Man, I love Kiwi holidays.  Anytime you go away from home, it's a holiday. It's awesome:-) This weekend's holiday consisted of going down to the Coramandel Peninsula, which proved to be quite the experience in itself- pretty much the entire trip is spent winding around narrow roads at breakneck speed, with no guardrails and a giant drop to the ( Read more... )

So  apparently today is "Celebration Day' at school, which basically means I only have half a class today. Which screws over my lesson plans and leaves me with nothing to do. So I kill time by reading LJs. Got the sudden inspiration to read some old high school friends' journals.  Ran across Dan Aikin's old journal.....oh how much we've changed ( Read more... )

Today was athletics day for the whole school, which meant 300 kids running around, high jumping, and participating in general chaos. It also meant me standing outside all day, which is awesome because it's nice and warm, and I did put sunblock on (3 times!) and I still got burned. Boo. Alll day long, everyone kept saying to me "Do you have sunblock ( Read more... )

It's funny how God reminds you in little, conscience-poking ways that He's still around.  Last night was kind of rough, for a number of reasons, but today has been good.  This morning before school, the baby called me mom (buhhh), Eliya told me she really likes having me here and begged me not to go home, I got to school and one of the 9th graders ( Read more... )

  So I'm getting that panicky feeling again- the same one i got when i got about halfway through my last placement. I feel like i'm running out of time! I still have 5 weeks, but with teaching/school, that's not really a lot. It's a bit frustrating only teaching one class, mostly because they only meet three days a week, so I feel like my teacher ( Read more... )

People really aren't that different...no matter where you go.  I was sitting in the teacher's computer lab today and one of the teachers who just got married this Friday, Sarah, was talking to my teacher about her new husband, basically telling the story of how they met.  They met on the Internet, dated for like 5 months, etc. etc. pretty typical, ( Read more... )

Adventure: so far, a success. My flight was relatively uneventful- I even managed to conquer the LAX airport all by myself, although struggled a bit with the whole luggage deal- I almost left it there, because I thought initially they check it and put it on the flight for you, then common sense kicked in and I got it myself. Haha, point for ( Read more... )

 Tomorrow morning (actually this morning now) I set off on the greatest adventure of my life ( Read more... )

This sucks. I'm so tired of this....it never ever ever gets easier ( Read more... )

These last two weeks have flown by.  This is definitely what I was meant to do.  There so much possibility is these kids' eyes, so much enthusiasm, undimmed by the cynicism of adulthood, unfettered by the obligations of time, responsibilities, burdens.  They seem so young to me, but really most of them are only two years younger then me.  They have ( Read more... )