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Sunday again. At my 'church' - the PC Bang, that is, sending another blog. Just seen England beat France 11-9 to reach the Rugby World Cup Final. Fantastic stuff.
This entry is mostly concerned with yesterday's speech contest at a local higher education college, not far from the national stadium and sports park (see photos). After completing my second week with what seems to be the usual mix of noisy and soporific students, myself, Andy and Wyn went to the International and O'Briens - two bars in town. None of us had intended to stay out late because it was Wyn's last day in Changwon and he was moving out of his flat and catching a bus to Seoul. Andy and myself, meanwhile, had to surface early for the speech contest. The alarm clock on my phone failed to go off and, nightmare of nightmares, I was woken at 9.15am by my boss banging on my front door! Haven't had that happen since Pauline, the wages clerk, did the same thing to me in Catton Hall, Norwich when I worked for Wensum Agency, after a night on the vodka. Still, the main thing was to be present and to help our student contestants perfect their speeches and to provide moral support. Their subjects included 'Koren Culture' and 'Let's All Catch The Laughter Virus'. Both did well, but neither won... Many of the students gave talks about themselves, or their dreams or holidays, one spoke about Mother Theresa and a number commented upon war - the middle school winner picking 'International Terrorism' as his subject. Clearly a competitve streak runs through the parents of these children and all that seemed to be missing were pom-poms and 'Go Sonny' style banners. The judges were fairly American, as predictably were the accents. I had to just try and stay awake, which for 5 hours or so, I did, helped by a couple of breaks. There is another one in 2 weeks' time - aren't I lucky? Actually, I did get quite involved and got chatting to the parents of other children taking part. I also felt a little like a parent myself, having invested time in our participants' ellicution lessons. I've uploaded a couple of clips, although when i checked this morning they weren't online... check for yourself, they may be up now.
Phil.
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