Luck of the Irish ipod!

Teaching, teaching, teaching and more teaching! That is what my life consists of lately. I love it though. I think I was born to teach because I absolutely love it!! It has been really hard working with Mrs. Tararo. She is one of the nicest and sweetest ladies to me, but then once it goes to teaching and working with the kids....she's so mean!! Literally, there are times when I sit there in class and am TERRIFIED. I am terrified and I'm not even one of the kids. Even just the littlest mistake sets her off. 

She is actually known in school by all the students and staff, as being really mean and strict. If students are hard to handle in another teacher's classroom, that teacher will threaten the students that they will be sent to Mrs. Tararo's class. And many a time have we had teachers bring their misbehaving students to our classroom. It is NOT pretty let me tell you. Agh. It honestly scares me sometimes. But I am learning a lot and am praying every day that she will be her "nice" Mrs. Tararo to the kids. Don't get me wrong though, I LOVE Mrs. Tararo. I think she does a lot for the school and the kids and she really is a good teacher. I'm lucky to be working with her while I'm here!

I have been trying harder than ever, every day, to be positive, uplifting, and smiley for the kids in my classroom. They are not afraid to ask me questions, and we actually have some pretty good laughs about things at times. I LOVE IT! I honestly love every student in my class to pieces. There are times when I will sit and watch them and think to myself, "how am I ever going to leave these precious kids?" They do some of the funniest things sometimes and I can't help but smile and love every minute I get to spend with them. I love NZ children. 

My favorite thing happened the other day when I asked a student in my class to pass me an "orange" crayon. The look on his and several other students' faces was hilarious. They were all like.....what? Can you please say that again. I was so confused and was like...umm can you pass me that orange crayon? They all busted out laughing and said that we Americans say "orange" so weird and funny. Then then went on for several minutes trying to copy my accent. I say "Or-ange" they say "Au-range". It still can never get over how much I love the kids here and their cute accents! 

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Ok so now onto my title for this post. I truly have a LUCK of the Irish ipod. Every day on our long walk to and from school we have to cross this really busy round about. It is so freaky....and we are still trying to get it down every day. We pretty much have to make sure no cars are coming out of the side of the round about, and then BOLT across to the middle section. Then we stand in the middle section and wait until the coast is clear to run again to the other side. It is quite the adventure. 

Well the other day I had my ipod in my pocket (cus we usually listen to our ipods on our 45 min walk) and me and Brooke rushed across the first clearing of the road to the middle section to wait. Right before I got to the middle part my ipod fell out of my pocket and was in the ROAD. 

I literally just froze there in the middle median with my mouth dropped open. 

There was nothing Brooke or I could do because there was a BIG truck coming and it was only seconds away from smashing my ipod into a million pieces. So, Brooke and I just stood there and watched as the truck drove by (it took everything in my to not run out and grab it). 

My ipod ended up being literally a centimeter away from the truck's wheels; just barely enough away to not get ran over. I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT! I ran as fast as I could before the next car came, grabbed my ipod out of the road, and we got out of the middle onto the side. My heart was pounding because I thought for sure that was the last time I was going to see my ipod in one piece. 

It was my lucky day :)!! 

The wonderful round about that we have to cross every day. It is a pain
and I am so lucky to still have my ipod in one piece today!

It is amazing to me how parents will let their kids walk to school from
such far distances. I mean LITTLE kids. This boy has got to only be 6
maybe? And to top it off, these little kids will have to cross the busy
roads like we do, BY THEMSELVES! Oh and also, this picture shows
how a lot of the kids will have bare feet everywhere. More than half
of my class have no shoes on all day long at school!

Maliani and Sene from my class always come running to me every morning
when I first arrive at school. I love being greeted by their big hugs and
smiles each morning (especially after a long walk!). 

A fun art project we got to do in my class at school. Yes Mrs. Tararo let
me make my own too....I was sad I didn't get to finish it!

One of the boys in my class drew this on the back of my picture. The kids
are pretty good drawers and graffiti-ers, especially on their school work. 

Teaching my hip-hop dance again today. I finally taught them the whole
thing and they got it easily. I can't believe how much style these kids
have....they picked it up so easily and LOVE IT!!

Me teaching my hip-hop dance

Each week there's more and more kids because they tell all their friends
that there's hip-hop during culture practice!

After we finished the practice the kids literally all
rushed up to me and swarmed me. They had so
much fun with the dance and were so happy I taught
it too them that they couldn't help giving me LOTS
of hugs. haha. I was a caught a little off guard!

Did I mention I love these NZ kids??

haha so much fun! Can you see me?