Austen

When I finish my 12 months in Korea I am starting a PGCE English with Media and Drama at London Metropolitan University, yes I plan to teach English in Secondary schools. Luckily for me I managed to defer my place until 2010, which means that my year in Korea is giving me ALOT of valuable teaching experience to take back home with me. Already I am positive teaching in England is going to be very different to teaching in Korea, although I love my job, and I love teaching in Korea - I would allow any child of mine to be educated in Korea. It is just too much. I teach four year old's that are at school from 9am until 4pm, and 10 year old's that are at school from 8.30am until 8pm, they go to Public School until lunchtime and then head to me at Hagwon for the afternoon, seeing not only me for English, but teacher's for Maths, Art, Music, Korean etc etc. It's heavy.

Anyhow, that's enough of a tangent, one of the things I need to do for my PGCE is catch up on my reading and read all the books that are demmed 'essential' that I managed to miss out on at school, I started before I came to Korea and am having to continue whilst I am here, so far the only book I wish I had studied at school has been Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Thus as well as my 'normal diet, a sporadic mix that has recently contained Wally Lamb, William Fiennes, Richard Milward and umm Stephenie Meyer... I am also getting involved with the likes of Steinbeck, Sallinger et al. My biggest battle however is with Jane Austen.

It's somewhat embarrasing to say I have never managed to read a single Austen novel, I have tried but it just hasn't happened. However in my interview for London Met I admitted such in my interview and said one of my goals before starting my PGCE was to catch up on this and rectify my lack of Austen, a few weeks ago I ordered the complete novels. It arrived and has been used to prop open my door ever since. This afternoon i was spurred on after watching 'The Jane Austen Bookclub' on TV I managed to read the first chapter of Emma before deciding i really needed to update my blog... Blog updated I am returning to Emma.

This blog will now include not only updates on Korea but also my battle with the darling Jane.