The Great Ocean Road

Burning up the stage with my crew… 

This week has flown by. I started the week off right by playing drums with a group of 5th graders to the song Roar by Katie Perry in front of the whole school. The kids just loved it and it was a great time. I had been hanging out in the music room with the music teacher during my breaks and started playing with some kids. The music program at my school is fantastic. Ben, the music teacher, has little 3rd graders playing the piano, bass, guitar, and drums. His 5th graders almost beat 16 year old at the battle of the bands last year, they were that good. I did not upload the whole video, but here is a picture of me and the band at the school assembly.

James, me, and Elise (Raelee and Vic's kids)

    This week I was with Grade 5/6, so it was a classroom that had half 5th graders and half 6th graders. I have almost always been with the younger kids, so I was out of my comfort zone a little. The teacher I was with was the most excellent example I have ever seen at building a classroom community. She developed a great rapport with her students. They all get along great and I think it's partly because she has a "circle time" where the kids all circle up and everyone gets to talk about something. This week they talked about their upcoming camp that they were having. I was shocked to hear some of the students talk so openly about being nervous about a certain part of camp or being scared of something. They seemed very comfortable with their teacher and each other to be able to talk about things that were bothering them to the class. I hope I can develop that type of relationship with my kids in the future!
   

No big deal, just standing next to a shark. . . typical Australian stuff. . . 

On Thursday, Raelee (my host mom) told me that she had a surprise planned for me on Friday and her daughter was going to pick me up from school at noon and take me somewhere with her husband. No one would tell me what was going on. So on Friday, I got picked up by Elise and she took me to her dad's office. The three of us met their son, James, at a place near Melbourne. They took me to this place that was basically a huge building full of shark and sting ray tanks. You were able to get these suits on and get in with the sharks and feed them. Let me repeat that in case you didn't read it properly: I got IN a tank FULL of SHARKS and sting rays! It was so crazy. I was in shock when we pulled up, I was so excited. I had such a good time feeding them and walking around with these Gummy Sharks swarming around me. They knew we had food for them, so they were darting all around us like dogs, almost, trying to get them. We had this pole with a clothespin attached to it. We would clamp the prongs in the pin and stick the pole out and the sharks would come up and tear it off the pin. It was the coolest thing I think I have done so far.
   

The Twelve Apostles

 This weekend I went to the Great Ocean Road with Raelee, my host mom. We left Friday evening and headed to Melbourne and we stayed at her parents house. Then, we drove to Torque where we met her friend, who went with us. The Great Ocean Road is essentially just a long road that goes along the ocean. It sounds kind of lame, but it was actually great. I got to see a lot of the country and some beautiful sites. We drove to the twelve apostles, which are a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of Port Campbell. They were formed by erosion and eventually became these huge rock stacks up to 45 meters high. We stayed at Raelee's friends house and just relaxed after our day of travel by ordering pizza and watching a "true Australian film" which was Pricilla the Queen of the Desert.
    Traveling home Sunday morning, we took a ferry across the sea to shave some time off our trip home. It was a lot of driving (for Raelee. I am not allowed to drive the car, mostly because of my insistence that I will crash because everything is on the wrong side here) but ultimately a good weekend where I got to see a lot of the scenery of the Land Down Under. I am now preparing for my next week. I will be going up to Gelantipy with the 5/6's for their camp. It is up in the mountains, and I am not quite sure what to expect. I'm sure it will be interesting. Good thing I have my YMCA camp experience. . .