Let's enjoying English club!

After working at this school for 3 months now, and making it clear that I'm happy to help out with pretty much anything, I finally got invited to join the English club the other day. Now, I will admit, that my perception of it was somewhat tainted by Ms. Hirose who had informed me that the members' English wasn't great, that they were more interested in drawing, and had joined the club 'maybe because it is an easy club'.

So, I walk in, and the first person I see is this one girl who, I have gotten the impression from class, absoluetly HATES English. She won't do any of the activities, and is resistant to answering questions directed at her, let alone volunteering to answer questions (more so than the average student, which is saying a lot). My impression of the other students (from class) is that they are fairly neutral towards English, and none of the students who seem to enjoy English (the few that there are) are in the club. No real surprise there, I mean I liked a lot of subjects in school, but never belonged to the _____ club because I was too busy playing sports.

Anyhow, their big introductory activity was to play musical chairs. Musical frickin' chairs. Let me remind you that these kids are the equivalent of 8th graders. Did you think musical chairs was cool when you were in grade eight? But, at least we did it to English music. What I thought was really funny was that none of them wanted to actually sit down when the music stopped. They kept fighting over who should (have to) sit down (maybe because they didn't want to 'compete' against me). Yeah, so I won. The last two people were me and the teacher.

Anyhow, then we played a bunch of other games that I had to come up with. Fun for an English class, but maybe not-so-fun for something to do recreationally. At least this confirms the fact that I wasn't missing out on much from all those clubs I didn't belong to while I was in school. Or maybe the biology club was secretly brewing beer and getting drunk all the time. Whatever.

On the bright side, I think the majority of the students have become normalized to my presence. They will now respond 'hello' or 'good morning' whenever I greet them, without giggling, covering their mouths, or running away.

So, I leave for Thailand-and-Cambodia on Saturday. Somehow, the 'realness' of this fact has yet to strike me. On a down side, the anti-malaria medication (you have to start taking it before you get there) has yet to produce the 'vivid dreams' as a side effect, but on the up side, I'm not feeling any more psychotic than normal.

Happy Holidays to everyone!!!