Let it Snow

Awoke this morning at 8.30 to find that the ground was adorned with snow. I took a photo this...



Unfortunately by mid-afternoon the snow had melted and vapourised into oblivion. Nonetheless, it brought forth the promise of ski-ing and snow-fights with my students. Given that I am a little rusty, I would bet my money that my students would win.

The reason why I woke up a good 2 hours earlier than normal is because Rob phoned me. It was nice to hear from him, and he commented that my accent has changed a little. However, half an hour or so into the conversation, my northern accent started to come back, despite Rob being a Southern Fairy.

Today at Gomdo I finally mastered on of the sequence of moves for my Green belt. Now its onto the next one...which involves jumping and spining mid air, and swing my sword at the same time. I am apprehensive that I will not be able to pull it off. It looks so difficult, and I am still on the lower belts!!!!

Later this afternoon I found out at my other school that my schedule will change completely as of next week. Over the winter, (until middle of march) my working hours will be 9.30 until 3.30, with a coffee break and a lunch break (a small luxury that my other Boss at my main school does not bother to grace me with...here I go again!). Also, I asked my Director at the other school if Rob can observe my classes, and thus during the run up to his visit I can teach the students how to introduce themselves. He agreed to this...should be fun!!! I must remember to tell my Gomdo teacher about my change in schedule as this will affect when I receive my Gomdo training and when I teach Ye-reem. I am not looking forward to working to fairly late at night to getting early the next morning, but hey ho.

Unusually, the students at my other school were inattentive, rowdy, and generally obnoxious today. I could not understand why, though Eun-Jung thinks that it because they are excited about their christmas break from their main school. To make matters worse, to my horror and embarrassment, while asking the students to turn to page 18, I found out that the chinese word for 18 is a similar sound to a Korean swear word. (The Koreans use 2 counting systems, chinese and Korean). Of course, I mis-pronouced it (the only difference being that the word for 18 is said quicker, and the 'a' sound is slightly more drawn out to create the aspirated 'p' sound, according to my colleague).

Swear word: Hangul: 시발 Romanisation: sheepal.
18 in Chinese: Hangul: 십팔 Romanisation:Sheeppal.
시 is shee
ㅂ and ㅍis P but the later is aspirated.
ㅏ is 'a' as in the word 'cap'
ㄹ in this case is an 'l'

So you can empathise with my ignorance!!!!

Rob has kindly agreed to leave some space in his luggage so that I can do some shopping ie he will take some stuff back to England for me, bless him. Plus I might get some salt'n'vinegar flavoured crisps afterall. And some duty free purfume...I'm after some more Flower my Kenzo, and Beautiful-Sheer by Estee Lauder. Meanwhile, my parents agreed to send me some deodorant...I am truely spoiled!