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.