Finished.

Well that's it, folks. I'm done my internship at Hutt Valley High School. I'm still not quite sure where the time went, but alas it is gone, and now I have the weekend to pack up before moving on to Australia, and finally Vancouver before heading home to Saskatoon in just over 2 weeks. In the meantime, here's a photo recap of some of the week - farewell parties, organizing the office, packing up, and just generally having fun and enjoying my last bit of time at HVHS.

Roger stopped in to our Year 11 farewell party on Wednesday

Stephen looking jaunty in his modest party hat, supplied thoughtfully by the 11MU students

Megan made us a cake on behalf of the Year 11 Music class

Year 11 Music party

My last HVHS orchestra rehearsal this morning



A short video clip of this morning's orchestra rehearsal

After my last Year 13 lesson today we went outside to take pictures - here we are spelling "MUSIC" (hopefully you can see what we were going for!)

A true "action shot" of some of my Year 13s! :o)

My Year 13 girls skipped Spell 3 and part of Spell 4 to shop for farewell presents for me. They then presented me with a huge array of gifts during my Spell 4 Year 9 class. Here they're sitting on the stairs up to the recording studio, watching me open my presents.

The assortment of gifts I received from my students (the jar of Marmite and the card on the right are courtesy of the Year 11 class, while the barette directly in front of the Marmite and the flower card came from a student that I worked with in the Barbershop group. Everything else is from my Year 13 girls - kiwi lollies including Jaffas, Pineapple Lumps, and kiwifruit chocolate, a paua shell bracelet, a magnet, 4 buttons, a NZ identity bag, a hilarious card, and a bottle of Lemon and Paeroa.... I am spoiled!)

A before shot of my desk (complete with my own beautiful gold party hat from the Year 11 Music farewell)

After shot - now that's organization!

My beloved whiteboard in M2, full of scrawled guitar exercises, lesson outlines, chord charts, and assessment criteria from my Year 9 Guitar classes

This is my classroom. Goodbye M2. I'll miss you.

The view of M2 from the students' perspective

Empty hallways outside the Music office. These green doors are practice rooms, and are almost always bursting with sound from classical clarinet to rock bands.

So there you have it. What an experience all of this has been. I will miss this place probably more than I know at this point... it likely won't sink in until I leave New Zealand, or even until I'm comfortably back in Canada. It has been incredible. My colleagues have been fantastic. My students have been amazing. I have been so fortunate in my internship experience, and all I can think about as I look back is how much I have grown. It has been life changing, to say the least.

I can't even think of a way to adequately wrap up this blog post, other than to say once again that I have been so lucky to have such an incredible experience in New Zealand. So thank you to everyone who played a part in it. To Stephen: Thank you for being so supportive, encouraging, and inspiring. Thank you for pushing me to challenge myself. You have helped to make my internship experience more meaningful than I could have ever thought possible. To my students: keep learning, keep challenging yourselves, and keep seeing the beauty in music and the joy that creating and performing can bring to you and to your audience. Remember to avoid comma splices in your formal writing, and for goodness sakes, don't capitalize the word "Trumpet." It's not a proper noun. Keep asking questions, challenging your assumptions, and expanding your horizons. And most of all, keep living and loving music. You have discovered one of the most beautiful aspects of life so hang onto it no matter what, because even if you have nothing else in life, you can still have music.

Cheers to everyone at HVHS for an incredible 4 months. I'll miss you.