Cheers!

So here I am six weeks later, sitting on my bed typing one of my final blogs from this amazing experience. It’s about twelve hours until our first of three flights on our way back home. I can’t believe how fast it had gone. I can’t believe I am done with all my college assignments. I can’t
believe I will be graduating next Saturday. I can’t believe I will be teaching first grade back in South Dakota in the fall either.

I feel like I cannot thank my host family, the QUT staff, and the Morayfield East State School staff enough for this experience. It has been unreal. I have a feeling that even when I do return to the states I will realize even more things that Australia has taught me. I am definitely anticipating
those ‘ah-ha’ moments!

I do have to admit though; I am beyond excited to return to Minnesota to see my family and friends! I have to hit the ground running with plans in place and preparing for graduation weekend so hopefully jet lag doesn’t hit me too hard!

Here’s to a life changing adventure and to many more to come!

“Cheers!”

Student Teaching -- Check!

WOW! This week totally flew by! I didn’t even have time to write one post! I was keeping notes for myself throughout the week about what to blog about. Little did I know it would all catch up to me on Friday evening! I realize now that I will almost not have time to write again until I am home. Tomorrow we are going to Brisbane and then coming home in the evening to pack. Lord knows that will be quite the task! I am expecting some extra baggage fees coming my way.


This week began with Monday’s teaching being a bit shakey. It did get better on Tuesday, mostly because I was more comfortable with all the material I was teaching for the rest of the week. Each day in the classroom became easier and easier. My teacher told me today was the most relaxed she had seen me with the kids. I feel like that’s the story of a elementary education major’s life – You just get so comfortable and then oh, just like that you are done with that classroom. I am glad that the next classroom I have I will not have to leave for nine months! :)


On Tuesday of this week, the school had a commemoration ANZAC ceremony. It was really neat because the choir sang the New Zealand national anthem and then at the end of the service the whole hall sang the Australian national anthem. I was really excited when I realized I had heard
the national anthem enough to be able to sing along! Such a cool moment! For this special ceremony they had guest speakers, the band and choir were in formal uniform, and the school chaplain read the Ode. I really love the ANZAC Ode, this is what it says:


They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning
We will remember them.
Lest we forget.

These are all such beautiful songs, have a listen if you like :)

Australia’s National Anthem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B57QEEl97po


New Zealand’s National Anthem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dPcj_aC8fk&feature=fvst


I Still Call Australia Home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pxvjXll0PI&feature=related


On Wednesday, Angie and Ashley picked Kari and me up at 3:30 am to go the ANZAC Day Dawn Service in Caboolture. This was a very touching memorial service to experience. A lot of veterans were present with their metals on their suit coats. We also got to see some of Australia’s military uniforms worn by current service men and women. We did experience some heart wrenching moments when we looked into the crowd to see many old men wiping tears from their cheeks.


After the Dawn service we stopped at Maccas (McDonalds) for a quick pick me up Frappe on our way to watch the sunrise at Deception Bay. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. The coolest part was every time you turned around the colors changed just enough for us to “Ooh” and “Aww” each time. With a quick three hour nap on Angie’s couches we were ready to head to the parade in Caboolture. We got to the roadside just in time for Morayfield East kids to go by. We spent the rest of our day off in the comfort of our living room, just soaking in some
time off.


Thursday was the day all nine of us gathered to do our presentations. It was really great to see everyone’s perspectives on this experience. We shared ah-ha moments, inside jokes, laughs, and even tears. After we finished our presentations, we met with all of our cooperating teachers in the
library to gather around cake, fruit, and Tim Tams. Jenelle and Jenny (QUT Staff) gave us our certificates along with a book called Wombat Stew, which of course I can’t wait to read to my first graders in the fall! :)

It wasn’t even 8:15 am before my tears were sent rolling down my cheek this morning. Beginning our last day was definitely a bitter sweet moment. Jenny met with us to give us our evaluations, we took a group photo in front of the school and then said our goodbyes to her. I really lost it when we were taking pictures by the MSU banner hanging near the entrance to the school. Melanie (my roommate of the first three years of college) so sweetly asked me to take a picture with her. We have really been through so much together, it is unbelievable. And here we are, at the end of our college journey…. together… in Australia. We did it, Mel!


My teacher was kind enough to give me a half hour with the kids to shared pictures of home with the class. I showed them pictures depicting what we do for fun, traditions and we also discussed major differences between the two cultures.


Once I wrapped up my mini presentation, the class read me letters they had written to thank me for what I had done for them, they gave me A LOT of lovely gifts. And they even sang me a SONG! It went like this:

“We wish you a happy graduation, we wish you a happy graduation, we wish you a happy graduation and a very good career” (To the tune We Wish You a Merry Christmas)

It was just SO sweet, and totally creative. If I had known they were going to do something like that I wou ld have recorded it! It really was so sad for me to say good bye to these kids. I just wish there was an opportunity for me to come back and see the kids and Kylie again. However, Kylie and I plan to keep in contact. I can’t wait to get back to the U.S. and send them post cards, pictures, and videos!


We spent our last Friday evening in Oz with our host family, Angie, and Ashley. Angie and Ashley came over for supper. We had nibbles (appetizers), take out fish and chips plus two very American cheese burgers for Ashley and me. And if that wasn’t enough, we had the most delicious cheesecake for dessert! :)


It really was a lovely evening! One of the funniest things was that there wasn’t even a single Australian in the house! Bruce and Heather are from New Zealand. Angie is from Canada. And of course us girls are from America. We had a good giggle when this was realized. But, such is life… :)


As I said, tomorrow morning we are off to Brisbane with Angie to get a little more exposure to the aboriginal culture before we leave. It will be nice to see the city one more time, too.


TWO DAYS, FRIENDS! I can’t even believe it! I am beyond excited to get home --- not so much as excited for the three different flights it is going to take to get there.


Love to you all,
Xoxo
Megan

Last Full Weekend in Oz

Kari and I woke up Saturday morning to an invite from Ashley and Nina to join them at Bribie Island. With nothing else to do except homework, we gladly accepted the invitation. Angie (Ashley’s host mom) picked us up around 11:30 and off we went. As we pulled up to the beach Kari mentioned that we should go check out the tattoo place that we saw last time we were
here. Ashley, Kari, and I had been contemplating the idea of getting a tattoo here in Australia for a few weeks now, so before we even sank our feet in the sand we headed to Surf Side Tattoo.

Basically it all went down like this: The four of us walked into the shop, Ashley asked what their minimum was for a tattoo. She and I discussed what we wanted with the tattoo artists and they said they would have time for us right then.

Ashley got a tattoo on the back of her shoulder that says, “Life ain’t always beautiful, but it’s a beautiful ride.” That line is from a song by Gary Allen. I got a tattoo of a little boomerang on the inside of my ankle. I chose a boomerang to represent that no matter where I travel to in the world I will always return home. There is a small design on the boomerang which is the indigenous, or aboriginal, people’s symbol for the word “journey.” I absolutely love it. I don’t think it could have turned out more perfectly. But boy did it HURT! It hurt worse than the first one I got on the top of my foot. Kari was kind enough to let me squeeze her hand. Basically for the entire tattoo it felt like he was either sticking the needle into my ankle bone or right into my achilles’ tendon! I had pricklies running all over my head and especially in my ears the while he was doing the tattoo. I was thankful it didn’t last more than ten minutes!

After Ashley and I were set with our tattoos the four of us headed to the beach! The sun was so nice and warm. I’m pretty sure all of us fell asleep on our towels at some point. With a thanks to Melanie for letting me borrow her book, I snuck in some reading of The Lucky One by Nicolas Sparks. This is just one of my absolute favorite summer time activities. Max is shaking
in his boots about me coming back and dragging him to that movie. I told him if he wasn’t going to let me enjoy the movie I’d find someone else to go with me. Haha. I haven’t heard him complain too much since then ;)

And as you could probably guess, we headed to the Surf Side Shack for some hot chips and ice cream. Kari and I remembered how HUGE the portions had been the last couple of times we had been there so we just got a small to split between the two of us. Nina and Ashley hadn’t been there before so they ordered a medium to split. We couldn’t help but laugh when the fries
came out wrapped like a huge fish would be wrapped in paper! All four of us were betting that there was no way we would finish all the fries. By the time Angie came to pick us up, there
were only four measly little fries left on our table. Oops! Should we be proud or ashamed? I guess that lies in the eye of the beholder… All I know is with my ice cream, it was damn good :)


I set myself up for Sunday to turn into a homework day. I needed to plan for the week, work on my presentation, and go through my financial aid exit counseling. I had the privilege
of talking to my parents for a bit on the phone today. I lead them through my pictures on Facebook to show them that I had gotten a tattoo. Mom’s reaction was, “Oh Meggie! It’s so cute! I don’t like it…” Haha. By the end of the conversation she did say she loved it though.

Well, I took a brain break from homework to write this blog. I need to get back to working on my presentation. For this assignment we are supposed to do a presentation on our experience as a whole in Australia. In the past, a lot people have done power points, some people have shown their blogs, and others have written songs or poems. From the encouragement of my mom, I came up with the idea to turn my presentation of my experiences into a children’s book!
It’s kind of a lot of work, but I’m excited to see how it turns out. I am hoping to finish typing it up tonight so then the rest of this week I can work on the pictures and putting it into the
book-like format.

One week from today I will be on the airplane (sleeping hopefully!) on our way home!

Hugs and love to each and every one of you!

Xoxo

TGIF!

Wow. So I guess I haven’t posted since Monday! Here I am on a Friday night watching the Australia vs. New Zealand Rugby League game. I’m thankful for this time to rest my mind and my feet since both have them have seemed to be “on” for the past five days.

This week began with a stressful sense. I think all the girls here at some point this week were feeling a bit overwhelmed. I know for myself I felt like I was in “survival mode” teaching. I’ve never stepped up to teach feeling so unprepared. Most of the unpreparedness came from me feeling like I didn’t know the kids well enough to teach them effectively.

My lessons did go well this week. I ended up teaching all but one hour of the day on Tuesday. It was quite a surprise how it unfolded that way, but it worked. This whole semester I keep recalling what my mom told me, “You just gotta do it to get through it.” That phrase has held true for the past several months of my life. So THANK YOU MOM! J

Jenny met with us on Thursday after school to check in with everyone. We were all thankful for that because it gave us an opportunity to all sit down together. All nine of us girls getting together doesn’t happen very often, especially when we are in school, so we were glad to have this opportunity. Jenny (our QUT supervisor) offered to come observe me today (Friday) to see if she could help relieve my stresses a bit. I thought that was just so kind of her. When we talked on Friday she mentioned how worried she was about me at our meeting because not only was I hardly saying anything, she said I actually looked pale! Ha, I’ve always known I’m like an open book. My emotions can always be seen!

Anyways, Jenny came to my classroom on Friday to observe me teaching a math lesson. In this lesson the students were working on learning different ways to find a simple fraction of a whole number.

Out of all the people who have worked with me in the past four years, I have never had anyone spend so much time working with me. She was there for the entirety of my lesson (which took about an hour) and she stayed over 20 minutes after to discuss my lesson with me. A lot of university supervisors always have so many other things to get to; they have a hard time staying for the entire lesson, let alone staying to discuss your teaching skills after the lesson.

She gave me such fantastic feedback; I don’t think I will ever let go of her sheet of paper FILLED with positive and encouraging comments. She even discussed with me my “presence” in the classroom and how it is so calm and engaging, in comparison to hers which is more of a, “I’m so entertaining you don’t want to look anywhere else in the room because I’m so funny you wouldn’t want to miss this!” Haha. (Those were her words, not mine!) No one had ever pointed that out to me before, so it was comforting to know how much she was paying attention to the details.

Jenny has this gift of making anyone feel better and encouraging them to continue to give it their all. She told me I had nothing to worry about, that I was such a fantastic teacher. She said there were multiple times in my lesson where she was shaking her head because she couldn’t believe I was ever worried about how I was doing. I was so relieved by her feedback and support that by the end of this reflection, I was almost in tears because I was so thankful for her.

We continued to discuss how to deal with my perfectionist problem. She noticed how hard I am on myself and explained how it is okay to let some things slip from time to time. We talked about how it was hard to comeback to the business end of this trip after having two weeks of holiday. I also told her on top of that, I had just found out a few days before coming back that I was offered my first grade teaching position. I told her how difficultit was to concentrate earlier in the week because I have been looking forward to seeing my friends and family, celebrating graduation, starting my summer job,and then preparing for my own classroom.

As you can tell, I am feeling SO much better about taking next week by the horns. I am ready to rock the faces off those kiddos! Haha. We’ll see if I’ll still be saying that once I start planning my lessons! I am teaching everything next week. We do not have school because it is ANZAC day. ANZAC Day celebrates Australia and New Zealand joining forces in Gallipoli in 1914. They had to go straight at the cliffs to get off the battleships to fight Turkey in the First World War. Eighty to ninety percent of the soldiers were killed. This was the start of Australia and New Zealand always coming togetherto fight in war.

One of my newly discovered sweet treats that I’ve found inOz are ANZAC biscuits! They are like a light little cookie. All they are made out of is rolled oats, salt, flour, coconut, baking soda, golden syrup, and butter. These “biscuits” or, cookies as we wouldcall them, came to be because the women back in Australia during the FirstWorld War wanted to make a cookie to send to the soldiers that would last the whole voyage and still be edible for the men when they received them! I justlove learning about the culture in Australia! The things that I get most excited about learning are the things I would miss if I were only here for a short time. I love how immersed into the culture we have been. So blessed!

This afternoon half our class went to compete in “Sport.” I don’t really know what goes on when those students are at Sport except for the fact that they compete in different sports against different schools in the area. The other half of the students that were left at the school did an ANZAC Day project and participated in Sport related activities for the rest of the afternoon. Now, clearly this would never happen in the States. Sports take place after school and on the weekends. The only students who have to miss school for sports are generally only in high school and college and if they miss school, it’s their responsibility to keep up with their work.

One differentiation technique that my cooperating teacher uses is little gold star stickers on the desks of students who need extra help.The classroom is set up with a supportive community, so all the students know that these students are allowed to work with a partner and ask other students questions on their work.

Our time is running out here in Oz. I need to remember to buy some Australian children’s books while I’m here! I’m also hoping to get back to a couple of stores before I leave to pick up a couple of souvenirs for myself. J Tomorrow will be spent catching some rays in the morning and afternoon, then it will be on to planning out my week, completing a reflection assignment, and hopefully making some good gains on my presentation that is due on Thursday.

So here’s to a “Working Weekend.”

Now I can finally say, see you soon, friends! Nine more days!!

Xoxo

First Day of Term 2

Last night it was hard to go to bed early, and this morning it was even harder to get up early. I was so tired this morning at school, I could hardly function. Yuck. Fortunately, my energy level picked back up in the afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.


Each day I am finding it harder and harder to focus on teaching. I have some Serious Senioritis Syndrome going on down here. I was just telling Melanie that I can’t think about anything besides getting home, celebrating with family and friends on graduation weekend, summer time, and teaching first grade! With all of those exciting things about to take place, is it hard to
imagine that I would be having a hard time focusing? I didn’t think so! :) Thankfully I had Melanie to remind me to soak it in while we are here, because we will be leaving before we know it! Which is SO true, but it’s just SO hard!


So tomorrow I am teaching a math lesson on percentages, decimals, and equivalent fractions. My teacher gave me a power point to go through with the students, so I’m feeling a bit more comfortable with taking over more lessons. One Wednesday I’ll be teaching math and reading. One interesting thing is that my Year 6 students are working on percents and facts and opinions
this week. Those are the same subjects that I taught to my third graders back in the States.


Some of us student teachers are feeling a bit frustrated and overwhelmed because we feel like we have such limited resources. We don’t have usernames or passwords to get on to the computers, we don’t have internet access, and we aren’t able to print anything either. So if we want to do anything for a lesson we have to ask our teacher to walk us through every step. That’s really
hard for us because we are all pretty competent teachers. I just can’t believe we only have seven and a half days left in the classroom…


I am finally about to finish Eat Pray Love. You’d think I would be finished by now considering the fact I think I started reading the book in September. For some reason, whenever a more appealing book came along, I’d pick that one up and put Eat Pray Love on pause. Once I came upon the end of the book, it got to be really good and now I’m bummed that I can’t stay up
late into the night to finish it! Mel is going to let me borrow The Lucky One tomorrow. I'm really excited to start reading that. She said she absolutely loves it. I just can't wait to finish it before I get back to the States so I can drag Max to see the movie with me! ;)


A couple more Aussie words that I don’t believe I’ve mentioned are:

Brekky - breakfast

“I reckon” – a phrase used when we would say, “I think”

Petrol – gas for cars (So they say they need to get petrol,
we say we need to get some gas.)

Hugs and love, friends!!
Xoxo

Lake Kurwongbah

Kari and I ended our two week Aussie holiday with Nina and her host family on a lake. They picked us up before 10 am and off we went for atubing and skiing adventure! They actually have access to a “private” lake. There was a locked gate to get into this lake and only members of the ski club could use it.

One cool thing was that they wear wet suits when they go tubing and water skiing. I was wondering; why the HECK don’t we all have wet suits back in South Dakota or Minnesota? Lord knows we have colder water than Australians do! Definitely something to look into! They were awesome, relieved a bit of the shock from hitting the water, even though the water was pretty nice anyway!

Nina, Kari, and I were all on the same tube. We had a great time laughing at each other’s ridiculousness. Kari was screaming the whole time, I was yelling “Yeah!” in obnoxious ways, and Nina couldn’t help herself from falling off.

It felt like we had a little taste of home today. Nina’s host family consists of three grown children, two of their significant others, and two young children. Family friends also joined us at the lake for the day. We all sat around visiting. They asked us a lot of questions about America. We had
a picnic for lunch too. I felt like I was back in South Dakota for the summer. Cars just pulled up around our site, the Sun Shade (a canopy to protect us from the sun) was set up, and we all sat around on collapsible chairs while the boat came in and out to pick up riders. My South Dakota lovies will understand why that would feel like home to me.

Later in the afternoon we tried skiing. I have skied before, so I was super excited to have a go with it. Nina hadn’t done it before, so we had a good time teaching her how. She got up after four tries! Although, this did revive the love I have for water skiing. Maybe in the next ten years I’ll be able to afford my own boat! Ha, dream big!

It’s back to school for us tomorrow, and believe me, my brain is NOT ready for it! Only nine more days in the classroom though. So crazy!

Xoxo

Australia Zoo & Broncos Rugby Game

We started off our Friday morning around 7 am because we needed to get ready for our adventure to Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo and then later to the Brisbane Broncos Rugby League game!

Before we went into the actual zoo, we stopped by the animal hospital where we saw them working on an arachnid and then saw a couple of koalas getting help too. One koala even had an amputated leg! :( Poor little guy.. But he was so cute to watch walk around!

The Australia Zoo is on a HUGE piece of land. It is full of awesome animals and activities too! (Be sure to check out my pictures on Facebook if you haven’t already!) I got to feed an elephant, hold a baby crocodile, pet and feed kangaroos, pet koalas, and attend the Croc Show! We fed the elephants witch chunks of melon-type fruit about the size of my palm. It was the weirdest
thing EVER! Their trunks are like little vacuums! He just sucked the fruit up and tossed it back into his mouth! So crazy!

We did have one little incident when we were feeding the kangaroos. I wasn’t really thinking and I held my hand out too high for the kangaroo to reach easily. This kangaroo used its hands to grab mine. It kind of hurt because they have some kind of claw type fingers. Haha. Anyways, you aren’t supposed to pull the food away from the Kangaroos though, so I didn’t know what to do!
Eventually I just closed my palm over the food and walked away to feed another kangaroo. But then the same kangaroo came over by us when we were feeding a different kangaroo. Then the one we were feeding started growling while Nina was feeding it! Then mine was eating out of my hand again but when I tried towalk away it like hopped after me a little bit! I kind of freaked and just threw the food on the ground to get away from it! Haha. So embarrassing but no other kangaroos had acted like that. Needless to say Nina and I left those two alone after that. Haha.

We were lucky enough to go to the Zoo over the school holiday so Steve Irwin’s wife, Terri, and two kids, Bindi and Robert were there to perform the Croc Show! To get the show started the staff had us stand up and pay tribute to Steve by giving a big thumbs up and yelling, “Crikey!” I felt themost entertaining part was seeing them interact as a family, especially after
their devastating loss of Steve.

Terri said something about America while she was talking and of course all of us girls cheered pretty loudly. She looked up at us and asked us where we were from. We all yelled back that we were from Minnesota of course. Then she said, “That’s where the mall is right?!” And again, we all said yeah and cheered. It was so neat! I caught part of that interaction on video too.

A few times throughout the day the girls and I had discussions on how sometimes it was sad to be there because there are pictures of Steve everywhere. His quotes are posted throughout the zoo as well. Those are pretty inspiring. On the other side of the sadness is the fact that his family and the people at the Zoo are all working so hard to keep his dream alive. You can just feel the passion for the animals in the atmosphere while you are there.

We left the Zoo at 4 pm to catch the train to Brisbane for the Broncos Rugby League game! It took about an hour on the train to get to Brisbane. It was really neat because downtown it was just like being in the cities for Twins game. Everyone was wearing Broncos gear and the atmosphere wasreally neat. Unfortunately, it was raining on our walk there, which made it a bit chilly. We we re hoping the rain would clear though because it was an open air stadium.

When we got the stadium a few of us stopped to buy a shirt for ourselves. We grabbed food for supper and then headed to our seats. I had the most delicious chicken sandwich ever! (Here they call it a chicken burger). Nina was nice enough to share her fries with me. We couldn’t get over how perfectly salted the fries were. Haha. Stadium food always seems to hit the spot! I even
thoroughly enjoyed my Coke I had and I don’t even like Australia’s Coke! It tastes different than ours! We got to our seats that were in SECOND ROW. It was amazing! The players were like RIGHT THERE! Nina and I sat on the end of the group. We had a great time chatting between our spouts of trying to figure out how the heck Rugby worked! Of course we were comparing
it to our football the whole time. It was definitely an experience of Culture Shock being one of nine girls in the stadium of over 30,000 who had no idea what was going on and everyone else did!

Nina’s host family was able to go to the game so they lead us to the best train station to take so we could have seats on the train ride home. The ride home took forever for some reason. We were all dead tired once we got home from our long, exhausting, but totally awesome day!

I feel as though I need to tell you all something. Since you have been so kind to read my blog, I feel you deserve to know about a recent event in my life. Here it is: I have accepted a position as a first grade teacher in Huron, South Dakota for next year! I am very excited about this opportunity! I loved the principals and the superintendent after talking with them in my interview. (I did this interview over Skype at 4am the night we returned from Sydney!) So it seems that when I get back I have a bit more to celebrate over graduation weekend! :)

I got to use Facetime with Janaya and Keely tonight! It was SO fun! I LOVED talking with them! Except I can just tell we have SO much to catch up on! Haha. Reuniting with my roomies will be so great!

15 days until I’m home, friends! The next two weeks I will be back in the schools. I don’t know if my body is ready to get back to work after two weeks on Holiday, but I supposed it’s going to have to figure out a way to survive!

Love and hugs to everyone!
Xoxo