One Day Weekend

Well, we went to work on Saturday to be judges for the SLP Speech Contest. This contest is a huge deal for the kids, the parents, and most of all the school. It is essentially a showcase of talent, and a representation of how well the students are being taught at SLP. The winners of this contest go to the big contest competeting against other schools. The auditorium was full of parents watching their kids perform. Overall, I would say that it went very well.

It was fun being a judge. We got to ask each student a question to see how their conversation skills have developed...you know like "what is your favourite season?" or "what was the socialist movement that defined realism in the late 18th century?" You know easy stuff like that.

It is a lot of pressure for a seven year old to get up on stage, speak into the microphone, and then answer four questions from judges. It seemed to go really well, and the school was pleased. We did get paid to judge...which was nice, but I probably would have gone anyway to see some of my students perform.

After a while it did get pretty exhausting. If I hear the story of the Little Red Hen one more time, I am going to snap.

Other than that, everything is pretty much status quo around here. Hockey for me is a real nice treat. Next week we have a BBQ and a tournement. Should be fun. I am getting back into much better shape, and I can already feel a difference on the ice.

We are having a good time. Everything here is pretty good. Sometimes the language barrier can be frustrating, but it is part of the experience. I was explaining to John that the barrier is different from when you are on vacation. When you are on vacation, you have trouble explaining where you want to go to the taxi driver, here you have trouble everywhere...the bank, the post office, the phone company, the gas company...whole new ballgame. But once you manage to commuincate and solve your problem...there is a bit of a rush, and a sense of accomplishment. It's funny, in a country so concerned with learning English, it sometimes seems hard to find.

Two more weeks until we are off to Vietnam. It will be nice to travel again. We are going with Ivan (from Ireland) and Eva (from America), and we should have a great time. We will be sure to set up a Vietnam folder on our photo album so you can see what we saw.

Let us know how you guys are doing too.

Paul