Finished EFing and still no time for blogging!

So my last blog entry promised a special corner of mention for my lovely Hong Kong group of EF kids - well here it is! Towards the end of July I was given the pleasure of leading a nice, obedient, friendly, manageable group of Hongkanese kids for three weeks. At first, there were of course some cultural and communication difficulties, but once the kids realised that life here was not as regimented as at home and that everyone here speaks English with an accent, we were up and running! With this group of EF kids their London stay fell at the start of their holiday, which for us leaders can be a bit challenging because we have to immediately strike up some kind of rapport with the foreign leaders/teachers and familiarise ourselves with the students (if for no other reason than so that we can identify them all as they saunter along busy London pavements!) Soon myself and my co-leader Bryan managed to get some good banter going with the group and the Hongkanese leaders relaxed and began taking things at our pace. In Edinburgh, Bryan and myself then halved the group for doing activities around the city and this meant that we began forming our own posse of favourites. My favourites tended to be the boys of my group, simply because once they had sussed out the day's activity (be it Dynamic Earth or the National Gallery) they would all come and join me (predictably) having a coffee and chat away to me. Overall, the group's standard of English was very impressive, and it made my job much easier. (I have since had a Chinese group and communication with them was very difficult indeed!) What I found funny about the Hong Kong group though was the variety of English names they had chosen for themselves! (I believe at around primary school age they choose an english name for themselves) Some of my favourites were 'Hilda', 'Rocky', 'Ocean', 'Herman' and 'Yo-Yo'. Towards the end of the group's stay I was invited to have a farewell meal at their expense at a traditional chinese restaurant. It was a really fun evening. The food was tasty (although I first I was quite daunted by the feast in front of me!) and I had the company of my usual boys to entertain me and keep me up-to-date on the relationship saga between two of their Hong Kong leaders - scandal!!! Well here endeth the 'corner' set aside for my Hong Kong group, so I'll conclude with some photos of them all...

A wee update

So what have I been up to? Well, for starters I had a great birthday party the other week. I went out for dinner with a group of mates (their mugshots are below!) The food was good and the wine was even better! We went to Zizzi's at Ocean Terminal, somewhere I had been meaning to go to for a while - it is a great evening setting as the massive windows overlook the docks and Britannia and the bar is lit with pretty, colourful lights and everything. Afterwards we headed townwards for some clubbing action. First we stopped at Mood, somewhere I had been before and quite liked. On this occasion however (perhaps every thursday night?!) it appeared to have turned into chav central, so after a few cheap drinks and a couple of free shots we moved on to a more demure setting on George Street - The Dome.

We chilled out there until closing and then headed downstairs to Why Not where we danced the night away. As is tradition on my birthday I bumped into some old school mates (Andrew Durward and Mark Cairns) and I chatted to them for a bit. ***For the uncensored version of events in Why Not you'll have to ask someone else, because my account of entirely what happened was somewhat clouded by alcohol!!!***

The morning after my party night I was forced to rise early and get on a bus to the Highlands with my EF group of 39 Hongkanese. Sitting hungover and sleep-deprived on a bus driven by a maniac bus driver wasn't the worst place I could have been but it was pretty close! The trip was something of a whistle-stop tour for the kids. They got to marvel at Scotland's coffin-dodgers at the Caithness glass centre in Perth, then they got to compare them to the coffin-dodgers trawling the streets (or should I say street?) of Pitlochry. Finally they got to experience public toilets in Inverness before arriving at Carbisdale Castle. The following day's itinerary was much the same except Perth and Pitlochry were exchanged for Fort Augustus and Fort William!

Well, enough of the EF chat for now. I have promised my Hong Kong kids (who have access to my blog) that I will write lots of lovely things about them, but I think I will devote a post solely to them, so I won't mention any more work-related matters for the time being. This evening I took my parents to see the Soweto Gospel Choir who are performing at the Queens Hall as part of the Fringe. They were amazing!!! I recommend that you all go and see them. They are such an energetic group who clearly have so much fun performing. Their voices are also immense, not to mention their reportoire. I came out of the concert with such a smile on my face - definitely a 'warm, fuzzy-feeling' moment!