December 2009
1 post
Probably My Last Post From Australia
First of all it looks like people that I don’t know might be reading this from Los Angeles, Souix Falls, SD, Austin, TX maybe. So, thanks for that. Hopefully you liked it…although I don’t know how you would. Although now that I think of it, if anyone looks up the lyrics to Down Under by Men at Work, my blog might come up. Hm…if you’re looking for that, sorry you...
November 2009
9 posts
1 tag
Four Months, Three Apartments + Feeling Manly At...
I complained about my apartment to my CT and he went to work for me. He very kindly asked around at his church and with close friends if anyone would mind keeping me for the rest of my time here as my current living situation sucks. Back-read the blog to find out why. Or I could just tell you now, that my landlord was a jerk that ranted about my 7-instead-of-3 minute length of shower, among...
I’m back in Ames in less than a month, and I’m moving again. I’m going to live with my cooperating teachers best friends parents. I don’t how to punctuate that last sentence. Do you?
He said that I can probably stay there for 100 dollars a week - over half of what I’m paying now. He also said that would probably include food. According to my CT they’re in...
Today I got yelled at for the first time in 12 years. Actually yelled at. Not that girly, “He yelled at me for forgetting my homework today.” No, he didn’t yell at you, he was talking at a regular volume.
Today I got yelled at for taking a 7 minute shower. By my landlord. He called me a “fu*king idiot” and threatened to charge me another 20 bucks a week if I go...
Crab Racing
I suppose I should explain the new flickr set HERE. I made it pubic for everyone to see. I don’t mind who see’s them. I don’t think they’re offensive and I’m not going to make them private.
Last night, (Wednesday) I went to a pub with Nate called Friend In Hand. On Wednesdays it transforms to a big competition night. balloon blowing up contest - Blow up a...
mliaverage:
Today, I saw someone posting about weird laws in their state. I thought to myself, surely there would not be such laws in Iowa. Apparently, horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants, men with mustaches may not kiss a woman in public, and one-armed piano players must perform for free. Go Iowa? MLIA.
You Had To Know It Would Come To This...
I’m not good a keeping a schedule. You should know that. As my blog readership dwindles, I struggle to find things to write about to keep my numbers up. In order to consolidate everything and make everything more easy to read I will use a list. In no particular order this has been what’s going on:
A student told me about a student teacher they made cry. When I asked if they were...
October 2009
14 posts
I know this doesn’t belong in my Australia blog, but I don’t think anyone reads the other one anymore.
I’m amazed at how long The Onion has been able to run, making up irrelevant news stories that don’t even play off real headlines. It’s been running for 20 years, and it still has funny articles about completely fictional scenarios.
This is the article that made me...
Photos
Looks like I may have offended some people with some photos I put on flickr. Sorry. If you want to see all the photos I take, you’ll have to make a flickr account and become my “friend” on flickr. Sorry about the hassle.
Just to let you know, I will be putting a lot more photo sets up on Flickr. Some from Australia, some not from Australia. Just puttin’ it out there.
I just noticed that the womans small filing cabinent that goes under her desk is actually under my desk. So I have two on each side of me. I don’t have anything to put in mine, but she’s reaching over all the time invading my personal space to get markers and crap. Is this what it’s like working in an office?
The Cast
Remember The Office Series 2? The original version? With the pregnant woman sitting across from Tim? She sits on my left. (For those of you that haven’t seen the original Office I tried youtubing her but I can’t find her. Sorry.)
Behind me is the Australian that says “fink” instead of “think.” and several other fings like that.
To my right is a guy that...
Small World
This weekend was pretty good. Not much to report. I saw the movie Moon. It was good. It’s not exactly 2001: A Space Odyssey like you think it would be. It’s in that style, the style before Star Wars killed the thinking man’s sci-fi film. See it. Tell me what you think.
I ran into an Ames High graduate at the Sydney Opera House Open Day yesterday. Yeah. Crazy. Turns out...
Day 2 And 3
Well. This is a mess. I’ve been given a time table to follow, but I feel like a lost freshman instead of a student teacher. Of the first and second day classes I missed one because I was looking at week A instead of week B, I was asked not to join two classes, there was a sub in 3 classes that told me to go back to the office, and two classes that I thought were well taught and fun to be...
Day 1 (Again)
*The following is my reflection I had to turn in to UNI. It’s a good summary of my first day at school.*
Woo! Finally! An actual school! I’ve been waiting a long time for this.
6:00 am - My alarm goes off and I get up and get ready for the day.
6:55 am - I leave the house to walk to Central Station. It’s a 15 minute walk and the train leaves to go to Wynard Station at 7:20. A 5 minute...
Night In The Cross And The Day After
First, I’ve done some housekeeping. Check out the songs I’ve listened to recently (they’ve changed since writing this), and a few other blogs. The Office creator, and star of the new movie The Invention Of Lying, Ricky Gervais. My friend down here Nate Hood. And blog newcomer Erik Palmberg.
Last night was pretty good. I met up with the aforementioned Nate and we were on our...
Move In Day
I moved into my new house today. Well I moved in yesterday, but today I moved into my room. The person’s place I took moved out at 10 am today, so last night I stayed in the other vacant room in the house.
I have 3 other housemates. David, the landlord…and two other guys…I forgot their names. One of them is a cook. The other one is moving in tomorrow in the room I slept in...
Weeks...weeks....week? I don't remember. Sorry.
I know. It’s been a while and I have catching up to do. Sorry about that. I’ve passed the halfway point of being here.
Let’s get right into it.
So. Last we talked, I had just watched a Disney Dennis Quaid movie…and enjoyed it. The reason for that isn’t important, other than to say I had a bit of a career crisis. No big deal now. I’m back and ready to...
September 2009
4 posts
The Rookie
I know I shouldn’t be enjoying the Dennis Quaid movie The Rookie on TV right now. For those of you that don’t know, it’s about a science teacher/high school baseball coach that achieves his dream of pitching in a major league baseball game. There are things I can point to that make this a bad movie. But I don’t want to right now. I want to ignore those things. There...
Watch
Week Five
Oops. I kinda forgot about this blog. Sorry about that. I had all day to write in it and it’s 9:45 now and I’m just starting. When I’m kind of tired. That’s something that has changed…I go to bed before 10:30 now. Sometimes even before that. So, I’ll do my best to fill you in on my week between now and my bedtime.
On Monday I was nominated by my cooperating teacher to play the part of...
August 2009
12 posts
WatchThey Still Show Slamball Here
Week Four
This was another quick week. I have a feeling that quick weeks will become the commonplace and I should just expect every week to go quickly. Sorry this update will be pretty quick, but I’ve got a lot of work tonight.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I taught Netball to the students. You may remember me talking about netball my first night here. It’s really similar to basketball so I incorporated a...
Week Three
I didn’t link pictures again. Please just look through them Here after you get done reading. Thanks.
Back again for another week of…updating you on what I’m doing. So, let’s get into it.
Not much happened worth reporting until Wednesday. Wednesday was our parent/teacher night for the school. It was at 6:30 at night so it was an awkward amount of time to sit around the apartment, still...
So…hey…how are things…good, good!…I didn’t think you’d be coming by here anymore…No, totally I understand, I haven’t been around much either, you know. Just been hanging out and stuff. What? No! No way did I forget about you, ha. How could I forget about you!?…it’s just, you know, things are different now, I’m getting more...
First of all, I’ve uploaded some photos here. Quite a few of them, actually so be sure to check them out. You’ve got to click on the different sets. I’ve also put some videos up. I’ll link them in this post, but they’re there too. This way you’ll be able to see some of the stuff I’m talking about.
I guess I’ll start on Thursday. Wait no, Wednesday night. Wednesday night Lisa checked her...
Sorry, I know it’s been a few days, but to be honest not much has happened. I go to class and come home. Since the stores close here around 5, there isn’t much to do when I get done with class except for filling out papers for UNI. Let me run through a typical day…so far…I’ve only had 3 days of school so I don’t know how typical they will be compared with the...
Friday I got up a bit early and showered. The shower isn’t really anything different that the United States…pretty regular actually. When I started putting my clothes on for the day, I realized that I forgot to iron my clothes after taking them out of my suitcase. So, I chose my yellow shirt with the tight plaid pattern in order to hide the wrinkles. Wow….this blog’s already...
Send Me Stuff
AIS The International School
c/o David Muehe
Locked Bag 204
Oatlands, Australia 2117
July 2009
7 posts
The Flight Part 2 and Arrival
Alright, it’s been a few days and I’m a bit better rested. I got on the flight from L.A. to Sydney around 1 am Pacific TIme. The plane was huge and had two decks. I flew on Qantas Flight 108 if you cared about that at all. I sat next to a big man dressed all in black. I eventally found out that he was from Perth. That’s all I know about him. We took off and I sat quietly...
The Flight Part 1
Lisa is trying to figure out the internet in our apartment right now. I can’t really be all that helpful so I thought I’d write about my flights here. I wrote some things down in a notebook so a lot of the things I write here will come directly from that notebook.
I guess it’s important to note that I flew with American Airlines rather than Delta because Delta had a delayed...
Only a few days lift until I leave. I’m starting to mentally prepare to leave again. I think the packing is what spurs my mental preparation. Taking things that were packed in my suitcase out of my suitcase to wear just makes me feel like I’m staying in Ames longer. So there is a direct correlation between the amount of clothes in my suitcase and my preparedness to leave. The more...
No real news to report about Australia. I keep reading Lisa’s blog and all it’s managed to do is make me excited about the experiences that I’ll have there…the ones that she may have to repeat again the first week or so that I’m there.
I’m not back at work obviously so now I just have a week to sit around and wait to leave. Everything is ready to go. It has...
I went to the Des Moines airport today to try to get some sympathy from the people at the ticket counter for my ticket. It didn’t work. Unless I want to spend another grand on my plane ticket, I’m sticking around until the 28th of July.
Now the werid task of trying to ask for my job back for another week, even though everyone thinks I’m in Australia right now. One of the...
-2 Day or 15 more...
Well I was supposed to leave 2 days ago for Australia but due to visa issues I will not leave until July 28th. That’s alright. I’m not sure if I was ready to leave a few days ago. Either that or I’m just telling myself that to avoid being upset by the fact that my roommate is there already and I am not. I did get to see two of my very close, close friends get married to each...