One Last Chancellor Farewell.....

Today Hannah’s host teacher invited Hannah and myself to go to Tracey Birchall’s (a year 6 teacher) birthday party. Tracey is also the wife of our principal Mark so it was nice going to their house for a second time. No one knew that we were going so it was a big surprise to all when we had showed up. The other three Chancellor teachers from New York had left Australia already so they could not attend. As soon as Hannah and myself got out of the car, Tracey and Mark’s son Sam came running at me and said, “Mr. Kok I thought you left! What are you doing here?!” It was priceless because he has enjoyed spending time with us throughout term 3 and when he said goodbye to us all on Friday after school he was crying. I was glad to see him one more time and spend my last day in Australia with all of the teachers and their kids. The farewell was emotional again because everyone has treated us so lovely during our stay at Chancellor. The kids weren’t as emotional this time, which was good because it was so sad seeing them cry on Friday. I hope that one day the Birchall’s come to New York to visit because I would love for them to stay at our house so I can show them around New York.

 

Last Day!

The last day of school had come so quickly, in fact it was yesterday. I knew that it would be a day that would go by so quick, but also it would be one filled with many emotions. The day started off as a normal routine; we took the bus to school and saw kangaroos on the oval (never gets old). Once we got to our classes we decorated each other’s classrooms to prepare for our celebration party. The students brought so many different foods and they were on a complete sugar rush. I also got some sweet gifts and cards from the students, which I will keep forever. I gave them NY key chains, which I had brought with me back in June when I arrived in Australia. They loved them so much. Most of them hooked the keychain to their backpacks. I also gave them minipacks of candy corn because I found out that candy corn is not sold out here and they LOVED THEM. We played music all morning long and sang as loud as we could. The other year level teachers were like what is going on in the year 6 building. Paul, one of the year 6 teachers started a train going around all of the classes. It was pure chaos for an hour to say the least.

            After the hour-long party it was off to our last day of interschool sport. My OZ tag team made me a card saying how good of a coach I was. During this session of sport we won 2 games and lost the other 2. They played their butts off but we just came a little bit short. Overall the team was awesome during the four sport sessions. They were looking forward to getting more ‘Tim Tams” from me at the end of the day.

            When we got back to Chancellor it was 2:30 p.m. We got back to the classroom and all of the year 6 students said their last farewell to us. They took down all of our email addresses and I hope that some will email me. I know that on Monday the whole year 6 team, including the teachers will feel a bit different without us there because they all absolutely loved talking to us. It was sad, but hopefully we can see some of the teachers in New York in a few years. Some teachers had told us that they have been considering going to New York and they may have to now because we can meet them there. I really think Paul will come within two years because he said he is getting up there in age and he would love to go to the United States.

            At the end of the days on Friday the teachers meet up in the staff lounge for a beer and snacks. It is so weird because you would never see this occur back in the States for the most part. Mark, our principal held a small gathering where he presented us with some small gifts, one including a letter of recommendation. It truly was a remarkable journey teaching here in Australia. It would be nice to come back here again and visit Chancellor. I am so glad that I was chosen to be a part of the Chancellor community because everyone was so respectful and caring to us.

Tomorrow I leave Australia and head to New Zealand to meet up with my cousin Tiffany and her fiancé Ian. We will be in an RV and traveling all around the Northern Island of New Zealand. I wish we had time to go to the South Island because that is the nicer area of New Zealand where you get to see the beautiful scenery. It is also where Lord Of The Rings was filmed, so it is unfortunate we probably won't have the opportunity to travel down there. It will still be nice traveling the Northern Island and seeing the lifestyles of the Kiwis. 

Geometry

On Monday we started our math unit on geometry. I was observed when we were classifying the different shapes. My principal said I did a really good job this lesson and he has seen me progress much more than when he previously observed me. I was very thrilled to hear this. Today I had my meeting with my principal, my teacher, and myself because today was my teacher’s last day. She is due to have surgery tomorrow and will be on leave for the rest of term 3 (two more weeks). It was sad saying my last goodbye when all of the other teachers are still there until the end of the term.

Back to my geometry lesson today, we made nets and cut them out. We turned those nets into buildings to create our own town. Needless to say, the town came out much better than expected!!! I was so happy with how it turned out because we have Quest Fest on Thursday. Quest Fest is another term for open house night and parents are invited to come to the school at 6:00 with their children to see the work that the class has done thus far. We will also be playing a game that we have researched and practiced. The questions will be based on famous Australians and I will be the host since my teacher won’t be there. I am excited to meet some of the parents just before I depart back to New York. I think I need to work on my parent interaction especially because I don’t have much experience interacting with the parents based on their child’s progress in school. 

Last Farewell

On Saturday Trevor and Colleen (the bus driver and his wife) had us over for a last farewell BBQ at their house. We haven’t seen them for a long time. I think the last time was the reception ceremony but the time before that was the two-week trip that they took us on. Anyways they picked us up at Newport Apartments on the greyhound bus at 1:00 p.m. and drove us to their house. We had a good time with music and food and before we knew it, the sun had gone down already. We had a huge bonfire going on throughout the whole night. They have a huge forest behind their house so in essence they have an unlimited supply of firewood. We also saw a kangaroo hopping in their backyard at nighttime so that was pretty cool.

On Sunday the Chancellor year 6 team went out to lunch at the Kawana Pub for lunch with the year 6 teachers as a last farewell. The only problem was that three of the teachers were unable to attend so it was only two teachers and four of the New York teachers. The place was extremely nice and Paul (a year 6 teacher) picked us up from Newport Apartments and drove us there and back. He is so nice to us as he usually drives us home from school almost everyday and we all appreciate this because he saves us approximately twenty dollars going home for the week. Unfortunately he can’t pick us up in the morning, and we wouldn’t want him to because he gets to school at 5:30 in the morning, which is absolutely absurd! The lunch was really nice and it was packed! You would never believe that September 2^nd is Father’s Day here in Australia! Many people were out celebrating with their families for Father’s Day. This is one of the main reasons that many of the year 6 teachers couldn’t attend this lunch. One of my students said he saw us there and was sitting behind us diagonally and I has asked him why he didn't say hello to us and his response to me was, "I don't know it was weird seeing you outside of school." It really was funny that he saw all of the preservice teachers and regular teachers outside of school and uniform. 

State: New South Whales...City: Sydney!

On Friday we had sports day and OZ tag was awesome once again. We went 3-0-1 bringing our total team record to 8 wins, 1 loss, and 3 ties. We won the first game 2-0, the second 8-0, the third we tied 1-1, and the last game we won 3-1. The last game we played the team that had defeated us the first week of interschool sport. They really wanted to win this time because the coach of that team is the teacher of some of my players. They were so happy and pumped to have won that game. Once again I got them more cookies after the game, which they loved. We have one more week of interschool sport and I know the team is going to do awesome. That last day of interschool sport will also be the last day of my students teaching here in Australia so it will be a day filled with excitement and joy along with emotion.

 After school, Tracy (a year 6 teacher and the principal’s wife) drove Theresa, Katie, and myself to her house to drop her kids off. It was really cool to be at my principal’s house. They had two cats, a dog, three chickens, and a blue-tongued lizard. I tried to not sit down because of the dog and cats. They had an infinity pool that has a normal pool at the top and goes down like a waterfall into another pool. The kids (Year 3 and 6) were telling us that they do backflips off the top into the pool at the bottom. After, Tracy took us to the Sunshine Coast Airport and we were on our way to Sydney for the weekend. Upon arrival we took a train to Central Station and walked to our backpackers. The backpackers was pretty dirty and dusty but that’s what you get for 25$ a night. My allergies were killing me and I could not stop sneezing. We went out for some cheap Thai food and it was delicious. I got super spicy Panang curry and it was beyond delicious for ten dollars.

            On Saturday we woke up extra early to go to the Paddington Markets. At first I thought the markets would be super cheap, kind of like flea markets but it was so pricy for absolute junk. After the markets we hopped on the public bus and were off to the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour (Harbor) Bridge. When we got off the bus we could see a glimpse of the bridge. My adrenaline was rushing because of how excited I was getting. It truly was an incredible sight to see. We still couldn’t see the opera house yet because it was hidden behind a tall building. We took tons of pictures of the bridge and kept on walking. Once we turned the corner around the footpath the Opera House was shining brightly from the water. My first impression was that the Opera House was much bigger in person than I imagined it to be. I took heaps of photos around the Opera House and we went inside. We couldn’t get too far inside because there was a show going on. They were showing ‘South Pacific’ during that time. We did go inside the store to buy some souvenirs, which was still cool. That took a big chunk of the day and eventually we walked to the rocks, which is right near the bridge. The rocks are where the first settlers landed when they arrived in Australia. After we walked across the bridge to Luna Park, which is an amusement park that is free to enter. The place was creepy because it had clown faces surrounding me everywhere I looked. They weren’t ordinary clowns; in fact they were extremely creepy. At nighttime, some of the students from the other schools went back to the Opera House to see a symphony concert but I opted not to go because I thought I would fall asleep. If they had shown South Pacific again then I probably would have gone because I think that is much more interesting.

            On Sunday we woke up early and went to Bondi Beach. This beach was incredible because it is a beautiful beach that is surrounded by city life. It is kind of like imagining a beach in Central Park. There were high rises surrounding this beach. We went to the markets at Bondi because they are only once a week. Once again the markets were pretty useless. After we ordered calamari and chips for lunch. This place was voted best seafood in Sydney so we figured it would be delicious. They put Japanese mayonnaise on top. At first I was a bit hesitant to have mayo on my calamari but I tried it and it was arguably the best calamari I have ever had. It was beyond delicious. We ate the calamari on the grass that overlooked the beach, which was nice and relaxing. There were seagulls all over so we had to constantly scare them away.  After lunch we went on a walking trail that overlooked the ocean. There were many cliffs and cool rocks so it was a bunch of fun taking photos. After Bondi we went back to the Harbour to take pictures of the Opera House and the bridge at nighttime to see what it looked like at nighttime.

            On Monday we were given permission to take one day off from school, which was another reason we took a weekend to go down to Sydney. We started our day off early because we had a 4:00 flight to catch in the evening. In the morning we went to Darling Harbour which was much more upscale. There were a ton of people walking around in business suits and ties. The area was still nice. The aquarium, zoo, and museum were all located in that area but we didn’t go because we were short on time. We went to the Sydney Tower but didn’t go all the way up because it was too pricy for us. After the Sydney Tower we had just over an hour so we went to a Chinese Garden, which was actually peaceful. The garden was located in the middle of the city but it was still very quiet. It was only 6$ and we got to see a lot during that time span. For an extra 10$ we could have dressed up in Asian dresses which would have been absolutely comical but we had to get back to the airport for our flight back home to Queensland.

      Once we got back to Queensland we took the wrong bus and went up North when we were supposed to be traveling South. We ended up spending approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes on the bus, which is longer than our plane ride. It’s okay because we still got back to the apartments at 9. It is definitely better to take the wrong bus there rather than in Sydney. I would definitely say this extended weekend was well worth the time and effort. I am so glad we made the most of our time in Sydney and my body is absolutely exhausted from all of the constant walking around.