Tales of a Traveling Teacher

Most mornings I walk to school as it is just a ten minute walk, but today I drove because right after school, I headed to Heathrow where I am now waiting to hop a flight to Belfast. I realized this morning that even when it is frigid outside, I might as well walk because it took me nearly as long to defrost my windows. Kelly did leave some amazing de-froster spray that worked almost like magic, but it was certainly not something I'm used to. Don't get me wrong, it gets cold in Alabama, but never for all that long, and usually not this early! The car reads temperature in Celsius. When I got in this morning, it read -1, and when I got back in the car just before four, it read 1. Brrrr... And for a nice contrast... :)

Several years ago, a dear friend of mind, a true visionary, Lisa, thought that there was something more we could do to ensure our elementary-aged girls were ready for the middle school.  So, with her wonderful guidance and vision, we started a girls club with the 4th and 5th graders where we talked about all sorts of girl stuff while also encouraging girls to grow and cut their hair for Locks of Love.  Locks of Love is an organization which uses donations of real hair to make wigs for children who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments. We also talk about self-esteem, staying healthy, friendships, ways to stand up for yourself and even some of the best comebacks that help you keep your class at the same time!  In May, at our last meeting, a hair stylist comes to the school for our "Cut Day" party.  It is probably one of my favorite events of the year.  The girls who are cutting are nervous and excited, with family and friends around to support them. ...

I decided to do a bit of shopping tonight at the mall in Milton Keynes. The mall is all decked out for Christmas; the only thing missing was the shoppers! I was there at about 6:30 and it was practically dead with only a portion of the stores open! I was shocked, but man, it was a nice shopping experience!

Today, I want to share a photo of my friends and I from this weekend.  I'm so thankful for all of my new UK friends who have been amazingly welcoming to me.  They've made me feel at home even though I'm thousands of miles away from home.  There is no way that I could get through each and every day without their help and support. I'm also incredibly thankful for the friendships I have with my fellow Fulbrighters.  It is amazing how quickly we have bonded and how close we have all become.  Though we are all quite different, we are all in the same boat, sharing similar experiences this year.  It's been so much fun to have them! Not only can we cook a pretty good meal together, but we also know how to have a laugh, and we've had plenty of those: including this self-timer photo that all of the sudden included, "Quick, everybody grab a utensil!"

Do you remember as a child knowing exactly what your favorite color was?  Some people grow out of that, while others keep a subtle favorite amongst the rainbow of colors that surround us.  Myself, well, I can't hide my favorite color, nor would I ever try!  My room at home is a lovely lavender color, my lunchbox is purple with polka-dots, my winter coat is purple, my purse is purple, the ring I wear each day has an amethyst stone even though my birth stone is a sapphire, and at one point I even owned purple boots.  Purple seems to follow me where ever I go, or perhaps it is that I follow purple where ever it goes. Nevertheless, when I saw this canvas that the Christmas Fayre yesterday with a clipping of "supremely happy," I decided there couldn't be a more perfect souvenir for me!

I celebrated two of my favorite holidays this weekend and had a wonderful time! In Hull this weekend, four American girls had our first attempt at cooking a Thanksgiving meal!  We started the day with a full breakfast, and barely left the kitchen until we sat down for dinner.  The four of us spent the day slicing, chopping, sautéing, baking, and cooking!  I'm very thankful for Stephanie, her bravery in cleaning out the turkey and her guidance in the kitchen!  Thanks to her coordination, planning and knowledge, our meal turned out absolutely beautiful! We feasted on turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, stuffing, root vegetables and sweet potato casserole!  I honestly don't know how people cook the whole meal on their own, for it was a true team effort for the four of us and we had a fabulous time together! Then, we feasted.  We sat at a table decorated with some pumpkins, candles, and even Thanksgiving paper products.  We talked about all of the ...

I drove to Hull, three hours north, last night to be with a few other Fulbrighters to celebrate Thanksgiving. We had a great day of cooking, feasting and counting our many blessings!

Tonight the PTA is hosting a quiz night for a fundraiser with an American theme and I even got to make up some of the questions! And my American Studies class helped to make some decorations.

Words cannot begin to express how full I am tonight, and not just from the food. It was strange waking up on Thanksgiving morning, getting ready for work and not watching the parade. Many children came up to me this morning on the playground and wished me a "Happy Thanksgiving" before I could wish them one!  One of my pupils even made a cake for me!  I received cards, festive decorations and lots of well wishes from the staff.  I enjoyed making thankful turkeys with my students this morning and sharing with them even more about the purpose of Thanksgiving, but I had no idea what was headed my way. I received this invitation on my desk this morning... When I arrived in the Food Tech Room, I was blown away!  One class had made hand prints of what they were thankful for to add to the decorations, the table was set with festive fall decorations and there was loads and loads of food!  Behind my back, the staff had gotten together and planned a Thanksg...

Today, I had the opportunity to share with the kids about a very special and unique American holiday.  Thanksgiving, I've realized over the last few weeks, is something truly special, a beautiful holiday set aside to be with family and friends as we are reminded of all of the many blessings in our lives.  We have set aside a national holiday to give thanks.  How beautiful! I was thrilled that during a busy week at school, we were able to hold an assembly for all of year 5 and 6 (about 225 kids) so that I could share with the kids all about Thanksgiving.  I first started off by telling the kids that part of the reason for this exchange was not only to learn about our differences in education, but also as an opportunity for me to share some about my home country. I told them about the pilgrims, those brave, courageous people who left the home they knew here in England to travel to an unknown land.  I talked about how the pilgrims arrived in late fall and how...

Tonight, Charlotte and I went to see a play performed in a neighboring village, a community theatre production.  The village hall was beautiful.  I must admit that I am very envious of the village halls here - they all seem to have stages, a small kitchen and a huge space for performances, meetings, yoga or whatever.  I know that our community centers at home have that as well, but the old creaky wooden floors add to the charm rather than the linoleum that you'll find on the ones at home. The cast and crew obviously put in a lot of work and time to make this production successful.  The 15-or-so member crew of the orchestra was very impressive, but it was quite a challenging musical production to be put on by such a small village.  The cast of nearly 40 people probably averaged an age of 65.  I must admit that when the men all stepped forward to take a bow and a row of shiny heads was facing the audience, I  gave a little chuckle. However, like I ...

Even being thousands of miles from the food celebrations that will happen this week, I somehow got the "it's time to cook" bug this Thanksgiving week!  This past weekend I made about 4 recipes worth of sausage and cheese balls (which have been a huge hit here!) to put in the freezer for upcoming celebrations and to share with others.  I'm also baking some more cookies to share on Thanksgiving day, so I made the dough for that tonight to start the process.  And last, but certainly not least, I made my grandmother's sausage biscuits. They are nothing all too complicated, these pinwheel biscuits, but oh they are delicious.  I know they are tasty, but I also know that one of the main reasons I love them so much is because I always think of her when I make them.  I was only nine when she passed away, and so unfortunately many of the memories I have of her have faded.  I don't think the smell of those homemade biscuits wafting up the stairs is something I could...

I really have no idea why, but I've never really watched the Bond films.  I'm typically a romantic comedy person, but I have to admit that I love Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and of course Indiana Jones, but for some reason the James Bond films have just never struck a cord with me, or perhaps it is just because I haven't given them a proper try before. But when two of my friends suggested we go see it, I didn't dare to say no!  It is the year of "yes," and hey, it's James Bond and I'm in England!  The film did not disappoint.  It was fantastic!  Some great cinematography, great action scenes, beautiful scenery and of course catching the bad guy after all sorts of explosions and car chases.  (I'm fairly certain that anybody who has seen a Bond film can guess this basic plot line, so I hope I did not just give something away!) I had a great time and am now very intrigued to go back in time and watch more of the series... perhaps I'll start wit...

Tonight I had the absolute treat to go to a local venue and see the Woburn Sands Band perform.  The band consists of people from age 2 up to, well, much older!  The band is divided into different groups based on ability; the youngest ones, the little recorder players, did not play tonight, but four different groups within the 100+ member band played this evening.  Some groups were mainly children with adults sprinkled throughout and some groups were mainly adults with children sprinkled without. The school had been given a few free tickets and I was lucky enough to snag one of these VIP front row tickets so that I could clearly see (and they could see me!) seven of my students and multiple other Fulbrook pupils. It was very impressive to see so many people of so many different ages enjoying playing together.  They played some great hits such as "Super Trouper," "Rolling in the Deep," "500 Miles," and "Haven't Met You Yet," before the enti...

I had a blast celebrating Thanksgiving with my American Studies class this afternoon!  We ate sweet potato casserole, decorated turkey cookies, read a Thanksgiving story, made "thankful" turkeys and watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving. As you can only imagine, decorating cookies was a huge hit.  The icing was often piled an inch high, but the biggest hit was the candy corn that I had to special order as most of the kids had never had them! The children really seemed to enjoy it and I believe that they understood what the holiday is all about.  It's a time to be with those we love and give thanks for all of the many blessings we have in our lives, and I've got so very many things to be thankful for!

I know that Thanksgiving is a week away, but I decided to celebrate Thanksgiving with my American Studies class tomorrow, the Friday before, rather than the Friday afterwards.  So, I did a bit of baking to prepare... The sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top is by far my favorite part of the meal, so I decided I would share it with these kiddos even though I've never made it before!  It was a success, although I had trouble getting the pink marshmallows to brown! :) Turkey cookies with made from scratch cookie dough were a success and will be even cuter when decorated! :) Does this really need a caption?  I'm loving the cider here and I decided that I was going to be in the kitchen for a while, so why not? 

I'm not really much of a cook.  I do enjoy baking, but as for cooking a proper meal, there are very few things in my repertoire, so my friends and guests tend to end up with the same meals when they come around.  I am not an expert in the kitchen, so substituting ingredients is something I rarely feel comfortable with. All that being said, when I have really wanted to make something here, shopping can be a bit stressful.  I'm looking for ingredients that I know at home, and while I'm finding most of them, many have different names I'm not accustomed to, they are sold in different amounts and of course they are not always on the isle where I would expect to find them at home. Earlier this week, I made a big trip to Tesco, my local grocery store, which is similar to a Super Wal-Mart and has everything you could want from yoga mats to scarves to bananas to shampoo to freshly baked muffins.  It is a blessing to have everything in one place, but often times, it is ove...

Last week the school had Open Evening where prospective pupils and their parents came into the school to see if it might be the right place for them.  At home, children go to the school where they live or pay to go to private schools.  Here, children typically choose to go to school nearby, but they do not have to.  I find that this makes the schools a little more competitive, but then again, competition is always good when it encourages you to excel. For Open Evening, I invited a few of my kiddos in to help me present some of the things we had been learning about.  I wanted to have something that the kids could do without a whole lot of instructions as I didn't know how many questions parents may have and something that was enjoyable and engaging for my kids and for those walking around.  I believe it was a success as several prospective students stopped and played maths games, designed a book cover, played some vocabulary games and what-not.  I must bra...

Stephanie and I had many hours in the car to and from Durham, and with little more to entertain us but each other, we found the road signs incredibly entertaining.  Like the fact that all of the road signs on our journey up said: The NORTH and on our way home said The SOUTH.  There are also little signs alerting you that an exit is approaching.  It in fact is a countdown of 3... 2... 1... EXIT!  It is amazing how much fun that seemed while we were on our fourth hour of driving... :) First views of Durham Cathedral Some of the hallways of Hogwarts in #1 and 2 "Eat Slugs!" happened on this beautiful courtyard! 325 steps later, there is a gorgeous view of the city! Then we had high tea!  Absolutely delicious and full of sugar! On Sunday morning, we went to visit Beamish, a living museum set up as a town, village and farm area from 1913.  This is the dentist's office where it was cheaper to pull a tooth (which coul...