Teach Children: Check.

On Tuesday, I officially finished all of my assignments for the semester, and today was the last day of my practicum (being in the schools) so my semester is completely finished! I still won't be home for just under 4 weeks though, cause I have a lot of the world to see before I'm done over here. Starting tomorrow morning we will leave for Hamilton and Rotarua, then I will be home for a day, gone for another week, home for two days, then off to Australia, then off to Samoa, so don't be offended if I don't respond for a couple of days because I don't know where I'll have internet and where I won't! At the very least, I'll be home in 4 weeks and we can chat then :)First of all, can't ever get enough of these sunsets. That's basically all. Except the sky looked SO much cooler apprx 3 minutes before this- it goes too fast!

Monday started out fun a super chill day at school, then we had FHE plans that night! We went to the Olsen's house for dinner and FHE as we did a couple of weeks ago, and we just love it there! They have six kids ages 3-15 and the parents are the sweetest and most welcoming people. We have been so lucky to have them in our ward here. This is the five year old, Vanz who is clearly a ladies' man.

On Tuesday I spent lunch learning how to haka with some of the boys in my class. I had asked them a while ago if they know how to do it and all assured me they were pros, but I may or may not have forgotten that at age 6, kids still think they are really good at everything even when they could use a little more practice. Needless to say Kapa (far right) went home that night and learned it for real so he could re-teach me before I left :)

Today was a GREAT last day! We had a little field trip to a nearby park for a rubbish clean-up which we walked to, cleaned up, played on the playground, and walked back from. The rest of the day was just playing and swimming, but with so much lovin in between! The staff had a surprise lunch planned for us of tasty finger foods, my kids made me a HUGE card (which they all signed but all within the same 3" square, most were spelled right so that's a plus), I got lots of hugs (which I later found out is not really supposed to happen as a teacher, my bad), lots of "I'll miss you miss..." with all variations of Goode at the end (such as Cood, Google, Goose, Coo), but the best were the "I love you"'s from the little terrors in my class that I send to "the blue desk" several times a day! Seriously, little Chance who used to be so bad, and still is for most except for me, made it all worth it when he sheepishly came to play with me and just kept saying "I'm gonna miss you, misses" under his breath. I love this job.

We had lots of time this afternoon to just play and have fun, and of course refine our haka. Farewell Room 21!

Some highlights from the past couple weeks:

Deb: Rrrrr, what letter says rrrr?

Selwyn: Tiger!

Levi was telling me to say hi to his dad when I go to Samoa: Go to the bank, cause he's stuck in a cage at the bank because he stole a bunch of money. His name is Rio....(some super long name) (sad, but just funny how he said it)

Ms. W: What does fantastic mean?

Levi: Good-As?

The next 3 answers were -as answers.

Mrs. Hobson: Why doesn't he want Monkey to steal his shoes?

Bailey: Cause he doesn't want monkey toe jams in it!

Some of my students asked Jessica (Miss Bringhurst) what her name was, but they couldn't say it, so they asked: Can we just call you Miss Goode?

Norhan: Sometimes you can't even walk because there is so much poop everywhere.

Me: Where? (She had told me yesterday that Ana had pooped in the bathroom so I thought she was referring to that or something)

Norhan: In Thailand. (She has told me everyday for the past 6 weeks about her trip to Thailand that has been in 14 or 17 days every day since I arrived. Usually its about the high-heels for kids or the beautiful dresses or the swimming pool from which you can see all of Thailand, so this was a first)

Levi came rushing out of the changing room, shirtless as usual, and told Jess and me that Paerata had thrown someone's underwear over the wall into the girls changing room, so we told him we'd go get it and he said: It's black, and really dirty!

(Sick, you go get it then!)

I have never been asked so many times in one week (let alone one day) when I'm going home to Australia. I think it's cause Levi likes to ask me how things are back in Australia and it has kind of gotten stuck in everyone's head. Finally yesterday I stopped the class and reminded them I'm from America, not Australia so today when Levi said something about me and Australia, I said, "Where am I from again?" and he immediately said America...so somewhere he's not making the connection.