Chelsea Hospital School

I have finally started my internship and it has been wonderful the last few days. I am interning at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital school, which works with hospitalized children ages 4-19, as well as community kids who are not able to attend a regular school due to medical conditions. 

       I arrived at 8:30 Wednesday morning, a little anxious and was greeted by my director, Paul, who has an awesome Australian accent! He showed me around the school, which consists of a large secondary and primary classroom joined by a hall and office area. The secondary class, where I spend most my time consists of 5 computers, a camera, television, tables, lots of the kids' artwork and a "chill-out room" with bean bags, a piano, guitars, a projector, and strobe lights :) At 8:45 I met several more members of the team who were very welcoming. Each morning, the team meets and runs through a list of about twenty or so children and their specific needs, who will get to attend class and who needs to be visited bed-side. In order to understand what they are talking about I was given a 3 page list of acronyms for medical conditions! Obviously I've already memorized all of them, not. After the morning meetings, the students start arriving and class begins at 10:00. There are about 10 community students who attend fairly consistently, then there are the ward kids, who are currently hospitalized and come down sporadically when they feel up to it. The first day I got to work with a sweet girl undergoing facial reconstruction through an amazing organization, "Facing the World." You can see her picture on their website, she's the first one: http://www.facingtheworld.net/real-stories/past-children.  She was trying to learn English, but was just really not feeling well, which was pretty upsetting to watch. Sitting down with her was the hardest situation I've dealt with so far. Other than that though, I really enjoyed meeting the other students and helping in any way I could. 

             My second day on the job was the day of the hospital school's official Grand Opening. They moved into a new location at the end of July, but just finished setting everything up. The whole day I was the little intern running errands, making name tags, and meeting tons of people. The grand opening was a huge ordeal with over 100 attendees consisting of parents, hospital workers, politicians, and media who came to tour the school. The director spoke, then one of the students who was a senior spoke about his 12 years spent at the hospital school. He was precious talking about how the workers there were family to him. It made me feel very privileged to get to work with these people. After the ribbon cutting, there were 50 kinds of cake and tons of people to talk to. The best part, however, was that even though it was only my second day, I felt like I was totally part of the team. The students were all talking to me and people were asking me questions about the school and it was like I had been there for years.

           Today, my third day, however, has probably been my favorite so far. We hosted some visiting teachers from Finland and we got to skype with their hospital school there. The kids enjoyed asking them questions about Finland and I learned a lot of interesting stuff too. One interesting fact is that Finland has the highest literacy rate in Europe and they go to school the least amount of hours, only about 20 per week in elementary school and 28 in secondary. The typical school in American is 35 hours  a week. Most of them also speak 3 languages, Finish, Swedish, and English. What  I most enjoyed today was getting to work one on one with one of the 12 year old girls. I went through her history book teaching her about Medieval England, (which was perfect because I just had a class on that Monday). She was so appreciative and it came so naturally, which really made me feel good. It's easy after going long periods of time without actually teaching to start getting bored with the classroom observations, but when I get a taste of actually helping a child, it just lights my fire and reminds me of why I want to teach. 

            In the afternoon, most of the kids were taken to an art exhibit and I worked on organizing the classroom. When labeling supplies I learned some interesting cultural tidbits. The English don't use the word marker, it's "felt tips," colored is spelled coloured, math is maths, and the students had to explain to me the English stereotype  "Chaz" which is like "wanna be gangster." The most funny, however, was when my director was trying to tell someone over the phone that he was just so worn out and he said,  "Yeah, I'm just naked mate, I'm plain naked."  

            Everyday is different at the Hospital School and that's why I'm so excited and, I'm already attached to the kids and it's only day 3. Though at times when I'm cleaning or copying and things are very slow, I know it will require patients, but I think that in the end, it is going to be an extremely rewarding experience.

             

My heart is so full and fluttery right now. Kaylee has now been with my parents for about 12 hours and an email my dad sent said that it could not have gone better! HE said she latched right on and wanted to be held and given piggy back rides and that Mattie has jumped right in to the big sister role. It is hard to be so far apart, but thanks to their pictures and skype I've gotten to experience much of the trip with them. I am so thankful to God that everything went smoothly today and I can't wait to meet my new sister on skype tomorrow!

Life in the Burrow

I apologize for the poor upkeep on this newsfeed, but I have hardly had time to sleep the last week and have not been able to squeeze any blogging in. I do want to share, however, some of my favorite highlights :)
              Since my last post, I have begun to settle in to my new semester home, London, and am actually starting to feel familiar and comfortable. I absolutely love the Daniel House where I live (other than the 99 stairs I have to walk up to reach my room aka the eagle's nest), and I really feel that our whole group here is becoming a family.
              Some of the awesome adventures we have shared include touring the Tower of London (First built in 1078 by William the Conqueror) and seeing the Crown Jewels (awesome crowns, scepters, and jewelry worn by the royal families) and walking across the infamous Tower Bridge. We also were among a privileged few who got to tour Buckingham Palace (it is only open when the Queen is away, 6 weeks out of the year!) The inside of the palace was beautifully adorned with red, gold, and green, velvets, silks, and diamonds. It is just what you would picture of a palace, but with much taller ceilings. PS they have 240 bedrooms and 78 bathrooms. They can hold a lot of people! We also learned about the queen's infamous garden parties she holds several times a year. Apparently during each party about 12,000 guests attend and they consume about 27,000 cups of tea and 20,000 slices of cake. Sounds like my kind of party! 
              I have also visited the infamous Abbey Road studios where the Beatles made their magic, as well as climbed the 540 stairs to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. I have visited Europe's biggest book store, Foyles, which is 5 stories tall, seen Big Ben, Parliament, and even attended a play at Shakespeare's globe theatre. 
            I have so enjoyed living in the center of so much history and activity, but one of my favorite experiences so far was my trip to Dover today. This morning 18 of us traveled to King's Cross Station and boarded a Eurostar to Dover, a small town about an hour outside of London. Dover is known both for the natural beauty of its white cliffs and the historical significance of the Dover Castle. On this overcast misty day, I saw the English coast to be even more beautiful than I had imagined. We were able to take a boat tour which gave us an amazing view of the white chalk cliffs. Afterwards, we hiked about two miles through a beautiful green hillside along the cliffs, to reach the South Foreland lighthouse. After that, we walked about three miles to the Dover Castle. I loved exploring the Dover castle not only for its Medeival significance, but its role in WWII. The castle has been used on and off since its construction by Henry II in the 13th century and today has been refurbished with Medeival furniture, clothing, and even talking holographic characters! My favorite part of the tour, however, was the secret tunnels underneath. Built first in 1797 for defense against Napoleon, they were expanded and turned into a major military hearquarters during WWII. The three levels of tunnels could hold at least 2,000 soldiers, as well as an underground hospital, kitchen, and communication centers capable of running the country from underground if need be. These tunnels are so significant because these were the actual chambers where Gen. Radford planned the attack on D-day and deployed his troops across the English channel to Normandy. Anyway, I don't mean to bore you with my inner history buff, but I just thought it was soo cool! I really was just in awe of my surroundings all day! After approximately 8 miles of walking today, I finally sat down for the first time at an English pub and had some classic fish and chips. Let me tell ya, it was heavenly!
            After an eventful week, I am looking forward to a Sunday sabbath tomorrow. I am excited to visit All Souls church which I have heard so much about. I'll let you know how it goes. 
-As the English say... Cheers!
              

St. Mary's Burrow Church

Day 2: Mr. Roger's Neighborhood

Mr. Roger's Tour

My head has been whirling all day trying to take in every ounce of London I encounter. We started off today hearing some safety tips from a Bobby, then heard from Jason Burns, one of the best theater (or should I say "theatre") directors of the English language. He has worked for years with the National Theater and will be taking us to many plays including Hamlet, Swan Lake, and Oliver. To add to his cool factor he's good friends with Sir Ian McKellan (aka Gandolph).
       In the afternoon, we had the privilege of touring our neighborhood, "The Royal Burough of Kensington and Chelsea" with our neighbor Roger. He is a seasoned professor and hilarious old chap, if I do say so myself :) It was a rare opportunity to get the inside scoop on the back roads and who lives where, from a local. He showed us the street of international embassies, Lord Leighton's lavish home, and walked us through Holland's Park. Then, on the way home we got to ride an infamous double decker red bus.
       After dinner, Dr. Sandley took a group of us on a tour of the West End. We took our first tube ride then walked through Covent Garden (aka Eliza Doolittle's market), an area with many street performers and vendors. We walked from there through Trafalgar's Square, past many theatres, pubs, and restaurants then to Leicester Square. It was so fun seeing all the red telephone booths, but sadly they are starting to paint them all black. After that, the Sandley's retired for the night and Mary Evelyn took over as our tour guide. She lead us down the tube where we walked out right at the foot of Big Ben! It was absolutely stunning all lit up at night! After walking across the river and enjoying the view, we decided to head to King's Cross station's platform 9 and 3/4 to see if we could enter Hogwart. It is September 1st after all.
        We finally returned to the Daniel House about 11, and I am exhausted! I'm off to bed because tomorrow is going to be full as well! 9:00 We're off to Buckingham Palace!