Bethia in Hong Kong: 19 BABY!!!!!!

HELLO!!!!! I greet you now as well as 8 hours ahead of you, but also as a year older! I celebrated the magnificent milestone of turning...19. Okay, so it isn't that magnificent in comparison to 18 or 21 but at least I am finally in my last year of being classed as a 'teen', and it was my first birthday away from home. I was extemely glad to be able to celebrate with my family away from home and I adored the time that I got to spend with my friends.
Wednesday saw the event of the K3 trip to Ocean Park. I was relieved to see that I had been put with a gentle class with only a few potential problematics, all of whom I ended up with but they quickly learnt not to cross me, and it was wonderful to go back again. I was thrilled to this time be able to spot the Red Panda, which I had not when I went last time, and saw some truly incredible and adorable animals. I tried to upload some photos but it didn't work out so I will try to next week... although I couldn't understand a word they were saying, it was interesting to read the descriptions and the trip provided a good idea of how hectic the Graduation Day trip to Disneyland in the summer will be!
My birthday appeared as most definitely the highlight of the school week. I had bought some biscuits a couple of days ago and having been treated to a pain au chocolat by Ruth in the morning and opening my wonderful presents from my family in front of them over Skype (thanks guys for staying up to 11.30 on a school night!), I headed to school, an unusual bounce in my step for a Friday and a lot more gusto than usual for greeting the children that morning. Although it seemed to rub off on them as I got more 'good morning Miss Beth' than I have in a long time, even a couple of K1s were brave enough to greet me which was so cute!
I learnt that the biscuits seemed to be a consentual favourite of the staff and as I only had one lesson that day in the afternoon, I spent the morning going and visiting the classes, offering the biscuits to the teachers. This managed to earn me a chorus of Happy Birthday from my K2A am class which was very sweet, the teachers are strict but very kind and the class is just adorable! Not all of the biscuits had been eaten so I took them to the rehearsal we had that afternoon for the Christmas Carnival. With the entire cast for the first time, we managed to get our first off script rehearsal and dress rehearsal in at the same time and it was wonderful to see the whole thing starting to come together. Although we haven't actually practised on the stage we will be using, and we won't until the day of the performance, it gave us a very good idea of how we looked on stage and how awesome it is going to be!
I got a pleasant second Happy Birthday chorus from my only class of the day K2D when I went to give them a little treat I had brought as they were my birthday class, thanks to Katie, and Will and I had taught them how to play Duck, Duck Goose which they adored and so we spent a very happy 25 minutes playing that and singing a lot of songs! After school, I was dragged to the far corner of the school by Daisy for us to rehearse for the show we had the following day. Unknowingly, the entire English staff plus one of the kids, slipped into Daisy's classroom so on our way back when we popped in, I was greeted by a chorus of Happy Birthday, a chocolate cake and a present of a pillow!! Now the present may seem weird but I have been meaning to buy myself a pillow since I arrived and I have never remembered to. Now, I don't have to!
In the evening, we headed to Pizza Hut in Town Centre, there were 11 of us and it was a wonderful meal spent with the majority of the gaps. The prize for the most amusing present had to go to Tom, Lucy and Becky who got me four cans of Sprite, as it tends to be my drink of choice whenever we hit LKF, a much appreicated present and some true friends surrounded me that evening. We then headed off to Bar Pacific which had a relaxing atmosphere and even had some dartboards that we could try out for free. I have found my new found talent in just throwing the darts at the board, it tends to get me quite a few points...although admittedly I didn't win either of them, it was great fun.
On Saturday, I woke up feeling like death warmed up. Although I dragged myself into school and made it through the morning, I knew I couldn't let Daisy and the children down as we MCed, after all the practise we had done, so I stuck with it and gladly crawled back into bed, sleeping for seven hours in the afternoon. Thankfully that seemed to clear it all up and I made it to the Sunday morning service at The Vine where we had the Carol Service, with some beautiful hymns and songs such as Joyful Joyful (yeah, the one from Sister Act 2), O Holy Night and finishing with O Come All Ye Faithful, it really put me in the Christmas spirit. Sadly though, I had to say goodbye to a dear friend who I have got to know well over the last 3 months, Grace, who flew to Australia this morning. I will sorely miss her but Australia isn't that far from Hong Kong, perhaps a visit might be on the cards!
In the evening, a group of us went to go and see the new Hobbit film; The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. Wow, that film was epic. Perhaps a little too long but I was thoroughly impressed seeing as I never saw the first Hobbit film, merely read the summary from IMDb before leaving for the cinema, and have only seen the third Lord Of The Rings film in it's entirety. I have written a review of the film in one of my previous blog updates, Practise for Univeristy. That is where I will post all of my film and theatre reviews throughout the year as I have a feeling I will be writing quite a few of them!
Today found my K3 classes writing letters to Santa!! It was amazing seeing how vivid some of their imaginations are. Apparently I teach Superman, Batman and Iron Man all in the same class...well you learn something new every day!
This week is the final one of term, very hectic but I look forward to seeing what it brings beside the freezing cold weather! It really does look like a very British Christmas...no snow and lots of rain...
Until next time,
Batkinson xx

Cantonese word of the week: pronunciation: ma ho dong; translation: very cold!
Quote of the week: 'Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her on-going mission: to explore new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilisations, to bodly go where no one has gone before.' - Spock Prime (I'm in a Star Trek mood...)
Prayer points:
- that the children won't be distracted by the end of term stuff...
- that the Christmas Carnival on Saturday will go well!

Look where I've found myself again!!