Last day in Sydney

Last night we went out to dinner for some pasta and then went to a comedian called Moshe Fasher. He is sooooo funny! and he is from America. We sat up in the right front row and got to be apart of the show since we were the only other americans in the audience. it was fabulous.

Today is our last day.. So we are splitting up so that we can get done what we would like. The other Sara and Megan are going to go to certain markets and get tattoos, while Kari and I head up to the Rock markets and the Chinese markets and go shop shop shopping! Also we were told to try the Iced Chocolates and sit in the cafe and relax with them. We will also see the harbour bridge and the opera house which is wayyyy exciting!!!

I am still a little burned, but as it always does, it is turning brown now. Phew.... I am excited to come home :)

we are in sydney and we are in love! its amazing, went to the markets this morning and walked around. LOVE LOVE LOVE SYDNEY

Last day at school

Today was my last day at school. They asked us to give a speech, well they asked me first and put me on the spot.. the principal said say something brilliant about us! and i said "You are ALL brilliant!" and then he asked say something you learned from your teacher, and i said "to be even more sarcastic" and everyone laughed. Here is my class, and my teacher!

here is what i bought in Brisbane :)

i am in love with the boots <3 <3 <3

This weekend :)

Here are some pictures from this weekend... into Brisbane on the ferris wheel and a ferry, and then sea world on sunday:

1. Dori, then a Seal at Sea World
2. Me and Corinne
3. Ferris Wheel :)
4. Bribee Island

Teaching

So today i realized that i am completely in charge of teaching my students whats on the test! ah! but the good news is, my teacher said that everything that i have done with them so far is absolutely brilliant. i dont necessarily think so... but he does so that is all that really matters!

This weekend recap:

We went to Morton Island which is off of Brisbane. A limo was there to pick us up from school on friday because one of the teachers at school who helped us coordinate things got us a car. We were not expecting this! She also let us stay at her house for the weekend! The limo with our friend "steve" took us to the ferry. The ferry took just over an hour to approach the island of Morton.

On the first night we settled in, got our luggage, went down to the ocean and took some silly shots, and grabbed some food. After that, four of us, or as i call us, TEAM AWESOME: Sara, Sarah, Corinne and Megan went to go have a drink or two and watch kareoke! It was the best. The other four went and sat in the apartment. We had some good laughs and were just our silly selves :) it was fantastic !!

Then the next day we went sand tobogganing. We went down on boards like the one above. They are super thin and you have to wax them life surf boards before you go down. The hill is a sand hill in the middle of nowhere that is roughly 4 stories high!!!! yeah, it was exhausting to climb all the way up there, and i did it twice :)

Once you get up there, they get you all ready and give you a swift push! its a thrill and you have to remember that you can't scream because sand will get in our mouth! Afterwards i looked like the picture of my hand: COVERED! i even had sand in my ears, which is just weird.

That night part of the group wanted to go out to eat at this expensive restaurant, but team awesome decided that we would rather have a good old time with some more reasonable priced food and drinks. And we had a ball :) We got all dressed up and laughed our hearts out!

Sunday we were going to do other things but the rain came in, so we cleaned and picked up anything that we left behind. Then back to the work week :(

More to come

Cheers

here's what i did this weekend:

i can only use pictures to describe how awesome this weekend was.

not a good day.

this living situation is not ideal.
the kids were not good today.
i have no idea what i am going to do for my lesson tomorrow.
alice spent 11 dollars on us at the grocery store and refused to buy us some necessities.
and she told her daughter some things that was not appropriate.

soooooooooooooooooooooo awesome.

Asking for more responsibility is dangerous

I asked my teacher if i could teach some more.... and now im teaching huge lessons all week. This is good but has stressed me out more. WOOPS! It will be good in the end because it shows that i want to help out more and want to work for it, which i do... but ill just be a spaz til then. My students are so polite, always says hi miss cook, how are you miss cook, how was your weekend miss cook? sometimes they accidentally say Mrs cook and my teacher is always like she isnt married! and then we all laugh about it.

Thanks for reminding me! haha ohh well

I spent most of the day in the resource room copying and finding lesson ideas for my huge lesson tomorrow.. and decided since i am teaching about the earth's crust, i will use avocadoes and kiwis to show how the earths crust works.

I am way excited :)

So far

So today was the family barbeque... corinne and i spent much of the time trying to figure out if everyone looked like each other. which they don't. which confused us..... but anyways.

Was able to get a transfer of money for corinne to my account :) yayyyyy we got her some money!

now just back to the 3 of us, hanging out. Doing some laundry. Tomorrow I am going to the ginger factory and the pineapple factory i think.... not sure about the last one. One of my teachers is taking all the MSU students.

First week of school was good. my teacher is unmarried, and good looking. TR-OUB-LE. haha. Nah he's way older than me but very nice. We both skipped half the day on friday and went to a 6-7 rugby game... as he is the rugby coach. I'm sure he'll quiz me about it on monday.. better read up on it this weekend.

My kids are sweet, they have already taught me how to play their little 5th grade games and handball.. and some of the teachers invited me to eat with them for morning tea which is their second break of a 1/2 an hour. friday we had biscuits with jam and cream. DE-LI-CIOUS! and probably horrible for you.

more to come

Cheers

Catching up the last few days!

AUSTRALIA ZOO!!!!! - fabulous and i can only explain with pictures.











All of these except for the one with the pineapple are from the zoo. The koala is cuddly like a teddy bear and the roos were just so sweet.. only one was annoyed that people were there and swatted my hand away :(

It was fabulous, they had a big tribute to steve irwin and his kids look very much like him. We saw the crocodile show, with birds in it as well. We also saw elephants, tigers, emus (in aussie they are pronounced Em-yu) and many birds.

Friday was our last day of Orientation at QUT and we discussed how life was going at home. We also got to meet our cooperating teacher for the next 4 weeks. My teacher is very nice, working in the grade 5, with 7 girls and 10 boys. Rowdy class. It should be interesting.

On saturday, we had a barbie on Bribee Island with the other people on my trip and their host family. It was nice and our host was actually in a good mood (a real miracle). I was taught and played cricket... which is okay but not too exciting. After being on the one side, she took us over to the surf side. The sand was as soft as a teddy bear!!! We marked that as a spot to return.

Sunday we went shopping on Queens Street mall, and bought some very touristy stuff that we were both excited about! :) and postcards to come. We also went to a big mall but they had many stores that we had at home and also were tres expensive.

Today was my first day at school. I helped with a small group for math and they seemed very excited about working with me for 3 and 4 digit addition. Then during lunch i sat with some of the girls and they taught me how to play handball. I had the opportunity to sit in on their music and japanese classes as well which was a treat. Australians have 3 breaks during the day: one fruit break in mid morning, lunch and play for 30 mins later on and around 2 there is an hour of small snack and lots of play. There is so much to do its a miracle they learn things with all their breaks!

Corinne's bank card hasnt been working which has been making things more difficult, especially with my host who thinks she knows everything about the situation. IE: "oh well those 6 atms didnt work lets try another" or "go ask that all australian bank if they can take out your money" or "well did you enter your pin? enter your pin. oh you did? yeah you gotta enter your pin" or "call the number on the back of the card...oh its not morning there? oh.. well the automated message should be able to get you your money" or my personal favorite "ill call my friend sandra and see what she has to say even though she doesnt know what is wrong with your card " (and could have no possible way of knowing the answer. ) PURE GENUIS. sorry, had to get that out. The best is that she'll keep going on and on about it which makes Corinne more mad, and left with me trying to change the subject. or stare at my food. Or both. All in all today was fantastic, since her advice is surely from a non-travelers point of view. Or crazy.

Anyways. Off to watch a movie with Corinne in hopes of making dumb jokes to lighten the mood.

Cheers

Day 3

Yesterday we had the opportunity to watch and participate in the discussion and lecture of the middle school brain, which was not only cool but also very disgusting. My group thought it was pretty gross so we didn't do much of that,but they did make me a map of all the cool places to go nearby. I also won a game where i had to pick out the next sequential number out of a number search and continue on. The aussies got 3, an american got 4 and i got 14. I must be good at numbers?

Yesterday our homestay host, Alice's daughter Sandra came over and we had two bottles of wine with some dinner. They call things interesting here like Peanut Paste, Tomato Paste, etc.

Today we went to Wamuran and participated in a class. I was in grade two. All of my students were interested in how long it took for me to get here and wanted to hear my accent. What accent?! They especially wanted to know if we got snow... and i told them. I worked specifically with one student who had Autism and he was a real nice boy to work with. He seemed to like me to which the teacher said that does not happen often.

We are having an "interesting" time with our homestay host but are looking to subtley taking care of the small issues. More to come.

Cheers

1 day in!

Okay.. got my internet and phone working... thank goodness!! So i feel less disconnected from the world. Yesterday we just settled in, ran to the electronics store and ate a nice dinner of a wrap with some chicken and veggies. Our homestay host is quite interesting, and talks a million miles a minute. I can hear my brother saying that i do too, so i should understand... haha oh well.

1st kangaroo sighting today, some with joey's - picture attached.

also we received a tour at the uni here, QUT where we will have access to the internet and their resoures. Enjoying life and the left side of the road

Cheers

Sarah

Los Angeles

We have landed in Los Angeles and are at this cute little restaurant with a Chinese woman who speaks very little English. We are capping off the first leg of our adventure with a beverage and dinner. I was already frisked by airport security, no big deal. Apparently it was random, but I doubt it : )

I LEAVE TOMORROW! time to pack :) I hope i don't forget anything!! I will be buying a cell phone there so i am not sure how well that would work. if you want to skype with me, add me: sarahkcook16

Leaving in two weeks

I LEAVE TWO WEEKS FROM TOMORROW!!!!! AH I can't wait. What should i bring back?!