End of the First Week

Hello out there everyone. It has been a few days, but I wanted to catch you up to the goings on here in Cambridge.

The end of my first week of teaching nearly mirrored the first few days, with me teaching a lesson or two a day on the fly, supporting the teacher when appropriate. I did get to conduct an experiment on Thursday with the 4th year students about friction. It was a fairly simple experiment with jelly (known as jello in America). The jelly came in cubes, which I cut up and separated into two different bowls. I poured vegetable oil all over one bowl of the jellies, and left the other bowl alone. Then, each student would try to pick the jelly up with chopsticks (we used pencils). Obviously the oil covered jellies had less friction on them because they were lubricated by the oil, which was what all of my smart 4th year students predicted.

The children also made me a boat out of foil, so I thought I would Include it for your enjoyment!

Anyways, the weekend came quick and after a 3 hour nap on Friday afternoon I decided that it was a great night to start the "Cambridge Gallon Challenge." This challenge is to drink one pint of any Green King Pub Company beer at each of the 8 locations around Cambridge. You go to any of the participating pubs and pick up a stamp book and map of where the pubs are located. Then, you have two weeks to visit each pub, have yourself a pint and get a stamp in your book. Since I was feeling good, I decided to go to 3 on the first night and then 2 more on Sunday afternoon. Therefore I only need 3 more pints to complete the challenge!

This weekend there was also a Town & Country Festival at Parker's Piece (a giant green across the street from where we are staying) that we wanted to attend. But before we got there on Saturday we needed to do some laundry. We took the city bus about a mile and a half to the nearest coin laundry facility... what an expedition. After spending about two and a half hours and about $25-$30 American, we finished washing & drying our laundry... I wish I didn't have to do that anymore...

We did get to the festival on Saturday for about an hour. There were some nice shops inside these large tents and there was even an American Potato Pancake Stand! There were also some old steam engines, horse and donkey rides, rides and giant inflatable mountains for children to climb.

We ate some lunch there and then I came home and took a nap. I stayed in the rest of the night and caught up on some much needed sleep!

Sunday I got up early to catch breakfast and joined three girls from our house and went to 10:45 mass at an old catholic church with dark Gothic construction. It was such a beautiful building and has been there for hundreds of years. It was also the parish's First Holy Communion for the girls, so mass ran a little long, but it was neat to attend a mass here. A lot of the mass was similar to the states, but there were some noticeable changes. One example was the scented thing that is usually burned during holiday mass and special occasions. It was burning through the whole mass. I mean there were plumes of smoke on the alter while the mass went on. All I could think of was that if my mom was with me, she would have to leave. I say this because I always remember her sneezing in church whenever they light that thing...

After church, McKara & Tiffany (surprise) were waiting for me to go to the market that was a few blocks away. We browsed around and then ate at a pub called The Eagle. In addition to being one of the bars I needed to complete my Gallon Challenge, it was an old World War II bar. They actually still have the original ceiling that was there during the World War. This is important because solderers from both the British and American Air Force used to write on the ceiling with lipstick and by burning letters with lighters. There are all old pictures and patches all around the pub and somehow you can still read the original writing on the ceiling! It was so awesome to see some of the messages, like the squadron numbers and names of pilots who flew during WWII. Too bad the food stunk, but the beer was good.

I was then on a mission to try to find a new pair of brown shoes. For some reason the ones I brought with me are not holding up like I thought with the massive amount of walking I have been doing and the sole is starting to wear away. However the shoes over here cost between 80 and 110 pounds, which is about $120-190 American (Yea Right!). I quickly realized that I would have to look at some other stores outside of the touristy downtown area of Cambridge to find a better deal. Oh well...

The rest of the day I devoted to writing my lesson plans for Monday, for which I was being formally observed by my course teacher from USF. Monday I taught a lesson on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was one of the people I picked to teach my children about in a 3 week series I am doing with them called "People of Faith, Courage & Commitment." It was a really good lesson, if I must say so myself, for which I used examples that related to their everyday lives to help explain what segregation was. It was very beneficial and I am pretty sure the children understood what the U.S. was like during the time of MLK and what he did as a leader who displayed faith, courage & commitment.

I hope you enjoyed catching up with me. I am going to chat with Meg on the computer and head to bed. Thanks for reading!