The one where we study Italian 2-8-04

Original email August 2, 2004

G'day all :)
Well it's the end of a monday and our apartment is full of the delicious smell of homemade chilli... just waiting in the crockpot till I pick up my husband, and we can curl up together with something spicy and warm.hard to believe July is over! it's getting into the last month of summer for you all. i wonder how you're doing-- what does the end of the summer hold for you?

NEWS ON THE JOB FRONT
For me, this will be my last week as a classroom teacher for 5th-7th graders at Greenslopes. Next week their teacher comes back, and me... well, August and September promise to be full of unknowns and surprises! (meaning they're currently empty). I continue applying for jobs and networking.... (and by the time this letter gets to you, i'm done at Greenslopes for that job.) The networking has led to some really good news actually. I have 2 ESL long-term sub positions lined up-- for all the way through October and most of November. I'll be travelling about to a couple of different schools. i havent' done any ESL teaching yet since i've been here, and i'm really excited! i've met with the coordinator for this district area, and she seems interested to get me jobs and experience wherever she can. i haven't been in this kind of place in my life in such a long time -- where i don't know what job i'll have from month to month, but it's all about networking and taking whatever opportunities arise and seeing what doors open... sometimes it's a bit scary, just not knowing how much money we're going to have each month. but when i just decide to trust and not worry about the money, it's kindof exciting to see where God might lead me.
during this time, i get to explore all kinds of different schools and get to know how things are done here all accross the city. it's forcing me to be flexible and stop worrying so much, and that's always good for me! hopefully by the beginning of the next school year-- in january-- i'll be at a different life stage and i'll be settled down into more like one place. but for now, this is where i am.

CLASSROOM STORIES
Anyway, I've just finished my final 3 weeks at this school and i haven't told you anything about it! On my last day at Greenslopes, a very thoughtful teacher asked me about my favourite moments &memories. i decided that one of them was our ritual in English class of reading aloud to the class everyday. my class was all 6th and 7th graders, and they still loved to be read to. There's this aussie author i was reading them, Paul Jennings. he writes well for that age group. His stories are full of vivid descriptions, impossible adventures, and pleanty of disgusting-sounding turns of events. keeps all the kids on the edge of their seats. they loved explaining all the aussie slang to me. there's no place to learn about a culture like in a room full of its adolecence! The unit we've been studying is inventions, and we spent a lot of time learning about Australian inventions & inventors. Did you know that both the Car Radio and the Airplane's famous little indestructable black box were both invented in Australia? now you know!

ADULT STUDENTS
Other news for us-- Dan and i are taking a class together. we've always wanted to learn italian together, just for the fun of it. at this point we've successfully made it through 2 Italian classes, and i really feel like a student again. it's so much fun! In so many ways, the language is so much like Spanish-- sometimes that helps and other times it completely throws me off. We have a great, funny italian prof, very nice teacher. We study together, my husband and i, and try to communicate all we can with our few words and limited understanding of this foreign language. it's such a good challenge for us; and really good for me as a teacher to remember what this feels like.

One thing i hadn't been expecting though, is the way it feels to be a beginning language student here- where my other classmates are Australian. It surprised me at first, but when i'm in italian class, it's as if i'm not a foreigner at all. When we try to speak italian, we all have the same accent...we're all bumbling and nervous and excited english speakers trying to imitate the voice sounds of our teacher. Since i never speak English in class, i think no one there even knows that i'm not an Aussie. the strangest part for me is when suddenly someone else speaks english! they ask a question or make a comment and it sounds so strange to me. normally, i'm so used to the australian accent now, it sounds and feel very comfortable. but in italian class, it jolts me back to reality and reminds me that i'm in this funny land of oz. i really forget until they speak English-- and their aussie accents sound so loud and strange. so i prefer to never ask questions or speak english at all in there....and i remain the undiscovered foreigner :)

QUEENSLAND
...Still, as time goes on, I continue to fall more and more in love with this Queensland. I do hope you can all come out and visit us someday -- there's so many places i'd love to show you! Morgan's-- our favourite Seafood Restaurant, where we had a date last weekend. it's got the perfect marriage of a relaxed & comfortable but also very classy, elegant restaurant, and the most amazing food. had the best dessert i've ever had in my life! and there's an ugly crustation that you can only find in this one bay--they're called Moreton Bay Bugs. delicious! and i want to show you the miles of strawberry farms up on the north coast where you can walk along and pick the biggest, sweetest strawberrries you've ever seen. and the botanical gardens up on Mount Cootha where we love to go walking in the late afternoons, and see all kinds of gardens from all over the world. and i'd love to show you our home-- it's small and happy ....and surrounded by all kinds of noisy birds :S but they're beautiful. the cotton-candy pink galahs i think are gorgeous...but everyone says they're rather stupid.there have been requests for pictures... unfortunately i've been fitting right in with the natives and not taking many :S i will try to get some online soon.

GOOD BOOK
What i can do in the meantime though is recommend the most wonderful book i've been reading lately. It's callled "The Floating Brothel," by Siam Rees. It's a very well- researched and well-told history about the 2nd fleet of ships that left England to bring convicts to Sydney cove in 1789.it's mostly about the stories of the ship full of female convicts -- their stories in England and aboard the ship. It's an absolutely fascinating corner of history that i knew almost nothing about before. i can't put it down. Well, ok, sometimes I do. It’s non-fiction, and can be a bit slow at times. Still, i highly recommend it!

WEEKEND
(now it's the next week. this is a very work-in-progress letter) Before i go, i'll just sum up this weekend, it was a good one.this weekend was full on: Dave and Nikki's wedding -- (that's wayne's brother for those of you who remember him) little outdoor wedding. beautiful day. so much fun to go to a wedding with my husband for the first time. Afterwards dan & i and two of our guy friends went bowling. in australia. it was the place i've felt most like i was back in the US. the whole place was exactly like all the ones back home, except a bit cleaner and newer and not so crowded on a saturday night. felt like i was back in high school or college, bowling with the boys. so in-my-element and so much fun!

and now i must be off to take care of still more paperwork and red-tape and documentation... ah, the immigrant's life seems to never be free of it!
Danny sends his love. we'd love to hear from you anytime and we hope this summer is treating you well.
ciao for now :)