Say Hello And Wave Goodbye.

Well here I am. My year in Korea has somehow come to a conclusion in the blink of an eye and as I approach the end of my contract so does Little Spoon, Tiny and Justice. Little Spoon and I are off to Vietnam and Laos for a holiday, while Tiny and Justice are travelling the world. But before we depart this coming weekend, I felt it proper to fill in the blanks of the last few weeks.

A new teacher Huckleberry arrived. A man with experience in teaching for this company before. A man who has travelled half the globe and worked in orphanages in Africa and South America. A man who has to replace me.

I smirked at the idea that a worldly wise, orphan helping, experienced teacher could possibly fill the void left behind by someone best known for eating around 24 eggs a week and smelling of alcohol up until about 2.30pm on any given day.

This year he spent time in the Middle East meeting people in Yemen, Oman and elsewhere to discuss issues around American foreign policy and to talk about the recent killing of Bin Laden with a diverse group of individuals.

Fair play I guess. Earlier this year I completed a gigantic burger challenge in a new bar record of 23 minutes! Four half pound burgers, eight rashers of bacon, eight slices of cheese and side orders of fries and chilli. A NEW RECORD! My picture was taken by the bar and put on their facebook page. I'd like to see an orphan try and beat that sort of time.

But as it happens Huck (a clever abbreviation of Huckleberry I'm sure you'll agree) is actually a very good replacement for me. Because as it happens he also likes to drink, is mildly misanthropic at times and doesn't actually have any real qualifications that should allow him to teach.
He also stood on his head on a table in a bar on the first night.

Give the man my job.

The only real concern was breaking the tragic news to my kids. How would they take it? Badly I was guessing. I explained to one class of 10-11 year olds that I would be leaving as I marked their homework. This work consists of them being given a word which they must use in an original sentence and then a phrase or short sentence which they must use in a longer, original sentence.

I took 11 year old Lilly's book and gave her a reassuring smile, I felt that she might take the news harder than most, such was her affection for me and my quirky take on education. Let's see, she had to use the word "possibility" here...

"There is possibility I kick Monkey Roberts Teacher"

Interesting. So how did she use the word "imagining"?

"I imagining I'm rich and Monkey Roberts teacher is the beggar"

Clearly my zany sense of humour had rubbed off a little, but it was all light hearted fun. I read on "Use the phrase 'A long way to go'"...

"Monkey Roberts teacher still had a long way to go after the operation for his terrible accident of losing the legs."

I look up at her now. She is smiling and nodding "Funny teacher?" I nod slowly, yes they're fucking hilarious Lilly. Okay what's the last phrase? Ah she must use "Full Tilt" in a sentence. I'd like to see you get in some cruel jibe at me here.

"Monkey Roberts teacher came full tilt against the electrical fence and went to dead."

But Lilly was so proud of her work she showed the rest of the class, and now 50% of them write their sentences based upon my demise. Well, I'll show them. I'm coming back. That's right, I will ramble around Vietnam and Laos with Little Spoon and then I will have a couple of months in England, but then I shall return!

And when I do, I will be coming into class "full tilt" you little rat, and "imagining" how I can make my lessons even more monotonous; oh and there's a "possibility" I will spill hot tea over your face. You've "got a long way to go" with me yet Lilly.

And it is that type of creative writing that landed me this position in the first place, a position I feel forced to return to on the basis that I have no other options other than perhaps becoming a human guinea pig for pharmaceutical companies or an armed robber. Both options I will mull over this time next year.

It has overall been a great year mind you and I will be sad to see Little Spoon, Tiny and Justice not here when I return. But they have to go and have new drugs tested on them and hold up banks so I wish them the best.

You will be relieved to know that I intend to blog about Vietnam and Laos and even about my return to England, so there's a light at the end of the permanently long dark tunnel that is your collective lives.

So before I go and eat some eggs, I will leave you with as always some fantastic free thinking from the students of Daegu. The first was a speech in response to my question of how we could help people with disabilities and why we should. After listing the various conditions such as blindness, paralysis and so on, there was a heartfelt plea from twelve year old Julia for everyone to care for each other and then this succinct conclusion.

"So look after disabled or you get the punishment. Perhaps chop off the arms."

Have you been reading the Old Testament again Julia? Yahweh would be so proud.

And finally in a class of younger students, we somehow taught them about conditioning responses in animals. I thought them a little young for Pavlov's Dogs, but they got the idea and then had to choose an animal for a pet and one trick they would like to train or condition it to do.

Lena chose a mouse but not without reservations.

"I want to pets the mouse. Because I think it is very cute, genius personality and smart with the tricks. Also it eats the cheese. However, mouse is small and very dirty so I sure to cleaning the mouse and want to condition it and say 'Don't be eating the cheese everyday and you just wait!'"

Yeah mouse, always eating the cheese, learn to wait you dirty, small genius.