Second week in School

Just a quick update, as Lois and I are going to Vienna tomorrow until Sunday, so my next post will no doubt be focused solely on our experiences and Vienna and consequently may be some time.

So my second week as gone really well. I've been a little more involved in the classes this week. I've gone through the homework of year 7's with them, and I've been reading to some year 9's. In one of the year 10 classes, the class was split and I was left with one half for 45mins to practise English! This was, at first, a little intimidating, as they aren't even that much younger than myself, but luckily they were really cooperative and it worked well. It was good being able to have a conversation with them.

My day in my second school has been great! I was doing conversation classes with groups of around 3/4 pupils of a year 7 class and just asking them questions about themselves. At first they were nervous, but lots of them opened up after a while and the teacher said they were buzzing with excitement when they returned to class! It's great that something as simple as me talking in my native language can have such an effect on others. In one of my classes, there are posters on the wall of favourite English words, which the pupils have created. The standard 'Dog' 'Cat' Car' are there, but I was amused the word 'iPhone' also hanging on the wall. You'll never guess what 'iPhone' is in German - Ok, maybe you will. It's 'iPhone'.

Another rather amusing experience occurred when I arrived at school. I parked my bike, as usual, in the teachers car park. However, as I was locking it up, a teacher approached me and told me that it was forbidden to leave my bike in the teachers car park. I apologised and swiftly moved it. I then bumped into the said teacher in the staff room just minutes later and she was very shocked when she recognised me. She apologised for telling me off, stating that she thought I was one of the pupils. Great.

Oh, and some of the pupils overheard me speaking with one of the teachers in German today and they now love telling everybody that I can actually speak (some) German. Looks like my secret is out! It didn't last long! I guess it's not a bad thing. Sometimes it's actually easier for me to explain something to them in German rather than English, so at least I can do that now. I've also started to see some of the pupils outside of school. They're always very friendly and it's nice when we can greet each other in the street like friends.

Lastly I just want to add that I'm loving my time here. I feel really settled and I'm struggling to find any negative aspects at the moment. I can't even think of any other place I'd rather be. I feel really happy and really, really like Germany.

Ok, got to dash to get my train to go to Lois'. Tomorrow, Vienna awaits!