Soloing

Friday night was an extremely quite one in the house.  Levi, Theo, and Willa all went to spend the night with respective friends and Toby was working until midnight…so it was just me and the host parents.  After school I went for my daily run, but it turned into a walk after I got a pretty terrible case of shin splints…I think it means I should just be swimming in the pool more often.  :)  My host family has an Irish man currently working on building a little retaining wall behind the pool for a raised garden bed and we all ended up in the kitchen Friday night eating carrots (my host Mum recently bought a 40 lb bag of carrots because they were on sale for $8 so we are now required to eat a carrot with every meal).  It was a gold mine of wonderful accents in the kitchen Friday night that we talked until 9 at night munching on carrots until our stomaches urged us to eat a proper meal.  Dad, you would have loved dinner!!  We order multiple different curries from a nearby Thai takeaway and watched British talk shows in the Black Room while trying to cool our burning mouths (that Thai food was hottt).  

Saturday was a whole not of nothing.  I sat around and relaxed the whole day with the host family while writing lesson plans.  It is sometimes hard to remember that I am here for student teaching so my real focus has to be my classroom.  I watched another classic New Zealand movie, Boy.  It is a wonderful combination of humor and grief, I would highly recommend it!  

Sunday started by sleeping through my alarm and being awoken by my host Mum yelling my name and asking if I was ready to go on the weekly walk up Mt. Albert with the dog, Oscar, and some of her friends.  I scrambled to get dressed and joined them for a cup of coffee before the walk.  I then joined one of my host Mum's colleagues (who is my age) and her flat mate on a quick trip to a nearby beach.  It was wonderful to just relax on the beach and read a  book.  It has been a really beautiful day, gorgeous sun and a cooling breeze.  

Monday was my first day of solo teaching and I let myself get frustrated over little things and didn't focus on the positives which made it a rather rough day.  I spent a good bit of my Monday evening reflecting on what I could change to make Tuesday better and it really ended up in my attitude.  Teaching is exhausting and I must accept the fact that I must rely on God's strength not my own.  All day Tuesday I focused on the positives and prayed for a lot of patience and had an absolutely amazing day in the classroom!  Wednesday was exactly the same.  I had the fun experience of teaching Art for the first time (with my focus on special education I haven't had an opportunity to teach any specials).  I also had the opportunity today to talk with two other international student teachers who are at Hebron Christian College from Germany.  We are working on organizing a trip down to Hobbiton together sometime very soon!! God is so faithful and I am being reminded of his faithfulness daily.