Election week at Wolsoe Middle School! Crazy! All you can hear at lunch and before school is hoards of kids chanting and parading around the school with these really professional graphics

 you can see in these pictures!

 Some amazing Konglish on a notepad a friend bought me! Its kept us entertained for far too long!

 The front view of my school

 Staff 'new teachers dinner' I went to last week (attendance is compulsory, this was before all the teachers arrived...these tables were all full and I had to stand and introduce myself...only 10 of them probably understood me!

 St Paddys Day...NIALL AND JIMMY...you're famous...happy now?

Green beer...

DVD bang... a room with a massive TV screen you can hire to watch a movie.

Hiking Palgonsan!

My new friend...we were told it was useful to make friends with an older Korean man so me and a friend are meeting up with this guy for dinner ha ha!



Daegu in the Rough Guide top 10 places to visit in 2011!

http://www.roughguides.com/website/Travel/SpotLight/ViewSpotLight.aspx?spotLightID=538

It really is a cool place to live! Nice to have some confirmation of this!

First week teaching

Its Friday afternoon and I'm just killing time until I have to attend the new teachers dinner so thought I would update my blog about my first week teaching. My school is called Wolsoe Middle School and I teach all of 3rd grade and half of 1st grade...24 lessons in total + 4 hours of afterschool classes which haven't started yet = 28 (6 hours over the contracted 22... at least I will have enough money to make the most of the amazing shops although not sure if I will have the energy to go out! Doesn't help that I know loads of people who are only teaching 17 lessons and haven't even started yet! sorry, moan over!).

These middle school kids have a huge amount of energy...they are about 12-15 years old... fun times! Good old hormones. Our office is on the 3rd grade boys corridor and its not unusual to walk out the door and see them rolling around on the floor play fighting (I think its play!). They all look immaculate in their posh uniforms..think of the most affluent school you can think of in England x 100 and that is how nice the uniforms are! I'm jealous. I commented on this to a young and trendy co-teacher and she was surprised because she thought all English schools would have really nice uniforms...mis-conception! I tried to describe the Urmston Grammar huge blue blazer and gray skirt combo but I think only pictures would be able to get the point across! So they all look lovely enough but they are pretty cheeky...especially the lower level 3rd graders. The high levels are amazing and I feel really enthusiastic coming out of those lessons but the lower grades are hard work. Class sizes are huge too...up to 45! I do get a lot of 'Hi Sarahs' in the hallway and lots of lots of giggles which is funny. They are completely harmless...just a bit of cheek. Not many of them have really bad attitudes like some kids in England.

All my co-teachers are brilliant. Other people have maybe one who speaks good english but about 5 of mine do, plus there is another EPIK teacher in my school, Sydney, an American. Unfortunately my main co-teacher, Seung-eun bore the brunt of my chopstick skills today! Whilst picking up my last quail egg(which are delicious so I was savouring it), I flicked it across the table at her! She screamed because she thought it was an insect or rodent. The whole scene was hilarious! Lunches have been really good so far. Every meal consists of a different soup, rice of course then a few side dishes and always. always Kimchi (the fermented cabbage they eat with every single meal). We serve ourselves onto these metal lunch trays...I held mine the wrong way yesterday which my co-teacher thought was pretty funny. I will take some photos of my school and the kids and post them on here soon. Now for this meal which is going to be interesting. Apparantly I will have to do a small speech in front of 70 teachers (great!) and try and drink copius amounts of So-Ju to keep up with the Principal and Vice-principal...this is the only way to get in their good books. If you no-longer want to drink you have to receive the drink, turn your head to the side and put the cup to your mouth without drinking. This is 'I no longer want to drink!' So much ceremony! I am sure I will have funny stories to tell of this night so I will keep you posted.  

First week in Daegu...

 My South Korea pad!

View from the park in my area. Definately wan to venture here lots...especially in spring.

 Street food from local market... Wolbae Market.

My local area at night...in the pouring rain!

 My apartment block

Here’s a little report about my first week in Daegu. Just about everything has turned out rosy so far in Daegu. I love my apartment; it’s not huge but all pretty new and neutral! Also it was spotless…a bit worrying as we were told dirty apartments were considered lucky! No pink butterfly wallpaper or Hello Kitty bedding for me thank you very much. Also the massive stores such as HomePlus (run by Tesco) and E-Mart have everything you need and I am about 5 minutes from both. I live 7 minutes from school (as my co-teacher assured me and is actually true) and about 5 minutes to Wolbae Station which goes straight Downtown. I’ll just add a quick note to say it’s actually been taking me 20 minutes to get to the station because I was going the wrong way until yesterday, oops! My American Co-teacher Sydney thought it was pretty funny how wrong I got those directions ha ha. That’s my other plus point; I have another Native English Speaker at my school which makes life a lot easier! All in all I have got an amazing deal! My co-teachers are lovely and the kids are very excitable. They have seriously mischievous faces which I think is a bit of a giveaway according to my co-teachers! I’m okay at the moment because I am like a celebrity…’Teacher, Teacher…Hi Teacher…Teacher you so beautiful!’ I think the first English they learn is the art of flattery! I taught my first lesson this morning…the brilliant PowerPoint we prepared wouldn’t work but it was ok. Daegu is cool: it has all my favourite things… good nightlife, good shops and lots of coffee. I’ll write more about Daegu and my area in my next blog which will hopefully be a little sooner.