Kate's Birthday Party & Festival

 

A week after Anthony's birthday party, we had Kate's birthday party. It was a lot of fun, and the student enjoyed the break from work and festival preparations.  So like I said before, after the time I had nothing to do, now I am extremely busy.  We are starting to use all new books at work, and I was the main editor after the Korean staff spent many weeks, including weekends, writing up classwork and homework books.  I took home editting work at least three nights, and have to say, I can only imagine what the Korean staff had to do.  And of course they were all due by the day of festival so that meant even more work for everyone.  And then graduation is the following week.

Festival was a lot of work for everyone, as there were musicals, speeches, and much more for each class.  They even had costumes for the musical (my class did Aladdin) and my class had costumes and props for their speech (What I Want To Be When I Grow Up).  Wendy - Scientist/Genie, Joseph - Police Officer/Aladdin, Winston - Soccer Player/Aladdin, Sohee - Painter/Jasmine, Amy - Doctor/Jasmine, Anthony - Taekwondo Fighter/Jafar, Kate - Ballerina/Jafar, Sally - Teacher/Sultan, Serry - Veterinarian/Gazeem.  We had a lot of rehearsals, but the day of festival went by really quickly.  Most of the parents were there to watch their kids.  Though I think they were all really stresses as I had three kindergarteners burst into tears in the classroom at various times of the day.  But thankfully they all did very well on stage and spoke nice and clearly and remembered their lines and dances. 

I even had to dress nicely (which led to many "Teacher, you look pretty!" comments ^.^) and give a speech, which wasn't too bad.  I just said how wonderful my students were and how they have improved over the last six months that I have had them.  One of the grandparents even gave me some lovely yellow flowers which was nice because I don't see fresh flowers often in Korea.  Then Anthony saw that and took a flower from his fake bouquet and said, "Here Teacher."  It was so cute that I couldn't say no.  Sally tried to give me her entire bouquet too but I wouldn't let her.  Serry gave me a random petal that had fallen off hers.  The things children do definately can make you smile, but it did leave me very tired afterwards.  Thank you Meena and Heather for taking pictures for me.