GloSS

Day 2 of Colwill. Not quite as exciting as Day 1. I spent most of my day administering GloSS, a math placement test, to all the new kids in the school. This was partially because it was part of our math assignment, but I think they loved the idea of us getting all this “practice” to help them get caught up. Luckily, the tests were simple, and I didn’t really mind doing it.

My favorite moment of the day was giving the GloSS test to a little boy named Lyric. One of the questions shows three rows of houses, with 6 houses in each row. The question is, how many houses are there altogether, to which he immediate responds 30. He was confident and sure that 3 rows of 6 houses meant 30 houses. When I asked him how he figured the problem out, he simply said, “It just came out of my head.” I had to ask for further explanation, but that’s what he told me for his explanation for all the problems. How lucky that all his answers just magically came out with no effort on his part ;)

We met a lady today, the dental hygienist of the school (who surprisingly is there Monday-Wednesday every week!), who lived in Denver, CO for a few years because of her husband’s job. She said that when she lived in America, she really missed Marmite and would have her friends send it over for her. She asked us what we missed most, and here’s some of the things we came up with:

• Soft cookies. Most New Zealand biscuits are crunchy and hard. I really would just love a big, gooey, chocolate-y cookie.
• Peanut butter. Yes, they have peanut butter here, but it’s not like American PB. I think American PB is sweeter and really just tastes soooo much better.
• Brownies. They have these things called “caramel slice” or “chocolate slice” that look like a big delicious brownie, but we were so disappointed when they were not at all like brownies at home.
• Soup. I haven’t had any soup since I left. I guess it’s just not something the Lords eat.
• Turkey Wraps. I had a turkey wrap most days last semester. Sheryl bought us turkey the first couple weeks we were here, but it’s hard to come by and more expensive than any other deli meats.
• Honey Bunches of Oats. One of my breakfast staples.
• Special K Fruit and Yogurt. The other breakfast staple.

Luckily, these are definitely things I can do without for three months. And luckily, I have many wonderful things here that I wouldn’t have in the states. Probably a fair trade off.