Hallo liebe Leute!
In 2 days I will have been here for a month! Times flies!
So, what to say?
Well, work is good. It’s easy and I enjoy it and the students like me. I normally work in smaller groups in my own classroom where I go over questions that will be asked in an oral exam and we practice speaking and listening.
As well, my school offered me a chance to join in on an a project called: COMENIUS Multilateral School Partnership:
“Different Cultures on European Stage” (http://www.differentcultures.eu/).
In short, it’s a project that focuses on theatre work for improving student spirit of participation, socialization, development of tolerance, teamwork, and positive contribution to the development of personality. The students will improve their artistic skills by acting in the theatre plays, their literature & writing skills by writing the scripts, ICT skills by recording & editing videos and language skills by using English both in writing scripts & performing. The scripts will be written by the students and these plays will be recorded to send to other schools in the region, local authorities, and the Directorate of National Education.
I will be the editor of the plays because it’s in English and I need to correct the grammar, and I get to film short clips for the students. The best part of all of this is that they are paying for me to go to different countries to film and be the English translator. HOW GREAT IS THAT!
My first trip will (hopefully, since they are arranging it last minute) be in October to Poland, where we will be there for about a week, and as I said, everything is paid! The flight, accommodation, food, etc. All I have to do is the stuff that I love, which is filming & editing 🙂
In December I believe there will be a trip to Finland and next year I will be traveling solo to Bulgaria and then to Greece in April. I think there are a couple more trips to Italy and Romania as well, but I cannot remember the exact dates.. I am really stoked. This is an excellent opportunity to add to my portfolio, get paid and travel for free. I am quite happy 🙂
The school I am teaching at is huge!!! Over 1300 students. (Picture of the school).
Everyweek the students also go to a church service which I got to sit in on. It was kind of cool even though I didn’t understand much.
This is the monastery, where the nuns and priests live. On the right is where the church is, and this is what it actually looks like. There is only one nun who is currently teaching students and I think she mostly assists in kindergartners. She was very nice. One of the teachers told me she was kind of modern in her teaching methods and even has Facebook, and it is really odd sometimes to have her on Facebook because the Newsfeed would read, “Sister Theresa just scored 100 points in Candy Crush!”
So far life is good here. My WG roommates are all really wonderful and we speak a mix of English, German, French and Spanish so it really is exercising my brain. I have already made a couple friends from Paderborn University where I am doing tandem lessons every week. I somehow am registered as a Ph.D student at the university, so that is kind of cool even though I have no thesis or desire (at the moment) to pursue this sort of thing. I think I will stick with just getting my Masters first.
Other than that, things are going smoothly and I am going to Oktoberfest in three weeks and just bought a really beautiful dirndl, so I am excited for that! Fingers crossed that Scotland will win their referendum this week, as I plan on heading there for fall holidays that start in two weeks. I have a friend coming to visit from Romania this weekend (actually Ovidiu’s best friend) so that will be exciting!
Alright, that’s enough writing for now.
Bis dann!