English Lessons

I'm not entirely sure how this happened, but I seem to have become the resident English teacher at my hostel, being one of very few native English speakers currently staying there. It started off with my lovely Chinese friends asking me to test them on random words they had written in an exercise book, but now it includes day trips to the beach and other such fun activities with a wide variety of people from all over the world.

The other day I made them all watch The Lion King with the subtitles on and I was so proud to see them all busy tapping away on their phones looking up translations to words they didn't previously know the meaning of.

At the end of last week I finally figured out how to switch the monitor in the common room from PC  mode to TV mode, mainly because I was fed up of streaming Neighbours online, which was a huge personal achievement for me as I'm really not very technologically minded. After the Lion King success story at the weekend, I decided to up my game as an English teacher and figured what better way to teach the English language AND a bit about Australian culture at the same time than to sit my students down infront of the show that has made my own transition into Australian society pretty seamless.

So 15 minutes before Neighbours started on Monday I started fiddling around with the back of the TV (as we don't seem to have a working remote) and successfully managed to switch on the subtitles just in time for the main event, which means my weekday lessons will all start at 6:30pm from now on. Because of my new pedagogical approach to consuming Neighbours, I now completely appreciate the THREE ad breaks the Aussies have to endure whilst watching the 20 minute show. As a result of the bite sized portions of Neighbours over here, it means we can have regular Q&A sessions throughout the programme without disturbing my own viewing pleasure...because it turns out trying to explain the backstory behind the whole Dee/Andrea/Toadie/Sonya/Hugo mess to people who haven't been learning English all that long is incredibly difficult! 

My new improved curriculum looks like this!

I have also developed a new found understanding for Elly because after a good hour or so of correcting and explaining the complexities of English grammar yesterday evening, I definitely needed several glasses of wine to get me through the rest of the night!

Toad-ally Excited for this Little Find

I was browsing a few shops today in Melbourne when I stumbled across this little beauty of a greetings card in Mag Nation and then got really really excited and bought two of them!

This is the first whiff I've got of Neighboursness in the wilds of Melbourne since I arrived over three months ago...and believe me I have searched very hard (unless you count the minimalistic attempt at merchandise in the Bunyip Tours office that constitutes of just one postcard and one magnet). Needless to say I was over the moon at my small find and it has given me hope that I'll find more Neighbours related goodies elsewhere!

This card is also available to buy online from the AHD Paper Co website.

Werribee Mansion

At the weekend I went to Werribee Mansion. My family, who I'm currently staying with at the moment, were going to a three day horse event in the beautiful grounds of this beautiful house over the bank holiday weekend (Australian's have a bank holiday to celebrate the Queen's birthday!!!) so I tagged along for a wholesome family fun day out, not really knowing what to expect other than lots of horses.

However, as we walked up the drive through some amazing monkey puzzle trees towards the house, I realised instantly that I had seen this building before and started getting very excited because unbeknownst to me, I had unexpectedly ended up at the place where Toadie and Dee got married, just hours before they decided to launch their car off a cliff (don't pash and drive kids!) and Dee got washed away to into the ocean, never to been seen again...well maybe....nobody's sure at the time of writing this what craziness the writers have planned for the Fake Dee/Andrea storyline.

So this is now the second Neighbours wedding venue I've visited since being in Melbourne, the first being the iconic church Scott and Charlene tied the knot in. The mansion itself was locked up on the day I visited due to all the horse related things happening around it but the grounds on their own were absolutely stunning.

Oh and just incase you were worried...nobody died or got paralysed due to horse related injuries!