Thanksgiving in Melbourne

Melbourne skyline, right after lunch


A few of us new Yamaha teachers!


A famous Melbourne tram!


Thistlethwaite Street...try saying THAT five times fast


SO MUCH STUFF!! Educational materials, teaching guides, "laptop," DVDs, CDs...

Today I was in Melbourne all day for the first training seminar. What a long day! My flight left at 7:15 am, so I was up at 5:15. I met the other three teachers at the airport, and they are all absolutely lovely. Love them! We had a bit of a chat on the hour flight, but I ended up falling asleep for a little bit. I didn’t get much sleep last night, as we got back from the Robin Hood pretty late.

Finally, I can now say I’ve been to Melbourne! My first experience of the second largest city in the country was fairly uneventful, in terms of contact with the city itself. In fact, all I saw of it was the grey skies from the airport to Yamaha, the less grey but still grey skies during our lunch, and the so-grey-it-was-pouring-rain skies from Yamaha to the airport. It was yucky and dull outside all day, and humid. Upon our flight's arrival, we hopped in a taxi straight away. After about a half an hour, we arrived at the Yamaha Corporate Headquarters, where everything was taking place. The seminar was scheduled to start at 10 am, but we were a little late.

My head is officially stuffed with Yamaha (which is TOTALLY fitting, as my tummy would normally be stuffed with turkey on this day!) We performed dances, we sang songs, we learned about the habits of 3 ½ year olds, we observed teachers, we became teachers, we analyzed music, we listened, we learned….we were educators. It was, to be quite blunt, BLOODY FANTASTIC!

There’s a catch (as always). We have HEAPS of homework to do before our next seminar (3 days in Melbourne) in two weeks. We have to memorize a whole list of songs, both playing on the piano and singing the lryics, all the verses. We have to know these songs so well that we can play them without looking, sing in perfect tune, maintain eye contact with each of the kids that are crowded around the piano, as well as assess which of those kids are participating and how they’re each going--all with an excited, enthusiastic expression. Of course, all of this makes for superb teaching practices, and this is why I had to go through what I did to become a Yamaha teacher. I have a lot of work ahead of me in the next few weeks! Will it be worth it? I think so. There’s a three-day seminar on 11-14 December, and the four of us Sydney teachers will be put up in an apartment in Melbourne. Then, in January, there’s a 4-day seminar, and after that we’ll be ready to teach on our own. A room full of a dozen 4 year olds and their parents—no pressure! I’m stoked, though, and ready to take it on.

The seminar ended around 5. We had an hour for lunch (which they didn’t pay for, and I wasn’t too happy about this) but the day was long and many of us were wearing out by 4 pm. So much dancing, singing, learning and jumping around for one day! Robyn, the senior instructor who had been the speaker in the morning session, had ordered us Sydney girls a taxi to arrive at 5:15. Of course, it was pissing down rain at 5 pm, and the taxi never arrived. At 5:20, we decided that we needed to get to the airport and so set off to find a taxi on our own. We slugged through the rain down the road and across the street, to the Crown Plaza Hotel. There was a taxi queue (aka line for all you American readers), alright, and it was looooong. Wet from the rain, and weighted down by our 4 teacher’s manuals (two each for the Music Wonderland and Junior Music Course), 3 kids’ music packs (including DVDs and 2 CDs each, the student and teacher edition) on top of a “laptop” (this amazingly awesome educational resource that I wish had been available when I was learning music—you open it up and it’s a magnetized musical staff! There are little black dots for notes and the kids can create their own songs by rearranging the notes any way they want) and more music books (see above). So we all had a fair bit of stuff with us, and after evading puddles and unsuccessfully hailing down taxis on the main road, we resorted to the hotel queue. After about twenty minutes, we finally had ourselves a taxi and made our way to the airport. On the way, I learned two new Aussie phrases, courtesy of the driver:

“Bob’s your uncle.” = There it is. Example: "It’s about 6 pm now, we’ll dodge through such and such highway, make a right on such and such street, and have you at terminal three by 6:30. Bob’s your uncle.”

“She’ll be apples.” = She’ll be sweet/alright. Example: "Yeah, Emily was pretty hung over this morning, but she'll be apples."

Silly Australians! We made it to the airport with plenty of time until our flight, which was scheduled to depart at 7:45. We had a bite to eat, and found out that our flight was delayed due to the thunderstorms. Take-off was only twenty minutes late, however, and we ended up back in Sydney by 9:45 pm.

I was pretty exhausted by this point, and Marty was waiting for me at the airport when we landed. I got home around 10:30, and crashed. What a day!