3rd YEAR GRADUATION

I decided before christmas that I wanted to give my 3rd years a leaving present, so I suggested that we make a music video together. There were 7 classes each with about 35 students, and together we chose a song and then I taught them the meaning / and gave each class a verse or chorus to learn.
Then the following week we filmed everything in a 45 minute lesson! That might not seem too bad to most of you but believe me when I say that is no small feat! especially since I spent more time trying to control the class, or motivate students to participate rather than actually doing any filming.

But somehow it all came together, with a few rough edges. Sadly, because a few classes were away I couldn't finish the video until graduation day, so I didn't get to show the students personally, I told them all to check it out online, it's kind of a shame really. But i'm really proud of them and will miss them all very much.

OUR NEW FLAT

So finally I have moved into our new flat! it's technically only one room but I call it 'open plan', also there is a kind of mezzanine floor so it feels like a proper home.

I absolutely love it, I guess I hadn't thought much about it but I haven't really had a proper space to call my own since coming to Korea, it's very peaceful (probably because there are no dogs anymore). But also it's a great way to anticipate our wedding, before we were living in the same family under the same roof, but now we have some separation it's been great to really look forward to the wedding and also look forward to moving in together.
The only slight issue with our flat is the bathroom has a transparent door, which is a bit awkward for guests... we're going to have to do something about that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EUN-MI

It was Eun-mi's birthday on the 19th of january. It also turned out that we had a church retreat on that day, but we had a great time and we went for a lovely coastal walk with everyone.

MOVIE TRAILERS

So my original plan for the English camp was to get the students into groups, have them write scripts, make story boards, give them different roles (director / cameraman) and then have them make their movie and see which is the best. BUT.
Only about 10 kids showed up, and many of them weren't consistent. And they struggled with the creative tasks I gave them, especially story / script writing. SO.
I decided that we would just make a movie trailer. and I would film / edit it.

To be honest I'm not sure the kids knew exactly what was going on until I showed them the finished film today haha. It's really nice for the kids to have something to take away and have fun learning english, but the downside was that it was a lot a lot of work for me! I spent the whole weekend working, sleeping for only a very few hours in total. and we had some wedding planning to do, as well as I still had to make lessons. Anyway it was pretty intense. but now here I am, sleep deprived but satisfied with a small sense of achievement.
I think Eun-mi is beginning to worry about what life living with a perfectionist will be like though...

Here are the finished movie trailers:

Mr Korea

Gyeongnam Dangerous

NEW APARTMENT

Hurray! we bought a flat!
There were some apartments closer to where we work... but we liked this place a lot more. It's brand new (december 2012) so I'm hoping that's a good thing. It's also right next to 'Home Plus' which is actually 'Tesco' but they changed the name in Korea. It's also got a kind of mezzanine floor so our living / sleeping space is somewhat separated.

I will officially move in first on the 26th of January.

CREATIVE LESSON

English camp is going well, but it's tricky planning several lessons for each day. Normally I see one class once a week, but here I see the same class 3 times every day.
We did the classic 'Egg drop' challenge as an activity (where you have to design a contraption using simple materials to protect an egg falling from a 3rd story window).

Korean kids struggle quite a lot with any kind of free brief activity like this, they want me to tell them how to design it, and it took them a while to get into it. But it all went well in the end, only one egg failed to survive the drop.

INVITATIONS

Ok so we took a long long time to get our act together but we have finally sent out our wedding invites!
Actually the fault is mine since I kept redesigning it... but we had a lot of fun once we got everything together.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------