.... AS the title of my blog suggests, the preparations for Christmas are fully underway.Not in my own life of course, but in the world of Talkster and all things English teaching. Last week I was tasked with 'preparing' my kids for their annual Christmas Party which takes place on the 24th December, their last day of school for the holidays.
Thankfully, unlike school back in England, there's to be no nativity play (I probably haven't got enough kids to accomplish that anyway) but I do have to teach my kids how to play Twinkle, Twinkle and sing a Christmas carol. Twinkle Twinkle is to be played on the bells, with each of the kids having a different note.
Throughout the week we have been practising maybe four or five times a day, and aside from the occasional lapse in concentration when one kid is slightly slow with their ringing, the kids have actually managed to do very well.
I taught them to sing Jingle Bells as the Christmas carol to sing (well the first part of it at least) and aside from a few mix ups with the words they have also impressed me with their ability to catch on straight away.
There's nearly two weeks left before they have to stand in front of their parents and carry out the singing, dancing and playing so I'm sure in between teaching them about Christmas this week, we will be practising to make sure it is ingraned into their skulls.
The wintery weather continues to engulf Suwon with some milder temperatures during the day meaning that you are completely caught off guard when you go outside and night and realise it is absolutely freezing. Most definetely gloves weather, and quite often a hat an a scarf are needed too.
Well aside from teaching my kids about the wonders of Christmas traditions the week has gone by realtively quickly. After finishing on friday I spent the evening writing Christmas cards which I had brought throughout the week and not find time to finish. And once Charlie and Kevin had finished it was time for some galbi, and then a spell in IT Bar once Hans had finished work and could join up with us.
We didn't make it a late one this week and instead headed back to Charlie's for some Yut Nori and some PS3. Amazingly at Yut Nori, I managed to pull out another victory but when it came round to playing for money Hans stepped up his game and beat us!
Saturday was a pretty quiet one the three of us met up around lunchtime and headed out for some lunch early on in the afternoon. I spent most of the rest of the day just playing on my computer and catching up with friends with emails. We went out for dinner in the evening, but kept it pretty quiet with all of us feeling pretty tired.
Today, with no football game for me thanks to the ending of Inter Suwon's season last week was largely spent in the same way, at least in the morning anyway. In the afternoon we headed to the 'PC Bang' which is basically an Internet Cafe as we were meeting up with one of Charlie's students for a much anticipated battle between 'teacher and student' at Starcraft.
Now for those people who aren't in the know (or basically don't live in Korea) Starcraft is the video game-come-national sport in Korea which I would say that basically every single one of my students spends an hour an evening playing. The objective (and yes it really is as nerdy as it sounds) is to build up a fleet of ships and then destroy all the others who are playing and hope that they don't destroy you in the process.
Koreans LOVE this game....you may remember the picture I have of the 'Starcraft' channel on TV. That's how seriously they take it.
Unwise as it may seem, Charlie has been running with a story to one of his students for the last two months now that he is a Starcraft expert and he has been making up lies to this kid in his class to the point where the boy, Kevin, called him out and told him he wanted to play to see how good he was!
Well this afternoon we met the reluctant Kevin at the PC Bang just around the corner from where we live. It didn't take long before this kid figured out that he wasn't much good to be honest and I think the first game was over in about seven minutes. Three minutes slower than Kevin promised to 'break' Charlie in but all the same a comprehensive victory.
By this point, Kevin and I were pretty intregued about joining in so the three of us signed in and tried to help Charlie.
Sadly, neither of us were able to offer much help as Kevin (student) managed to blow all of us up inside ten minutes! Raucus laughter followed as Charlie admitted that he didn't actually have a clue how to play and had been making it up all along.....
After the PC Bang, the three of us headed up to Yeongtong to try and play screen golf, but the place was busy so we ended up coming back home.
Despite the season ending last week, some of my football team were getting together just near my house so I decided to join them for a meal, which was good, and that was pretty much the end of my weekend!
Another quiet one, but a step closer to Christmas and vacation at least! The plans are still underway to go skiing though I am still working on which resort we are going to visit at this moment. Hopefully I can make some headway on that this week....
Take care
Ben
“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
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