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Shortly after I last wrote my last input I had a few meetings to find out
what I would be doing in the school, during school time when dorm duties are
very little. I had an orientation with the school founder (Ramona Rayhani for
those interested) and then a meeting with the school principle (Keith Saberi,
he and his family lived in Qld for some time). What we worked out that i will
be doing over the year is two fold:
·
managing and providing the tutoring of students
in and out of school times
·
looking over the policies and procedures of the
school and improving them, seeing if they are being implemented, etc, etc.
·
I may also be acting as a teaching aid in some
of the science and chemistry classes where some students are struggling
·
I will also be teaching a computers class once a
week as well
Every month, the other dorm parents provide their apartment for a particular
grade to practice their hospitality and hold a dinner, allowing them to make
what they wish, and invite who they wish. Since Azadeh (the other year of
service (YOS)) and I were new, the level 3 students (equivalent to our yr 11)
invited us to get to know us. We were
delighted by an amazing feast in front of us, including food from France and Italy
just to name a few. It was an awesome
night where we really got to know the students better and for them to get to
know us better.
The following week was exam week. This is when I became suddenly VERY busy
with the tutoring side of things. I was basically tutoring all day from when i
got up to when the students went to bed. Very tiring but rewarding – not sure
how much it helped though because it was all last minute. Now that it is over
and the new semester is starting this week, I can get into regular tutoring
which will be much more beneficial than the emergency version.
Being the beach bum I am, I found out about a really good pool and the Saturday
following exam week, I relaxed and went for a swim at an indoor swimming pool. It
was a funny experience, with snow just outside the window, and it being too hot
inside the pool for me. It was quite funny, the people I went with wanted to
have a shower before they went in the pool to acclimatize to the cool water,
lol, and this was water of like 24oC. That afternoon I was lucky
enough to be invited to go ice skating on the lake at sunset (see my photos).
It was really fun, very bumpy where it hadn’t been smoothed and really
beautiful ice skating on a natural lake rather than at an ice rink.
The following Monday was Australia Day and Azadeh and I thought we would
share our culture and so we baked lamingtons and ANZAC biscuits, made up a
sheet of Australian slang for them to learn (which was funny hearing germans
try to say g’day), and on a cold winter’s afternoon, played a game of cricket
on the basketball court, continuously trying to dodge the ice puddles. After
the cricket game we had very cold hands but everyone seemed to enjoy
themselves.
Last week was an interesting week. We had one returning YOS from Australia
who is staying for the rest of the school year (till June), and we also found
out that the Japanese YOS has to leave next Monday, which is very sad. We had
an awesome surprise farewell party for her last night which she was absolutely
delighted with and was very shocked with the surprise, so much so that when
everyone screamed “surprise” at her, she screamed back at them , lol.
Next weekend is going to be an adventure. I will be going to Frankfurt to one
of the 41 Bahá’í conferences happening around the world. It will be my first time in Germany and my
first major trip since I have been here so that is going to be exciting
regardless of the awesomeness of what will be a very inspiring conference.
That is about it from me this time. It has been about a week of me trying to
find time to write this so apologies for the sparseness of blogs.
I hope everyone is safe and happy wherever they are around the world!
Love to all.
