Wednesday October 13th 2010

Day 4 Reaching new levels of tiredness...may have something to do with the late nights, or the fact that I seem to wake up at 4am every morning and cant get back to sleep, or it could just be that I've moved countries and changed timezones and is taking a while to adjust (still the one hour ahead I went from Perth still wouldnt explain why its 4am...). Whatever it is I hope it goes away because I am stuffed! Had 4 classes today, one at 9am and then a short break, and then 3 in a row - which is tiring. The kids are great and I spend a lot of my time laughing - but I think it will start to get very monotonous very quickly teaching the same thing to 22 different classes.

I think it will be a bit different next week when I have a little more variation - I will hav slightly different lesson for each of the grades - so I will oly have to teach the exact same lesson 7 times...lol. I think I will still keep the smae topic for all three groups and just teach to a different ability level. I was going through the previous teacher's resources today (Adam the Canadian...lol) and I found a letter that he had written entitled "to my sucessor". I opened it up and started to read - its a fantastic letter containing all the pearls of wisdom he gathered in the two years he worked here - from info about the kids and the way the school works, to things about Osan and Korea in general - things to bear in mind - things that I shouldnt let get to me and all the things I have to look forward to.

On the strength of reading that letter and feeling like I got to know him through his words I told Yun that in a few weeks when I had settled into a routine that I would like to send him an e-mail (which she said would be fine) I can tell by the tone of the letter that he was really going to miss being here and miss all the kids - I was also thinking that I might suggest to the 3rd graders who knew him for two years that they put together some letters to him in Enlgish before the end of the year (which I think is Jan / Feb) when they leave middle school. He strikes me as the kind of guy who would actually really appreciate that.

So after my classes I worked in the classroom - where I have this massive desk and huge screen - and silence! Not to mention all of Adam's resources to play with! The thing that surprised me was how many students would knock quietly on the door and poke their head in just to say hello or stop for a quick chat. These are kids that really struggle with english too - so it makes them brave and incredily friendly! Anyway the night was relatively quiet - a little more quality time spent bonding with my internet - and discovering a site where I could watch episodes of tv shows for free. Its amazing how quickly you miss the little things - like people speaking really quickly and confidently in English! Thoroughly enjoyed my dumplings though I certainly think its time for a new flavour - its starting to get dull!