Term Two Holidays

This term the holidays were quite. Mark and I started the holidays by celebrating his birthday in Matakana and Leigh. We then came home to a quite few weeks.

Mark was out on the boats twice, and did some diving for work. He spent some time working on his projects and writing. I spent most of time time knitting for the babies in my life who are making their grand entrance this fall, reading and generally doing things that make me feel content, like napping, drinking warm tasty tea and standing in the sunshine.

A hooded baby blanket for my newest nephew 

An itty-bity baby hat 

The start of the next blanket

Mark and I took advantage of the slow pace of life by cooking some adventurous meals that require a bit more time than either of us have to commit to during the school terms, taking walks up into the village to visit the butchers, the fish mongers and the tea shop I have discovered, and watching a few movies at home.

We also took advantage of the time off to visit with friends, dine out at one of our favorite restaurants (and Indian place up the street), check out a new restaurant that just opened in the village for a late breakfast, skype lots of friends from home, and hit up the library for some new books.

The less glamorous side of the holiday was filled with a big clean of the apartment, catching up on laundry, renting a steam cleaner for the carpet, finally hanging some photos on the walls,  and all of the household things that can sometimes get neglected in the busy term.

Mark is devouring another book

Mark has hung up the blank canvases so we know where to put them and he paints as he finds inspiration. There are a few painted already around the photos on the right hand side and one with the two photos on the left hand side. We have photo frames for the blank places, but we have to go and print out some NZ photos.

I think we can both say we feel refreshed and ready to tackle the next 10 weeks. If it is anything like term 2, it is going to fly by and we will be on vacation again before we know it. We are still debating on what we want to do for the Term 3 holidays. We've been throwing around going more North than we usually do as a lot of the things we have done are to the South of Auckland, but we shall see where we end up come October.

Mark's Birthday

On Saturday, July 5th, Mark's Birthday,  we went up to Matakana  and spent some time strolling through the farmers market.It was windy and chilly, but it was so lovely to see so many artisan stands and home-grown foods both fresh and canned. There were little bakeries selling sweets, a few cheese carts, lots of fruit and vegetable stands and some craft sections. I was a little sad that there were no farmers selling wool/homespun yarn as sometimes, from the research I have done, you can find wool artisans at the markets.  

After the market, we went to a cute little bar/restaurant place to have lunch called the Rusty Pelican. It is known for its wood fired pizza, so naturally, Mark and I ordered appetizers not related at all to pizza (think potato skins). 

Once finished lunch we perused some of the shops along the area, waiting for our movie to start. We spent the most time in the cutest little bookstore with fluffy over-size reading furniture and adorable coffee table books including one called "Stick Man's Really Bad Day". We flipped through the book, laughing at some of the signs, and recognizing others from our trips around New Zealand and North America. 

The movie theater, which Mark had blogged about before, was the most stunning place I have been. It was comparable to the Imperial Theater at home with massive fluffy seats that you can tuck your legs up and still have room, the fanciest wallpapered walls, a beautiful stunning chandelier, and a mini table by each chair rather than a cup-holder. The refreshment stand served wine, ice cream and other fancy movie snacks. No popcorn for this fancy theater. Mark and I both enjoyed the movie, How to Train your Dragon 2, and I fell in love with the soundtrack. 

We were welcomed with warm German arms at our friends place in Leigh for the evening to a Chilean styled feast for supper, too many hands of card to count, a snack of Maple Brie and Crackers (Mark and I take this dish everywhere as Maple is not that big in NZ and so many people are pleasantly surprised at the yummieness) and some fun conversation. The next morning we had a very-laid back stunning spread for brunch and then Mark and his friend played some tactical board games before we left mid afternoon. It was a lazy Sunday for all 4 of us, but it was a lovely day spent with friends. 

Mark and I did a cake later on in the week as he was really wanting to have an ice-cream styled cake. Unfortunately, we were unable to bring it to Matakana/Leigh as it would have melted on the drive up. 

A Visit from Aus

We were very lucky another Canadian accent (and a few Irish ones) around for a bit over the holiday term.

Martha, who graduated high school with us, has been living and working in Australia for the better part of a year. She and her two roommates, Laura and Emma, have taken off on a dream vacation that includes a few weeks here in New Zealand and then a few weeks traveling around Australia seeing all the sights.

They arrived in Auckland, picked up their camper van and headed this way. We were lucky enough to host the three girls for the evening and spent our time discussing all the things they want to do in New Zealand while they are here comparing it to what Mark and I have done, and what we would like to do in the coming time we are here. High on their list was Hobbiton, the glow worm caves, a Maori cultural experience and some of the geoformations unique to the area.

The next morning, after breakfast they were off to start their adventure. I know that Mark and I can't wait to hear what they get up to and add to our list of things we want to see and do in this most beautiful country.

Term Two: The End of the Beginning

I can hardly believe that it is Friday the 18th. Today is my last "official" day of holidays before I return to work on Monday to start Term Three. This post will be about my Term Two, and I’ll post a little later about my two week holiday period.

Term Two was a lot smoother than Term One. For starters, I already knew my kids, their personalities, their quirks and their preferred method of learning which lent itself well to experiment with a few different learning and teaching techniques and to get a bit more into the "hands on" approach I like to use. My kids are more used to my “quirky” sense of humour, my accent, the strange words I use for things (e.g. eraser instead of their word rubber) and we have a good time in class. Discipline *knock on wood* has slowed down and the learning has picked up.

We spent all of Term Two – all 9 weeks - working on "Measurement", here in New Zealand that means perimeter, area, surface area, volume, surface area to volume ratio, angles and measurement conversions (think how many millimeters in a meter). The kids did some great projects and activities and lots and lots (and lots!) of practice on these concepts.

My favorite activity was a newspaper one where we looked at the space on a page given to news articles and at advertisements. We calculated and compared areas, and then compared between different sections of newspapers and different newspapers. Some of the kids got really caught up in the news articles, which although was not part of the lesson, was exciting to see. The literacy rates at the school are on the lower end, and it is hard to find print that appeals to the students and is at their reading level.

The term was really busy for me as I took on a coordinating role within the junior school - basically deciding what parts of the curriculum will be taught to the Y9's and Y10's, in what order we will teach, laying out learning intentions for each week, putting together tests, answer keys and sourcing the resources that will be used. I loved the role, and the planning that goes with it. I’m looking forward to Term Three in that aspect.

I also took on coaching the junior (Y9 and Y10) soccer team. This team has kept me so busy! We have games every Wednesday, and practices on Thursday. So far, the girls I am coaching are ranked 3^rd in their division. They are playing really well together and are great at picking themselves up after a loss, which we experienced the last two weeks of play before the holidays. We have 3 more weeks of games and practices once the new term starts.

We also had Junior Exams at the end of the term - this lead to a stack of marking for me as I teach 5 different maths classes. Luckily, most of my students did well on the exams and had some really good homereports going home during the break.  We had the exams this year for the juniors (Y9 and Y10 students) as the Year 11, 12 and 13 students write external exams at the end of each year – pretty much standardized test, that are the same for all students in the country. 

The goal of these junior exams was to have students sit, and write a 2 hour exam to help prepare them for the exams in the coming years/reduce anxiety/mentally prepare them. For me, the exams were a great way to gauge how students were really responding to my teaching, what was working and what I need to work on for Term Three.

Some of my Junior Exams to be marked 

My favorite part of the term was watching the hall of fame grow. I continued to post names of those students who were successful beyond the basic "passing" on the back wall and some new students join the list of names and some from Term One repeat their appearance.

I also enjoyed working with the kids a lot more as they are much more “themselves” now than they were in Term One. Their sense of humour and their exploration of their own personalities has started to show and I really like who a lot of these kids are becoming as they grow up from “newbies” who are scared and nervous of most things related to college life to a bit more adult as they get comfortable with timetables, switching classes and workloads as well as navigating the bathrooms, canteen and free time.

I have not done too much more to the classroom in terms of decoration or changes, although I did acquire a filing cabinet which I am putting to good use housing worksheets, lesson and such teacher-related paper work. It's not the prettiest thing, but it is really functional and very handy. Who knows, maybe I will be inspired to paint it next holiday break to go with the decor of the room.

View out one of my windows towards the back half of the school grounds 

Looking to Term Three I see a lot more planning, some soccer and lots of tea (and coffee!) in my future. We are going to tackle statistics and probability for the next 10 weeks with a flashback at the end of term to some geometry concepts (Cartesian Plane, Lines) if there is time.

A quiet day at Tawhranui

To break up the long haul till our next vacation (which is unfortunately drawing to a close now), Mary-Ellen and I headed for a May weekend get-away at Tawhranui reserve. Just a quiet day to read, explore, and for Mary-Ellen, do a bit of knitting. We packed up the car with some beach gear and and some lunch and started up the coast. This was Mary-Ellen's first visit to the reserve, so we enjoyed the numerous sheep and pukeko birds wandering through the fields. We headed up to Anchor Bay to enjoy the nice soft white sand while we had some lunch. This of course attracted a number of gulls who became more and more brazen as we finished up. They often fought with each other, making deep shrill sounds that echoed across the relatively quiet bay.

We sat and enjoyed a bit of sun and warmth, that seemed to be fleeting these last few weeks as winter approached. The view was calm and serene, a nice change from the usual office scene, with no phone calls or computer screens. Aside from a handful of families and a surf club in the water, we practically had the whole beach to our selves.

After a while we packed up and headed out of the park, towards Jones Bay, at the entrance to the park. This beach is significantly different, where the white sand was replaced with the calm lapping of water on cobbles which created a muffled sound as they collided and slid downward as the water receded through them. Mary-Ellen enjoyed some more knitting in fading sunlight, while I went for a quick swim. Another wonderful view to enjoy before heading back to city and the rigors of everyday life.

Lion around at the end of the trip

On the final day, before we started the long journey back up the coast, we had one final stop. This next venture was something we had seen at the information centre, and Mary-Ellen couldn't help but insist on going. Buried deep in the countryside is a lion and trout breeding centre known as Paradise Valley Springs Wildlife Park. We were not sure exactly what to expect, given that most places like this that are far off the beaten path are often either completely dumps, with minimal care taken to presentation, or they are hidden gems. Lucky for us, this turned out to be the later. We ended up moving back and forth between exhibits to see the different shows that were scheduled, so I won't describe the actual journey, but talk a bit about each exhibit. 

One thing this wildlife park does is breed lions. In a large pen, there were several lions, two adult males, lots of females, and a nice set up with caves and rocks to jump on. Mostly they just laid around, but as feeding time approached, they began pacing back and forth. People were beginning to get a bit unnerved as the lions stared in one direction, that happened to have several people lying on some grass. Jokes were thrown around, some people moved away, and the theories were more than a tad ridiculous. Finally I had to point out that the gate behind those people was likely where they bring their dinner in. More and more people came in, crowding the fence, so I didn't get any good shots of feeding time, but the fellow who came to tell us about the pride and hurl chunks of meat over the fence was quite comical. To add a bit of biblical irony, the fellows name was Daniel.

There were a number of other animals in the park, from goats and lamas, pigs and kea parrots. They were all very interesting, but one of the best parts of the park was the ducks and the trout that inhabited streams and pools throughout the entire park. At the beginning, they provided us with a bag of fish food, so as we walked around the park, we tossed food into the water. Some pools had so much food in it, we avoided adding to the waste, while others were filled with voracious fish and waterfowl that often competed for tiny pieces of food, as fish swam and ducks dove after each morsel

But the real reason Mary-Ellen was drawn to this attraction was the promise of an opportunity to pet a lion cub. Although I am sure the first thing one imagines is cuddling the thing, the cubs were too old to have roaming around with humans. These things were no longer kittens as far as size goes, but they were definitely still in their youth as one lion pesters the other who was desperately trying to sleep. In a cage within a cage, the lions laid, waiting for the masses within their den to come patiently by, sticking their hands through the cage and softly, but firmly (as there winter coats were coming through and they were ticklish) pet them. 

There was a sense of pure wonder as I watched Mary-Ellen pet this over-sized pussycat that would one day be one of the top land predators. His huge paws were a clear sign that this would be a truly enormous cat some day, but for now, he was content to lay and sleep as we stroked its thick, soft coat. It was a great way to end a vacation with many new experiences crossed off our list: watch a geyser erupt, see a completely different form of organisms (archaebacteria), pet one of the most iconic land predators on earth, and of course all the rotten egg smelling geological formations along the way!

Old Geyser

We concluded our Wai-O-Tapu tour with a visit to the Lady Knox Geyser, christened so not by the person who discovered it, but by someone visiting it some time afterward. It has a more interesting story to its discovery, as the area in question was originally a prison camp. Some of the prisoners stumbled upon a hot spring and had the bright idea that they wouldn't need to drag their clothes long distances or boil the water to get the laundry done. Now at the time, there was no funnel, no real indication that there was any issue with this source of water, but the warm layer that they were to wash in was sitting above an underground layer of super heated water, building pressure below the cooler layer. After beginning to wash their clothes with some soap, they were surprised by a sudden gushing of water which eventually led to their frantic dash from the pool and the scattering of their clothing downstream of the springs after being launched high into the air. The soap had reduced the surface tension of the cooler spring waters which allowed the pressure from the super heated layer below to come explosively through.

This was the story our wonderful guide layed out for us, although mine is a condensed version. Eventually, the prisoners set the geyser off as entertainment, building up a cone to project the energy into a more focused blast. The super heated water contains dissolved silica, which was deposited all over the area  to create the mound in the picture. The guide jokingly clarified that "what we were looking at is a geyser", as he pointed to it, "not a geezer" as he gestured to himself. 

He then dropped in a packet of biodegradable soap and slowly wandered off. After a few minutes the water began to bubble out of the mouth of the geyser before it violently but rather abruptly shot to 25 metres in a rain of silica-rich, super heated water, accompanied by vast amounts of steam in the chilly air.

Finding out this geyser was manipulated by man rather than a natural eruption was a bit disappointing , however it was a magnificent example of how a little knowledge can be used in wonderful ways, as this was frankly by far the most impressive science experiment I have ever seen.

Wai-O-Tapu

Well, the next day, we woke up to a nasty surprise. As I attempted to shake the water off the tent, it turned out that it was actually ice. So after a much needed hot shower and a warm drink, we took off to Wai-O-Tapu. On our way out of the campground, we noticed a wonderful rental van, which we will be sure to check out the companies rates for when Mom and Dad come down.

We traveled down the foggy highway and turned down the road to the "thermal wonderland". We were greeted by this wonderful sign to add to the collection of awesome New Zealand signs.

Given our arrival was far earlier than the scheduled geyser eruption, we decided to venture into the primordial world of bubbling, super-heated chemical pools. There was an air of wonder that the mist added to this venture, and the dew clung to everything. 

The first part was a series of pits, holes, and caverns of silica and sulfur, numerous plumes of sulphurous gas bellowed up form the ground throughout the valley. Some of these formations were merely vents in appearance while others were lined with bubbling chemical pools of sulphur, silica mud, petroleum, and even graphite. Again, we found yet another wonderful sign, warning us to stay on the path.

Occasionally the path took us through some beautiful and rather mysterious woods, obscured by the heavy mist the hung throughout the valley. Being there so early, there were few people on the track with us, and the only sounds we could hear were the hissing of gases coming out of the ground and the bubbling of water.

Then, seeming to almost defy the wisdom of the signs, the path took us down directly alongside the bubbling water, even across areas that looked as though they could be submerged if the water level increased but a few centimetres. We toddled carefully across these areas, which provided us with some amazing geological sights. More steaming lakes, multicoloured with the various chemicals dissolved in the water, the most prominent being the stunning yellow sulphur.

Two particularly interesting features were the oyster pool and the sulphur mounds. Oyster pool was created by the buildup of silicate chemicals, continually forming a pool as overflowing water deposits the walls that hold the chemical rich water in. The sulphur mounds built up underwater but were exposed when the water level dropped and are a reminder of the ever changing environment.

As we approached the end of this excursion into the thermal wonderland, we headed up this massive buttress, silica deposited with the help of bacteria to form an enormous sheet over 150 metres long. This would lead us to the last couple attractions, and one of which was my main reason for going.

I am uncertain how I feel about the fog obscuring the champagne pool, but I did get to see it. At first glance it is a dark pool, bubbling up like champagne, and bordered with a thick orange sludge. It is colourful and pleasing to the eye but that is not what makes it so special. The orange fuzz that covers all the rocks along the edge are infact archaebacteria. This is a very special organism, like bacteria, but different enough to be classified in it's own kingdom (like the difference between animals and plants). Although these creatures are all around us, we can not see them, and they seem to thrive in areas where no other organisms can survive such as these super-heated, chemical pools. This was a chance to add an entire kingdom of organisms to the list of creatures I have seen, something most people will never see, or at least know they have seen them!

Having seen what I thought to be the last of the amazing sights in this part of the park and being content that I could cross something off my life-time to-do-list, we headed to the exit. Wai-O-Tapu held one last treasure, a unique pool known as the Devil's Bath. This pool is sulphur laden and exhibits an extraordinary green colouration. I had definitely popped the cork too quickly with the champagne pool, for I was a bit awestruck by this gem. The lime green waters were unlike any other pool we had encountered from the Waimangu to Wai-O-Tapu. We took a few shots and after checking our watches, we realized we had to move to be on time for the geyser. We happily finished our tour, picked up an appropriate magnet of the devil's bath, and headed to our next thermal extravaganza.