Hey y'all!

The Final Chapter....

2010-06-25T02:27:00.000-07:00

So as I close this 4 month-ish blog... I wanted to finish by giving some highlights from the last part of our travels....

From San Francisco we flew to Pittsburgh and had a much more chilled out experience with some friends while also touring the city and visiting the theme park Kennywood for the day.
After Pittsburgh we drove to Philadelphia and visited the Liberty Bell and other touristy spots around the city.

We took a day trip to Washington DC which I think has become my favourite place we visited, it was so beautiful and historic! We managed to see Barrack Obama drive by in a limo as well as being thoroughly impressed with the famous Abraham Lincoln and the WW2 memorial among many other things. I was really surprised at how small the White house was!!!

From Philadelphia we drove to New Jersey where we stayed with a family who were about a 40 minute bus journey from New York City. New York City was absolutely incredible and totally lived up to expectation with Times Square being top of the list on the things to see... not least because Ruth was surprised by her boyfriend Phil right in the middle of it and proposed too!! Meeting Whitney from the TV show 'The Hills' just outside Central Park was another highlight along with watching some of the filming of the 'Smurfs' movie which is to be released in the future. We managed to get a picture of one of the celebrities from it, Barney from 'How I Met Your Mother...' We ended up feeling thoroughly star struck by the end of it all!

Seeing so much of the United States following our time in Mississippi was such a privilege... it was amazing to see the diversity of each and every State and I love that now everytime I'm watching an American sitcom or movie I can continually say 'I've been there!!!!!!' :)

From the Deep South to the West Coast!

2010-05-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Ruth and I left Mississippi and headed for the West coast to spend a week with her sister and brother-in-law in Foster City, San Francisco. When we arrived on Saturday night we headed out for a meal at the ‘Stinking Rose’ called this because of the fact that the entire menu consists of garlic in some shape or form... garlic quickly became a theme for the week as it managed to make its way into a lot of our food! We took a walk around Broadway and I was struck by the diversity of this big city and the sights and sounds all around. We ended our night by driving to twin peaks where we took a look at the city skyline at night, it was a cool sight.

On Sunday we went to Central Peninsula church and heard a guest speaker, the famous tennis player, Michael Chang, give his testimony, it was really encouraging and we managed to get some signed tennis balls after church! We had lunch and then drove to Stanford university where we walked around and took pictures of the different buildings there, it has the largest campus in the whole of America and was definitely a lot bigger than Stranmillis or Ole Miss!

We headed into downtown San Francisco on Monday and spent time exploring the big city... After being together for almost 4 months Ruth and I have got to the stage where we are almost one person (!!!!) and this was evident in one particular shop we visited... We both had to get a dress for weddings we’re going to at home this Summer and Ruth came into the changing room and told me she wanted me to look at something. I was already in the changing room and had on a gorgeous dress I was really excited about showing her and was thinking of buying, we both came out of the changing rooms and there we were standing in exactly the same dress and we both ended up buying it! Study abroad with one person does weird things to you! We made a visit to Chinatown and I felt like I had somehow flown right into China it had such an authentic feel to it. On Monday night it was Jones’s birthday and so we headed out to get Chinese food at a local restaurant, I tried a lot of things I had never had before including little dragon bread!

By Tuesday it was time to get down to some serious sightseeing and so we headed back into San Francisco but this time steered clear of the shops and headed straight for the famous cable cars on Powell Street that took us the whole way to Fisherman’s wharf, Ghirardelli square and Pier 39. I loved going to each of these places... Ghirardelli square was the first stop, famous as this was the place where the Ghirardelli chocolate was made for most of its history, now it has a shop dedicated to selling chocolate and many other little boutiques and pretty arts and crafts stalls. Fisherman’s wharf was a mixture of tourist attractions, shops, street performers and other random Americans (including a man who you paid to take a photo with his two dogs who were wearing sunglasses!!!)! There was loads to see and do in the wharf and pier 39 was an even cooler experience, it even had a store completely dedicated to the left handed (Dad) and we made sure to go and see the famous sea lions who line the dock.

The highlight of my sightseeing in San Francisco was by far the visit we took to Alcatraz on Wednesday, being a history major I loved getting to see the prison after hearing and reading so much about it. The tour began with an escape tour given by one of the rangers who told us of the various escape attempts that had happened, including an inmate who made it to the rocks of San Francisco Bay but had become so deluded from the cold and the sea water that he lay down and was lifted by the coast guard who sent him back! It was a really interesting but also pretty grim visit! After visiting the island prison we headed for a closer look at the golden gate and got some pretty good pictures there, we visited the small town of Solsalito and following this the famous Lombard Street, famous for being the windiest street in the world!

Getting most of our sightseeing done we spent Thursday in a Mall in San Francisco and after that took another drive down to the pier and finished the day going to the huge cinema there to see Iron Man 2.

On Friday morning we started out on our epic road trip, the plan was to drive along the coast from San Francisco all the way to Los Angeles, an 8 hour drive, meaning we got to see a whole lot more of California in one day! The first stop we made was in Monterey Bay where we visited the famous aquarium there, it was the coolest aquarium I’ve ever been in...huge tanks with more fish than I knew existed but the jellyfish were by far my favourite, the way they had been placed and lit up made them look like a work of art! Following this we stopped by a seaside town called Carmel and then drove on along windy roads with awesome scenery, through Big Sur and past Malibu until we arrived in Los Angeles that night. Our first stop was to Hollywood Boulevard where we did the Walk of Fame, checking out all the famous names on the stars and after getting something to eat seeing the Kodak Theatre where the Oscars are held and the hands and feet of the stars outside the Chinese Theatre. First impressions of Hollywood weren’t great, a lot of very weird people around and not as glamorous as I anticipated!!!

The next day we headed to Universal Studios where we were going to spend the day... this is definitely the highlight for me of all the things we’ve done while being here in the States! The day started off well getting to see sets from some of my favourite shows including Wisteria Lane where Desperate Housewives is filmed, other shows included CSI, Parenthood, Law and Order, 24 and many more! The Studio Tour took us round lots of famous sets and showed us a lot of the behind the scenes goings on at Universal! After this we made our way around all the rides, Shrek 4d, Waterworld, The Simpsons, Terminator 2, House of Horrors (never been so scared in all my life!!!), Jurassic Park, The Mummy and others... it was an awesome day out from start to finish! Before we began our trip back to San Francisco we stopped off to see the famous Hollywood sign in the hills, we also walked along Rodeo Drive but didn’t see any celebrities and our final stop was Venice Beach and Santa Monica... It was a busy but amazing weekend!

We headed back to Central Peninsula church on Sunday and spent the rest of the afternoon, reading and chilling out.

I had an amazing time seeing California and have plenty of pictures to prove it... I am looking forward to what the East Coast has to offer now. We’re flying to Pittsburgh today, it is a 5 hour flight...still haven’t got used to the size of America!

Saying goodbye to all things Southern...and never feeling so Southern before in all my life!!

2010-05-09T17:46:00.000-07:00

I survived 3 months in Mississippi!!

Hey y’all... this may have been the last week I hear the overuse of this phrase on a daily basis and it makes me sad... I’m bringing it home... I think Lisburn needs a little more y’alls and a little less yous!

3 months after we began our adventures at Ole Miss the time came to say goodbye and to move on to the next stage of our journey as we begin our travels home. We are told our lives are like a vapour and I feel like this is true for how fast the time on Study Abroad has gone. I feel like the older I get the more I discover that you never really know how much you love someone until you have to say goodbye. I am going to miss so many good friends that I have built relationships with over the past few months. On Monday we began what seemed like a never ending list of goodbyes and the process of dismantling our room back to it’s prison cell style! Dismantling didn’t really begin however until Thursday night when it hit us that we actually had to start packing up our lives and getting ready to fill a jumbo jet with it all!

We made the most of the sunshine and headed out to the beach beside Lake Sardis for some serious tanning on Monday followed by a trip to look at the boats along the marina. I had my first wakeboarding lesson and being a bit of a self-confessed whimp I did pretty well, almost managing to stand and persevering for half an hour before I eventually gave up because I’d swallowed so much lake water.

One thing that is really cool about being at Ole Miss this semester is that the semester we choose to be there is the semester that the Hollywood movie the ‘Blindside’ is released and shoots Ole Miss into the spotlight...going home I’m looking forward to saying with pride I was a student at Ole Miss and for people knowing where that is and relating it to such a cool movie. We watched it again on Monday night and it was nice to watch it with Southerners who know the family in the movie well.

On Tuesday afternoon we completed our last piece of work for our professors, this was in the form of a comprehensive final for Dr Chessin and was based on all the work from the year. We had to fill in tables to illustrate terminology, there were short answer questions and true/false. We also received our marks from our lessons plans and I was pleased to have achieved 100%.

On Tuesday evening we hosted a thank-you dinner at our friend’s house, making a three course meal to say thanks for all the rides (both boat and car), the coffees, the meals, the nights out and much more. The evening went well and I was pleased to say that no-one got sick from the food!

On Wednesday it was a privilege to have lunch with an older missionary lady called Bette Morgan. We had met her in our first week in Oxford where we had also met girls who became some of our closest friends while we were here. She treated us to lunch out at Oxford University Club which was one of the most posh places I had ever been! She was an inspiring woman to be around and someone whose kind heart I will never forget. After lunch we headed to our friends house and spent the rest of the day watching movies, making dinner and playing cards.

On Thursday we were back to our beloved Bottletree where we met our friend’s grandparents who had come into town for her graduation, I enjoyed sitting beside her grandfather who was a WW2 veteran, he told me of how he had been sent to Australia and island hopped all the way to the Philippines. After doing some shopping on the square we had lunch at Olivia’s Food Emporium, we chilled out and enjoyed the sun while eating our lunch. Due to the hot weather and the lack of the ocean and a pool we decided it would be a great idea to go to Walmart and buy a pool and so the rest of the afternoon was spent in a two ring aquarium themed pool working on the tan. On Thursday night the packing began...

Our last day in Oxford was very busy but really fun...Of course we started our last day with our last ever Bottletree where we ended up getting kicked out of because we were there for so long! We met some more people along the square and after some emotional goodbyes headed to our very own pool complex where we added lemon juice to our hair and lay out some more! After a kabookies lunch and some more tanning it was time to get ready for my first ever baseball game. I wasn’t really sure what to anticipate as we put our Ole Miss tattoos on our faces and got ready for the match but I knew it was going to be a fun night. One thing I learnt about baseball is that it is all about numbers!!! I loved the game and was disappointed we had to leave early. I got a great sense of pride in my college watching them play in the huge stadium and regret not seeing more sports while here at Ole Miss.

We left the match and headed to the square to pick up our free tickets and meet and greet passes for the Justin Moore concert in the Lyric...I used to say I like country...well I think I never experienced REAL country. I have never seen so many ‘rootin tootin’ cowboys with their spurs and their hats in all my life and every one of them knew every word! It was a fun way to end a three month period in the South especially as we got to meet him... I had no idea who the guy was and unlike everyone else waiting in line was calm as a cucumber and got about 5 minutes of chat out of him which probably would have been more fulfilling if he had talked a bit faster...his opening line was ‘Hello Darlin’ I think I enlisted myself as his Irish promoter!! It is safe to say that after him signing my hand I will never wash it again!!!!

A swim in the university fountain was a good way to end a great night and a great three months at Ole Miss...

We are now on our way to San Francisco to begin a three week period of travel... we were only about 30lbs total overweight :s Looking forward to seeing more of America but am sad that I may never see Oxford again.... good times and great memories!!

Last week of class...Giving Rambo a run for his money...Graduation party...Dinner on the grounds...

2010-05-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Our last week of class here at Ole Miss came with mixed feelings for me, sad because it means we're going to have to start saying goodbye to some really good friends but happy because it means we're beginning a new adventure really soon!

Our classes this week tended to be pretty laid back which was nice as we had two tests to study for, the first being on Tuesday night finishing off our classroom management course and the second on Friday for Dr Chessin based around the curriculum and managing the classroom effectively. I was pleased to receive marks back for my classroom management showcase where I achieved 100% for the Berenstain Bears! In our final Special Ed classes we completed presentations based on different learning strategies for people with special educational needs, we got a nice surprise discovering we were exempt from the final due to an A grade from previous results.

The class however I was most sad about saying goodbye too was our Early Education class in Willie Price, over the past few months we have built up a really strong relationship with both the children and the teachers. I have loved my time with the Bunny class and getting to know each of the children's individual personalities so well made it hard to leave on Thursday. This week the theme was 'Magnificent Moms' and so our activities ranged from planting flowers to taking pitcures. On my last day with the class Miss University brought a special treat of a Sundae Party and so we all ate ice-cream and I enjoyed spending time with my class one last time. In our final reflection paper which was to be submitted this week I talked about how value the experience had been for me and how Willie Price runs a really efficient programme for young learners.

The highlight from this week took place on Wednesday when Ruth and I had the opportunity to 'man up' as we learnt our AK 47 from our Smith and Wessen and our Browning Buckmark from our M4! A very typical Southern thing is to own a gun and we have made friends with some people who definately could give Rambo a run for his money with all of their guns! They decided it was about time us Northern Irish girls learnt a thing or two and so we spent the afternoon shooting at different targets using different guns. I really enjoyed it and felt like I had definately stepped down a level on the girly scale! It was another cultural experience to add to our ever increasing list and I look forward to impressing the few people I know who can decipher good guns about my experience in Mississippi! I will however remember for the next time not to wear a hoodie as I found the metal that came off the bullets kept getting caught in my hood and burning my neck...maybe it'll take longer than I thought to be in a Diehard movie...!

On Thursday night we leveled ourselves out by spending the night in Tupelo on another shopping adventure. It was fun to be in another part of town and discover new stores, we made the mistake however of leaving it a little late to go into the Mall and so I was left stuck in the Abercrombie changing room when the music shut off and they were starting to lock up!!

I enjoyed my last weekend here in Oxford spending Friday night with some really good friends and then on Saturday attending another good friends graduation party. It was nice to be a part of our friends day amid the tornado warnings and torential rain! Her Uncle gave a ridiculous speech which included a clip of her singing when she was four and there were plenty of embarassing photos around. On Sunday we attended College Hill Presbyterian for the final time, it was great to be back here and was especially nice as after the service they had 'Dinner on the grounds' were lunch was provided by the church. It was a blessing to be part of this and spend time eating with friends, there was so much food however that I thought I was going to burst! It will definately be detox time when I get home!

Looking forward to my final week in Oxford, seeing friends and then heading on to the next stage...it's hard to believe where the time has gone however!

Convenient volcano, Color my world, Russian folk dancing, 59 tornadoes, Doubledecker, Second Baptist-'Alraightt!'

2010-04-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe we are into week 14 of our time at Ole Miss...another week flying by and only one more week of class to go... It was nice to have Robert around until Thursday of this week thanks to the volcano in Iceland which caused so much havoc around the world but which I was secretly very grateful for as it meant I could spend more time with my boyfriend in Mississippi!

I continue to learn a lot from the classes that we have been taking here at Ole Miss, whether it is through the direct instruction from lecturers, the projects we have had to submit, the presentations we have done or the tests we have taken it has definately been a valuable experience. I also am enjoying more than anything else the time I have been having with the preschoolers in Willie Price Nursery Unit and in fact this time has made me rethink my future in terms of being more open to early years work as an option for a career path... This week in Willie Price the theme was Transportation and so we were looking at different activities based around this topic, the children were designing cars and flying paper aeroplanes and on Friday they had their race day when they paraded their home made car costumes through the school! Each morning when they come together for circle time the kids enjoy singing and I wanted to share the 'Hello Friend' song with you that has now been stuck in my head for 3 months...
'Hello Friend, what do you say? It's gonna be a happy day! Greet your friend, boogie on down, give them a bump and turn around, then sit down.'

The children then sing the weather song...'What's the weather, what's the weather, what's the weather like today? Tell us Jane-Reeves, what's the weather, what's the weather like today?'
Over the past few weeks I have rediscovered the value of making singing a daily party of young childrens routines and this has been reinforced in Willie Price. We have days of week songs, months of the year songs, clean up songs, getting ready for snack songs and many more! I had the opportunity to teach the children about primary and secondary colours this week through my Science project, it was received very well and I definately will use the experiment in the future. The children were each given some white frosting and Graham crackers and using different colours of food colouring we mixed combinations and spread our secondary colours on our crackers after making predictions as to what the two colours would make!

We had a test during our Special Education class on Monday which covered all the material we have been learning the past few weeks including emotional and behavioural disorders, learning strategies and looking at the ID, superego and ego and how conflicts here can create various defense mechanisms. Dr Chessin's class focused on lesson planning in more detail and classroom philosophy, we did a useful activity where we had to come up with and submit our own philosophy for the classroom. In our Tuesday evening class a guest speaker told us about IDEA legislation and worked through the 13 different categories of disability that exist and we thought through some scenarios related to inclusion.

The sun shined for most of the week in Oxford and so much of our time this week was spent walking or sunbathing around campus or visiting Holli's sweet-tooth for icecream...my favourite is cake batter!! The time came for Robert to leave on Thursday and I was thankful that he made it back safely on Friday carrying a much heavier load than when he came, I graciously passed on a huge chunk of my wardrobe to him for the trip home...! He left just in time for the winds started to blow on Friday and I felt as if I was in Kansas like Dorothy with all the tornadoes hitting Mississippi, we had warnings left, right and centre and so we were kind of excited that we might actually see one but Oxford only got the tail end of the crazy weather.

We had a great weekend despite the weather...Friday night we celebrated our friend Jerusha's birthday and so we headed to an Indian restaurant called Maharajas to surprise her... I enjoyed the night, sitting with two Italian guys, a German girl and a Portugese guy, we talked about Europe all night and it was sooo refreshing after being with Americans for such a long time! It's crazy how people end up in Oxford, they were there studying black holes as part of their Physics research....! After dinner we headed to a dance studio and spent the night learning folk dances from all over the world, my favourite being this Russian step dance, Ruth and I were not the best at it! I taught them some dances from ceildhs at home which everyone enjoyed learning, especially the tush push!!!

Saturday was the day set for the annual Doubledecker festival which is an arts and music festival that takes place in the square. Normally the festival runs all day on the Saturday but because of all the fears over the tornadoes it was broken up so the music was on Saturday and the arts were on Sunday. We headed down to the Lyric on Saturday afternoon to listen to some of the bands and get more of a feel for the quirky town we've been living in for the past few months... I enjoyed listening to 'Dent' and a 'Weezer' cover band who set up stage in a girls back garden! There was a very chilled out atmosphere with everyone just milling around enjoying the nice day. At night a stage was set up and we went to listen to Sharon Jones, an amazing soul/funk diva who was just an incredible singer and entertainer... there was something really unique about the feel, it has been described by others as a mini mardi-gras. It was a highlight of my trip in MS so far...

On Sunday Ruth and I decided that we would like to visit Second Baptist, the churches here are still predominently segregated and so this was a unique experience in that we were the only white people in church. I loved this worship service though, the gospel choir gave me goosebumps they were so good, it's the first time I have videoed church! We had to stand up and introduce ourselves and it felt a little strange to stand out so much in church but everyone was so welcoming and I absolutely loved being a part of the service where the 'Alraights' and the 'Amens' are flowing!!

Weeks 11, 12 and 13... Chaotic schedules...Finishing school...Funny cards...Hot tubs and speed boats...Robert...The Queen meets 'Elvis'...Volcanoes...

2010-04-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

My blog has been somewhat neglected over the past couple of weeks due to a crazy amount of work, presentations, tests, teaching and then the arrival of my boyfriend Robert at long last!

The past couple of weeks at Ole Miss have been really great, I am enjoying each and every of the experiences I am getting here in Mississippi and am thankful to have made the decision to do a semester of study abroad here.

Week 11 took the normal format in terms of classes and placement but I had the extra responsibility of teaching my three day lesson plan to my first grade class in Lafayette. I really enjoyed teaching the class about the lifecycle of the frog and the format of the lessons I had planned meant that I was able to interact closely with the students through the week. A highlight from teaching was on Thursday when we came together to put the components of the visual lifecycle we had created on our poster and reviewed facts, seeing how much they had learnt from the lessons made it worthwhile. I definately will miss my teacher and my students from that classroom, on Thursday they had their egg hunt and I enjoyed being a part of that, running through a field looking for Easter eggs to put in their baskets. They each wrote me a goodbye card, one of the funniest included the message...'I never knew Leprechauns existed until I met you!' I also received a book from them called 'Babar's USA' all about a family of elephants who travel all over the States, a really sentimental gift I will be able to use in my teaching in the future.

I also had opportunity to present my book 'Harry's haircut' to my preschool class this week. The book I made follows the story of Harry who needs a haircut but has a very funny experience with the hairdresser who cuts it too short then too curly, too sparkly, too frizzy etc. The children laughed when they saw Harry and each of the silly hairstyles! I'm pleased with how well this project went. I now have to complete my Science project and reflective paper and I will be finished with my assignments in Willie Price. I continue to learn a lot from Willie Price, the theme for week 11 was 'Bunnies and Chicks' and so we made all kinds of Easter decorations to go along with this theme.

Despite having lots of work we still took some study breaks, the highlight from this week being chilling in a hot tub!

Due to Easter we had Friday off and so I spent the day on a friends speed boat on Lake Sardis, a great way to chill out after a busy week! I also had the opportunity to go to a special service for my friend Rae's Grandad who had been a pastor for 50 years. This service was held in a 'primitive baptist' church and definately ticks the cultural experience box! A lot of gospel and a lot of Amens! Ruth spent the weekend in San Francisco with family while I enjoyed visiting friends and spent Easter Sunday eating dinner with a family from church!

So the day finally came for Robert to arrive in Memphis, after lots of travelling and lots of interrogation (Robert was born in Iraq!) he made it... On Monday of week 12 we went to pick him up and bring him down to the sunny South.

Despite having Robert here I still had classes to go too and this week the focus moved in special education to emotional and behaviour disorders and from there to speech difficulties. I continue to learn from these classes and see many different approaches to this subject through these sessions. We were preparing to be tested in Dr Chessin's class and so spent a lot of time reviewing information and learning more about instructional strategies and professional resources.

On Tuesday evening in our night class we had to present out classroom management showcase and hand in our plan that coincides with this. This project has kept me busy for the last couple of weeks and so I was thankful when the day came to hand this work over and to showcase what I had been doing. The assignment was to create a classroom management plan covering important areas such as rules in the classroom, system for rewarding, a behaviour strategy, a plan for contacting parents and including your philosophy for the classroom. As well as a written plan we also had to create and showcase how this plan would play out in the classroom. Mine was based around the popular children's series the 'Berenstain Bears' this went down really well as it heavily influenced the early years of my classmates' education. My plan followed the theme of bears, ranging from rules following the acronym of 'bear' to a reward system based on the 'bear buck.' I was pleased to see my effort rewarding gaining 100% for my showcase.

On Wednesday evening Robert and I headed off on a trip (was excused from class for Thursday/Monday and had Friday as a day off due to Chancellor's inauguration!) to Pittsburgh to visit with friends for the weekend. Our flights were really delayed and so at 3am we finally made it to Pennsylvania and met up with our friends. We stayed at Geneva College Wednesday and Thursday night, visiting friends we know there and seeing the different sites in and around that college. It was strange to come from Ole Miss to such a small, Christian college and the weather was also a bit different, very cold compared to what we have down here! On Friday afternoon Robert and I headed to my friend Laura's family home for the weekend where her older sister Bekah and husband Tony were meeting us from Philadelphia along with Kait and Brenda who I stayed with over Spring break. The house was full all weekend, we enjoyed eating out for breakfast, watching the Blind Side (amazing movie, all about a footballer who goes to Ole Miss-I spent the entire film shouting out things I had seen or knew!!!), eating more food, visiting Grace RP church, meeting some of my parents old friends, playing with Nerf guns, learning American football and eating more! A great weekend was had by all and we were sad to say goodbye on Monday morning.

We made it back to Mississippi on Monday evening and were met by Ruth and Rae who had plans for us, we headed to IHOP and then to our mystery location which turned out to be 'Graceland too.' This trip goes down as possibly the funniest/wierdest experience I have ever had in my life.... I don't even know where to begin in my description of it...We turned up at a house with two huge lion posts, tinsel wrapped around their necks and Rae goes up to the door and shouts for Paul... Paul appears a few minutes later looking thoroughly deshevelled with his teeth flapping up and down when he talks, we pay the five dollars to come inside and so unravels the most ridiculous Elvis tour ever.... The house is filled from wall to wall, ceiling to floor with memorabilia of Elvis, from cardboard cut outs, to blankets, to curtains, bathtub, to every record he ever recorded. However...our tour guide seemed to be a little farfetched in his descriptions...Apparently (according to Paul) he has been visited by the FBI/CIA three times, 3 presidents have been, George Bushes daughters, Tom Cruize's dog, Pamela Anderson, Sean Connery, every policeman in the state of Mississippi and infact the Queen of England herself took a visit to Holly Springs Mississippi to check out Paul's collection! Amazing! I had to stand well back from Paul during the tour, a fit of giggles that just didn't seem to shift made it impossible to look at him as he exclaimed all of this with a straight face, egged on by both Robert and Ruth. Paul named his son Elvis surprisingly and has apparently been offered millions of dollars for each and every part of his vast collections from people like MTV and the actual Graceland. I quickly learned to take everything he said with a pinch of salt, a man who has clearly gone crazy after many years of having a house open to the public 24/7 and endless repititions of his tour speeches! Definately something I will never forget!

On Tuesday I was back in Willie Price where the theme for this week was 'Creepy Crawlers' the children did all kinds of experiments including making ant hills from sand and spiders from thumb prints. On Tuesday evening we had our normal night class where we had a guest speaker talking about Autism, a useful lecture that solidified what I already knew on the subject. We visited a Greek resaurant after class, there were only a few 'authentic' dishes however according to my expert boyfriend!

Class continued as normal on Wednesday looking at delayed language and at having a personal stance towards education and having a philosophy for your classroom.

Robert continued to meet friends as the week went on and on Thursday he had a taste of authentic Southern food visiting Ruth and I's 'favourite' restaurant Ajax. We spent time with friends on Thursday night eating Pecan and Derby pies and doing dances from all over the world including Greece and Russia!

I completed a test for Dr Chessin this week and was happy to get results back on Friday which told me I had achieved full marks on part one and 28/30 on part two. I am happy with how well my marks have been going during my time at Ole Miss.

On Friday Robert and I headed to 'Rowan Oak' where William Faulkner lived, this was really educational as he is the most influential writer from Mississippi.

Saturday was Robert's due date to leave Mississippi, head to Amsterdam, fly from there to Birmingham, catch another plane to Belfast and be at a job interview for Belfast Royal Academy on Monday morning. Would have all been fine if a volcano had not decided to erupt in Iceland causing havoc worldwide....oh well...more time in Oxford for Robert then!!!

Work...work...work...USA-the whole world...Brilliant...Easter nests...Big Bad Breakfast...Zoo!

2010-03-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

This week the work load really went up a gear and so we spent most afternoons and evenings either in school, Willie Price, class, or in our dorm room working on assignments and projects. On Monday we were given our assignments for Willie Price which include a cookery project, making and reading our own big book, a science project and a reflective paper. These projects have to be completed within the next three weeks and so I began to put together the resources I need for getting these done and presented on time.

Our Special Education Class this week focused on strategies for working with pupils who have learning difficulties, these include the Content Enhancement Routine, LINCS, TOWER, The FRAME and the Multipass Strategy. Our professor continues to teach using practical examples and interacting with the class. I am learning a lot about how to specifically work with LD students within an inclusive environment and so this is a useful experience.

We had this week during our Effective Teaching Strategies class to pull together our lesson plans that we will teach within the next week. I was able to get my 3 day lesson plan completed around the topic of the lifecycle of the frog and I plan to teach this next week. Our planning was out of class but on Friday we came back together as Dr Chessin was in Greece for Spring Break with a group of students and then visiting Belfast to spend time at Stran with Dr Siberry. Ruth and I enjoyed her enthusiastic return to class, entering the classroom proclaiming her love for Belfast and how much she wants to go back! I've never heard anyone be quite so passionate about Belfast... normally people get excited about the Giant's Causeway or the South but Dr Chessin loved the city...She asked us if you can buy wheaten shortbread on the internet!

Planning for lessons is different over here, they split the lesson planning into three stages, 1. Identify desired results, 2. Planning Assessment, 3. Daily Learning Plans. Having prior knowledge of planning lessons helped me to get through my planning without much difficulty but there were aspects that I struggled with as I hadn't come across before, for example, what informal checks I would use during the lesson.

I spent time in school on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week and enjoyed the consistency of being in the classroom. The class are learning a lot about plants at the minute and so have planted sunflower seeds so they can make observations on these over the next few weeks. I continue to spend time chatting to the children and on Tuesday I had an interesting conversation with a couple of students around a children's encyclopedia, they were looking at a map of the USA and asked me to show them my country. I explained that we had to find a world map for me to be able to do that at which they told me, 'But Miss Lorna there is nothing else!' I still get surprised at how little these 7-8 year olds know of the world around them and how much is yet to discover when you live in the USA which I am finding incredibly insular.

On Wednesday we took a field trip outside to look at various plants surrounding the school, the children were allowed to bring things back to the classroom to share with their friends. I found it pretty amusing when two girls brought handfuls of green onions into the classroom and preceded to stink out the room over the course of the day! We also visited another class where they were studying sea life and something I really liked was the 48 feet whale they had made and was stuck up around their room, an idea I will steal for the future! On Thursday they did some Spring activities, they made flowers by dropping coloured water on kitchen roll and folding into a flower shape. They also made butterflies by crunching crepe paper and using pipe cleaners for the antenna.

I taught my cookery lesson on Wednesday in Willie Price and together we made Easter nests. This lesson went really well and the children were very responsive to my instruction. I still find it funny when the children don't know how to react to some words I use, for example I said 'Brilliant' in praise of how well they were working and one little girl shouts out 'Brilliant- a fancy way of saying great!'

On Friday night we spent time with some friends, eating lots of dessert and watching the movie the 'Princess Bride' which I really enjoyed. It was great to just hang out after such a hectic week.

On Saturday we headed to 'Big Bad Breakfast' but unfornately the whole of Oxford went for breakfast on Saturday morning and so we left and walked around an art exhibit on the square before returning and enjoying an awesome American breakfast...definately my favourite meal in America...belgian waffles and endless supplies of coffee!

After being fuelled up with breakfast we met up with friends to head to Memphis to visit the zoo there. This was a great day out being a lot bigger than our zoo in Belfast and having a lot more interactive areas. My favourite animals were definately the hippos, I had never seen those in real life before and we were really close to them which was exciting. They had a creepy night animal indoor exhibit which freaked me out, especially the huge aardvark which looked like it was right next to you as you rounded the corner in the dark! We got surprised by our friends in Missouri who joined us for the day out, was nice to catch up with them again! On Saturday night we headed to Buffalo wild wings, a sports restaurant which was underappreciated by a nominal sports fan like myself! I thought about how much my brother, Dad and other male friends would love it though!

On Sunday we enjoyed going to College Hill presbyterian and then resting in the afternoon so we could be refuelled for another busy week!

Still enjoying my time in the States but can't believe how much it is just flying by....

Week 8 and 9...Habitats week...Off to Philadelphia...surprises...shopping spree...visiting Rocky...the Amish...lost luggage...

2010-03-23T11:45:00.001-07:00

So we flew right through to Spring Break so fast I didn't get a chance to get my blog done for week 8 but here we go....

I enjoyed this week in Willie Price as the theme was 'Habitats' and I definately want to implement this in later classroom practice, it was great to see this theme develop through the week too. All the work that was carried out on Monday and Tuesday was brought together on Wednesday for habitats day... Each of the teachers prepared a habitat and the children went around and visited each station where they were taught about each individual habitant, which animals live there, the climate and the landscaping of each part. The habitats included ocean, arctic, rainforest, grasslands, pond, forest, desert and the teachers had prepared them really well so it was a multi-sensory experience for the pupils. There was real algae in the pond, real ice and a porcupine at different stations. The children also had the opportunity to play a habitat game throughout the week which I made sure to take photos of so I could use the idea in the future!

We continued to learn as we spent time in Lafayette this week with all the various lessons that were going on and I am observing a lot of valuable classroom practices as well as picking up little things, like songs and classroom management directions that can be used in my classroom. I attended my first staff meeting with the other first grade teachers and was asked to visit another classroom where I talked a little about Ireland and St. Patricks Day.

On Tuesday night I was pleased to discover I had received 87% on the test we had completed and am thankful to be doing well in my classes so far!

In classes we have started to focus on lesson planning in Dr Chessin's class and in Dr Blackbourn's class we are looking at strategies to implement in the classroom for children with specific learning difficulties.

On Friday afternoon I headed to Memphis to catch a plane to Philadelphia for the week. I was flying there to stay with a good friend of mine, Kaitlyn who lives in Philadelphia with her family. Arriving in the State of Pennsylvania was a funny experience as no longer did I hear the Southern drawl or the 'y'alls' I had been so accustomed too!

Staying in Kait's house for a week was great, getting a break from Guess Halls was definately what I needed! On Saturday night other friends arrived for a dinner party and I got to surprise my good friend Laura who didn't know I was coming. Kait and I made cornflake chicken for the occasion, which sounds interesting but is actually really good! I enjoyed the company of friends I haven't seen in a long time.

On Sunday we headed to Kait's church, Broomall RP, after the service we ate lunch together before another service. In the evening we had dinner at Tony and Bekah's house, we spent a lot of time discussing the differences between Northerners and Southerners, I obviously have become very familiar with the South after being here for 8 weeks!

On Monday due to the rain we spent some time around the house, did a little shopping and watched some movie before an early night...we had an epic trip planned for the next day!

The King of Prussia Mall was the aim for Tuesday...7 hours later we finally headed home after the ultimate shopping experience. This was my first time being in an American Mall and it happened to be the biggest mall in the US in terms of how many retail stores were available. We spent a long time in stores like Abercrombie and Fitch, Urban Outfitters, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren, Heritage, the Cheesecake Factory and many, many...many more! (Cheesecake for lunch is definately the way to go on shopping trips FYI!) So with pockets a little lighter we headed home to crash for the night.

Wednesday was St. Patrick's Day and so I was kitted out in my green t-shirt ready to see the sites of downtown Philly. We took a bus tour around the city, it was a beautiful day to do so and you would hardly have believed it had been flooding at the weekend. I felt like I had actually reached American, it looked so much like the movies, especially the HUGE skyscrapers all around! We hopped off the bus to see different things including, the Love sculpture, the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Eastern State Penitentiary- which held criminals like Al Capone- and for lunch we headed to the famous Pat's for a Philly cheese steak. Running up the Rocky steps singing the theme tune at the top of my lungs was definately a highlight, especially when others started to cheer as we ran up!

Kait's house is surrounded by a forest and a creek so we spent Thursday morning walking and scrambling through the creek. After this we lay out in the sun, ate a picnic and caught some rays. Kait's Grandma tooks us out to eat Greek food on Thursday night, I love Greek food and so souvlaki went down well but I must say it was a bit weird eating it in Philadelphia!

On Friday I got the chance to experience the Amish in Lancaster County...what a weird and wonderful experience this was!! We would drive by a normal looking house and the next felt like you'd stepped back in time, there would be 6 horses and a plough on the front lawn, a man in a top hat, holding on, wearing braces with a long beard. His wife next to him feeding chickens and wearing a long black dress, apron and bonnet. I got plenty of photos of the farms and buggies, we visited a natural food store and saw some Amish up close...! We also visited a small town where we experienced Wilbur's chocolate Factory and Stilgurs Pretzel factory...both good times! I was treated to an Irish dinner on Friday night, including cabbage (I love cabbage!) and roast beef, before syaing goodbyes on Saturday morning.

It was hard coming back to college after having such an amazing time with friends in Philadelphia especially because my flights got messed up on the way home and they lost my luggage. Thankfully my luggage reappeared on Sunday afternoon with everything in order which was a great relief. Despite this bit of drama I had an amazing Spring break, feeling relaxed, refreshed and ready to get stuck into Ole Miss again.

Kiss your brain...St Patrick...Wacky Hair...Glow sticks...Beale Street...Rocky Road Crepes...Put Some South in your Mouth!

2010-03-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe I have reached the 7 week mark here in Mississippi, time is flying by and I am still thoroughly enjoying it. This week our timetable got a whole lot busier as we discovered we needed to have more credits to fulfil our international requirements. We are taking an extended early childhood education class which involves more hours in Willie Price nursery unit and more assignments, so Monday and Wednesday mornings are now filled with this along with our original Tuesday/Thursday slot. Our classroom practise also got underway this week and so we are in Lafayette Elementary on Tuesday/Thursday mornings from 8.30-10.30. All the experience we are getting is valuable which makes it easier to get up earlier!

Our first class on Monday was cancelled and Dr Chessin's class involved preparation for our presentations which were to start on Wednesday and so we practised our skit and made sure we had everything we needed to meet the criteria. We met up with the girls for our weekly bible study in the afternoon and spent Monday evening revising for our Classroom Management test on Tuesday.

I started Tuesday in Lafayette Elementary where I was officially beginning my time in first grade there. The school is hexagonal inside and so can be really confusing when you have only been there once and so I got lost trying to find my class but had a warm greeting as there was a huge 'Welcome Miss Lorna' poster outside the door. I was mainly observing in Tuesday's class and helped out a few times. When I arrive at 8.30 the children are involved in 'Skills Builders' around the school going to specific classrooms to practise different skills and then return to their normal classrooms to begin the day. I enjoyed observing classroom routine and the different aspects that make up the classroom welcome including 'shape of the day' a days of the week song and a daily pattern. I also picked up some really funny instructional sayings the teacher uses in her classroom for example when praising a child she will say 'kiss your brain,' she talks about 'self-controlled manners,' 'super seaters' and using their '2 inch voices.' Mrs Watkins put me on the spot in the classroom as she got me up to tell the children all about Ireland and St. Patrick and although I knew a lot to do with St. Patrick, learning about him on the 17th March for my whole school career I must say I was a bit rusty under pressure...! I decided to do it justice I had to do a proper lesson surrounding the topic and so I planned to do this for Thursday. I worked around the stations that had been set up for the student and carried out observations for the rest of the period.

The theme for the week in Willie Price was 'weather' and so the teacher was letting the children listen to a book-CD 'Storms coming!' After using the book as a stimulus the pupils then began stations based around tornados, they had to draw them and used bottles filled with coloured water which the teacher swirled to show them a tornado.

Our test on Tuesday night was difficult, it was a mixture of true/false answers, multiple choice and short essay answers. It covered all the material we have looked at so far including a vast amount of theorists and their beliefs in terms of classroom management. I think it went ok however and know that everyone felt the same way about it.

I was back in Willie Price on Wednesday morning and thoroughly enjoyed seeing their routine at a different time of the day. My favourite aspect was seeing them all stand, while one child was given the role of flag-holder, put their hand over their heart and say the pledge of allegiance. It was really cute to see twenty 3-4 year olds try and say the big words included in this and it was definately a novelty for me. They sing so much in the morning, they have a welcome song, a days of the week song, a months of the year song and a weather song. Something that also surprised me was the kind of snacks they give young children here, each child got a cinnamon roll and juice...crazy considering the focus on 'healthy snack' at home...if only our kids knew what they were missing out on!

In our Special Education class we learnt about Freud's theory of having three components of personality- 'Id, Ego and Superego.' We studied defence mechanisms including, sublemation, displacement, rationalization, repression, suppression and regression. We also did our presentation on Wednesday morning and were pleased with how well it went receiving an A and 19/20 for our work. We also got our first test results back and I was excited to see that I got 88% on the test.

I spent the rest of Wednesday afternoon preparing for my lesson on St Patrick and visited the teacher's resource centre which didn't prove to be all that helpful in that there were mostly American geography books and not much on Irish culture, the internet however is a wonderful thing! We attended Leapfrog after getting some work done where I was told by a child I had 'wacky hair' and then went on to draw me and my hair for the remainder of the time! We ate dinner at First Baptist and attended a college student meeting, we then came back and went to RUF where everyone was getting excited about the big dance party on Friday night.

On Thursday morning I was back in Lafayette and I was excited about doing my lesson with the children. The main content of the lesson was based around Northern Ireland and being part of the United Kingdom as well as looking at the Republic which tied in well with St. Patrick and leprechauns! I was told afterwards by several children that my 'voice is awesome!!!' which I think means it went ok. Being the week of Dr Seuss' birthday we had someone come into class and read 'Green Eggs and Ham' and after the class did some Maths, followed by working in stations to complete literacy activities.

In Willie Price on Thursday the kids got the chance to draw Dr Seuss and had a demonstration from one of the teachers. I spent the rest of the time working alongside the children in their various activities.

I enjoyed sleeping in a bit on Friday morning before class at 10. In Dr Blackbourn's class we looked at Grave's theory of their being different developmental levels, I found this really interesting, trying to work out what level I am working at, each level has a primary goal. Level 1 is primitive, level 2 is all about security, level 3 is about power, level 4 is concerned with principles, level 5 is about productivity and level 6 is to do with people. In Dr Chessin's class we continued to listen to other groups presentations focused around various instructional strategies.

On Friday night we were off to Tupelo, a town about an hour away for the RUF battle of the bands/dance off party. Ruth and I wore t-shirts we'd designed with a friend that said 'The Irish' on the back as we are affectionately known. We had a great time at this, enjoyed the music and all the different ways people had dressed up including one guy who was wearing his pyjamas, there was an underlying theme however...glow sticks!

On Saturday we headed out for some coffee and doughnuts for breakfast and seeing it was a nice day went to the park in out pyjamas, sat out and enjoyed the sun, ignoring strange stares from people passing by. The sun continued for the rest of the day and was especially nice as we headed up to Memphis to pick up Ruth's boyfriend, Phil from the airport who has come to stay with us for two weeks. We did some shopping at a Mall and then went over to the airport with our 'We Love Phil' posters, it was great to see him and despite his jet-lag we headed to the famous Beale Street to get dinner. We ended up in the Blues cafe, got some great food and after headed down to the Crepe-store where I got the most amazing crepe ever...a Rocky Road...just like the bun in a crepe with ice-cream, Americans know how to do dessert!

On Sunday we went to First Baptist church and following this helped out with children's church. We headed to the park for a picnic after and in the evening went to the women's bible study we have been attending.

Can't believe time is so quickly flying by and looking forward to a week of Spring break very soon!

Presentation preparations...The Quiet Man...Brushing your hair with a strawberry...Miss Lorna...Strannies reunited...Lots of Art...Smoke v Clouds...

2010-03-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

This week flew by just like the rest but was aided a little more with unexpected visitors, our Stranmillis friends up in Missouri who stayed with us from Thursday till Sunday. We really enjoyed their visit and all the things we got to do with them when they were here, I think we all loved hanging out with people from home again!

Following our test we began work on Behaviourism in our Special Education Class on Monday morning. Dr Blackbourn began by looking at Thorndike and the 'law of effect' which states: 'Any behaviour that is followed by a positive consequence will tend to be repeated, any behaviour followed by a negative or neutral consequence will tend to fall out of use.' It was interesting to learn about the different behavioural repetoires that we can build up and how we can shape behaviour by reinforcers.

Dr Chessin was out of town this week and so we began a week of independent work in her class. We have been given the assignment of creating a presentation on a certain instructional strategy and these will begin to be presented next week. Our group looked at 'Co-operative Learning' which we defined as 'a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member is responsible for their learning along with their teammates thus creating an atmosphere of achievement.' We divided the work for the presentation up and so I created the visual, the powerpoint presentation which looks at definiton, the co-operative learning model, stages of the model, strengths and weaknesses of the model and a conclusion. We also had to write a 'skit' to give an example of our strategy and an informational handout. We had a great team to work with and so I enjoyed doing this.

We had the dental team with us on Tuesday morning in Willie Price, teaching about the importance of looking after your teeth and the tooth fairy was giving advice about what kind of snacks we can have that will not damage our teeth as much. The children played 'tooth, tooth, cavity' a version of 'duck, duck, goose' with obvious thematic purposes! We were given an assignment to work on on Tuesday based around observation of the teacher and her techniques in both indirect and direct guidance to the children. This was an interesting assignment and allowed me to play closer attention to this detail and pick up ideas for later.

In our night class on Tuesday we focused on avoiding power struggles in the classroom and what techniques we can use to resolve this and how to enpower students to resolve conflict. We also looked at the effects of bullying and strategies we can use to eliminate bullying from the classroom. We were put into groups and asked to give presentations on different scenarios, we had to identify the problem in the situation, solve it and then present our results to the class. I enjoyed this problem-solving learning and feel I am getting a lot from this class.

After class on Tuesday we headed out with our friend to chill out and went to eat at the famous 'Chick Fill-A'...apparently the best fast-food place in America, better even than McDonalds say the Southerners...it was good...but I'd love to let them experience our local 'chippie' and then say it was still the best!!

We received our tests back on Wednesday morning and I was pleased to receive an 85% in my test, not bad for our first results here in the States! We continued to work on our group presentations in Dr Chessin's class and spent time rehearsing our skit that we would have to perform along with our presentation. We are going to listen to Emma, who will play the teacher, read the story 'Listen Buddy' all about a rabbit who doesn't listen, she will then pose the question, 'Why is it important to Listen?' We will then follow out the 'Think-Pair-Share' strategy, thinking about the answer ourselves, then talking to a partner about it and finally sharing as a group what we think.

On Wednesday evening we headed to Leapfrog again and spent time playing with the kids and building up relationships there, I spent most of the time trying to get boys out from under a bush but failed miserably because they refused to even try and understand my accent....! On Wednesday night we met a guy Connor, another long lost Irish native who dreams of being back on the Emerald Isle, he was fascinated with Ruth and I and knew more about Irish history than we did! His favourite movie is 'The Quiet Man' which made me smile because it is our family's favourite film, coming from my Dad's collection and paints a pretty picture of Galway with the obvious American influence from John Wayne, we even visited the place where it was set on a family holiday much to Connor's delight!

After Leapfrog we headed over to get dinner from First Baptist and meet some friends, I helped out the road service by putting in a road block and we went for a walk down to the square! After spending time in our favourite book store (Square Books) we went to get some photographs taken for our friend Steve's birthday which involved lots of messing around with a lot of Americans in front of a camera!

On Thursday morning I was back in Willie Price, getting involved in the activities they were carrying out and helping as much as possible. Miss Alden was preparing the class for 'Fairytale day' the following day and so the children were making wands from the tubing they put around the bottom of coathangers and stars. They were also making leaves for a huge tree they were using as part of scenery for their production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Every child has the opportunity to dress up and be a fairytale character for the day. During free play time I enjoyed a ridiculous conversation with one little girl which reminded me that kids really do say the funniest things. I was getting stuck in, playing with snakes and other sea creatures and one little girl kept bringing me over pretend treats from the play house. Finally she came over and started to brush my hair with a strawberry, I asked 'Why are you brushing my hair with a strawberry?!!' She proceeded to tell me that it got your hair as straight as hers and that her family all did it when they came over on the big aeroplane! She then went on to tell me that her Mom and Brother were turtles, 'Your Mom and your Brother are turtles?!' I said, fascinated. 'Nooooo, they're human!' she said, looking at me as if I was stupid! It was very funny to be reminded of the things kids think about when they are 3 or 4 years old.

After another fire in Guess Halls (only minor, don't panic!!) Maury from Study Abroad arranged to take us out to Lafayette Elementary where we were going to meet our class and teachers we would be observing and teaching over the next few weeks. I was really excited walking in to the school because everywhere was just buzzing as a Primary School should be and I couldn't wait to meet Mrs Watkins and my class. Mrs Watkins came to meet me in the office and brought me down to my classroom and then outside where my class were just finishing recess. They were as excited to see me as I was to see them and couldn't wait to introduce themselves. I am working with a first grade class, there are 19 students and they are all between 6 and 7. I can't wait to get to know them better and spend more time in the classroom over the next few weeks as I feel this will be one of the most beneficial experiences here at Ole Miss. I am still fascinated by the Southern drawl when I hear the little kids introducing themselves or trying to mimic me. None of them had heard of Ireland and so I got all kinds of questions, 'Do they speak English in Ireland?' 'Do dragons live in Ireland?' I hope to spend some time informing them properly about my home country over the next few weeks. My teacher and class are really lovely too which helps so much!

After visiting class we headed up to Memphis with some friends to pick up our visitors for the weekend. It was exciting to see Natalie and Rachel and have the opportunity to show them what is going on down here, it was cool hearing the accent again and comparing experiences so far. Our friend Braden took us to Rendezvous in Memphis for dinner on Thursday night, it is most famous of bbq and we really enjoyed the food and the atmosphere there. We then headed back to Oxford to pack four Strannies into our dorm room in Guess Halls!

On Friday morning the girls got to experience the Finer Things Club and our favourite, Bottletree Bakery. In our Special Education class we looked at fixed, variable, interval and ratio rates of reinforcement and how this can shape desired behaviour. It was a complex class but beneficial and touched on many areas I had not considered before. We also looked at Piaget and his beliefs to do with how children learn; he believes the way we develop and the stages we go through are species general and individual specific. It's in our genes , it's who we are at our most basic level. Dr Blackbourn met Piaget and was lectured by him at one stage which was interesting to hear about, being a hero in the world of child psychology. We continued to work on and complete our presentation during Dr Chessin's lesson.

Ruth and I became the tour guides for the afternoon as we took the girls down to the square and showed them all our favourite places we have discovered so far. We had some lunch in Proud Larrys, took them to Holli's sweet tooth and visited lots of the other little shops in that area. After we finished browsing we headed back to Ole Miss where we got some coffee and played some cards, just like home! On Friday night the four of us headed down to the Powerhouse to see the play Seven and we really enjoyed it. It follows the story of seven different women and their struggles through life having passions and dreams for the role of women to be changed and enhanced in their societies. We were happy that the girl we had vocal coached had made massive improvements from the first time we saw her and actually sounded Northern Irish this time!

On Saturday morning we walked back down to Bottletree with the girls and enjoyed breakfast together, they loved it so much they had to go back. We spent some time doing some more window shopping before our friend Harrison came and picked us up and we headed out to Taylor, a townland nearby, famous for being home to many artists. Having 3 main subject art students present (all, but me!) it was a great place to go and see. The weather was brilliant on Saturday and so everything looked a lot prettier with the sun shining. Taylor is definately somewhere I want to visit again, we had lunch at 'Emileigh's table' which was quirky and a mix of retro and modern. Next door is a quaint antique store with the most fantastic porch swing/bed which I want my parents to by me and then fed-ex home, oh and I need my Dad to build a porch too just for me...I fell in love with that bed! We visited a couple of art galleries which also included many beautiful little bits and pieces, I've also decided I want some white rocking chairs for that porch Dad is building!

While we visited one of the art shops I noticed more and more that bottletrees were a major theme of the art work here in Mississippi and so I asked the owner the significance of the bottletree, it relates back to a slave folk story where the bottles would be placed in a tree outside the house because it was thought that if an evil spirit was going to enter the house it would be captured and trapped inside the bottles before it could get inside.

On Saturday night our artist friends who we have been doing a bible study with on Monday afternoons were having an artshow at Honeybee Bakery so we went to support them. The art was phenomenal, even to someone who is quite art ignorant I would have bought so much of their work if I was loaded! It is cool to be surrounded by so many talented people and learn from them and see them display their talents.

On Sunday we took the girls to our friend's church, Clear Cedar Baptist church. It was really interesting to discover there is another baptist church right across the street from this one and it is known as the 'black church' while this one is the 'white church' again further evidence of the deep history here and how it still outplays in the society today. I enjoyed the service which followed a more traditional Southern style. It was our friend's birthday on Sunday and so we had a picnic at Lake Patsy on Sunday afternoon to celebrate, the weather was so nice we could even do some sunbathing and play some frisbee! On the way home I learned an important lesson, never try and tell a fireman that smoke is a cloud when he knows that it is smoke. We spent half an hour chasing what I thought was just a cloud but what my fireman friend thought was smoke to eventually discover it was infact smoke. We said goodbye to the girls on Sunday afternoon after visiting our friend's farm and seeing some horses and goats and then sent them on their way to SEMO. On Sunday night Ruth and I headed back to First Baptist for the woman's bible study which was a great way to end a great week and start week 7.

Accent instructors...Fat Tuesday...Geography lessons...Fire...Road Trip...Peanut butter hamburgers...Deer...RAIN...

2010-02-22T17:34:00.000-08:00

Monday of week 5 began with an interesting lecture from a guest speaker in our Special Ed class based around teaching Science in the Special Ed classroom. The professor gave examples of how to present and illustrate concepts to pupils who may experience difficulties with the material. I found this a useful lecture and hope to be able to carry out these experiments in an inclusive setting when I am teaching.

On Monday night Ruth and I had the opportunity to become accent instructors for the production 'Seven'...

'Theatre Oxford with the Office of International Programs and the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies presents Seven by Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack, Ruth Margraff, Anna Deavere Smith & Susan Yankowitz. A collaboration of seven award-winning women playwrights, Seven is based on personal interviews with seven women leaders of the Vital Voices Global Partnership network who have triumphed over huge obstacles to create major changes in human rights in their home countries. In the seven interwoven stories we see the commonality of challenge and of bravery, and in the individual monologues that follow, we experience each fascinating whole true story. Seven will be performed at the Powerhouse Community Arts Center in Oxford Thursday and Friday, February 26 & 27 at 7pm and Sunday, February 28 at 2pm.'

We had received information about the production from the Study Abroad Office via email and as one of the main characters is from Northern Ireland we were asked to come and help her with her accent. This was a bigger challenge than we thought it would be...from Southern Mississippi to West Belfast in a month!?!? We tried our best to give advice and gave the actress a recording we made of her entire script. We look forward to hearing the final result next Friday night, we were given free tickets for all the help we gave her!

On Tuesday we were back to Willie Price, reading stories, interacting with the children and participating in the group activities. We celebrated 'Fat Tuesday' as part of Mardi Gras and so there were beads and colour everywhere we looked! On Tuesday night we had a guest speaker and were learning about various discipline strategies through group activities and presentations. We spent the rest of the evening revising and studying for our Special Ed test the following morning.

Our test on Wednesday took a similar format as the previous one, multiple choice responses and about 25 questions. The test was harder than I anticipated but I think I managed to get through it ok when I looked over my notes following the test.

I really enjoyed Leapfrog this week and Leapfrog Uno which is like normal Uno but with a bit more attitude, enjoying spending time with these young people and volunteering in this way. We tried to play Jacks but were unable to work out how to play it properly, lots of jacks and two bouncy balls?! Maybe someone knows what way these are supposed to be used, I'm pretty sure just bouncing the ball and grabbing jacks isn't exactly how it's supposed to be done!

On Wednesday night we had a bit of drama in Guess Halls, the girls next door to us set off the fire alarms by over cooking some spring rolls in their room. There was a mass evacuation and we all had to stand outside while the fire brigade came and checked out the situation. Nothing appears to have been damaged so we live to see another day of dorm life...!

After RUF on Wednesday night we went to our friend's house to watch the Irish movie 'Once' they thought this would be a novelty to have real, live, Irish people watching an Irish film! On the way to his house I managed to almost crash my friend's car when I saw my first deer run through the woods, I've never seen deer in the wild and so what was a massive deal to me was an everyday occurrence to the others in the car!

On Thursday morning we visited our favourite bakery (Bottletree) for breakfast before we went to Willie Price where we were reading a story about Comet the Rabbit and doing activities based around this novel. We were asked to complete the 'Intercultural Development Instrument' by Dr Mitch Hammer as part of one of our professor's research. This survey gives an indication of a person's intercultural competence in several areas. My love for diversity and interest in people of different nationalities makes me think I did well in this survey but we weren't given any results so who knows how it came out!!

My global ambassador took me out for dinner on Thursday night, this is basically someone who you can call on if you need help or direction. We went to my favourite food place....Ajax...! I steered clear of the typically Southern delicacies and opted for a salad this time! During dinner I felt I was giving a bit of a Geography lesson, trying to explain that in fact you could not take a train from Ireland to France and it was actually an island!

Friday was a really exciting day for Ruth and I as our first visitor arrived...Ruth's sister came to join us from San Francisco for the weekend. We spent time on Friday showing Cherith the sights and sounds of Oxford, Cherith had rented a car from Memphis and it was amazing having a mode of transportation all weekend! We spent most of Friday afternoon looking around the square, the weekend was beautiful, loads of sunshine and so we visited Holli's Sweet Tooth for ice-cream (Cake Batter and Birthday Cake Batter ice-cream...awesome!!!) and 'candy' before we headed out to the farmer's market to get ingredients for our Irish dinner party we had planned for some American friends that night. After a few stressful hours we had a complete menu we were happy with, Irish Stew, Chicken and Broccoli bake, Salad, Champ, Roast Potatoes... We even had Waffle Berry Pie and Bailey's Hot Chocolate for after. The food seemed to go down well, especially the Irish Stew which we thought was pretty good considering we made up the recipe...wife points for Ruth and I!!!

After dinner we headed over to the Powerhouse to check out a band called 'Young Buffalo' who we had first heard at Thacker Mountain Radio Show but ended up not staying very long because all the cooking took it out of us...! We spent this weekend at our friend's house, was a great break from dorms and living in a house again was brilliant.

On Saturday morning after being greeted with coffee from our friend Steve we hit the road and headed off to Jackson for the day. Jackson City is the capital and the most populous city of Mississippi. The 2000 census recorded Jackson's population at 184,256 but we saw very few of these people on our whistlestop tour. It took us three hours by car to get to Jackson after we stopped at a gas station to do the Hokey Cokey and drink my first Mountain Dew (it's amazing!). We headed to Clinton on the outskirts of Jackson and met a friend there who became our tour guide for the day. We visited the capital building and other sites in and around town, we did a bit of shopping at the Mall in Jackson and met some others for dinner in the evening at Mugshots... this restaurant was set up by some of the fraternity brothers of the people we were with and is famous for hamburgers...Ruth, being the adventurous type went for a peanut butter burger and apparently it's fantastic! The journey home from Jackson was rather uneventful apart from the mass amounts of deer that we kept driving past and for some reason I missed every single one of them, much to my disappointment!

On Sunday we visited College Hill Presbyterian where they had a guest speaker, a missionary to Columbia. I really enjoyed the service and what he had to say. In the evening we went to the women's bible study at First Baptist again and loved our time there. This has been a great way to not only meet people our age but older and younger people too.

When it rains in Oxford...it really rains...and so our beautiful weekend was brought quickly to an end by the storm that came on Sunday night...I have never seen it rain so hard!

(Brenna and Hayley...)

Making new Discoveries...Multiple Choice Tests...The doorknob to the Universe...Valentine's Day Madness...IHOP...

2010-02-15T18:19:00.000-08:00

Reaching the four week mark makes me realise just how fast this whole experience is flying by me. I can't believe I have been here for so long already and it's gonna go by in a blink. This week felt a little more routine than the previous weeks and we were thankful for the fun weekend we had after all our class during the week.

On Monday I found myself beginning my new exercise programme...after recovering from the cold I decided it was time to get back into shape, especially when there is so much offered here at Ole Miss in terms of fitness. I was at the Turner Centre every day this week doing some form of exercise...long may it continue! Class followed the normal format on Monday with nothing too spectacular to report. In Dr Blackbourn's class we continued to cover the many laws associated with special educational needs legislation. We had a revision session during Dr Chessin's class in order to prepare for our first test on Wednesday. On Monday afternoon we met with a group of four other students at the famous 'Square Books' for coffee and to begin the first of our small group bible study times we are planning to have together, really enjoyed getting to know these girls better and looking forward to the rest of the times together.

I enjoyed the observation task we were set for our Early Childhood Education class in Willie Price Nursery Unit on Tuesday morning... I had to observe a child for 20 minutes and take note of everything they did and said. I also had to ask them certain questions and record their answers. Following the observation I had to mark examples of good practice of gross and fine motor skills and signs of development in the physical, emotional, social and intellectual domains. I loved doing this, it was so interesting to have the opportunity to look closely at what a single child was doing during activity and pay such careful attention to it. I chose the brightest girl in the class to work with and was amazed at how much she knew and could do at 4 years old. In our evening class we were looking at motivational techniques that we could use in the elementary classroom, it was interesting to hear about things they use here to motivate children. The funniest example was a reward system where if the children reached a certain target the teacher would have to do outrageous activities, the example given was kissing a pig! Something that shocked me was the overuse of 'candy' as a motivator and the overriding consequences of tooth decay and childhood obesity, it is seen as an easy option. Tuesday night was spent studying hard for the test that was to present itself the following morning.

Dr Chessin's test went better than anticipated and it is nice to have completed our first multiple choice test. We were unsure as to what to expect in terms of the format of the test but I think I made it through ok as I made sure I knew the material before sitting it. The test covered different areas around the topics of planning and assessment. We had to pay careful attention to Bloom's Taxonomy and the different elements making up a lesson as well as the different means of assessment and how the ultimate goal is self-assessment.

On Thursday we spent time in Willie Price again, enjoying getting to know the children better and spending time with them, reading stories and observing activities that go on. This week the big focus was Valentine's Day...we had love bugs, boxes for our Valentine's Cards, we made posters and cards and had a Valentine's Day tea party where the children had to express good manners. America goes crazy for Valentines...our weekly trip to Walmart reminded us of that...walking in it felt like someone had thrown up Valentine's Day all over it!

We helped out our friends in the Study Abroad Office on Thursday afternoon by represented Stranmillis at the fair they had set up in the Student's Union. We spent time there answering questions people posed about Ireland and what it would be like to study there for a semester. It was also a good opportunity to chat with other internationals and discuss how their experience had differed from ours so far. Most of the international students we have met so far are here on a year placement and so have been attending Ole Miss for a lot longer than Ruth and I.

On Thursday evening we met some friends for Chinese which was really good and I was pleased cause I had missed it! After going to the cinema we were introduced to our first Ole Miss tradition...The Doorknob to the Universe... We were blindfolded and driven around in the car while being told the story which follows. We then were taken from the car and walked up a hill, told to duck at certain places and then put our hands out to touch something, turn around and look up. I totally freaked out, thinking we were somewhere completely different and that I was touching some sort of animal...! When I took my blindfold off and looked up, I realised I was at the water tower and that there was a vaguely door knob shaped object above me...it was funny and a bit stupid at the same time!

On Friday morning it was my turn to lead the Finer Things Club in Bottletree bakery. I was a bit nervous about this because the whole affair is taken very seriously and I wanted to do my topic justice. I decided to talk about Northern Ireland and specifically focusing on my heritage, what it means to me and how this can differ greatly from person to person. I also wanted to give a bit of history to our province so they would understand where I was coming from. I had prepared two videos to illustrate what I was talking about and I think my audience where impressed...at least they all felt as if they knew a lot more about Northern Ireland by the end. I think coming here has made me appreciate my roots a lot more, especially because of how much Americans love Ireland.

We went to visit our friend on Friday night and enjoyed spending time in her house making cookies and just chilling out together. I'm starting to make really good friends here and they're so nice to have around and spend time with.

Enjoyed my Saturday this week...Ruth and I ventured to the square on Saturday afternoon and spent time pottering around the little boutiques there. We were window shopping considering the prices of Oxford shops but we still enjoyed just perusing the quirky shops that litter the square. We spent a long time in Square Books Junior, where the primary school teacher came out in me! I loved reading and looking at lots of the different books and scheming up ways I could bring them into a lesson. My favourite book was about a Bunny that had a Big Bad Mood that kept following him and no matter what he did it wouldn't leave him alone...in the end his friends came over and made it all better! We ended up in Square Books where I sat and read for an hour, feeling very cultured and chilled out...

On Saturday night we headed out of Oxford and visited Southhaven for the first time. Loved going somewhere new with friends and especially enjoyed the shopping at the Mall we went too where they had big brands like American Eagle and Aeropostale. It was nice to get some new clothes but it wasn't long before we called it quits and had to get something to eat. Our original choice for dinner told us we'd have to wait for an hour which seemed much too long for 4 hungry girls so we saw IHOP (International House of Pancakes) and made a bee line for it, not really being too fussed at the idea of pancakes for dinner. I had heard so much about this place, especially from my sister (!), that the tourist in me came out and we had a great time there, the food was awesome!!

For church on Sunday we were back to Christ Presbyterian which I really enjoyed and then First Baptist in the evening for the women's bible study, starting to see so many familiar faces and know so many people that it doesn't feel as foreign anymore.

Overcoming phobias (and failing miserably), Leapfrog, Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3, Thacker Mountain Radio, Hand jives in class and LOTS of the blues....!

2010-02-08T11:11:00.000-08:00

It's now been three weeks since we arrived in Oxford, Mississippi and with each week I'm learning new things, professionally, culturally and personally. I've had opportunity to experience so much already and slowly I'm starting to really love Oxford. It is a town with a lot to discover, on the surface very isolated and not a lot of depth but once you scratch the surface you understand why the people here are so proud of it.

This week both Ruth and I got the cold, (obviously inflicting us both because of how much contact we have with each other!!) it kinda wore us both out so we didn't do a lot of what we'd originally planned to do but we still had a busy week and it flew past as did week 2.

On Monday the study abroad office had organised a trip to Memphis to see an NBA game, the LA Lakers v the Memphis Grizzlies. I was really excited to go and see a basketball game and I'd been told by my male friends at home that it was completely ridiculous that I had the privilege of going to a game like this because I wouldn't appreciate it as much as I should...in the end I really don't think I did. A lot of people don't know that I have a pretty awful head for heights, rooting back to family outings in the Mournes which more than likely ended with me lying on the ground paralysed with a fear of falling off the mountain (I do understand that to the people who aren't scared of heights this sounds ridiculous!), but surely I wouldn't have an issue at a basketball game?! Well it turned out that as I looked up to our seats that fear which I thought I had slightly combatted this Summer in Cyprus was most definately still there! Our seats were a row from the very top of the stadium and as I sat down I started to sweat and cry like a total child! It was very embarassing but I was thankful for Ruth's loving support to her friend who was freaking out! Ruth alerted one of the study abroad co-ordinators who tried to calm me down but eventually I just turned around to them and said 'I have to get down!!!' I actually cannot remember the last time I was that afraid and embarassed at my fear... Half an hour into the game new seats were found and this time I wasn't scared, Ruth just loved being along for the ride and getting better seats out of the whole ordeal! So by the time I had stopped freaking out and had calmed down, emotional exhaustion kicked in and I was rather sedate for the rest of the match....it was a good game though!!!

Tuesday was a little less eventful, we were back to Willie Price in the morning and had the opportunity to do further observations and work alongside the younger children again. In our night class on classroom management the focus was on managing the psychosocial environment within school. We were split up into groups and each given an area to focus on. This was a fun way to get through the material as we had to extract the key points and put it together in a presentation format. Our group was looking at working with colleagues and I came up with the idea of doing an acrostic of the word 'colleagues' which impressed the professor and we did well as a group getting positive feedback.

On Wednesday morning we frequenting Bottletree again to have breakfast with some friends before we went to class, I think I need to start having breakfast before I go here however because the menu is definately doing damage to my diet! On Wednesday afternoon we had our first experience of Leapfrog, this is an organisation which serves as an after school club for underprivileged kids in the community. I enjoyed working with these kids, it is very freely run so basically we just play with the elementary aged kids from 4-5pm. I spent the hour learning rhymes and skipping songs, and playing hide and seek, I'm looking forward to continuing with this work throughout the semester. After Leapfrog we walked to First Baptist church where they have a free meal for students on Wednesday nights and after we took part in a kids club called 'Awana' which is run by one of our friends.

I enjoyed Thursday morning in Willie Price and I found a particular resource really interesting, they were reading the book, 'Chicka, Chicka, 1, 2, 3' and doing activities based around this book. The book introduces numbers right up to 1oo and the children worked around different centres based on number recognition including a resource, 'Handwriting without tears' which encourages children to learn to write in fun and interactive ways. The children were learning to form numbers using dough and they seemed to respond well to this, especially with the stimulus of the book.

On Thursday evening we were invited to the premiere of 'Thacker Mountain Radio Show' a radio show that is broadcast live from Oxford every Thursday night. I loved this, it made me feel extremely cultured and definately moved Oxford up in my estimations. There were performances from the inhouse band, James Dupree and Young Buffalo, an up and coming band from Oxford. Alongside music there were readings from different authors who were promoting their books, one written about growing up with a love for the blues and the other a biography of Paul Newman...Best of all this is a free event every week! My love for music and in particular discovering new bands and new sounds is definately being fostered here in Oxford.

Friday morning we were back to the Finer Things Club, this week discussing the pros and cons of an advancing world where technology is increasingly becoming the focus of communication. We had an interesting debate on the world of Facebook and Twitter and the guy who led shared his own poetry. It's my turn to share next week so I'm a bit nervous as I feel like I've a lot to live up too!

Fridays' classes were a little different than usual, in Professor Chessin's class on discovering us to be a lot less responsive than normal called 'Mr C' into the room who had just been passing by. Mr C is a professor at Ole Miss who had been an elementary principal for many years and you could tell! His method for waking us up on a rainy Friday afternoon was to get the whole class to do the handjive, teaching us fun ways to sequence and also motivate kids when they're feeling lethargic...The whole time I was trying to imagine this ever happening in Stran...somehow I couldn't put together that picture!

This weekend was busy but very enjoyable...we heard a LOT of blues! We were invited to two birthday parties but it was only after accepting the invitations that we discovered both were happening in the same place. The venue was 'Ground Zero,' a blues club in Clarkesdale which is in the delta area and is the home of the blues. This restaurant was set up by Morgan Freeman who comes from the delta and it had a very authentic atmosphere, one which I don't think you could ever replicate. On Friday night we heard 'Daddy Rich' giving us lots of blues music by way of the harmonic and voice along with his band. 'Super Chikan' played on Saturday night and in my opinion was the better of the two. I have never seen anything as unique in all my life (so far!), glittery chicken guitars, beaded necklaces with chickens stuck to them and a catchphrase, 'Somebady shoot that thang!' which was said after every song. Another unique aspect were the doodles and signatures which stretched from floor to ceiling, toilet seat to table cloth, I was quite happy when after signing my name on Friday night I was seated at a table with my name on it on Saturday night!

On Sunday we attended the College Hill presbyterian church which has a lot of history of its own being the church where William Faulkner was married many years ago. It was set among huge cedars out in the countryside surrounded by miles of farming land and it fit my imaginings of a church in Mississippi perfectly. I enjoyed the service and the people we met were once again extremely hospitable and welcoming.

Looking forward to a new week and what will unfold in week 4....

A week of firsts- Pop quizzes, thrift stores, prom, butter beans, fried pickles, sweet potato casserole, nearly a full class with double barrel names!

2010-02-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

Our second week here in Mississippi flew past...I suppose that's why this weeks blog entry comes a little late! We're both really starting to get used to the way things work around Ole Miss and find our place here for the next few months. The first week was definately daunting and overwhelming but the second week went by with ease.

Sometimes the thought of how much is ahead of us still can be a challenge but as we've seen from the past week we're definately getting used to American life. My first full week of classes went really well and I'm enjoying the American style of teaching and the opportunities presented as a result.

On Monday morning I had my first 'pop quiz' in our Introduction to Special Education class, based around information from previous classes. Not knowing when these tests will take place make you more prepared for class because if you don't read the information you won't be able to answer the questions. I continue to enjoy Professor Chessin's class based around Effective Teaching Strategies. On Monday the focus was around the nature of goals and something I found very valuable that we had to do for this class was to question what our goals were as teachers. I enjoy the preparation and feedback that goes into these sessions.

Ole Miss engages in a lot of sporting activities and even if you're not in the least bit sporty you dress like you are to keep up with the fashion at college! It's an interesting trend the girls have got going here at Ole Miss, leggings, shorts, baggy t-shirts and trainers...not sure how it would go down at home! So in keeping with the sport fanatics Ruth and I have joined a Cardio-kickboxing class. The fitness schedule is really good at college and it's all free for students. Slimming down for Spring Break is the major focus of the girls, toning up those abs for the beach is vital, one girl showed us her massive jar of protein she was planning to take to tone before the break! We really enjoyed the class and plan to do a lot more to keep fit while here, especially because the food isn't that healthy.

On Tuesday we had our first session in Willie Price Nursery Unit where we are taking an Early Childhood Education course. This was really an introductory session where the course requirements were set out and we were able to find out more about the runnings of the nursery. We are required to do 30 hours field experience in Willie Price, along with observation assignments.

We also had our first evening class which is held for all those education majors who are out already student teaching. This has been my favourite class so far. I really enjoy the professor's teaching style and the way she embraces the international students in her classroom. This class focuses on Classroom Management in a very practical way and I am looking forward to what it will teach me and the value of being in a class full of specialised teachers. After this class we went out with some of the student teachers for pizza to 'Proud Larrys' in the square. This turned out to be great fun and also a great opportunity to talk about the differences in education here to at home. One of the biggest differences we found were 'paddling' or smacking is still allowed within some schools if parental consent is given, the number of children here who make it through school to college would also be a lot lower with illiteracy being a big problem in certain areas. We discussed different classroom management techniques and behaviours of children in our experience.

On Wednesday in our Introduction to Special Education class we continued to study various ways in which laws have shaped the way we address needs today. Following this our Effective Teaching Strategies class looked at the different thinking domains and practically how we apply these to goals and objectives. Proffesor Chessin also talked about how children who come from different backgrounds will have different experiences and these can come in many forms, for example language experiences. This led to an interesting discussion about terms we use in NI but mean different things in the USA, she asked me for examples, I gave a couple...jumper and pants! At the end of the class she reviewed and asked people to feedback what they'd learnt from the lesson, a guy in our class said, "I now know pants are underwear in NI!"

We attended RUF on Wednesday night, really enjoying this, the speakers they've had so far have been great and we've made so many American friends through it which has helped us settle in so much. Increasingly we're becoming recognised as the Irish girls who went to Walmart!

Thursday began with my first introduction to the class I'll be with in Willie Price for the next few weeks. I walked into the classroom and a little boy walked straight up to me, stuck out his hand and said in the thickest accent I've heard so far, "Hey-eh my name's Sam, nice to meet ya!" I love the group I am working with, they are an adorable bunch and so typically Southern, I don't think I've ever come across so many double barrel names in a class! There are 3 helpers in the class, 1 main teacher and 3 students. The classroom is a busy environment and my main role will be as a support to the teacher and to make general observations. We had an assignment to complete in the class which covered listing names, noticing special needs, boy to girl ratio etc. I'm looking forward to further interactions within the classroom and working alongside the children.

On Thursday night we were invited out for dinner to the renowned 'Ajax' famous for its Southern delicacies. This was a great opportunity to try out some new food and hang out with new friends. The company was great...the food...well... I'm not sure my stomach was made for Southern food... I was advised to go for chicken dumplings, sweet potato casserole and butterbeans, I also tried fried pickles and catfish. I can't really describe all of the food I tasted that night, needless to say I'm pretty sure I won't ever order it again!

The winter winds blew into Oxford on Thursday night, by 'winter winds' I mean some frosty trees and a downpour of rain...all seemingly normal weather for us at home...but here, college closed up early on Friday, we got text messages from the police force and town centres were deserted. Our classes finished early as a result which we didn't complain about but the reaction to the weather was very funny for us Irish folk.

On Friday morning we were invited to join the 'Finer things club' for breakfast in Bottletree which is fast becoming our favourite place in Oxford. This club meet weekly to discuss cultural issues, current affairs, art, music, in essence, the finer things in life. I felt very privileged being asked to participate and join the group who opened with thoughts from 'Tu-pac' and who spent an hour discussing the Scientifically proven benefits of Omega 3 to our brains!

Ruth and I attended our very first ninth grade prom on Friday night and in preparation for this our friends braved those 'winter winds' to take us to the 'thrift store' (basically a charity shop) to get dresses for the occassion. There isn't much time wasting with Americans which put me under a bit of pressure, running around the store grabbing any dress I could find because everyone had picked something already and were waiting outside.
The prom was brilliant, definately the highlight of our trip so far. The theme for the night was 'Winter Enchantment' and so the house was covered in snowflakes, they even had a themed backdrop for photos and downstairs they had a dancefloor. Oxfordians know how to throw a good party and also how to dance!

On Saturday we did our weekly Walmart shop, thankfully minus the drama and the stolen goods this week, we tried to attend an Ole Miss basketball game which was cancelled as a result of those pesky 'winter winds' and in the evening met some students for Mexican and a movie.

The week ends and begins with Sunday which was really good, we attended Christ Church Presbyterian in the morning and in the evening had the opportunity to go to a women's Bible Study in First Baptist church.

This week has shown me the meaning of Southern hospitality in the fact we've been really welcomed wherever we've gone so far. We met so many people in week 2 and feel as if we are starting to gain from this experience on so many levels.

Aeroplanes...funny accents....Walmart disasters...PS I Love You...Leprechauns...Week 1!

2010-01-23T11:23:00.000-08:00

This is the first of many blogs about Ruth and I's time here in the USA. We are studying at Ole Miss University in the college town of Oxford.

Oxford is about an hour from Memphis and this is where we spent out first night after many hours of travelling. We made it to the Radisson hotel late on Monday night and were thankful to have a shower and get to bed after so much travelling!

Travelling is an interesting experience when you pack as much as Ruth and I, we managed to fill two suitcases each, two hand luggage bags and laptops in cases....lets just say we were thankful for airport trolleys! Our visas and documents made sure we didn't have any difficulties with getting through the security gates and despite me getting shouted at a few times for crossing lines, taking photos or hovering in a restricted area we made it...!

On Tuesday morning we were picked up at 11am by a shuttle bus to head down south to our home for the next few months. First impressions...cowboy boots...a thick Southern drawl and our driver threw our bags around as if they were full of air. Driving across the country was nothing spectacular and apart from being on the other side of the road nothing looked especially 'American.' The journey made us aware of the very many stereotypes associated with the Irish here, basically thinking we just sit and look at sheep all day or are in paramilitary organisations. Ruth and I assured them this is not the case and yes we do in fact do other things aside from farm sheep!

Arriving at college was a bit overwhelming to say the least. I don't think I've ever seen somewhere so big. We were given a short tour around campus and I think Stran is about the size of the Law building alone so it's going to take some time to get used too. Maury from the Study Abroad Office met us upon arrival and we quickly discovered we had a lot to achieve in our first day at college. He introduced us to 'the square,' the town centre and we enjoyed hearing all about Oxford over lunch. After lunch we felt as if we were on a treasure hunt around campus, armed with maps we went from one building to the next trying to get as much done in 2 hours before everywhere closed.

When we had finished all our tasks for the day we returned to our room pretty exhausted and began making our room look a little less like a prison cell and a bit more like home! We had our first meal in the cafeteria style restaurant, 'the JC' and went to bed really tired and overwhelmed.

On Wednesday we started into our first classes at Guyton Hall which is the school of education. I really enjoyed getting stuck into classes, it was nice to meet more students and also just learn more about what we're going to be doing for the next four months. These were introductory classes, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday we will be taking Special Education and Planning and Teaching Strategies for Effective Education. On Tuesday we will take Effective Classroom Management for Teachers and Experiences in Early Childhood Education and we take this on Thursday as well. We will also do 30 hours of classroom practice in Lafayette Elementary school over the next few months where I will be placed in Grade 1 and Ruth in Kindergarten. Being labelled the 'Irish girls' was a bit embarassing and we realise we're a bit of a novelty to the people here. We've started to count the amount of times people have said 'So you're Irish...that's like the movie PS I love you isn't it?!' I haven't seen this film but apparently it has a bit of an association to Ireland...!

On Wednesday we also took our first trip to Walmart, it's only about 10 minutes from campus but public transport really isn't big over here so it took a bit of time to get there. Everyone here has a car and this is a totally isolated town so to get around you have to have a car or be an amazing walker. Money plays a big part in the students lives and there is a large representation of students in the sorority/fraternity groups, something alien to Ruth and I but interesting to learn about and also look at the huge houses with Greek lettering on the doorframes.

Walmart was a bit stressful but we made it through. We bought some duvets/comforters for our beds and they came in plastic cases, on the way out of Walmart our trolley beeped but it was full of stuff so the man, who got carried away with telling us about relatives coming over on the Mayflower, let us go and dismissed the beeping. We got home unaware of any problems until I opened my duvet and discovered about 15 Xbox/PSP games hidden in the duvet! So it was an interesting first experience to say the least. On Thursday our Professor Dr Chessin called Walmart and brought us back to the store and explained the situation which was great.

On Wednesday night we ventured out of halls and went to an RUF meeting, Reformed University Fellowship, it is a Christian Union here at Ole Miss. We enjoyed this meeting and afterwards went with some students for doughnuts. We were thankful we'd bought cellphones that day and were able to exchange numbers with them so we could meet up the next night.

Thursday we felt like we knew a little more what we were doing. Class was cancelled for the day but we had a meeting with Dr Chessin which was really fun, she's so lovely and I think will be a great help to us here. She took us to 'Rebel book store' where we could purchase our ridiculously overpriced textbooks!!! Thankfully we can share these books and so half the cost, we need them for our classes as there is a lot of background study expected for each session. On Thursday night we went out with some of the people we'd met the previous night and enjoyed being out on the square, meeting so many people was a bit daunting though and we realised how long it will take to build up friendships with people. The cultural differences are greater than I expected. I think I just expected Americans to be like us but with a funny accent but more and more the differences are becoming clear. They have been so friendly so far and it's great to start to feel as if we will make some friends when we're here in Oxford, especially because it looks like we won't get to do a lot of travelling around the States when we're at college. People in the South are very laid back and friendly, they love the Irish which is great for us! There is also still a lot of joking that goes on about Northerners, dating back to the civil war and we've noticed segregation is still a big thing here. White people tend to stay together and black people the same, it's a generalisation and not always the case but from what we gather at this stage it seems to be how things are.

On Friday we had our first proper experience of class and we learnt a lot. Teaching styles are very different to Stran in that our classes are more like interactive seminars rather than lectures. Classes consist of about 30 students and the professors build up more of a relationship with students than at home. Our special education class is really interesting because we have just done a module of this at Stran. We looked at it from a totally different perspective, at home the focus began and ended with inclusion, yesterday we began our class back in the 1600s talking about periods of 'Hide and Forget' or 'Protect and Pity.' They still use terms like 'Mental Retardation' which is no longer acceptable in Northern Ireland. I like to compare the methods and content of teaching in this area and learnt a lot from this professor. In our class with Dr Chessin we are starting to look at goals and objectives in lesson structures. The class was well planned and student participation to her lessons is a focus. We are beginning to look at the Mississippi Curriculum frameworks next week which will be great to look at in terms of comparisons with our curriculum.

This morning (Saturday) our friends took us out for breakfast to the 'Bottletree Bakery' and I had the biggest cinnamon roll imaginable!!! It was a really nice morning and we enjoyed chatting and getting to know people who are from Oxford, looking forward to doing lots of fun things with them. They took us to a famous book store 'Square books' and we had a look around the vast amount of books available. William Faulkner came from this town as well as John Grisham focusing much of his work in and around here, so books are a big part of Oxford.

So our first week here in Oxford has been busy, exciting, tiring, overwhelming and daunting all at the same time. I think we're both looking forward to what the weeks will hold and thankful to have so many helpful and hospitable people around. It's been a funny week, the funniest question was perhaps...'Do you know any REAL Leprechauns?!' ...It's going to be an interesting few months....!