The Pearse Family in Korea: November 2014

The start of the year is especially hectic for the Pearse family, actually mainly me.
This is the 4th season I have coached girls tennis, and every year, while I promise myself that I will be better at balancing my home, work and coaching, it never quite happens.
As a "Fall" coach at TCIS it is very, very busy from the first week of school (start of August) until the end of October. Coaching at TCIS is very intense for the 2 months of the season.
We train every day during preseason for 2 hours, and then once games start we usually have 2 games every week and sometimes 3. When we don't play games we continue to train for 2 hours every day.
Sometimes those games are at TCIS and other times we have to travel to Seoul and back in a day. If this is a Wednesday or Friday, it means we all miss half a day of school, get back late and then back up to school or matches again the next day. Missing school means leaving sub plans, catching up on missed work and meetings and generally trying to be super organized so problems with classes do not arise.
As a coach I get to know these girls very well. I am one of the main adults in their life during this season and I often see them more than their parents do.
It is indeed a juggling act every season to get the balance right. (and I'm not sure I ever get it right). It does mean I sacrifice a lot of family time to serve this team.

Yep, we play on clay courts too... and won this one!

seniors- last game

The girls and boys won the Sportsmanship award this year!

Joshua, Dario and myself... the coaches!

It is a gruelling schedule. We also play 2 major tournaments in this season. This year we also hosted one of those tournaments and had 5 teams from Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul and Guongzhou.

Before the APAC tournament begins there is a big opening ceremony where Molly and Abby got to lead us in. This was a great feeling, hearing the whole school cheer as we entered!

This is the APAC team which is selected from the 'normal' conference team. We only take 5 boys and girls when we travel. The extra's were "on call" for injury as we hosted this year!

We had perfect fall weather to showcase Daejeon to Asia Pacific.

It was a tough season playing in division One this year. We finished the season equal 5th overall.

And I finished with a very bad case of tennis elbow!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say I am happy to have some free time after school, and the weekends back!

Now onto the kids...

Here is Molly being the "hostess with the mostest", as she taught everyone what she knows about Australia.

Her class hosted a multi cultural day with food, games and crafts representing their country of origin. Molly chose fairy bread as the Australian party food of choice!

Her craft was Aboriginal dot painting and she wore her traditional Korean Hanbok instead of shorts and thongs!

Molly also won Student of the Month for October for being so helpful in the classroom, caring for others and being a great host and help to the teacher.

Here is the Pearse's Jack-o-lantern that was carved by our very own Jack and Molly!

Every year the staff put on a "fall Frolic" even to celebrate the end of fall and Halloween.
The adults set up games or crafts and the kids come and dress up and have a great time. Pete and I did the spooky maze this year!

Molly the Vet and Lego Jack

All of the staff and children in the Fall Frolic.

Molly was involved in a cheerleading camp in October as well. They culminated their learning with opening the cheering for the Girls volleyball tournament at TCIS. Unfortunately I was unable to go, but Peter was able to get some video.

Molly has finally mastered her cartwheel this year, which she was very excited about.

Jack also had some exciting times with his sport during October. He was fortunate to be chosen for the All-Stars boys soccer team. This team was selected from all of the boys who played soccer during the regular soccer season. They then trained together as a squad.

They played a tournament in Seoul on November 1 and Jack was a started in the midfield. He played all games with only 2-3 minutes rest in each game.

They played a total of 6 matches during one day.

The boys ended up winning the whole tournament including the penalty shootout which went to 9 kicks to 8 our way. It was very exciting!

Below is a video of the last 2 kicks and celebrations.