Penguin Parades are Weird..

On the very same day, after the adventure through the wonderland of Australian animals, we continued on our way to Phillip Island where we are to see some nice beaches & the penguin march (& believe me.. it is as weird as it sounds…).

 But first I shall begin with the beach;

  

 It was beautiful! At least I thought so... when we got home & I expressed how much fun I had that day & how I thought the beach was gorgeous… Scotty replied with, “Mann we better get you to a good beach b.c that wasn’t one.”
I thought it was though... At least compared to Cleveland, Ohio! But... Clevelanders, please don’t worry... I will always hold a special place in my heart for Huntington Beach in Bay Village. Quality.

Did I mention how this beach had the prettiest shells!? Jamie wasn’t even phased by them, but I kept having to stop & look at them all!

 

We also found a sea urchin!!

(it's that little red thing in the middle there) -->

Well I think it was called Smith’s Beach, & it was on Phillip Island.  I really liked it, because it had soo much to it. It not only had sand & water as normal beaches do, but it also had all sorts of different rocks (one type was PURPLE!); some in the water, some out of the water, some that you could walk on and be right over the water, or some along the beach. Jamie & I ventured for awhile there until we decided to go to the Nobbies. 

The nobbies; I’m not really sure why they are called that, but it is a nesting ground for a scheissa-ton of seagulls! Note the photos:



   

This area was suuuper beautiful though.  We got to see the sunset!  And also some little penguins! :)  I wish I could have gotten a photo of one… but I didn’t. 

Next we went to The Penguin Parade! 

This is a glorious place where tourists, like myself, get to enjoy the most beauteous view of the forces of nature at work in penguins’ lives.  You get to come (no cameras please – you WILL get yelled at) & watch penguins march out of the water around/after sunset.  It really is the site to see, but don’t forget! à Tickets are over $20 (or was it $40? I can’t remember).  It was quite the experience… they had 2 sets of cement bleachers! 

Nawh, I really did think it was cool to see... I understand that it needs to be preserved & guarded; I most definitely understand that, & I agree that it should be as well… I just think its funny how much they charge.  Eh. It is what it is!  & I would suggest it... Those little guys were so funny! & so scared!  But not of the people, because I don’t think they could see anyone because of how the lights were, but they huddled soo close together as they walked onto the beach & if they were lucky, a wave wouldn’t come & knock them over!  Teehee, it was cute as. 

I learned something that day though! --> Penguin Parades are weird.

<3 M.

Kangas & Wombies, Birdies & Kookies, Dingoes & Wallabies, Koalas & Tazzies... OH MY!

I know, I know… it has been.. quite some time since I last wrote a blog… So it takes me forever to write things down, I am sorry about that... but here is a new one!

& it is aaaalllllllll about the WONDERFUL day right after dinosaurland! :)

Well, it began as anything other thing would.. transportation.. the drive.. wwwhhheeerrrreeee…. I may or may not have fallen asleep. Oopsies…Sorry Jamie! 

We were on our way to to Maru Koala & Animal Park &!&!& Phillip Island!  

  

 

In a nutshell: we played with kangaroos, wombats, tropical like birdies (including kookaburras!), dingoes, wallabies, & koalas!  Did I miss anything? OH! & a taz aaannndd beautiful peacocks, emus, & a big lizard!  We had a bird talking to us as well, we said hello then it said hello back! I have a video, but I’m not sure if I can load it on here.. I’ll see what I can do though.

It was quite fun :) the animals made me feel soo HAPPY! …I don’t know what it was, but as soon as we were playing with the kangaroos I was overwhelmed with happiness & it was sweet as!!  They are just so cute & cuddly.. & even though I had food & I know they can kill me w. those powerful jumper-legs of theirs.. well.. I felt special anyway!! :D

Dinosaurland.

We went to the Dandenong Mountains & hiked on Saturday! :) We stumbled upon an Echidna (some kind of porcupine), dinosaurland, and rain!

To start with, we had a lovely lunch at some little place in a little town on the mountain, then went to this really cool shop with all these awesome mappy type things (yes, mappy – use those imaginations of yours!), gold, and other metal things (like old clocks, & lights, & globes, etc..). I really like globes;) Anywho.. then we went to Gepetto’s which is this little children’s puppet shop! This is where I found lamb chop (above) & a confused moose. See here:

 And so..  we began our hike :) 

It was an awesome adventure!  We began by stumbling upon some tropical looking birds:

These birds are not only beautiful, but they are one of many that we heard throughout the day.  I have found that there are many tropical looking birds in Australia compared to Northeast Ohio.. Surprising! I know.... 


The trees and plants are a lot different to the life that we would see in the woods back home as well.  For example; they have bracken & ferns; ferns are trees & bracken are what we would call ferns.




 The tree that you see on the left in this photo is a fern.. you can also see it on the first hiking picture I put up.  and in the photo just above this one, on the forest floor, you can see the bracken, it is just one shoot going up.

Next we came across an Echidna! Or as we Americans would call it, a porcupine!  Jamie & I were just walking enjoying all the nature around us, when all of a sudden in the luscious green to our right, we heard a sound, not just any sound, but the sound of a HUGE BEAST! No just kidding, it was an Echidna walking as if it were the only thing in the forest.. then, it sensed us.. I saw his spikes go up and it hid a little, but then all of a sudden, it came across the path & walked to the other side!  I think it knew we had cameras and it wanted a photoshoot..  We got to touch it too!  But we had to be careful to only pet it from the front to the back otherwise we'd get poked! 

As we continued on our way we came to a waterfall: 

Dinosaurland:

After we crossed the bridge over the water and continued walking for a bit, we looked to our left to see that there was a bit of a valley through the tall monstrous trees; we were in dinosaurland.  It was then that I truly realized how immense the forest was. We couldn’t hear anything but the loud exotic calls of the tropical birds and the wind blowing through each of the long leaves of the gum trees whose trunks were as tall as giants reaching toward the sky.

And all of a sudden a feeling came over me that really made me sense how very insignificant I was at that very moment. It wasn't a bad insignificant, but a very humbling one. I enjoyed it. I felt like a brontosaurus should’ve walked right by in the valley to my left and a pterodactyl should’ve flown overhead screeching the loudest call it could ever have created, and it would’ve been completely normal, and no one would’ve known about it but me. You can’t really tell from the photo but this is about the area where I was feeling this way:

This is when Jamie & I both agreed that there should be dinos walking around here; we both felt like there should be some type of animals from the Jurassic with us in the forest, everyone minding there own business, but still there.

After all of this we headed to the a lookout area called, "Sky High Mount Dandenong" where we looked at the beautiful misted and fogged up landscape that we could barely see!

    

(ps - you can click on each photo to enlarge it)

Even though it was foggy.. it's totally ok because.....(drumroll please!)........

We made a wish @ the wishing tree!!

 

So then Sunday's weather was absolutely beautiful for our visit to Phillip Island!

It was probably the wishing tree.. or because we visited Mr. Percy Possom’s home…

One of the 2...

Well my bedtime goal tonight was 11:00.. it's now it's about midnight-thirty...

Good on ya!

<3 M

I Vote YES!

Australians voted this past Saturday. Here it is required to vote; you have to if you are over 18. The funny part is that a lot of the people I’ve met here don’t seem to care at all about it. It’s kind of funny; everyone living here loves their country... they just don’t care about their politics. It ended up that this is the first hung parliament in 80 years. And now I’m hearing a lot more about it all. I’m trying to follow everything, but it is really hard to understand. There is the labor party, which is the working class (in my head I compare it to democrat), then there is the liberal party (which is confusing because this party is the conservative one), they also have the green party (this is a minor party that cares a lot for the environment)!


I went to vote with Jamie, everything was really relaxed. It was at the school where I’m teaching & there were some student bands there playing dressed in their uniforms! There was also food being sold & some people were there just hanging out. When Jamie went in to vote, I was very hesitant & a bit uncomfortable. I kept asking him if I should stay outside the gym while he went into vote, but he was really relaxed and was kinda laughing at me, which I didn’t understand because in the US I don’t think it would be allowed. Well we got to the door & he said I was American and asked the woman if I could come in with him & she was more than willing to let me. When we got to the sign in area the woman who signed Jamie in was originally from the US and seemed very happy I was there! She took Jamie’s name, gave him the voting sheet and that was it, he wasn’t ID’d or anything. Voting is very different here (just as the many other things I’ve told you all about), you number the order you want your votes to be in rather than just choosing one.. I could try and explain it better, but I’d rather not get a headache.

Tehee :)

PS – I vote YES! to Australian hairdos!

1st Day Teaching

I taught my first lesson today! And I’ll continue tomorrow, and the next day, and the next and the next! I was suuuuper nervous! And I’ll give you one guess as to what didn’t happen when we went to hook my computer up to the projector... Yep! ..it.didn’t.work. Thankfully, my supervising teacher brought his, and that I grabbed my USB drive just before I left my desk, because that is when I quickly saved it onto my USB and put it on his computer. By the time I took attendance and finally got my activity on the board, the class was already 15 minutes in!


We talked about classification (the 7 categories created by Carl von Linné; kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) and dichotomous keys. While I was up there, I felt a little scatterbrained, so it was good I had a PowerPoint for the main topics. I'm sure that will go away in time and as I get the hang of it more (for that moment, I am really excited). But I guess it seemed like I was comfortable, because that's what Ken told me afterward. I have a way of making it seem like I’m comfortable & relaxed when I’m in front of people, giving speeches, or teaching. This is sometimes true, as long as I am prepared. His remarks were pretty good; I need to make better eye contact with the students, I think that will come with time as I get to know their names and actually become more comfortable with them (not just seeming like it).

Today I was really really nervous, now I think I'm a bit passed that & I'm feeling really excited to learn first hand about teaching and to get to the point of not being nervous anymore. I’m excited for tomorrow’s class again, it is a double (100min) and we will be doing 2 activities with dichotomous keys: one will be them making their own key with objects I picked out earlier today, and the other will be categorizing themselves as a class into a dichotomous key. I am excited because I’m going to get to learn a lot about my year 10 students, about their similarities and differences, and it will be more of a relaxed day where I don’t have to be nervous. I will start teaching another class tomorrow as well as the year 10 biology.. This one will be year 11 biology & we will be talking about innate & learned behaviors. I think I will have them do an online activity about comparing behaviors of monkeys & humans if we can get net books or into a room with computers.. if not.. eh I'll figure something out.. notes maybe? lol.. I’ll have to put something together tonight.

We ate kangaroo tonight!! I was soo pumped, and it was pretty freaking good! …A lot tougher than chicken or turkey. I've been eating red meat since I've been here.. but everything my host family makes is free range! : )


Somethings I found out today:
- You can’t get apple caramel dip in Australia…
- Peanut butter M&M’s are hard to find…
- Aaand... I’m sure there’s something else, but I can’t think of it right now…
So that’s it.

Cheers,
<3 M

My Purple Hair Would’ve Been Totally Fine!!

How ya goin?

On Friday’s they have drinks (alcohol and non alcohol) after school in the social room for the teachers and staff.. We pay, but it’s a nice time to socialize and relax without having to worry about lessons and students. I wonder if they do this in American schools, if not.. I think I’ma start it up wherever I get hired :)

We went out Friday to a local bar called Micham Pub. It was fun, but a more “non classy” place. ;) They wanted to start me at a lower bar before we got to the good stuff, so I’d really appreciate it. I had a lot of fun though.

Saturdayyy....  FOOTY! 

It. Was. Awesome.

 

  The team we were barracking (not rooting) for lost, but I still had a great time. My supervising teacher Ken & his wife Chris took me. When we got there Ken took me around the Cricket Club section of the MCG stadium. They play Cricket, Aussie Rules Football (footy), soccer, and other sports there. The MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grand) is where the Olympic Stand was in 2006 (something like that).

After we looked at the Long Bar in the VIP type area, we got meat pies! These are something Australia, or maybe just Melbourne, is knows for.  I can’t lie.. They were pretty good!

Other than losing & the really annoying and arrogant Carlton fan behind us, I really enjoyed myself!

 

 

 

The teams’ biggest fans (I forget what they’re called.. something with the word cheer though) make banners for the team to run through at the beginning of each game. The Tigers’ cheery group always makes theirs with a different quote on each new one. This one says “Life is good when it’s yellow and black.”

The sport is fast paced and really interesting. The players get it fights a bit, a few punches here and there.. They don’t wear padding, can use any part of their body to advance the ball, and the ball can be kicked, punched, or handed to another player. There are different points for each goal, because of the way it is set up. There are 4 poles, 2 tall (on the inside) and 2 short (on the outside of the tall ones); if a player kicks the ball between the tall ones it is 6 points. I can’t remember how many points it is between a short and tall pole though, 3 or 4 maybe. If the ball roles in either area (I think), the team only receives 1 point.

During half time, everyone gets out their thermos’s and starts drinking tea! I guess it’s tradition.. I thought it was soo funny, & then after drinking it, I thought it was soo smart & legit.. especially on a day like that!

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

Saturday night I went out in Richmond with Jamie and his friends Tess and Kate, and we met his other friend Katie while we were out as well. We went to a pub called Public House, then hopped over to another called The Swan – or as Jamie & his friends like to call it, the Dirty Swan. Hahaha.. It was heaps of fun. They had a band playing music, mostly American music, which is kinda funny because I didn’t know a lot of the words but all the Australians did!

On Sunday, Jamie & I walked around Chapel & Church Street by his new apartment. There is a lot of shopping there. We had souvlaki (& I’m sure I just spelled that wrong).. then it poured at the very convenient time of leaving the eatery hah

... then walked to the Yarra River wich overlooks the City.   

There are some things I can’t seem to get used to yet; 1. Looking right before left when crossing the street because traffic drives on the left here, and 2. Having kangaroos & wombats being used as examples of mammals in science books, rather than deer and squirrels.

Vivian and Scotty’s cooking is absolutely wonderful. We had sushi the other night! I ate the raw salmon one.. and liked it!! They are always making the best meals every night; I should start recording everything they cook so when I come home, I can bring the ideas with me.

Oh yeah! I taught my first lesson today!! I guess we'll leave it at that....
Nah, just kidding.. I'll make a separate blog for that one.


More words:

Mackers - McDonald’s
Aluminium - Aluminum


...One last thing... MY PURPLE HAIR WOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY FINE! There are teachers, student teachers, & students with colored purple and red hair.. I’m a bit bummed we didn’t keep mine.. sighhh…
A lot of teachers have their noses pierced too.. maybe I’ll do that before I leave to make up for it… you’d like that, right mum?

<3 M