Happy Thanksgiving!

While it's Thanksgiving weekend for everyone back in Canada, this weekend was just a regular ole weekend for us down under. Australians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, probably because the differences in how Australia and North America settled. However, I do believe they have a National Day of Thanks sometime in May. 

Just because Thanksgiving isn't celebrated here, doesn't mean we didn't break out the fine china and dive into a well prepared meal. We celebrated anyway...on a budget. We got a roasted chicken, Jenna made mashed potatoes, Megan prepared a salad, Eric was in charge of gravy (no one ate the gravy..Haha) and I opted to make dessert, as per usual.

Now, when you think dessert at Thanksgiving time you think of pumpkin pie. Actually, whenever us Canadians think of the word pumpkin, we almost always follow it with pie. It like the two words are married because they go so well together. Over here though it's different. Don't get me wrong, pumpkins are all over here, although Aussies often don't think of pumpkin as dessert. Rather, roasted pumpkin along with other veggies is where pumpkins fit in around here. I'm not sure why I'm writing about pumpkins though because they had no role in the dessert. Of course, I wanted to make pumpkin pie, but the lack of tools and particular ingredient didn't allow it. I guess you could say our lovely Thanksgiving meal wasn't a true one then, not without a pumpkin pie. 

What I actually made for dessert was cinnamon rolls. Again, because lack of tools, I did not make my own dough but I substituted puff pastry instead. I was a little unsure on how they would turn out, but they were pretty good. Of course, not as good had I handmade the dough, but pretty good. My mates liked them too - they were gone almost instantly.  

I was also told last week that Halloween isn't very big here. It's only been the past few years that a very small percentage of people actually do anything Halloween-y because they see it all on American TV and want to do it too. I've noticed some of the big shops putting out Halloween candy, but there really isn't much. Costco is the only place I've noticed selling costumes and there is hardly a selection there. Instead, everything is already CHRISTMASSY, which is YAY because I love everything Christmas and I can always do without Halloween. I've never been a very big fan of Halloween (except the candy part!). 

I hope everyone has enjoyed their Thanksgiving weekend! I am certainly thankful for being here and having this wonderful opportunity and having a bunch of beautiful people back at home who support me!

School Holidays Begin!

Hey! How yous goin'? Check out this video of our weekend!

The weekend was a kick start to our two week holiday. Although the weekend was pretty laid back for me, we had some adventure on Monday. Looking at the forecast, we saw that Monday was to be 27°C out and we wanted to do something different. I remembered one of the teachers telling me we should visit Mornington Peninsula because it was a beautiful place and there was lots to do. So, we headed out there early Monday morning. It was about an hour train ride and then another forty-five minutes on the bus. We found a nice beach where we relaxed for a bit. We could see the city skyline so far away in the distance and the crazy thing is that we were still in Melbourne. This city is so massive!

We went up to the main street where there was an information center to figure out what we wanted to do. The lady there recommended that we have a go at Tree Surfing, so we called the place and that's what we were set to do. We stopped for lunch at a burger joint and then hopped on the bus for another forty five minute ride where we had to get off and wait for a taxi to take us up the long winding road to get to the Enchanted Forest. The turns on this road were so sharp and went straight up hill. I'm pretty sure the taxi driver was accelerating on the turns and it smelt like burning rubber. He was kind and stopped the cab where we could get a good view.

The Enchanted Forest was beautiful and there were lots of activities to do. Tree Surfing was heaps of fun! You'll have to watch my video to see more about that. We were also so lucky to be tree surfing with these kids who had an awesome mom who offered us a ride back to the Frankston train station! We would have had to get on a bus for about two hours to get back there. There are some truly kind people here and they were no exception! They even drove us around to show us where Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman lived when they were married and they took us to a pier to see the most beautiful sunset! They also told us all the great places we will need to visit while we are here too! Just amazing people! And, check out this sunset (not that I got a good picture, or that a picture would do much justice anyway). She told us it would be nice out today because of the sunset - "Red sky at night, shepherds delight!" And is it ever nice out today! 

We will be out doing more exciting things this week! Hope you enjoyed this post and my video! 

Don't forget to be awesome!

Kaits :)

Teach, Run, Listen, Explore

Long time no blog. Lets catch up. 

It's now spring here in Melbourne. It tricked us by being 25°C on the very first and second day of spring. However, we haven't seen the sun much since. The weather is very indecisive here at the moment. It can be sunny and warm one minute and the minute you blink it's cold and pouring rain. This cycle repeats itself over and over again. I'm finding it quite challenging to dress myself each morning. 

Work has been very busy these past few weeks as I have work nearly every day. It's fun being a CRT because I get to do different things each day. So far I've taught all grades from prep (kindergarten) to grade six, I've taught phys ed, I've taught at a special school and in a P-12 school. At each school, I learn more about myself and who I hope to become as an educator. It's so awesome to have the opportunity to dabble in each grade level, in different subjects and different types of schools. 

Today I was teaching the little preppies at a school I go to often. One child wanted to take a picture of me and my peg board work (but really, just the board). I'm wearing my coat because it was really cold and rainy out today and also because the schools here don't have heat, just small heaters in each classroom, so it's pretty cold in the mornings.

Other than working at schools, I've been trying to explore Melbourne and I've found some of my favourite places to be so far. I went down to the coast on a day off for a run and I found a terrific footpath that goes all along the ocean for five miles (well it goes much further, but that is the distance between the two trains I use to get back to the city). I found Brighton Beach which is where these beautifully coloured beach houses are, maybe you've seen them in pictures before? I go all the way to St. Kilda Pier and at the end of the day, that's a nice place to sit on the sand and watch the sun go down. It'll be flippin' cold at that time, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I do that about three times a week!

And here's what a run looks like at sunset time.

Now, I'm not sure if this trumps the beach running or not but my other favourite thing to do is to walk down Bourke St on a Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday afternoons. It is so amazing and packed with talent! All the buskars come out and show everyone what they got. I especially get excited when I find out my new favourite bands will be playing. I can just sit and watch them perform! If you're looking for some new music to check out take a look at Woodlock and Amistat. By the way, the guys of Woodlock are super cool and I had a chat with them after one of their performances when I bought their CD! Bourke Street has it all and I love it!

This is the last week of school before we break for term four, which means we have two weeks of holidays! I'm not sure yet what we are doing, but one thing is for sure, we are going to explore in and around the city. I'd like to do day trips to surf or go out into the country on a train because that isn't too expensive. Oh, and I met another CRT at school today. Where is she from? Saskatchewan. So we are going to meet up over the holidays as well and go on an excursion of some sort!! 

Here we are a few weekends ago hanging out at Docklands by the Yacht club - hoping to score some friends with a massive yacht. No luck yet. We will keep trying. Ha Ha!

Hope you all have a great week!

Swipe On, Swipe Off

The past two weeks have been pretty busy for me! I've had work everyday excluding Tuesday which turned into a Ben Affleck movie day. The thing about being a CRT is that I have to get up at 6am every morning and wait for a phone call to determine the rest of my day. These past two weeks though, with the exception of two days, I've known where I am going before I wake up in the morning. Either I get a phone call the night before or the school I was at the day before asks me back for another day. It's nice to know before I go to bed where I am going the next day so that I can plan out my transportation. To toss in a fun fact, Melbourne has one of the largest rail and tram systems in the entire world! This is why it is essential to plan out where I am going. 

Timing is very important when you travel using the public transportation system. In the city, it doesn't much matter if you miss a certain train because it is likely another will be departing in the next 5-8 minutes after. However, if you are out in a suburb and you miss a train, you're in a jam because the next train probably won't be for another 20-30 minutes. Early this week, I was out at a school in the Pascoe Vale suburb and since I had been at the school several times before, I knew the train left at 3:47pm and that the walk from the school to the train station took about 10 minutes. However, after school I poked around talking to some teachers and such. I finally started on my walk and realized that the train would be shortly arriving at the station. As I approached the cross walk, I saw the train pulling up to the station. I knew I could not miss that train as the next wasn't until 4:20pm. Although I would not advise this, I ran across the roadway (looking both ways of course. Here, you must look right first then left) and up into the train station. The doors were closing so I put my arm in right before they closed so that the doors would open again to let me in. My only problem, I didn't have time to swipe my MyKi card (transportation pass) but ain't nobody got time for that when your catching a train the way I did. This turned into a bigger problem then I expected as when I got back to Melbourne Central Station, I swiped my card for the gates to let me out and they wouldn't open. I went to talk to one of the guards and he said no problem and let me through. What I didn't notice was the police officer paired with a transportation officer on the other side of the gates waiting for me. 

"Ma'am, Ma'am would you step aside please." 
Although they were reasonable about it, I got a stern talking to about swiping my card each time. They tracked ALL of my past train swipes and realized that it was the only time I hadn't swiped on for a train. They let me go after swiping my card again and said, "There, now you've paid for the trip you just took." Little do they know that I never swipe on when I ride trams. Muahaha.

While we're on the topic of trains here, I'll take a second to tell a story about what happened last week on one of our train rides. Thankfully, Megan and I were together as we were called to the same school. Now, if you know me well, you're probably aware that I thoroughly enjoy watching the movie Con Air. At one point of the day I said to Megan, "They somehow managed to get every creep and freak in the universe onto this one plane and then somehow managed to stick us right smack in the middle." She didn't know what I was talking about as she's never watched the movie, but if you swap plane for train it somehow manages to perfectly describe the day we had. 

In the morning, we ran all the way to Melbourne Central Station as we were running a smidge late and we were feeling very successful as we made it to the train platform right on time for our train! We boarded the train and it was immediately brought to our attention that there was a crazy on the train as we hear a lady yell, "Get your hands off me!" We looked and saw a large man, triple our size harassing a lady by talking right in her face and putting his hands on her to move her closer to his face. Although we avoided all eye contact, we somehow managed to attract this crazy to sit right next to us.

There was maybe twelve people on the huge train and he sat RIGHT next to us. He then proceeds to start talking right in our faces, so I ignored him by looking out the window, but he wanted to so desperately talk in my face that that made him move closer. So finally, I looked at him and gave him the attention he was trying to achieve by nodding my head and repeating "mhmm" to keep him at bay. I then looked at Megan and said, "so our stop is the next one." Although it wasn't our actual stop, we got off to avoid Mr. Crazy and switch to a different train car. As we got off he grabbed both of our legs, which was terrifying. We ran to the next car down, got on and began talking about how terrified we were of that man. 

"Oh my gosh, he's coming!" Megan said only seconds after the train departed from the station. I turn around and sure enough, he's headed our way. The thing about the trains is some of them you can hop from car to car as there are doors and a small walking platforms that attach them. Now, he's already in our car, the one we just switched to to get away from him.  

"Get back here!" Mr. Crazy shouted at us. We began RUNNING through the isle of the train and into the next car through the little platform that you're technically not supposed to use while the train is in motion. My hands were trembling and we were both terrified. Who knew what this guy wanted! Just before he reached us, the doors swung open and we got off that train! We waited for the next train to take us to our real stop. 

You would think the story ends here. During lunch we JOKED about the crazy being on the train on our ride home. Little did we know that he would STILL be on the train and the very same car that we hopped onto at the end of the day. He saw us huddling in the back of the train, he stood up and began walking towards us. Thankfully the train stopped right then and there and we got off the train. We had to wait 20 minutes for the next train to pick us up, but it was worth not being harassed. I just felt really bad for all the other women and children on that train that he preyed on. When we got to Southern Cross Station, we reported him and they said they would look at the tapes and investigate.

We haven't seen him since. 

Apartment Tour

For those of you wondering about my apartment, here is a quick video giving you a tour! It's pretty cozy and we are in a great area in Melbourne CBD, close to everything we need! We are so happy that we were able to find this place and the lovely realtor is taking care of us! 


Let me know what you think! Cute right?!

Terrific Timetables

I was so excited last Tuesday night to finally get a call to start teaching, after all, it is one of the big reasons I came to Australia! For the time being, I am substitute teaching (or as they call it here: emergency teacher OR CRT- Casual Relief Teacher) with Standby Teachers. 

Since that first call, I have had steady work in a few different schools. My first subbing gig was at a lovely primary school in the Newport area. I really enjoyed the caring vibe the staff and students gave off. The following day, Megan and I were both and the same school in North Fitzroy in separate 3/4 classrooms. It was a long day for the both of us as the school simply gave off no positive vibes at all. On Friday however, I was so blessed to go to a fabulous school which was located between Pascoe Vale and Glenroy areas. It was a LONG train ride and and even longer cold, wet walk in the rain, but the radiance from the students, staff and parents immediately brightened my day! I was so happy when the asked me to come back to their school on Monday, which was another great day for me. It was a beautiful school and I will be sure to write more about it in a future blog when I plan to write about school layouts (because they had a phenomenal one!) I was privileged enough to get a call for another wonderful school this morning, I am planning to write about this experience in a future blog post about lesson structure as they sure did some amazing work! 

Today I wanted to write a post about the timetables most schools here have a similar variation of but it is much different then back in Canada. To be honest, when I got my first job, I was a bit skeptical of the timetable. I thought, "How is this going to work!" Little did I know that it would become something I absolutely adore.  

Here is a variation of what a timetable may look like in schools in Melbourne:
(8:45am)-School Begins / Morning Classes
(11:15am)-Morning Recess
(11:55am)-Classes
(1:25pm)-Lunchtime and Recess
(2:15pm)-Classes
(3:15pm)-Dismissal

I fell in LOVE with this timetable - it makes PERFECT sense! The bulk of the classes and usually the heavier subjects get completed in the morning sessions. This is when the children are most alert and ready to learn. Then, they break for recess for about 40 minutes. This is also when they eat their "brain food" which has to be a healthy fruit or vegetable or "naked" foods that do NOT come in packaging. This recess break also gives them ample amount of time to be physically active, play and develop essential skills like teamwork and empathy on the playground. It's also beneficial for the teachers to have that break as well. Teachers split the yard duty time in half so that everyone gets a break! 
They then resume classes with a load of fresh air in their systems and are ready to learn again. The later lunch and recess time work well because once they come back into the school for the final class session, there is only an hour left. Sometimes, the amount of learning after lunch can take a fall as children can either be restless from the amount of sugar in their lunches or they are much too tired to do a lot of work. With only an hour until dismissal, it's long enough to get a meaningful lesson in and also a short enough time to still keep the children's attention. 

I'd like to hear others thoughts on this timetable. Would you like it or not? Do you agree with a later lunch? Do you agree with longer recesses or do you side with shorter, more frequent recesses?

Mega Grocery Deals

I can't remember if I've posted about this before or not, but it is expensive living here in Melbourne. It's also common that you will get very little for the price you pay (compared to Canada). We have become bargain hunters searching for the little yellow 'price special' tags at Woolsworth and returning items that we bought at the Big W only to head to the Reject Shop to get the same thing for three bucks less. Needless to say we have been very conscious of prices. 

On Wednesday, we spent $130 between the two of us on just groceries and let me tell you, that certainly didn't get us much. Our little bar fridge wasn't even half full and our cupboard still seemed quite empty after putting all the groceries away. 

(We didn't end up getting the lunch boxes..they were $29 instead of
the $7.99 price we found them at.)

Today was a good grocery day. From now on, Sundays will become our grocery shopping days. We headed over to the South Melbourne Market. We did some walking in the rain but eventually got there and was it ever worth it! We decided to get there for around 2:45pm because the markets close at 3pm. Why would we do that? That only leaves us 15 minutes of shopping! Yes, but as soon at three o'clock hits, it gets crazy in there. Big guys are standing up and yelling their new discounted prices. You see, Sunday is the last day of the market until the following Thursday. This means they want to get rid of their produce while it's still fresh!

Here is what we got at the market today:

a sack of potatoes

a quarter of watermelon

3 bundles of broccoli

a bag of carrots

a bag of lemons

a bag of tomatos

5 apples

a bag of oranges

a bug bundle of bananas

All of that for $11! We were so proud of ourselves. Although the market was busy, loud and crowded we did a good job and got plenty for the amount we paid! We sure know where we are shopping from now on! 

We then ventured to Cole's, another grocery store to pick up a few more items. We found it to be better priced then Woolworths as well as much less crowded! We signed up for their rewards card and vowed we would buy all our other essential items there! Except for Tim Tams (an essential food group) where I saw them for $2 at Woolworths!

We then realized that we had to carry all of our groceries back to our apartment, it wasn't too bad because we hopped on a tram and then we only had to walk two blocks in the rain. Our next thing to budget for is one of those granny wheely bags so that we can venture to the markets and stock up! WHOO!! 

PS: It's been super cold here. Okay, not so bad in comparison to a Saskatchewan winter but it's still cold! We moved into this place on Wednesday and we were freezing day and night as our one wall is just windows. Three days later after talking with the landlord, she told us that what we thought was just our air conditioner is in fact also a heater. Wow, we felt dumb but now we are nice and cozy in here. 

PSS: Who wouldn't want to take these guys for lunch. Mighty fine deal too..