Well well. Not too much has been happening this week in my little world. Last week I went and saw Muse at Jamsil Gymnasium in the Olympic Park circa 1988. They were bloody awesome, though we did miss the first twenty minutes. We rushed to Seoul when work finished and got to the gig just after Muse came on. At an entrance and could hear them playing but were agonisingly told we had to enter from an upper floor. The bouncer told us to follow some Korean girl he'd told the way to. We did, but instead of leading us into the gymnasium she took us all the way round the Olympic Stadium. As you can imagine it was rather large. It was snowing as well, which didn't help. Eventually we started running when we realised she had no clue where she was going and we made it to the gig. I must say it's been a while and I was genuinely surprised my Korean gin-laden body managed the lap. Olympic Stadium's are pretty big you know...
I spent the next day doing 7 hours of teaching off about 3 hours of bad sleep. Not fun. I won't be trying that again for while.
School is plodding along quite well. I now teach 3 classes of small kids for an hour a day each, consecutively, in the morning. It can be rather trying, but I really have learnt a little more patience than I had when I first arrived. As some of you might have read I've named one class after some of my choir friends. I had called one Helen but I've had to change is as another kids in her year has that English name already. She is now Jessie (Elle's middle name). Sorry Aitch. So here's a quick update on how they're doing.
The brightest in the class is probably Chris and he also tends to be the loudest when speaking English. Peter is quiet but knows the answers to most things, although today he decided everything was called a table - I hold up a picture of a door, window, TV, sofa: "Table! Table! Table!". David is bright but mischievous, Philip is mischievous but not quite so bright. Korea reflecting England much? Haha. Fiona bullies whichever boy she sits next to, and is a serial crayon-hogger. Susie is good at speaking and gives me big waves in the corridors. Cathy's good at saying hello to Teddy, but is amusingly troublesome. Jessie is the funniest. She manages to speak but always has this amazed and slightly scared look on her face. It's as if she can't believe words like 'hello' and 'yellow' are flying out of her mouth.
I've never taught a class from the start of their English education before and it's actually really interesting to watch them progress and see which ones pick it up, which ones won't speak but know it, and which are just crazy. They are still in what I would describe as their "cute" stage but the demons are starting to come though. They like attacking me, today using hand puppets they made in their Korean teacher's class. We really shouldn't give them weapons.
I had the excitement of being in a market in Seoul at the weekend and spotting a Union Jack mug. Normally the mugs I've seen like that aren't particularly stylish, but I loved that ones shape, so I forked out a whopping 2 pounds on it. I particularly like the way it's got two massive Union Jacks (yes, yes, picky people, I know it's technically not a Jack unless it's flying on a ship, cut me some slack) on the side and yet it says England down the middle of them. Apparently we've cut off Scotland Ireland and Wales, but have kept the Scottish and Irish parts in the flag. I suppose it would stop us form being confused with the Red Cross. It's great to have at work though, I'm really and truly flying the flag now.
So everything toddles along. I'm off to do some grocery shopping soon. It may amuse you to know that the Sugar Puff-like cereal I eat most mornings, of which I've run out, is called Jolly Pong. Yes, I too never thought I'd eat something called Jolly Pong. Or at least I never thought I'd eat it and live to write about it.
Happy St Paddy's Day to all you mildly Irish people!
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