Another post?

Two entries in a row. Weird, I know. I guess it's because I happen to have a little bit more time now. That, and I don't really want to go out into the streets of London by myself in the dark. I'm not THAT crazy.

This morning, I went to church at Westminster Abbey, where the Queen got married, where Prince William's getting married and where countless other people have married and been buried there. Quite something! The service was alright...it was like the BCP order with some BCP words, some version of the BAS. Still had that handshaking though. I kinda had to do it. Not like when there's a BAS service at the Cathedral and I can just immediately start singing before someone comes to shake my hand.

What's crazy though is the amount of people around, tourists, just snapping pictures. I know, I should be used to it by now, but this was even crazier. I think that because on the one street we have the Abbey, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben...and there's just a sidewalk. So everyone's cramming around and trying not to get by a car. Most other places I've been to was mostly pedestrian areas, not a lot of traffic, people could spread out. So it was interesting to wander through crowds that were going the same way but only I wasn't stopping.

Also, after singing only a few hymns, I've realized how terrible my voice is! My voice was so tired after just a small amount of singing! I need to get back to the choir!

In the meantime, here's the plans for the rest of my time here:

Monday - British Museum most of the day

Tuesday - Westminster Abbey (paying for the tour, probably go after lunch)

Wednesday - British Natural History Museum/other museums in the area

Thursday will depend on what the other girls want to do. I haven't decided what I wanted to do yet. I'll have to do a google search and see what's up. Friday...well, we'll have to be at the airport at like 12, since the flights at 3, so not much time to do stuff.

I'll be home soon!

Amy

Near the end

Well, the internship is all over. I am no longer in Harlow. It feels kinda surreal to think that in less than a week I'll be back in St. John's. Crazy!

It was so sad on Friday! I got so much chocolates that I'm surprised it all fit in my bags. I got so many hugs, offers to stay on couches (without the kids asking their parents of course!) and so much else. It was all so amazing and sad. The best gift without a doubt was the handmade thank-you booklet. They had "Thank You!" written on the outside in the school colours. Inside, all the students had drawn a picture of themselves and most of them had a thank you/miss you/good luck message written inside. It was then later signed by the rest of the staff. I was ready to start bawling when they gave it to me in assembly. Oh, and they also gave me the Star of the Week achievement card. The whole thing was just so emotional.

In the past week, I also had a very difficult decision to make. I had to decide if I'd have one last week of fun with my friends in Spain or stay in a hostel in London alone, saving a lot more money, which is quickly dwindling. I'm currently in London, in the sketchiest hostel I've ever been in. I'm here for 4 nights, but I only paid 50 pounds, so I'm getting what I paid for.

It's outside central London, so it's quiet. The bed is comfy. There is free wifi and free towels. The goodness ends there. There's a bar downstairs, in the lobby, where I currently am. I'm thinking that they made the bar and decided "hey, let's make a hostel upstairs!" and it's not quite finished.

Again, the beds are comfy, and there are 6 people in a room. However, it's a 3-level bunkbed. I purposely picked the one on the bottom. The bathroom's kinda dirty. The kitchen is terrible. There's only a microwave and an oven...hardly any cutlery. I had to get a glass from the bar so I could drink my orange juice. *Sigh*.

They're playing Slumdog Millionaire on tv now though, so that's a win. I actually just turned my chair around so I could watch some of it and still be on the computer. What a wonderful movie this is.

I think that's all I'm going to say right now. I'm kinda watching the movie now, kinda doing other random internet things.

See you soon in Canada,

Amy

The End is Near

I had a post. Blogger screwed up. I'm too emotional to write another. Damn blogger...

Apparently, I lie

It seems like I lied. It's been a month since my last entry. I really didn't want it to be! Really! I mean, I'm done my internship in 2 and a half weeks, home in 3 and a half weeks. Can't believe it really, but it's true.

There are some things I like about being here, and somethings I'll be glad to leave an ocean behind. I'll miss the school and the kids there. For the most part, my kids are good kids, but sometimes you just want to smack them. Sorry, but you do. And I know we're not suppose to have favourites, but I do. Some of them I just love and I wish I could be with them all year because they're just great.

I'll miss how close things are here, how easy it is to get from one place in Europe to another. Another place in England is a different story, particularly if you don't have a car! There are trains, but they like to do work on them during the weekends. Damn engineers.

I won't miss the toliets. Seriously, if you're coming here, beware the toliets. They don't always flush right away and you have to wait like five minutes for them to fill up before you flush again. Drives me nuts.

Somethings I look forward to are Tim Hortons, Mom's mac and cheese, mac and cheese in general (seriously, the macaroni's different here so it's not the same!), snuggling my kitties, WoW and my friends.

Still haven't found where I belong, but I think I've found a bit more of me. This trips been good for me, for the most part.

I have really noticed how much work teaching is. You wake up in the morning, get ready, eat breakfast and go in early so you can prepare for the morning class. During break, you're getting ready for the next class if you don't have playground duty. During the hour of lunch, you're scarfing down food as you're in a meeting or working. If you can get 15 minutes to just sit, you're lucky. You teach in the afternoon and then you're either in more meetings when the kids are gone or you're preparing for the next day until 5pm. You get home, get something to eat. By the time you take the time to call your mom, check facebook, e-mail, etc, there's another half an hour gone. If you're lucky, you'll get the planning done and maybe you can get a television show in before bed. Seriously, it's a LOT of work. No wonder we need two months off.

Went to Dublin and Paris! I thought Dublin was nice, but it was too much like home. We went on a pub crawl which was pretty fun. Met people from all over. A series of books I'm reading takes place in Dublin, so it was nice to put the places in my mind. There's a few other things that would have been interesting to see but we didn't have time, and that's ok. But it was too much like home for my liking. We walked into a store and I think we knew all the songs on the Irish music CD they were playing.

Paris was awesome. It was so big and cultural, you'd need another week to see everything! Most of that time would probably be in the Louvre. Yes, myself and two of the girls went there, saw Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa herself. Pretty cool. Went up in the Eiffel tower too. That was something! I also went to Espace Dali...a museum dedicated to master of the surreal, Salvador Dali. It had lots of his sketches, sculptures and the Surrealist Living Room, which was pretty neat. None of his major works though, but that's ok because it was other stuff that you don't really see, which was neat. It was hard to find, but that just seems like Dali. Also saw Notre Dame, which was pretty amazing.

I really don't know what else I can be writing in here. At least right now. We're going to Spain in our week before we go, so I've been talking to Emma about what to do and travelling within Spain. I'm excited to go! Other than that, it's back to the grindstone. With luck, I'll update before leaving again.

Ooops

So I am the WORST blogger in the world! I start by saying I hope to write everyday and what happens? It's been a month since you've heard from me (unless you're on Facebook or Twitter). It's been busy here in Harlow! Basically, I get up in the morning (aka drag my ass out of bed), go to school, get home in time for supper, eat, do a few errands if necessary (which basically consists of grocery store, laundry, other randomness that needs to be done), work on what needs to be done for tomorrow/the next day, shower, watch a show if there's time and go to bed. Really! I could not watch tv, but then I'd be so behind when I get home it won't even be fit. With that said, the only shows I've managed to be fully caught up on are Fringe and Glee.

So what has been happening in the world of Amy? I've been teaching more and I'm not doing too bad. I taught math for two weeks, english for two weeks and after mid-term break, I'll be teaching math AND english. Scary, but exciting. I'm not sure what I like better, teaching math or english. It depends on what the subject is. I loved doing poetry with them because I loved coming up with examples and reading what they wrote. One of my students has such a creative mind. I love reading his work, it always makes me laugh. Some of my girls write such beautiful imagery. Biographies and non-fiction haven't been as fun, but I think I'm stuck with them.

I didn't think I'd like Year 6 because they're 10 years old and I tend to have a great rapport with younger kids. But I love these guys! I can joke around with them, can talk to them like they're adults, and they're just great kids. However, my co-operating teacher has reminded me that the class last year was not good, and she's anticipating troubles from the class coming up next year, so I'm lucky to have such a great class. There are some problems though. When I'm teaching and she's not there, they're a little more chatty and harder to regain control. Though reminding them that I can give out red cards just as much as she can gets their attention.

And I love their enthusiasm for learning about Canada! Of course, I had to get the map to show them the size difference between England and Canada. "WHOA I thought England was big!" one boy exclaimed as I circled it. Nope. Canada is the largest country in the world according to size. "But miss, I thought Russia was the biggest." It USED to be the biggest, but when different parts became their own countries, Russia got smaller. I circle Newfoundland and Labrador (yes, I circled Labrador as well!) and said that this was my province, and that I lived on the tip here, as I place a dot on St. John's. I then put a dot on Toronto. Justin Bieber lives here, so for the last time, no, I don't know him or live anywhere near him. Being 10 year old girls, they immediately made the connection that since Justin Bieber and I were from the same country, it was a possibility that we knew each other.

I've often compared the school to Harry Potter, since it's the easiest way for me to figure out how things work. The school has houses, but I'm not sure what determines you go into each house. The younger grades use the colour names while the older grades use the names of the school and town founders. I was looking at the board and made the connection that colours were the same as for Hogwarts! Red, Blue, Yellow, Green - Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. I've often wondered what house I'd be put into if I went to Hogwarts. Let's see:

Gryffindor - valuing bravery, courage, loyalty. Most likely not.

Ravenclaw - intelligence, creativity, learning. Good possibility.

Hufflepuff - hardwork, tolerance, fair play. I'll take the tolerance, but not so sure on the hardwork. Besides, I'm more for acceptance than tolerance.

Slytherin - ambition, resourcefulness, leadership. Better chance of getting in there than in Hufflepuff or Gryffindor. Besides, green's my favourite colour. But there's the pure-blood supremacy thing. Being someone who's big on acceptance would probably not get accepted into that house.

The sorting house may take a few minutes, but the mostly likely home for me in Hogwarts would be: Ravenclaw. I can deal with Ravenclaw. Luna Lovegood lives there. She'd be awesome to hang out with because she's a little eccentric like me.

Enough about Hogwarts! Though it's a great segue since Hogwarts is supposedly in Scotland and guess where I'm going! Oh yes. Scotland.

I've already been to Scotland, seeing Edinburgh and Glasgow. I'm in love with the country and have been itching to go back (plus, the cute bartenders and seemingly generally attractive male population is a lovely factor! I mean, Sean Connery, Sean Biggerstaff (Harry Potter again!) Gerard Butler, Ewan MacGregor, James McAvoy....all good looking Scottish men!). So when trying to decide for a place to go for mid-term break, the Scottish Highlands seems like a great idea. Loch Ness is up there, it's a beautiful place...and I've been reading a series of romance novels (but they're not JUST romance...the women are strong, independent women, there's fantasy elements, time travel, and it links to another romance series that is more action and fantasy than romance! It's a series about another world, really, who happen to have hunky male leads that are great in bed).

I'm going there by myself on Tuesday. Yes, alone. I know there are drawbacks to going alone, but I don't mind. I know how to keep myself safe. It's not that hard. The others are going to Italy, four of them already gone. As much as I'd love to go to Italy, I need more than five days lol. I enjoy my time with the other girls here and do love travelling with them, but once you get more than a few people, things can get tough, with some wanting to do one thing, others want to do another. I was going to go to the Highlands with Tiff, but she said to go without her, since she'll be too tired coming back from Italy. I think I asked her about 10 times if she was sure she was ok with not going. Besides, we'll have a lot of time to do things all together soon! We're all going to Dublin and Paris, with all but Sarah coming to Spain. I PROMISE updates on those!

And guess what?! 3 things that I've been wanting to do for a long time happened!

1) Stonehenge. What an amazing place, even if it's just rocks. There's something...unearthly about that area. Maybe it was the foggy day, but just knowing that somehow these giant rocks were placed thousands of years ago by unknown methods, that no one fully knows how or why they're there (I'm still going with either aliens, human sacrifice or both)...it just adds something.

2) Les Miserables. The best musical ever! I loved every moment! One problem was that Fantine seemed to go too fast during I Dreamed A Dream and the orchestra had to keep up with her. But it was a wonderful play. Please see it.

3) I FINALLY met Emma! I've known Emma for about 10 years, meeting online on I THINK a BSB chat, but I'm not 100% sure. We've been friends ever since and it was just great having her here for a weekend. We got on like old friends because we are old friends. It was a sad to see her go but we'll see each other again when I go to Spain. Hopefully it won't be another 10 years before we see each other again.

What else have I done? Oh, I saw Avenue Q with Sarah. Funniest thing I've ever seen on stage. Look up "The Internet Avenue Q" on youtube. So funny. I won't give away the title of the song, because it'll give away why it's so funny. I've also found a love for H&M, since clothes there actually fit me! I'm wearing a bit more make-up and *gasp* I've changed my hair. Since the beginning of time, my hair has been parted in the middle. Now, it's part on the side. The left, actually.

Anyways, Sarah and I are on the way to Starbucks! It exists here, somewhere and we're off to find it! We have a good idea of where it is, and we're going to do a little shopping while we're out.

I PROMISE my next entry won't be in a month. It'll be much sooner.

Thanks for being so patient,

Amy

Just some things

I want to start by saying that a few things in my last post didn't come off too well, and it was not my intention to hurt people. However, I did. These people know who they are, and we have talked, leading to my apology. I would now like to make a public apology to them. We all now can move past this, move on and continue having fun.

So, now let's just put it behind us and get on with the blog.

I've started doing some teaching. It was a little scary, but it's getting easier. I started with working with small groups and transitioned to bigger groups. I think I'm pretty much taking over RE. Religion was my focus area and, I won't lie, finding out we're doing Hinduism excited me. Hinduism is a fascinating religion to me, so I'm enjoying sharing my knowledge of it to the students, who really don't know much about it at all. I just have to watch myself, since my knowledge goes beyond what they need to know. But I guess that's the same for many subjects when you're teaching at a primary level.

I did math this morning, and it went well. I like to think I could have done better, but my teacher said I did fine, pointed out some flaws, and all was well. Like last time, most of my flaws include pacing, keeping watch to make sure everyone's paying attention (which is NOT easy at all!), little things like that. So my goal for Wednesday's lesson is to keep up the pacing.

In non-school news, we have some fun trips coming up: Glasgow this weekend, Dublin the first weekend of November and Paris the 20th of November. Should be some good times.

I also found a bar that will give me coffee in my own Tim's mug if I ask. Awesome.

I think that's all for now. Time to do some RE lesson planning.

Until next time,

Amy

Differences

Is there anything wrong with being different? Some people think different is weird and generally not good. There are differences in the British school system and the Canadian school system. Does that mean one is better than the other? Here, everyone wears a uniform. Of course there are varying debates on that issue, but I'm not getting into it right now. The students do a lot of group work, which is very interesting. The schools are very family orientated, with parents coming to meet their students outside the classroom door. These are just a few examples. But what about me? Is it ok with me being different?

I've always been slightly different than others, though not always knowing how or why. Sometimes, it's just a feeling inside that says "know what? You're not like the rest of these people. It's not bad, you're just different." I see it now in my ways, in my interests, in how I like to spend my time. I'm not the most social of creatures. I'd rather read or listen to music, watch television, then go out shopping for shoes and clothing just because. It's not enough for me to just "look" at things. I want to know all the details and get to the nitty gritty. My taste in music is pretty different than a lot of my friends. In general, all of this seems fine.

But when you're stuck for four months with others who aren't like you...well, there can be some lonely times. Some times you're just thinking, "can't we do something that I want to do? Why must I be the one left out?". I know deep down it's ok that I'm not like the others, but that doesn't mean I don't want to be left alone all the time. Maybe I should take a listen to Nick Carter some more. I'm closing with excerpts with his song "Not Like You".

I don't care about the summer breaks

Don't know much about love

And I don't care about the look of my hair

Cause I'm not like you

My TV set gives me tenderness

The cab driver guy is my friend

I look around me and all I can see

Is that I'm not like you

Don't tell me it's hard to believe

there's something out there

Cause no matter how much I believe it ain't true

I'm not like you