Don't forget your jumper!

Hey Mates!

How are ya'll getting on, then? (How are you?)

Well it's Thursday night at about 7:00pm as I write this. I have almost finished my first week of teaching at Springfield! I must say, the kids are so well behaved here. They are super polite; they greet me in unison every morning with their aussie accents: "Good morning Miss Scott!" and then as they leave each day, "Good afternoon Miss Scott!" It is absolutely adorable. A great group of 9 and 10-year-olds.

Everytime the kids go outside they wear their hats and jumpers. The hats are pretty funny! They look like those floppy fisherman hats, if you can picture that at all. I'll try to attach a picture to show you all! And by jumpers, they mean sweaters or sweatshirts here.

The kids had a lap-a-thon today. They had to get people (family, friends, or some cases, pets! haha) to sponser them and then at 2:15 this afternoon it took place. They had a half hour to run around the circuit in the big courtyard outside as many times at they could. Each class (or areas as they call them here) had a table station to stamp each child's card when they ran past to indicate how many laps they ran at the end of the day. One boy, Ralph, who is in my class, ran 27 laps! He was a running machine today. The rest of my class averaged about 13-17 laps in a half hour....very impressive! Each time the kids would run by for a stamp, we'd encourage them to keep running. "Good on ya then!" is one way Wendy and the other teachers would encourage the kids.

I went walking with Wendy (my mentor teacher and roommate for those of you that don't know) and another teacher and her daughter this afternoon. Kiki is the teacher's name and her daughter's name is Meeka (they moved here from South Africa) One of the first things Meeka asked me was "Have you met Zac Efron?" I told her no I had never met him, but I'd seen him in his new movie and he's just so cute! Haha, so glad to know I'm in good company with my Zac Efron fans here.

Alright, what else? So many differences here. They don't use pumpkin as a dessert treat (like pies) here. They cook with it in sooo many things; it's actually really good! They call granola bars Muesli bars, and oatmeal/porridge is muesli as well.

I went to Whitford's shopping center yesterday, and wow, it was huge!!! Australians are so smart. They have placed just about every place you'll need to go to while out running errands, into ONE huge building! This place had the post office, grocery store, clothing stores, shoe stores, restaurants, icecream shops, smoothie bars, etc, etc! It is brilliant (they say that so much here). There is a store there called Smiggle and all the kids are obsessed with their products. They sell stationary, pens, folders, notebooks, and all that good stuff. Go to http://www.smiggle.com/ if you want to see it; they have some really fun stuff!! (I may have gotten a membership card...hehe) Their Target store is enormous there. They have no small, medium, large for sizes. Just number sizes!! Very different.

This weekend should be fun. We are going to Wendy's parents for pizzas and wine Friday night and Saturday we are going for a boat ride with Wendy's friend Dave and his family and then headed to a yacht club to watch a AFL game (Australia Footy League--google it!) Wendy roots for the Fremantle Dockers but their is another team here, which is The West Coast Eagles. While at Whitford's shopping plaza I bought a West Coast Eagles bathrobe because 1)I needed one 2) it was the cheapest one I could find 3) it's warm and cozy to wear and it's freezing here right now!!! Wendy called me a traitor though for wearing it, haha!

Well...I suppose that is it for now. I definitely miss home and everyone that comes with it, but I know this is where God wants me to be. He is fufilling a purpose here that I can't see yet; I have to put my hope in only Him. I'll be blogging on here every couple of days or so. I'll post some pics of my school/class next week hopefully! I hope this blog finds you all well, and feel free to leave comments whenever!!

Good on ya mates, see ya!