Schools and New Flatmate

Well I have officially been here for over two weeks, half a month! It is unbelievable to me how the time has flown by. I now have a home, a job, a working Australian phone number, an Australian bank account and a monthly metrocard. I have definitely started becoming acquainted with the city and how to get around even though I’m not the best at it yet.
Monday I worked at apparently one of the toughest schools in Melbourne and survived. I took Tuesday off to finally get a few errands done and had a nice day in the city with Caitlin followed by a nice dinner and wine at home.
Wednesday I worked at a school that was only a 10 minute walk from my house which was fabulous. I got to stop at my favorite coffee shop, Al Luca, on the way. It was a grade 3/4 class and they were wonderful. I felt so at home with this class and the objectives. I even did a literacy group and loved it!!! I got to teach in that class for two days. It was so nice. Friday I was back at the school I went to on Monday. However this time I was in a second grade class and they were fine. Plus it didn’t hurt that the teacher left the last hour of the day to watching Toy Story 2 lol! So overall the workweek was nice.
Schools are definitely different here. All grades have what they call morning tea, which is just an early snack time that the whole school participates in at the same time. Then they all go out for a short recess, which they call yard time. All grades together and certain teachers have yard duty each time but there are usually only about 2 teachers on yard duty for the whole school. Kids are just running around outside. It seems to work though. I haven’t had to deal with too much on duty other than say nice words or looking after scraps from falling down. After yard they have regular teaching and then lunch is done in a similar way. There are no cafeterias here. All children bring their lunches from what I have seen, though I do think the tough school had it where you could sign up for lunch and one student picks it up and brings it back for those who ordered it but that is even like a little sack lunch for them. You eat in the classroom when the bell rings. They only get about ten minutes to eat then the bell rings again and it is yard time again. This time yard time last for 50 minutes. If you don’t have yard time you get the whole 50 minutes to do whatever. Specials are definitely not every day it seems here but there are specials. No PE though I don’t think. I have only seen art and choir/performing arts so far. Once I had to go to choir with the children. The other time that kids went to art and I had to go relieve a teacher and take over her class while she played on her computer in her office right beside the classroom. I thought that was weird. Plus I didn’t like her class they were kinda chaotic and she never came out to get them to get it together. So I wasn’t a fan of this system but at least it was only for 30 minutes. Dismissal is great. The bell rings the kids leave or you wait for about 5 minutes for a few to get picked up from parents. I haven’t really seen buses except at the specialized school. I think mainly it is neighborhood schools here especially for the little ones, so walking is an option.

My new roommate came on Wednesday. His name is Dean and he is really fun.
We all went out for dinner. There was a restaurant with outside seating. The seating was like comfy couch chairs and a nice heat lamp. We had steak and a bottle of wine. It was really nice. We just chatted and got to know Dean, the Italian a little more. It was funny because while walking to the restaurant Caitlin said so you are….and Dean cut her off and said “yes, I am Italian.” She was like that wasn’t what I was going to ask and he got so embarrassed. Since then every day we bust out with ragging on him by saying, “yes, I am Italian.” Hee hee We are having fun all living together and we all get along so well.
Thursday, I the breadwinner of the day because neither one of them work that day came home from a long day at work and cooked for everyone. It was cool though. I made my bowtie festival pasta meal and they loved it. Friday we ate in the city and went to a bar there but we all so tired we were home by 11:30. Dean cooked a delicious meal for us Saturday night and we celebrated a little at home before going out. Then we went to the city again and danced all night long! Tomorrow our last edition to the clan comes and we will begin even more adventures with the four of us.

Moving Day!

It has been a crazy process trying to get a place here. When you know you want a four bedroom and there seems to be none available as well as knowing you need a furnished place but that seems to be a rare possibility, you are low on options. So when a three bedroom, fully furnished, amazing apartment becomes an option one gets very excited. After receiving word that the apartment was ours to have it was time to get the other two Canadians, who will be joining us, involved. This is tough with a 16 hour time difference and your main source of communication with them is facebook.
In the end they got our messages and were able to call in their part of the money. We found out that everything was processed and done with an hour and ½ before Caitlin and I were suppose to sign the lease. Up to that point it was very stressful not knowing if it would be done in time. We thought we would get to the area of the leasing office early and do some shopping. We jumped on the train to go to Chapel Street where the office is. Thankfully we thought about finding it first and then shopping around it. The problem was Caitlin and I thought the address was two different numbers. I had put it in my iphone when she was on the phone with the realtor days before as 141 but she thought it was 414. So we went to 141 first and saw it was a Thai shop instead of the office. So we trammed it down the road to 414 to find out that there was no 414. One whole block was 402 with different shop numbers then it jumped to 426. We walked up and down the street and asked many people trying to find the place. Finally a shop worker looked it up and said that the office was 141 but it was just a different 141 farther down the street. Here is was 5 till our appointment time and we had thought we were going to get there so early. Knowing that we were going to be late the stress was back on. We couldn’t believe that they really made two different 141 chapel street on the same street. We finally got there 15 minutes after and the dream came true. We got the keys to this amazing place!!!!
We made our way back to the hostel with a total high. We walked the whole way and laughed and sang on the way there. When we got back to the hostel I was so excited when telling Jaimie about getting the place, I didn’t realize I was completely waking up one of our other hostel mates. Caitlin and I then decided to get ready but unfortunately had to tiptoe around and be quiet so that we didn’t wake the girl. This made it all that much sweeter we were about to move into a place where we didn’t have to do that anymore. We got dressed and were ready to move our entire luggage collection all the way across town to our new place.
Thank goodness Jaimie was such a gentleman and had said he would help. It was settled then we would all celebrate since ontop of us getting our place, he had found out he got the job he was here interviewing for. So getting my four bags and Caitlin’s three bags across town was very comical. I had the huge rollaway bad and my laptop bag while Jaime carried my very heavy duffle bag and my small rollaway bag. Caitlin had here bookbag on her back and her small bag propped on here rollaway bag. We had to take them through the streets to the tram. Then we had to put them on the tram without the doors closing on us. If it wasn’t for Jaimie it would have been impossible since I couldn’t even pick up a couple of the bags they were so heavy. A couple of strangers helped get them on and off the tram as well. While on the tram we remembered that we lived on the top floor. Cailtin and I were like oh no and agreed aloud just don’t tell Jaimie. He then realize what we were talking about and ask if there were stairs, when we said nothing he said “Don’t tell me” hee hee. Once we got to our amazing place we got the bags up all the stairs to realize it is really hard to open our front door. We finally got the door open and then got inside. We tried to turn on the lights but unfortunately the lights didn’t come. At this point I had to burst out in laughter. After walking around in the dark thinking we were going to go without lights and heat for a few days, Jaimie finds the power box and turned everything on. We then were ready to celebrate and we did. I open the bottle of champagne on our awesome balcony and then we all cheered. Jaimie made a fire in our gorgeous fireplace. We stayed in for awhile having hilarious conversations and enjoying our new home. We then went out to Chapel Street and had a very good night and returned to our home! There is no place like home!!!!

I took this picture the night we moved in:) I will have much much more soon. I have just been busy working this week and haven't gotten to take any pics. More to come soon I swear!

What do you do when you have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and have already moved to Australia!?!

As I remind myself everyday I’m in Australia, today was very important for me to remember that. I woke up extra early and even before my alarm went off so that I could be ready with plenty of time before my first day of work. The agency said they would call around 7:00am to tell where I would be teaching for the day, however that was not the case. I was at McDonald’s using their free wifi and the time kept going by with no call. So Caitlin called them about what tram ticket we should buy while I was skyping with my family. They told her she had a job and I got on the phone to ask if they had one for me. They did but it was going to be in a special education setting and it was going to be quite far away. I accepted the job and went on my way having to cut off my video chat very quickly. At this point it was already almost 8:30am. Fortunately we were both headed in the same direction and jumped on the tram. We went from the tram to the train and thought we were going to part ways. As I was jumping on the train and sitting down, Caitlin jump on the train too. She said that she was told by a helpful stranger that she had to take the same train.
So there we are chatting away and I am waiting for the Wastonia station to get off at. I start to get a little worried that I didn’t know when to get off. I looked at the map on the tram and realize that I was suppose to get off at the last stop and switch trains. I panicked and tried to get off right then cause we were stopped. A man tried to tell me how to open the door but on accident I pressed the emergency button instead. A person came on the speaker and the man on the train told me I hit the panic button! I had to tell the guy on the intercom that I was ok while Caitlin is laughing her ass off at me. I got off at the next stop and had to run to the other side of the platform to catch the right train. I luckily caught it in time and was on the right way. When I got the Wastonia station I realize it had started to rain and I knew I had quite a walk ahead of me to the school. I ended up having to walk about 25 minutes in the misty rain without an umbrella. During the wet walk I started thinking that about the crazy nerves I had been through already this morning and it was already 10:30 and I wasn’t even at the school yet. My choices were to either cry or laugh. I choose laughing because I realize that it was a terrible way for my morning to start but at least I was in Australia and I figured hopefully the day could only get better.
Well we all can be wrong. Luckily the office was very nice when I came in and told me where to go. When I got to the school it was an all special education school and it was a middle school. I assumed it would be an elementary school since I do not have any experience in middle school. When I walked into the classroom the students were playing on computers, dancing and eating. It was their snack time. I got briefed by a woman who was in there with the plans for the day and then she left. I was shocked that there wasn’t an aid for this fully special education classroom. There was a women next door and she was there for any questions I had. After eating time it was time for them to use their laptops for mathletics. This seemed simple enough however it wasn’t. First thing one of the student’s laptop couldn’t get internet. The aid came in and told me that she would be working with 2 particular students because they really can’t do focus enough to do it on their own. So while I’m trying to get one laptop working all the other students are doing pretty good on their laptops until I walk around and realize that two of them are just playing music with their headphones and some of the others are just sitting there not doing anything. The aid tries to work on the computer while I get others on task. She then has to leave remarking that I might need to sit by the two boys leaving the others in the classroom practically knowing that no one is able to walk around and see what they are actually doing on the computer. One boy is continually making noises and obviously getting frustrated while another keeps getting up and refusing to work because he is bored. I start having one boy closing his laptop so that it closes down, when a couple more laptops start to die. We finally have to go ahead and put them all up 10 minutes before it is their lunch time. I try to play a math game with them but half of them were trying to leave the room. At this time other students started coming in and mine were suggesting they were suppose to leave but every adult said no they aren’t suppose to go and would tell the other children to go back to their class. I even had one boy tell his friend, “Don’t listen to that girl, just go.” The odd part was the adults didn’t seem to act like it was a bad or unusually thing for all these students to be wondering around to different classrooms.
Lunch was supposed to be eaten in the classroom for 10 minutes then they had 30 minutes of doing whatever they wanted. It was during the first ten minutes the aid came in and said I was suppose to have already gone to lunch but I had 10 minutes before I had yard duty and that I better go eat now. By the time I got to the staff room I literally had 5 minutes to eat. Then I had to be in a hallway walking up and down and checking in on rooms for my yard duty. I soon realized that the reason for this was because they had unsupervised classroom where students are to be keeping themselves busy by entertaining themselves in any way they chose. It was the worst structure I had ever seen at a school. Within these classrooms I found students listen to inappropriate music, making their screenpages full of wrestling pictures, students playing games with chainsaws and much more very uneducational and inappropriate things to do at school. There were other adults on yard duty so I asked if they could listen to that music and play those games and they said yes. I was shocked.
I finally had to go back to my classroom where I set up stations with the other teacher where it ended up being that the kids just got to play games pretty much the rest of the afternoon. Some of the games where thought provoking where others were not so much. The children were disrespectful to me and other adults that would come in. No one seemed to have any consequence for the children. So needless to say it wasn’t my best day of teaching ever. I got off work just to walk 25 minutes in the rain again to get to the train station.
That night I had to go down to the hostel bar to forget and let the day roll off my back with Jaimie and another Canadian that had been assign to our hostel room. It was a nice end to a not so great day.

Newbie Adventures

21.07.10 (This is how they do the date…..day then month then year!)
Wow the last few days have just flown by. So my first weekend in Melbourne was nothing less than a blast. Saturday we filed suit with the cold weather (it’s winter here) and went ice skating with some new friends and then went to a nice cozy restaurant with a fire place. Sunday was cold and rainy and we enjoyed a nice day in watching TV in the hostel lounge. It was nice to actually slow down for a day. That night we went to our first Authentic Australian bar called the Vineyard. We met a couple of pure Australians and got the low down on what we must do while in this continent and what is a waste of time. We are very excited about planning trips to the beautiful beaches when it gets a little warmer. We enjoyed laughing and listening to the Australian slang all through the night!
Monday was my interview!!! I got up so early so that there would be no way I could be late for my interview. I got all dressed up and then went off and bought my tram ticket for the day. I got a coffee and hopped on the tram. I felt very grown up and professional hee hee. It was fun figuring out where to get off and then wandering the streets a little to find my way. By the time I knew I wasn’t very far from the place, I still had an hour to kill. So I stopped at good ole McD’s because they have free Wifi and I got to wish my beautiful big sister Happy 29th Birthday. I got to say I love you to the rest of the family and then I was off to my interview. It went wonderfully and I start work tomorrow (Thursday). After my interview I made my way back to the hostel to pick up Caitlin so that we could go apartment looking. We were off to St. Kilda Rd to see a beautiful full furnished apartment. We got there an hour early as well and we scoped out the surrounding area so we could see if there were enough cute restaurants, café and bars around….and there are! The apartment is absolutely perfect and even included linens, dishes and all appliances/TV, all the things people coming from a foreign country and not planning on staying permanently needs! Here is a link so everyone can see how great it is:
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-apartment-vic-melbourne-404674559
We then had a very “romantic” dinner for two at this awesome Indian restaurant we found not too far from the hostel.

The food was fantastic and the ascetics were interesting.


We then went home to find our Irish mates were packing up to leave in the morning. They convinced us to go and celebrate their last night and so we DID. We started in the hostel lounge with a fun card game and tried the a famous Australian tradition of Goon Wine…it comes from a box lol. The party move to the hostel bar then off to a club down the road. We had a blast and I met quite a few cute blokes that night.


The next day was my first time getting to fully explore downtown Melbourne, which is absolutely astounding. The buildings are beautiful and there are so many unique structures. It is a very busy city with a complete big city feel. The shopping and restaurants are awesome!


The city is so much fun. You go down one street and look down the alley way to expect to see an alley but instead it is full of shops and cafes and then that alley way leads to another one with shops and cafes.


It is truly wonderful and an exceptional experience.


While shopping we got the “call”…it was our realtor telling us that we got the apartment!!!!! As soon as Caitlin got off the phone we scream and jumped up and down. We went back to the hostel and hung out with our new hostel mate who happened to be a Kiwi (from New Zealand). When Irish left it was down to only Caitlin, Jaimie (the Kiwi) and I in the room. It was quite nice to have a little bit more room around. We picked Jaimie’s mind about the culture in New Zealand and how it compares to Australia. Now I’m off to bed to get ready for my first day at work!

THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD

So the rest of my week was wonderful as to be expected! The second day my jetlag finally caught up with me and I slept alot! Day 3 Caitlin and I went house looking. So for the first time I was able to really wonder around Melbourne! We set up two inspections. Before we headed out we had the most amazing lunch at BigMouth:) I had chicken apple curry..yum! Then we took the train to the suburb of Yarra! It was so fun wondering around and getting lost looking for the train station:) We finally made it there and the first place was ok. We then ventured off across the city to the suburb of Southbank. We got off the train just to realize no one knew where the street we were going to was. It was hillarious and we looked like such tourist hee hee. We finally made it and the apartment is absolutely breathtaking. The view is of the whole city and the apartment is very modern! It even has a indoor swimming pool. We are in the process of trying to get this one set so wish us luck:)

That night we attended our hostel's Ladies Night, where there was free bubbly:) I had a blast and met another million backpackers! I danced all night and finally crashed out just to wake up a few hours later for my day trip to the Great Ocean Road! The Great Ocean Road is amazing! We stopped at the beach of Torquay first where the famous Rip Curl Pro Surfing Competion is!

We then went along the road and heard the history of the Diggers (Australian Soldiers) and how they made The Great Ocean Road. Each stop was even more beautiful then the one before. We stopped at a campgroup where for the first time ever in my life I saw real live KOALAS in their natural habitat.It was so much Fun!!!

We even stopped and walked throug the rainforest. Then we were off to the Twelve Apostles, which was absolutely remarkable. After the apostles we stop at a beach with where Caitlin and I dared the cold water and put our feet in:) Our last stop was a sunset at the London Bridge. It was probably the most beautiful day I have ever had. The beauty in the nautral scenery here is unreal. I LOVE AUSTRALIA!!! oh and our tour guide was nautral borned Australian, so we got to hear his amazing accent the whole day...it was great!

First day in Australia

Day 1 in Australia! It was amazing I started the day off by landing in New Zealand at 4:30am their time, who knows what time that would be in American. I had went through so many time zones those first days of traveling that I am pretty certain my body still doesn’t have a clue what time of day it is. Well anyways my first international flight was Awesome!!! Movies, amazing food and wine lots of wine From New Zealand I flew into Melbourne. It was finally there when landing that it hit me that I was indeed moving across the world. The feeling was so overwhelming I seriously teared out with joy.
Getting off the plane all alone in this huge airport was refreshing. It made me feel as if I could do anything in the world. I got my bags (all 4 of them) then went through customs. This took quite a bit of time actually. I then found the information desk to buy my shuttle ticket to the hostel. I was impressed by myself to be able to figure out every step along the way. Finally I was on the shuttle to my hostel. Looking around my neck got stiff by switching directions every which way. Melbourne looks like a city not to different from America, though looking on in the distance you can see beautiful landscaping.
When I got to the hostel it was a bitch to get all of my bags up to my room. It was rather comical for those watching. Once I got in my room I starting meeting those I would be sharing the room with for the next week. There were two Irish mates who were quite nice and one British man. After a few minutes my soon to be roommate walked in. Her name is Caitlin and she is Canadian. She is very sweet and we spent pretty much the rest of the day talking Big surprise huh.
Caitlin and I set out for lunch after I spoke on MSN with my very eager family. It was noon Tuesday here and 9pm Monday there in Texas. The hostel is right beside tons of cute shops and cafes. We found a great little place with outdoor seating. The first day wasn’t cold at all, it was just a nice brisk day. We got to know one another while looking around at the crazy way they drive on the other side of the road.
After a little jetlag nap I was ready to meet more people (I know shocker). So we went downstairs in the hostel bar for drinks and trivia. Not long after ordering a boggers beer we met some very nice people. We ended up having two teams of trivia at our table. I met people from Denmark, England, Australia, and America within the group. During trivia, which Caitlin, the boy from Denmark and I weren’t doing that well , they ask everyone to pick two members of the team to be part of a human wheel barrel race. So there Caitlin was holding my legs while I was walking on my hands in this little pub around a worker at the end. It was a blast and the announcer had everyone cheering for us because we were some of the only girls participating in this part. We did not win but it was still very fun and at least we didn’t bust anything open unlike one of the teams After trivia the group all went onto a club down the road from the hostel. I had a blast dancing and meeting tons of very interesting people from all parts of the world. I even got made fun of by an Australian because he asked me if I knew where Tora was and I thought he asked if I was a tourist. So the rest of the night he made references about me being a tourist and how we had to make sure I didn’t get lost. It was a fabulous night and we didn’t end up leaving the club until almost 3am. We came back and I passed out.
The next morning (today) I was wide eyed and bushytailed at 9:30am and decided to go for a run. Caitlin and I took a beautiful run on the St. Kilda beach not even a quarter mile away from our hostel. It was absolutely breathtaking. The water is so blue and clear. I went down and felt the water which was cold but not terribly so. We then got lunch with one of our current flat mates at a café down the street. I got bold and tried new tapas that was like nothing I had ever had but very yummy. The rest of the day I have been battling with my jetlag and took a long nap. We will see what this night comes up with but I will be keeping you all updated on any great adventures.I will put up my beautiful pictures tomorrow! So off I go…

Working on Getting There!

Within the last few months a lot has changed since I had decided to start this blog for my adventures in Australia. Even though parts of the plan have been readjusted I am still very excited and optimistic about my journey. I am now leaving for my 28 hours of travel on July 11th (Less than 2 weeks away!!!). Currently I am visiting my family in Texas until I leave. I will be meeting a Canadian girl, Caitlin, first and we will be looking for a place to live when I arrive. After I come, 2 more awesome Canadians will be joining us:)

To get to the point of being able to fly there took a lot more work than I thought it would. I have now officially received confirmation from both the Victorian Institute of teaching and the ANZUK agency that all of my paperwork has went through!! Yay:) The paperwork was only one part. About a month ago I had to turn in my resignation form to a wonderful school that I will miss very much. It was very bittersweet to pack up my classroom and say goodbye to all of my beautiful and amazing colleagues that I have become so close to.

I was then left with packing up my house and selling everything! I thought selling on Craigslist was suppose to be easy. Somethings didn't go until the last day I was there. So in between cleaning my whole apartment, turning over all my dog's stuff to the dog sitter, saying goodbyes and returning items that were not mine to keep, I still had to sell furniture too. Oddly enough one of the not so gentlemen who bought my dinning room table in some many words offered me money for sex (I turned it down just in case you were wondering). Needless to say I was a little frazzled that day and of course my lovely ex boyfriend was there 3 hours late to help but he got to see the hot mess that I was. Although, it wouldn't be me if I didn't wait to the last possible second:) The morning of leaving to Texas for my last few weeks I had to sit on the car window holding mattresses to Charles' car to take to the dumpster at 7am. Story of my life.

Leading up to my departure to Texas wasn't all hard work!!! I got to see the Timber girls one last time when we went to see the Sex and the City movie! I went to the Beginning Teachers' celebration and they did a very fun game in my honor. I had a sweet goodbye lunch from my great teammates! My amazing friend Erin came to visit me for a week:) Within that week we got the cops called on us and manage to spend 5 days at the beach, which was awesome! I had goodbye lunches with my favorite teachers and I had a "Until Next Time" celebration thrown in my honor by the most fun loving women I know! All of this meant so much to me and I will remember it forever.

So now I am visiting friends and family in Texas and then off to Australia!!! I will be writing soon to fill you in on all the crazy details of my life:) Until Next Time.....