Recent life... well busy. Still busy really, such that I guess i'm just uploading photos for you all to see because I don't really feel I have the time to go into what going on with words. Maths marking is calling me.



Steve and I went to Supanova last weekend, the day after Melissa and Ron's wedding. :D Yay! Marriage! My dad took that photo outside the church. It's a bit of a classic Paula and Melissa pose I guess. :D I like it.

I went to Supanova as White Mage which was a pretty fun costume to make. I think walking around it in didn't feel like it looked as good as it does, if that makes sense. Steve's costume (Black Mage) was far harder to make, and it's a shame we don't have any photos of it ... yet! We did get our photo taken quite a bit on the day, but none of those have appeared on the intarwebs yet.



Yay for a fun White Mage costume! I'm looking forward to Supanova next time. :)

Being as these are the final days of my holiday, I decided to be creative with cooking and make an awesome cake of awesome. :D This is the result - displayed on the new cake stand that Amy got me for my birthday (good job Amy!) and served with the awesome serving thingy that Amy got me for my birthday (good job Amy!). It was a White Chocolate Gateau (there is supposed to the a accent thing above the first a).

I made 2 cakes and then put them on top of one another. :D I also initially made them square and had to cut the corners off to get round cakes that looked good on my cake stand. :D yay for left over corners. It was/is delicious :D

Well, now that I'm a full time teacher at Genesis, it is expected that I will attend devotions twice a week (chaple & prayer once a week as well) and, when i'm rostered to, actually do a devotion. When I took over from my predeccessor, I naturally assumed that i'd just take her rostered day for devotions.

When I realised that I would be doing this, I thought about what I would speak about, and it struck me that alot of the time, the teachers giving the devotions were using videos, music etc, and in a sense missing out on giving the devotion. I was honestly frustrated at this, and the judgemental part of me was quite harsh about the devotions I was listening to. Why were we hiding behind a clip of Top Gear rather than really getting into God's word?

So when it came to me thinking about what I would do, it was really on my heart to just speak. Not to have any flashy stuff, but just to speak God's word. Honestly, I was really cautious as I thought about this, becuase I didn't want to get up there and open my mouth and say something stupid like "Get it together people! I'm sick of hearing fluffy stuff - lets really get into God's word!" and have everyone hate me and my judgemental attitude. So I prayed alot about it and God really confirmed with me that he did in fact want me to get up and speak about how there is a need just to speak. That we need to stop hiding behind stuff, excuses and lies, and just speak his word.

So I did! Honestly, it was really amazing! I totally felt like God had the whole situation in total control. I felt like everyone really listened and heard what I had to say. CRAZY!! Afterwards, I had a number of teachers say to me specifically that it had been a good devotion. One teacher even said 'It was not good, it was Excellent!'.

Now thinking about it, I really hope that even though it might have been a "Good Devotion" that it was more than that - that it was a lasting devotion that really spoke God's word.

I'll copy a sort-of transcript in below, but I think it sounds quite ... weak... for want of a better word in the transcript. Imagine me saying it with passion and conviction, and I only did it from notes to, so it was better. :D

---------------------------------------------

Hello all. I don’t have any pretty slide shows or videos for you today at all, because what I want to do today is talk. Just talk. Usually I love to talk, especially about Jesus. Get me started and I could go for days. It seems a bit ridiculous; that talking here should be hard, and it isn’t in a sense. I mean, apart from the fact that I’m up here in front of all of you who I’ve only known for a few weeks and you can all see glimpses of my teaching style, I do know that you are all on the same playing field as me. You love Jesus too. It’s ok for me to talk about Jesus with you.

I’m in a musical at the moment, Pied Piper, (Brisbane Arts Theatre, we play every Saturday, right through the school holidays, great show, bring your kids!) and I’m there, the first day at rehearsals, and I start talking to a girl about what she’s reading and she says to me; “I’m reading The God Delusion by Dawkins because I’m a recent convert to Atheism from a lapsed Christianity.”

Now, if God wanted me to witness to someone during this musical – I guess this is it. What else says “Witness to me” in big flashing letters except a statement like that? And knowing that this is it – God has thrown this person at me, given me the go ahead and is waiting expectantly for my response to it – all I can say is “oh… interesting.” Not “What led you to make that decision?” not “why atheism?” not even “Did Dawkins have any substantial points?” just “ohh…. Interesting.”

What is wrong with me! Why is it so hard that just speaking is impossible! I mean, God couldn’t have made it any clearer right? The cards were in my hands and I passed up the chance to lay them down for him. And, this isn’t the only time it happens.
When I knew I had to get up and give a devotion here, watching others with their music, visual aid and audio stimulus, it got me thinking about just this issue. Speaking. There is a Jimmy Needham song with the chorus, “We can love with our hands, we can love with our deeds, but how will they know if we don’t even speak?” How will they?

I’m also reminded of Jospeh’s response to Potipars wife at her suggestion she lie with him in Genesis. Is his response “oh, I’m too busy now” or “But what about your husband?” NO!! His response is “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” Do my answers ever resonate like that?

I was driving a friend home from work, she lived literally a street away, and I knew if she took the bus, she’d have a 2 hr trip, instead of the 10 minute one I could give her. So I waited an hour for her to finish and off we went. “Why did you wait?” She asked me. Was my answer “Because God wants us to love people with our actions”? or even “God has good deeds planned for us”? Nope. All I could give was “oh, it wasn’t really that long, I don’t have anything to do at home anyway.”
Ahh!! When will I stop hiding and just open my mouth and speak!!

On the way to work now, my long 40 min drive after I drop my husband off, I’ve been listening to Ravi Zacceriahas. Something he was saying last week, as I was contemplating this talk, was that we can be trained in evangelism with the most amazing of credentials, but if we don’t have a burden on our hearts for the people we want to reach, it will never be successful.

My problem, I guess, is that I don’t have a burden for the lost. Those people that are out there without God, I know I want them to have God, but if I don’t say something, surely someone else will … right?

I think it’s time we start praying for that burden. That we ask God to put the burden for the lost on our hearts so that we can have the words to say and the courage to open our mouths and speak.

I just wrote a story!

How productive has this week been!! CRAZY!!

The Largaphone!

Thanks to all those committed drinkers who contributed to the creation of my new musical instrument. My fingers are sore and cut and bruised from hammering and they smell like beer, but it's done! It makes a wonderfully fun noise of jingling when you bang it on the floor. :D Hooray!

What on earth do people who don't work do??

After working for 9 and a half hours on Monday, with only a half hour break, and coming home to make dinner for Steve and myself, I stood at the sink and ached. My back ached, my feet were sore, my head was pounding. I had a glimpse of what my mum had to go though when I was a kid. Working all day at school, on her feet, taxi the kids around in the car in the afternoon and then come home to cook dinner for everyone.

It's hard to think that I'm entering that phase of my life where things are starting to ache and fall apart. It's hard to get up some mornings and it doesn't take long to be tired and sore. I don't think there is anyway that I could have imagined this happening when I was a kid. I know Mum said to me, as she stood over the sink peeling the potatoes, "Paula, try to imagine what it's like to work all day and come home and have to make dinner!" but I couldn't. You just can't until you experience it. And now I have.

Strange. So much of life has to be experienced or we'll never get it.

So here's to getting older and feeling sore and achey, now I know what it's like.

"Whom God will use greatly, He will also hurt deeply." - Dr A. W. Tozer

Yay! Marriage!

As of today, Steve and I have begun our second year of married life together. I must say, I still love it. Being married is really fun! Hooray!

To celebrate our first year of marriage, Steve and I went on an exciting hot air balloon ride over Byron Bay. We had to get up at 3:00am Brisbane time, which was really hard. Then after being picked up and driving to the balloon place, we drove to a place to test the wind and then another location to take off. Here are some fun pictures.

Blowing up the balloon





In the basket


Inside the balloon




We saw (alot of) this, with cows and houses and trees and rivers and what not as well. It was really cool that you could acutally hear the cows moo as you flew over them. Some of them just stood and stared at us, and others ran away scared. :D We were flying at about 600 metres above the ground. It was a beautiful day, although a bit hazy towards the sea. Standing in the balloon underneath the flames was very hot.


We landed in a lady's paddock. Balloons can land anywhere they like (because they don't really have too much choice in some situations), and the traditional thank you for being able to land somewhere is a bottle of champange. The guy who pioleted our flight had been trained by the first ever Australian to fly a balloon over Mt Everest. He was really laid back and nice. One of the guys in the cars chasing us on the ground was a computer design guy who works on adds and movies like "Where the Wild Things Are". Crazy!

Steve was also a super fantastic husband and got me these shiny new earings and necklace. Yay!



After the weekend, I'm pretty worn out, but I love being married so much. Hooray!

Sometimes people are layered like that. There's something totally different underneath than what's on the surface. But sometimes, there's a third, even deeper level, and that one is the same as the top surface one. Like with pie.
- Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jed Whedon

Hehehe... it was the quote of the day :D

My arm now acutally hurts to type... *sigh*.

I got stung by a wasp on Wednesday morning. It's been over 2 days since then and my arm is still red and swollen. Acutally the redness has gone down, but now it hurts to move. Not a painful kinda hurt, just an achey kinda hurt. humm hurt.

I just wrote a story, so now my arm hurts more. I had to take a break half way through the story because my arm hurt. I really like this story. :) I think it's good. No names... just titles. And it's only 5 pages. :) hooray! Talk about small. I wonder if I'll ever venture back into long stories... probabaly not. Short stories are faster... and I do like fast. :D

Well what to do now... Hummm.... That's the trouble with holidays a bit. Too much time on my hands to do things. I would do more lesson plans, but that involves typing and I think i've already mentioned that my arm is sore. Humm...

Oh well, back to finding something to do. Maybe last night's washing up...

日曜日　０６・０９・０９　教会で。

木曜日にお姉さんは自転車からおちました。でも、骨を折れなかった。本当によかったね。安心したけど大丈夫だた。２週間くらい右うでを使えません。車の運転はだめです、それから、多分明日から　学校で一緒に行きます。ちょっと楽しみ。

土曜日はお姉さんとお母さんとエミーさんと一緒に　ツウーンバー　という町に行きました。それで、お姉さんの結婚式の花を買いました。ブリスベンからツウーンバーまでは２時間ぐらいかかりました。それで、花をかいたり、ご飯を食べたりしました。すぐ、帰りました。ブリスベンに帰りましたらショッピングセンターに行きました。それでスティーブを会いました。　Invitation の cardboard　を買いました。お父さんのお父さんの日プレセントも買いました。車のDVDを買いました。

疲れました。本当にご飯の買い物は必要ですけど、そぐくつかれましたら行きたくなかった。帰りました。私のれそこにパンとぐんゆがありません。晩御飯は親子丼を作りました。おいしかった。

今日の朝ごはんお母さんのうちに行きました。それで、おいしい朝ごはんを食べてくれました。お父さんの日だから。お姉さんはうでが使えなかったらセンタ浮くものを洗いてあげました。後でお姉さんはお姉さんの彼のうちに行きました。

私とスティーブと一緒に帰りました。１１時４０分ぐらいつきました。１２時にメリサが来ました。三人一緒に他の友達のうちに行きました。

他の友達はジェンさんとウエドさんです。２００７年その二人結婚しました。今日はジェンさんの誕生日です。ウエドさんは食べ物を作りました。中国人から、ぎょうさ　と　spring rolls　を作りました。ご飯も　red bean　ご飯も作りました。おいしかった。ご飯を食べた後ゲームをやりました。私とウエドさんはお皿を洗いました。３時半に帰りました。

メリサさんとロンさん一緒に帰りました。でも帰たら私とスティーブはすぐ教会に行きました。今日教会でスティーブは　power point (visual)　をやります。だから、早くに行きます。今私はバンドの練習を聞きます。これも書きます。

２４・０８・０９月曜日

週末は忙しかったです。

土曜日は友達に会いました。６時に起きましたら友達の家に行きました。それで、お姉さんと妹の一番友達（エミさんという）と一緒にゴルド・コーストの空港に行きました。空港で、友達に会いました。４時間ぐらい開いているだからポイント・デンジャに行きました。ポイント・デンジャは海の近くに queensland　　の州と new south wales　　の州のこっきょうです。

この日は本当に美しい。いい天気だった。スティーブと私何も食べないでした。それは本当に難しかった。早くに起きましたと長い間運転しましたから、それも、ぜんぜん食べなかったら　本当に疲れました。帰るのスティーブは運転しました。

金曜日にスティーブは gym　に行きました。土曜日にうでがちょっと痛いになりました。土曜日の夜はスティーブのうでが動きことができませんでした。心配したね！

土曜日も、スティーブのお母さんが着ました。それから、ゴルド・コーストの帰るにショッピングセンターで会いました。私は本当に疲れましたと買い物が嫌いから、本当に悪かった。

２時ぐらいに本当に帰りました。スティーブと私は一時間だけ二人でいます。寝ました。３時にスティーうのお母さんとお母さんの彼とスティーブのお兄さん私の家に来ました。本当に私はねむたいけど、お客がいますからだめですね！

夜にその三人はフットボールに行きました。さきにピザを食べました。わるかったです。三人が出ましたら私は七年生のテスト　しるしをしました。終わりましたらすぐねました。ずっと１０時ぐらいから８時半までねました。良かったけど、起きたら頭がいいたかったです！

スティーブのお母さんとお母さんの彼は私の家に泊まりました。朝にみんなは遅くに寝ました。１０時ぐらいちょっと買い物に行きました。帰るから映画を見ました。１２時に私とスティーブは食べることができました！やった！朝ごはんを食べましたーギリシャの食べ物を作りました。おいしかった！

一時半ぐらいにスティーブのお母さんとお母さんの彼を帰りました。私は学校のためにポースターを作りました。二時ぐらいにほかの友達が来ました。この友達は最近アメリカに行きました。いっぱい写真を見ました。実はアメリカは興味がありません。まだ私の頭が痛いから、寝ました。

３時に教会に行きました。今週は教会で、私と友たちたちは音楽をしました。私は歌います。マイケルさんはピアノを弾きます。ルスさんはバイオリンを弾きます。ロンさんはギターを弾きます。時々スティーブはドラムを弾きますでも土曜日から、日曜日に腕が痛いからできなかった。

教会は本当に楽しかった。マイケルさんのお母さんが来ました。びくりしました。トピクも面白かった。終わりましたら私の頭が超痛かった。晩御飯を作りたくないでした。でもダニエルさんはレソトを作りました。よかった！私はご飯を作らない！

晩御飯をおわったら友達たちはお皿を洗いました。よかった。スティーブは腕はまだいたいから、シャツをアイロンをしました。アイロンは嫌いです。

１０時半ぐらい寝ました。本当に疲れたからよく寝ました。：D

金曜日２１・０８・０９

やった！明日は週末です！

今週は忙しかった。月曜日はお姉さんの誕生日でした。火曜日と水曜日何もないしたけど疲れました。

昨日は学校の終わりましたら　ガデンーシチーというショピングモールに友達を会いました。友達は私のミュシカルから友達です。久しぶり会いました。いろいろはなしをしましたけど、時間が短かった　かなじょうはアルバイトをしました。残念。

その後、帰りませんでした。ガデンーシチーで妹に手紙を書きました。ジュースを買いました。この週末に私とステイーブは　　　をします。　　は４０時間を食べませんです。今いろいろの国にたくさん貧しい人がいます。この人たちよく、食べることが出来ないです。（食べ物が持ってないから）それから、私たちは４０時間を食べないことがオーストラリアの人達はそのことをしています。

４０時間を食べないことが難しいから　もし病気になります　ジュースを飲むことが出来る。それから、ジュースを買いました。

後でルスの家に行きました。一緒に聖書の勉強に行きました。昨日の勉強はアリの家でやりました。アリさんはレソトを作りました。カボチャ味でした。本当においしかった。勉強はエリザベスという人でした。エリザベスさんは古い人でした。まだ赤ちゃんが生まれなかった。本当に悲しかった。でも、神様はエリザベスさんに　“赤ちゃんを生まれます。”と言いました。エリザベスさんは本当にうれしかった!

時々私達、長い間　ほしい物があります。時々神様は私にあげません　でも時々神様が私に上げます。神様は本当にえらいとかしこいと思います。

帰る時間は遅くでした。９時半ぐらい。ステイーブとちょっとはなしました。その後、すぐねました。

昨日はステイーブと私とお姉さんとエミーという友達と一緒に空港に行きます。それで、アンデイという友達を会います。実はアンデイさんはシドニーからけど今日本に住んでいます。この週末彼は日本からシドニーまでに行きます。ゴルドコーストの空港で給油着陸です。楽しみです。

この週末もステイーブのお母さんはバンだバーグ町から来ます。日曜日にもほかの友達に会います。忙しい！

日曜日１６・０９・０８

金曜日の晩御飯、お母さんの料理を食べてもらった。本当においしかった！てんぷらとごはんとチキン・stew を作りました。皆はてんぷらはフォークで食べました。私はおはしで食べました。日本のなつかしい！

シードニからおじさんは元気です。おばあさんも、元気です。９月に私とステイーブはシードニに行きます。おじさんといっしょに予定を作りました。シードニにウィケドというミュシカルを見ます。私はミュシカルが本当に好きから楽しみい！ステイーブの家族はシードニにもいますから、行くときに会うつもりです。



土曜日はメリサさんとロンさんの家に行きました。私の友達、メリサさんのかれはロンさんです。メリサさんとロンさんは２年間ぐらい一緒でした。まだ、結婚しなかった、一緒に住むしなかった。たぶん、来年の四月に結婚すると思います。今　一緒に家を買いました。ロンさんはこの家に住んでいます。メリサさんまだ、すんでいません。家はちょっと古いですから、いろいろ事が　　fix　します。

それから、土曜日はメリサさんとロンさんの友達は家に行きました。みんなは手伝いました。本当に楽しかった。１０人ぐらいいました。男達庭に　　を　dig　しました。女達は　car port　に　paint　をしました。

９時ぐらいから、４時ぐらいまでずっとやりました。メリサさんの家は本当にきれいです。中に床は青いです。部屋に床は緑です。台所は便利です。本当に良い家と思います。

日曜日は私の家にそうじをしました。洗濯物を洗いました。今日たくさん買い物をしました。お姉さんの誕生日プレセントを買いました。食べ物も買いました。私は買い物がきらいから、本当に疲れました。

四時にルスさんの家に行きました。それで、ダンスの練習をしました。本当に楽しかった。その後きょうかいに行きました。

この週末は楽しかったけど、ちょっと疲れました。明日は学校で、大丈夫かな？がんばろ！

For thoes of you who are slightly confused at the change in language on my blog, i'll take this moment to reassure you, you can still frequent here and find English. I've taken to writing a daily journal in Japanese to practice my... Japanese. :D My Japanese lady at work, Misato, corrects it during the day and translates it to English for her own ... English practice. :D

What i've put up here is unedited and while most of you won't be able to read it, some of you can - which is good practice! (see if you can pick up the same mistakes Misato does!) And, for thoes of you who can't read it - try coping and pasting into google translate. It's sorta correct and it is worth the laugh.

13/08/09 木曜日

今週は忙しかった！月曜日に友達と一緒に振るご飯を食べました。本当に楽しかった。その友達は　学校の時からの友達です。久しぶり会いました。今ヵパレバという学校に先生をしています。英語と歴史を教えます。

火曜日に学校に来ました。ふつうの日でした。

昨日学校に行きましたけど、学生たちがいなかった。先生たちはつずりと文保とすがくをならいました。私と音楽の先生（クリスチンさん）と体躯の先生　（ジェフさん）は違うことをしていました。私たちは行動の管理の計画を作りました。

クリスチンさんとジェフさんは本当にいい先生達と思います。長い間先生になりました。かしこい人たちと思います。でもしゃべることにたくさん悪い言葉がはいています。悪かったと思いました。残念ね。

夜に雨が降っていました。私の車は本当にきたなかったら私とスチイーブは雨に車をそうじしました。ちょっと寒いけど、楽しかった！

今日は五年生ですから、多分楽しいと思います。：D

１０・０８・２００９　月曜日

土曜日の夜にダンスパーチイに行きました。本当に楽しかった！サースバンクに行った、それで、道にいろいろなダンスの会社とスタイルがいます。遅くにダンスをしました。私とスチイーブは久しぶりデートをしましたら、本当にうれしかった。

日曜日に料理をしました。クッキイとスパンジ・ケキーを作りました。その後、食料品の買い物に行きました。

ごごに友達が着ました。私とスチイーブは友達にダンスをおどろいました。友達はマイケルさんとルスさん。ふつ、も二人友達が来るけど、昨日忙しかったら、いないです。マイケルさんはダンスのことが本当に上手です。ルスさんは、最近習いますから、まだまだ。私とスチイーブのうちにダンスをおどろいましたけど　広くないです。ルスさんは背が高いから、スピンの時に手でライトをぶつかれました。ちょっと面白かった。

ダンスの後、四人一緒にきょうかいに行きました。きょうかいの後私とスチイーブの友達（６人）と一緒にご飯を食べました。私の家が本当に広くないけど、８人がはいていた。ホット・ドグを食べました。デサットはスパンジ・ケキーを食べました。おいしかった！

晩御飯をおわたら、私は頭が痛いかったら、友達たちそじしました。やさしい人達！

今日　友達と一緒に昼ごはん食べに行きます。楽しみ！今行きます！

08/08/09 土曜日

昨日本当によかったね。金曜日と体躯の日だった。それも、ふつの悪い子達が来なかった。本当にうれしかった！朝は　プレップ　のクラスを教えました。ゲームやりました。プレップの子供達は　本当にかわいいから、楽しかった。

昼休みにヂウチイをしました。それで、７Bのジョシュとクレートンはハンドボールをしました。私と一緒にしました。私はかった人でした！やった！午後にきょとう先生とミーチングでした。そのミーチングはちょっときんじょうしましたでも、きょとう先生は本当にやさしかった。たくさん　アドバイスをあげました。多分、これから、もちょっといい先生になります。：）

帰りましたら、スチイーブのシードニからおばさんとおじさんがブリスベンに来ました。それから、シチーでスチイーブのお兄さんと奥さんと奥さんのいもうとは晩御飯一緒に食べました。オーマリースというレスタランに食べました。私はおいしいミートパイを食べた。遅くに帰りました。

土曜日にゆくリねました。おきたら、そうじしました。いっぱいせんたく物がありました。お姉さんの結婚式に当たらし靴をもっています。この靴は着る方が難しい！本当に高い、とかかとのことが細い。それから、着るれんしゅをします。今日のそうじとせんたく物の事に結婚式の靴を着ました。

お昼にスチイーブのおばさんとおじさんを見ました。結婚しの写真を見ました。その後　スチイーブとなるとを見ました。よかった！

私のせしょうの勉強

昨日せしょうに勉強をしました。ふつ、四人女と一緒に勉強しますけど、昨日、三人しかいました。その女たちは　ルス　と　メリサー　と　アリー　　　　というです。メリサーさんは　私の一番友達です。メリサーさんとアリーさんと一緒に学校に行きました。享年、大学　で、ルスさんにあった。ルスさんは先生に習います。私たち、同じ協会に行きます。

昨日、勉強のさきに、男たちと一緒にご飯を食べました。スターフライーを作りましたけど、たりなかった！私は本当にはずかしかったでも、大丈夫だった。みんなは、スターフライーを食べました。私は、カプラメンを食べました。その後、別々に勉強しました！

勉強が本当に楽しかった。最初、話すだけ。If someone has a problem, or are afraid, they can tell the others and we can help. It is good for us to talk and help each other. すぎは、勉強しました。

昨日新しい勉強のトピクをしました。ジョシュアという勉強です。ジョシュアは古い最古の人。昔々、神様は　特別の人間を選んでいました。最初のリーダーはモズスというです。モズスは　特別の人間に　神様のことが教えました。その時に、すんでいる場所は危なかったら、新しい土地に行きます。５０年間ぐらいにかかりました。

新しい土地につきましたらモズスさんは本当に古いになりました。それから、神様は新しいリーダーを選んでいました。そのリーダーはジョシュア。
ジョシュアさんは本当にきにじょうするでした。モズスさんは本当にいいリーダーから、ジョシュアさん　いつも、”これは私は出来るかな？” と思います。

ジョシュアさんがきにじょうするしましたら、神様が　“大丈夫です、いつも私がいます”　と言いました。

その話は本当にいいと思います。時々、私たちは　“これは出来るかな？”と思います。でも、いつも、神様がいます。その事が　いいです。

女の勉強は、ちょっと短かった。９時くらい、終わりました。でも、男たちは、ずっと勉強した。１０時までに！みんなはねむたいでした。

I just finished reading Luke and now i'm floundering around while I try to find something else to read. I feel like I'm really pathetic honestly. That my passion and zeal is in a slump. Romans 7 is really resonating:

"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot cary it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing! Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. ... For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but i see another law at work in me waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sing at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

I know what I want to do. I want to study God's word, get to know him more with Quality time, praise him for he is worthy. But I can't seem to do it. I find my self busy, trapped by a cluttered and disorginised life. Even when I wish to be serving God in my work, I find he is the last thing I think of.

How can I do what my heart and mind desire and live for God when this sin inside continually rages against me?

"... Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Despite my failures and continual loss in the battle that rages, in Christ there is forgiveness and love. Through him I have the power to fight the battle.

But how do I get this power? Lord what do I need to do to push aside the sin so much that I can come to you? Yet even as I ask, I know the answer is nothing. Only through you can I do anything. Lord please give me your grace to approach your throne.

I just made a cake! Hooray! I love cake making. This one is for Aroha's 24th brithday tomorrow night. :D Hopefully it will taste as good as it looks. YUM!

My apoligies for never posting... I get busy you know!!

So I've been working my butt off at school making resources in every spare moment that I have and trying my best to learn the 340 names of the kids that I teach. Honestly, it's great to be able to go to the same school every day and follow kids up and know what to expect. I really enjoy being able to go from start to finish with teaching, so getting to start and then give tests on stuff that i've taught has been really exciting.

I spent a bit of time making my classroom look fun - kudos to everyone at musical who has helped colour something in during rehursals. You guys are legends. :D The amount of stuff that has to be made as a first year teacher is incredible. Thankfully (as long as I don't loose anything) I'll only have to make this stuff once.


Repunzel is the most fun I've had on stage in ages. Honestly, it's great to be able to get up and sing my heart out. :D I love it. The people are stellar too. We have a great cast - I've made numerous cakes for people's birthdays and things. Yay for the excuse really. :) Only 8 shows left now, so we are on the down hill run.




I feel like there is not much else to update in my life at the moment. God really takes care of you in the busy times. I was at church the other day when they made the point that in the stressful times the first thing we often decide to cut out is our time with God - which should be the last thing we cut out - especially in the stressful times. It is so true. Even though I've been sick, sleep deprived and tired - God is still providing for me in so many ways. I love it.

I got the contract.

As of Monday, I am offically the Japanese teacher at Victoria Point Primary School.

A part of me is like: "Yay! No more phone calls from TRACER at 6 in the morning!" and a part of me is like: "Really? Woah...". The final part of me says: "I need HELP! So much planning! Behaviour Mangament! How do I start?! Where do I start?!"

But this is what i'm trained for. This is what i worked 4 long years at uni for. This is what i want to do. So bring it on. :) Even if the Grade sevens are ferals. Even if I lose my voice in the first term. (even if the contract is only for a term because one of the Deputy's doesnt' think I can do it :P)

Bring it on.

Earlier this week, Steve and I recieved a letter from Compassion with some sad news. They were shutting down the branch in Thailand where Lek, our sponsor child was. When this happens, they usually try to transfer the kids to another area, so they can still be sponsored. Sadly, this was not possible with Lek and so our sponsorship of her was ending.

I have sponsored Lek since she was 6. Firstly with Sarah, then by myself, and lastly with Steve. Only recently did she start writing letters to us herself - in the past it had always been from her mum, dad, aunt, etc. It was really exciting to be seeing her grow up.

Today I had to write what would probabaly be my last letter to Lek. What was I going to write? I thought, knowing that this would be the last chance I had to say anything to this little girl. What did I want her to know?

This was one of the hardest things i've ever had to do, because at the end of the day, 1000 words on the page would still fail to tell Lek that I love her and that I hope she knows that. That even though I'll never get to see her or even write to her again, I will be praying for her and I want the best for her life. I'm praying that God continues to reveal himself to her, and that she realises that all he had planned for her is good.

Ultimatly, I think this experince has really taught me that when it comes to the last things you have to say to a person, alot of crap that you thought was important, doens't really matter at all. At the end of the day, you just want them to know that they are loved, more than they could ever imagine.

Dress finished!

The Quilt!

Yay! I spent an hour and a half at my parents this morning finishing it off and now i'm pleased to say that it is finished! I ended up pinning and sewing a border around the quilt which isn't exactly even (2cm on the width and 1.5 on the length) but overall it looks great. :)


As you can see, it's pretty small, but it does give the quilt that finished look. :) And here it is on our bed - ready to keep us warm all winter!




Btw, something i left out of the last post was a picture of my shoes after Easterfest - needless to say, i'm throwing them out.


I feel like the photo doesn't really do them justice either....

Easterfest 2009 (AGMF)

I can't believe I have done that, but I hope you people are all happy now :P

Easterfest this year was amazing. :) Hooray! Even though it rained and was cold for the majority of the time; the ground we sat on was always some level of damp; our shoes were permanatly wet and ended up being covered in a few layers of red mud it still rocked.

This year was the latest I have ever been to Easterfest - we didn't get there untill 3:30 or so on Friday afternoon, but I didn't miss any of the acts that I really wanted to see, so it was ok. :) Friday morning started with me shaving Steve's hair into a mowhawk - that's right - mowhawk. I've never done it before, so i'll be happy to admit that it wasn't 100% straight, but i can practice on that. :) We then borrowed gel from Steve's brother and sprayed it orange. It looked STELLAR.

Friday highlights include Audio A - ROCKING the HOUSE - I was so so so happy when they played Underdog. The mosh was going off and I got to jump up and down with it all. Yay! Bec St James, not so awesome... I like her as an artist, but I'm always slightly dissapointed with her live shows. This year her brothers came along, but she did alot of slow soft songs and promoted her own movie and stuff... not so cool.

Friday night also saw newworldson play - AMAZING - They had some new songs (but we couldn't find the new CD to go with that :( ) which were so fun and they played some old favs like Salvation Station and Workin Man! YAY!

Saturday we saw a few smaller bands and roved around a bit - this was the day that the rain poured a bit, but we were chillin in the Big Top, so we were fairly safe. We ate almost consistently all day to stay warm :P Good thing I had stocked up on gingernuts and apples to keep us going. :) Saturday highlights had to be Halfway Out's last show - RIP to an awesome ska band. They were fantastic and their final mosh was legendary. I stood with the bags while everyone else got in and sweaty. Daniel lost his glasses at one point and Steve rescued some other girl's glasses from being trampled too. Crazy times.


Saturday night Paul Colman Trio had a HUGE turnout - possibly even bigger than Audio A, despite the rain and the mud. Crazy! They were super fun to watch though - i've never seen a group of guys just have fun on the stage the way they do. We hung around through Chris Pulson Trio - AMAZING - as we waited for newworldson. Chris Pulson had the keyboard player of newworldson and Complements of Gus come on and they had this massive Jam on stage - it was legendary!

At one point Chris Pulson had his keyboard on the ground to play it. :) We then watched Complements of Gus - deciding to get a CD too - Then we hung around waiting and waiting for the final newworldson set - not dissapointed with it but it was so late when we left.

Sunday was another late day - didn't make it to the festival untill about 1:30ish - just in time to see Jess and Ted perform in the Epicenter. Legendary stuff! We got up and danced like crazy to some of their songs and they had a great all-round performance. :) Steve and I danced like mad to their encore song too. YAY! dancing!


Sunday night would usually see a huge church service at the main stage, but due to the rain, the schedual was changed and they put it in the Big Top. This is something that I love to be apart of at Easterfest which I'd have to admit I was a little dissapointed with this year. Because they put it in the Big Top, they screened it in the SU Cafe, which is where we ended up watching it, but we missed out on all that awesome togetherness atmostphere which comes when people who want to worship God just do it, rather than try to have devisions and lines and "i'm Catholic" and "Prodestant" blah divisions. Instead, we had alot of people who were there to praise, but also alot of people who were using the time to shop and wander around. Oh well.

The final act on Sunday night was Thousand Foot Krutch. I was a bit hesitant because they are heavy rock and I didn't think I knew much of their stuff, but when they started playing - man ROCK OUT!! It was super cool. The mosh (which I was saftely away from) was mad and apart from the first song they played - i knew all of them which was excellent (probably thanks to yrock.org :D) When we finally left it had been an excellent festival with awesome music and lots of Jesus. :) Hooray!

Quilt update: nearly there!

Last week, I managed to finish the handsewing of the patched side to the wadding and then sew the two sides together. After turning it inside out my quilt looked like this:


Very nearly done! The only problem that I have is that because one side is slightly larger, the edges fold over to the other side. This isn’t so much of a problem because it creates the border that I want to have around my quilt so that it has a nice finished look, but it does become complicated when I try to work out how big this border will be (so it is even the whole way around, not thin on one side and thick on the other) and I don’t have any big flat space to actually lay out my quilt and work it out.


I'll be going over to my parents sometime this week for this exact purpose. :D Once there, I should have the space to lay out the quilt, measure, pin and then sew the border and finish off the corners. Then the quilt will be complete! Hurrah!

In the meantime, it's already on the bed keeping us warm. :D

Our friendly neighbour, Joe, just popped his head around the corner and asked if I was making beach towels. Close... but no. :)

Sewing Project Update!

Today, I lay out all the finished squares of rectangles and swaped and rotated untill I was happy (and sick of rotating). It took up all of the spare room floor and the spare bed as well and looked something like this:


The bottom part that was on the floor, looked like this up close:


After I took that photo I realised there were still a few pieces that were not where they should be so I did some more fidling (I think you can see one or two of the mistakes in that photo even). Then I sat down at the sewing machine and a few hours later, I had this:


As you can see - it still covers most of the spare room and the bed, but now all the pieces are stuck together! YAY! This means that both sides of my quilt are completely sewn. :)

The next part of the journey is to hand sew the inside-fluffy-quilty-stuff to one side of the quilt so it stays where it should inside the quilt once I sew both sides together. For this, I've decided to go against tradition, which dictates that you would normaly hand sew with small invisable stitches along the seams, and instead make a feature of it! I'm going to use a green tapestry thread and sew around the squares that were previously visable but are now not so visable becuase i've sewn them all together. Make sense?

In any case, this will take me a while (all hand sewing) so it could be a bit before the next update. It's fun none the less.

Sewing Project update.

I've now finished sewing the 280 rectangles into their squares. :D Hooray! It took a long time - a process which was not helped by the fact that each material needed a different thread tension (I learnt alot about thread tension making these patches) and the fact that I nearly ran out of thread. I literally used 98% of all the thread that i had - which considering i've been hording from mum, Yia-yia and Grandma for most of my life, is quite a bit. Even i'm surprised at how much I went through.

Now I need to lay them all out and put them in an order that I like (ensuring there are no double ups of colours and what not) and sew all of that togehter and then it will be ready for some warm fleecy stuff that quilts are made of! Yay! Laying all of my pieces out may prove to be an obstical in itself though, as I have no where with enough room. If it's sunny on Saturday, I may even bring them to the park and we could do it on the grass there. I'd appreciate the artistic input and extra eyes for noticing things I haven't when it all comes together.

The only other thing to say is that I only sewed one of the squares together wrongly, which is a pretty good effort considering I usually spend alot more time unpicking sewing projects. :P

Well, to take a leaf out of Ron's book, I have decided to update you all on a little project i've ventured into during the idle hours of the days when i'm not teaching in classrooms. :)

2009 Sewing Project 1.

I'm in the process of making a large quilt out of bits and pieces of fabric that i've managed to store up over the last twenty or so years of my life. Mostly because I wanted an excuse to sew, but also because Steve and I don't have a large size quilt for the bed and we currently fight each other for blankets on occasion. I suppose as it gets colder we will drag out the queen (or double) douna that we have, but it's not cold enough for that at the moment, so we are using a single bed blanket and my frog blanket. It's not really enough.

Anyway, I decided that one side of the quilt will be patchworked squares while the other would be larger square blocks. If I were going to be more adventerous, I might have spent time mixing the large blocks with the patchworked squares and have both sides a mix, but I'm not. :)

First thing I did was decide how I was going to make my patchwork squares, and I decided on a simple pattern of rectangles. I need eight rectangles for each square. Each rectangle is 10cm by 20cm, but I cut them with a 2cm allowance around the edge for the seams. Deciding also to make my quilt for a queen bed, and large enough to hang off the sides as well, my quilt will need to be approximatly 3m by 2m. This means that I can fit about 35 squares to a side (7 by 5) and if i have eight rectangles to a square, I need 280 rectangles.

It took me a long time to cut out these rectangles, but i did. :) yay! When they are arrnaged into their squares, they will look something like this:



After I had cut them all, I lay them out and grouped them into groups of 8 that would eventually make up their square's. This is my 35 groups of 8 rectangles waiting to be sewn into squares.


You will notice that yes, i do have some shiny new frog material in there. :) It looks a bit like this up close:
Hooray! Anyway, this morning I managed to sew all of the big block squares that will make up one side of the quilt together and it's looking quite shiny if I do say so myself. :) I've gotten alot better at sewing since I made my last quilt and it's evident even in the fact that the squares are all the same size this time. :)



I also found a new function on my sewing machine which lets me do a straight sitch with a zig zag all in one, so I dont' have to go back over the work a second time to do a hem. Pretty handy. :) I'll have to have a trip to spotlight sometime in the future to get some quilt padding material stuff for it, but other wise, it's about a third done! Yay!

Time to get back to the small rectangle pieces... all 280 of them...

I was sitting at the dinner table with Steve tonight, slurping away at my curry and rice when Steve shook his head at me.

"It's not Ramen," he commented.

"I'm going to be a terrible role model for our kids," I replied happily.

"Yes," Steve agreed, "I'm going to have to shut you in a room and tell the kids: 'Sorry, you have no mother'"

Yes, those are little baby Daddy Long-Leg spiders currently living next to our shower. I'm wondering if I should relocate them to the great outdoors?


This is one of our numerous outdoor spiders. I like to call this fellow the Oreo Spider, because the markings on his back remind me of an Oreo Biscuit. He has gone now, I'm not sure where, but I'd like to think he's surviving somewhere.


This fellow is our local green frog. He was found on the steps outside our unit one night. We often see him around abouts when it is dark - sometimes he likes to suction onto the walls just for a change. He is very green.


This photo has nothing to do with spiders or animals of any kind. This is the chocolate cake I made last Saturday. Yum.

Again I spoke at Sunday Night Live - this time on a personal struggle with Pornography.

www.sundaynightlive.org

We need to talk about issues like this more and more.

Finally.

I had my first ever day of supply teaching today! YAY! It feels like it was a long time in coming, but at the same time - over so fast.

I got "the call" at 7:00am this morning, asking if I could do a day of teaching Music at Holland Park Primary. I said yes. Then called Macgregor to tell them I wouldn't be coming in. That done, I spent alot of the morning agonising over the fact that I was going to have to teach today. A class (possibly many classes) that I had no idea about. SCARY!!

I was at the school extreemly early (10 past 8) where I continued to agonise over my lack of primary school music knowledge. I had a timetable - 2 grade 2 classes, 1 year 1, 2 prep classes and 3 grade 3's (that is so weird...). All these were in half hour blocks. I knew I was going to recycle things for the grades that I had multipul of, but even so - Preps! what kind of music do you teach them!?

In the end I stuck to oral activities and rhythmic dictiation type activities. The music teacher at the school is very vocal, and so almost all the classes wanted to sing the songs they had been learning - the preps even knew like 5 songs. Needless to say i've learnt a whole lot more songs now. :P I managed to work in teaching my "ohaiyou" Japanese song in.

Interestingly, my primary school brass teacher is teaching the instrumental kids at this school. It was a flash back to see him, although he hasn't changed and didn't remember me. :P Other teachers in the staff room did though, one from St Matthews - yay for church! I also met the Chaplin and the Japanese teacher. They have an exchange teacher out from Nagoya Forigen studies University (talk about small world) at the moment. Good times.

At the end of the day I was asked to come back tomorrow and Friday as well. I'm feeling like yep - I can handel teaching - although tomorrow I have to teach year 6 and 7 - and I don't know how that will go. There are no desks in the room and none of the classes I had today had books or even pencil cases. I wonder if the older grades are doing recorder too... if only the music teacher had given me instructions. :P

Yay for supply days and being a teacher. Even though i'd rather have my own classes who I know and can plan for, this will do in the mean time. :)

Now that Steve and I are married, we branched out and got this:

www.leighfamily.net

There is not much there, but if you go to www.leighfamily.net/paula/efolio then you will see my lovley updated efolio... that I should be working on right now.... :D

So I spoke at Sunday Nite Live yesterday, and I was going to copy and paste roughly what I said onto here, but then I thought - why give people sub-standard, when they can listen to what I acutally said online!

So, if you go here: http://www.sundaynightlive.org.au/ you will be able to listen to what I said (click "Paula's Story").

That is all. Ijoudesu.

Arrrrggggg! Pirates!!!!

Some days i feel like i have the best job in the world. :D

So, Steve was at a job interview on Thursday when this question came up:

"So you still live with your parents, then?"

Steve replies to this question with;

"Ahh, no, I live with my wife actually."

"How old are you?"

________________

Man that made me laugh so much. I can just see the interviewer thinking "Are you really an IT geek prepared for this job? Who let you out of the basement anyway?"

I am so married. :D





I love being married. I love having my own house, getting to cook and clean when I want. It's wonderful. I love having a husband - it's still funny to wake up and find i'm having breakfast with the same person every day. I feel a bit like this is just like a holiday - but the exciting thing is that it will never end! Ok maybe the happyness and new-ness of it all will fade, (mostly because everything that is new becomes old...) but it really is fantastic. :)





Things that I remember from the wedding day:

1) No matter how much people say "this is the bride's day" it is only the bride's day untill she has to get driven to the church. Then the drivers and dad's get a power trip out of deciding exactly when they will be leaving - and it's sometimes not what is wanted.

2) Yes it is a serious day, but make the most of it! You only get one --> my most faviourte parts of the actual service are Steve and I High-Fiving and me fixing his bow tie. :) yay!

3) Get the formal part of the reception out of the way so you can chat to people --> this was the best thing that Steve and I decided to do. I loved being able to dance and mingle and just have a party at the reception. :)





Thanks to everyone who was and wasn't there. It is awesome to know that people wanted to see us get married. Good and happy times.

Recently, i've also managed to graduate!! (I seem to be doing so many crazy and grown up things recently! I'm not sure how that works!) I donned the gown (and the kimono) and walked/shuffled across the stage to get my shiny piece of paper and now i'm apparently qualified to teach - look out world here i come!





On that note, if anyone wants to spare some prayer for a job oppourtounity or just general guidance for me in the way of future work - please do! God is faithful and he will provide!

Friday 14/11/08 – Prac Block Day 30

Well I got my prac report from the music department. The biggest thing it tells me to watch out for is my spelling. Not really a surprise at all there. It’s fairly satisfactory though, nothing terribly outstanding about it at all. I feel like it sums up my prac fairly well.

I wonder if I could have done better at all, but I feel like a number of factors, both in and out of my control were working against me. Oh well. I wonder what Tara’s report will say, possibly much the same, I suppose.

This week has been a fairly bludge week for me, all my classes are wrapping up and having assessment, so I’ve not done much teaching. Today I helped kids move chairs from the classrooms up to the hall in preparation for tomorrow night. It’s really hot, but it keeps showering every now and then.

05/11/08 Practicum Block Day 23

< Happy Birthday Melissa! >

I’m supposed to be in a class, but apparently the grade 11’s are doing an exam, and so there is no point in my being down there. Meh. I can’t say it’d matter either way. I don't have lessons to plan and I don’t have marking to do. Oh well.

I took grade 8 music this morning. I’ve realised I’m really boring when it comes to class introductions. I think it’s because I’m under the impression that the grade 8’s just want to do their work, and so I don't want to waste time trying to “capture them” :P Oh well. Something to work on I guess.

As far as everything goes, I defiantly feel like prac is winding down for me. The grade 8’s are finishing up their sibelius, the grade 11’s are getting ready for their performance → so my teaching is done in those classes. Next week the grade 9’s are working on their manga of their life, so it’s not like I’ll be teaching much there either.

I guess now I just have to finish well.


Friday 07-11-08 – Prac Block Day 25

It’s Friday. Yay. I feel like I’m running around trying to make sure everything is done and everything is not really done at all. And, I got my referee report from my first prac supervising teacher yesterday, who wrote lovely things, and it just makes me remember how much of a difference this prac is.

Last prac, I acted like a teacher, I taught like a teacher, I was a Paula-style teacher. This prac, I’ve been everything but and worse, when I am asked to do what I would so, I copy what other people do. I’m a fraud.

It doesn’t bode well for my future job prospects, or my final report which will be given at the end of next week. ☹

Anyway, yesterday there was a lot of running around and busyness – which was a first for Thursday; usually the slowest day of the week. I had a meeting with the prac liaison officer person who finally showed up after 5 weeks of prac. She was supposed to be here at 11, she turned up at 11:25. Sam, Karen (another prac student) and I waited in the office wasting time. Then she didn’t tell us anything new. Pretty annoying really.

And I was in the middle of making worksheets for the grade 8 music kids and other random worksheets so that Sandy could see what my literacy is like.

Today has been pretty standard. Grade 11’s were practicing. It will be interesting to see what they come up with on Monday for their performances. I unpacked all of the new headphones and sorted out the general keyboard problems. Sandy had some other filing for me to do, but I’m a bit over everything at the moment. And I need to get ready for Jap this arvo. It’s so hot, I wonder if I can find a video for them to watch… humm.



In other non prac news – I’ve finished watching pride and predjudice and I must say I prefer the BBC version to the 2005 movie version. It’s a lot more detailed, historical and has a better story line. I also like that they haven’t made as many concessions to make it more “modern” and “popular”.


Monday 10/11/08 – Prac Block Day 26

This is my last Monday. Yay. I got to mark grade 11 music students today. They were pretty phenomenal. The boys who were ripping it out on guitars came early to set up and orginised big black blocks that they could jump off and worked on their head banging and everything.

The grade 8’s are just wasting time now. I sorta wish that Sharon would come up with something for them to do, but she’s a bit like ‘they can just do this’ which I think is a waste of time. They are practicing their platitude performances. I wish there were a way I could record their piano parts to play with… hum… maybe I’ll spend tomorrow morning trying to figure that out. Oh well. The good thing about grade 8’s is that they forget things that you tell them.

I think honestly though, that their assignment was super easy. And really easy to pass too. I marked so many drafts, if the kids have been dilligant enough to fix their mistakes – they will get an A on their final. I’ve only given A’s and B’s and I’ve marked 2/3s of the class.

The grade 9’s are about to start their manga task, but I doubt they will have it done by Friday. Maybe I’m being pessimistic though. They were really annoying and unfocused today.

Monday 03-11-08 Prac Block Day 21

No matter how many lessons I take, I still never get kids and why they are in the mood they are. The teachers in the staff room blame the weather, the time of day, the food they eat. I dunno what it is, but kids are so unpredictable (except possibly with the exception of Friday afternoons last period when they want to do absolutely nothing and there is absolutely nothing I can do to change that.)

Monday again, only one week and 4 days to go. The more organised I am for my classes, the quicker the week seems to go. It’s really annoying though, when technology fails me. This happened today. I want to play a dvd, the dvd does not work *sigh * I’m glad I test these things before the class, but still. I guess it just shows me the great need for a contingency plan. At all times – have a contingency plan.

Also needed is a dictionary. Or some way of predicting the words students will use so that I can look them up before hand. As always, my greatest let down in the classroom is my spelling.

Anyway, how do I feel about teaching?

Teaching is fun. I like to do it. I am capable of doing it.

How can I improve my teaching?

By being more aware of students needs and understanding their learning difficulties. By creating lessons which are applicable to all students, rather than just some (though I don’t think I do this, it’s good to improve on).

Honestly though, after having struggled to write my 500 words of blah about why I’m going to be a teacher and what I’m doing that makes me a good teacher, I can see that coming up with stuff to say about it all and actually putting it into practice are two very different things. And I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do everything that I say I can do, but don’t tell the teachers that :D.

Tuesday 21/10/08 – Prac Block Day Eleven

I’m ready to go for the grade nines in about fifteen minutes. I can do this. I’m a teacher.

The professional development day yesterday was really helpful for my grade 8 music tech class. In fact, it seems like there is a lot of really useful and well thought out music technology out there, it’s just fiddly to set up and is still fairly expensive. I did learn though, that to get the grove music encyclopaedia for the school, it’s only 500$ for the year, which is good.


Japanese was good. The kids were a bit drained by the writing, but after hearing the “what is kanji?” and “what is hiragana” comments, I’m glad I made them do it. The Asian kids tend to speed through a bit, but on the whole, they all need to practice their writing of kanji and hiragana.

The lesson dragged a bit in the middle, I think sometimes I’m a bit too efficient for the kids. They liked the using clocks that they had made to practice turning the hands to find the times. They understood mae a lot better than I think Tara anticipated. It was a bit strange, because Tara spent quite a bit of time stressing to me that it would take them ages to understand how to say “ten to balh” and then on Friday she says “some of them wont’ get it, and we will just have to move on.” And then today, it didn’t take them too long at all. Bit strange really.

I think they kids are really wanting to get on with things and use all this time stuff in a real life situation. I think had I been taking the class, I would have moved on long ago. Strange.


Thursday 23/10/08 – Practicum Block Day 13 (and apparently mole day for the chemists?)

Tara thinks I worked the kids a bit too hard on Tuesday and said that they needed a break. I’m a bit like, meh they can take it. ☺ They did get a break, we revised mae on Wednesday and then they did a cultural activity, investigating the lives of these school kids in Japan. The resource for it is really good, but because it wasn’t my activity, I did a bad job of introducing it. Could have done a lot better.

In any case, the kids were happy to be doing something in groups where they got to find out stuff so that was good.

Tuesday’s music lesson – last period, went really well. The students bought in a huge range of stuff, Sara Bellis, John Farnham and Bullet for My Valentine. It was interesting to see the different reactions to the music. The boys thought that the Sara B chick was boring and the girls commented that screaming is not a talent after listening to Bullet for my Valentine.

Good times.

On Wednesday, I taught the grade 8 kids how to melody write and they took it quite well. They skimmed through the stuff thtey knew, were quiet when writing down the rules of melody writing and only one kid didn’t actually do the group task at the end. Yay! Also, we practiced our Platitude rhythms which was good. They really like to make music.

For a music tech class, I think half of them are more into the making than the tech part and half of them are wondering when the tech stuff gets to happen again. Also, some of them also do music foundation or music extension (lucky ducks!) so some of what we are doing is revision. Oh well!

In Wednesdays grade 11 music class, I went through the filing cabinet for a song. I’ve decided that if they want to learn to conduct, they might as well learn something to conduct. ☺ Yay! We are going to sing “My Guy” from Sister Act. Hooray! I really like that class, even if it is because they are enthusiastic about learning.

Today, I’ve planned lessons for most of next week, and got the internet working on my computer (yay!) I’ve got my music tech class in 20 mins and then I’m off to ice skating with Tara and the students. I like having things planned. It’s a good feeling.


Friday 24/10/08 Prac Block Day 14

Music Technology yesterday went pretty well. The students actually get the melody writing process, but they forget bits of it. Oh well. I also actually went ice skating this week. The kids that go are pretty good, and also pretty decent. There was a whole heap of boys who decided I was American or Canadian and subsequently followed me around wanting to know the maple syrup content of Canada. Grade 8’s probably.

Today, I took the music lesson this morning – students were just doing performance practice. Nothing too stressful. I got to hear some of them and they sound really good. There are a few boys who just want to bludge, one of them is talented enough to, but it didn’t take much to shake them out of it and get them practising.

Then I have two break lessons to plan stuff. I typed up a criteria sheet for the grade 8 music tech kids and then organised activity sheets for Japanese. I’ll probably work on another one for Tuesday soon, but I’m actually teaching after lunch, so maybe not. We will see.

I can’t believe I’m half way through already. It’s the end of week three and only 3 weeks (and one day) to go. Wow.


Wednesday 29-10-08 Prac Block Day 17… no wait… make that 18. :D

That’s right – I just called the prac office and they said that the day that I did professional development counts as a day that I was on prac. Hooray! No extra make up day for me. :D unbelievably happy. Only 2 weeks and 2 days to go. :D

Friday 17/10/08 – Prac Block Day Ten

Spares again, and nothing much to prepare. Annoying. Yesterday was a long day of planning and orginising, but I think I did so much that I now have nothing to do. The morning started with Clan – a long and extended clan. Tara ended up taking the kids to the library and using the internet to find out things like how often they need a break at work and what not. Apparently the year ten clans all have things like this to work though, because the students should be developing their SET Plans and thinking about jobs and what not, but it also apparently takes a lot less time than they allocate for it.

After this, I had breaks until 1:00 when I had the grade 8 music tech class for 35 mins. I taught the kids to sing in Japanese, which went down seriously well, but then doing scales – which I knew they could breeze through, they decided they didn’t want to work. They were chatty and distracted. It was terrible. So hard to get them focused. I was racking my brains on how to get them through it, but nothing worked. *sigh * One of my serious weaknesses is this lack of understanding the class, and how to pull them in… but not in a behaviour sense.

Anyway, then I rushed for the bus to get to ice skating, which I made. Hooray! Tara and I had a chat about homework on the bus and how to give it. I think it’s really hard for me to understand needing to baby kids through things, because I never needed it. (ok, so I probably did, but not to this extent). If someone told me “this is your homework” I would have done it. I wouldn’t have needed it to be written down and explained out to me. But these kids do → all of them. It’s hard to try to pull back for these things when they seem so simple.

Ice skating was fun, we had 33 kids, all having a skate – they were pretty good. I just watched, the ice was so slippery we had heaps of kids fall down and I didn’t want to add myself to that tally. They have a good go at it, and then we all pile back on the bus and were back at school by 2:45. Easy, if somewhat boring afternoon.

This morning I had the grade 11’s for music, they were doing practice. I cleaned up all of the keyboards and pluged some in and what not. Out of the 38 keyboards, 13 are not working due to some fault. I didn’t have time to do headphones as well, but honestly, it was good to be doing such things, rather than just sitting around. I hate sitting around.

Which is what I’m doing now. Time to go through the lesson plans for next week and see what I can do.

__________________________


Humm… spent a lot of today not doing a lot. Thought about my teaching though, while driving home. I feel like being at Macgregor, I’ve somehow lost it. Like, I knew how to teach, but all of a sudden, I’m not teaching. I feel like I’ve lost the plot for some reason.

I was reflecting (again) on Thursdays music lesson with the grade 8’s, and I think I would have done it completely differently, but I’m so out of my zone at the moment that nothing is connecting. Including my teaching. I think maybe I’ve been trying to do things “the Macgregor way” I’ve forgotten what “the Paula way” is. And that’s bad.

The thing is now, if I walk into the classroom and try to relive the Paula way, the teachers are going to freak out, not to mention the kids. So I’ve pretty much got to struggle on the Macgreor way and try my hardest to do it so well that I pass this prac with flying colours, make it out alive and with job prospects to go to.

Back in the real world, my Jap lesson last went well, though the kids were jumpy and not in the mood to work. Tara doesn’t’ think that I predict the kids well enough for the lesson to flow. Also, my lesson on Tuesday, she’s not giving me feed back on the plan. She just wants me to teach and then decided weather or not I’ve planned it well enough.

http://stevesspace.com/paula/efolio/

It's been up for a while and it's gotten me a pass for that 50% assignment, but if only it were getting me jobs as well. :P

Tuesday 14/10/08 Prac Block day Seven.

Today was the first day that I left a class thinking, I could have done that better. *sigh *

The morning began with doing a few lesson plans and running to the library to ensure that the power point would work and things were going smoothly. Then, I had Japanese. My supervising teacher was under the impression that the grade 9’s had a SOSE event on this day, and that I’d lose 12 of the students. With this in mind, we had arranged for a cultural day for the other students, so as not to let anyone miss out on “important” work. The grade 8’s also joined us, as their teachers had been away and what not.

Then it turns out that the grade 9 SOSE thing is in fact tomorrow. So I all of a sudden have 60 grade 8 and 9 students to talk to about Japanese culture. Right.

The lesson turned out well, the students listened fantastically → so much so that I went over time in the presentation and they didn't have enough time to finish the activity at the end. But on the whole – a great lesson – HOORAY! I felt really good.

Music this afternoon however.

I took Sam to the music department for a visit at lunch time; the staff were in crisis mode getting the extension music kids stuff in for panel and verification and also trying to decided how to pull of the Macgregor music concert in 6 weeks time. But of a rushed lunch, but still good. I went to K3 (music block is called K block) to check my dvd worked – success it appeared fine!

After lunch, I went into music and set up. Half the class was late, but I started the dvd of the performance anyway. The kids were ratty and chatty and not really wanting to work. They were distracted at every little thing, including the words farce and clowns, and not wanting to participate fully. *sigh * again.

My lesson was 5 mins short, but I fleshed it out with more discussion questions (again like pulling teeth), but I couldn’t help feeling that there was something I could have done better.

The last lesson of the day was Grade 8 Music Tech. They were distracted to begin with, and I didn’t recognise that they just wanted to do their sibelius stuff, and tried to get some involvement in rhythmic dictations which was honestly not even worth going into. I just didn’t recognise the kids in their “last lesson of the day” mood.

So I pushed on with rhythmic dictations, and it did work, but it was gruelling. I could have done things better. I know that, the supervising teacher (Sharon) knows that, heck, even the kids probably know it. :P

Something to learn I guess → I’m not going to be doing hard core stuff on a Tuesday afternoon with grade 8’s again. Tara thinks that grade 8’s tend to reflect the weather more than any other grade, so that’s something to watch out for.

After school the deputy gave the preservice teachers a talk about getting jobs with Education Queensland (EQ) (even mentioned Clermont (there’s one for you mum)) in his country service list. I’ve got to have an interview with him and 2 other HODS (Head of Departments) from the school (who have never met me) which will only be 30 mins long. That’s good news. ☺ All I need to bring, is my previous prac report, my 2 referee’s reports and my 500 words about why I want to be a teacher.

Yeah I can do that.


Wednesday 15/10/08 – Prac Block Day 8

When I get to Wednesday I know I’m nearly there for the week. After having to teach 9 classes in 3 days, it is a relief to know that I’m only going to have to teach 3 classes in 2 days now. Does that make sense?

In any case today was busy. I began music by getting the students straight on task and letting them go. 80% of the class is finished doing their seblius work (GREAT!) and the other 20% is about… 2/3rds done. Makes me glad.

After doing Morning Tea duty with Tara (in the same place that Sandy has lunch duty on the same day (what are the odds?)) in which she went around and took photos of grade 12s. Apparently they aren’t allowed to make hand signs (peace, west side, whatever) because of the gangs and some of them might be gang signs. Talk about crazy school.

After this, I watched through the grade 11 Japanese class, and then took the grade nines. Apparently they were going to be too tired to be able to handle new work, so I had to change my lesson plans at the last minute, and just do revision. The students took a while, but we got it done. I am continually surprised at how much my supervising teacher babys them. It’s one extreme to another with this class, either it’s too easy for them, or too much for them to handle. Time they sucked it up and got on with it I reckon, but they aren’t my class, so whatever.

I will say though, that since yesterday, when I took the class on living in Japan, and turning up today in yukata, the kids are realising that I’m more of a real person now, and that I do have something of value to teach them.

After lunch duty with Sandy (where we had to stop a group of 5 boys just walking out the gate), who gave me great feed back on my class, I had about 10 mins free and then took the grade 11’s. They had performance practice, but I walked around and got the song choices and what instruments they were performing on for their assessment. 85% of students have chosen a song, and all of them know their instrument :D YAY!

Prac Block – Day 6 - Monday 13/10/08

You feel really satisfied at the end of a day when your lessons which you worked so hard to plan went really well. On Friday, I had music in the morning, Grade 11’s practicing for their performances. Then I had breaks all day until last lesson when I took the Japanese class. Half of the students were missing because of dance oddessy (performance Saturday some how meaning they didn’t have to go to school on Friday (go figure)) but we introduced how to tell the time in minutes anyway. We got through quite a lot of stuff for a 35 min lesson last class on a Friday.

I got home on Friday to find that some quality uni/student life friends had pulled together and gotten me some flowers. It was awesome to know I wasn’t being forgotten while I was on prac, and they were all still praying for me  thanks guys you are legends!

This morning, Sam (who I’m car pooling with) and I were a bit late, but it was alright none the less. I took the grade 8 music tech class and it went surprisingly well! YAY! I had 3 or 4 students almost finish their work, and the rest are generally on task – except for maybe one or two. I’m now going to have to think of more things to plan for next lesson, but it’s awesome to think that they can work well! Yay!

After that, I took the grade 11’s for music  we studied Mack the Knife (after starting the class by singing in Japanese). A few surprises though, they were happy enough to listen to the song, but they got fairly bored with it after a while. Also, (after listening to Louie Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald sing the song) when I put on the Robbie Williams version  there was almost a riot! No one was impressed with Robbie Williams at all. Bit of a shock. We got through the stuff though, and they did do all the work, so that was good.

Sandy gave me really good feedback from the lesson  most major point is that I need to work on my questioning technique and make sure I’m asking specific people, after I’ve asked the question (otherwise the kids will turn off). So that’s pretty good; something to work on for tomorrow.

After watching the grade 11’s do Japanese, I then taught the grade 9s. First lesson I’ve begun with actually writing things down and doing sentence patterns and even though it was quite a lot of material to get through, and it was hard to bring all the students up to date with what we had covered (students who missed out on Friday needed to know minutes information etc), the students worked really well for the lesson. I was impressed. I’m glad I’m giving them a break tomorrow, because there is some strange thing on and so we are doing a culture lesson.

I planned the last two lessons of the day – feeling a lot more on top of what I have to do this week. Glory to God for giving me the peace and focus to do what I need to do! I’ve also taken my flowers to school to put on my desk, because that’s where I currently spend the most time in a day.