Getting to know the teachers...

  Hello everyone!  I will begin this entry with a recap of the end of last week as well as the weekend.  Friday was the first Friday of February so there was a mass held in the school hall.  Each mass is coordinated by a different class in the school and this past Friday was fifth class.  I was very interested to see how the mass was done since I had never seen one before.  It lasted about 30 min and was very similar to a regular Sunday mass at any Catholic church.  In a way I contributed to the mass because I taught one of the classes a song that was sung at the closing of mass.  The girls sang beautifully and as I looked around I saw nothing but smiles as proud parents were able to see their little ones belting out the tune of "Spring is Here".  I was very happy to see my girls remembering the words and singing loudly for all to hear.  A lot of work was done in preparation of the mass and I can understand how important it is to the class that performs.  The remainder of the day on Friday was just as usual.  I was finishing up my kite project with my class.  I also spent time listening to girls read aloud as well as changing their library books.  In addition I also spent some time with my group working on the sports around the world project.  It is coming along nicely and will hopefully be done by this week Friday!

   Friday night was particularly fun because I was invited to go to a movie with some of the teachers at school.  I got picked up from my host families house and we all met up at the local Listowel theatre.  It has only 3 theatre screens and like America, it is quite the hang out for local school children.  I was warned by the teachers as school that we would see some of our students roaming around and sure enough we were greeted by about 20 of our students.  I can see why most of the teachers make trips out of Listowel for the weekend in order to get away and rejuvenate for the following week.  Saturday I got a ride from another teacher at school to go shopping in Tralee.  She is taking a masters course there and offered me a lift so that I could do some shopping for my family and friends at home.  This was so nice!  I stayed and walked around all day.  I was exhausted!  That night I stayed in and watched a movie with my host family and woke up to a relaxing Sunday catching up on any work to be done as well as doing some laundry.  Sunday afternoon I went to a different beach then the one I was taken to my first weekend in Listowel and it was gorgeous!  I have never seen such amazing views before!  All in all it was a great day.

   This week is moving along very nicely.  I am finally finished today with my kite art project.  The girls were very excited to take their kites home and show their families.  I also got a lot of work done with my group researching the American culture through sports.  I have noticed it is very difficult to get research projects done because there is only one classroom computer and no actual library or resource center with computers available.  This makes it harder to get much needed research done because of limited resources.  Not all students have computers at home or are able to print documents off so more time is needed to work in class.  Hopefully we will be done by Friday with this project.  I was able to try Irish dancing for the first time today.  It was so much fun and I can see how the girls get so warm doing it!  I did a series of three dances and was laughing the whole time.  All of the dances I took part in were partner dances and my partner was leading.  It was so funny to see our height difference and watch her as she swung me around and showed me where to go.  More often then not I was stepping on her toes!  I had a wonderful time and will hopefully get better as time goes on!  

   I am excited for the rest of the week because I have been asked to work with the girls in writing and science.  For writing I have been asked to come up with a story to read to the class.  After this story is read we will make a class book on the same topic but related to the girls in our class.  I have decided to do a book about birthdays and can not wait to get started with the girls.  My next project is to work with the girls on a science experiment.  I do not know much of the details for this topic but will find out more tomorrow.  It is a topic that my teacher suggests that I use and I will gather everything I need later this week as I learn more about it.  I hope that everyone is finding their week to be more along smoothly and I will write again soon!  Slan!