I am completely appalled by the schooling of some of the students here. After having so many courses on how bad education in the States is and what needs to be done to fix it, and comparing it to other countries, I had always assumed that we were one of the worst or slightly behind others. I have been proven extremely wrong. I literally taught a lesson to a group of Year 8s (as in , 8th grade) yesterday on adding WHOLE numbers. No decimals, no fractions, just regular, whole numbers. The saddest part-some students were still struggling today. I think I learned that in second grade... if not first. I'm terrified to see how they respond when we start multiplication. There is one student in the class who is extremely mischevious, very naughty, as they would say here, has a shock of disheveled hair, doesn't do his math, and his name is Hayden. I am waiting at every second for him to burst out with a "HYUEH" or start spazzing out or quoting Larry David. It actually gets a tad distracting :).

My Year 12s are really awesome. One class is a little better than the other, but I think that is generally how it goes. The kids have so much personality, especially when it comes to making fun of my accent! They all try to copy it, but they're not so good at it. I've answered these questions so many times: Do you have a gun? Is the KKK still around? Are frat parties really like what we see on TV? Is Las Vegas like in the movies? etc... And they are of course all appalled at my preconceived notions about Australia.

This week hasn't been too exciting... I've spent most of my time writing out lesson plans for the term, so I don't have anything too exciting to share.

I love and miss you all very much!!!