http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015436&l=c507e&id=100300061 - june jewels
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015437&l=ff55c&id=100300061 - im off to everland
so i dont really feel like typing at the moment. but i know that i am trying to be more consistent with keeping in touch so, i shall. the good news is i have tons of new pictures for you to look at, thanks to mr bae giving me a cd of pictures from our last few meetings. :) so enjoy!
hmm, last weekend was craziness - pure craziness. i will modify an email i sent out the other day describing the past week and a half:
anyways, so lets start with last week... usually i dont go out after work its too hard on me. im lazy. but last wednesday i met up with one of my friends to see the movie the strangers and for some japanese food! then thursday night yanny and i went out for our "celebrate open class is over" party. we went and saw "wanted" with angelina jolie and then had some dessert. it was so much fun! then friday i went out with minu, soon and some other koreans because soon is headed to san franscisco beginning of august for 2 years to get his masters. so we went to noraebang and we sang some crazy songs! because we had to find the mixture of english songs they knew and i knew. soon knows and likes the music i like but the other koreans don't know as much. so we sang somewhere over the rainbow, all i want for christmas by mariah carey...oh man it was sooo funny! then on saturday i went with vivi and her friends to a photo exhibit for a photographer i met a few weeks ago - which really cool. his pictures were all using smoke...i think he used incense smoke so it was really thin and beautiful. and didnt look like smoke at all. really cool. then we had dinner, and coffee at sweet coffee shop on a mountain. and then we went to vivi's friends house and hung out all night and then went to noraebang again. i love it! again i was the only foreigner.
you think id know more korean by now!!!
then on sunday i went to carribean bay with the baes and i finally met my little brother - baejees brother who is in the army right now. there is no johnny depp at carribean bay...sadly....its a giant waterpark where everyone wears a bikini and you can walk around barefoot! it was a fun day.
then on tuesday i met up with sanghoon and we went to seoul forest and the han river because i love grass and water. it was so nice. just walking around and talking. he wants to be a sports agent and he has a connection and the connection told him he would take him to Turkey in December if he can improve his English. so now i give him homework and i am really trying to help him.
then wed i had to clean my apartment because as you can imagine it was disgusting. not that i dont know how to clean, but when its just me..i dont like to clean.
today was play doctors and nurses day at kids club. sooo much fun. i love it! those kids are so funny and we had alike a dentist, ear, eye and then obgyn. and some kids had babies!!! oh my gosh it was sooo funny! so thats my life. its going so rapidly.
then sarah arrived on friday so friday morning was work to find her because unlike what she was told, she doesn't live at nowon station - she lives about 2 stations away. but after some work we figured out where she was and met up before work started that morning. then friday night we went and found sally who is sarah's high school friend who is teaching in ssangmun - 2 stops away in the other direction. sally has got the hook up with a sweet apartment and has been here about 2 weeks. (don't you love how my writing has no organization or flow at all? wow!) so we hung out with her friday night after having some pizza.
saturday - sarah and sally were introduced to seoul stuff - my friends who you always see in the pictures. we had a great time with noraebang! oh how i love it! and a good night out in hongdae getting a feel for the artsy, college area.
the past few days have been filled with, wow, this is weird. yeah, this is weird. so weird. we are in korea and you are here. wow. i probably acted like a big dork because im not used to having first of all foreigners around, plus people i know...so i tend to just kind of act crazy and well not crazy, just normal for me. :) so its been a refreshing weekend...
but tomorrow is monday....
and life begins.
(i don't like this quote. because everyday is life. so then i thought lets say "and real life begins" but i don't like that either. the idea that my real life is determined by work. hmmm, but at the same time we have been living in a somewhat suspended reality this weekend going here or there with no thoughts or demands on our schedule...yet. so maybe the world enters the picture tomorrow. hmm, yeah, well go with that.)
but tomorrow is monday...
no longer shall we enjoy our suspended reality....
and the rising sun brings with it the demands and schedules of the outside world.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
im mellllllllllltinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng
ok, so some of you may say this is simply because i am a witch. ;) but really, its just the seoul summer. i often prided myself on the fact that it gets pretty hot in north carolina and i would still play soccer in the summer (often with a little bit of whining) and go outside and not let the heat bother me.
korea is another story...i take that back...kids club is another story....so originally at our school we were told that we could only use the air conditioner if it was over 29 degrees C - roughly being 90 degrees F. and we could only use it for 30 minutes for each class (i still don't know what that means) and it has to be set at 25 degrees C which is roughly 80 degrees F. i still don't quite understand the system or how i am supposed to teach or how kids are to be taught in that condition - so instead of wasting their electricity i just decided not to use the air conditioner. if it was up to me it would run constantly because im always hot.
i dont know if it was the sweat beads running down my arms, or the look of "i could pass out at any moment" permanently plastered on my face or my mentions of "man its hot." but now in every class in the morning as soon as i show up (because i rotate classrooms) the windows are shut and the air conditioner goes on. and in the afternoon classes i dont turn on the "aircon" because i dont know if im allowed to - mr bae comes in and turns it on. so its getting better. but its hot.
did i mention its hot? and yes north carolina is hot but you know those really muggy days when you just can't do anything? i mean some years we have a lot of them in NC but often its just a few days throughout the summer when you just can't move.
well thats what its like here almost everyday. and then imagine not many trees, traffic, cement from the sidewalk and roadside....it just kind of adds up. and yet i am always fascinated how the korean girls can endure this weather and still look good! more power to you!
i know its summer when...
my extra polar ice gum is melting to the wrapper, my purse...to me.
my candy i keep at school to give out as prizes is melted
my hair is constantly frizzy....and i don't care.
all the little hooks in my house that are hot glued to the wall are now laying on the floor.
my cheeks are perpetually a bright pink color from sunburn
i step into my office and break out into a sweat.
ahhhh yes, its summer time and the living is easy. :)
korea is another story...i take that back...kids club is another story....so originally at our school we were told that we could only use the air conditioner if it was over 29 degrees C - roughly being 90 degrees F. and we could only use it for 30 minutes for each class (i still don't know what that means) and it has to be set at 25 degrees C which is roughly 80 degrees F. i still don't quite understand the system or how i am supposed to teach or how kids are to be taught in that condition - so instead of wasting their electricity i just decided not to use the air conditioner. if it was up to me it would run constantly because im always hot.
i dont know if it was the sweat beads running down my arms, or the look of "i could pass out at any moment" permanently plastered on my face or my mentions of "man its hot." but now in every class in the morning as soon as i show up (because i rotate classrooms) the windows are shut and the air conditioner goes on. and in the afternoon classes i dont turn on the "aircon" because i dont know if im allowed to - mr bae comes in and turns it on. so its getting better. but its hot.
did i mention its hot? and yes north carolina is hot but you know those really muggy days when you just can't do anything? i mean some years we have a lot of them in NC but often its just a few days throughout the summer when you just can't move.
well thats what its like here almost everyday. and then imagine not many trees, traffic, cement from the sidewalk and roadside....it just kind of adds up. and yet i am always fascinated how the korean girls can endure this weather and still look good! more power to you!
i know its summer when...
my extra polar ice gum is melting to the wrapper, my purse...to me.
my candy i keep at school to give out as prizes is melted
my hair is constantly frizzy....and i don't care.
all the little hooks in my house that are hot glued to the wall are now laying on the floor.
my cheeks are perpetually a bright pink color from sunburn
i step into my office and break out into a sweat.
ahhhh yes, its summer time and the living is easy. :)
Saturday, July 5, 2008
open class
so i must admit that it does make me feel better when some people comment on how long it has been since ive published a new post. sometimes that is the encouragement i need. hehe...not that i haven't been doing anything, because i have but work has been pretty busy lately - make that very busy! and on top of it, i don't have any of the pictures from my travels because other people take the pictures and i must wait to have them emailed to me, thus kind of keeping me from posting because i like pictures to go with my stories.
so this post is really just going to be a random mix of whatever i think of and what i forget, im sorry. hehe...so yesterday was the 4th of july and that means nothing in korea. well duh. i knew that. but it really didn't mean too much for me celebration-wise either. i was quite surprised that i could find almost no events for americans to celebrate in seoul! i mean there was a st patty's day parade, there was a canada day festival...and where was the 4th of july fireworks? the best i could find was a foreign bar that was serving hotdogs, free shots of tequila to americans, fireworks and they were tolerating obnoxious american behavior. hmmm....wasn't worth the hour subway ride. plus it was a friday and its really hard for me to get excited to do anything on a friday night. i like to go home after work, sleep then maybe wake up and do something. but really just sleep.
so considering i have no pool, no bbq, and not much energy... i decided to settle for some ice cream, peach tea and a movie on my computer. hehehe...sometimes thats just good enough.
today is saturday. i was supposed to have a rugby game but the game was cancelled due to lack of participation and possibility of rain. bah humbug! i was so excited for that game! but it seems to me the touch rugby is much more established and popular whereas the actual rugby team is struggling to get off the ground...or at least from what i have experienced thus far. and to me waking up early on a saturday to ride an hour on the subway to practice touch rugby well sometimes i just can't bring myself to do it. especially when every day i have to wake up at a designated time and be somewhere. i like to not have to be anywhere. its kind of nice. :)
so instead i sleep in till i can't pretend to sleep anymore which is about 9am....:( so sad.... then i talk to my sister on the internet, do some reading and then move some furniture. this has actually turned into an addiction where pretty much anytime i am at home on teh weekend i have to move furniture. i dont know if my feng shu is off or what but its just something i do. and its kind of weird. needless to say i haven't gotten it right yet.
so work - this past week has been open class so for everyday for the past week here was the daily schedule:
9:30 arrive at work and make my little plan for the class and go upstairs and make sure everything is set up for the parents and my students.
10:10 the students come to hang out with me (which is only 10 students when usually i have 20) not for the next 20 minutes i am to entertain/practice what we will be doing when their parents come to observe. but i don't really want to "practice" what we will do when the parents come because then the kids don't care. (and we were supposed to "practice" all last week pretty much everyday having the same class as we would when the parents arrived. ok, so i did this maybe one day but yanny teacher practiced the same activities everyday and of course the kids were tired of it by the end of the week. im glad i didnt do that) but also yanny gets stuck with computer classes with the kids and having to be a bit more educational where all that is expected of me is games and activities. she has it much harder than i do.
10:25 the parents are supposed to arrive...we are still waiting...so i whisper things to the kids like are you ready? what do you say when amber teacher says good morning? the kids love this almost as much as i do. we are all somewhat nervous and i have no idea how they are going to respond when their parents walk in. so we make silly faces at each other and try to ease the tension sometimes just laughing at each other. :)
10:35 the parents join the class and we are able to start - but 5 minutes late which when you program your time to a T - causes a little bit of frustration. and remember don't start class until mr bae has the videocamera up and ready. oh dear. hahahaha
10:35 - 11:00 = and we go through a regular class day, we sing our songs right now the "ants go marching " you know the one that goes all the way up to 10....so amber teacher is sweating like a beast at this point....then we go through the day and the weather and we sing the silly song which we all love! and then review either with telephones or i toss a ball around the class. and then game time! for the younger kids we make a giant face - which i will post pictures of what i made! (the hours put into that :) a labor of love!) and for the older kids the bug game which they ADORE!
11:00 - 11:30then i have to be sure to stop EXACTLY at 11 or the whole system is thrown off...which is not true. but i follow their orders. hehe. the kids switch with the other half of their class the parents come with and we go through a regular class day once again.
11:35 - 12:30 after a 5 minute break to grab my notes and some orange juice yanny and i head back up stairs for the parent teacher conference. this consists of yanny explaining the classes and then we sit and make comments about every single student. oh yes and amber teacher speaks English and tried to act like the students so the parents understand and then yanny translates for them.
yanny told me afterward she would kind of drift off when i was talking and so she'd have to make up something to translate. i said that was great because i dont think i wanted what i said translated directly anyways. the parents got the jist when i would act out the enthusiastic kid, the distracted kid, the sad kid and the scared to death kid. though it was really funny because the last day we started the student comments and so yanny says 'eric" and his mom raises her hand and i started spouting off in english and everyone starts laughing! oh, they didn't know yanny was going to translate! hahahha oh they crack me up.
it was actually quite enjoyable. though mr bae said i needed to talk less...i dont think so. i never get to speak to these parents and here is one time i am allowed to tell them what i think about their kids and how much i enjoy teaching them and share stories! no, i will tell them what i think and experience...whether it gets translated is another issue. heheheh
12:30 - 1:00 eat lunch quickly
1:00 to 1:40 back to practicing for the next days class
2:00 to 2:30 prepare for afternoon classes
2:30 till whenever teach afternoon classes
and then working on grading tests, writing and typing evaluations and filing papers for the kids.
and that has been my week. long, yes, long. good, but long.
~ but as i told yanny the thing that makes me SOOO happy - is that i honestly missed the kids. we only taught one morning class a day so we didnt see some kids almost all week. and i missed them and they missed me! i was excited to see them! that makes me happy. sometimes i get bogged down with the classroom setting and being a teacher and all those shenanigans but really i love the kids. so that makes me happy.
~another funny story - so i was walking home around 6:30 and the bus taking the kids to school just left and it was sitting at the intersection waiting for a green light and i was standing at the intersection waiting for my green light and the kids spotted me. seriously 15 kids stuck their heads out the bus window and they are just screaming AMBER TEACHER! HELLO AMBER TEACHER!!! and not just once, but over and over and over... and the koreans walking around are staring at me and one old guy smiles and says something to me in korean...it was sooo funny. the kids are great. did i say that? because i meant it.
~and not just that but all us teachers went out for dinner on thursday night. such fun. we had gopchung which is the pig intestines. not bad. i can eat it and i dont think it smells bad though apparently lots of people do. i dont know. and then we went to starbucks. its so nice to be friends with my coworkers and know that it doesn't matter that i still dont speak korean very well. we are friends. and me and rabbit teacher are becoming pretty good friends. she found out i thought she hated me but i know she doesnt and she knows i don't think that. we are just limited by our language. hehe oh well...amber teacher! go study! :)
so this post is really just going to be a random mix of whatever i think of and what i forget, im sorry. hehe...so yesterday was the 4th of july and that means nothing in korea. well duh. i knew that. but it really didn't mean too much for me celebration-wise either. i was quite surprised that i could find almost no events for americans to celebrate in seoul! i mean there was a st patty's day parade, there was a canada day festival...and where was the 4th of july fireworks? the best i could find was a foreign bar that was serving hotdogs, free shots of tequila to americans, fireworks and they were tolerating obnoxious american behavior. hmmm....wasn't worth the hour subway ride. plus it was a friday and its really hard for me to get excited to do anything on a friday night. i like to go home after work, sleep then maybe wake up and do something. but really just sleep.
so considering i have no pool, no bbq, and not much energy... i decided to settle for some ice cream, peach tea and a movie on my computer. hehehe...sometimes thats just good enough.
today is saturday. i was supposed to have a rugby game but the game was cancelled due to lack of participation and possibility of rain. bah humbug! i was so excited for that game! but it seems to me the touch rugby is much more established and popular whereas the actual rugby team is struggling to get off the ground...or at least from what i have experienced thus far. and to me waking up early on a saturday to ride an hour on the subway to practice touch rugby well sometimes i just can't bring myself to do it. especially when every day i have to wake up at a designated time and be somewhere. i like to not have to be anywhere. its kind of nice. :)
so instead i sleep in till i can't pretend to sleep anymore which is about 9am....:( so sad.... then i talk to my sister on the internet, do some reading and then move some furniture. this has actually turned into an addiction where pretty much anytime i am at home on teh weekend i have to move furniture. i dont know if my feng shu is off or what but its just something i do. and its kind of weird. needless to say i haven't gotten it right yet.
so work - this past week has been open class so for everyday for the past week here was the daily schedule:
9:30 arrive at work and make my little plan for the class and go upstairs and make sure everything is set up for the parents and my students.
10:10 the students come to hang out with me (which is only 10 students when usually i have 20) not for the next 20 minutes i am to entertain/practice what we will be doing when their parents come to observe. but i don't really want to "practice" what we will do when the parents come because then the kids don't care. (and we were supposed to "practice" all last week pretty much everyday having the same class as we would when the parents arrived. ok, so i did this maybe one day but yanny teacher practiced the same activities everyday and of course the kids were tired of it by the end of the week. im glad i didnt do that) but also yanny gets stuck with computer classes with the kids and having to be a bit more educational where all that is expected of me is games and activities. she has it much harder than i do.
10:25 the parents are supposed to arrive...we are still waiting...so i whisper things to the kids like are you ready? what do you say when amber teacher says good morning? the kids love this almost as much as i do. we are all somewhat nervous and i have no idea how they are going to respond when their parents walk in. so we make silly faces at each other and try to ease the tension sometimes just laughing at each other. :)
10:35 the parents join the class and we are able to start - but 5 minutes late which when you program your time to a T - causes a little bit of frustration. and remember don't start class until mr bae has the videocamera up and ready. oh dear. hahahaha
10:35 - 11:00 = and we go through a regular class day, we sing our songs right now the "ants go marching " you know the one that goes all the way up to 10....so amber teacher is sweating like a beast at this point....then we go through the day and the weather and we sing the silly song which we all love! and then review either with telephones or i toss a ball around the class. and then game time! for the younger kids we make a giant face - which i will post pictures of what i made! (the hours put into that :) a labor of love!) and for the older kids the bug game which they ADORE!
11:00 - 11:30then i have to be sure to stop EXACTLY at 11 or the whole system is thrown off...which is not true. but i follow their orders. hehe. the kids switch with the other half of their class the parents come with and we go through a regular class day once again.
11:35 - 12:30 after a 5 minute break to grab my notes and some orange juice yanny and i head back up stairs for the parent teacher conference. this consists of yanny explaining the classes and then we sit and make comments about every single student. oh yes and amber teacher speaks English and tried to act like the students so the parents understand and then yanny translates for them.
yanny told me afterward she would kind of drift off when i was talking and so she'd have to make up something to translate. i said that was great because i dont think i wanted what i said translated directly anyways. the parents got the jist when i would act out the enthusiastic kid, the distracted kid, the sad kid and the scared to death kid. though it was really funny because the last day we started the student comments and so yanny says 'eric" and his mom raises her hand and i started spouting off in english and everyone starts laughing! oh, they didn't know yanny was going to translate! hahahha oh they crack me up.
it was actually quite enjoyable. though mr bae said i needed to talk less...i dont think so. i never get to speak to these parents and here is one time i am allowed to tell them what i think about their kids and how much i enjoy teaching them and share stories! no, i will tell them what i think and experience...whether it gets translated is another issue. heheheh
12:30 - 1:00 eat lunch quickly
1:00 to 1:40 back to practicing for the next days class
2:00 to 2:30 prepare for afternoon classes
2:30 till whenever teach afternoon classes
and then working on grading tests, writing and typing evaluations and filing papers for the kids.
and that has been my week. long, yes, long. good, but long.
~ but as i told yanny the thing that makes me SOOO happy - is that i honestly missed the kids. we only taught one morning class a day so we didnt see some kids almost all week. and i missed them and they missed me! i was excited to see them! that makes me happy. sometimes i get bogged down with the classroom setting and being a teacher and all those shenanigans but really i love the kids. so that makes me happy.
~another funny story - so i was walking home around 6:30 and the bus taking the kids to school just left and it was sitting at the intersection waiting for a green light and i was standing at the intersection waiting for my green light and the kids spotted me. seriously 15 kids stuck their heads out the bus window and they are just screaming AMBER TEACHER! HELLO AMBER TEACHER!!! and not just once, but over and over and over... and the koreans walking around are staring at me and one old guy smiles and says something to me in korean...it was sooo funny. the kids are great. did i say that? because i meant it.
~and not just that but all us teachers went out for dinner on thursday night. such fun. we had gopchung which is the pig intestines. not bad. i can eat it and i dont think it smells bad though apparently lots of people do. i dont know. and then we went to starbucks. its so nice to be friends with my coworkers and know that it doesn't matter that i still dont speak korean very well. we are friends. and me and rabbit teacher are becoming pretty good friends. she found out i thought she hated me but i know she doesnt and she knows i don't think that. we are just limited by our language. hehe oh well...amber teacher! go study! :)
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