It has been another busy week this week..Monday started like a normal day...by skipping class. I decided to take a personal day. Since I had extra sleep I decided to make a trip to Willy's which as you know takes extra energy! My mother has told me that its not good to go to the grocery store hungry, well actually I don't know who told me that but it sounds like a mom thing. The reason you don't do that is because you walk out spending 779,00 SEK which is $125.00 dollars in case you were wondering a receipt with that many items is longer than the length between your elbow and hand...thats long. One good thing about this day was the fact that the SUN WAS OUT. Its wonderful!!! It is spring here! It has been like 50 degrees which is AMAZING!! So in celebration of spring we decided to have a barbecue to celebrate spring. The funny thing is we finally started the cookout at 10pm (off course Spanish style) so the sun was long gone and it was cold and dark again but nevertheless we had a barbecue. It was really fun to cook and spend time with my friends from Spain, France & America, I foresee this being the first of many barbecues. Tuesday was a pretty uneventful day, I went to class and decided to not go out to Stallarna. After Monday with the beautiful sun it has been rainy and dark and its supposed to stay this way the rest of the week. Wednesday I did laundry and wrote a paper so I consider that I good day. Then I spent the evening with my friends and attempting to make "American" chocolate chip cookies. Well it was a fail... apparently the flour is different here and they do not work out, I would say I was disappointed if I wasn't used to everything failing like this...Sweden food SUCKS (sorry mom but its true). Thursday I had another school visit. This was an interesting visit...It was at the Waldorf Skola.
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| Waldorf Skola |
The best way for me to explain this school would be to say that a couple hippies got together and decided to start a school. I will show you some schools to give you a visual and you can draw conclusions for yourself. This school is another private school and it's focus is on the importance of play. At Waldorf Skola they feel play is very important. When we arrived they had us doing a clapping/counting exercise that was interesting. They said the students really get involved and enjoy it. They believe in expressing themselves through art. Throughout the school there was artwork everywhere. To be frank I thought the school was a joke. They don't use texts books "the students write their own". In the Waldorf schools defense I have heard this particular Waldorf school is not the best so maybe I would like others better. I guess I just feel like there is a time to play and a time to learn and at some point you have to sit down and learn. I am really big on making learning fun but I think the "Waldorf concept" is a little too much fun. I don't feel like they are learning a lot. Just to make another point the 3rd & 4thgrade are in the same class and there are 8 students total..TOTAL...what the heck? One teacher on 8 kids. I asked the teacher why there were so few students and she said because not so many people know about the Vaxjo Waldorf School and they don't understand the concept. I just don't think there are enough hippies around here to fill the school with flower children. But this is all my opinion. After the visit I wanted to get some perspective on what other students from other countries thought of it...it was pretty much unanimous they have some good ideas but they are crazy.
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| Not sure whats going on here? |
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| 1st & 2nd grade classroom |
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| 3rd & 4th grade class |
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| 3rd & 4th grade weaving |
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| I wonder which species of plants they are growing? haha |
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| Some watercolors of 1-4th grade students. |
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| They use spiral graphing to teach 5th & 6th graders math. |
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| I got a little bored from listening to the hippies I mean teachers during the tour. So I decided to try on the students art projects for the class. |
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| This is the Jr. high classroom. Notice no computers anywhere in the school...apparently there are laptops but they never really get to use them...no computers...no textbooks...crazy! |
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| All of the chalk boards have curtains so the teacher can put things on the board the night before and hide it from the students so they do not get distracted. |
Overall this was an interesting visit. There were some things about the school that I thought were good but I am still not sure. I would like to see other Waldorf schools before I make up my mind about them. Today I went to town and bought a train ticket to Stockholm. I am leaving tomorrow at 8:03a.m. to visit the city and a friend that I met earlier this semester but he has moved and now live in Stockholm. Me and 3 other friends will spend the night in a hostel thats actually a boat and supposed to be really cool. We will be there until Monday morning when I leave from Stockholm for Estonia on a cruise!!!! Yes, you read it right...I am going on a cruise Monday. We leave Stockholm at 5pm...get to Tallinn, Estonia at 10am the next morning. I will spend the day in Estonia. Then we leave Estonia at 5pm and head back to Stockholm.
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| Here is a little visual of where I will be cruising....Stockholm to Tallinn and back in 3 days! I can't wait =) |
Its only a 3 day 2 night cruise but it is with 2,000 other international students and it is a HUGE party! I am ecstatic! So by the end of next week I will have tons of pictures and stories to blog about. I am also ready to get out of this darkness and rain. I am ready for sun and flowers...come on Spring!! Until then enjoy the weekend, I sure am going to!
Bon Voyage,
Allie
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