City to Surf Photos

To see some more photos check the album out on facebook (i am having problems with this one at the moment.

OR go to the actual website and see me finishing and watch a video. City2Surf

Look at me...two blogs in one day....4 blogs in a week...Can you keep up?! Ha

Holly

phooootoshoooot!

Okay so a few things have happened...Thought they would be fun to share with you all.

First of all. I went to church on sunday night and one of the volunteers who has been volunteering since I can remember turned out to be the teacher that I did my overseas trained teacher that I worked with all last week. I had seen him as a volunteer every week but did not recognize him as the teacher. Small world.

Second, at the end of last week I started to get a really sore tooth. I know have a swollen left side of my face and the gum above the tooth is a big bubble. I went to my friend GOutham, who is a dentist, and he hooked me up with some meds. Unfortunately, they face has not settled down yet for my INTERVIEW that is today. It is the last part of the Overseas trained teacher program. Hopefully the pain will go down around the interview time.

Finally! haha an even funnier thing happened. Today when I was getting ready for the interview I got a phone call. I had entered a draw at the local shopping center to win a photoshoot. Didn't think I would actually win but it was free to enter so I did anyways. Well, I won!! haha. They wanted me to come in as early as possible. If you remember from the previous paragraph, I look like a chipmunk at the moment. I told him that and asked if we could do it sometime next week. He told me that it would be no problem and I could bring a family member or friend along. So David and I will be going for a photoshoot tomorrow. We are getting are make up done and eveerything. We will see how well they can fix my face! Man, of all the times they could call me...I wish it was a week earlier or later. LOL...oh well. here is the website of the studio we are going to. VAIG

Anyways, must leave to catch the train for the interview!!! :)

Holly

Almost There!!!!

What a week! I spent all week trying to write down things that I needed to blog! Hopefully this blog doesn't get too long. I spent my week doing my in school placement at Ultimo Public School. So this blog will be all about my comparing this school to schools I have worked in back home. So, if that does not interest you maybe stop while you are ahead. haha.

First I want to say that I had a wonderful week. The teachers were all soo lovely to me. The class I was in are crazy kids but it was fun! Most of the kids in the school are from China and they actually have a Chinese Language Class. The teacher that I worked with was also the Assistant Principal of the school. That works to an advantage later on. Let me tell you some things about the school. If you have any other questions about schooling here feel free to ask.

Math does not seem to be as important here as it is back home. Different reading/writing programs take up most of the time and then they get about as much math as they do language and Fitness. Their days are also split up a little differently. Their day starts at 9:00 and lunch time starts at 11:15 with recess beginning at 11:30 and finishing at 12:20. They then have a second recess at 1:30 and that goes until 2. After recess they have one hour of class and then its home time at 3:00. Teachers all take turns doing Recess duties and they do not get paid for it. But teachers also get paid a lot better here than they do back home.

One thing I noticed on the schedule that caught my eye was scripture and non-scripture on thursdays right before lunch time. A few churches in the area come to the school and teach scripture for half an hour to students whose parents want them in scripture. The rest of the students go to the hall (an equivelent to a small gym) and sing folk songs. I found this very interesting as we are not even allowed to have Christmas Concerts anymore. Jim, the teacher I was with for the week, told me that the churches in the community offer to go to the schools once a week and they are allowed in the school if the community wants it. Students are also not allowed to skip scripture time for band practice and other stuff like that. In other schools they will have scripture reading for different religions too. This one was just Catholic and Anglican. But the Jewish communities will have Jewish Scripture and usually Christian.

My first day we got together and planned out what I would be teaching.....and what do I usually get stuck teaching when doing some kind of placement in schools.....MATH! One of the lessons I had to teach was on the Seasons. As you know, they have opposite seasons as us. So I had to remember that when adding the months in. To me its summer and spring all year round here. haha. I got some pictures of kids playing in the snow back home and put it into a powerpoint for them to see. They loved it. I was actually shocked at how much they had already known about Canada. Some of the parents told me that their child had come home saying they wanted to go to Canada to see snow they day after I had shown them the pictures. haha.

All went well and I passed the placement. The staff all go out for drinks after work on Friday. I was invited so I decided it would be a good idea for getting my foot in the door. Oh, I should mention, 3 of the teachers there got their jobs after doing the same program as I did...at that school. So the teachers of the school cannot wait for me to get my interview over and done with next wednesday so that they can start calling me up. Anyways, last night I went out for drinks and supper with them and got to know them all pretty well. They are a wonderful bunch. They all left saying to me see you in a week or so. Ah, schools here all have their own casuals. So when looking for jobs you apply to the schools. So, I have a school that will be calling me in for casual work whenever I can. The school is also a k-6 school. So I can teach for all of the teachers. There was a casual teacher who was working all week in the school while I was there. She sounds like a regular there.

Some more things I found interesting....Homework is actually apart of the curriculum. Teachers don't assign homework from different classes. Students have workbooks and are given worksheets at the beginning of the week to have done for the end of the week. This is something that parents in New South Wales want....to have a visual of how their students are doing. This is even in kindergarten. Also, they have a Child Protection and safety unit. I think it is sometimes seen like health is seen back home....a class that can be skipped to catch up in math or english...but a teacher mentioned at the staff meeting..." a student won't die if they dont have enough math but they could die from not having health and safety." So after I heard that comment we had a Child Protection and safety class. I was SHOCKED at what was learned in this class....We watched a video about a boy being raped by his uncle. You didn't seen inappropriate things but you knew what was going on and the dialogue in the video...It was mainly to teach students how to get out of a situation if it ever happens to them. I could not believe they were teaching this in a year 2 class. I asked Jim about that and he said it used to be optional and parents could pull their kids from the class but its now a manditory class. I guess some students go through that kind of stuff as young as that. Just crazy how young students have to hear that kind of dialogue if they are sheltered from it.

That is all the main stuff that I can think of at the moment. I have never felt so welcomed in a school before. Even when I was at my internship, the teachers were all very nice and friendly but it was nothing like here. On my second last day I had a teacher come up to me, that I had only said hi to all week, and started asking me about my time in Australia and told me not to get too carried up in teaching because I should enjoy my time in Australia. She then told me if I ever needed any advice teaching or not that I could email her. I thought that was so sweet but it was a common thing that was told to me by all the teachers in the school.


Okay...pretty long! I will also put up some pictures for everyone from City to Surf as well as the school!

City2Surf Pt. 2

Well, I survived the City 2 Surf! It was huge. I ended up feeling not the greatest but I was able to walk with a bit of running throughout the race. It was really not that bad at all. The hills were a bit tiring but I had a ton of energy. David and I found time to stop and take a few breath taking views of the city! When I get the photos on here I will put some up on the blog for you. I am uable to find the chord at this moment to put the photos up.
On Thursday and Friday I had an Orientation type thing for teaching. It is for overseas teachers that want to teach in New South Wales. I got to meet a lot of people from all over. There was a girl there named Hayley Johnson and she was from South Africa. She came up to me and told me that her husband and her talked about names for if they had a daughter and one of the names was Holly. She thought it was sort of weird that she had met me. Obviously, she will name her daughter Holly for sure. lol. It went really well. It was nice to hang out with teachers. We can always find something to talk about. I learned that Australia is a bit behind on the times compared to Canada when it comes to teaching. Next week I will be teaching in the classroom for a week. It will get my foot in the door! It is getting me so excited! No more nappie changing and crying babies. It will be a nice break. The school I will be working in is close to my house. It is an ESL school. I believe 80 percent of the students are Asian. We will see how it goes. I am excited. The class I am in is Year 2 (grade 2) and the teacher is a man. His name is Jim. Nice name for a grade 2 teacher.

Today was beautiful outside. Tomorrow is supposed to get to 28, let's see if it actually gets that warm. David, Jon and I went to Manly and walked around, enjoying the beauty of the ocean and all the scenery. It was the first time I have worn my bathing suit in awhile. It got very cold at night though.

I will try my best to find the chord tomorrow and put up some pictures from today and the race.

tata,
Holly

Mango Season!!!

I am sorry it has been so long since I have blogged. I have not had a good computer or internet connection. I have saved up some money with David and we both bought a little, inexpensive computer to have with us for the rest of the travels. So I am back in business. Sad news though, I took my hard drive in to recover my photos and they could not be recovered. So I have lost all my photos from the past four years. So bummed.
I have been enjoying my past weeks here in Sydney. The weather has been beautiful! I have worked almost everyday changing nappies and putting cranky babies to sleep. It's not all that bad. I do enjoy spending time in the day care centres and they all have outdoor play areas where we spend most of our time in the sun. It has been the late teens for weather in the past week. The shade is very cold though. This past week I also got to work in an after school care program where the kids were ages Kindie to Year 5. That was a breath of fresh air..haha.
On Wednesday, David and I both had the day off so we took a train over to North Sydney (over the harbour bridge) and walked around in that area for a bit and then settled down to take some photos from the most beautiful sight in Sydney. Here are just a couple photos from that day.





We then walked over the bridge and headed back home. Ah, I love Sydney! It is so big but I could never get bored of it. There is so much to do here. I will miss it when we go traveling again.

And the title....Mango Season. Well, today I went to the market with David and they had mangos all over the place again! It's Mango Season again and I get to enjoy nice juice fresh mangos again. We also bought fruits and vegetables, fish and beef all for very very cheap! I love markets. That is all for now.

Take Care!

Winter Time?

Well, the last couple weeks have been pretty lousy. Two weeks ago David got sick with a cold and flu and I ended up catching the cold end of it and have put up with sore throats, lots of coughing fits, and a runny nose. After two weeks of it I decided to go to the doctor only to be told that I just had to stick it out. This sucked since I wasn't able to work! Going onto my third week of being sick I have been able to go to work I just have coughing fits every once in awhile and an annoying sore throat. It's not as bad as it was.

Two weeks ago Hillsong Conference went on and David and I were able to go to the nights. I was too sick to be around the little tots so we spent the days touring around the Sydney Olympic Park where the conference was being held. It was pretty cool, I took lots of pictures. The conference was awesome. Joel Osteen, Louie Giglio, Jentzen Franklin, Craig Groeschel and Chris Tomlin. I will blog more about that another time.

This past weekend Courtney, a friend from Regina, came to stay with us on her way to a smaller city called Wagga Wagga. David and I showed her as much of Sydney as we could in the time that she was here. She was very lucky with the weather. Right before she came it was very cold and rainy. All of a sudden we have a break in the yucky weather with some beautiful weather. Yesterday we went to Bondi Beach and people were actually swimming and tanning, probably all tourists. I would compare it to a nice summer day in Regina. In Regina I would wake up on a day like that and say BEACH DAY!! It was only 18 degrees out but the sun made it feel a lot hotter. So as we all know, I am obsessed with Bondi Rescue (the reality show here about the lifeguards in Bondi and the rescues they do every day). Well, we found a pair of glasses floating in the water and I knew what this meant.....I had to go to the lifeguard tower and give the glasses to the BONDI RESCUE LIFEGUARDS. I ended up chickening out and Courtney went over to the tower and handed over the glasses to the lifeguard that looks like Tom Cruise with a funny nose job (Monica will know) and he was standing next to Maxy who was posing for a picture for some tourists!!! I was so jealous that Courtney got to talk to them. haha. She had no idea!

Courtney had another famous person moment as well without even realizing it. We went to Hillsong on Saturday night and Reuben Morgan was up there leading worship with the rest of the team. At the end of the night we were standing out on the Welcome Lounge talking to some friends and Courtney walked over towards us...In doing so she cut off Reuben Morgan and his guitar. I looked at Courtney and said to her...do you realize what you just did....haha with a confused look on her face she said no...I responded with a "You Just Cut off Reuben Morgan!!! My cousins would have wished they were in your position!!!" (Cousins being Stephanie and Byron) lol. She thought that was pretty cool! She was here for two days and managed to run into two mini celebrities!

Finally, I cannot complain...The weather is beautiful. If I could I would stay here another year. I do not want to come back to Canada weather after experiencing this weather. I do miss my jobs. I miss subbing and teaching. I am repeatedly asked to go to a Childcare center here that treat me so mean. No hellos, no goodbyes, just a lot of do this and do that. I had a bit of a break this morning because there was a male sub also in the room. But as soon as he left it went right back to the rudeness. I am trying to be positive about it but it really sucks!! Sorry that I leave my blog on this post. Hopefully you remember the cool stuff that I have gotten to do. I think David and I might get to go whale watching this weekend! That will be fun!

That is all for now I believe.

Holly

Toma - toes

Well, its about time for a little update since things havvve been happening rather than me always saying, "I did nothing, I have no job, I went job hunting." I have worked a couple shifts with Select Education and have worked a few shifts on the South Steyne (a restaurant in an old ferry in the harbour....take a look around the site: South Steyne). It is nice to finally have some income and start saving so I can travel.

I also finally got a hold of DET after re fowarding my emails a few times to them and calling them every day. Unfortunately I have to do a week of training with them and the soonest possible date is the third week in August. I will have to decide on what I want to be doing. I am enjoying working with the babies at the moment so I may just stick with that. It makes decent money. Select Education is a place that recruits people to do part time or casual work with them. Schools call Select Education and tell them that they need a casual and then Select Education finds a casual for them. I have been working with 3 year olds and 4 year olds usually. Its pretty fun. They are really cute. Today was not so great because I could not talk. So when I had to be bossy the kids took advantage of the no voice. It was frustrating.

Working on the South Steyne is okay. I am still a bit shy with the boss there and need a bit more confidence...Then I should be fine. I think the worst part is the cook when its busy in the restaurant because he is always freaking out. I usually just work on the weekends which is nice because restaurants pay their employees way more on the weekends. So Saturday is 22 bucks an hour and Sunday is 27 bucks an hour. Thats pretty sweet! That is my rent paid with some left over.

I always complain that it is so cold here. I then have to remember that it is winter time here and that 15 degrees with lots of wind really isn't that bad. It is cold.. but its not Canada cold. Today, at work, they were complaining about how cold it was today and that I should be wearing a jacket. It got to a high of 16 degrees. I laughed and said. Do you know how cold it gets in Canada? This is not cold. They were worried about the kids catching colds from playing outside. There was one time last week where it was probably 20 degrees and the sun was hot. I spent the day down by the water at Circular Quay. But once the sun went a way it became very windy and cold. Their winter here is pretty much our fall. If you can relate to that then you know the weather that I am experiencing at the moment. Hopefully, soon enough though, I will be going up to warmer climates.

Besides, have a cold where I actually have no voice I am doing very well. We have two more house mates that just moved in...A boyfriend and girlfriend...Mira and Catherine. They are from Czech Republic. They are super nice people. Catherine came out of her room today with some medicines from back home that she takes when she has a cold and flu. She had to explain them both to me as I know no czech. It is great how everyone that moves in here all get along really well. I love it. I will definitely hate when August comes and some of us start to go back home to our original countries. It's definitely great to have these friends from all over the world though.

Anyways...there is my brain throw up for today. I say that because I really just think and type...so sometimes i feel as though it is all over the place...

oh and the title... today for lunch a boy kept telling me that he really liked 'matos' but he was pronouncing this word so funny that I had no idea what he was saying. Then, he was asking me if he could have some more, please. So I assumed he was saying cheese...and wanting more pizza. I just kind of ignored him and replied oh thats cool, is that your favourite food? But still not understanding. Finally he said to me, I want some more matos plllllease? And I looked over at the salad and said...tomatoes??? and he was like "Duh Miss Holly, yESSSSS!!!" But they say it funny over here...like TOMA - TOES. I had a good chuckle. I like the words that are said different to us here.

Adios..

Holly