Hallo!
Again, I’m going to
start by apologizing for yet another long post! I’ve been meaning to write this
one for a while, but it’s been a bit of a hectic week! Anyway, here’s the news
from my past week and a half in Plauen!
Monday is proving to
be a really busy day up to now! I’m in school from 7.15-2pm, and on top of
that, we had a department meeting this week! I’m hoping that I’ll be able to
join Plauen’s volleyball team after I get back from Berlin, who also happen to
train on a Monday, so it’s going to be a very tiresome start to the week!
Despite my long Mondays, I am still absolutely loving teaching. It is such a
rewarding job! Once a week, I teach a year 6 class who have to
have extra English lessons because they struggle. This week, one of the boys
came up to me at the end of my lesson to tell me how much he’d enjoyed it. It’s
nice to hear that they’re starting to enjoy the
subject and hearing such nice comments makes all the hard work that I put into
planning my lessons 100% worth it. The few weeks that I have been teaching for
have confirmed that I definitely want to be a teacher of some sort in the
future- although I’m still not entirely sure at what level. My mentor has
arranged for me to teach a few lessons at a private school here in Plauen after
the holidays. The students there will be a little older than the ones I teach
at school, so this may give me a better idea of which age group I would like to
work with. The teacher who I met from the private school seemed really nice and
they are very excited to have an English native speaker to teach a few lessons!
Last Saturday, I went
on a little trip with my mentor and her family. We went to a place called Mödlareuth in Bayern. Mödlareuth is also known as ‘Klein Berlin’ because it was divided in
two during GDR times by a 700-meter wall- Just like Berlin, but on a much
smaller scale! (The village only had 50 people who lived there.) We went to a
museum there, which was really interesting. Even though I’ve read loads of
books about the former GDR and have studied a bit about it, I still find it
really bizarre hearing my mentor talk about her life during the GDR times and
how much everything has changed since the ‘Wende’. It doesn’t matter how much
I’ve studied and read about it, I still find it hard to imagine that people
actually lived like that- Strange, I know!
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| Klein Berlin |
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| What's left of the 700 Meter Wall |
I’ve only taught for
two days this week. Yesterday and today I went on school trips, and I’m
going on another trip tomorrow! The joys of being an assistant!! Yesterday I
went on year 5’s Wandertag. I found
it sooo odd that we were taking 28 10-year-olds on the train to get where we
were starting our walk, but it seems that this is pretty standard in Germany!
We walked about 14 kilometers in total around the countryside of the Vogtland. On our way, we stopped at a Gasthof owned by one of the students’
parents, where they had prepared some breakfast for us. There was Wurst, Pfannkuchen, doughnuts and plenty
of fresh bread- really really tasty! This is when they told me that they had
invited a reporter from the local newspaper along to take some photos and write
a story about me. News must be slow in Plauen this week if they’re having to
run a story about me!! Year 10 have also written an article about me for the
homepage on the school website (http://www.diesterweg-gymnasium.de).
Between stories being wrote about me and kids shouting my name down the street,
I’m starting to feel like the new local celebrity!
Today, I went on a
trip to Leipzig with the Oberstufe (6th
form). We went to the American Consulate this morning to listen to a speech
about Obama and the upcoming presidential election in the USA. We then had the
afternoon to do as we pleased, so I was lucky enough to be able to meet up with
Mike, Chrissie and Graham (Bangor students studying at Leipzig for their
ERASMUS year). It was really nice to see all three of them, even if it was only
brief. I definitely didn’t have enough time to see Leipzig properly today, so
will most likely be returning in the near future!
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| Chrissie, Mike, Graham and I in Leipzig |
In between all these
trips, I’ve been busy trying to make my room feel more homely! I now have a
wardrobe but had a slight mishap with the sofa! I somehow managed to order a
sofa cover, not the actual sofa. As it was pay on delivery, I hadn’t noticed!
The cover still isn’t here, however, and IKEA has told me to refuse to accept
the package when it arrives so that I won’t have to pay for it. I’m not
entirely sure that I have room for a sofa any more, so I may wait a little before
I decide to buy one! Stefanie’s friend has also been so kind as to hang up my
photos and cupboards, and because my Wohnwand was looking a bit bare, I have
bought a few bits and printed some more photos to make the room look homely! I think I’m happy with my room
now! :)
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| My Wohnwand |
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| My Room :) |
Tomorrow, I’m going on
a trip with the music department to and instrument museum. Apparently it’s
really interesting, so I’m looking forward to going! Not as much as I’m looking
forward to going to Berlin on Saturday, though!! I am so excited to see Jon
and, obviously, to see Berlin. I found out yesterday that I actually have 2
weeks for half term, not one as I was originally told (I swear!!). It’s a
shame, cause Jon will have to leave after a week, so I’ll have to plan lots of
exciting things to keep me occupied in week 2!
That is all that I
have to tell you for now! I do hope that I didn’t bore you too much! Next stop…Berlin!
:D
Bis Bald!
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