Vienna Year Two: And So It Begins!

My Dearest Most Wonderful Blog Readers,

Alright.  So.  Um... About the last four months... They were pretty awesome...and rather jam packed...and so, well, okay so I've been slacking.  I know it and you know it and it's rather embarrassing but it appears that all of my self assurances that I would never be that blogger that leaves their dear sweet readers out in the cold, it seems that I did, in fact, become that person.  To the point where I have felt so blocked about figuring out how to pick up again and start again after four months I've been getting really overwhelmed and chickening out.

But I knew that I must rise above my writer's block and emerge triumphantly into a new year of blogging.  So I put "One Day More" on loop on Youtube (25th Anniversery Cast recording.  Don't even get me started on the movie.  I mean good gracious) and sat myself down resolutely and promised myself that I was not allowed to move until I've given at least a halfway decent update on what's been going on here in Vienna.

Ready?

Okay here we go.

For brevity's sake let's just fast forward through the summer.  It was a really great blessing to be back with my family and to meet with friends and supporters and share what God is doing in Vienna and how excited I was to come back.  I faced my great fear and went to the Cleveland Aquarium (seriously.  fish are gross.) and decided that the puffer fish isn't all that terrifying comparitively speaking.  Also the zoo.  And the State Fair.  You will all be pleased to know, I'm sure, that the Butter Cow is still doing well!

Reuniting with former students!

Feeding the Giraffe with miss Kelly Filipkowski

Bike Rides

Facing my fear!

Fleeing in terror from the T-Rex! 

So, to make 10 million adventures short, August came and I returned to Vienna, full of excitement and ready for a new adventure!  School began and I was greeted by my new classroom which currently houses 10 boys, and 6 girls.  (It makes for a VERY enthusiastic mix).  Countries represented this year include: Ethiopia, America, Zimbabwe, The Philippines, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iraq, South Africa, Angola, and Brazil!  So that beats my record from last year by one country :-).  Of course, if you count the students from 4th grade that I teach one class to a day you can also add: Australia, New Zealand, Macedonia, Namibia, India, and South Korea.  One of the greatest and most challenging aspects of teaching here continues to be the amazing diversity in the classroom.  Differentiation is a MUST!

I'm teaching Science now, so of course we started the year with The Great Baby Diaper Experiment as a way to learn the Scientific Method.  Below find some examples of our research!

On  September 19th we celebrated National Talk Like a Pirate Day because...well...why not?  Students came in costume and we had some piratey adventures throughout the day!  

Another new adventure this year?  I agreed to direct the high school musical with a fellow teacher!  We are producing Guys and Dolls Jr. this year!  I'm BEYOND excited!  It's a whole new fun challenge working with such a diverse group of talented students from so many different backgrounds.  It's hard enough explaining 40's New Yorker slang to a group of AMERICAN students.  Just imagine explaining "craps", "markers", "doll face", etc. to a group of students from as many countries as my 5th graders!  I'll try to take some pictures of practice for you all to see soon.  Pray that we are able to get everything done!  These students are CRAZY busy.  It's such a small school that many of the high schoolers are involved in 5 or 6 different activities.  Our performances will be December 14th and 15th.  So, you know, if you feel like flying to Vienna you should come see it!

At the very end of September  Sarah H. (I have a new roommate who is ALSO named Sarah so now I have to differentiate), Christine, Amanda (my principal) and I went on a weekend trip to Croatia.  It was amazing.  We hung out in a national park and stayed in really awesomely weird lodgings (like seriously.)  

Plitvice Lakes...one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to
in my life.  

Countless waterfalls

and crystal clear blue water

We also visited the Adriatic Sea!

We returned and October has been jam packed with classroom activities.  God answered all of our prayers at ICSV and brought us our long-awaited 4th grade teacher - Molly Brown!  No, we are NOT related! However, I did KNOW Molly before we ended up in Austria together!  In 2007 we worked a summer at the Top Thrill Dragster together at Cedar Point and even though we hadn't been in contact since, we remained Facebook friends, which is how she heard about ICSV and felt called to come teach at the school.  You really should check out her blog to see God's amazing provision in bringing her to school.  It's crazy awesome how he works and it blows me away every day.

We are almost at the end of the 1st quarter.  It's crazy to think that so much time has already gone by.  I feel like I still have SO much to do this year and I am praying for the knowledge and wisdom to meet all of their needs spiritually as well as academically.  There are three students in my classroom that are Muslim and others that don't know God - pray that I am able to minister to them and their families and that the Holy Spirit is active in their hearts this year!

And so with these last pictures I leave you!  NOT for four more months (I promise!).  

With Love!!!

Amy

All good things...

Ultra Refined :-)

You're going to have to pardon me.  I'm going through that thing that all teachers go through at the end of a school year.  That crippling cacophonous mix of conflicting emotions that signal the end of a year spent completely immersed in the lives of a group of children.  You'll have to give me an extra special dose of grace for my nostalgic reminiscing because I'm experiencing for the first time the "agony and the ecstasy" as it were tenfold as I experience it for the first time at an international school.  

My students...fantastic, brilliant, wonderful, challenging, and unique as each and every one of them is...are moving on.  Some of them will put up with me harassing them for hugs in the hallway for years to come...but some of them are leaving for parts unknown to far flung corners of the world and I know that I'll never see the again.

Did it matter?

Did those lessons count?

Did she actually learn how to convert measurements or was that an utter failure?

Will he keep writing?

Will she still be reading voraciously?  

Did I mean anything to them?  

Will they remember me? 

These questions and more rattle around in our brain with each final hug and hurried goodbye.  They run out of your classroom and into the next chapter of their lives and we as teachers are left completely drained.  Emotionally, physically, existentially (ha!) we are like balloons with all the air let out.  

And we love it.  

We love it because even though we may never know the answer to those harrowing questions we know that somewhere, to someone, it has made a difference.  And we know that even if that is not completly true...that these students have made a difference to us and in us.  At the close of every year it's we who learn the most lessons and who change and whose hearts grow more and more.  I have been a teacher for five years now.  A piece of my heart is carried in the growing bodies of over a hundred different amazing children now.  

To each of them...thank you.  

I've used this quote before and I'll use it again (you really can't stop me from where you are anyways)..."No one is told any story but their own."(C.S. Lewis).  I am grateful beyond words for the students that keep in contact.  I get pretty near giddy at the prospect of catching up with and emailing and chatting with my former charges and hearing about what they are up to and their current struggles and triumphs.  

But I'm at peace with the stories that I will never hear the final chapters of.  Because I know that these hearts are in God's hands and that it is only through God's grace and wisdom that I was a participant in a chapter or their own fantastic unfolding life.  

So goodbye to my new old students.  You enter now into that special place in my heart where we can be friends forever even if we never meet again.  You are forever in my prayers and my dreams for you are big.  

And to the teachers that shaped me into who I am today...thank you.   We may never bump into each other but if we ever do I would love to tell you all about what you've done for me.

And so here ends another chapter in my journey.  A year of firsts and lasts and tears and joy.  Of holding on and forming bonds and letting go and saying goodbye.  I can't wait to return to America to tell those of you praying for me about all that God is doing...and I'm so sad to leave behind my family in Vienna even for a short while.  

Don't we serve a great God?

Annnnnd.....pictures to reward you for dealing with my emotional end of the year teacher nostalgia fest!

The epic reading tent of 2013

Book Buddies smiling very maturely 

Reading in the tent

Pre-Water War!

A very refined group!

Varying levels of jump roping ability

Wonderful Korean student who invited me to dinner this week!

Yearbook signing as serious business!

Future Harry Houdini leaves for Korea today :-(

Nigerian friend on the last day!

The blonde club!

Salt Dough Maps!

They Say that a picture is worth a thousand words...

So if a picture is worth a thousand words...perhaps if I post 20 or thirty pictures it will be worth a novel?

I think this a theory worth considering.  The majority of my blog post today will attempt to prove this theory. However, quick actual update first.  We are two and a half weeks away from the end of the school year!  This induces in my heart mad panic.  I'm excited, I'm overwhelmed, I'm heartbroken, I'm tired...it's a lot to work through.  I'll post again soon about all of the school and personal happenings that have been going on in the past month...but before I do that I'd really like to share what I've been working on for the past three months!

I have been privledged to work with a great group of high school and middle school students on a production called "Reserve Two for Murder" which I directed - produced this Friday and Saturday.  It was a BLAST to work with the students and also represented the first time I've directed a high school production solo.  What a fun time!  It was a learning experience from beginning to end but I really truly have been blessed to work with these fantastic young actors and actresses and cannot wait until we get to work together again next year.  So below I thought I'd share some pictures from the show for all of you to enjoy!

Getting 40's faces on :-)

Hair and Makeup :-)  Split between myself, Sarah, Christine, and out alternating curler queens Bea and Jess!

Obligatory trip to Spar in costume

Reserve Two for Murder is set during the opening night of a very terrible play...during which the author and star is murdered!  (the unsuspecting victim is on the left, the young star on the right)

Another "actress" in the show within the show

He's Dead!!

The Audience is Suspect!

Luckily we have some detectives in attendance tonight (it's 1943 of course)

Mrs. Thurston Allen is a VERY old patron of the theater!  Don't mess with her!

No one escapes!  (Lots of audience interaction!)

A second victim!

Putting the pieces together!

The murderer unmasked at last!

The Brilliant Cast Assembled!!

Cast Party!

I was enormously blessed to work with such amazing, talented students!  One of the perils of an international school is, of course, that I'll lose more than HALF of them next year!  Pray for those that are going on to new adventures and for those that will be here next year for a new show together.

Well...now you know have a bit of a window into what I've been up to this last month!  I hope to write again soon now that life is a bit calmer :-)  

Love you all!!!

Amy