Forgot my camera cord so photos will come later!

      

    It's been 7 weeks and I haven't started my blog. I've been super busy moving up here and settling in, and I only have internet at school, which means I have to remember to blog at school - which as you can imagine - at the end of a work day it's not the first thing on my mind! 

    I've come into school today to get a few things done, but I forgot my camera, so here are some short stories with no pictures yet. I'll update photos later with more stories
        (I'm also having issues editing this blog... half of my words disappear off the page and the formatting goes all weird. So I'll work on figuring that out too.)

       No cold tap water!

I have learnt that regardless of the little blue dot on the tap, there is no such thing as cold tap water up here. This can be a bit of a dilemma if, like me, you don’t like to drink super cold water from the fridge. But never fear, I have worked out a genius solution! I mix my drinks – half tap water, half fridge water. And I have to say… that tap water up here is 1000 times better than Geelong. It actually tastes like WATER!

Teaching ESL kids

Having a class that’s 100% ESL (or EAL/D – English as an additional Language/Dialect) is proving interesting. Thank god I have two great Assistant Teachers in my room most of the time that can translate for me. My most commonly used phrase these days is “Can you tell them again in Yulngu Matha please?”

It’s such a struggle some days just to get the instructions across, especially if they are multi-step instructions.

I’m so proud of all of the kids in my grade and how well they do with English. They have been trying to teach me a few words, and WOW… I’m hopeless. I keep saying “Can you just say the first sound in the word again, really slowly… and show me what does your tongue does?” and then I absolutely butcher the word they are teaching me! Hahaha. It’s a serious challenge. But I’m really enjoying learning and the kids are really patient with me. (I think they mostly just enjoy laughing at me really).

Washing dries fast

It’s nice to know that the washing will dry FAST both outside and inside. Unlike Victoria where the washing can be on the line or clothes-horse for DAYS and still be a little bit damp. It only takes about 15 minutes here!

More New Pictures

MORE PIC'S FROM THE SUMMER IN DENALI (yep it's an old post that I'm just editing...

I saw this wolf on my first drive into Denali National Park when I got there in May this year. It belongs to the Grant Creek Pack (near Toklat for those of you who are familiar with the area)

If you're from the DBL crew you should be getting a good laugh at this one! Yep, it's one of Sham's buses off the side of the road. It was literally within an inch of sliding off the road and tumbling into the creek.