Happy New Year!

I have almost been here for a month now! How did that happen? I feel like I just got here! I also feel like there are so many things I have yet to do and see, though I do feel like I have a pretty good feel for the city now. I only have one more week of observation at school - crazy how fast that's going by.

In other news, L'Shana Tova! This year for Rosh Hashana (okay, maybe it was just a lucky coincidence), I honored the new year by trying new things. We went canyoning and abseiling with a group of students from our program up in the blue mountains, which was an amazing experience. Abseiling is the Australian word for repelling down a mountain, which I actually have done before. But canyoning is, in essence, trekking through a canyon - we wore wetsuits, because a lot of it was walking through a small river, and even jumping in and swimming sometimes. That description doesn't seem to do it justice, but the company we went with, High 'N' Wild Mountain Adventures, has a video of it on their website: http://www.high-n-wild.com.au/empress_mov.html. It was so cool - unlike anything I've ever done before. We started the day by taking the 7:18 train up to the Blue Mountains - about a 2 hour train ride. Once we got to Katoomba, we met up with our group and got all our gear for the day - a dry bag to keep our clothes dry while we trekked through the canyon, a helmet, a harness, a water bottle, and a wetsuit. We then headed up to learn how to abseil. We started with a 5 meter cliff, just learning the basics of how the harness works and how to control the rope, and then moved to an 18 meter cliff, at the bottom of which was a few meters of free fall. It was so much fun. Getting over the top of the cliff was the hardest (and scariest) part. From there, it's pretty easy - and really fun! From there, we moved on to the big one - 30 meters, which is about 100 feet. This one only had about 5-10 meters of rock face, followed by about 20 meters of free fall. It was incredible. Again, with this one, it was tough getting over the top, but once you got over, it was the most amazing feeling to be hanging there on the side of the mountain, looking into the valley surrounding you and the beautiful mountains. The view was just stunning. The free fall was exhilarating, too. As you go down, you kind of spin around on the rope a little, giving you a panorama of that phenomenal view. It's something I will never forget. After everyone got a chance to do the 30 meter abseil, we headed out for a picnic lunch of delicious sandwiches. Then it was time for the canyoning. We hiked down into the canyon, where we squeezed into our wetsuits and sealed our dry clothes into our dry bags. We then started off on our canyoning adventure, trekking through the freezing water. We got to our first canyon jump - our guide explained to us that since it was only about a meter deep, we had to jump backwards and land on our backs, using our backpacks to help us keep afloat. When she said that, I was so scared. Not only were we jumping off a rock into a freezing river, but we had to jump backwards. But after seeing a few of my friends do it, I realized it must not be fatal, so I sucked it up and jumped. It actually wasn't that bad. It was definitely a bit scary, falling, backwards, and not seeing the water where I was going to fall. But the backpack actually did help keep us afloat, and it wasn't that bad. We then continued through the canyon, mostly wading through the river, and we passed one more canyon jump. This one was a bit higher, and the water at the bottom was much deeper. On the other hand, the gorge was a bit narrower here, and we had to jump out as far as we could go, because the water right beyond the rock was not very deep. Our guide jumped first again, and he did a crazy flip - which none of us were about to try. How he kept himself straight - and didn't crash into the walls of rock - I do not know. Lots of practice, I guess. But we all just jumped in and moved along. That one was really fun. The next obstacle we came to was a water slide - that was pretty fun too. Although at the end of the waterslide were two pools - and at the end of the second pool was a giant, 30 meter waterfall that we were going to abseil down. Somehow, I ended up being the first one to go down the waterslide, and therefore when I got to the second pool, they called me over clipped me on to the rope, and sent me over the ledge - I barely even had time to prepare myself for what I was about to do. Here again, getting over the ledge was super tough - although this time, it was even tougher, because there was a waterfall where your feet needed to go, and it was pretty slippery. Also, the cliff kind of curved in - it wasn't a flat surface on which to walk my feet down, so it was super easy to slip. I think I actually ended up falling pretty much the whole way down - I mean, I was in a harness on the rope, so it wasn't like I was hurt or anything. But I pretty much just free fell instead of repelling with my feet like I was perhaps supposed to. Also, the waterfall was crashing on me the whole time I was going down - and that water was freezing, too, since it was from the save river we had been canyoning through. So it was pretty scary, actually. But I made it safely down, and it was amazing to be at the bottom, looking up at this 30 meter waterfall and thinking 'holy crap, I just repelled down the face of that waterfall!' We then hiked back up to the vans - which was pretty much all stairs, all the way up the canyon - what a workout! When we got back to the High N Wild office, we changed into dry clothes (which felt great) and then went across the street for some pizza and hot chocolate before catching the train back to Sydney. All in all, it was a fantastic day - we got out of the city for a day, saw the beautiful blue mountains, and did some crazy awesome adventurous things.

I did also go to temple for Rosh Hashana. Sammy and I and our friend Ariel went out to Temple Emanuel near Bondi Junction for services Friday night and Sunday morning. It was a conservative temple, and the services were very nice. Friday night's service was probably the shortest Rosh Hashana service I'd ever been to, but the sermon was great - interesting and very relevant. The most interesting part, however, was that the rabbi cited stats about Americans when she was talking about happiness and wealth, and also told a story that centered around Thanksgiving - it's really interesting how much America is a part of Australian life. Sunday's services were a bit longer, but they were good, too. It was great to hear the Shofar. There was also a really cute little girl sitting behind us who had a plastic toy shofar, and she would blow it when they blew the real one. I guess, looking back, she probably shouldn't have been doing that, given how spiritual and important the shofar is. But she was really cute. All in all, it was a pretty similar service. Some of the melodies and prayers were different, and I'm actually not sure whether that was an Australia vs. America difference or a conservative vs. reform difference. Either way, it was something new for me, which was great. It was also the longest silent prayer I'd ever been a part of as well, although I think that was because it was a conservative synagogue. For Yom Kippur, we will be in Melbourne on a class field trip, and the rabbi at Temple Emanuel gave us a recommendation of a temple to go to in Melbourne, so we few Jews on the trip will fast and go to temple and repent on Monday, and go out and enjoy the city with the class on Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm actually going on a trip along the Great Ocean Road on that Tuesday, and I might even take a helicopter ride, which would be really cool. Then on the third day I'm doing a tour of the Melbourne cricket ground for a class field trip, which should be really cool.

Today I started my second week of school at Trinity, and things are finally starting to really fall into place. I had my three way meeting with Mark, our program director, and my two cooperating teachers (so I guess it was really a four way meeting). We figured out what classes I'm going to be teaching, which includes the year 8 class which I already knew about, as well as a year 11 advanced English class and a year 11 extension class, which is even more advanced than advanced. I guess you could say it's kind of like AP, but not really. The extension English students take the extension class on top of their other English class, and it only meets 3 periods a week, as opposed to six, which is how often their other English class will meet. In the year 8 class, we're doing narrative poetry, and my cooperating teacher said that I can basically teach whatever I want, which is really cool. If anyone has any suggestions of great poems to teach, let me know! I also got to go to music class today, which was awesome. They had a percussion teacher in and the boys got to play all sorts of different kinds of drums. It was really really cool. I'm looking forward to observing more classes this week, and getting ready for my three weeks of almost perpetual traveling, which will be really cool, but potentially quite exhausting. Especially since I have a couple of papers to write in between there as well. But for now, Kaelin is coming over to use our free laundry machines, and I'm going to make dinner for us and we'll probably just relax and watch the fabulous Australian TV that I am coming to love - Ian Thorpe is on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader tonight! And Good News Week, one of our new favorite shows, is on tonight as well, followed by the Emmys, which unfortunately don't start until 10 pm, so I'm pretty sure I won't make it through those, since I have to get up early to teach tomorrow. The internet is being stupid again, so I'll try to post photos from the blue mountains in the morning when it might be a little more cooperative.