28 October, 1998

This morning I was able to talk to a group of 5th/6th graders here in New Zealand. I ate breakfast at the hotel and caught a shuttle to Waimairi School (Ms. Joss O'Conner's classroom, Room 10). I arrived around 8:30, met the principal, Mr. Phil Harding, who showed me to the classroom. The school was laid out in separate buildings connected with canopied walkways. My classroom was fairly close to the main building, and when I arrived I was surrounded by curious kids. The room was alive with color-- lots of art work on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. Their desks were arranged in groups of 4 to 8, and there was a "happy" air about the room. Phil introduced me to the kids and asked them to look after me, since their teacher hadn't arrived yet. One of their first questions was,"Wow, how tall are you?" For those of you who know me, this is an obvious question; for those of you who don't, you need to know that I am 6'1" (a giant woman, to say the least)...

Their teacher, Ms. O (as she is called by the students), was a little late due to the rain falling quite heavily outside, but when she arrived, I was able to answer questions about my trip and about myself. They thought I had a really "cool" accent (I've always wanted to have a really "cool" accent!), and they wanted to know all about America. It's hard to explain America when it is really such a big place and the various sections of it are really so very different. They asked questions like,"Is it really true that you can hail a cab by waving your hand from the curb?"(too many New York movies), "Do you really have brown smog that covers the ground?" (one thing we Minnesotans know very little about, but since I've lived in L.A., I tried to explain this to them),"Do they really talk like this, 'I'm gonna pahk the cah'?" (simulating the Bostonian accent of the East Coast), and "Do you see a lot of movie stars in America?" Other questions centered around what I would be doing in Antarctica and how I would communicate with them. They were a true delight! I couldn't believe how attentive and interested they were. They wanted to share what they were doing with me, and wanted me to share my upcoming experiences with them. Following my discussion with the students, I stayed a little longer so that I could watch the classroom in action. One of the girls came up to tell me that they were going to do "brine shim" (or I thought she said that)...it turns out that they do brain gym which is simply exercises to wake up the brain (what I call brain breaks in my classroom). They then went through a dialogue lesson (on how to make dialogue interesting as well as how to correctly write dialogue). All in all, I had a great time...

At about 10:30 am, I returned to the NSF building to catch up on e-mail and journal entries. Early in the afternoon, I went back to the hotel, relaxed, and packed one more time. We are scheduled to leave for McMurdo tomorrow morning. The shuttle is picking us up at 4:15 am for a reporting time of 4:45 am at the CDC. I have a good feeling about this attempt...

Nina and I did some last minute looking at the shops downtown Christchurch and then had dinner at the Mythai Restaurant in town with some Antarctica people from our hotel. We returned to the hotel to relax and finalize our bag packing. Tomorrow will be the day we get to the coldest continent...I just know it!

Waimairi School, Room 10-- my NZ classroom visit