NEWS!!!!

News from Seoul.

Ok so on Saturday we went to the Zoo. It was one of my four allotted Saturdays that I have to work. Not so bad though as the sun was shining and I had a clear head for a change. No late Friday night, and early Saturday morning regrets. Anthony teacher, on the contrary, was a complete mess. He decided that this particular Friday night was going to be the biggest one to date. He was nearly sick on the school bus on the way to the Zoo. He survived, just. Anyway, the Zoo was pleasant in comparison to Beijing Zoo. In fact this Zoo was like walking around a gold plated chocolate factory in comparison to the hell hole that was, and probably still is, Beijing Zoo.

The sky was blue, the sun was beaming and the kids were in high spirits, as were the teachers and animals (again in comparison to Beijing’s depressed cattle). I’m not going to praise the Zoo too much though. In fact, lets be honest, it was a little pathetic and miniature. It was more like a tour of Pets World pet shop. The biggest animal they had was a donkey, whose attitude to the kids feeding them dried carrots was similar to that of Anthony’s attitude to the whole day “Is that much point to all of this?”

As the day drew on the kids got more and more tired. We had a photographer working with us. He was working on commission. So basically he would only get paid for the shots that the school bought after Zoo day. Therefore, he made it his mission to take as many photos as possible. Imagine, it’s 27 Celsius, we have around 50 kids, aged between 3-7, all pacing around a crowded Zoo, and our photographer wants to pair them off every five minutes for a shot in front of the monkey’s, crocodiles, fake wooden monkey’s, fake stone crocodiles and then at a busy intersection in the Zoo….. needless to say come 3 ‘o’ clock we were all ready to go home, including the kids.

A few choice pictures for you here.

Other news.

I have decided to stay on in Korea for another year. Why not? I’ll be coming home in July/August for three weeks. Then it’s back to Korea to start another year at my same school. I love the kids, I love the country, I love the food, I love my life right now….. so why should I stop now? Stop when I’m ready to stop…. I’m not ready…

Other news.

ESL class. I asked them to right a short few sentences on what they were like as a baby. This was Emily’s response. She’s 8 years old. That’s 7 in UK/US years.

“When I was a baby, all people said, “That baby looks like a pretty boy!” But I am a girl. I eat wines.

I have no idea what the wines thing is, but how great is the boy/girl confusion. Her picture do accompany the text was hilarious. It has a picture of her mother shouting “it’s a girl”. Amazing. Another girl drew a picture of herself drinking milk from her mothers breast. And then wrote.

“When I was a baby, I drink milk from my mother”.

All for now.