And so it ends...(well not yet)

After several months of learning, teaching, grueling paper typing and stress my journey of student teaching is done....Finally.  The journey is still not over yet as I still have two weeks of adventuring left starting with tomorrow I am going white water rafting where there is a 25 foot water fall drop that we raft over!!  Then I am flying to the south island where I am going to solo hike some of the best hiking the world has to offer, but enough about future adventures this is what has happened recently.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, about the only constant thing has been running.  The redwoods are only a 15 minute walk from my house and draw me...the most beautiful endless running and biking trails I have ever encountered.  I go to the woods and I get lost in my mind and the sifting shadows filtering through the giant redwoods.  I have never been entirely too keen running long distance and have always resisted it and had to convince myself that it was "fun".  For some reason running in the redwoods possesses me and I am taken away and then I wake up and I have ran 15 or more kilometers.  The end of the year happened with a flash and was done.  I finished typing my required paper for MSU (51 pages) and got quickly on to relaxing and indulging in the festivities.  In my classes I taught things like how to make peanut brittle or hokey poky as they call it here.  The last day (Tuesday)  I went to school and we had prize giving (similar to America's awards night), interesting enough the principal gave me a send off in front of the school lasting longer than the teachers that had been on staff all year that were leaving.  The awards ended and I booked it home for my final paper review with my supervisor...and she was late as usual.  Grrr one thing I am eternally tired of here in New Zealand is constantly having to wait for people being late, maybe I need to relax my punctuality.  That night we had our staff party on an old renovated steam boat out on the lake, the boat was named "The Lakeland Queen".  What a great night!  We got on deck and were handed champagne with strawberries in it, and then the party was on as the boat slowly motored around the lake.  There was a gift exchange followed by a massive feed with desert and then....a crazy Christmas dance!  Needless to say the staff had a lot of pent up energy after four long terms of difficult students and it got a bit crazy, and some of it I am not at liberty to divulge what happened....(this is where I cut off and you use your imagination, okay not that dirty...sheesh)

So here are a few pictures of the school and some people, oh ya mom just to let you know I have a Kiwi girlfriend that I have never talked about....she is a cutie I included some pics of her!

the school I worked at

staff room

the science block

this is where all the magic happened (lesson plan magic that is)

My boss

can you smell the sweat and frustration?

the lovely little old tea lady Isobell from Scotland, she made sure I had coffee and was well fed

oh the keys how I worked to obtain thee and I am sad I must give you up

sunset from The Lakeland Queen

My kiwi girlfriend!  Okay not a girl friend ma but a cute little sausage

the little sausage having alligator time