Home is Where the Heart Is

They say "Home is where the heart is"

If this is true, I now have two homes. I have come to absolutely love this place and my heart lies in so many different places and things in New Zealand. At the same time, being in another country for 3 months, away from family and friends has shown me how blessed I truly am and how much I love about my home in America. These two beautiful places have their unique character, people, and places that have allowed me to fall in love with both. I am sad to leave this one love, yet estatic to finally be back to the other. Life is about change, growing and learning... and I feel I have experienced all of these things in the beautiful country.

Lauren, Alix, Jodi and I ventured into Auckland for Lauren's birthday and their last weekend in NZ! We went to Soul for dinner and had a blast in Auckland at the viaduct that night. Saturday we took the scenic route home, got some chinese takeout and went to Amy and Brett's to hang out. My Mema sent me the BEST care package so we dove into that! Inside were various American packages of muffin mix, brownie mix, cookie mix, cupcake mix, frosting, chocolate chips, sour gummie worms and tons of other stuff!!! We were all estatic and treated ourselves to Velveeta Shell Macaroni and Martha White muffins :) Later we made cupcakes :) We relaxed, had a spa, watched a ton of friends and played Cranium! Alix and Jodi beat us by a hair both times. Bummer. Afterwards we ordered pizza from Pizza hut where their large is litereally just bigger than a personal pan pizza. Fail. Naturally we went out for yet another spa and then came in to bake cookies! haha It was a big day of relaxing and eating and just enjoying New Zealand with our American food, American TV show and American game haha. What's a girl to do?

Alix and Lauren headed out this morning and I had to say bye to them! Next time I see them it will be back in America! Later this afternoon I worked on my application to Cobb County for various teaching positions. I submitted the application and now just have to wait. Who knows what will come of it, but say a little prayer I am able to find some sort of job when I come home!

I did just find out that my portfolio is no longer due when I return home but is due the 18th. (I come home the 24th) So now I am in a predicament to either pay a ton of money to FedEx it in or email in what I have and hope it is enough. It is frustrating that this information was just told to us, but there is not much else I can do about it at this point, so we will see what happens! I just want to get my diploma in August, there is no reason to wait until December to get my degree when I will be done with everything in one week. Whew! We will see what happens!

That is all for now, one week and 2 days until I fly home! Time certainly flies by!

Waka Waka

One week and one day down! One more week of full control, a week of relaxing in the classroom and taking on a few lessons, and then I go home!!

Today was such a fun day at Waka! We had two teacher birthdays today- 50 and 60 years old! (We make a big deal about the decade ones) so we had cake at morning tea and then a little party after school today with everyone. It is so cool to me that the teachers, staff, principal, EVERYONE gets together to socialize at this school. And although I think NZ might be better about this than the US, I must say Waka is very special for it. I love socializing with everyone and just hanging out. I feel like I have one big group of friends at school and I think few people can say that. It branches across all grades levels, subjects, and even beyond just the teachers, the staff and substitutes as well. If Waka were anywhere in America I would be knocking down the door to teach there for sure. I hate that it is something else in that huge list of things I will leave behind when I leave New Zealand in two weeks. It really reminds you what matters in life. I was talking to Ian (The Assistant Principal) today at the little party about NZ schools compared to the ones I have experienced in America and he said "Well you know, we stand behind the belief here at Waka that stressed out teachers make bad teachers. If we demand this and that of them, yeah they might have good reports and polished lesson plans, but they won't be effective in the classroom". Wow. Now I realize this is not a end-all-be-all to teaching because yes, there has to be accountability, but it was so refreshing to hear him talk about his teachers with such confidence, knowing they are all doing what needs to be done without a pile of paperwork to prove it. I pray that American schools can look more like this. I know I would work 2 or 3 extra weeks a year to have that 20 minute morning tea and an hour for lunch each day. It makes the day so much less stressful and the teaching so much more effective. The students are in shape due to all their exercise and when they are in the classroom, they are more focused for having that free time in between. It is a beautiful system and who knows, maybe one day I will be the principal of a charter school and can implement these same things (because Lord knows they will never happen in a public school! Unless of course I become the Secretary of Education...hmmmm)

Anyways, off my soap box...tomorrow I have my lecturer observation and evaluation from the University of Auckland. Katie and I have worked together to create a ballin' lesson plan, so I hope the kids behave and it all runs smoothly! :)

This weekend into Auckland to celebrate Lauren's birthday and send them off! Carolyn, Alix and Lauren all came to NZ a week before me and so they will be leaving a week before me as well. Then next weekend we are having a Waka party at Amy and Brett's to celebrate one last time before I leave! Cheers to so many celebrations for new chapters in life!

Plan-Teach-Plan!

The second week of my break was well spent in the sunshine (I actually laid out for a bit)! I did a bit of running, eating and a TON of planning. Alix, Lauren and Caelyn got back from Queenstown Saturday and so of course they came over to hang out at Amy and Brett’s! We laid around, watched a movie and then went over to Alix’s for an amazing dinner! They spent the night with me and Sunday we went out on PJ and Carlene’s boat (Alix’s host parents). We sailed under the Auckland Harbor Bridge and saw someone bungee jump from underneath the bridge!  That afternoon we went to Botany for some shopping and ice cream J

Monday I was back to school for my full control! It is amazing having control of the classroom for an entire day, it flows so well and I feel so much more in tune with what the kids are doing. It is definitely very tiring and takes a lot of work, but it’s so rewarding. We are doing a unit on energy- renewable vs non-renewable resources so this week we focused on wind energy and solar power.

I can’t believe I have completed almost an entire week of my full control and go home in less than 3 weeks! Time is really flown by and I have had such an amazing experience. This was a short post but the past 2 weeks have been all classroom, teaching, students, lesson plans…  J

Bridge Climb, Opera House and FOOOOD

Time to document our time in AUSTRALIA!

Friday night we were off to the airport wayyy early only for our flight to be delayed from 9 to 1am, then we entertained ourselves through 2 gate changes and another 2 hours of delays by playing “Password” until we finally boarded our plane around 3am. Needless to say we were a bit upset we paid for a hotel room in Melbourne that we didn’t arrive to until 6am.

We only let ourselves sleep a couple hours because we were anxious to explore the city! We went to the first in our string of cafes we would be eating at for the rest of our meals that week. Our first stop for the day was Federation Square where we caught the free tram around the city to the Queen Victoria Market. We spent quite a few hours roaming the isles of Australian boomerangs, hats and scarves, jewelry and other local ware. We ventured inside to the meat, cheese, bread and fish markets and picked up some wine, cheese and crackers for our lunch later!

That afternoon we spent some time relaxing at the hotel trying out our local cheeses and wine before we were off to a cute tucked away Italian restaurant on Degraves street. Later we found a live band at a bar who sang Sweet Home Alabama and Sweet Caroline when we told them where we were from!

Sunday we ate at Time Out, a café in Federation Square that as a group we would hit up 3 times in 3 days… its embarrassing but it was SO good! Because of the weather we decided to hit up the closest mall where Alix talked us into buying $20 movie tickets to see Harry Potter in 3D. The next show that wasn’t sold out was at 6:40… little did we know that the mall shopes closed at 5pm. So we had an hour and a half of sitting and waiting to see a movie we weren’t crazy about seeing that we had already paid 3 times the normal movie ticket amount for… haha Lauren and I just made it comical to get through the night. After all was said and done, the movie wasn’t too bad and it was a nice chill night.

Monday, our last day in Melbourne, we started off the day with breakfast on Degraves street which is just as cool in the day as it is at night, the cafes overflowing onto the pedestrian-only streets. Then we had to sneakily check out of the hotel we booked for 3 but fit 5 in, and had to rent lockers for our bags… Lauren had a bit of trouble with her huge bags haha. Later, we figured out the bus system to get us to Bridge Street for some shopping and I was able to find the infiniti scarf I had been looking for the whole time! Back to federation square we took a little stop into ACMI a moving picture museum that was actually pretty interesting. We then (of course) had Time Out again for lunch and ended up sitting there for about 3 hours waiting on the rain to go away. Then off to the airport for the second half of our journey- SYDNEY!!

We arrived in Sydney late Monday night (luckily our plane was only delayed 10 minutes!) We met Caelyn at the apartments we were staying at, she always went ahead of us to check out the situation before we got there haha. (She is Alix’s friend from high school) The apartment was quite spacious and had an incredible view of Sydney from the 21^st floor!

Tuesday we walked around Darling Harbor in the clear and sunny morning, the only one we would have in Sydney unfortunately. The weather went downhill fast and stayed that way the rest of our time there L Nevertheless we were off on another adventure!  First we went to the Wildlife zoo and saw Koalas and Kangaroos along with the most dangerous spider in the world (Michael you would have freaked, I had goose bumps the whole time!) We learned a lot about Australian wildlife and I have to admit it’s a bit scary. Next was the Sydney Opera house for a tour and we ended up buying tickets for the show Faustus that night, ate dinner at their swanky restraint (with the coupons that came with our tour) and went straight to the show in the pouring rain! Faustus was interesting… a little dramatic, very artsy and a bit racy, but overall an enjoyable experience to actually be able to see a show at the opera house!

Kangaroos! She came over to spoon with him!

Darling Harbor

Mama Koala and her Baby!

At the Sydney Opera House!

Wednesday we were up and at em bright and early to go climb the harbor bridge walk! It was an incredible experience! They suited us up and walked us out on these cat walks 100+ feet in the air where you can see through the floor, all the while hooked to a line from your harness. Then we were inside/under the bridge before we climbed right up the top, over traffic, hundreds of feet in the air! I don’t do well with heights so I was pretty proud of myself, and it was so worth it. The view of Sydney was priceless. Afterwards, the girls we really disappointed they didn’t get our cute tour guides number, but what can you do. Carolyn didn’t go to save money for Skydiving in Queenstown, so we met her at the Warf for lunch.  The rain picked back up so we spent about 30 minutes at an information desk deciding our next move, on our way to a museum, we got distracted by a mall and some dessert.  We had plans to go to Bondi beach and take a cocktail cruise but the pouring rain put a bit of a damper on things, so it was a pretty chill night.

At the Top of the Bridge Climb!

View from our Appartment!

Thursday was our last day in Sydney so what did we do first? Eat. At Waterfront Grill in Darling Harbor. We sat there for about 3 hours in front of the heater before we went to an IMAX movie- Born to Be Wild. It was an IMAX 3D about these baby orangutans and elephants rescued in the wild and raised to be put back in the wild independent. It was so amazing, of course, because Morgan Freeman was the narrator. Once again it was too rainy for our original plans, so what do we do? Eat. We went to a nice dinner at a hotel to celebrate the end of our Aussie adventure.

Friday we were off to the airport and back home to Auckland. As a side note, I flew Jetstar TO Aussie Land, and Quantas back. I feel like I went from flying in a tin can to flying first class. I got food and free movies and wonderful service. Never again will I fly Jetstar… actually that’s probably a lie because they have really cheap flights, but you get what you pay for I guess. Back to Auckland, it was an interesting feeling I got as I stepped off the plane, I felt like I was home. It was a sigh of relief to be back in a place I know so well. I guess that’s what 2 months somewhere will do to you. I have truly loved living here and calling this place home. It is still hard to believe I have been here for 2 months and have just under a month left!

Yesterday I went with Amy and Brett a couple hours north for Brett to go surfing with some friends. It was so cool watching them and taking pictures of them riding the waves in their wetsuits. We had a nice picnic lunch of cold pizza and fruit J Home to hang out with Amy, Brett and Allen, Brett’s brother and watch Unknown and Easy A and have a great roast dinner! This week is pretty chill, the girls are in Queenstown and while I am jealous of their snowy, ski week it’s nice to have this time to catch up, sleep in, relax and prepare for my two weeks full control next week! I have TONS to do but after those two weeks only one week left! Then flying back home to turn in my portfolio and get my diploma! :D

Clear Blue Waters and Adventures Ahead

Friday Lauren, Alix and I Were off to Coramandel Penensula for the weekend! We were staying with Alix's friend's Au Pair's parents! haha simple connection really. Anyhow, we drove down there Friday night and stopped in Thames (Pronounced "Tims" apparently) for pizza and pasta. It was a cute little town that served us well for our meals on the way in and out. After driving on the other side of the road, in the dark and rain, on hands down the most windy, curvey roads I have ever experienced in my entire life... we arrived! Saturday, we were off to the Hot Water Beaches to dig our own little spa pool on the beach, but we missed low tide and thus the hot pools. So off to Cathedral Cove. The view was out of this world- the crystal blue water and the greenest landscape you have ever seen. All the different little coves to visit along the way, and the actual cove/cave is so cool! After that we were off to the Lost Springs for an hour or so which was super relaxing. The guy had a premonition about these underground hot springs and kept digging and digging until he found them! That night we picked up groceries and headed back to make steaks for the first time in NZ!

Sunday was my first poached eggs on toast mmmm :) Then off for our 3ish hour drive home and lunch at this rando pub in Thames. The girls and I went back to Amy and Brett's to chill and watch Man on Fire, Brett and Amy's parents all ended up coming over so it was a full house! All the while Amy and Brett are trying to tear down the wall paper in their house to replace it with paint. Quite the process.

It was an amazing weekend exploring new parts on New Zealand and seeing more and more beautiful things! Its so nice to have these girls to hang out with on the weekend and share our travels together. We are one heck of a team when it comes to getting around :)

Monday Katie and I stayed after school for 2 hours talking about my 2 weeks. It is going to require a LOT of planning, but I am so excited to start a new term, it will really feel like my own classroom for two days. I feel like I have been anticipating this experience of teaching 2 full weeks for so long, and in 2 weeks it is here! So excited to see how it goes!

This Friday I am off to Melbourne and Sydney AUSTRALIA with the girls for a week! Then they are off to Queenstown, NZ for a week of snow and skiing, but I will be returning home to prep for my 2 weeks teaching! yay! :)

Staying in Shape? Ha

Sunday afternoon Alix called me up to go on a walk! We figured out its only like a 15-20 minute walk to each other's houses! She walked to my house, we walked to the beach and then back to her house! It felt so good to have been active all day Saturday, and then go on a nice long walk Sunday night! Monday started my SIXTH week at school! I can't believe I have completed half of my teaching experience thus far. I am now teaching about half the day every day, which is a lot of fun. It is the end of the term so the kids are a bit rowdy, so I am looking forward to starting my full time teaching when we return from our two-week break. Monday after school we had another rehearsal for our teacher dance and we finished it! I think everyone likes it, it is a LOT of fun! :)

That night Amy dropped me off at Alix's and we were off for another walk! It just puts me in the best mood to get up and active in the evenings, otherwise all I want to do is lay around, eat and go tto bed because it gets dark so early.

Yesterday we went shopping after school with Jodi. We got Mexicali for dinner, $3 taco night! It was not like our America-Mexican (kind of an oxymoron) but it was still really good. Thought it was funny that you had to pay $1 for a side of chips, and they give you like 10 chips. It is in these moments I miss obese, abundant America the most. Last night Jodi and I tried out a dance class a teacher at our school takes. It was a lot of fun but they have recently finished choreographing a dance, which they were working on, so for the second half of the class there wasnt much for us to do. But we might take it for the begining of next term. I just need to find something other than walking and running to stay in shape, because obviously that is not working due to my lack of motivation :)'

Today is hump day- Wesnesday! This weekend we are hopefully off to Coramandel Penensula! And then hopefully for our 2 week break I will be off to Australia and Queenstown, NZ with the girls... but we will see!

Happy Birthday America!

Updating in a pretty timely fashion this time! It was quite the relaxing, chill weekend, and much needed. Friday after school I started teaching the teachers at Waka the teacher dance for the Move and Groove performance we have coming up! They asked me to do it so I choreographed this minute and a half dance to “Marry You” but Bruno Mars mixed with “Shout” the classic wedding reception song (thank you Wedding Crashers). We decided on a wedding theme and ran with it. Amy and Ludvic are the Bride and Groom (Ludvic just got married and Amy is soon to be married so it fit!) Megan, an amazing teacher and role model at Waka is the minister, and the other 16 dancers, myself included are the bridesmaids! Haha its hilarious! They learned the first half and we will finish learning it this week to perform it this Friday!

After practice, Jodi, Amy and I came home to clean the house really quick and Alix and Lauren came over for a girls night! We had a “spa and wine” as the kiwi’s would say and then headed out to dinner in Howick! The place we went was where Amy and Brett took Michael and me and I got the Pineapple pizza again! Yum! J We were going to go meet up with some of Jodi’s friends after but were so exhausted from the week of teaching (how sad is that haha) that we headed in for an early night! Apparently there was an earthquake in the water just off the coast of Auckland around 9pm, a 2.9, but we didn’t feel a thing. We were a little freaked with the recent earthquakes in Christchurch, but apparently that is the difference between California having a major earthquake versus the ones we get in Georgia, tiny and harmless because Cali and Christchurch both sit on fault lines. So nothing to worry about there, thank goodness!

Saturday morning we were up and at em, off to catch the ferry into Auckland and then Ringitoto. This time it was Lauren’s time to forget something (Alix-wallet, Marissa-phone) and guess what we forgot? To call Jodi. We totally left without her and totally forgot to call and see if she was going to join us. She tried to meet us in Auckland and just missed the ferry out to Ringitoto. L We felt SO bad! We did make it to the island/mountain okay though and guess what we saw on our ride in?!? Oaarca WALES!!! Like straight up 100 feet from the boat, 2 coming up from the water, spewing from their blow holes, saw all the way to the white part on their side! We ran out to take pictures but only saw their fins after that. The boat slowed down so we could watch them and take pictures, it was one of the coolest moments of the trip! Once that little ride was over, we docked at Ringitoto and were off to hike up the lava rocks! Ringitoto was formed by lava coming up from under the earth’s crust a couple hundred years ago and is covered in lava rock and lava formed cave formations. There is a crater in the middle of it where I assume the lava came from and then collapsed after its eruption. Scientists “believe it should remain dormant and not erupt again”… quite comforting. The hike to the top only took about 40 minutes, but it was quite rigorous haha. We were huffing and puffing… the worst part was knowing that it would have been half a difficult had we hiked it a month ago. We really feel like we have been lazy in the department of not exercising as regularly as when we were at home and pretty much eating whatever we want. I’m just gonna throw this out there- today Alix and Lauren had to take in their pants for repair a broken zipper and hole in the crotch. It’s only a matter of time until I am next haha. We just can’t seem to get out of the vacation mode and where its okay to eat whatever and not exercise.  I will say, though, it does make it tough when you have to stay after school for meetings and planning until 4:30 or 5 and by the time you get home and change to go on a run, its dark out. That does make it a bit more difficult.

Anyhow! The hike was amazing, and the view was even better. You could see a 360- Auckland, green rolling hills of nearby islands, the ocean that continues on forever. We couldn’t get over how green the landscape was and how turquoise the ocean was. We stayed up for quite a while soaking up the rays of sunshine. We took a little hike around the crater and came back to the top for lunch. On our way down we hiked over to these lava caves and hiked through them! It was pitch black, good thing I brought my trusty purple maglight J  Once we reached the bottom we had some time to kill before we caught the afternoon ferry so we explored around a little. We learned that there used to be baches on the island (summer homes) but they passed a law a while ago saying you could no longer live on the island or build any more establishments. The tore down most of the homes and made people move off the small island, they wanted to keep it completely natural. There also used to be a jail on the island, Alcatraz anyone?

That night we went to Lauren’s house in Maraetai for a 4^th of July celebration! Her host family threw us a little party, red, white and blue balloons, fireworks and all! It was so much fun! They made hamburgers and hotdogs and we brought potato salad, pasta salad and good ‘ol coleslaw J. It was so nice of them to throw the little party for us and made us feel right at home. At one point though, I said “Happy New Year!” because we were shooting off fireworks in the freezing cold and I guess it just felt so much more like New Year’s than the Fourth of July! Haha oh well… We stayed at their house that night and this morning were off to run some errands and then back to my house to hang out, watch wedding crashers and some spontaneous cookie baking. Glad that rough journey up Ringitoto really changed our ways.

Tomorrow I will be teaching the kids about the Fourth of July and doing some sort of activity with them, which will be cool. It was really interesting last night them asking us what the 4^th of July was for. It was really interesting to think about your own country like that and analyze WHY we have our holidays and what they mean. Of course we knew the answer and could explain it to them but it took a little thinking. It was cool to remember why we celebrate the holidays that we do.

So Happy Fourth of July everyone! Happy Birthday America and cheers to independence, democracy and freedom! :D