New Year

For Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year to the rest of the world, the kids all dressed up in their hanbok and we took the afternoon to play games instead of studying. They were all very cute. The pictures are from the game I was running. It's a traditional Korean game where they throw arrows into a tall container. It's a lot of fun. The kids enjoyed themselves, but later when I asked my class if they had fun one girl said she had no fun at all. She hadn't won the prizes so she didn't have fun. The girl who had won a prize said she had a great time.

School

Oops. That wasn't a good start to getting back into a weekly blog. Oh well. I'll try again.

I said I would tell you about the school, so I should probably do that. First of all, it is two blocks away from my apartment so I leave at 8:50 so I can get breakfast on my way to school and still be there by 9:00. If I leave a little earlier I have time to go to Dunkin Donuts. I would much rather go to Tim Horton's but sadly, this country is rather lacking in the finer donut establishments. Anyway, we have to be at work at 9, but don't start teaching until 9:50. We take turns doing bus duty at 9:30. The school is on the 9th floor of the building so we have to make sure the little kids get to the right spot. We teach preschool, prekindergarten and kindergarten in the morning and right after lunch until 2:40. Right now I am teaching a class of five-year olds. They have been going to English school for about a month. They know the alphabet and colours and they can count fairly high. They can read their names and some of them can even colour in the lines. What they can't do is sit down for very long. They try, some of them, but it gets very difficult. This one kid, Eric, is really darn cute, but just cannot sit for more than five minutes at a time. He tries, you can see it, he just can't do it. Another boy, Roy, is possibly the cutest kid I have ever taught. He doesn't speak very clearly, but it is so adorable it's almost better that way. I will have to take a video for you so you all can see how cute he is. Today we learned "my favorite...". They told me their favorite colours and animals. Molly, who always pretends to be a princess when the others are being monsters or dinosaurs tells me her favorite animal is a snake. A big snake. Very princess like. Rex says his favorite is people, because people are animals. We do phonics and reading and lots of colouring and songs. Then I get to send them home, which is probably the best part of the day.

After the little kids go home the elementary school kids come. I teach one class for two hours. I was told today that they are 7 and they will be starting elementary school in March. They speak amazingly well for being that young. With this class we read stories and study vocabulary and spelling. We talk a lot. I really like this class.

For now I am finished work at 4:30. Starting in March I will work until 7:30. That's a long day, but I think that will be okay as I will also get a raise. I walked by a purse store the other day and saw about five purses that I think I need, so I could use that raise. I also saw the most perfect shoes ever. I will try to control myself. I have a small apartment and don't have a lot of room for purses and shoes. Who am I kidding? There is always room for shoes and purses.