My school week took an interesting turn last Thursday afternoon. I gave my year sixes their maths assessment over the unit they learned before I arrived, and the one I taught them that week. After marking them I received scores ranging from 30/31 to 9/31 correct. Slightly confused, I took a closer look at the problem areas students were having with the units on long multiplication and finding the area of 2D shapes. I saw the most careless and simple mistakes students could make in maths; not putting a decimal in your answer when multiplying decimals, forgetting to divide the base x height by 2 when finding the area of a triangle on the entire page of problems, or merely just putting question marks in answer blanks. Then I remembered how I felt when I was about to graduate and move onto "high school," highly unmotivated to do my work! I think my year sixes are quickly catching the "I don't care anymore it is almost holiday and I'm going to high school" disease. I read the class scores aloud without saying which scores belonged to whom, and the students were shocked by so many low marks. I told them we would reteach and retest tomorrow and that they better study, because poor effort and low marks will result in missing of sport. Let's just say, they do NOT like to miss sport. After school Thursday I had many students stay to ask questions and I encouraged specific students having problems to stay for some extra help. I was impressed by their desire to do better and felt pleased that students took up on my offer. Then Friday came around, and after a morning watching the year six girls and boys do Cricket warm ups, I finally got to see my first live match! Not that the girls could play for more than 5 minutes without arguing about something, or that the boys were not trying to show off their Cricket talent for the girls, I had a blast! I got to learn to bowl and bat. I think kids in the States would enjoy the game. I will have to try to make it to a professional Cricket match, but not one of the matches that goes on for days on end... I would fall asleep.
That night I went with the Goodways, my host family, to a surprise 60th Birthday party for a cousin in Terrigal, about 20 minutes away from us in East Gosford. I got to meet heaps of family members and everyone welcomed me as if I was part of the family. Each person I met was interested in my story and how I got to end up with such an awesome family, like the Goodways. I received travel suggestions up the wazoo that were full of great advice, information I could not have easily figured out on my own or on the internet. The resort the party was held at looked right over the waterfront. Sunset and nightfall there was something you would see in the movies. Below is Emily (my host sister), me, and Cherie (host mum).
Saturday morning I woke up and caught a train to Central Station, Sydney with another friend from IU, Esther, who is in Terrigal teaching secondary arts. We went to Bondi Beach and as silly as this sounds, I had a permagrin (permanently grinning) for about the first half hour we were there soaking up the incredible environment. Check this out.
Oh and not to mention there was a surf competition going on...
Esther and I then met up with her friend from high school, who was from Valparaiso- small world, living in Paddington, Sydney right off of the famous Oxford St. We then met her friends at Circular Quay for a birthday pub crawl that took us to various places along the waterfront and a to a beautiful island called Cockatoo Island full of cuckoo art pieces. All the Aussies I met were as friendly as can be to us! Below are some of the photos from the day.
Today we took a train home early and I walked along the water to take some photos as the day was gorgeous. I saw a primo photo location along the road so I stopped, put my bag down to take a picture, and within 10 seconds I felt this awful crawling feeling all over my feet and legs. I look down to find my bag and my lower body covered in tons of tiny black ants. Naturally I start flipping out, waving my arms around, jumping about trying to whack these awful things off myself and my belongings, all while cars are driving past. I hope you enjoy this photo for all it is worth.
Has it snowed at home yet?
Love and miss you all.
Jules
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