Tuesday 30 October 2007

Approved - Whoopie

Dear all who are keeping track,

Today I found out that I have a confirmed place in Klagenfurt, Austria! I am so chuffed! I was also offered a post in Vienna, but was told the way its all panning out, would be easier to send me to Klagenfurt! Only problem I have with there is that it will be difficult to get to from Newcastle, despite us both having international airports. Ive done some research and looks like its gonna be easier to get a flight to Hanover in Germany, and then one from there the next day to Klagenfurt and if I book it now, its will be cheap as chips. £2.99 before tax to Hanover and 5Euro before tax from the there to good old Klagenfurt.

I am really really excited, but at the same time I am absolutely cacking myself! Ive just been looking on the internet for apartments and stuff, which look pretty promising. People are looking for house mates and subletting all over the place. I'm going to ring the British Council tomorrow and find out where exactly I will be in the 6th largest city in Austria, so I can plan when I can apply for this flat, and how far its gonna be from the school etc. I'm really interested in sharing with some students over there. It'll be the deep-end for me and my german speaking abilities. Its like, if you don't try and communicate with them, you are just gonna be a hermit on your own in your room with facebook... well, maybe not that drastic.

Anyways... all this excitement is making me tired and Im going to bed.

Probably update tomorrow when I speak to the British Council.


L.G.


Geordie/James/Jay

Sunday 14 October 2007

The Beginning

Well Hello Everyone who is interested...

You all know my name is James Wrighton, some of you may know me as "Geordie". I thought it was time to set up a blog spot so I could keep an online dairy of my year abroad and how it progresses. It will also give me an opportunity to look back over the year and see how I have changed, how my views have changed and what I have learnt over the year.... now, thats the introduction over and done with.

Okay, now to talk about the year abroad. My full application has been sent to the British Council who deal with sending English Language Assistants to Europe to participate in classes to help children (age 6-16) with conversational aspects of the English language. I have been approved by Kit Byford, the officer at the office in London, but now I just need to be approved by their counter-part in Austria... hopefully I shall, and will be in Austria in the next couple of weeks.

Ive already done a lot of research into Austria and the Austrian way of life. I was surprised to find that its not extremely similar to Germany. Obviously its a different country and does share some aspects including language (I'm told by a family friend with Austrian decent that its much more Melodic lol). When I had the interview to work in the ski lodge, I looked into the skiing and tourism aspect of the country. I'm hoping that in a school I will be more involved in the cultural aspect of Austria, rather than the tourism part.

I will be updating this blog on a weekly basis (and will try and adapt it to fit in with my progress file for Uni), which will be able to be seen by my lecturers and my friends when they want to know what I'm getting up to... or even someone who is looking to be an assistant the next year and wants to read a diary from a previous assistant.

My next update will be when I finally make it over there...

Aufwieder-schreiben LOL

xx