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! :)