Another fantastic day!  I don’t expect to end my day with any other phrase anymore.  Its nice to have a routine where you wake up relatively late, ride a bike to work, and do what it is that you love to do!  Unfortunately, I only had one class in the morning, but that doesn’t mean my day was uneventful!

The morning started out as it typically does anymore, riding the bike to school; it may have been a few minutes later than usual today.  I was excited to get to school to start a practical with the students in “Animal Inside.”  Unfortunately the equipment wasn’t set up in time when I got there so I had to go to “Plan B.”  The only problem was that there wasn’t one.  Thankfully I had arrived at school early enough to give me time to come up with another lesson that was appropriate for the class and where we were in the unit.  Thankfully I came up with a digestive system labeling activity for the students.  Looking back now, it was probably a great idea to have the students do some quiet work, especially after the swimming sports last night!  Linda was pleased that I had the alternative lesson set up as quickly as I did in order to keep the students from missing a whole day of content.  I’m really happy this happened to me because it got me thinking and put on the spot to come up with an engaging lesson for the students. 

After period one, I headed to the senior campus library to meet with one of the humanities teachers to go over some learning strategies.  It was a real pleasure to meet her!  Prior to starting our meeting, we talked a lot about my travels and Turkey, a vacation destination she is considering in the very near future.  I told her how much I love it there and how amazingly friendly the people are there, not to mention the great scenery and plethora of things to do.  Regardless of the fact that I am completely biased about the topic of Turkey, I just made sure that I was completely clear that she should go, no matter what!

After quite a while talking, we started our meeting.  A lot of the information that she provided me will be extremely helpful in my teaching career and I am grateful to have some new resources.  We started the meeting talking about reliable learning strategies, which was essentially the topic of today’s meeting.  We discussed Getting Knowledge Ready, Targeting Vocabulary, Reading Aloud, Paraphrasing, Saying Questions the Text Answers, Summarizing, and Reviewing, as the 7 Highly Reliable Learning Strategies (HRLS).  I had heard and was familiar with a lot of this but I was still curious to learn more.  The goal of the meeting for me was to find new ways that would help me facilitate the transference of information from short-term memory to long-term memory in all of my students.  The idea was to structure lessons based on the physiology of the brain and thinking processes.  I was really happy to have met a new colleague and to have learned so much.

The rest of my day was devoted to planning the four lessons that I have tomorrow (one of the reasons this post is so late in the evening).  My “Animal Inside” students will be working on the practical that I had set up for them today, which deals with beak adaptations in birds and how to tell what a bird eats based on beak anatomy (Darwin would be proud).  The year 11 students will be working on the inner workings of the cell and will be looking at and studying various organelles.  My “Bones” students will be engaged in the activity that I had them working on last week and should be finishing it up at some point tomorrow.  My year 7 students are going to be introduced to the microscope tomorrow!  I’m pleased that I’ll be the one to introduce them to a tool that some of them could be using for the rest of their academic careers! 

After school, I left to go home on the bike.  I arrived home, changed, and hopped right back on the bike to go for a ride around town.  It is certainly the best way to cool down after a long day at school.  Tonight for dinner we had burgers and sausages that were grilled on the barbie.  Truly delicious!

I found out tonight that I would be spending much of the weekend in Melbourne these next few days!  I will be leaving tomorrow afternoon after class to go to see Geelong, St. Kilda, and Sydney play against each other in a pre-season Australian Football League (AFL) event where each team will play the others in one evening.  The matches are shortened a bit to allow the teams to catch their breath but it will be intense!  I’ve been looking forward to this for a while! 

I will be staying in the city for two nights and will catch the train back to Bairnsdale on Sunday afternoon.  Hopefully I won’t have too much laundry to do! 

I will more than likely not have Internet while I am away so this may be the last post I have for a couple days.  But don’t you worry, I will be back on as soon as I get the chance to update the world about the fabulous times I am having in this spectacular country; hopefully with pictures!

A great day today in Victoria and another to look forward to tomorrow!  I really wanted to ride the bike into school today but unfortunately the weather took a turn today and it rained most of the morning here.  Not surprisingly the rain made the rest of the day quite muggy and the added heat made it somewhat uncomfortable in class, but I managed to have a very successful day in the classroom!

The day started with the usual Friday morning meeting with the entire staff.  Again, there was nothing major to report about.  After the meeting, I had to book it over to the science center for period one.  It was “Bones,” and it was the first time that I had the class for myself! 

My cooperating teacher wasn’t there today so another teacher took her place and sat in the back.  The way it works at BSC, is when a teacher is not present at school, another teacher, who has a free period, is given materials to use for the lesson.  I think it is a great system, and keeps the school from having full time substitutes.  Many of the subs in the U.S. whom I have come across have been somewhat inexperienced and usually lack in classroom management skills.  Thankfully with this system at BSC, all the teachers are expected to take an “extra” once every 3 weeks, and know the students who they are going to be teaching; this makes classroom management much easier.

Back to “Bones.”  I started the lesson with a Smart Board presentation that asked the students to come to the board to label the human skeleton.  The students didn’t miss a one.  I then had a couple slides that asked the students to label the bones in a couple x-rays and then asked them if there was anything wrong with them.  A couple of the x-rays were perfectly normal and a couple had obviously something wrong.  I showed them what a broken clavicle looked like and what a broken ankle might look like.  They were really receptive to the x-rays and thought that was an interesting task.

I then moved onto introducing skeletal muscles.  After a couple slides asking students to think about what skeleton muscles look like and how they work, I asked the class what they wanted to know about them.  After a few students aid what they wanted to learn about, I handed out a work sheet that I created asking the students to use a table of Greek and Latin terms to determine what a few muscle names meant.  It then asked them to determine why the muscles were named the way that they were.  The worksheet concluded by asking the students to use various sources to answer a few though provoking questions.  Many of the questions were very similar to questions that students had asked earlier in the lesson.  This made me happy.

I received great feedback from the extra teacher in the class who was taking notes on my lesson.  It was nice to have yet another teacher give me feedback on my teaching style.

My next class was “Animal Inside.”  I gave the students some more time to finish an assignment that I assigned the prior lesson.  After, I had them work on an activity that asked the students to compare the teeth and jaw structure of different mammals.  Some of the students had no problem completing the activity.  Some of the students in this class refuse to pick up a pen to do any work unless you’re looking over their shoulder.  I don’t tolerate this and express to them that it is unacceptable to do nothing in class.  It really is a shame to see young adults not value their education.  Sometimes I want to call them out and tell them how lucky they are to have such a nice school with caring teachers.  They are also so lucky to have a science center like the one at BSC with more than enough resources for teachers to develop brilliant lessons.  It is in these students’ lives that I wish to make the most difference.

Since the year 7s were still at camp, my third period was free so I could plan for the practical during period 4 with my year 11s.  I spent most of the time refining my practical worksheet that I was going to give to the students to complete.  

The point of the practical was to get the students to use the microscope to view various samples.  I also wanted them to use this opportunity to make scientific drawings.  The students were given three specimens to look at: onion, banana, and elodea, a freshwater plant.   This would also allow them to see different kinds of cells.  Truly the only hazard was the stains that we used, Methylene blue was used to stain the onions and iodine was used for the bananas.  Methylene blue outlines the cell walls of the onion cells and iodine is used to stain bananas because it stains the starch of banana cells a deep purple.  The elodea didn’t need to be stained because the cells were of course green and didn’t need any more definition.  We also had some blue-green algae out to be used as an extension to the practical.  The algae were collected on my trip to Lakes Entrance with my cooperating teacher.  All in all the practical went well but I will need to use the next class lesson to finish up the practical. 

After a beer and some work after school, I left to go home.  I hopped on the bike and went for my daily ride around the neighborhood and down to the river.  I was ready for the weekend because my ride wasn’t very long, I felt a little bit lazy.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to take a trip up the coast past Lakes Entrance to Cape Conran to go fishing with my cooperating teacher.  I was so happy that she invited me to come along!  I’m hoping to catch some dinner!  I will take some pictures and post them tomorrow when I get home.

I’m currently watching preseason Australian football.  The Australian Football League (AFL) started today so I suspect the next few weeks are going to exciting around the house.  I’ve been told to support (again, not root for) Carlton Football Club of Melbourne since they are the “best team” in the AFL.  I can’t really argue with my host family.  In all seriousness, I think its best to keep an open mind to see which team that I like but from what I’ve seen and read about Carlton, I think they are pretty solid.

I will back to write tomorrow to talk about my trip fishing; hopefully it is successful!  

Last night was a lot of fun!  We started the night at The Main Hotel Bistro in town.  I ordered the chicken parmesan and a pint of James Boag's, a Tasmanian beer that I have become fond of.  The chicken was great but the beer was better, especially after the long week!  The conversation between the 20 of us at the table ranged from politics to education to sport, three things I feel strongly about!  

After dinner, we moved to the pub side of the bistro and played a few games of pool!  I managed to squeeze a drink out of one of the locals!  It was pretty funny.

After a drink or two at the pub, we walked over to the mexican restaurant to finish our night with a Corona, a little taste of home.  By the end of the night, there were only about 8 of us left!  

I slept in this morning and took a bike ride after breakfast.  I took the road down to the river and followed the bike/walking trail along the river for a few kilometers and headed home.  It was by far the best bike ride I've taken since I've been here.  In the next few weeks, I plan to take my camera with me to take pictures of the area around where I am staying.  

I came home to a nice lunch consisting of turkish bread and various lunch meats and cheeses.  After lunch, I remembered that I was out of underwear and needed to do my laundry...I'm glad I remembered.  After finishing two loads and hanging up my clothes, I was asked if I wanted to go for a drive.  

Domenic, my host, and I walked out to the garage where he asked if I wanted to drive.  Who me? On the wrong side of the road?  Sure, why not!  At first, it was as if I had never driven before.  What the hell am I supposed to do.  The thought of learning how to drive again was racing through my head.  STAY ON THE LEFT, STAY ON THE LEFT, STAY ON THE LEFT.  It really wasn't that hard, but I had to think about making turns, especially going right crossing over traffic.  

I started off driving to the Bairnsdale Oval to watch some of the local cricket competition but unfortunately they were in the middle of tea break.  We then left to go to the other oval in town to kick around the Aussie Rules football.  It wasn't as easy at it looked and there was definitely a technique involved.  After a while I got the hang of it.  We then got out the boomerang.  We weren't so successful with this.  In fact we never even succeeded.

It was time to head back to the Bairnsdale Oval to watch cricket.  I parked the car along the fence, facing the field and watched from the comfort of the car.  Only in Australia!  We were happy to see a few wickets and a couple of fours but we weren't able to see any sixes.

I'm home now for the rest of the day.  I think I'm going to start some work to get up to speed for next week.  

**Written on 1/26

Well, after 24 hours of continuous travel, I finally landed in the beautiful city of Melbourne, Australia! 

The flight from Cincinnati to Los Angeles was turbulent but all in all it was an easy trip; we managed to land about half an hour early.  Once I was able to get off the plane, I took my time getting to the shuttle bus to take me to the Virgin Airlines terminal, which happened to be on the opposite side of the airport.  No big deal since I had a little over 4 hours to kill during my layover.

I hesitated to just sit and read my book for the long wait but it was well worth my time.  My book, The Greatest Show on Earth written by my favorite living scientist Richard Dawkins, kept me interested but the people watching was the greatest distraction.   The highlight was watching a young child, she couldn’t have been more than 4, steal a woman’s purse and flaunting her felonious act by running with it around the terminal.  Just imagine sitting quietly reading your book, only to look up for a second to give your eyes a break and conveniently staring right at a little child stealing a purse.  Thankfully her mother was not oblivious and quickly returned the purse to the unaware woman.

After getting through a lot of my book, getting something to eat, buying a travel pillow, and playing a few games on my phone, it was finally time to board.  Like many airline procedures, Virgin’s was especially hectic.  Why can’t people understand that they are not supposed to line up to board until their seat section is called?  What is the point of forming a mosh pit right in front of the gate?  Trust me ladies and gentlemen, you WILL get on the plane!  After pushing my way through the impatient passengers and hurdling oversized carry-ons, I was able to go on board.  Thankfully there was room in the overhead bin for my one bag and plenty of room under the seat in front of me for my backpack.  Each seat was equipped with a personal television with a detachable remote that doubled as a game controller; at least I would have something to do during the nearly 15-hour flight.  We took off as soon as a sick passenger was escorted from the plane and was reassured that their luggage was removed from storage. 

Four episodes of The Big Bang Theory passed before dinner was served.  By this time it was a little after 1 in the morning Los Angeles time; way passed my bedtime!  After, I slept for a few hours before waking up to my own snoring.  How embarrassing!  I really hope I was the only one to awake to this.  Back to the on demand television until we landed.  Having only seen Aussie Rules Football a few times, I was pleased to find a few matches that were recorded for my viewing pleasure.  Sadly, I had no idea what the hell was going on.  There was kicking, punching, tackling, referees tossing the ball, and thousands of hooligans in the stands.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t put it all together to figure out how in the world they knew what to do.  AFL was very interesting and fun to watch regardless.

A few minutes before touchdown, I had the opportunity to look over a few laps to see the Australian terrain.  It was so much different from what I was used to back in the States.  It reminded me of Africa’s barren, dusty, rocky environment scattered with a few green trees and shrubs.  Not much longer after landing, I got off the plane and raced my way to the front of the immigration line.  I know from passed experiences not to get behind large families and people who don’t have their documents out ready to give to the officers.  I was asked about my intentions during my stay in Australia, my passport was stamped, the drug dogs sniffed my bags and I was given a green light to head down the ramp to the luggage carousel.  Of course, my bags came out last but at least I received them.  The customs officer looked over my customs form and allowed me to pass with no problem.  Unlike many passengers, I wasn’t tempted to buy copious amounts of alcohol and tobacco in the L.A. duty free shops, and I didn’t bring any food, so customs was easy and painless.

I walked around the corner to the hotel and now find myself writing this entry without Internet and cricket on the television.  How better to spend the rest of Australia Day than in my room catching up on some sleep and watching cricket!  Tomorrow I will meet with Rod who is in charge of my student teaching experience while I am here.  I will also meet with my host family whom I have been keeping in contact with over the past month.  I can’t wait to get this all started and meet my students! 

After the adventurous few days and skipping the 25th entirely while crossing the dateline, I am off to bed.  That reminds me, time travel isn’t as awesome as it’s made out to be.  Thanks Einstein!