ten things about Northern Ireland and my semester, now that I'm home

1.) Wherever you go in the world, America is there somewhere: in people's conversations, in the newspapers, etc. But when you come home...you have to hold tight to the cross-cultural experiences you have...because America, like everywhere else, is busy talking about America.
2.) Peace is everywhere. Far from any Mennonite Church or Mennonite community, I confronted people who valued peace and pacifism just as much as the pacifist Mennonites I grew up around. Some of them were inspired by God, and others were inspired by Human Rights.
3.) The Irish are storytellers, and what wonderful lessons and stories they have to share!
4.) The Irish haven't gotten the hang of specialty coffees.
5.) But when it comes to chocolate, they blow us out of the water!
6.) I really do like teaching!
7.) While there are plenty of issues the Northern Irish students deal with, they will gladly share that there really aren't many popularity divisions. Students can sit with whoever they want to at lunch, and they don't care who the school sports stars are.
8.) Rain becomes quite ignore-able after a while.
9.) Shoes don't last long. Good luck finding a pair that won't leak water after a month.
10.) Derry's a place you never forget. Wherever I go from here, Derry will always be in my thoughts

ode to oakgrove

Today was my last day at Oakgrove.
It was nice to end the last day with a Hands for a Bridge meeting. The Hands for a Bridge students always impress me with their ability to talk with each other about the things that so many others in Derry avoid talking about. In fact, the Oakgrove school in general impresses me. The students appreciate how their school connects people, the administration is eager to try new things, the teachers go to great lengths to give each new idea and teaching system a chance, etc. Oakgrove's eagerness to accommodate my cross-cultural student teaching experience this past semester is just one of many examples of this openness and adaptability.

I walked home from the bus station in pouring rain as I thought about the task I had just completed. The rain had sort of snuck up on me, starting as a subtle drizzle and growing into something more heavy while I let my mind wander through the events of the last three and a half months. By the time I realized it was raining, i was wet enough to ignore the umbrella in my bag. I let my big, cavernous hood work alone as it caught most of the rain before it could wet my face.

When I got home, it was a warm, fire-lit house I returned to. Sparky was sprawled in front of the fire for a nap and Stevie and Roisin watched the soaps from the sofa behind him.

Just like the rain, a host of goodbyes have snuck up on me, collecting to an overwhelming weight before I could focus. I've opted not to dwell on the goodbyes: to ignore it like the rain, and let it fall as it may.

I'm sure I'll be back someday. If God allowed me to return this time, perhaps he'll allow me to return again.

thanksgiving and deadlines

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Despite the fact that I got up at 7:05 like usual and experienced a full day of classes, it really did feel like Thanksgiving today. At lunch my cooperating teachers threw a little goodbye party for me and the other Bluffton student interning there. It was lovely and I had to smile at the thought of how brief the tough times of student teaching were, and how wonderfully everything turned out. Yes it was rough at times, but the student teaching experience i'm leaving is one full of warm friendships, valuable lessons, and shared lives: a bright and beautiful version of the trembling and unfamiliar thing it started out as.
As I talked and laughed with the students, letting them relax and enjoy our painting exercise, I was made aware of how thankful I am for these students: for my time with them and the teacher's who have helped me to ease into my role as a teacher.
After school, the Hands for a Bridge group that I help out with threw a little Thanksgiving party for me and the other Bluffton intern. We had turkey and cranberry sandwiches, fruitcake, and other little adapted thanksgiving dishes. It might as well have been a kitchen table instead of a conference room table. We ate and talked to one another about the tradition of Thanksgiving, and the Americanisms as they appear to Irish students. Thanksgiving is a somewhat confusing holiday when you think about the history of it versus what it is now.

All of these wonderful activities have made me feel like have so much more to soak in, and so little time to do so. This last month has been wonderful, and it seems strange to try to wrap it up in just a few days. I leave in exactly a week, but I really only have one free day next week before I fly out. Monday and Tuesday I'll be in the school collecting materials, saying goodbyes and etc, and Thursday I fly out...so wednesday will be my day to soak in Derry...to say goodbye to it and the people i've fallen in love with here.

Its a strange thing to leave. There is nothing like home and I'm still thrilled about coming home soon, but adopting a new home for three months is a hard thing to wrap up in a day.
I will enjoy my last week indeed. :)

there and back again

It is very strange and wonderful to be back at Corrymeela. Corrymeela has several lounges that are used for retreat guests, and as fate would have it, our designated lounge is not the same as we had earlier this fall...it is instead the exact same lounge I had more than 3 years ago on my very first Corrymeela visit. Corrymeela has always been a place of rest and remembrance for me, and now especially so. I expected to have a weekend that would bring a sense of closure and completion to this semester, but when I sat in the cozy little room and thought back to the last time i'd been there, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of accomplishment that stretched all the way back through my college years, bringing me a sort of double closure: for this trip and for my college experience as a whole. In my very early days of college I sat here in Corrymeela and wondered what N.Ireland would be like...what it would be like to be gone for a semester...what it would be like to return to bluffton after having a semester experience here.
Now, three years later I can think back and remember how all of my hopes and fears evolved and resolved. The questions about college are behind me, and in their place is a feeling of remembrance for the long and adventurous college experience I've had. What a wonderful and unique journey its been.
I suppose you could say that my college experience began and ended with Corrymeela: with Northern Ireland. And how changed my college days have been because of the things I've seen and enjoyed here...
Indeed, its a strange and full sense of completion and accomplishment that I have today.
The borders of Bluffton University stretch far if you let them.

corner store irony

Last evening when I came home I immediately traded my skirt and heels for a nice comfy pair of blue sweat pants that Anna gave me. The sweats are much too big for me, but the long pant legs are the perfect length to fall down over my feet and serve a double purpose as trousers AND socks, so I don't mind the extra length.
I wear them mostly around the house and for bed time.

Up the hill, there is a corner store that Anna and I like to run to during commercial breaks. Its just close enough that we can dash up the hill for a juice box and still be back in time to see how our host mom's favorite soaps are going. Last night was one of those nights. When the commercial break came I looked at Anna and said, "wanna run up to the shop and get some lowfat Ambrosia custard?" (This is essentially low fat vanilla pudding, but the name custard makes it taste more exotic.)
We didn't have time to change into decent clothes, so I stuffed my sweat pants inside the tall, pink striped galoshes Rachel gave me for my birthday. By the time I went out the door, I looked ridiculous with bright blue baggy pants stuffed inside my bright striped rubber boots. I muttered to Anna as we dashed up the hill that 'I'd better not see any of my students in the shop.'

But of course, God likes to exercise my humility quite a bit it seems. While I stood at the register paying for the glorified vanilla pudding, looking like a kids birthday party clown, a girl in a school uniform stepped in line behind me. I glanced back to see who it was and it just so happened to be exactly the girl I wouldn't want it to be. A few weeks ago I saw two girls picking on a little boy on the bus. They did this day after day and I could tell that the boy was miserable. He would purposely get off the bus miles before his bus stop just to avoid being bothered by the girls. So finally I told the 'higher-ups' and the girls got in trouble. Now, one thing I try very hard to show my students is that adults don't hold grudges. Any time I have to get stern with a student, I try to communicate with them kindly and normally after the event, so that they know my problem is with their actions and not with who they are. I talked normally with the girl in class: asked her how her work was coming along, etc. I often see the girls when I walk to the bus since they live on my street, so I made sure to wave to them as I walked by.
They never wave back.

So I laughed at the irony when I turned around and saw the girl who doesn't wave. Its always been my opinion that ridiculousness is less embarrassing when confronted full force, so I turned to her and said, "I KNEW I'd see a student if I walked out the door dressed like this."
She laughed and smiled back.

Now that I think about it, if my ridiculous outfit made the girl who doesn't wave smile at me, then perhaps God was doing more than simply trying to humble me.
Perhaps he was humbling her.

kitchen in the sea

This weekend a few of us visited our fellow American student friends Jo and Jen at their internship at the Kilkrenny House in Coleraine. It's a beautiful little farm way out in the country where a few animals are raised and a little fireplace warms the inside.
After feeding the goats, collecting the eggs, and dealing with a dead hen, we went to visit Dunluce Castle, known for a rather unfortunate event that occured while it was still inhabited: the kitchen fell into the sea. While we walked up and down the path at the foot of the castle, we tried to sort out where the kitchen had been. The castle had such a precarious placement on the cliff that it was a wonder the whole thing hadn't fallen in. I picked out at least three different cliff-side walls that looked like they could be missing a kitchen, or would be soon. As fragile as it looked, it was also beautiful, propped there on the cliff-side rocks with beautiful long sea-side grasses overgrowing it's edges. It looked like it was more a part of the cliff than a structure built on top of it, as though it was trying to melt into the landscape, or escape into the sea.
Visits like this remind me where it is i am.

the day the bus broke

This morning the bus broke down not 15 feet after i had boarded it.
The students were excited about this, asking me and the art technician who rides the bus with me whether they'd miss their first class or not, what was wrong with the bus, and whether they were going to die or not. The bus driver turned around and answered that of course the students would die, but that it probably would have nothing to do with the bus breaking down and would probably be a good bit in the future.
When I was a junior higher, I wander if I saw my teachers the way the students see the art technician and I: all-knowing and instantly on top of every situation. I must admit, I know very little about cars, or 20 year old buses for that matter. However, that seemingly obvious fact is a little less obvious to students.
The bus broke down and a cluster of 15 students looked to a 22 year old art teacher in training and a 21 year old art technician as the solution to their questions.
Luckily the bus driver was on top of things, though he had an admittedly strange approach as you can gather from the above quote. He phoned a back-up bus and sat with us as we waited.

As it turns out, we strolled in right on time for school to start.

Its nice knowing that if the bus broke down every day, i'd still make it to school on time.

Sparky

I am going to paint you a picture of the cozy moment I am enjoying right this very second...

I am practically buried in pillows on a comfy leather couch. My socks are still dry and my toes are warm. I just finished a cup of hot apple cider that traveled all the way from America to reach my little mug.
I'm not sitting in my usual seat on the couch because sparky has claimed it for his nap. He's not really allowed on the couch but I will let the dog have his day. :)

School is continuing to go well. The parts that felt so hard and worrisome in the beginning, have all just softened into the routine. I'm beginning to learn who I am as a teacher, and just as importantly, who I am not as a teacher.

In a little more than three weeks, I'll be back in America.
Anyone looking for an art teacher?

pictures!

These are photos from Belfast and Dublin. The wall photo is of the Derry wall, just down the hill from where I live.
(I'd also like to say a special hello to Gary and Sandy Miller! Thanks for reminding me to post photos! :)

mixes

This evening I had my 'Hands for a Bridge' meeting. Hands for a bridge always lifts my spirits and eases whatever stress or exhaustion i might have felt before. Today was a great day, but my last lesson got a bit out of hand. I had to pull a few students aside and give them the sad news that 'Yes, they DID have to do their homework in order for me to give them the good marks they wanted.' I felt pretty good about how I handled, feeling like i'm finally getting the hang of finding my style of discipline, but it's still exhausting to keep hyper students interested in a subject they may not care much for. I remember Dr. Metz talking about how powerful humor can be in keeping students engaged and keeping tense situations from escalating. I definitely think he's right, but even so, it makes for a tiresome day. Thus, it was nice to have a Hands for a Bridge meeting today.

Hands for a Bridge is a group of students who create safe spaces for communication. Sometimes the communication is about the Troubles here in N.Ireland, and other times its about the many other issues important to teens here in Ireland. The students are doing a wonderful job of encouraging each other to get out of their comfort zones, and its a magnificent thing to participate in. It is the type of group I really want to continue to seek out in whatever teaching job I may have.

There are many things from this experience that make me thrilled for what else I may find out there in the future. What other 'Hands for a Bridge' groups are out there?

notes about Halloween in Derry

10 notes about Halloween in Derry

(by Anna and Carrie.)

1.) Some costumes are wonderful, and others are just excuses to buy short skirts in neon colors.

2.) There doesn't seem to be any trick or treating

3.) The parade includes everything from acrobatics to accordions.

4.) The fireworks are amazing, but I can't help but pay more attention to the costumes around me than the fireworks above me.

5.) You become surrounded by vampires with little baby pumpkins, pirates with their arms around their sweet-heart bees, and more walking bananas than you'll ever see again in your life.

6.) Before the festivities even begin, the Christmas lights are put up.

7.) The streets empty at midnight...but only because everyone moves into the bars.

8.) The night is what you make it...which is to say, making carmel apples with a small group of friends is a good alternative to the typical Derry night.  

9.) If you can't find carmel to melt, you can melt toffee and butter together.

10.) If you don't have pumpkins to carve, carve an apple. :)

Notes on Edinburgh

10 things to note about Edinburgh

(by Anna and Carrie)

1.) The accent is very hard to understand, and reminds me of the duck-tales uncle.

2.) Much cheaper than Dublin

3.) Just like Dublin, there is a new city and an old city.  

4.) The town is really just a series of hills and it feels like a giant version of shoots and ladders.

5.) It is very cold

6.) There seem to be just as many Australians around as there are Scots

7.) There are lots of kilts for sale...but no one ever wears them in public

8.) There really is plaid EVERYWHERE!

9.) It gets dark before dinner

10.) The free tour is worth the money :)

my shoes are drying

On this day, one of the windiest days of rain I've experienced yet, I thought to myself, "Why? Why did I wear the pants that fall down with the shoes that leak with the socks that stop at my ankles?" I was all sorts of uncomfortable as I walked home from the bus stop. My toes hadn't been dry since the first five minutes of my waking day. There was a break in the rain, but the wind carried on.

Now i'm deliberating over what to cook. (Those of you who know me well can regain consciousness, pick yourselves up from where you've fallen over backwards on the floor, and fix any other effects your flabbergasted reactions may have had to your composure.)

Yes, that's right. I have been slowly and surely learning how to cook. My roommate Anna Pawsey has been patiently working with me on basics like rice, chicken, burgers, etc. It may sound like a small feat, but I have to admit i'm awfully proud of this new achievement. I can honestly say that I know how to cook chicken in a way that is edible, and even slightly enjoyable. I wouldn't have been able to say that before.

Tonight's meal, however, will not be a good example of my new-found abilities, as we will probably just make scrambled eggs.

Off I go to our tiny little microwave-less kitchen.

Wish me luck!

morning routine

I wake up at 7:05. I'm the first one up in the house. My first thought is usually something about school..."What classes am I teaching today? Do I have all my materials? What's my plan? What day of the week is this? How many days until Friday?"

By 7:45 I'm down in the dark kitchen watching it gradually lighten outside while I eat my anticipated bowl of cereal. Mmm cereal. I must say, I have a knack for picking out the most satisfying grainy, honey clustered, energy-boosting cereals.

Sometimes by 7:55 when I lock the door behind me, there are voices and morning shuffles beginning upstairs as the house wakes up behind me. I walk up the sidewalk and assess the weather. Sometimes its windy, but not in a cold or daunting way. Other mornings, it's rainy and gray, and my hands won't seem to warm inside my coat sleeves. Either way, the clouds make the sky a dull kind of periwinkle. This morning the sun peeked through just enough for a proper orange sunrise. Usually I am not so lucky, but this morning it was beautiful.

The walk is short enough: just fifteen minutes over sidewalks and across small alleys. I usually walk by the church just after its bells have stopped the ringing echo that follows the morning song. Each note lingers on so that the notes start to hum together in strange harmonies.

It is my peaceful preparation for the day: a walk in the friendly rain. :)

carrie 2005

Sometimes i envy the old me: the one who got to enjoy this beautiful crazy place without all the responsibilities and duties I have this time around.
I wish I could bump into old me on the street, walking to or from the Magee campus with the wet, yellow leaves sticking to the sidewalk and say, "Hey! Chin up little girl! You may think 3 months is a long time, but it will be over and gone in a wisp and flurry, and before you know it, you'll be wishing there had been a smile on your face while you reveled in the beauty of a culture so unique! Walk the river road for no reason, go out for coffee at the corner cafe, buy yourself an orange juice and enjoy the traditional pub music!"
Oh me.
To present me I say, "You are fickle. Last time you had too much free time, this time you want more of it. Learn to live in the now, sister!"

That is why the other night when I got back at 11 pm from helping behind the scenes at the Drama group's wonderful presentation of 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' i looked at the clock and deliberately snubbed it: shoving it to the side with an obstinant and decided nod. Regardless the hour...regardless the stresses of going to school with an hour less sleep, I stayed up late with my roomate to enjoy a cozy and pointless internet surfing session.
I had all intentions of adding hot chocolate to my free-time splurge, but I forgot and fell asleep.

It was just a brief hour, skimmed off the surface of my rations for sleep, but it was just what i needed. :)

it is wierd to return

Dublin was amazing, don't get me wrong, but it is very strange to have to relearn a routine that was new to begin with. Routines are comforting things after all; at least they have been for me.

I'm not going to lie to you, blog; it was a little rough returning to the schedule of school. Not to mention, I had to say goodbye to Rachel and Zack who visited me in Dublin AND in Derry.

But alas, I am back in the schools and relearning my routine. My lessons have been going well so far and I can feel God's energy lifting me up. Today I had some exciting new activities going on. I chaperoned the drama group all the way in Omagh where they gave a WONDERFUL performance of Midsummer Night's Dream. Though my role was quite minor, I had a blast watching the kids rehearse and the applause they received at the end was well-deserved and made me as proud as if I had directed their show myself!

It was quite a long but wonderful tuesday.
I'm excited for tomorrow as well. I'll be participating in an after-school group called 'Hands for a Bridge." I don't know that much about it yet, so I'll save that for another day's blog.

God bless and bless God!

10 notes about dublin so far

Ten notes about Dublin so far

1.) Its much better when its not raining.
2.) there's a funny noise that tells us when we can cross the street and it is terribly fun to imitate
3.) The signs are in Gaelic and English
4.) There are bike lanes and separate stop-lights for the bikes
5.) Current home of the Book of Kells, (the oldest illuminated Bible)
6.) Its warmer than Derry
7.) Capital of Ireland
8.) the people here are much easier to understand than in Derry
9.) The post office still has bullet holes in it from the various rebellions that preceded Irish independence.
10.) There's a kebab shop around every corner

God works

Today was great.
I found out today that i'll be picking up more classes and I am thrilled about that! Not to mention I have a laptop arriving soon, so I'll have a place to actually write all the extra lesson plans I'll be doing. :)

And as though we were all in one big movie where the whether follows the mood, its been beautiful today. Crisp, but beautiful.

Last weekend I enjoyed a quick visit to Belfast and this upcoming week the entire group is going to Dublin. I loved my last visit to Dublin. Its refreshing to feel like you're on vacation and to be in such a different kind of city. Derry is wonderful but there's a constant knowledge of what happened here and of the unrest that still exists from time to time. Dublin is alive with a different kind of feeling. It adds to the cross-cultural aspect of this program to be able to visit Dublin after having been here for a month: when all the little differences between the North and the South will be surprisingly obvious.

At least thats how I remember it.

In any case, God has shown some wonderful things shining through a rainy and rough week, and I'm grateful to him for each day I have here.

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.