Staff at Embassy

Teacher's Day

Terrance R. Mayes, Center Director at Embassy CES San Diego writes:

Teacher's Day is May 15th in South Korea. On this day most of schools in the country have a Teacher's Day ceremony. Some of our Korean students sang their traditional "Teacher's Grace" to our teachers and wrote letters and cards to our teachers. Students also gave the traditional carnation flower to teachers. Last night, some Korean students invited two of our teachers, Tim and Marcia and made them a Korean dinner using ingredients that they said are only for "Kings and Queens" in Korea.

Attached is a note that a student wrote our teacher Marcia that translates the words to the traditional "Teacher's Day" song.

Newport, Rhode Island

Students studying at Embassy CES go on regular excursions to places of interest. The students at Embassy CES Boston for example, recently enjoyed an trip to nearby Newport, Rhode Island. The photo below shows them outside the school just before they set out on the trip.

Eva Rivas from Embassy CES Boston writes:

Newport is known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions - castle-like buildings with beautiful gardens and opulent interiors. Many of these houses were owned by some of the richest families who made their fortune at Wall Street and today they are owned by the The Preservation Society of Newport County.

We entered two of these overwhelming buildings: The Breakers and Chateau-sur-Mer. It was great as the weather was a bit misty and drizzly so it gave the whole trip a little bit of a mysterious feel. We saw raging waves of the Atlantic Ocean behind the Breakers and admired all the beauty. The guides told us a lot about the former owners of those mansions, their families and made our experience very interesting.

The students were happy as this was another good opportunity to practise their listening skills ;o) The two French girls we had in our group were impressed as the guides kept pointing at various items in the Breakers and saying: "And this huge fireplace is 400 years old and it was imported from France. The furniture is historical and it also comes from France…"

After that we got on our "yellow school bus" and went to have some lunch, buy souvenirs and take a few photos in the centre of Newport. We were back at the school by 6pm.

Puyallup Spring Fair

Ashley Collingwood, Lead Teacher at Embassy CES Seattle writes:

The Puyallup Fair is a twice yearly event that takes place at the Western Washington Fairgrounds in Puyallup (about 7 miles from the Embassy CES Seattle school). It runs for the whole of September and also for a weekend in April, and combines really good but really bad for you food such as cotton candy, the famous Puyallup Fair scones, and huge hamburgers piled high with onions, along with amusement park rides including a roller coaster and a huge ferris wheel, and many many farm animals. It's an interesting combination - but one that leads to a lot of fun.

The entire school, including all of the staff, went to the fair this year and we had a wonderful time together. We watched pig races, went on rides, ate some really great food and just had an amazing time hanging out with each other outside of class. It was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to going again to the larger fair in September when the weather will be warmer and hopefully we won't get rained on.