Fluffy and Warm no Longer

Whew lots to catch up on! So last I wrote was Tuesday, so Wednesday I went to the Marae where the Maori people (the indigenous people of New Zealand) have meetings, parties, funerals etc. The Maori culture is a really big deal here and students learn their language and customs all throughout primary and secondary school. Their school levels go primary (elementary), secondary (kind of middle school), and then college is our high school, then University is the same as our college/university. So, I went with Jen’s class (the younger ones) to this community, learning Marae where they host classes and other groups of people to teach them about the culture. It was a really neat experience. They have these special dances and performances, an entire language, these awesome carvings called tiki’s that are very intricately done.

After the Marae I went back into Katie’s class with her adorable 10 and 11 year olds. They are so sweet I just can’t get over it! At this point I am still just observing and trying to get acquainted to so many different things, not only a different teacher and different school with different procedures, it’s a completely different age group with a completely different curriculum and oh yeah, a completely different country. Haha, I’m not worried because I know I will figure it all out soon enough, but it will just take a bit longer.

Right after school Amy and I drove into Auckland! She had told me she needed to go into “town” to complete her sailboat test (oral and written- she already passed the practical the other day at the beach) but little did I know that she mean AUCKLAND! I was so excited! We parked at the car mechanic shop her dad owns and walked to this fancy office building where she was meeting the guy! Between the car shop and the meeting we stopped for two HUGE and AMAZING cookies at this little cookie shop with a line of people out front (Can’t remember its name though!) and went to her bank to reset her EFTPOS (ATM) card because she accidently put hers in the postbox with some mail and had to get issued a new one haha, then we topped at Vodafone so I could “top up” or put money on my phone and then we were off to the meeting! She passed of course! And then back home.

That night Amy and I made one of my favorite American meals- BBQ chicken baked in the oven with rice and veggies. Amy had never had BBQ chicken like that, nor had she ever put butter in her rice! Needless to say her and Brett LOVED that tiny detail. Then they left for a little time alone down at the beach because Brett was leaving Thursday for a 10 day hunting trip down at Fox glacier! (Brett and Dad would LOVE to do something like this! You get helicoptered in and spend 10 days sleeping in tents and hunting for some wild mammal- there is no registration or limit on how many you can kill because NZ had no mammals on it originally until explorers brought them over for food. So because they are not indigenous the wildlife protective agency could care less! Haha very interesting…) Anyhow, so while they were gone I decided to make my classic Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies! (Amy had never heard of Nestle Tollhouse!) So first things first I googled the recipe, which quickly proved a challenge because for one it was not in metric units and for two Amy doesn’t have measuring spoons, only cups. SO I was off to pretty much guess on a lot of the measurements haha, then couldn’t find any brown sugar (I later found out that it was in some random tin container that I would have never thought to look in haha) so I googled how to make your own brown sugar! There was no definite answer, but many concoctions involved maple syrup and honey mixed with white sugar, so that’s just what I did! Haha then I of course did not have any Nestle chocolate chips, but dark chocolate baking bits, but you know what? The end result was AWESOME! We will just ignore the fact that the first batch was burnt to a crisp because it took me a couple tries to figure out the temperature and timing differences. I ended up cooking them for about 6 minutes on 180 degrees Celsius haha. So baking simple chocolate chip cookies ended up being quite an adventure in itself! Amy and Brett were excited to come home to some cookies, but unfortunately I had not actually started the baking process because I could NOT figure out how to get the oven on! Little did I know there was a switch on the wall for that too! Who would have thought? The cookies were a success though, and we are still working out way through them!

On to Thursday, the kiddos had Bible first thing in the morning! All the year sixes go together to the meeting hall and have what can only equate to an vacation bible school/FCA meeting/youth group/Sunday school meeting. It was SO great. This lady is teaching them about the life of Jesus and all of the amazing things he did- the story of Zachius, feeding the thousands with bread and fish, healing the boy by the touch of a coat etc. and the students and discovering on their own whether or not they believe in everything. I like that they frame it that way, that these are what the Bible tells us, and it is up to them to decide if they believe in it. Everyone is in there together- it blew my mind because this would NEVER happen in an American school, a fact that absolutely breaks my heart. But it was so amazing to see happen here. The rest of the day was fantastic, I am really getting the hang of things. Katie told me after Math that she really liked some of the things I was saying to help the students and that she loves having another set of hands in the room. It was so great hearing this, knowing I was doing SOMETHING right! J

After school on Thursday Amy and I met two of her friends, Ash and Julie at this Vietnamese restaurant. But guess who drove us there? I DID! Haha I decided it would be a good idea to at least learn how to drive so that if I needed to for any reason I would be capable. So many things are different but I caught on SO much faster than I thought I would and had so much fun! Amy was so impressed, she thought she would be a nervous wreck but was actually very relaxed while I was driving! (Thanks Mom and Dad!) The main differenced obviously are the other side of the road thing, the driver’s seat is on the other side and they have round-a-bouts everywhere instead of 4-way stops or traffic lights. They also have the STUPID rule that if you are turning left (keep in mind your on the left side of the rode) and someone coming the opposite direction is turning right onto the same street, THEY have the right of way! It so confusing! I finally got the hang of all the round-a-bouts though, which was good haha. So dinner was awesome! It was BYOB so we brought a nice bottle of Sev, the kiwi favorite and now MY favorite white wine! Apparently its really expensive in the states though so I’m now going to be all spoiled and get back and want this wine that’s going to be $60 a bottle L But I’m enjoying it while I’m here! Michael was so proud to hear I went to a Vietnamese restaurant because I never branch out like that haha but it was actually really good! Then home to be in bed by no joke, 9:00 haha. Amy and I like our sleep J

Friday was another great day at school! I have started a list of tons of words that are different over here and will post that soon. Katie and I had lunch patrol and road patrol which meant we had to watch the kids the 2^nd half of lunch (it’s also their recess time bc its an hour long so they have certain teachers rotate thru patrol so the other teachers can relax and socialize or get stuff done, it’s a pretty awesome system) but it was freezing and windy so they kids were just going nuts! Then road patrol is where the students actually work the stop signs at the cross walk, but they are set up differently (ill have to get a picture, too difficult to explain) but there is an adult to supervise of course. I got to wear an awesome neon orange rain coat haha. At the end of the day though I got to go do the coolest thing ever. They have this new Robotics program they are bringing into the school where students get this kit and are told to build a robot and program it to complete a certain task. The robots are made by Lego and are INCREDIBLE! Right now there are 4 groups of 3 students each (year 6) that get to come work on these robots every Friday afternoon for the entire term. Katie (and now me!) get to go observe and learn because she will eventually take over the program after the instructor/expert leaves. The coolest part is there is no right or wrong way, it’s all trial and error. Right now their task is to build a robot that can drive up to an empty coke can, pick it up, and dispense it into a receptacle. They use this computer  program to upload programs onto the bot to tell it what to do! I of course didn’t have my camera this week, but will be bringing it all next week and will DEFF take pics of this! It was so incredible watching what these students come up with! I wanted to play with them so bad!

After school a bunch of the teachers went over to Stacy’s (a Waka teacher) house for drinks! We all just brought over some wine and snacks- Amy made this Kiwi dip which was essentially French onion dip! There were at least 6 or 7 teachers there including myself, the assistant principal and the PRINCIPAL came over! Haha I was like “This would NEVER happen in the States!” haha it was SO much fun! We have also had 2 Aussies visiting the school all week to observe and see what we do that they don’t and vice versa, and they came as well! It was really interesting getting to talk to them about schools in Australia versus schools in America compared to what we had both observed at Waka. We pretty much came to the conclusion that Australia is kind of in the middle of us and NZ in terms of red tape, teacher morale, student behavior, structure etc. Anyhow, we had a blast eating and hanging out. They ordered pizza, some of the best pizza I have ever had, and it was Hawaiian!

Then Amy and I were off to the house to meet Jodi for some more wine and a spa night! Then we watched Devine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood J Such a cute movie. We slept in today and just layed around the house a bit haha. Amy is out working out, then when she comes back we will go for a run and get ready for the day! Later we are going into Auckland for a girls night out!

Side note (Mom you would appreciate this)- I did laundry this week for the first time I have been here. The washer works about the same but funny- they don’t have a dryer. Almost nobody here has a dryer or central heating, possibly why they have kept their country so beautiful! Haha But I had to hang up ALL of my clothes to dry and they are all stiff and wrinkly haha . It was so funny when I first realized they didn’t have a dryer, I was like, ooo yay! :/ Haha but it’s not so bad, you just have to wait much longer for clean clothes and they aren’t all fluffy and warm when you go to fold them. It’s interesting how un-environmentally-minded people in the US are. I must say though, I don’t think I will change my ways, I like dry and fluffy too much :/

Well this has been a long one and Amy will be back soon, will update pictures very soon!