Sydney

I have quite exhausted my vocabulary for descriptive words, so this post may be a tad more bland than others...

I finally experienced the biggest city in Australia this weekend! Something odd-Flights are not allowed to arrive or depart from the Sydney airport between the hours of eleven pm and six am. Which also meant that any trains or shuttles leaving the airport also shut down... As my flight arrived right after 10:30, this meant I got the joy of waiting over an hour for an overpriced taxi. Well worth it, though.

All the other girls in my hostel were getting up super early on Saturday to tour the Blue Mountains, so I went ahead and got up with them to begin exploring the city. I've never really appreciated what other people see in big cities- I find them intrusive, cluttered, and claustrophobic. However, I really enjoyed this city, which may have been because I did all my walking around in the early hours of morning before everyone was up and around...

Nonetheless, I really enjoyed myself. The harbours are filled with amazing ships and sailboats, and the city is surrounded with fabulous gardens. I took an early ferry across the harbor to a suburb called Manly and spent the first part of the morning on Manly Beach. From the ferry are fantastic views of both the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge.

Saturday night brought with it a trip inside the Opera House, where I saw King Lear (Shakespeare...). For the first time since I've been here I didn't get ready by throwing my hair in a ponytail and putting on whatever I thought would keep me the coolest without air conditioning. Although I have appreciated this, it was also nice to look nice again. The play was wonderful, and the Opera House intricately beautiful.

Sunday morning came the Blue Mountains, named so for the blue hue that they take on. I found out today that this occurs from all the eucalyptus found in the mountains. As the oils in the leaves evaporate, they create a blue haze, causing the mountains to appear blue in color. I spent right around five hours hiking through all the trails, both up and down all the mountains. I have Herculean lower body strength at this point.

Daddy and Kelly-you would have been extremely proud of me. I actually went almost to the edge of each cliff and guardrail with only minor heart palpitations at each one. (Here's one such lookout)

This formation is known as the three sisters. Legend has it that, once upon a time, there lived three beautiful sisters, of whom the local wizard was extremely jealous. So jealous, in fact, that he decided to turn them into pillars. Upon finding this out, our Prince Charming of course comes in to save the day. He chases the wizard until cornered, whereupon the wizard aims to get away by turning himself into stone, without thinking of the repercussions. Because of course, a stone has no arms, and therefore cannot hold his wand. Without the ability to use his wand, the wizard and the sisters were forced to remain in this way for eternity. And here they lie (stand).

Yet another weekend, yet another amazing adventure. This marked the end of seven weeks here, leaving me at this point with less than three remaining. I've thoroughly enjoyed all of my time here, and I hope to make the most of what I have left. Although I am very sad to leave, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little happy to come home as well. I will greatly miss all my kids, my colleagues, and Lauretta and Dave, and I hope to come back and visit them soon, but it will also be nice to be back with all my other friends and family... and Layla!

Love you all!!

Insomnia

11:30 pm.

Generally speaking, this is not an odd time for a person to be awake. However, a person who is awake by 5:30 every morning tends to fall asleep every night much earlier.

Which actually, I do. For some reason, however, my sleep lasts a mere hour or two, before I am back awake, in my dark, silent room, staring at the ceiling for hours upon end. -To Ashley and Hayden, As with at home, my falling asleep generally occurs on the couch, during a movie.

I'm going to choose to blame this on the weather. The "Sunshine State" of Queensland has not been keeping up to its motto as of late, with six of the last seven days being completely overcast and dreary. No storms, no downpours, just a constant drizzle of mist and humidity. I'm thinking due to this I'm sleeping more than I should be, so my body's lovely way of not letting me sleep to much is to keep me awake at the most inconvenient times imaginable. Either that or my body just plain hates me. I'd like to believe the former.

Despite the weather, life in Brisbane remains wonderful. Although I am becoming a little homesick at times now, I am growing closer and closer to my friends here. My departure date is going to be one of the most devasting, most exciting days. My supervising teacher has taken me in as family, as well as most of the other staff at school. I will sorely miss the Australian ability to treat all people with such amazing hospitality.

I continue to wonder at the education levels of some of my students. I gave the Year 8s a mid-term test just to see how they were doing (Students here only get two grades a term, one final and one project!) and it is good for them that it cannot affect their grade, as a little over half would have failed. We are still doing what should be review for all of them, such as adding fractions, using order of operations, knowing what a multiple is. As I went through marking their work, I got so discouraged I had to stop halfway through before finishing the next day. Are they really this far behind, did I really present the material that badly, or do they really listen so little? For their sake, I hope it is the last two, for my sake I hope it is the first. The Year 11s and 12s are bored with their work and the slowness of the curriculum, which worries me that the Year 8s should be as well. However, with the upper levels, we have covered new material which they do comprehend, which solaces me again.

With next weekend comes Sydney (thanks again Daddy and Kelly!), which I am extremely excited about. I keep forgetting to look up Opera schedules, but I am very much hoping I am able to attend one. The Blue Mountains are meant to be amazing as well, so hopefully I will have some good pictures for you all next week.

12:00 AM

Ugh. I am so bored, I want to write, but my thoughts as well are unbelievably boring. Guess its time to give sleep another chance. Or perhaps I'll have another dull post in thirty minutes.

Butterfly Fish

I realized that I left out a picture of my favorite fish... unlike the mean fellow we were introduced to in Finding Nemo, these guys are the most romantic of all the fishes. This, along with one or two other variations of the butterfly fish, are one of the only who mate for life, and die very soon after the death of their partner.

This is yet another reason the Reef is such a whirlwind of emotion. It's hard to imagine such commitment in such a small, seemingly insignificant life. We humans have rational thought, emotions to fit any situation, and yet we can't live up to the expectations of those of an animal one tenth of our size.

What a beautiful idea. That it really can be so simple.

Great Barrier Reef

Because of Australia's lack of ability to keep up with 21st century technology, I have been without internet for the past ten days, and therefore unable to update you all on my goings-on. This weekend was rather without excitement, which leaves me completely free to travel back to last weekend... by far the most amazing experience I've had here in Australia... The Great Barrier Reef.

To attempt to even begin to explain is impossible. There is not a word to describe the smallness that you feel. You step on to the boat at a normal ratio to the world around you, then you gradually get smaller as you can barely see the coastline, lose the coastline, and become engulfed by the bigness of the skies and the greatness of the waters. As if you were not small enough at this point, you now go underwater and enter into a completely new world, a land of corals and sand and turtles and sharks and more species of fish than you can count, completely surrounding you, constantly reminding you of how much more there is that you can't see and don't know. Giant schools of the most vibrant fish glide past as if you aren't there, lazy turtles slip under your flippers, curious sharks circle to smell you out, and the vast stretches of abodes and niches made from the most amazing variety of colors and textures of coral lure you to explore the life that they contain. Such a humbling feeling. Twice in my life now I have been so struck by natural beauty that I have literally been moved to tears. The beauty and the magnificence is overwhelming and indescribable.

These pictures are but a small, sad, insignificant view, but they will have to suffice

Lifestyles

Well, its official.

I am absolutely, irrevocably, completely, 100% in love with each and every single one of my students. I have four separate classrooms full of the most beautiful, agreeable children one could imagine. There are of course the small instances of too much talking or other small cut-ups, but one mention of the wrong doing, and the students stop. No questions asked, no smart comments. They are all full of so much personality, I sometimes get worn out trying to keep up with them. But due to playful, light-hearted, and kind nature of these great amounts of personality, keeping up with them is something I am more than willing to do.

I've noticed this type of personality is very prevalent here. Australians lack that speedy, uptight, need to prove yourself attitude that seems to fit the stereotypical American. Not that I don't love my country, I do, I just think that we could learn a lot from this laid back lifestyle. Australians know how to laugh at themselves, they don't get offended over small issues that are overall irrelevant, and less of a sense of entitlement that... I'm again lacking for words, but my point is pretty clear.

You can see the effects of this less stressful lifestyle in more than just their personalities. Every one I've met looks so much younger than an American of the same age. They all look extremely young and healthy. I've also noticed that I've yet to see a single woman with more than extremely simple make-up on her face. I may be attributing wrongly here, but I also think this stems from the simplicity of the lifestyle. With less stress, they first of all have less lines and imperfections to cover. I also think though that growing up in an environment where you feel good about yourself and lack violent stressors, it is much easier to be okay in your own skin and to lack those insecurities that so many people back home seem to have. At any rate, I think it looks much prettier.

A couple weird quirks I've noticed:

Steph-Just like in Ireland, they put butter or margarine on ALL their sandwiches. They also use MAYONAISSE as salad dressing. It makes me want to vomit. There must be something to this lack of stressful atmosphere, because I really don't understand how they are all so thin and without coronaries.

All public bathrooms have port-a-potty style locks on them. Instead of saying occupied, they say engaged. I know this is really dumb, but I am still amused by it. Not sure why.

When someone offers to give you a lift here, that does not mean I will come to your house and pick you up, or drive to your house to drop you off. That means, you walk to the closest intersection, no matter how far away, and I will hope the light is red and pick you up there. Same for getting dropped off. I'm dying to find out if this is the case on dates as well... I should probably find that one out by experience, what do you think, Hayden? :)

And this is just plain annoying... all TV shows are a season or two behind here. So I am re-watching House. Also, you apparently cannot watch shows on Fox online unless you are actually in the United States. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Speaking of Hayden's... A monsoon came at the school yesterday. There were literally parts of the school walkways that were a foot deep in water. Somehow, all of my Year 8s were able to make it to class dry and on time, except for a certain Hayden, who was late and completely soaked from head to toe, with extremely smelly feet and hair pointing in every direction possible from the water to top it off. It appears the correlation between the names and personalities continues....

I continue to miss all of you very, very much! I'm scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef this weekend, so hopefully there will be much exciting news come Monday (or Sunday to you guys)!

Parents-Because I will be in Cairns at the Great Barrier Reef this weekend, so I may have trouble getting in touch with you again; however, I am pretty sure there is free wi-fi where we are staying, so I should be able to call you Saturday or Sunday. If not, I'll send you an email and let you know a time I can call during the week so that you can make sure if you are at work you can answer your phone.

Two-Fifths In

I am now thinking and seeing in high school mathematics. Much easier on the brain than the theoretical mathematics I was so used to living and breathing.

This weekend started out and ended fantastically. Friday the school had a Valentine's fundraiser and sold roses, chocolates, etc., that the students could buy and give to each other. I received a rose, a box of chocolates, and two cards, which were quite adorable. One of the Year 10s had the gall write to me that I had pretty eyes... I chose not to respond to that one, although I still though it was sweet, in a non-pedophilic kind of way. I also have definitely let a few of the students become favorites, which I know is wrong, but I can't help! I think I do a pretty good job of not showing it, though.

As soon as we all got home Friday night, we all packed up and headed out to Byron Bay to go camping. Byron Bay is a nearby hippie, heady town with intoxicating and indescribable beauty. The skies at night are bright, and not from the litter of big city lights, but rather from the billions of stars that luminate it. During the day, the skies are an incredible piercing, deep blue, and the mountains and hillsides display every shade of green, from the very brightest of neons to the deepest, most lush forest greens. Even if I had been given the gift of words, there aren't enough to paint an accurate picture. The pictures as well don't begin to do justice either.

Of course, me being the most accident prone person there, survived a series of mishaps. Within about 15 minutes of being at the beach, I became the only person of our party to get stung by the infamous bluebottle jellies. So then I got to spend 30 minutes in the sick tent. Then, after preaching to everyone about making sure they were covered head to toe in sunscreen, not forgetting the tops of their ears and telling the horror stories of my grandfather who died of skin cancer, who but myself forgets to put a second coat on after lunch. I turned quite a lovely shade of crimson, and I still can't quite sit down or lie on my back. Very nice. Thirdly, and finally, I was sitting in the tent with just my head and legs poking out so as to stay out of the sun but still be able to talk to everyone, when what should climb up my dress and bite my butt, literally, but a raging Australia bull ant. The good news of all this is that we all got quite a good laugh and several moments of entertainment at my expense. So I guess it was worth it... Onlymaybenotreally. All-in-all though, the weekend really was amazing, and I'm extremely thankful that I only happened upon the bluebottles and not the box jellies!! And the pain wasn't so bad, so I guess the laughter may have been worth it.

We finished the weekend by going to the local markets. Every day there is a music and arts type festival/market. It's very similar to Kentuck, only year-round. Actually, perhaps a mix between Kentuck and Wakarusa. It's extremely music oriented.

-Mom and Jeff-I found this great piece of green amber that exactly matches my necklace, and I got to watch the guy (who looked creepily just like Joseph) finish putting it together as a ring. Now I just need a pair of earrings to complete the set... :).

I think my favorite part was watching one tent make juice out of sugar cane. In case you have never seen it, sugar cane looks identical to bamboo, and these guys were running it through a strainer and adding a touch of ginger. The result was amazing.

I've waited again until I was too tired to start writing, so I'm sure I've left something out. Everything is still amazing, and I still miss you all very much!! This Friday I leave for the Great Barrier Reef, so there will be much to tell come Monday!!

Sigh

I just got on a bus, started daydreaming, and missed my stop. This resulted in my freaking out when I realized I had no idea where I was, followed by my riding around the city pointlessly for way too long. I don't know what possessed me to think that I would be safe in a foreign country alone with my absent mind.