First Impressions of a New Continent

Well I made it to Brisbane. My first impression of Australia came from the customs officers at the airport (blonde haired, blue eyed, brawny, and those sexy Australian accents). The quarantine laws are extremely strict - anyone on the flight who had been sick had to be interviewed and I saw some officers taking people's shoes out of their suitcases just because they had some old mud caked on the bottom of the shoes. I guess when your country has vegetation that grows nowhere else, and there is a problem with non-native species taking over, they have to be pretty vigilant.

I found a hostel in the city but I'm getting too old for the hostel atmosphere (shared rooms with people who don't respect quiet hours) and I didn't want to stay there long. It was the only place I could afford, however, since I don't know how long it will take to find an apartment. Queensland is under severe drought conditions, but for my first two days here it did nothing but rain. There have also been horrible fires down in Victoria (near Melbourne) and the newspapers are full of the destruction and ways to help. But for now I'm enjoying the cool rain since Brisbane is normally pretty hot.

I walked all over the city, getting to know the layout and finding things like the transit center, the city library, and even took a wander through the Botanical Gardens.

While the buildings make me feel like I'm back in America, the trees and birds constantly remind me that I'm on a different continent.
This ibis was wandering around the pedestrian shopping street like a common pidgeon. Apparently they are as common as pidgeons, too, because nobody paid attention to them and I saw many more each day.
As I was wandering along the river I spotted a familiar landmark across the water. I figured I could probably find it so I found a bridge across the river and followed the Moroni.I found the temple and met the missionaries working there. They introduced me to a local girl my age and when they found out my situation she offered to let me stay with her until I could find a room to rent. It came at the perfect time as I was starting to get stressed out about not finding a place to live. She was an answer to a prayer and a realization that I'm being taken care of. She introduced me to people at church so I now have contacts of LDS people looking for roommates. Things are looking up and I hope I can get settled in and start discovering the fun things to do in my new city! (Oh, and find a job and make money and start being productive and all that, too, of course . . . . )

Goodbye Elephants, Hello Kangaroos!

Since the last time I wrote we got a new president. I had cable in my room at the school so I was able to watch the inauguration live. I don't know why I took a picture of the TV, but it felt like a momentous occasion.

Every weekend a bunch of us would take a taxi into town to do some shopping and eat something besides rice. It was nice to get away from the 'compound' once in a while.

We all got along really well considering that such a variety of people come together, live in close quarters, eat every meal together, get stressed out about lesson planning together, observe each other teach those lessons, then constructively criticize each other afterwards. After all that we all became pretty good friends, which was amazing.

Finally the course is over. We don't find out our grades for a few more days, but for now I'm back in Chiang Mai for a few days before my flight to Australia. I've been spending most of the time with other teachers, slowly saying goodbye to each of them.

This week Chiang Mai hosted the annual flower festival. It is really popular in Thailand and there are tons of beautiful floats made out of flowers. It was fun to walk around and see some.

This was my favorite - made completely out of flowers and rice.

I've also had to say goodbye to the friends I made at church. The American expats living here were always a great help to me, giving me rides to church and inviting me over occasionaly. These little boys were so cute in their white shirts I had to get a picture.

On Monday some of our former students invited a few of us to go rafting and have a picnic. It was the same place I went rafting when Clay and Trista were here and we did rafting after our trek. Only this time we didn't have a guide - I just had to trust that our students could steer the raft.

I fell out once and floated through some rapids but other than that we made it safe and sound. Afterwards we found a picnic spot next to the river and had a big Thai meal.

After I finished the course I vowed I wouldn't eat rice for at least a month or two but I was hungry and I thought it would be impolite not to eat at their picnic so I did and it wasn't too bad.

It was a fun day and nice to relax and be with the students outside of class. And now once again I've said goodbye to all my friends and I'm all alone.

It's getting harder to say goodbye to people but I'm excited for the new adventure. Until next time in the land of Oz!

Celtafication

Happy Birthday to me! (on January 6th) For my birthday dinner I had another Christmas Eve incident of ordering the wrong food that was too spicy. So once again gave it away to a beggar and went and got some good home cooking at a place called the Chiang Mai Saloon that has the best Southwest American food in town. It was delicious and it was the type of place where you can write all over the walls so I wrote myself a birthday wish for all to see. (I forgot to take a picture, though.)

I actually celebrated my birthday a day early because after a three day journey from Laos with the flu I was in need of some relaxation. So I got a massage and a haircut, went shopping, and did a whole lot of nothing. The next day I had an appointment with a doctor to get an X-ray to complete my Australian work visa application. Everything went well and a few days later I got the approval letter to say the visa had been granted. So Australia is now my next official destination (and tonight I just bought my plane ticket to Brisbane for February 11th).

On Sunday afternoon after church I met with my fellow classmates to get a ride out to the school. I've now started the CELTA course (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults) and we all paid a little extra to have the room and board included since the classes are held at a garden waterside resort 30 minutes outside of town. My room is a lot better than I normally get when I'm travelling and it's nice to be able to unpack for a month.

This is the classroom where we have classes during the day. There are 11 of us from all different places: USA, Britain, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and China. The two instructors are both from Britain and are experienced teachers.

There are beautiful gardens around the rooms and classrooms that we can study in.

We have our meals all together in the dining room. Most of the meals are foreigner-friendly versions of Northern Thai cuisine.

It's called a waterside resort but before you get Miami in mind the water is actually just a former fishing pond.

These fish have obviously been left alone too long. I like to ask people how much I would have to pay them for them to jump in and swim with the giant monster catfish.

Things are going well in the course. I feel like I'm learning how to see my teaching style from an outside perspective and change things that could be better. In the evenings a van full of local Thais are brought out for free English classes so we can practice on them. So far I've taught three lessons and although I've taught English before it's a little difficult trying to change my teaching style to fit a lower level class.

I had a fellow teacher snap some photos of my lesson tonight on adverbs of frequency (always/sometimes/never).

I have three more weeks in the course and it's intense but informative. I'm glad I decided to do it and it should also help me get a job teaching English to foreigners in Australia. More on that later . . . .