Easter Break Begins!

I just got home from school 2 hours early! We had a half day due to the Easter break. I now have 2 weeks off to travel and have a blast:) Steph's boyfriend and his friend are coming to visit. They will be here tomorrow. I think we're all going to do some sight seeing while they are here. I will be visiting Andrew Thursday in London. I will then travel with his group to Scotland and back to Dublin. We will be together for 11 days. I CAN'T WAIT to see him.. we said goodbye January 5th. It's been too long! After that visit he will go back home and I will have 6 more weeks here.

Sorry no blog last night! I had a busy day. I moved over to 5th class. This is where I will be for 2 weeks after the Easter break. I love the 5th class teacher, Miss Caulwell. She is young and very energetic. She is hysterical really. Every Friday morning the school has "assembly" where they all get together, sing songs, pray, and have a mini-sermon. Today's service was special since the Easter holiday is approaching. Fifth class put on several skits and things, and basically ran the assembly. Miss Caulwell was running around yesterday trying to get things done for the assembly, so I helped her a lot with that. I made a simple powerpoint with the words of the songs (to be projected on the wall) and she could not believe how "brilliant" it was. She has never worked with powerpoint, like many other teachers in the school. She was watching me design the pages and truly was so excited. She kept saying, "That's just brilliant! The parents will be so impressed!" It was so funny because it really wasn't very exciting at all. I put two pictures on it, and the rest was black writing with white background. Miss Caulwell and I then went over to the church to set everything up. We had some difficulty with the microphones, but in the end it all worked out.

Miss Caulwell had a "practicing teacher" (like a student teacher sort of) for the last three weeks (today was her last day), so she organized this big art project during this time. Each child in the school got a piece of wood to paint, which will go up as a mural soon. I helped her a lot with that yesterday. We really just hung out all day. It was fun.

I am going to teach a unit on Australia when break is over. It will be a week long. So random! I need to do some serious brushing up on my Australian facts though. I also will be helping Miss Caulwell teach a poetry unit. I'm bringing in my favorite poet- Shel Silverstein.

The staff at Kill-o-the-Grange had a bowling night last night. Twenty-one people came. It was a lot of fun and I bowled pretty well! I was, without a doubt the most experienced bowler there. Some of the adults had only bowled once or twice in their lives and it was rather obvious. I pretty much saw every bowling offense there is such as: stepping over the line, bowling your ball while the machine is still down, etc. Many of them didn't know you had two turns each frame (and don't even bother using the word "frame" because they definitely don't know bowling lingo). Once everyone understood you get two bowls each frame, they totally were confused on why you only get one bowl when you get a strike. Many of them bowled when it wasn't their turn. And forget trying to explain the scoring after a strike or a spare. Watching several of them bowl was hilarious. Lots of the women would run up to the line, then stop, swing the ball back and forth a few times to give it some momentum, and then let it go. They also had 14 balls up on the thing that holds all the balls which resulted in a few finger smashings. After witnessed all this I was totally glad I was not an Irish bowling in America, that could be quite embarrassing. Although they weren't very experienced, they had so much fun and so did I. They were laughing, cheering one another on, "That was excellent, brilliant!!" It was a great time.

Afterwards we went to a pub down the street. After browsing the menu I decided I would be safe and stick with chicken tenders. One teacher said, "Coward! You should have gotten the stew cooked with Guiness!" I should try new things, but I just knew chicken tenders would hit the spot. After seeing someone else's stew I was sure I made the right choice anyway. And, my chicken fingers came with a chili-sauce to dip them in, so that was a bit of a cultural difference, right? Oh and, I noticed the other people ate their chicken tenders and "chips" (fries) with forks, and they mix the two together so I did the same. That was another cultural difference:)

I sat next to a teacher named Gwen and we talked a lot. She is very kind and was curious about my life in America. The whole staff sat and talked for hours! People started trickling out after a couple hours, but my ride stayed, and stayed, and stayed.. I was exhausted and wanted to go home so badly! I like talking with people one-on-one, but when they all together it is extremely difficult to follow what they are saying. I tried my best, but I ended up just dazing off for about 2 hours. We didn't leave the restaurant until "half eleven" (11:30), and I didn't get home until about 12.

I must go now! Steph is on her way here.. we are going to see Hayley, Emma, Anna, and Laura in a big Girls Brigade show tonight. I am not sure what it's all about, but I will explain once I find out:)

Some things I have learned:

-A backpack is called a "rucksack"

-During my conversation with Gwen last night I learned that Euro bills are actually called "notes". Their smallest note is a 5 instead of a 1. They are very pretty, each one is a different color, and each note is a different size. The larger the amount, the larger the note. The denominations are the same as ours, but they don't have a 1 Euro note. Unfortunately I don't have a 10 Euro note to show, but if anyone wants to send me one feel free:) Here are some pictures of my Euro notes.

-The coins do not have specific names like ours. They just call them by their amount: 1 cent, 2 cent.. The denominations are 1 cent, 2 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents, 1 Euro, 2 Euro.

-If you have more than one Euro, they usually don't add an "s" on the end. For instance, 5 of them would be "5 Euro," not "5 Euros."