Beach camping and pre-Christmas mania, 12-11-04

Original email November 12, 2004

Hello!
October is over?! unbelievable! and i've been living here a full 6 months now. and married nearly 7! To many of you that seems such a short time, but to us...that's more than all the time put together that we'd ever spent in the same place before we got married :) It’s very cool.

Sorry i'm getting this letter out a bit later than usual.... i'll have to catch you up as quickly as i can on the last month and a half or so.
Did i tell you that it finally started raining in October? Lately it's been most afternoons and/or nights. Yesterday it was all day long. I didn't know Australia ever got this green -- it's gorgeous! the jacaranda trees have spilled their soggy purple blossoms all over the ground, and they're all nearly bare now; but i've just started seeing new colours from other trees-- small trees bursting with deep red. Wide umbrella trees suddenly sprouting yellows and orangy-reds. and something else with fat, orange flowers. I have heard that Brisbane has been called the city with the most flowering trees in the world... i have no idea if it's true, but i'm happy to believe it today.

October brought many new things, including signs of Christmas. Halloween is barely noticed here, and there's no equivalent to Thanksgiving, so Christmas marketing gets started very early! (Our friends Wayne & Kate did have a Halloween costume party this year --that was good fun. i think i may have even impressed a few people with my jack-o-lantern carving skills. But in general it's not a holiday that's really done.)

So one evening, We were doing some last minute shopping for a camping trip. It was a very hot week, but the evening was pleasently warm with a bit of a breeze. So the garlands and christmas trees all over the grocery store were a bit surreal to me.

And then we went to the Hypermarket -- it's massive! something like a cross between a Sam's club and a Wal-Mart...inside a shopping mall. anyway, we were cruising along looking for beach chairs, when i saw it. Covering the length of an ailse, all along the top of the shelf, was a giant Christmas display. There was santa in his sleigh, and next to him a caroler-- bundled up completely with a scarf and a hat and everything. And this is the best part: Pulling Santa's sleigh were 2 massive white Kangaroos in santa hats! i stood still and laughed out loud. Only in Australia!

But then we finally got out of the city, and we actually got to go beach camping. It was the best weekend. We went up to sunshine coast -- the perfect name for it! -- just a couple hours north of Brisbane. Wayne & Kate and Danny & I all went up in their big pickup truck. the only way to get to the beaches up there is by 4-wheel drive. the roads are all sand. You have to know the tide times and be careful to get within two hours on either side of low tide, so that you don't lose your vehicle to the ocean. We took a ferry to an island just off the coast -- an island completely made of sand. We drove on the beach to find a campsite, in the blackest night i can remember. the ocean swallows up all light. Then we actually camped for 2 days on the beach. it was amazing! wildlife everywhere -- unexpected blue butterflies, sea hawks. the sound and power and peace of the ocean right there, every moment of day and night...nothing to do but eat, swim, walk,talk with friends, read, breathe :) it was just so good.
I actually did get photos this time!! You can see them now, in a new photo album at the website:

http://photos.yahoo.com/dannyandaliciasmith

But then we had to come back to the city and back to work. These 2 months i've had 2 different long-term sub jobs, both in ESL. (Both for teachers going on leave to get married and go on honeymoon :) It's very satisfying to be doing what i love again.

My first job was a travelling position -- i was a visiting teacher in 4 different schools. That gave me a very different perspective, and a very different role than i'd ever had before. i was seen as a sort of visiting specialist...an expert... much like the speech/language pathologist. I mostly worked one-on-one with kids or sometimes with pairs or threes. in tiny little closets and temporarily un-used staff rooms. I carted my instant-classroom around in a medium-sized suitcase on wheels.

I've started to find that I can connect with kids in a whole new way now too. Many of them have been in Australia just as long as, or a bit longer than, I have. A kind of trust and solidarity grows quickly, from some shared experiences and feelings of being so far from home...of discovering a new place... of learning about Australia together.
I work with very different populations here than in Minnesota. I haven't met any Hmong or Mexican or Somali students (as there were in St. Paul). But I've worked with students from all over Asia-- China, Taiwan, India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and Malasia, Sri Lanka, and any number of South Pacific Islands. I've even had a couple of students from Brazil and Holland. More and more refugees from the Sudan are starting to find assylum here.

The job I have for November is at just one school. A beautiful old school, with beautiful shady trees, with a beautifully colourful multicultural community. it's just across the river from the downtown area. It's an old neighborhood -- as old as they get in Brisbane i suppose. (I'm constantly being reminded how newly-birthed this city really is. it's still just stretching out its limbs to find out how big it'll be, and there always seem to be 10 major NEW building construction sites on in the downtown at any given time.) Anyway, West End, where i'm teaching now, it's this fantastic collision of history and youth; of Asian and Greek and college students; of authentic ethic restaurants and every shop you'd never even thought of -- I saw a business there today that specializes in "Tropical Plants for Rent." so.... umm...if you'd like to rent a lovely banana tree for your next big event, just let me know, i'll hook ya up ;)

and if you're interested to see photos of the school where i'm teaching these days, there's an album on that same website called "West End. State School" just keep in mind, i got those off the school website...i know the place, but not the people in the pictures.

Where was I? oh yeah, teaching. it's all good. the more i teach, the more at home i feel. And
it's a refreshing surprise to find myself part of professional community again. The 30 or so ESL teachers in the area get together once a month for a department meeting. ESL teachers here tend to be pretty isolated -- we never see eachother in schools because a school with more than one is practically unheard of. (In fact it's very common for one full-time teacher to be shared with at LEAST 2 schools.) So when we get together, it's a great chance for passionate, language teachers to talk and connect...and talk some more :) I've found in this group of teachers a place where i am immediately accepted. a place where i speak the right language fluently; where my accent and foreign experiences are no kind of barrier. i feel like i belong, and i love what i do -- And i find that i'm more thankful for those things than i ever have been before.

That reminds me... coming soon will be my first Thanksgiving spent outside of the US. hmmm. I doubt I'll attempt to roast a whole turkey in the 90 degree heat, but i may make some mashed potatoes. :) And i'll certainly think of you all, and wonder how you are, and say a prayer that you find many things to feel thankful for. and that you have much to laugh and smile about.

feel free to drop us a note anytime. I always love to hear news from home, and everywhere else in the world.