American ways of living...

It had been a great week in Harrisburg and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. Americans Rotarians were friendly and the GSE team had enjoyed themselves thus far and the programme planned were so educational and informative. Well, another 3 weeks to go and we indeed enjoyed every second of it...

Saturday with the Thibaults

"BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP!"

I woke on Saturday morning to the blaring of a fire alarm. As acrid smoke filled the air in my third floor bedroom, I hurriedly dressed and stumbled downstairs.

"We wake up like this every Saturday morning," Sarah, my Rotarian host, said sarcastically. She stood on a chair fanning the fumes from the smoke detector on the ceiling.

"Just in case you were wondering, we thought you were sleeping in too long. So we decided to set the house on fire!" Paul, Sarah's witty husband, quipped as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

Smoke billowed from the fireplace in the library, filling the kitchen and library on the ground floor with greasy, brown smoke. We spent the good part of the morning arranging portable fans, opening windows and doors and trying to keep the fire alarm from wailing constantly. Finally, Paul and Sarah removed the offending logs from the fireplace and the smoke cleared up. Crisis averted, I sat down to have one of Paul's famously delicious omelettes for breakfast. Over breakfast, I asked Paul and Sarah what had led to the mishap.

It turned out that Paul had thought that it would be a good idea to start a fire to combat the chilly Saturday morning. Even though he had left all doors open to create a draft, the cold, still air prevented the smoke from rising up the chimney and instead it was sucked back into the room. With nowhere to go, the smoke accumulated and set off the fire alarm.

What can I say? Never a dull moment with the Thibaults.

With that incident behind us, we went to Lancaster's Central Market to shop for some lunch. Then we rested for the big event at sundown - Easter Vigil. More on that later.

Just Believe !!!!

Tour of Lancaster on SEGWAY.

This is no typical tour of the city. We travelled on SEGWAY. It was cool... in fact in was COLD!!! Haha. The weather was cold and most of the time I cannot feel my fingers. We enjoyed this unique experience and enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

Live !! @ WLBR

We were on the Radio.. Yes we were! Rtn Nigel Foundling managed to get us on the local Radio. We had a blast of a time and manage to have a feel to work in a Radio Station. After the recording, we were given a tour of the station and learned a thing or two about running a radio station. I was told that we sound good on radio. Hmmmm.. maybe is time to change profession?

A Day of an Elementary/Middle School Teacher

It was our first day of our Vocation and I was very excited about it. Our team break up and make our way to our respective areas of interest. My day started with a class with Mary Napoli, Assistant Professor of Reading and Children's Literature from the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education in Penn State Harrisburg. I was honored to have met her students, who were teacher in training and shared many of our pedagogies and experience as teachers in both countries. I would like to thank Prof. Mary and her students in allowing me to enter the classroom and share our experiences.



Next I headed to meet Dr Jason Petula who is an Asst. Prof of Math Education and Dr. Robert Coffman who is a Asst. Prof of Education. Our discussion was fruitful and I had learned many insights to the syllabus of Mathematics and Science in the State. There were similarities in our approach to teaching but of course our differences were also present. I was surprised to learn that they had a similar modular approach to science but they had a study of Earth and Space. We exchanged contacts and will continue to share our experiences in the future via email.



My last stop was to Hersey Middle school. I observed a Grade 9 English class. The main difference is that the pupils move from one class to another while the teacher stays in the same classroom. We, Lau and myself, shared about our country and how the pupils in our countries carry out their daily lives.

It was a long exhausting day but it was a great one as I had learned a lot from today's vocation. :)

Lunch @ Molly Brannigan's

Like they said, "A picture speaks a Thousand Words". This is a picture of what I had lunch on 19 April. It was a potato pancake and it was GOOD!!!!