Dinner From Steve

Earlier this week Steve, who lives in one of the boys houses across from ours, made us dinner!!Potatoes and steak on the barbie, spinach and tomato salad, and desert!!! We were so full! Thanks Steve!!

Julie thoroughly enjoying her desert!


Jess - our fourth housemate for a while!! I get to work with her next week and do two hiking / canoeing out trips!! Super excited to work with and learn from her!




On the road to Waterslea.

Took this today while walking over to the office. Not a great pic but the sky was really pretty!

The river is off to the left and waterslea is up on the hill on the right.

Wrinkled Hands

Saturday November 8, 2008

So did I mention that we don’t have a dish washer??
I feel like much of my time is spent doing the dishes, doing the laundry, and just keeping our humble abode neat and tidy – boy do I sound like Mom!

While washing up tonight I realized this is my first real experience living in a house outside of home, if that makes sense. Senior year we were in a suite but it didn’t have a stove and the washer and dryer were upstairs . . . Over the summer we were in a house but that was only for three months and it didn’t have a washer or dryer either :-P
I guess this isn’t technically a “real house” either but pretty close! We have a kitchen and a laundry room and a living room area and a table, although we barely use it.

Anyway . . . This week – Wednesday through Friday:
The Group: Clairgate Primary School (Public)
The age: Year 5 and 6
Numbers: 6 groups, 90 campers, 5 teachers

It was pretty neat to have the opportunity to work with a public school group! No way would that happen at home; a public school coming to a Christian run organization for camp and on top of that having Christian Discovery (CD) which includes discussion groups and serious ministering to the kids – pretty cool!!

Some of the kids had a church going background but many didn’t so I had a few of those tricky “how do we know God is real?” questions and “how do we know the bible is real?” and “didn’t they find Jesus’ bones last year?” . . . I can’t help but think back to when I was a sixth grader and the people that were answering those questions for me – wow, so weird to be on the other side of those questions and eyes and ears now. Still accepting that fact and convincing myself that I am qualified for this!! Lol.

I had a pretty good group. As per the age, the biggest issue was getting them to be quite and listen but other than that it was a nice group of kids. Wednesday involved the 4K hike to and from the jetty before lunch and then another 4k+ hike in the afternoon. I was prepared for a lot of complaining but they were actually pretty enthusiastic! We went up past the abseiling cliffs to a look out along the ridge called pulpit rock. I had never been there before so was a little worried about getting lost but it was quite straight forward. On the way back I had them each pick or spot or hear something interesting then at the end we shared our interesting things and talked about how we can see God in nature and how only God could have created something as unique as a banksia tree – which has these odd cone/ flower things!

The group also did archery, orienteering, and canoeing. I ran my first archery session here. Allison was there so she watched and helped but I covered pretty much everything in my briefing so that was good. It was my first time briefing canoeing as well. Again, I remembered pretty much everything and the session went fairly smoothly, considering it was quite a windy day.

Having had a year 9 group and a year 3 and 4 group last week, it was interesting to have a year 5 and 6 group this week just for comparison. They really are right tin the middle. Still listen to you without too much attitude yet starting to define themselves and not as “willing and eager to please.”

Yup, so all is well here; a pretty low-key weekend. I went up to abseiling today with Mel to watch / help her set up for a weekend church group. I watched her set up the 6meter drop then she helped me set up the 10m. It was good practice. I stuck around for the session, part out of interest part out of nothing better to do at home! Had some nice chats with people from the church while they waited for their turn . . .

Talking with Mel on the way back down, we discussed how much people rely on you, the belayer, for constant encouragement and reassurance as they go down. They are really putting their trust in their belayer, we are their safety as they go down this cliff backwards – kind of a strange thought and a big responsibility!

Monday Morning In Sydney

Monday November 2, 2008

Is it strange that I feel dirtier after spending a day in the city than I do after a day out in the bush? Just a different kind of dirty I suppose.

On the nearly familiar train ride now, snacking on some candy corn received in a package earlier this week, ast eh track curve in and out along the southern coastline. At the next stop, Wollongong, I’ll be nearly half way back to Nowra, where laundry, cleaning and general organization (what I tend to call “getting my life back together”) awaits me.

Thursday night I received a text from Laura, a really close friend from WAC: rowing and senior year suite mate; “Did you get Monday off? There is a possibility I could come to Sydney this weekend.” Ever since we decided not to follow through with some last minute plans in October, we had been trying to organize a get-together either in Sydney or in Melbourne / Sale, where Laura is coaching rowing for a private school.

Both of our schedules seem to be uncertain and constantly changing so when we finally united at Sydney’s Central station around 9:30 pm on Friday, following a train trip from each of us and a plane ride on Laura’s part, it was quite a happy moment for lack of better words to describe it.

It was soooooo good to reunite and spend the weekend together! I know I have already expressed over and over how awesome my house mates and coworkers are but I think I’ve also explained how close friendship take time to build and there is just no replacement for a friend you’ve known going on five years – wow!

In attempt to minimize the rambling I’ll try to give a brief summary of our weekend!

Friday Night:
Laura had already checked us into a hostel, which gave us coupons for 15 free drinks at various pubs in Sydney. We were both pretty tired so we redeemed one of our free drinks on the way to the hostel and caught up on each others lives!

Saturday:

Woke up and caught the bus to Collaroy Beach, about 20-30min outside of the city. Stopped by the grocery store first and a coffee shop so we could have breakky on the bus!

Spent a good bit of the day at the beach watching Fiona’s surf boat rowing competition! Very interesting! 4 people in a large boat plus a sweep who does the steering. They row out through the surf, around a buoy (pronounced boy-e) and then back in. It can be pretty dangerous and poor Fiona’s boat actually capsized on the way back in during one of their races. It wasn’t a hot day but not too cool either so neat to watch and gave us more time to catch up.

Had a late lunch at a pub on the beach, found a geocache and dropped off the travel bug from the summer, walked around Colloray, read, took showers, dinner with Fiona and 2 of her friends in Dee Why beach. Spent the night at Fiona’s.

Sunday:

I bought a coffee before hopping on the bus to have with breakky on the way to Manly beach. From Manly we took the Ferry into the city to give Laura the “full Sydney experience.” I had done the ferry back in 2006 and remembered how cool in was to come into Sydney via the water past the opera house . . .
We had a nice day in the city, walking around outside the opera house, along circular quay, to the rocks where we walked through the markets; crafts, prints, books, and free samples of fresh nuts . . . Redeemed two more of our free drinks through out the day.

After lunch we stopped by Rob’s apartment to drop off our bags so we could stop lugging them around! Went up to Hyde Park where we went through the Barracks museum. Very interesting! We learned a lot about the convicts and the history behind the building. A highlight was on the last floor where they had a whole room set up like the old sleeping quarters with hammocks strung in two rows down the room. Laura and I took it upon ourselves to “test them out” and spent longer than intended lounging, talking, and trying to get a good picture!

We were headed back towards the opera house when we heard bells ring and remembered we had meant to check out St. Mary’s Cathedral at Hyde Park near the museum. Then we remembered that it was Sunday. We decided to take a chance on it, turn around and see if there might be a church service. We were 15min late and walked in during the sermon but it was an interesting experience. Neat church, kind of an odd service, and not just because it was Catholic but yeah, I didn’t exactly feel like I had gone to church but it was an experience.

A failed attempt at the Royal Botanical Gardens, a few sprinkles, and a hamburger later, we made our way back to Rob’s where the NRL game between England and Australia was on! Aussie won!!! Gosh, I miss NRL! Never been into a sport but NRL, yeah.

So that was our long awesome day in Sydney, I’m sure I’ve forgotten to mention some things because it was such a full day!


Monday:

Laura’s flight was at 10:00am so the shuttle picked her up from Rob’s at 7:45am. I left shortly after headed toward the block where all the outdoor shops were. Mel, my housemate had told me about it, so I was eager to check it out! I spent the morning trying on shoes and looking earnestly for affordable navy blue shorts, which don’t seem to exisit in outdoor shops!

I took notes on lots of shoes so I can now look online and order from home. I’m pretty sure I can still make out cheaper if I order from home and have them shipped than if I buy them here.

Caught the train home and Mel picked me up around 5 – home sweet home!

Such a great weekend!!!

A Rambling About Day 2

Tuesday October 28, 2008

Experience, so much of this job is experience. The more I do the activities with groups and the more I see other people run them the more I will improve.

So the first activity of the day was the hike/swim at the jetty. It was another double activity so my group along with Pete’s group. Pete was setting up for abseiling so I led both of our groups in getting PFDs and walking the 2k trail to the jetty, where we met up with Pete. I had done the walk several times so that wasn’t a big deal and Pete was there when we got there so that all went well.

Back from the jetty we had morning tea and Christian Discovery (CD). Julie did the mean bit then we broke into our groups to cover some discussion questions . . . We talked about who God is; how we tend to get our own ideas about God and “put him in a box” but really we should look to the bible to learn who God really is. So in our groups we looked at some bible passages and pulled out some characteristics of God. We looked at how half of the words eluded to a loving, caring, forgiving God and the other half focused more on powerful, should be feared, God who likes justice . . . I talked about how it was important to remember God is a balance of these characteristics and not just see him as loving and not just as someone to be feared but a God who seeks justice because he loves us and wants a relationship with us.

Working with year nine kids is a whole totally different experience than working with younger kids. Ohhhhh so different. The conversations and topics are deeper; not just the basic bible stories and God loves you message! I’m definitely going to be challenged working here but it will be good I think. Part of me feels like “who am I to be teaching these youth about God and religion? I’m still learning and growing myself” I guess I’ll just keep in mind that it’s okay if I don’t have all the answers and I can always look it up or ask someone after work and get back to them!

After lunch I ran my first low ropes session. I had seen it done with younger kids but as I said, older kids are so different. My briefing went alright and I’m pretty sure I covered everything. Before getting them on the low ropes elements I had them do a few trust activities. I broke them into groups of three to do a “trust pass/fall” but they weren’t taking it seriously so I did a group trust circle instead; where everyone stands in a circle shoulder to shoulder with one person in the middle who falls and gets passed around. This went better but I still had to stop several times to remind them that we couldn’t do the elements if they could not trust each other and if I could not see that they were taking it seriously and were going to be safe. I actually had to have one kid sit out because we finally got this girl to go in the middle of the trust circle and it was going really well and then he did a fake scream and pretended to drop her . . .

So we finally got through that and moved on to the elements. The first one went okay and involved one person walking across a rope with two spotters. But the next one went really well! I was headed toward a similar element to the first one but Scott had his group there so I went to the ring of fire instead and was so glad that I did. Ring of fire involves the whole group getting from one side to the other through a metal rig which is placed about shoulder/head height off the ground. It was really cool to watch as the group worked together and came together through that activity – really cool! Some of the people that were hesitant in the trust circle were now being lifted off the ground and passed through a mental ring by their classmates.

The debrief went alright as well; discussing how our trust had changed from beginning to end and sort of analyzing what made the second activity smoother . . . I think they got something out of it – I hope! We also discussed attitude and how much of an impact that has. I shared the awesome quote “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it: attitude is everything.” Then I added how our faith / trust in God combined with our attitude can really impact how we go through life . . . It would have been better if they could have somehow arrived at that on there own. That is one thing I really want to work on: asking the right questions and saying the right things to get a group thinking and talking. This I guess will come with experience but I’m sure it also depends on the group. *sigh* so much to learn – but you have to start somewhere.

Next activity, after afternoon tea, was abseiling. I have just spent a weekend getting abseil training but had never seen it run here at Shoalhaven and had never run a session. Julie hiked up with my group, which was good cause I wasn’t 100% positive of the trail, although I’m sure I would have made it fine. We always have someone staffed as “abseil extra” and today it was Alison

So Al and Julz did the briefing as I watched and then helped the students get their harnesses and hardware. We had a 20m, 10m, and 6m cliff set up. I went with Julz to the 6m and watched her belay a few people before she let me take over. First person I made a hugeeee mistake and sat the belay rope on the ground as I attached her onto the abseil line. Really, really bad as the whole point of the belay line is that I am holding on to them in case they fall.

Other than that the belaying was okay. I need to work on coiling the rope as I bring it back up and various other things but I think I have them main idea down. Abseiling is definitely one of the more involved activities I guess – a lot to learn. After this weekend, I think I’m pretty set on how to set up but I need to keep practicing and actually use it or I’ll loose it. I have some spare rope at home so I’m going to practice with that!

I definitely have a lot to learn still but the more experience and the more I see it run the more I will improve.

I feel sometimes like I’m just standing around not being helpful and there is something I should or could be doing. But again I guess more time and experience will help me know what to do and what needs to be done. For now I just keep asking “what can I do?” “Is there something I can do / should be doing . . .” I really like this job and want to do it well. I can’t believe there’s already only about five more months left of me working. I’m afraid that by the time I get fully confident and comfortable it s going to be time to leave. Hummmm . . . Trying to take it all in, retain it, get as much experience as I can, and learn from every opportunity.

Busy week – we all agreed that it already feels like Friday but it is only Tuesday! Tomorrow is going to be crazy as this group is leaving at 1:30 after lunch but the next group is due in at 10:30am. That should be interesting and crazy!

My First Group

Monday October 27, 2008
The Group: Holy Spirit College (Catholic High School)
The age: Year 9
Numbers: 11 groups of 15 (about 160 campers), 12 teachers

Wow so first group all on my own. Year nine – phew. It didn’t take long to realize they were going to be a whole different ball of wax than the year three and four kids I had spent the last two weeks with.

I had to be firm, I had to be confident, I had to be consistent and not let down. My biggest challenge was just getting them to stop talking and listen to my instructions. After being in the classroom, I have come up with several strategies for getting the attention of younger kids, but all would be inappropriate with this age group. For the most part just starting to talk would work but yeah, there are always “those few.” :-P

So the day began with Monday morning breakfast and devotions before we moved into setting up for the group, which includes many various jobs. The group arrived at 10:30 (half an hour early) but by the time they had their bags set down and were all in the meeting room for their “welcome to camp talk,” we were back on schedule!

Since it is such a large group, the girls are staying up at Koolona, about a five minute walk from Waterslea, where the boys are staying, where all the meals are being held and the activities are being run from. So after the talk, given by Julie, I helped walk the girls up to Koolona to drop off their stuff and get ready for their first activity of the day.

Back to Waterslea for a hectic lunch! 170 is a lot of people!! Apparently the dinning room can by set to seat 200 but I don’t know how that would work as you can barely squeeze behind the chairs now. The first meal is always the craziest, especially with this many people! But it all worked out and activity session 1 started on time at 1:30.

My first activity was orienteering. I think I have already explained this but basically they are given a map and are set out to find different wooden markers around the site and record the name of the bird written on the marker. For the older kids, we also give them a compass; have them take a bearing when the find the marker and then record the man made object at that bearing.

Before introducing orienteering, I sat them in a circle and went through their names and had them tell me something interesting about themselves, which most of them struggled with. I didn’t actually care if they told me something interesting or not I just wanted some time to repeat their name in my head over and over!!!

I also went ahead and told them about my eyes and how they might not think I’m looking at them . . . younger kids don’t seem to have as much of an issue with it but I could tell it could be one with this group so figured I’d get that out there from the start. Kind of funny cause then one of the girl’s interesting things was “I have the same eye problem as you” huh.

So yeah, orienteering went pretty well. It’s a pretty easy activity to run once you explain it. Did a debrief at the end where they choose a word from a pile and used it in a sentence to describe their experience – some where better than others but that is to be expected. Also asked them about their team work within their groups. . .

Afternoon tea then onto activity two – canoeing. Ohhhhh if an activity could crash and burn wow yeah. Just a mess. Lots of factors contributed to this hectic, chaotic canoe session! I would say “unorganized” would sum it up pretty well.

Since there are 11 activity groups this week a lot of the activities are doubled up – meaning two groups are there at the same time. So instead of the usual one instructor out with their 15 kids + someone in the power boat, it was 2 instructors and 30 kids. It was crazy. Could have gone alright had we just split and taken our groups separate ways instead of trying to keep them together. I won’t go into too much detail now but we’ll just say it was a learning experience! Then after we got off the water and the canoes stacked away the kids pretty much headed off, leaving paddles . . . It was 5:00 so the session was technically over but that didn’t give a chance to debrief at all. I’ve decided I’m going to debrief in the morning just cause I think we need some closure on that – or maybe at least I do!! Sometimes things seem a lot worse when you are in charge, I’d like to think that’s the case but I don’t know!

Pretty hot! It was hanging around 90*F and it’s still about 85*F in our lovely, non air-conditioned home!

We have a fourth house member this week: Jess. I’ve heard about Jess every since I got here and I finally got to meet her this weekend! She worked here for nearly three years before heading over to France to work on a camp and then to England to be with her boyfriend. She is home for a month so she can get a work visa to go back to England and while she’s here she is working at Shoalhaven and staying with us! She’s really nice and is an awesome and most welcomed fourth housemate!!!

Abseil Traning

More to come

Another American!

Tuesday October 21, 2008

We had initiatives and canoeing today. It was a bit chilly, in the lower 60*s F (15-16*C) but not too cold.

So yesterday I found out there was a student teacher from America here with the group! With the busyness of the first day we didn’t get much of a chance to talk so today we had a nice chat after lunch during free time. She is from Northern New Jersey in her senior year at Boston University and is studying abroad for the semester (Sep-Dec, like I did) but is doing her student teaching over here – wow! As you can imagine I had a ton of questions with her: how her student teaching is structured, if she’s taking classes as well, how her time in a private Christian school is going to transfer to a teaching degree and certificate at home, which I never really got a clear answer on!

So it was really interesting to talk to her. It made me think about how a year ago I was in the classroom; just getting my feet wet 3 days a week. I’m so grateful for the program I went through; the awesome mentors I had and the small-sized courses and seminars that helped me learn and grow.

We also talked about outdoor education and she agreed that it is way more common over here than at home for schools to take their students on camp. She mentioned how they have physical education as a class but then in addition to that they have an hour and a half of sport each week. It seems their education is a bit more holistic, with the student as a whole in mind where as at home there is much more pressure to focus on academics and intellectual growth.