He has started guitar lessons and is strumming away and is all smiles; he seems to like it. Jimmy has been dying to have Billy play guitar with him and finally Billy gave in. The two of had fun strumming and picking, a regular throw down going on over here :)
So as you know from previous blogs Billy )in grade four) is pretty focused on book reports and is keeping up with the class. The other little known fact is that in 4th grade you, that is the student, in the case Billy... MUST present a culture box. Billy chose South Korea because in his words " I was born there and wanted to learn more about where I was born". The concept is the student learns all he or she can on the country of choice and interviews a person from there and then relate their story back to the class.
Our friend ShinBee graciously let Billy interview her Grandma, Suni. Billy set up a time for the interview and armed with a list of questions headed over to have a visit with Suni. A little background here, Suni is somewhat of an introvert, as is Billy, so the interview was quite cute, however they managed to answer the questions and Billy put together a wonderful story. He also decorated his culture box with several South Korean artifacts, which were all his and created a story for the box and then spent many nights practicing his speech. Jimmy, the consummate extrovert, was dying trying to get Billy to use bigger words and be more confident in his approach, with suggestions such as " Billy do not use negative words", "Billy if you are unsure what you are going to say don't say um a bunch of times just look at the audience and pretend to do something else", "fake it they will never know!"Jimmy's help aside, Billy practiced and did things his way.
The big day finally came and Billy was ready. Fortunately for Bill he has a Dad and a sister who are major foodies so they prepared some Mondu for Billy to hand out at his presentation. Billy donned the microphone, set out his culture box, starred straight ahead and delivered an awesome presentation, he even did a little ad-libbing and impressed the audience with his command of the Korean history, culture and food. Several times you could hear him say " and this is I can't pronounce , but really cool!" The score sheet told the story, great presentation, great job looking up, well done speaking, super job putting all the information together, great story, the food was delicious!! A+++++++++
Billy has been working double time on Taekwondo, taking private lessons trying to get caught up with all the new moves, and concepts that are different here than in Toronto. His goal has been to get into the Black Belt club, the select group of kids training to get their black belts. So yesterday the mail arrive and a letter from the Taekwondo Academy addressed to one Billy Murphy. He saw the letter his eyes became like saucers, his hands literally started shaking and he announced he needed to sit down, seriously... he was beyond nervous. He opened the letter and let out a sigh of relief, he made it!! Billy's first words were " Whew, I though they were going to kick me out!" Once the worry wore off we asked him if he wanted to call his Grandparents and let them know to which he replied " Not till it's official, I still have to make an appointment and pass the interview, then we can call people"He's just to cute, way to go Billy we are Super Proud of you!!
