Point Chevalier

I have a feeling that the other teachers at Colwill Primary School would not be too happy if they knew we went to the beach today, while they still had to be at school all day teaching, We definitely aren’t complaining though! When we first got off the bus, we were a little confused about how to get from the bus stop to the beach. So, we went into the nearest gas station and go directions. As we were walking out the door, however, we ran into Christine’s mentor teacher! It was so funny because we were expecting her to be at school, and she was not expecting us to be at some random gas station in Auckland. Soon enough we found out that she had called in a sub—or what they call a “reliever”—because her niece broke her arm and needed help for the day. It ended up being a great thing though because she ending up driving us right up to the beach, maximizing our time at the beautiful beach.

The beach was surrounded by trees, so when we first got there, it was still covered in the shade from the trees. It was still wonderful!

When we made it to beautiful Point Chevalier beach, we spent the day lounging around, reading, swimming, and finding the coolest seashells yet! One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing all the elderly people come down for an early morning swim. It was pretty empty when we first got there, but soon the coast was filled with their bobbing heads. Quite the life to just leisurely walk down to the beach and go for a swim every morning! We had some more “fun” bus adventures today. Somehow everything always works out, but it definitely takes longer than we expect it to. I’m curious to know if the American public bus system is more reliable than this Auckland bus system.

Can you see the heads of all the elderly swimmers? At one point there were probably around ten out there!

At Colwill, the years are divided up into four teams. My class is part of the Puhutukawa team (I think a puhutukawa is a tree with whero—red in Maori—flowers). Our Puhutukawa team had a Sausage Sizzle this afternoon, full of swimming, softball, sausages, and team games. Jess and I went to support the team, and ended up learning how to play a fun new game called chicken, involving a rubber chicken and lots of running around. Maybe one day I’ll get a video of the kids playing it because I’m sure it would be quite entertaining to watch. :) It was fun to see the kids with their parents and siblings. They are just so cute and I love them already!

It was hard to get good pictures because we were so busy playing the games, but here are a couple. Many more to come!

Starfish!

I have honestly been a little worried about this practicum so far. The reason? My mentor teacher. I have never seen a teacher yell so much. We had heard that the BYU girls were always a little shocked by the strictness of the New Zealand teachers, but I didn’t think it would be like this. She is a nice lady, and I love seeing her teach when she really gets into it, but she raises her voice much too often. I’ve been worried that the students wouldn’t respond to me for discipline because there is no way I want to copy my mentor teacher. Today, I found a bit of relief. We were on our way to swimming, and she had asked the students to line up outside while she found something on her desk. It ended up taking her longer than she thought, so she asked me, “Will you yell outside the window at them to just be quiet and wait? As nicely as possible of course.” Well, I wasn’t going to yell, of course, so I just stuck my head out the window and told them I would be out in 30 seconds and by that time I needed two straight lines with no talking. I walked outside, positively reinforced those who were doing what I asked, and almost everyone shaped up. Then to get those few stragglers I played a little game of, “If you can hear me, touch your head. If you can hear me, touch your toes. If you can hear me touch the sky, etc. etc.” And guess what I heard? Silence! Did I yell at them? No. Did I still get their attention and everyone on task ready to go? Yes. Boo-ya.

One of my favorite parts of swimming so far:

David (cute little Korean boy): “Miss Burnett, Miss Burnett! Watch me do a starfish!” David proceeds to extend his arms and legs as far as possible into a big X and belly flops into the water. Apparently he was a starfish, with his two arms, two legs and one head making up the five points. I don’t know if you can get the right image from this, but it was hilarious. And he just kept doing it over and over.

We don’t have to go to school tomorrow since we only go Monday-Thursday, so we excited to go on a little Auckland adventure…we’ll see where we end up!

Swimming Lessons at School?

Almost every primary school here has a swimming pool. And everyone takes swimming lessons three times a week! How fun is that? After our first swim day, Jess and I asked one of the teachers if it would be helpful if we got in the pool to help. She loved the idea because obviously it’s easier to teach swimming if you’re actually in the pool. The main teachers aren’t allowed in so that they can keep better watch over the whole class. So, today we got in, even though it was a rainy, overcast day, and tried our best to straighten kicking legs and help them blow bubbles. Haha. For the first half of kids, we helped Jenny Jones (Jess’ mentor teacher), but for the second half she left us on our own with the younger kids. That would have fine, except that Jenny didn’t even tell us, so we were just playing around in the pool with the kids for at least ten or fifteen minutes waiting for her before we realized she was now helping with the older kids. Let’s just say, those young ones had fun in swimming today, but I’m not too sure they learned a whole lot. Hopefully we’ll be more informed so that we can actually be effective next time!

Highlight of the week so far: There is a little boy in my class who has ADHD of the brain. His brain is always just going going going and it’s hard for him to retain any information. He is on medication that seems to help him function better, but it still is harder for him get the same amount of work done as the other students, especially since he’s one of the youngest ones. You’d think a child like this might be difficult to have in class, but he is just the sweetest little boy. He came up to me, hugged my arm and then gave it a quick little kiss goodbye before he raced out the door to go home. I’ll have to get a picture of him soon. So precious.

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.

Do you have bread in your world?

Happy Valentine's Day! I have officially fallen in love today...with my 25 students at Colwill Primary School. They are all absolutely adorable. Today was my first full day in the schools, and I loved it! It was just a day full of observation and getting the hang of everything, but it was still so great. There are 25 kids with names like Iosefa, Kokiri, Tepaea, Mihiarangi, and Filoisaina. Uh, yeah. It is definitely going to take some practice! They are all aged somewhere between almost 6 to almost 8. They are all full of spunk and I just love listening to them talk. Here are some of the funny things they said today:

• One girl repeatedly stated, "I want you to be my mum!"
• One boy, in all seriousness, asked, "Do you have bread in your world??"
• One boy made fun of me for saying, "glasses" (he repeated this very twangy and nasally) instead of saying, "glAHsses."
• One boys asked, "Can she teach us a song in her language?"

We talked about how I'm from America, but apparently they still think I speak a different language and live in some foreign land--or foreign world! I loved having a conversation about accents with one of the older students (I think she was year 7 or 8, which is 6th or 7th grade). She was convinced I had an accent, but I told her I was convinced she had an accent. We talked about what a funny thing that is, having such different perspectives. She then entertained me by trying her best American accent. It was hilarious.

I can already see some big differences, and it is going to be very interesting working with my mentor Mrs. Eka (she has a very loud, intimidating personality), but I am SO excited to see what the next six weeks holds in store :)

OH. And I want to give a big shout out to my brother, Daniel, who just received his mission call to Berlin, Germany!! Woot woot! I am SO thrilled and SO proud!

Fishing in the Ocean!

Kerry has always told us that all we need to do is say the word and he’d take us fishing. We finally found a day that worked, so he took, me, Anna, Jess, and Christine fishing today! Alexis came along, too, and caught her first two fish ever. She was so cute whenever she thought she had or really did have a fish.

The best part was, it was such a successful day for all of us!! Anna caught the first fish and it was so exciting for all of us. Kerry joked how none of the other fishermen needed their fish finders to know where to go because all they had to do was listen to the four of us screaming whenever any of us got anything. I caught one right after Anna—it was a great way to start off our fishing adventure! I’ve been fishing a few times before, but I have no distinct memory of catching anything, so this was a monumental moment. Likely my first fish!

For some reason we all thought it necessary to not only take normal pictures with our fish, but also kissy fish pictures. Classic.

It was also great because we really got into all aspects of the fishing—cutting up the little fish for bait, hooking our own bait, throwing the fish that were too small to keep back in the ocean. It was all quite the experience. Also quite a messy and smelly experience with all the fish guts and juices everywhere! All together we caught about 13 fish, but since the rules say you can’t keep any fish under 30 cm, we only kept 3.

The most exciting part was when Jess caught a MASSIVE fish…well, massive in comparison to the other ones we were catching. It was so big we had to use a net to get it into the boat! Now that I think about it, we really were loud. All the boats around us must of got a real kick out hearing all our squeals of fishing joy. Haha. I know Kerry surely did. ;) We are all so excited to eat up the fish fillets from our very own fish. I think we’ll all be fishing experts by the time we get back to the states. Yessss!

Kerry said it was probably about 6 lbs., around 2 feet long!

Even though we all didn't catch a fish this big, we still wanted to show it off ;)

Probably my favorite picture of the day. I think this is really how we all felt haha

And these are only some of them :)

South Island Part 2: Christchurch

Day 6

Travel Day! We sadly said goodbye to Queenstown, but gladly said hello to Christchurch.

Oh how we love these vans that we have spent hours upon hours inside of!

Christchurch is a much older town, more historical and low-key compared to Queenstown. But, it is one of the three largest cities in New Zealand (Auckland and Wellington are the other 2), and apparently a necessary stop as American tourists. It also has some neat history because it is the last city people stop in before heading down on Antarctican adventures.

Today we went to a big market, half of which was in the town center right next to the cathedral. THen we had a big Dominos pizza night. We were a little shocked by how tiny the "large" pizzas were--maybe not even the size of an American medium--but it was delicious nonetheless.

Tomorrow is Waitangi Day, which similar to America's Independence day, except they celebrate the day when the Europeans and the Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi. We were lucky enough to celebrate by attending a huge show in the park--orchestras, ballroom dancers, singing/performing groups, Kappa Haka groups, and an amazing finale of fireworks and Bohemian Rhapsody. Quite entertaining.

Day 7

Church was lovely today. I started asking around about the "Burnetts" and I was directed a woman who had been around Christchurch her whole life. She told me that the Burnetts are known as one of the first LDS families in New Zealand. Another lady overheard that I was related to William and James Burnett, and kept saying, "Oh! Well, welcome home!" They said there really aren't Burnetts around there today because they all packed up and went to Utah. Then I found out that James, friend of the BYU program and bus driver, is also related to William Burnett! He said he'll look up all the details when we get back to Auckland so we can make the right connections. Cool huh!

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around the Christchurch and Lyttleton harbors and then up the mountains around the water. It was beautiful! I decided standing on top of a mountain and letting the wind rush through my hair is one of my favorite things.

We ended the day with a big dinner organized by Jess and I (it was so yum!) and then TIM TAM SLAMS. We have been talking about doing these since we got here, and we finally did it. You bite off opposite corners of a tim tam, suck milo through it, and then get it into your mouth without using your hands and before it melts all over everything. It was so much fun watching everyone try it. And, most of us were successful!

VICTORY!

Day 8

RAIN. all. day. We were supposed to go to the beach today, but ended up driving to Akaroa, a cute little French town. We enjoyed the scenery and some of the shops, and then made our way to the Musuem in Christchurch. We've seen a lot of museums, but this one had some really interesting exhibits. My favorite was the Paua Shell House. We watched a movie about how this cute little old couple transformed their house using paua shells, which are unique to NZ.

I don't think I would ever decorate my house with all these paua shells,

but it was neat to see someone else do it haha

I got to ride this bike, but unfortunately it was stationary...maybe some day I'll get to ride it for real!

One good thing about the rain...we spent a lot of time in the van with James, and he taught us (or at least tried teaching us) a bunch of polynesian songs. This was our favorite (and the only one we really know all the words to!)

Day 9

Because we got rained out yesterday, we moved our beach day to today. It. was. amazing. The weather was beautiful, and we just stayed there all day long! Here were some of the highlights:

• Learning the Hoe-down Throw-down. On the beach. I know it's ridiculous, but for only going through it a couple of times, I'd say we did pretty good ;)

• We saw some sweet as beach sand art!

• Lots of fun beach pictures :)

Some girls were doing aerials, but Christine and I were content doing cartwheels.

• I held a CRAB!! We were right by a pier, and on the end, we watched lots and lots of crabbers and fishermen. Jess and I seriously stood down there forever, so intrigued with these crabbers. We wanted to ask them if we could try, but none of them spoke English! Later, however, we made friends with new crabbers, and one old man let us hold the crabs. It was kinda scary at first with their intense claws, but once we learned how to hold them it was a piece of cake. The ones we held were pretty small, but we saw some that were at least ten times bigger.

This was our crabber friend...he was missing at least 2 fingers. So legit haha

Hold a crab and take a picture with it? Check!

Day 10

Today was the last day of our excursion. We were all exhausted. Luckily, we didn't have any specific plans, so we just got to walk around and explore. We got a tour of the cathedral, and Jess and I even stayed for one of their communion services. We were the youngest ones there by 50 years, but they were all so nice during our very interesting experience. Right outside the cathedral is this huge Rugby World Cup Countdown. I so wish we would be here for it!

My favorite part of Christchurch was the Botanic Gardens. The flowers and plants were absolutely gorgeous. And the garden was HUGE, so we spent most of the day exploring all of the different flowers. LOVED it!

Begonias! In every color!

Yes, the begonia garden was definitely one of my favs!

Incredible rose gardens!

I'm pretty sure I will blow this picture up and put it in my house someday :)

The last thing we did before heading off to the airport? Eat dinner at Denny's of course! We were all pretty excited, especially since New Zealand Denny's is a couple notches above the American Denny's.