in the classroom. Our TA, Sam, is awesome and she helped me to settle in a bit today and I'm suure that things will get easier as the time goes on. I am very tired, but at least the day went okay. I spent some time with Chantelle after school and was able to do some more planning.
Dad had the missionaries in the car when he picked me up from school today. We had a quick supper and then took them to the chapel, then to the grocery store to pick up stuff for our 'cooking class' tomorrow, and then back to the chapel so Dad could go to his PEC meeting. While he did that, I went into one of the rooms there and worked on my school stuff. Dad is back to helping me do school stuff already - stuff on the computer - luckily for me, he loves doing that - it makes such a big difference to me having Dad being so handy. :-) Also luckily for me, Dad had time to clean the house today - I am one lucky woman. :-)
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Teaching in the Prep class on Friday was a dream - especially after the class I had had on Thursday. There were 24 students in this class, but only 16 showed up - and to boot, the teacher's aide told me that the 'challenge children' were absent that day. She couldn't believe how much work we were able to get done with the children. I really enjoyed my day - Colleen, the teacher's aide, was really nice and very helpful. Each Prep class gets a teacher's aide for most of each day, and it makes such a big difference. I was so relaxed during the day, and Pam, the teacher who I was replacing, who was being the principal for the day, was likely not impressed that she didn't get the nice numbers in her class that I had that day. :-)
I talked with Yvonne, the teacher I am taking over for, at the end of the day, just to get a few more pointers for Tuesday. I had some thoughts going through my mind all throughout the day - z, q, and l are our letters for next week and I picked out zebra and quilt for the crafts for the coming week and decided that the lion that Chantelle's teacher's aide had chosen, was a great idea. There I was - feeling great about being in charge of a classroom again. I know it will be busy and I will likely be stressed for a bit, but I am really looking forward to it. Sam, my teacher's aide, is great and she even helps do some of the teaching (as opposed to some TAs who just do all the prepping) and I know it will be easier for the students to make the transition from Yvonne to me with Sam in the room.
That evening, we were invited to Robyn and Geoff's for dinner - originally it was going to be us and Rob and Rosalea, but Rob and Rosalea went to the Temple this weekend. Robyn and Geoff then invited Neville Pearce to join us as well - Neville is in his 80s and just lost his wife, who was the love of his life, and so he is now on his own. We had a lovely roast chicken dinner which was delicious and the conversation was really nice, as well. I asked Brother Pearce how he and his wife met and that led to him telling us quite a lot of his life history. It was really nice to get to know him a little and of course, it is always nice to hang out with Robyn and Geoff.
We got to sleep in on Saturday morning and I made it to a respectable almost 9am - I was very pleased! :-) Dad slept until about a half hour before I woke up which was pretty good as well. We lazed around for a while which was really nice as it's been full-on for the past three weeks and it will be full-on for the next two weeks until school holidays. We had a few errands to run before we went to our friend (and my Primary secretary) Denise's to pick her up. It was her birthday and I had told her that I wanted to take her out for lunch to celebrate. When I had told her that, she was overcome a little bit - she told me that no-one had ever done that for her before. I was surprised to learn that and happy to be the one to do this for her as she is such a nice person, a great secretary and a lovely friend.
We dropped Dad off at home and then I drove us to the restaurant. The one we wanted to go to was closed for lunch as it turned out, so we went to a cafe next door. After looking over the menu, we both chose the same thing: chicken with mango in a filo pastry rolled in macademias with fries and a salad. It was $15. which in Australia isn't a bad price. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal and took our time eating it. I told Denise that we HAD to have dessert and we both chose a raspberry cheesecake. It was wonderfully yummy and I ate it very slowly. :-) The slice was VERY small - the smallest that I have ever seen. I thought that maybe it would mean that the cost of them was cheaper (the prices for the desserts were not on the menu and as it was Denise's birthday, I didn't want to ask what they cost). WELL, I was shocked when I got the bill - the cheesecake slices were $9. EACH!!! Wow, I thought, that was over the top pricing for what we got! But, what can you do - at least there was no tax and tip on top of the final bill as taxes are included in everything you buy in Australia, and you don't tip in Australia (the wages are very good here in Australia, so I guess that's why they don't tip). Even though it ended up being an expensive bill, Denise loved the meal and the company and came away with a smile on her face, so that pleased me.
That evening (yesterday), we had guests for dinner - the missionaries and our Bishop and his wife, Diana. Elder Richardson has become close to both us and them and, as he is likely being transferred next week and the Bishop and Diana are leaving for a month, it was the last time we could all get together, so he asked me if we could do that at our house and I said 'yes'. We knew that I was going to be taking Denise to lunch and wouldn't have a lot of time to make the dinner before 5pm when our guests would be arriving, so we 'cheated' and bought roast chickens, gravy in a packet, buns and a mud cake from the grocery store and added mashed potatoes and microwaved carrots. The Bishop and Diana brought a salad to round out our dinner. The food was great and we had such a good time talking with everyone. Both the Bishop and Diana are really funny and we laughed tons over the night - we had such a fun time with them and will definitely be having them back for dinner when they come back from overseas (they are going to Utah to see their daughter and her family).
Today was another busy day at church. We started our day with a ward missionary meeting, then I got things ready for Primary, then Sacrament meeting (which was about keeping your testimony strong - Fiona, Audrey and Rob, the second counsellor in the Bishopric, all spoke. The most important point I got from the meeting was that it was so important to be doing things which will continually strenthen my testimony: saying my prayers, reading my scriptures, attending my meetings, etc. - someone even mentioned that you are never too old to stop building up your testimony). Primary went very smoothly - we were down two teachers, but Maureen, my first counsellor, taught the Valiants (8 - 11 year olds) and the missionaries taught the Sunbeams (3 year olds). Debbie, my second counsellor was away, so Denise and I met during the class time to get caught up on some Primary business. I was in charge of 'Sharing Time' - we were talking about how important it was to keep the covenants you made with Heavenly Father - the children were doing some 'fill-in-the-blanks' which they seemed to enjoy - we didn't have enough time to finish the task, though - I am hoping that their parents will work with them at home to complete it. After church was finished, I had a Primary Presidency meeting - our first since Maureen returned after being away for six weeks and, even though Debbie was away, I wanted to start our twice monthly meetings and hold this one when it was supposed to be held. Our first meeting took over an hour, but we covered a lot in that time, and hopefully our future meetings will be shorter. We received a very nice compliment today - one set of parents, who came into our meeting to listen to their son give a talk, told me afterwards that they were so impressed at how organized our Primary was and how much their children enjoyed coming to Primary. We were all so pleased about that because we have been working hard to make that happen. :-)
Dad went to choir after our meetings today - it's High Council Sunday next week and so we will be having a special guest speaker and the choir will be performing then. They are going to be singing a hymn called 'Jesus Saviour, Pilot Me'. The choir is made up of about 15 members and I am looking forward to hearing them sing next Sunday. Leanne, who leads our music in Primary, is the choir director and she is really really good at what she does. Dad finds it a bit challenging the way she teaches, though - he needs to be able to look at the words and the music and the choir director all at the same time, but Leanne wants the choir members to only watch her.
I talked with Yvonne, the teacher I am taking over for, at the end of the day, just to get a few more pointers for Tuesday. I had some thoughts going through my mind all throughout the day - z, q, and l are our letters for next week and I picked out zebra and quilt for the crafts for the coming week and decided that the lion that Chantelle's teacher's aide had chosen, was a great idea. There I was - feeling great about being in charge of a classroom again. I know it will be busy and I will likely be stressed for a bit, but I am really looking forward to it. Sam, my teacher's aide, is great and she even helps do some of the teaching (as opposed to some TAs who just do all the prepping) and I know it will be easier for the students to make the transition from Yvonne to me with Sam in the room.
That evening, we were invited to Robyn and Geoff's for dinner - originally it was going to be us and Rob and Rosalea, but Rob and Rosalea went to the Temple this weekend. Robyn and Geoff then invited Neville Pearce to join us as well - Neville is in his 80s and just lost his wife, who was the love of his life, and so he is now on his own. We had a lovely roast chicken dinner which was delicious and the conversation was really nice, as well. I asked Brother Pearce how he and his wife met and that led to him telling us quite a lot of his life history. It was really nice to get to know him a little and of course, it is always nice to hang out with Robyn and Geoff.
We got to sleep in on Saturday morning and I made it to a respectable almost 9am - I was very pleased! :-) Dad slept until about a half hour before I woke up which was pretty good as well. We lazed around for a while which was really nice as it's been full-on for the past three weeks and it will be full-on for the next two weeks until school holidays. We had a few errands to run before we went to our friend (and my Primary secretary) Denise's to pick her up. It was her birthday and I had told her that I wanted to take her out for lunch to celebrate. When I had told her that, she was overcome a little bit - she told me that no-one had ever done that for her before. I was surprised to learn that and happy to be the one to do this for her as she is such a nice person, a great secretary and a lovely friend.
We dropped Dad off at home and then I drove us to the restaurant. The one we wanted to go to was closed for lunch as it turned out, so we went to a cafe next door. After looking over the menu, we both chose the same thing: chicken with mango in a filo pastry rolled in macademias with fries and a salad. It was $15. which in Australia isn't a bad price. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal and took our time eating it. I told Denise that we HAD to have dessert and we both chose a raspberry cheesecake. It was wonderfully yummy and I ate it very slowly. :-) The slice was VERY small - the smallest that I have ever seen. I thought that maybe it would mean that the cost of them was cheaper (the prices for the desserts were not on the menu and as it was Denise's birthday, I didn't want to ask what they cost). WELL, I was shocked when I got the bill - the cheesecake slices were $9. EACH!!! Wow, I thought, that was over the top pricing for what we got! But, what can you do - at least there was no tax and tip on top of the final bill as taxes are included in everything you buy in Australia, and you don't tip in Australia (the wages are very good here in Australia, so I guess that's why they don't tip). Even though it ended up being an expensive bill, Denise loved the meal and the company and came away with a smile on her face, so that pleased me.
That evening (yesterday), we had guests for dinner - the missionaries and our Bishop and his wife, Diana. Elder Richardson has become close to both us and them and, as he is likely being transferred next week and the Bishop and Diana are leaving for a month, it was the last time we could all get together, so he asked me if we could do that at our house and I said 'yes'. We knew that I was going to be taking Denise to lunch and wouldn't have a lot of time to make the dinner before 5pm when our guests would be arriving, so we 'cheated' and bought roast chickens, gravy in a packet, buns and a mud cake from the grocery store and added mashed potatoes and microwaved carrots. The Bishop and Diana brought a salad to round out our dinner. The food was great and we had such a good time talking with everyone. Both the Bishop and Diana are really funny and we laughed tons over the night - we had such a fun time with them and will definitely be having them back for dinner when they come back from overseas (they are going to Utah to see their daughter and her family).
Bishop Brown, Diana, Elder Richardson, me, Dad, Elder Paki (pronounced Pah - key)
Today was another busy day at church. We started our day with a ward missionary meeting, then I got things ready for Primary, then Sacrament meeting (which was about keeping your testimony strong - Fiona, Audrey and Rob, the second counsellor in the Bishopric, all spoke. The most important point I got from the meeting was that it was so important to be doing things which will continually strenthen my testimony: saying my prayers, reading my scriptures, attending my meetings, etc. - someone even mentioned that you are never too old to stop building up your testimony). Primary went very smoothly - we were down two teachers, but Maureen, my first counsellor, taught the Valiants (8 - 11 year olds) and the missionaries taught the Sunbeams (3 year olds). Debbie, my second counsellor was away, so Denise and I met during the class time to get caught up on some Primary business. I was in charge of 'Sharing Time' - we were talking about how important it was to keep the covenants you made with Heavenly Father - the children were doing some 'fill-in-the-blanks' which they seemed to enjoy - we didn't have enough time to finish the task, though - I am hoping that their parents will work with them at home to complete it. After church was finished, I had a Primary Presidency meeting - our first since Maureen returned after being away for six weeks and, even though Debbie was away, I wanted to start our twice monthly meetings and hold this one when it was supposed to be held. Our first meeting took over an hour, but we covered a lot in that time, and hopefully our future meetings will be shorter. We received a very nice compliment today - one set of parents, who came into our meeting to listen to their son give a talk, told me afterwards that they were so impressed at how organized our Primary was and how much their children enjoyed coming to Primary. We were all so pleased about that because we have been working hard to make that happen. :-)
Dad went to choir after our meetings today - it's High Council Sunday next week and so we will be having a special guest speaker and the choir will be performing then. They are going to be singing a hymn called 'Jesus Saviour, Pilot Me'. The choir is made up of about 15 members and I am looking forward to hearing them sing next Sunday. Leanne, who leads our music in Primary, is the choir director and she is really really good at what she does. Dad finds it a bit challenging the way she teaches, though - he needs to be able to look at the words and the music and the choir director all at the same time, but Leanne wants the choir members to only watch her.
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