the bus stop the buses don't stop at

Yesterday when I was finished with the last lesson of the day, my cooperating teacher, (bless her heart,) stopped me to give some feedback. She has a lot of wonderful wisdom to share, and I learned a lot from the things she said...but she was just thorough enough in her advising that I missed the school bus by just a few crucial moments.

I took a moment to thank the All Mighty for the random impulse to withdraw a few bucks from my account the day before. Though its a grim enough fate to be left standing in the rain with no way home and only £5 on hand, it would have been worse to have nothing.

I had nothing left on my prepaid phone and therefore, no way to call a cab. For a brief second I considered walking to the nearest shop and topping up my phone...but with a £5 minimum top-up fee...what would I pay the cab driver once he arrived?

So I looked at my sparse array of options. 1) I could walk the miles and miles back home. 2.) I could walk the several miles to the bus stop, catch a city bus to city center, and walk home from there.

I started off for the bus stop, hoping all the way that my cooperating teacher wouldn't drive by and see me walking in the rain. Believe it or not, I preferred the miserable walk to the embarrassment it would cause her and I both if she found out what a miserable trek home I was attempting.

When I got to the main road and therefore, the bus stop I enjoyed the wordless company of an equally drenched man who stood there as well. Neither of us said a word, but it was such a miserable thing we were both enduring: standing there in the wind and rain at a bus stop we had walked far to reach: that it seemed we ought to count ourselves comrades on at least some very small level. After about 15 minutes, a bus came, but it whizzed right by us as if we should know better than to wait for it at this particular bus stop. Then another bus came and went...and another.
After a while, a car pulled out and a woman got out to stand next to us and wait.
'You don't know what your doing!' I thought to myself, 'Don't you realize what purgatory you've just entered! Don't you know this is the bus stop the buses don't stop at?' Despite the warnings I was shouting inside my head, I stood silently and let her join our miserable little waiting party.

Finally, a bus stopped. I got on immediately, only pausing to worry when we pulled away and the other two bus-waiters didn't join me...I got the slightest bit worried. All city buses eventually lead to the city...but I wasn't sure how far out they went before getting there...I had paid £1.70 for the day pass...so i knew it couldn't be a bus that went too far away. The bus went on and on and finally the bus driver shouted back, 'Where are you going anyway?' (This is typically what bus drivers ask of people who have stayed on for a long while...its happened to me before.)
'All the way back to city center,' i said.
'You'd be quicker still waitin on the side of the road!'
'I just didn't want to wait in the rain anymore.' I admitted, confident enough with my reasoning and willing to brush off any laugh he might have at my expense.

Indeed the bus ride was fairly long...although perhaps shorter than my time in the rain had been. It was at least long enough for my trousers to dry off a bit, so I didn't mind. I got a bit worried when I saw we were headed in the direction of Limavady, but when we turned around I relaxed in knowing we were on our way back to the city center.

It was after 5 when I got home and school ends at 3:20.
It felt great to run up to my little room and get into warm, dry clothes. There was a turf fire going in the little living room fireplace and before long I was sipping hot chocolate in a cozy room watching CNN with my little temperary family.

Indeed there's nothing like a long journey to make home feel so home-like. :)

not a stranger anymore

There's a different feel about the classes these days and it's a great confidence booster. :) What I mean is this: the students are starting to know who I am. For that matter, I'm starting to know who they are.
When I stand up to speak, they don't stare blankly at this new and strange girl as though they're not entirely convinced she's not just a student posing as a teacher for kicks. Not anymore. Now they raise their hands saying, 'Miss! Miss! Does this look alright?' and occasionally, 'What's America like? Is it class?'
Sure, I know that some of their attentiveness and curiosity has to do with the fact that I'm from America, but I like to believe that they're becoming comfortable with this new student teacher who has dropped in for a brief semester. It makes my day when they raise their hands to show me their work, and I can tell that they feel proud about the pieces they've drawn.
These days when I walk to the bus the kids in the hall smile and wave.
Don't get me wrong, there are still some students who probobly look the other way when they see me in town, or pretend they don't know me when I get on the bus, but if I'm totally honest, I wasn't always in the mood to say hello to my teachers at that age either.

In any case, its great to feel less and less like the strange visitor and more and more part of Oakgrove. Everyone has made me feel wonderfully welcomed. :)

good teacher/ bad teacher

The weekend was lovely. We went to Donegal as a group, which was great despite the cloudy weather. Donegal is a neighbor county that is part of the Republic of Ireland or 'the South' as they say. It is an absolutely beautiful countryside covered with rolling hills of green and the charming stone fences that trace them. Even on a cloudy day it is easy to recognize how breath-taking the land is in Donegal. We spent the rainiest part of the day taking a tour through a replica of a 'famine village.' It was a fascinating wee place where a tour guide led us through a little village set up to show what the famine times were like as well as educate each group about famine and poverty in the world today. It was haunting and inspiring at the same time, as the message of education and global awareness was stressed throughout the entire tour.

It made for a great weekend.

Today was interesting and left me admittedly a little disgruntled. Early in the day, i led a lesson to the year 11's (equivalent to our 9th or 10th grade) that went really well and made me feel really encouraged about what it might be like to be a real teacher one day. However at the very end of the day, the lesson I led to the year 10's (our 8th or 9th) went miserably. (What is a journal if it's not honest, right?)

I can already pick out various reasons why the last lesson didn't go well- I tried to fit too much into the lesson, I wasn't well enough prepared for the wide variety of abilities in the classroom, I tried to satisfy too many opinions, etc.

On the plus side, the weather is great today and tomorrow is another chance for me to try to fix the things that went wrong today.

I love the way the rain is never really that ferocious here. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to realize that its even raining. It's less like rain, and more like a subtle wetness in the air: not enough to soak through my clothes, but enough to stick to my hair and to make my cheeks feel cool.

This morning there was no rain...at least not that I could tell. The sun wasn't necessarily visible, but the clouds were illuminated and pink with whatever light it could get through. It made for a lovely walk and I smiled as I realized that my high heels don't even bother me any more, despite the steep cobbled incline I walk up every morning.

Sometimes its nice to start the morning with a walk to the bus stop.

The teacher look

Yesterday after school I gave my host mom a brief report of how things were going. I told her that one of the challenges I've run into has been finding a way that works for me to show my authority and get order in a classroom. I'm not much of a disciplinarian, but I'm convinced that there's still a good way for me to be gentle and authoritative at the same time.

'You need a teacher look' she said. I knew exactly what she meant as I thought of the glares and stares my various teachers had given unruly classes throughout my school experience.
As my host mom sat down to watch our favorite 'soaps,' she suddenly said, 'There! That's what you need to look like!' She pointed to the tv screen where an angry brunette pointed an accusing finger at some poor man, -(who had driven her to alcoholism by flirting around with a woman who was helping him to plan their wedding getaway behind her back...but that's not the point...).

So this week i'm trying to find what 'teacher look' is right for me. I can't quite master the angry eye-browed glare of the soap-star, but i've found that a subtle moment of arm-crossed silence at least makes my students look up to see what all the silence is about.

I'm not convinced there's any need to get too grumpy. Perhaps i'm a naive youngster in this teacher-world, but i'll stay that way as long as I can. :)

The Primary

I love going to the primary school friday evenings. Its a perfect chance for me to experiment with different ideas with a group small enough that I can monitor whether things are going well or not. When we were talking about what my role would be at the primary school, the head of Creative Arts at the primary school told me that she wanted the students to get more exposure to art history; so I did a wee lesson inspired by Picasso. I simplified it as much as I could for the 7 and 8 year olds, explaining that Picasso often liked to change the normal shape of things. I helped them think abstractly by having them start out by drawing squiggly puddle shapes. Once they had their shape, I asked them to see what kinds of images they thought there puddle resembled. It was a lot like finding pictures in the clouds. One girl saw an elephant or a dog; one creative little boy saw an elk, and another let his emotions go totally wild, and he ended up with a bunny that had chicken pocks. After they filled in and colored their puddles to look like animals, they cut them and set them aside. Then I had them glue angular shapes of colored paper onto a page in any kind of pattern and style they wanted. This was the background onto which they pasted their puddle-animals. I showed them Picasso's artwork and asked them what shapes they noticed. I was delighted when they said that they saw squares and rectangles. (This, I thought , was the a tiny introduction to cubism.)

When the little experimental lesson was done, I wrote "Picasso's elephant," "Picasso's Elk," and "Picasso's bunny" on their papers, explaining that if they ever get curious about the artist we talked about, they could look on their papers for the name.

I got worried half way in that this lesson could be a disaster and that parents would see squiggly animals and think, "my child is getting worse at art!" However, all fears were wiped away when one of my wee students looked up from coloring her "Picasso's Crocodile" and said, "I am having so much fun!"

That made my day. :)

Her crocodile was indeed quite nice. :)

Tea break

Walking to the bus this morning the wind was a strange kind of luke-warm and it seemed indecisive as it whipped my hair about. It was exactly the type of weather you would expect before a rain-storm. Though I still straighten my hair nearly every morning, I've learned to expect it to become futile by mid-morning, particularly on a windy day like today. So when I arrived to school with imperfect hair and wet shoes, i was not suprised or disappointed.

It's no wonder a place so rainy has a tea break at school at five past 11:00. I always enjoy this chance to chat with my cooperating teachers and pour myself a nice hut cup of tea with milk.

When tea break ended and my steaming cup was still in hand, the students barely noticed. So as I made my circulations around the room to check the progress of the student's drawings, I sipped casually at my tea.

This is just one of the many perks of teaching at Oakgrove Integrated College. :)

a rainy friday is still a friday!

Week one is now complete and my nerves have been put almost completely at ease! Though I still have much to learn about the students of Oakgrove, meeting them and experiencing their classes has really helped me to feel pumped up and excited about this semester. They are such bright and curious students and I love working with them already!

I get a kick out of their questions about America and their interest in New York City, Florida, etc. Everyone seems to think that because I'm from America, there's a pretty good chance I'm from New York, or that every day in America is like an episode of Law and Order or CSI or something. :) I am eager to answer their questions and clarify some of the stareotypes, but I try to bring the subject back to art too.

I've actually been quite impressed with how many of the students really seem to genuinely appreciate and look forward to art. It is common for students at their age to get discouraged about art and drift away from it all-together, but these students really seem to take art seriously.

At around lunch time I snatched a taxi and skipped across town to the Primary School. My arrangement allows me to leave at lunch on Wednesdays and Fridays in order to give a lesson or two out at the Primary. I have a lot of independance with my lessons at the Primary School and i already led my first independant lesson with them today! For my Primary lessons I am given a small group of students who have trouble focusing in their regular, larger class. We meet in another room and have our own art lesson. The group is small enough that I get to be really attentive to their various needs, and they seem to be pretty successful at staying focused with these smaller groups. I had a blast with them today as we worked on making our own versions of The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. They all wanted to keep the one color copy I had of the famous painting, so I simply wrote down the title and artist for them so they could google it or find it at the library. Their interest was encouraging, as one of our goals at the Primary is to get them more familiar with existing artists as well as art history.

So, despite the freezing wind and rain that flipped my umbrella as many directions as it would go, I had a very pleasant friday. :)

First day!

Very shortly I will be snagging a bus on Foyle Street where i'll head off to the Oakgrove Integrated Schools for my first day in the schools! Technically today is more of an organization day, as I will be doing a lot of planning and sorting of details. I'm a big mixture of nervous and excited. Will the students like me? Will the teachers like me? Will I do a good job? There are all sorts of questions that come along with clinical practice, but luckily, my arrival in Derry has gone smoothly enough to allow me to worry about the traditional jitterbugs of clinical practice rather than the jitters of culture shock that might have been if this had been my first time in Derry.

It has been really great to settle into a place that seems so familiar! I know exactly where the Tesco's is whenever I need groceries; I know just how long it takes to get from Bogside where I live to the bus station on Foyle Street; I know just which street-side shop sells the international calling cards and I even remember where my favorite thrift store is.

The weather has been uncharacteristically nice, but we've been warned that "-when America gets sick, N.Ireland sneezes a week later." Though I haven't been able to catch the news yet, people are saying that the storms are coming back to New Orleans. It seems ironic that three years ago during my first stay the newspapers were full of New Orleans and the tragic devestation the storms brought and now there is foreshadowing that suggests a repeat...

My prayers are with everyone in the storm-line and I will be doing what I can to keep updated on the news of home.