Cassette VS Alex and Amy....

The arrival at Ashgrove State School was nothing less than expected! The people there are just absolutely amazing, and the students are a dream! Every child in our classes are incredibly talented in a multitude of things, whether it's sports, music, drama, they've done it all! There are virtually zero behavior issues with our grade levels, and from what I can tell, within the school as a whole. The children are so polite and willing to help, that it makes me feel just so great to be a part of their day. Not only are the students polite and helpful, but they actually WANT to be at school. The teachers here are respected a great deal; think England! Our school reminds Alex and I of the movie Matilda actually. There is just so much we can do with our students it's amazing!

More than all of this, the students are willing to learn and want to hear about your lessons. They are engaged most of the day, and this is due to the amount of time they get outside of the class I think. The school day starts at 9, they have recess/snack (they call it "morning tea" hehe) for half an hour at 11, classes start again at 11:30. Lunch is at 1 until 1:45, and then they only have another hour and fifteen minutes til school is done! They are ALWAYS outside because, well, it's Brisbane and the weather allows for that. So really, these students are just happier in general! Kids need activity and stimulation outdoors for them to succeed indoors..I believe..and here they get it every day! Think about all of the time that our students are cooped up indoors..the entire day 6-7 months of the year. You can see a marked difference in the kids here and the kids back home. Not that we can help the weather, I'm just saying it's interesting that the differences are that severe!

On top of all of this, our students are doing a unit on the outback (huh????) and Alex and I know nothing of this! Tonight, our assignment was to study two dances, Strip the Willow (quite scottish actually..Laura, we did this one the night the old man put me on the floor...long story folks), and the Little Brown Jug. These dances are part of the curriculum here..I believe...and they're called Bush Dance styles. Mostly they have a lot of English/Scottish influence. Now, I know what most of you are thinking. "sawweeeettt! Amy and Alex would be amazing at this!" and yes, we thought so too....of course, Alex packed his leg warmers, and I, my leotard. However, we didn't anticipate the music being on cassettes! Tammy...we need your help on this one!

So we get home here, and we're like....k, this is no problem at all! um....yea it is! First, luckily, our family we're staying with HAS a cassette player (Tim and I spent a few minutes this afternoon thinking this would be a huge obstacle...but luckily, not so much!). So we get to the basement here, pop the tape in, no sound. No big deal, just rewind. So we do. Still no sound. After about ten minutes of this, we finally found the song ("Tell my ma, when I go home, the boys won't leave the girls alone..."). We played it a bit, then rewound the entire side...or so we thought. Alex and I then spent the next half hour...mostly spent with Alex on the floor frustrated to the max, as to why we couldn't get the song back. People...cassettes are harder than they look to operate these days!!!! In a day of technological advancements wayyyy farrrrr beyond that of a cassette..we have lost how to truly work the machines that were, and still are, the nuts and bolts to our technological age now. Either that, or this machine is just messed! I choose the latter.

As we fiddled with the player for another few minutes, we played the tape, and constantly the tone would go so low and slow, that it sounded like, "An old 30's VHS tape!!!" (Alex, in one of his frustrated states). It sounded like an old cow mooing, it was going so slow!!!! Alex thought perhaps the tape/woman on the tape had undergone a sex change over the past few minutes.

Soooo low and behold, Alex and I jumped on our laptops, said screw the god damned cassettes, and pulled up, within seconds I might add, songs for these dances on youtube.

Lesson complete.

Amy and Alex-1

Cassette-0