Tonight I began studying again!!!
Hehe!!!!
After lamenting the loss of study for nearly a year, I have decided to delve into the realms of discovery again! Oh how I love it!!! Tonight I began studying a subject that will be credited towards my Masters of Christian Education and already I’m feeling indulged!
I’m soooooo excited!!!!
Last term I was creating posters on figurative language to go on the walls of my classroom. In the middle of composing said posters at school I had to abandon my desk, probably to make an essential cup of tea or something. While I was away someone made a few alterations to one of my posters:
alliteration
al-lit’-er-a’-tion
Repeated consonant
sounds:
“Peter Piper liked to
peck and tickle lepers.”
Hmmmm.
…I could look that happy about going back to school. And to think I have to wait two days till my next holiday! Bah!
Why? you may ask…Well, because they have little piles marking their entry into logs and the like and their little marking piles are cute. See:
Cute.
But I have big piles of marking marking my entry to Term Two and these are not very cute.
Oh, to be a fir beetle!
As the name suggests this ride operates at some serious speed at a maximum height of 32 meters. Speed promises to leave even the most hardened thrill seeker shocked, satisfied and weak at the knees.
As you can partially see, the seats are at the end of a very long (32 meter) vertical arm which spins from a central point on an upright post. The ride only takes eight people at a time – four at each end. So you sit in this chair with a big harness and the arm spins very fast while your little carriage also spins. A lot of the time it feels like you are free falling as you spin either upside down or hurtle face first towards the ground. I feel like I’ve been on this ride a lot lately – mainly because I have.
Last night I was fortunate enough to accompany a group of students to the Sydney Royal Easter Show on a school excursion. No, we were not there to check out the agricultural displays or see the latest in innovation. No, we were not going to see the pretty apples in their picturesque displays – although we did, and they were very nice. We were there for the rides! Wahoooooo!
The Sport and Recreation class were going as part of their studies in thrill seeking recreation activities and sadly, the class did not have a female teacher to supervise the girls in the class, so, I just HAD to go. It was my duty.
Every week this class takes part in some kind of recreation activity as part of their study. So far they have gone jet boat riding, climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and had surfing lessons. Yesterday, we went to the Easter show!
As we were ‘studying’ recreation it was very important that we took part in recreation activities. We were given $25 worth of tickets – once they were gone we could buy more buy had to use our own $ not the school’s – to try out the rides. Wahooo! That’s my kind of study. I think we all nearly vomited at various times.
My favourite ride – I went on it three times! – was EXTREME SPEED. It was very exciting. On my third ride I actually got to watch the fireworks from the top of the ride. I was sitting for a few minutes at the same level at which the fireworks were exploding. It was the best view in the showground!
Like the Year 10 camp I went on, this excursion gave me the opportunity to get to know some of my students better. This time I was with Year 12 students (about 16-18 years old in their last year of Senior School) some of whom are in my Year 12 English class. The Year 12 students are really lovely. They are very kind, funny and social which sometimes causes problems in the English classroom but was just perfect for a Sport and Rec. excursion. They are great kids and we had a lot of fun. We bought showbags – I and all the girls but one bought a showbag with Peter Alexander slippers in it! We want to have a ‘slipper day’ at school one day. I also bought a King Island Dairy show bag – love that Tassie Cheese – and Airforce bags and character toys for my boys. We taste tested delicious ginger punch; chatted about tv shows I “really must watch”; discussed metaphors in hardcore music – apparently the ‘tapeworm’ is a metaphor for the US government; ate good food; went on heaps of rides; watched the rodeo; grimaced as the boys explained their theories on why the horses buck; wrestled with a coke bottle – I have no idea what that was about. …important boy business I think; played tag; and generally had heaps of fun. I love it when I have the opportunity to do fun things with my students. It makes teaching them so much more enjoyable once we get back in the classroom. I am blessed to be able to teach such great students. They really are so lovely and fun that it is just a pleasure to go anywhere with them. A couple of the boys even carried my bags around for me all night! How gentlemanly!
So, yeah, work’s been pretty tough lately, kind of extreme and rather fast paced and now I’m on holidays! Wahooooo! Life’s tough.
The best thing we can do is to make wherever we’re lost in look as much like home as we can.
Christopher Fry 1907– , English dramatist
The Lady’s not for Burning (1949) act 3
Mangrove Mountain didn’t look much like home, apart from the trees and ferns, and I didn’t really get lost. Well, not for long anyway, though I did feel it without my little boys. Yet, the camp was a great success! It went even better than I or any of the other teachers imagined. Our usually rowdy Year group of 60 boys and 20 girls behaved themselves very well, rogues that they are! We had a great time.
We took part in heaps of adventure activities such as the High Ropes course, Flying Fox, Giant Swing, Abseiling, Bush Walking and Archery. All of these things tuckered our young charges out and ensured that we all had a great time together. My personal favourite was the giant swing (you can look at some footage of it here) which swung very high and very fast. A young fella in my group (I had a group of 11 students) and I set each other the challenge of going on every activity we could upside-down, just for fun. The camp leaders wouldn’t let us abseil over the wall forwards – our equivalent of backwards, since it is usual to go over backwards – so we didn’t achieve the challenge for that activity, however, we did manage to ride the Flying Fox and the Giant Swing upside-down, without hands. Archery was a little tricky to perform upside-down so we figured left handed would do, but somehow it lacked the excitement of rushing through the air at high speeds. Perhaps it would have been if we were on horse back shooting arrows at villains or some such dastardly creatures. My arrows kept ricocheting off the target forcing me to hunt for them in the bush. I am not a very good archer. Still, it was heaps of fun!
We went bush walking, which should really have been called bush strolling, and I got to use the CB radio because I was good at saying “…Over.” The teacher leading us was very cute in his lack of bush walking experience and kept alerting us to things such as spiders on nondescript leaves by the side of the path – spiders that were long gone by the time we made it to the place they were meant to be. We even got ‘lost’ for a good two minutes as our leader encountered a dead end as a tree had fallen over the path and blocked the way forward. The problem was rectified as we suggested looking over he tree to see if the path continued on the other side. It did. We walked on expecting to come to a huge trunk we would have to scramble over. We came to a place where there were a few twigs across the path and figured that must have been our road block. Without having to raise our knees we continued on. He was a very cautious leader who provided the teachers at the back of the line and the camp leaders back at base with much entertainment throughout the brief trek. With the many ‘warnings’ received I also had ample opportunity to say, “Roger that. Will alert the troops. Over.”
One of the best things about camp was being able to relate to the students over a period of a few days. I have a soft spot for the struggling and hurting kids, of which there are a few in any year, and I enjoyed being able to sit down and chat with them about movies they watch, music they listen to, boys/girls they like, things that worry them, books they love to read, the necessity of having at least three different lip glosses at any one time – you know, all the important things.
It was also great to be able to encourage students at the things they are good at. Some of the students who struggle in the classroom were completely in their element outside. Some brought their instruments and gave concerts during free time. We had some really great musicians on camp – if hardcore’s your thing. Heh, heh! The students even inspired some of the teachers – not me, I’m not that hardcore – to join the moshpit.
We studied the beatitudes and the kids came to see the importance and strength of being meek and merciful. One of the girls who was adamantly anti-Christian before camp realised that without her sister being able to show her mercy when they fought, they would never have a good friendship and her life would be so much worse because of the broken relationship. How close is that to understanding the heart of the gospel?
After the fun of camp my heart sunk as I came home to an empty house. My little boys were out with my mum. They came home soon enough and flew into my arms giving me the biggest hugs in the world. It was good to be home. Tired and cranky, I had a bath and fell into bed early. I am glad to be home yet I look forward to returning to school and continuing the conversations I have started with students on camp. If you think to, pray for these kids. I am always astounded by how much children have to deal with in life. Pray that they will come to know that Jesus is the best thing they can learn about while at school and indeed, forever. Pray that I can teach them so that wherever they are lost they will be able to find their way home in Christ.
regainingparadise 