Finally made it to Sydney!

So school has started back up again and it's been a whirlwind the last 2 weeks. I have had 4 extra RE classes each week because I have been filling in for another teacher who has been away on holiday. I had subbed for this teacher once before so I was a little familiar with the students. In one of my classes, I had put together a review board game and had split the class up in two teams and picked spokespersons for each team. One of the girls continued to have a problem with their team's spokesperson and it ended up in a shouting match with cuss words flying. It wasn't until it was escalated that the teacher jumped in and handled the situation. This was after I had raised my voice several times, stopped the entire class, and waited for the girls to calm down. I was amazed that the teacher took that long to take care of the 2 girls. They were punished by sitting on opposite sides of the room and were no longer allowed to participate in the game. Interesting class!

My other classes have been quite interesting also. We allowed our students to write down questions that they had about what we had been teaching and about Christianity in general. Some of the questions seemed silly, but some of them were some pretty big questions. We took a class period last week to go over some of the questions. We didn't get through that many of them because the students had more questions, so we decided to answer some of them right then and there. Some of the questions, we had to tell them we would get back to them...I'm ok with saying that I don't know something and I don't want to look foolish trying to answer it. Anyway, I had one student say that, God was dead. I mean, this is a 9 year old saying this. And the funny thing is, our memory verse that we had been studying is from Daniel 6:26 where it talks about HE is the living God, the one who lives forever. I'm going to try to talk to this kid again in the weeks to come and ask him how he has come to the conclusion that God is dead. More than likely, it's something that he's heard at home.

This past week was incredibly busy. I was busy preparing for 2 days of classes (Thursday and Friday). Monday night was ladies' bible study and then Tuesday morning at 6am, I was headed to the Brisbane airport with Tash for our trip to Sydney. We got into Sydney around 11 am and hit the ground running. It was raining when we got into the city, so we bought some cheap umbrellas and started walking. We headed to our hotel so we could check in and drop our bags. The rain continued throughout the day, but we didn't let it stop us. We did Sydney Harbor and Manly, saw the Opera House (it's kind of hard to miss since it's the main attraction on the Harbor), and then we saw various other things throughout the city. Now, the Opera House...it's definitely a piece of work. I can remember seeing it on TV and seeing it in pictures all of my life, and it was cool being able to actually see it in person. I took lots of pictures for my mom...I would have loved for her to have been there with me. She would have enjoyed it.

That night, we rested in the hotel and then headed to the Sydney Tower for dinner. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's kind of like the Space Needle. It's a tall tower with a revolving restaurant at the top. So we did that for our one nice meal while we were in Sydney and I can now say that I have had kangaroo meat...and didn't like it one bit! It was way too gamey...the flavor was just not for me!

The next day, I had the opportunity to meet up with a college friend's girlfriend for coffee. My friend Jordan had been over in China for 3 years teaching and met a Chinese girl, they started dating, and now Jordan is back in the States and his girl Irene is studying for her masters in Sydney. He found out that I was in Australia and told me that his girlfriend was in Sydney. When I told him that I was planning a trip to Sydney, we both decided it would be great if I could meet up with Irene. So we planned ahead of time, and I was able to have coffee with her Wednesday morning in the city. It's amazing to me that I'm thousands and thousands of miles away from home and I was able to connect with an old friend's girlfriend. She was lovely and I really enjoyed chatting with her.

After coffee and breakfast, Tash and I started another day of sightseeing. We went to Bondi Beach which I absolutely loved. It turned out to be a beautiful day with no rain, so walking around Bondi was great!! I've said before, I love the ocean wherever I go...and this time was no different. This was actually my favorite out of all the beaches that I've seen here. Too bad it was chilly that day, because I would have loved to have gone swimming. The rest of the day was spent running around the city (using every type of transportation: train, bus and ferry). We visited Darling Harbor towards the end of the day, had a late lunch, and then tried to see Olympic Park but once we had gotten out to the train station to catch another train there, it was getting too late so we had to hop another train and head back to our hotel to grab our bags and head to the airport. All in all, it was a good trip, but I have come to a conclusion. All big cities are the same...

As for the rest of the week, I had classes on Thursday and Friday (all went smoothly) and then Friday night, some of the youth got together with a handful of people from another church in the area and we played some tennis. I'm terrible at it, but had a good time though. Saturday ended up being a semi-relaxing day which was good because Sunday was busy (as usual).

Not too much else going on here. I'm down to 6 weeks left and I can hardly contain my excitement! I am so ready to be with Greg again...and I miss my family too! But still so thankful for the opportunity that's been given to me.

Until next time...