Another great week!

Well the past weekend turned out to be a good one. Friday night was the staff Christmas party in Auckland. It was at this nice restaurant called "Wildfire." I think I did too much chatting though...because suddenly all the food was being brought back to the kitchen and I realized I hadn't had much of anything...but my dessert was delicious :). It was also a great opportunity to talk to some staff members I hadn't really met yet.

Me and Jane (one of the other Year 7/8 teachers)

Saturday was a full day...headed to the gym in the morning and Jan picked me up after my two hour sweat session. Then it was straight to the Lion Brewery tour. The tour was actually quite interesting as it went into to a brief history of beer and ended with this brewery and how it is the largest in New Zealand. It also talked about prohibition in New Zealand (pubs used to close at 6pm!-so they had a big problem as the people got off work at 5pm and had an hour in which they crammed as much alcohol into their bodies as they could) and showed some of their advertising. Very interesting and the free samples at the end were great too!

Slapping the bum on this statue was supposed to bring you good luck!

Afterwards, we took a short drive over to One Tree Hill. It was this hill in Auckland in which they had a tree planted, but someone chopped it down about 10 years ago (I called it None Tree Hill). They do have a monument there though and a great view of the city. Here's a blurb on it:

The remaining tree was later attacked twice with chainsaws by Māori protesters (partly because it was not a native New Zealand species and thus considered an insult). The first attack happened on 28 October 1994, the anniversary of the 1835 Declaration of Independence.[6] A second attack on the 5th of October 2000[7] left the tree unable to recover and so it was removed due to the risk of it dying and falling down. The chainsaw used in the first attack was placed on sale on popular New Zealand auction site, TradeMe in 2007[8] but later withdrawn by the website after complaints and a poll of users. It was later listed on eBay.[9]

Sunday was spent getting into the Christmas spirit with cookie making and tree decorating. Though in typical 6year old fashion, Cory split on the Christmas cookies after one sheet...but I still had fun rolling and making all the cut-outs. I still am having problems getting used to rain outside instead of snow in December though... He brought the cookies in for his class and they thanked me by all making me cards. I'm heading in their classroom today to thank them for taking the time to make those and also answering any questions they may have about life in America.

This school week has also whizzed by and it is hard to think as I write this I only have three more days in the classroom. We are still working to finish up all our units and this week we had a guy come from Family Planning. It was good to see the students finally acting more mature on the subject and also how much they had learned the previous week from our teaching. On Thursday we also had a Christmas concert at the school. All the classroom performed different songs and they school was selling sausages, snow cones, and drinks. It had quite a turn out. I was there for two reasons- to support my classroom and also to watch Cory perform in his class. It was funny to remember age 6 again-he spent half his performance turned around watching what was going on behind him.

Above: Students from my classroom

Below: Cory and his classroom (Year 1)

Outside of school, on Wednesday night, Jan, Sonya, Robb, and I went into Auckland to see Rhy Darby perform stand up comedy. For those of you whom that name doesn't ring a bell, he is the manager in the show, "Flight of the Concords." He was hysterical and I walked out of there with my cheeks hurting from laughing so hard. I've been watching the show here weekly and so during his break I had to get my picture taken with him. He was really nice about it (I'm sure in his head he thought, "nice stalker"...but I got my photo!!)

This week has also been an exciting time as Brian flew down to Australia on Thursday/Friday. I'm definately getting excited to start my backpacking trip next weekend. But it is bittersweet because I seemed to finally be getting in the swing of things here and enjoying the classroom and my routine here. It sunk in when I said goodbye to Robb on Thursday as well. He was leaving for a 6 week trip to Europe so I said my first of many goodbyes in the upcoming week.