looking back

so right now i am listening to simon and garfunkel and im kind of tired. i am happy though. haha, its been one month since i first arrived and i feel things are going very well. teaching is hard. man, it is hard. but it is good. its rewarding. i dont know if i am doing it well, but they will help me out so no worries. hahaha....

i am making friends and meeting interesting people. i bought some speakers and blank cds today so that was good. i still have a lot to do even though i didn't even go to the soccer game today. i went to church and then Friday decided to take me out for lunch and a walk around, which is good because i think now i can find my way from Nowon station to Changdong station without riding the subway. and i went to emart which is the equivalent of walmart. and even had someone help me purchase my speakers for my ipod. haha...

i am getting more gutsy with my korean and starting to use phrases i know and have studied. the accent is hard for me, but everyone says i am getting better! so thats again another plus.

i was kind of worried about this weekend bc i had no plans and it is my one month anniversary! haha, for some reason i feel like i have to do something fun every weekend or i am a failure. i dont know why. when i am at home it is the hardest thing to get me out of the house. haha, thats why i like to travel. but mr bae and sylvia teacher and baejee went out to dinner together. i really like baejee, like honestly. she is funny first of all. we both love the simpsons. she doesn't like to shower or brush her teeth all the time - me either! hahaha...so its really great that the koreans i am meeting i would be friends with in a different setting as well. yanny too is like me, very laidback and relaxed. enthusiastic- i enjoy watching her practice her dance moves for the kindergarten classes. :) and we both drop and fling food all over the place when we have lunch together. there are lots more reasons why i like those two girls, but those are just the reasons that come to the top of my head.

and you know what, eating in korea is so great. you can put your elbows on the table, talk with your mouth full, drink out of your bowl. double dipping is not an issue and everyone shares everything! its so communal.

oh well after dinner with mr bae and his family, baejee and i went out for ice cream and it was so cool! the shop is on the second floor at nowon station and i always pass by it, so it was nice to sit there and watch all the people pass on the street. we talked about fashion, emoticons - which are different in korea. so hopefully i will be better prepared for texting. :) and just random great stuff.

saturday i did nothing and i loved it! it was a cold rainy day so i tried to sleep in. then cleaned my flat...handwashed my clothes bc i am still waiting on my wash machine. hehe. took a nap. got a pizza and watched a movie. then went to bed. and today i was going to go try and catch a KLeague soccer game but then thought bc of the weather and other reasons i would go to church instead. i think this week may be a good reason to go to the earlier service. i just really hate having to be at church at 10:30. i know that doesnt sound bad but its a 20 min walk and im used to going at 1pm. buuuuut they still dont have a pastor and today we listened to a cd of an american pastor with a korean translator. so it was a recording and it sounded like chipmunks...and the sermon, well im sorry, but it was um, well, it left a lot to be desired. so i think next week i will get my lazy butt out of bed and go to the earlier service at a different church. i also have plans to go visit patricia's church soon.

i now know where i was originally first dropped off the bus and can easily find my way from maduel station to my home as well as nowon station and sanggye station. its funny bc i like to walk around there sometimes and try to remember what it looked like at first to me and what i was thinking and what i think now. i still haven't bought any clothes off the street yet, but i going to soon! :)

i think thats about it. yeah. i think so. annyeonge kayseyo!

until next time.

links to pictures!

so here are all the links to all of my albums on facebook so far. in case you want them. :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013438&l=335c6&id=100300061 - 28 days later

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013336&l=bf06b&id=100300061 - easter weekend

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013212&l=18045&id=100300061 - coteachers unite

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013111&l=4eb6a&id=100300061 - weekend wonders

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012976&l=de38b&id=100300061 - korea

getting the hang of it?

is it even possible to say such a thing? i dont really think so because there will always be something i dont know and the language will never end. so in some ways i will never be bored. but i am just so excited because today i didn't have to bring any school books home or anything like that to do. wow! i didn't know it was possible. haha, maybe i am getting the hang of this teaching stuff! i mean my lesson plans for this week are already typed up! whoa! i mean i guess teachers prepare their lesson plans ahead, i kind of preferred to type them up after the fact so i knew whether it was a good idea ornot and then i could share it with other people. but i dont think that is how this works. :)

so since i seem to kind of have some free time on my hands. i mean it is only 7pm im contemplating reading, or sleeping, or studying or just looking up stuff on the internet. hmm, so my observations. the things that keep reoccuring:

-there seems to be a strong fondness for prison break, gossip girl and heros. it is very popular with many of the people i have met because you can go to a pc bang and watch them or just download them on your computer. seeing that i dont watch any of those shows i need to catch up. :)

-noraebangs are really popular and when i was telling sarah, my new korean friend, about open karoake bars she thought it was the weirdest thing ever. i think possibly she would be too shy to do it...but i guess that makes sense, just being in a room with your friends or in a bar with lots of people. hmmm...i almost think i would take the bar. :)

-the bath houses are huge here and everyone ive talked to has said they realize how weird many foriegners think the concept is. i am one of them. but i think i am willing to go for it, if the right opportunity came along.

-i am slowly building up my korean vocabulary. i recognize a lot of words now actually from teaching haha. really is a great way to learn.

so im enjoying it. so i think i will enjoy some more MTV and chocolate.

until next time.

my apologies

so i knew this time would come when i would catch up to myself and start to fall behind. so i ask for your forgiveness if anyone is reading this and i will attempt to do better. :)

so a brief recap of the week/ weekend:

-they dont really celebrate easter here so i mean even in the Christian church. they knows its easter and we did sing a lot more hymns this time. that was great! some classics i know some of you were singing as well. so that was nice. and i got an easter egg though not colored. hehe.

-after church this man whose son and daughter live in canada now and daughter just married an american has kind of adopted me. he set up for me to visit his house and wife and then to go to seoul tower. first of all, his apartment was amazing! i liked my apartment till i visited his. hahaha. it was huge! it had a huge open window and balcony on the 9th floor. it was so open and clean and nice! and his wife makes her own kimchi! sooo good! and they fed me noodles and fruit and orange juice, and did i say the kimchi was great? she ferments it for 3 months. yummy!

he also owns a flat in calgary, canada in alberta where his son and daughter now live. he is hoping to move there very soon. he showed me pictures of the family and her wedding and calgary. and we just had a great convo about korean culture versus western cutlure and how family oriented it is. like first of all, hes rich, but he has already bought a flat for his son to live in or sell when he is ready. then he gave a ton of money to his daughter and bought the flat they are all living in to give them a headstart in live. he was talking about his soninlaws family and an example of how the american family the sister wanted to try some of her mother's dessert, so she went to stick her fork in the pie and her mother slapped her hand away. Friday and his Korean wife could not believe such an action! why would you deny your child such a trifle of a thing? he thought it was very interesting and it effected him and his wife. they would never do such a thing. very intersting.

so then his friend and his friends daughter sarah came and picked us up in a car to drive to seoul tower. very cool people. sarahs dad could not speak english but he was so nice. haha and funny. sarah has class every sunday from 9 to 5 for math! yikes! i told her never in america. or at least not the america i know. no way. and she normally goes to school from like 7am to 11pm. you just do. thats what everyone does. its cultural - these are all things i have been told.

we wondered around at seoul tower which was amazing even despite the weather. it was beautiful. i can't really put into words how cool it was and even the pictures i have, you can't really see how cool it was. it was great. really.

then we had dinner which was, man, um, it think budae jjigae. its like ham, sausage, beef and all types of meat all put together in soup. yummy! a bit spicy, but good! apparently its very famous in that area of seoul and quite delectable! and they bought ribs and all the side dishes and my very own baked potato. hahaha, but it had yogurt on it...not cheese as i was so excited for. but yummy anyways! and of course no night is complete without at least one shot of soju. :)

so it was a great day to celebrate Christs' sacrifice for me which I realize hopefully more and more each day. i know today i feel it. i was in the middle of teaching my little 5 year olds when in my head i kind of stopped and i was like, wow, i love this. what an amazing thing. these kids are great and i really am happy right now.

moments like that carry me through the days. :)

day of rest

so right now it is past my bedtime, and im watching a celine dion concert on tv and she is getting ready to sing a george harrison song (lacie - which one?) with the dude from the eagles. interesting.

anyways, so today i went to church by myself. i didnt go to the bigger service at 10:30 - i was lazy. so i went to the little church from last week. im torn about it because they dont have a pastor, so im kinda like, ummm. and mainly it is made up of koreans who speak some english and are older. but at the same time the message was about money which is something i have been contemplating over the past year and but then the fillin pastor who is this indian canadian - haha i love it! - um but i think he found it on the internet and i didnt agree with everything he said. so maybe that is a good way to test myself. ? then they have food and then they have a bible study. so i stayed for that and that was really good. like the questions were good and going indepth. and i got to speak too and it was just nice. like we sang a hymn and then he went through what it meant in case people don't know. so that was neat. i still think maybe i will go to two services so hopefully i can meet some people closer to my age....

i was thinking how this time is alot like melbourne for me, but in melbourne i didnt' have to pay to use the subway, so i find myself not traveling very far. so today i decided to wander around nowon station and i went to the lotte department store which is like macys. its crazy! and expensive! so that was fun. and just walking around the streets looking at all the stuff people are selling. and outback is over there. haha, so i am learning my way more and more. and there is always something new to look at and find. and there are some gyms overthere and yoga studios. i need to do something because walking is good, but i get kind of crazy and so i want to look into something like that. but who knows? haha.

i dont know if this post makes sense but i need to go to sleep. so i must go.

until next time!

good times!

hello folks!
so another greatttt weekend! on saturday i met up with yanny who is my coteacher - she is one of the two korean english teachers and so we split 2 levels of classes and she will have them tuesday and i have them wed, etc. so we work pretty closely together. luckily for me she traveled to canada for a year. and so she speaks english really well and also understands what it is like to be in a whole new country. so it has been great getting to know her and to work with her.
we went to the national folk musuem which had all of these amazing artifacts from the past kings and it was amazing! all of the official seals, the clothing, the placenta jars - just unbelievable. ;) haha, then we went to the palace which was again so beautiful. and they actually had the buildings set up as if the king still lived in them which was really cool. bc none of the other palaces had that.
then we went and had traditional tea at yanny's favorite spot in insadong which coincidentally was the same tea spot that patricia took me too. and let me just say its amazing! its indescribably, like when i go there i feel like im going into a hobbit hole. there were birds next to us in a little cage! and i had some cinnamon tea with a persimmon in it. and it was cool so it was like a slushy. it was really great.
then we walked around the markets and i got to beat some rice paste. hahahaha. it was so hard that it took me two or three trys to remove the mallet from the rice paste. and everyone was watching and taking pictures and i was like trying to get it and trying to look like i wasn't trying to hard. hahah, yeah you know. trying to be cool or something. haha, it was fun. and very funny. then i think the guy tried to kiss me after we took a picture. weird. haha.
then we walked around all the little tourist shops and the really expensive shops. i got dad a bday present. my first present i bought here. i could easily spend sooo much money, so i just don't spend any money.
then we got street food! and its not like you just buy it and walk away, you get like a plate and a drink and you stand there and eat your food. they had soondae at the stand we went to but i told everyone how i cannot eat it - so we didn't get any of that. but everything else was fantastic. so i have no fear. not that i ever really did, but i wondered if i should. nope. it was fantastic!

it was a great day and so nice to get to look at yanny's canadian pictures and talk about our experiences and life as it is. it was really great and we talked of all the other things we need to do in the future so many adventures to be planned!

sorry if my synopsis is short, i should be sleeping now. so feel free to ask questions!

until next time

Soju! Maekju! For me and You!

oh what a night what a night! and let me just start this by stating i was not out with americans or even my peers. i was out with my director and all of my coteachers. haha. and i hope to soon have a priceless picture to share with you! but until then...let me start at the beginning.

last night was my welcome dinner where all the teachers and our director went out to eat together. so we walk about a block to have sashimi. well when we arrive we sit down on the little cushions on the heated floor which is so cool to me! and there are about 20 people total. so they have about 5 tables and each table is covered with 9 little glass plates and each plate has a different crazy thing on it. and when i say crazy i mean crazy.

-snails - big one where you pull the snail out and eat it and then little tiny ones where you just suck the snail out of the shell. the big snail was ok, and cooked so you had to chew it. the small snail was not so good. just salty.
-mashed potato salad
-apples with mayo on them
-raw i guess either clams or muscles just on the plate
-noodles with a sauce on them
-tofu with a sauce on it - just a slab of tofu
-pieces of some type of fish
-some other type of fish pieces

and about 10 - 15 mins the waiteress would come out and switch out the plates either bringing more of what we finished or a new thing in its place. then they brought out hot dishes of

-shrimp - completely shrimp. i couldn't peel the shell off really well so amy peeled me one and then two other teachers peeled me a shrimp too. it was so funny. haha
-corn fritter without being fried - everyone loved this dish! hahaha made me think of you mom
-gingko beans
-silk worm larvae - oh yes! finally my time came. the little bugs i have seen everywhere. they actually aren't too bad, but they would be better mixed in with something. they have kind of like a bean taste. i dont think i would just eat them as like potato chips like they sell them though...
-tuna! mmmmhmmmm
-a whole fish that was fried - that was really good
-korean pizza haha, or thats what bae jee called it - like a kimchi pancake really good!
-octupus pieces with all the tentacles. :)

it was at this point that they told me these are only the side dishes. i was like yeah right. but they weren't kidding. after all that and im sure i am missing dishes that came and went they took all the plates away and brought out the sashimi. a massive - i mean massive plate of raw fish pieces. also plates with 2 types of leaves. one leaf had a sweet taste and the other was lettuce. so you take the lettuce put a piece of fish and sauce in it and eat it. and all the fish was on a plate of those transparent noodles- do you remember ally's plate, mom?

then in between that they bring out a plate with a huge clam shell and a muscle on it! it was the coolest looking thing. it was bright orange and so crazy! and when i ate it, it was so salty i felt like i ate the beach! i wish i had a picture because it was soooooooo just wow!

so we worked on that for awhile. we also drank coke, and sprite and beer and then my director passed me a shot glass and poured me some soju. soju is their equivalent of vodka and they are both tasteless but the soju has no burn. so we all cheers-ed a few times together and it was nice. then he made me pose with the shot glass for a picture. i hope he emails me that one. hahahaha. so i had a few shot glasses of that. but you dont drink them like shots, or at least they didn't.

then after we worked on our meal for awhile they took the big plate away and brought a huge bowl of soup with a burner still boiling. and you can put the raw pieces of fish in it to cook it. and it had so much stuff in it! vegetables, a whole fish, i mean so much stuff. oh and before that they brought out a dish of rice, fish eggs, vegetables and seaweed. that was good too! so then we had the soup and they brought out some kimchi. i felt like maybe in medieval times what a king would feel like. it was a feast that went on for 2 and a half hours and we ate the whole time with lots of conversation. and it was just great!

the teachers are so nice and helpful. they were asking me if i eat dinner at home and if i ever need any help just let them know! they are apparently all at least about 30 years old so im the baby. hahaha. it was a great time and it was nice to see everyone together. even the brief times i see them at school i can tell they are so much fun and to see them all together was good proof.

we were supposed to go to a karoake bang (room) after dinner but i really couldn't talk much less sing and everyone was tired. so the guys went out for more fun and we all headed home. what a greattttt night!

and it was white day - so feb 14th is vday which the girls give guys presents, march 14th is white day the guys give girls presents and then april 14th is black day - single awareness day. :) hahaha. so i got a few presents from kids at school. very nice.

so its 11:30am here, i am watching the matrix and i think im gonna get something to eat. :)

until next time.

everyday living

so im starting to get a bit of the routine of teaching. but i still wake up every morning fearing what am i going to do today with these kids? will it keep their attention? will it be enough? but then today at the end of the day after i had finished some lesson plans where i had made some pretty sweet games and i was feeling good about tomorrow....well yanny tells me that mr bae wants me to prepare less and have one on one talking. great idea! i mean, that is why i am here, right? my biggest challenge here is that we are talking about classes of 15 - 20 kids ages 5 -7. its not swahili class where i can go around the circle and ask everyone the same question. that would be nice.

most of my games have involved the flash cards and i did teams because it is easier for me. i find the classrooms to be small and tight so i can't move very freely between the kids and i can't even reach all of them and because of that i don't know all of them. i do know most of their names which is a funny thing because most of them don't know their english names. its not like they have them from birth, they just pick them to come to this school. hahha, so i can call charles all day long and often he has no idea i am talking to him. makes it all the more interesting! if i had the class in a large open area where i could move around or have them sit in a circle i would be much happier, but i feel like they are asking alot of me. hahaha, i guess not. really they just want me to change my focus - prepare less, talk more. so its not important that i have fun creative games as was originally stressed to me by yanny but rather individual talk time.

so my challenge essentially is to find a creative way to ask each of the 20 students "good morning! what is your name?" hahaha...yeah.....so its gonna be a challenge. i think tossing a ball or something would be good but how many days can i do that? maybe every! haha so any ideas would be pretty sweet!

my afternoon classes are great! small sometimes, the kids listen most of the time, and i have a curriculm set out for me. nice.

so i think that is all in the teaching world for me. just working on teaching them how to say "f" not "effel" its just "f." its a great time. sometimes the kids start laughing and so do i. they are so hilarious! but i do have to keep in mind that i can't teach the long a sound...sometimes i like to overstep my bounds and well, we all get lost when that happens. hahaha

until next time!

i used to feel but now i can

the title was a tshirt i saw on the street...

now first let me say that i am not a very stylish person so all of my observations are that, simply my observations. i had a lot of worries about what to wear over here and what to pack so here is what i see. i mean 90% of the time i am walking down the street i either have this half open mouth look of wonder as i try and take in everything around me or i have this half smirk because of some english phrase somewhere or an english restaurant that i never would have guessed would be here...so as you have that picture in mind, here is what i see

long sweaters and shirts that hang down like short dresses with pants underneath.
sweater dresses
everyone has cool shirts like they have some kind of funky hemline or design or something. so great.
colored leggings, leg warmers, stirrup leggings, stockings with mini skirts
little flat shoes or boots
long coats twill, colored, just long coats of any kind

it seems to me that almost anything goes just wear it like you mean it. but i want to pick up some of these sweet shirts i see everyone wearing. and definitely some of the great tshirts with english on them. :)

so until next time my friends!

sunday, sunday

so i really like dividing my blogs up if you haven't noticed. hopefully that makes it easier to read. i dont know. :) so after church bae jee and sylvia decided to take me "eye shopping." we jumped on the subway and went well, i'm not sure where, i think hoehyeon. there we went to the little tourist shops and she bought me a door ornament. its a bead on a beaded strand. i really like it, and my explanation is giving it no justice. sorry! we walked around and it was great and crowded. bae jee took my hand and we walked around all day sometimes feeling like a small child, sometimes just a good korean friend. ;)

then they took me to deoksugung palace where they have a changing of the guard ceremony. then we walked around and it was so nice! the weather was great. then we got coffee and donuts from dunkin donuts. :) and i also found the salvation army building. that was cool. we walked to a different area of shopping.

then we ate at outback steakhouse. hahahahahaha, i tell ya, i am seriously living it up here. so we each ordered something different and shared plates. it was nice. i really like it. poor bae jee had a big TOEFL test yesterday because she wants to be an english teacher and she also wants to do an foreign exchange student program. then today she had to translate between her mother and me and just talk to me. haha so i'm sure she is quite tired now. luckily her phone has some type of translation program on it so she used that alot. originally i thought she was texting people all the time but then i realized she was looking up words. :) she said that i am the first foreigner she has ever talked to and her friends want to meet me too. so i think we have a long friendship ahead. :) i would like to meet her friends i think that would be fun!

apparently we figured that she is 22 and born in 1987 but i am born in 1985 so i must be 25? wow. i didn't think i would be that old. oh well. and she has a twin brother who is doing his army service right now. so we had a great time today and she is a lot of fun to hang out with.

i just want to say how great God is and how blessed i have been to have such a great director and great connections since being over here. The Lord is amazing and i am so thankful each and everyday! :)

until next time.

church time

so today mr johan offered to take me to an english church service. well this was quite the adventure! mr johan and his wife sylvia-teacher and daughter bae jee picked me up. they were running late so we drove over to the church and mr johan dropped us off. well the first church we went to was full gospel nowon church. first of all, when we walk into the crowded building there is seriously a line of 10 women identically dressed greeting every single person who entered. it was slight chaos as we didn't really know where we were supposed to go. it was really hilarious. we went up to the 7th floor and came in on a service where they seat you by language. so i ended up sitting with a bunch of nigerians and putting on a transistor radio so i could hear the translation - just like the UN! :) hahaha well just about a minute of that and sylvia came and told us we were in the wrong place. so from that point we went from 7th to the 6th to the 2nd to the 1st all looking for this english service. well apparently it had already taken place.

so we decide to go to the next church in a whole different building. there we found an english service in the basement. haha. and it was pretty much all koreans except for this woman who i think was from england maybe? the service was hymns and it was nice. and then they have fellowship and a bible study. they are also currently looking for a pastor. not quite what i was thinking. but the people were so nice! we had trouble leaving bc they kept trying to talk to us. so in that case it was very nice. so i think i might go back. its right near my house but i would like to catch the other service as well. plus i still need to visit the everynation church and patricia's church. so the options are there and very nice. i will just have to balance. :)

random connections!

so weirdly enough my aunt paula's neighbor has a sister who is in seoul currently and has been living here for 2.5 years. sweet! we emailed once or twice before i came over and decided to meet. so i got to put my new subway skills to the test to go about an hour from where i am currently to the other side of the city to Ehwa Women's University. apparently very famous. i left early because i didn't know how long it would take and i didn't know if i would get lost. very inefficiently and costly i made my way there. i guess you don't have to buy a ticket to each place you want to connect, just tell them where you want to end and that will be enough. :) so i spent 3x the money, went out of the subway and came back in and bought a new ticket with each switch - there were two or three of them. hehehe. its not that hard for the record. ;)

once i arrived there since the girls school is right there, the streets are covered in street vendors. i walked the same block probably 3 or 4 times and it never got old. during this time i found a global atm where i was able to take money out of my bank account and it was in english! i also found bennigans, starbucks, caribou coffee, mr smoothie, burger king, mcdonalds, greek food and a bellydancing studio. plus some great shopping!

patricia and i ate some great korean bbq which i really enjoy. :) then we walked and she did some shopping which was very useful to watch. she bought shoes so i know now how to do that though i need to pick up some small korean phrases to help me through it. it was great to learn from.

then she took me to Insadong and we had some traditional korean tea. the tea shop was soooooooo cute! seriously! and we had ompirui (?) tea which was this great fusion of fruit and spice and everything nice. and they served rice cakes and these little wafer things. it was so cool though. she gave me some pointers about life in korea and what she has learned. really there are not too many offensive things you can do if you dont speak the language. thats where most of the problems are. it was just a really, really great time and nice to hang out with someone who could show me the ropes. she also helped me to buy a Tcard which is for the subway and buses and you just recharge it. very nice.

i am hoping to visit her church sometime soon and maybe hang out with her small group sometime. it was a great saturday night! :)

never knew the hospital could be so good

so friday afternoon at like 4:30 my director lets me know that i have an appointment at the doctor the next morning. is that ok? well yes no problem. oh and we need 95,000 won or 95.00. Oh, haha, that will be a problem bc i meant to exchange some more money anyways but didn't get the chance with crazy friday classes. so anywayssssssssss

mr johan came at 9:40am to pick me up to take me to the hospital. then i rode the subway for the first time and he showed me how to buy tickets and how the subway works. the hospital was cool. while waiting in the international clinic i met jane a new zealander. she has been here for 4 years and is a university english teacher. when she first arrived she lived in nowon and so she was tellling me that you really just have to put yourself out there to meet new people and that there is an english movie theater right near my flat and also certain places to go to meet other foreigners. so i have some new things to look into. :)

after the hospital visit where i had blood drawn and had to give a urine sample, mr johan decided to take me to a Chongkyeonggang Palace. we walked around and then he took pictures of me in front of different things. hahaha it was great. then we walked around and we tried to go to an art gallery but it was closed so we settled on Starbucks instead. :) the prices seemed to be about the same. so i had some real coffee and cheesecake! and mr johan bought me some chocolate because he knows i love chocolate. (i am guessing from the gift which i bought for him but acted like it was mine....)

we were at Hyewa station which is like 20 - 30 min subway ride and there was tons of english stuff that. kfc, starbucks, oh man, so much stuff. he said it was the young crowd area.

so the hospital visit was much more fun then i expected and a good day out with my director

more on the rest of the day to come...

ahhhhhhhh...?

so the first week of classes is over. most of the time i would stop and relax and say ahhh but really its just beginning. its been a tough week mainly because i didn't have a curriculum to use yet, i didn't know the children's english level and i pretty much had no idea what to do. but i think i am ready for this week. i finally have all the syllabi (?) for all of my classes which i am team teaching which means i need to know what they are doing and they need to know what i am doing for us all to be really effective. a lot of book work which my main duty is to include lots of talk time with the kids. the children actually love working in their books and kind of get lost when i stray from it.

friday was the first day i actually taught all of my classes. in the morning from 10 till 12 i will be teaching the morning classes in 30 min increments. i observed yanny on mon and tues but friday i had to teach which was not bad because i got to use our computer curriculum Ekilowatt and the interactive mouse. i just have to get the games started and they play. easy enough. then i taught my afternoon classes which rotate on fridays. so all my classes pretty much doubled in size some with kids that i have never met in levels that i don't know. little bit crazy but i think it will work out. the nice thing is that i like having lots of things changing - short and change it up, thats how i like it. so i think this will work out.

biggest challenge is going to be those morning classes. only on fridays do i get to use the computer. all the rest of the days i must go to the classroom and do activities and talk time with them. thats all the direction i have. and it must have something to do with Ekilowatt. hmm, well ekilowatt is talking about "good morning" and going to visit grandma. i am going to have to be creative. the biggest issue is that these classes vary from 12 kids to 22 kids. 22 5 year olds...how do you really create a talk time? these are things i must figure out. a good challenge. :)

so its all going well and i ended on a great note with my last class going soooo well and we were working on animals which is so easy. so it went really well. :) and they all know the hokey pokey now. :)

other little note everyday i eat lunch at school which is korean and it is so delicious! friday we had squid and octopus and kimchi and some pieces of steak and all kinds of deliciousness. mmmmm! and they feed me snacks too! breads from the bakery or some other little sweet. hehehe so i really dont have to buy too many groceries. ;)

until next time.

karibu!

so yesterday was the entrance ceremony which means all the kids dress in their myeong mun kids club outfits, complete with coats and slippers. quite awesome. also the parents come. well all the teachers did a play together about a rabbit who needed help and he finds out who his true friends are. i was the narrator and my partner teacher yanny read all of the other parts. the other teachers know some english but i dont know how much and also they have very little confidence in it and won't use it toward me. so pretty much yanny is my only help. :) i didn't quite expect that but its alright. i do alot of sitting around and laughing when everyone else does. i dont know if that is acceptable or not, but i do it. i try to keep up with what is going on.

i had my first classes also. its kind of like college where tue and thur i have the warmup classes and then on mon and wed i have the kindergarten classes and then fridays rotate. i gave out the books and tried to access where they are in terms of their english. i also tried to see what commands they know like listen, stop, look. the first class was um, well its gonna be hard. there are 3 to 4 kids who like to not listen. so i need to start thinking of how to deal with that before tomorrow. i just wonder what is culturally acceptable...and its a big class. my second class was wonderful! only 3 kids and they are soooo cute and they listen! my last class was good too, a bit bigger but good. so we did the hokey pokey, amber says... and stuff like that. i will be doing alot of the same today. this morning is the first morning class so i have no idea what we are in store for with that! :)

also, the picture is from the ceremony where i was asked to come up front and receive flowers and then give an impromptu speech. hahaha, it went well. but after the first ceremony i had a father come up to me and tell me he was kai's father and he is hoping that i can help kai to speak english a lot better. it was really touching and really helped to solidify that this is a real job and people pay big money to have me here and to have their kids study with me. not that i would take this job lightly, but if there were any thoughts of doing that, well they are gone now.

so all is well. more brainstorming! until next time.

victory for me!

so yesterday, sunday, i decided to take myself for a walk. i found a dunkin donuts and baskin robbins interestingly enough. but my victory came in yet another trip to the grocery store! i like to go to the grocery store because it is big, there are lots of people and its kind of like a mad house. there is music BLARING (britney spears once when i was in there), people everywhere, everyone who works there yells "annyeong haseyo!" repeatedly and nothing is set up in any rhyme or reason. so i like to go there and wander around and no one really bothers me. well when i went there on sunday i replied annyeong haseyo to two different workers. i also tried a sample which i replied was "very good." and she said "ahh yes, very, very good." :) i also found kimchi which i bought, and metal chopsticks which are a trial to use in themself. oh and what i thought was mochi ice cream, which is not what i was envisioning but not too bad.

so those were my victories for the day. i feel that makes for a pretty successful day.

until next time.

if its too hard to use the chopsticks, use a spoon

this may seem like a stupid title, but i think this might be my motto for this trip, or at least a side thought. i always wondered back in the states how chinese people managed to eat every grain of rice with chopsticks when i could hardly manage a whole piece of meat. so i have brought my chopstick skills to south korea, which simply amazes them, why i don't know. :) and they told me that if you can't get the rice out of the bowl with the chopsticks, just use the spoon. they all do. so i think that was a good cultural lesson for me. i dont know if it makes sense, but it does to me.

highlight of my day, i was just sitting at my desk (yes i have a desk!) pretending to read something and this kid comes up to me and puts his arms around me. he says, "annyeong haseyo?" and i replied, "annyeong haseyo." and then he gave me a kiss on the cheek. it was sooooo cute. i hadn't even met that kid before. wow. that is one thing i really love about this place and to me that means so far this country, is that everyone touches the kids like they are their own. in the states there are so many rules and regulations for anyone who works with kids. but here kids roam the streets alone, and everyone loves them. you will see a dad out with his kid or a herd of them at the pizza joint. its refreshing, especially considering i am in the city.

so hmm, right now i am waiting for the simpsons to come on. oh yes! the third person i met in korea, bae jee, said that she works on her english watching the simpsons and i just saw a commercial for it that says it is next. better be. i hope i didn't get my hopes up for nothing. but school went well. tomorrow is really the big day. its entrance day which is where we put on plays and we meet the kids and all that jazz. its a really big deal.

today i taught 2 classes on my own, the first had one student, walter. all the kids have korean names but they also have english names. so i had one student, no books...he already knew his colors pretty well, counting, greetings. so i got out a box of blocks and we just played with legos. randomly i would ask him what color certain blocks were or we would count them. it went well but i was just kind of like, um, what am i supposed to do? the second class i had 3 students who i thought were at a higher level but seemed to understand less of what i had to say. or maybe i raised what i was asking of the kids. so again the blocks but we had races where i would tell them to make a tower of 7 green blocks and whoever finished first won. then we just made towers of one color as tall as we could. amy helped to translate for me. but it was funny because i think the kids know i don't speak korean very well, but they still talk to me in korean. sometimes i can figure out what they are saying. sometimes not at all. but i still kind of like that fact that they give me the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming i have no idea. its nice.

yanny my teaching partner told me today that she studied in canada for a year and so she wants to be language partners and also that she understands what it is like to be in a different country and to be scared and homesick. so i just need to tell her and she will help me. :) seriously everyone is so nice. i do need more of the language under my belt so i can at least pick up things while they talk around me. but honestly i have been working in my book and i can read a good chunk of the alphabet from memory and also can say somethings. so all is well on the new homefront. until next time. :)