Mr. Chung’s Excellent Adventure in Australia
Class, please teach Ms. Ohia’s class how to get on the voicethread. Dane Ku or Nainoa, please see Peter and Pono. Also, please teach Ms. Nelson. If you would like to see what we are doing down in Australia, go to voicethread.com. Once you are at the site, press the browse button and type in wailele. Our pictures are under Australian Adventure.
I have been talking to Ms. Dolfinger on the phone, and I am sorry to say that I am disappointed with the behavior of the class. I can’t understand why you cannot behave for two weeks for our guest teacher. I wish all of you would have more pride in your class, and yourselves as students of Kamehameha Schools. It is just disappointing. If this continues, there will definitely be changes for the last half of the year. You have only one more week to prove yourselves.
I was going to write about what I have been doing the last few days, but I am not in the mood. If you want to know, just look on the voicethread.
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Friday, Dec. 9th, 7:oo AM (Thursday, Dec. 10th, 10:00 AM your time)
I apologize for not writing yesterday. Ms. Burgess and I had a full day yesterday and when I got back into my hotel room yesterday, I just collapsed on the bag. I suppose my jetlag is catching up to me.
One thing I noticed watching TV here are the Australians are very close to the Americans. They watch American shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Lost, and are interested in talk shows like Oprah and Ellen. (This is in contrast with the New Zealanders who are seem to enjoy news and programs from Great Britain). The newscasters are all interested in the lives of people like Britney Spears who they predict will have another mental breakdown soon, Angelina Jolie who the Australians will have another baby next year, and Paris Hilton who was just dumped by her boyfriend by text messaging. Watching television, I just realized America is not the only country in the world that is obsessed with silly things and people.
We visited a war memorial of Australians and others who fought and died in wars from the First World War. Because Australia was part of the English Empire, anytime the British went to war, the Australians went to war. I spoke to an old Australian gentleman and he mentioned how he didn’t like how the British would always send the Australian troops to dangerous places to attack first.
Going around the city yesterday with Keoni’s dad, I noticed there is a huge foreign community here. There are 300,000 Greeks in Melbourne. For some reason, Ms. Burgess and I got to talk with a lot of Greek people as we were cruising the city. We heard fascinating stories about ancient Greece from Alexander the Great, to the Holy Roman Empire, to even the genocide of the Greeks by the Turks this century. (If you are interested, just google the topics). I think the Greeks convinced Ms. Burgess and I that everyone should go to Greece someday because of its history.
I also found out the the life expectancy for the Australian aborigines is about 35 years, especially the ones that live out in the bush. They often do this thing called a walkabout in which they walk into the desert for 2-3 months with hardly a thing. They can survive just from nature hunting animals like lizards and gathering plants for food and water. Before the Europeans came, there life expectancy was even shorter. Many lived to be just 18 years old.
I noticed many of you are starting book reports on the voicethread. I noticed two things. First of all, many of you are not changing the icon to yours when you start you voicethread. Secondly, the pictures are fuzzy. Please find book covers that are big to begin with (pictures with high ks). Dane Ku knows how to do this.
I am also putting my pictures of my trip on voicethread as it is easier to upload than on the blog.
We will be going out soon with Keoni’s grandfather. It makes a huge difference when you know someone in the place you go to. We really appreciate what Keoni’s grandfather is doing for us. We are learning things about Australia that we otherwise would not have known.
Anyways, take care and be good to each other.
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Wednesday, December 9th, 7:00 PM (Tuesday. December 8th, 10:00 your time)
Aloha from Down Under!!! I am writing this at 7:00 in the evening over here on Wednesday which means it is 10:00 on Tuesday evening in Hawaii. Basically we are 21 hours ahead in terms of time. We had a very long flight. Our first leg of our journey was from Honolulu International Airport to Aukland, New Zealand which was about 12 hours. One lucky thing about me is that I can sleep anywhere and I had a good 8 hours of sleep on the plane. (I remember when I was living in Tokyo and I had a two hour commute to work each day. I would sleep standing up. It was weird because I would always wake up just before the station I was to get off. But, I digress…). Anyways, the second leg of my trip was from Aukland, New Zealand to Melbourne, Australia which was only 3 hours long. (You can check out my path on Google Earth).
Looking out the airplane over Australia, I noticed that it was mostly desert. Australia is a very big continent but cannot hold a large population because the soil is not very productive for farming. The reason for this is Australia was never near volcanoes, thus never had the advantage of volcanic ash which contains nutrients for the soil to grow. This is in stark comparison to Aotearoa (New Zealand) which is quite verdant due to the advantage of active volcanoes. Hawaii’s soil is also rich as well from her volcanoes.
When we arrived, I noticed the spring-like weather. Australia has 4 distinct seasons which are opposite from the Northern Hemisphere. The high here is about 75 degrees during the day and 50 degrees at night. There is a large fluctuation in temperature, unlike Hawaii. Hawaii is surrounded by water which makes the temperature stable due to condensation. (I’ll explain this to you later).
I am pleased to hear from your comments that all of you are enjoying Ms. Dolfinger. All of you are quite lucky to have her. Ms. Dolfinger is an expert in math and it is her passion. She is also a kind and generous person who all of you can benefit greatly by having as a teacher for two weeks. In life, always take advantage of opportunities such as this experience if you want to be successful. Learn as much possible from people like Ms. Dolfinger!
Ms. Burgess and I are now at hotel lobby waiting for Keoni Oglivey’s grandfather to pick us up for dinner. Keoni is in Ms. Burgess’ class. I am sure we will learn much about Australia from him. Keoni is lucky because he gets to visit him every summer.
I will write back soon about my adventures. Take care and please treat each other with respect.
P.S.-Please tell Ms. Burgess’s class to look on her blog and comment back to her.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Hi Mr. Chung how is Australia? Is there any interesting things there? Do people still say g’day?
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Hey Mr. Chung!!!!!!! Having fun? Well, we are having a blast. Mrs. Dolfinger is teaching us a shorter method of Division it’s called short division. She is really nice and taught us to always use our P’s and T’s which means to always use our manners. Well have a good time in Australia, blog back to us as soon as you can and tell us how Australia is
:) 
!!!!
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Hi Mr.Chung we all hope you have a great time in Australia and Mrs.Dolfinger is teaching us problem solving and graphs. We hope you have a good time today. Bye!
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Hey Mr.Chung! I hope you are having a good time in Australia.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Hi Mr. Chung How is Australia? Are you having fun? Hope so, because i’m not. See you later (come back quickly) by.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Hi Mr.Chung, hows Australia? I hope your having fun! Blog back and tell us how it is down under. Is it summer there?
P.S: What are you down there for?
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Hi Mr. Chung! Boy, you sure look happy in that picture on the blog. What happened at Australia that made you smile so big?
Anyways, Mrs. Dolfinger is really fun! She really makes us think about how to organize our work to solve math problems. She made us do math for the whole day!
The best part of the day was when Mrs. Eppling came to our class to visit her sister Mrs. Dolfinger. It was at the perfect part of the day! I couldn’t believe they were sisters! In first grade Mrs. Eppling didn’t tell us anything about having a sister teaching at Kamehameha schools. Can you tell us what time it is over there? Have a safe trip! Bye!
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Hi Mr. Chung,
Hows Austrailia? Only 5 people have turned in the signiture for NASA. Mrs. Dolfinger is really nice.
She made us do the math packer in the morning. It was pretty hard.
okay bye
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Hey Mr.Chung!
How is it in Australia?
December 4th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Hi Mr. Chung as soon as you read this blog check your e mail. I had a good day we had our Hawaiian language test, did some math and bought hot chocolate (Hahaha), We are going to the beach today for my mom and dads paddle bording class. Hope you are having a great time in Australia.
P.S The pictures on the voicethread are cool.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Hi Mr.Chung how’s Australlia today we had sort of debate on class rules it went preaty well but I mostly disagreed because it was better before we had these rules.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
The class rules were 1. No talking back to anybody 2. No teasing. Put downs or name calling. Or foul language 3. Raise your hand before you talk 4. If someone is talking do not interrupt 5. No going on the computers unless the teacher says to 6. Respect others 7. Golden rule. 50$ for braking any rule 100$ for braking rule #6. We canceled every rule except numbers 1 and 6. This is a add on to my other blog.
December 4th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
The pictures on the voice thread are so cool!!!!! I wish I could go there one day
!!!!!!
December 4th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I think that was interesting that there were sooooo muck greeks there!
Also the pics on the voicethread was cool. I wish you were here and come back soon.
PS: Ariana and kelsey made up those rules that nainoa covered and everybody thought it was Crazy (except ariana and kelsey)
Come back soon
December 5th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Mr. Chung, we can not find better pictures. Me and Dane Ku tried but these are the best pictures we could find. Blog to us back, me and Dane will be checking the blog.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
We might not be able to finish the voice thread because when Mrs. Dolfinger gives us time on the computer, even though other people need to draw on Kid pix, the people who get there first stay on there until we change the subject, or until they are done.
December 7th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Why did you go to australia for?
December 8th, 2008 at 6:56 am
How do I get to the voicethread?
December 8th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Hi Mr.Chung,
Ilikea and Keoni can’t have their picture on NASA and Cameron, Alema, and Kyle still have to get their signiture.
December 8th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Hi Mr. Chung! How is it in Australia? We are learning a lot about circle graphs. I hope you have a good presentation.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Hi Mr.Chung we are starting CML the math booklet and we are also working on are geology booklet which we just started on Friday. I hope your having a great time in Austraila. My mom said that she knows someone who is also going to this meeting from Hawaii and my mom works at Lilioukalani Elemantary School in Kaimuki.
I can tell that you and Miss Dolfinger have some things in common like with you we do math and and Social Studies and Miss Dolfinger always does math and she lets us do are voice thread. For our projects I think that only 18 people will be done with voice thread and for the math packet 20 people.
Just to let you know how are class is doing is that we aren’t doing so good people talk over Miss Dolfinger and some people just take over her and not listen to her so my opinon is that we are going to be fined $500. Maybe not because Miss Dolfinger is nice and she is proabably going to leave you a nice message but she might say things like the noice level and using your time wisely. Hope to see you soon!
December 9th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Get a new jacket, Mr. Chung.
December 9th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Mr.Chung we are geting the voice thread’s done we got a good way of controlling it. Most people are on their pictures, most likely we will have some people done with the voice thread’s by tomorrow.
December 9th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Today we learned about fraction sticks it is very interesting.
December 9th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I made a blog on how to do well on school!††† ¡™£¢∞§¶¶•ª•–ªº–œ´®†¥¨ˆøπøæ…¬˚∆©ƒ∂ßå Ω≈ç√∫˜µ≤≥÷ Yay!
December 9th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Hi Mr. Chung, bet u are having a good time in the Land Down Under. The pictures are really cool especially the ones with the animals.
December 9th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
You all should comment for all of my efforts to make you better students!
December 9th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Hi Mr.Chung today we did lots of things like fraction sticks. Fraction sticks are used to add and subtract fractions. We also did some of our geology booklet well we only did one page, the first page. Today we also did some of the Under The Blood Red Sun book. Right now everyone should be at chapter 4.
For our voice thread Nainoa and Dane are doing great there getting everyone moving and almost everybody has one picture done. I would say that tomorrow they will have at least 5 people done.
I hope your having a great time at Austrailia! I hope you teach us more about Austraila because we want ot learn more about the world and we don’t hear much about Austrailia. I hope you can make us think when you come back because we are not learning about the world with Miss Dolfinger. The most we do with her is math. I like math but we kind of do it majority of the time. Hope to see you soon! Taylor
December 10th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Hi Mr.Chung you’ll never believe what was in the newspaper you were right that America doesn’t have high scores in math and science. We just read the newspaper this morning. We read articles like an article about America not having the highest grade in math and science. I can’t believe this because America has alot of money to provide teachers to teach more math and science. Another article was about how much things are provided in the run. Like how much sponges, water bottles, toilet papers and toilets. It was really funny that there was toilet potties.
Today we also did some of the voice thread. I change my mind that only 5-10 people will finish. I think this because Dane and Nainoa did not finish anything.
Everyone will not complete this because some people didn’t even finish 1 picture on KidPix. I would say that about 6 people are ready to record that they have there script and there picture. I would say that Dane, Nainoa, Spencer and some other people would finish.
Everyone is doing really good and people are changing there volume. Which is good! Please if you have time right back. I hope to see you on Monday. ( I’ll blog to you tommorow and on Friday!) C U L8R
December 11th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Hi Mr. Chung How are you doing in Australia? I’m doing good. There was a huge storm here at Hawaii. We didn’t lose power but I could not get to school because of the flooding on the road and traffic:(. I finished my Native American project I just wanted to put on pictures but it doesn’t work. well anyways blog back and i’ll see you on Monday.:D;)8)
December 11th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Hi Mr. Chung How are you doing in Australia? I’m doing good. There was a huge storm here at Hawaii. We didn’t lose power but I could not get to school because of the flooding on the road and traffic. I finished my Native American project I just wanted to put on pictures but it doesn’t work. well anyways blog back and i’ll see you on Monday.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Hi Mr.Chung I hope your having a good time! Today I saw Miss Ohia, I thought she was with you in Austrailia. Anyway today not alot of people didn’t come because of traffic or the roads were flooded. 6 people didn’t come and about 4 people were late. Today we mostly did our voice thread for the whole day. For the voice thread only 4 people finished which were Dane, me, Capri and Kyle. I think that about 4 people will finish tomorrow. Another thing that we did today was our geology booklet which we did the pages about the major places with volcanoes or earthquakes. I hope you are doing well and I hope that you will tell us alot abouot Austrailia and its history.
Today Kyla pushed Nainoa snd Nainoa spilled his hot chocolate on the back of Kelsey’s t-shirt. I can’t believe that this happend and it almost got on the computer.
For tomorrow of course we have are Christmas performance. We will have to perform Rap The Halls and Jingle Bell Rock. Everyone will wear a white shirt and a skirt or pants. I wish you could see this performance that we are going to hold.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Couldn’t come to school today feeling really sick. Won’t be able to come to school tomorrow I feel light headed and my head and throat is sore
Tell me how the performance goes wish I could be there. Good luck and remember to have fun!!! See you guys on Monday have a good weekend, stay safe 
!!!!!!
December 11th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Hi Mr.Chung! It was very windy and rainy today! It was totally freezing and branches were flying off trees and it was a storm! I hope we finish the voicethread because only a couple people our done. See you monday!!!!
December 12th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Taylor: Hi Mira I wish you could come to school it’s going to be fun and I’l make sure to blog to you about what’s going to happen. I hope you can come! If you feel better
Amylyn: hey Mira how are you feeling today I hope you get better today. See you monday
Ariana: we will all have fun for you at the performance for you. hope you feel better by monday!
December 12th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Taylor: Hi Mira I wish you could come to school it’s going to be fun and I’l make sure to blog to you about what’s going to happen. I hope you can come! If you feel better
Amylyn: hey Mira how are you feeling today I hope you get better today. See you monday
Ariana: we will all have fun for you at the performance for you. hope you feel better by monday!
Kyla: I hope you get better!