Views around my school

Oh, and also the bus

So I was walking home yesterday FREEZING (it wasn't THAT cold, but I was tired and just wanting to get home which made it feel even COLDER) and I walked by the bus stop, at the exact moment the bus that passes by my home passed me.

Sooo, I figured, I am freezing, I am going to spend the whole 900 won (about...50 cents wiht the current exchange rate) and take the bus home.

Now those of you have been paying attention it takes me about 15-20 minutes to walk home (10 if I run and get lucky with the lights) the bus...takes...about 35 :-P

So taking the bus is REALLY not a time saver at all (it goes zig zaggy, all the way down to home plus then to the local College around my apartment and then to my apartment stop) but it is heated and MUCH lazier.

Cute Random Story

So, I was teaching a discussion class (meaning I am on my own) and my students were being a little rowdy. So I gave them a little, "Hey, I need everyone to be quiet" and one of the boys (not even a very fluent boy, classic average kids who barely speaks English properly) looks me straight in the eyes and says, "Don't worry baby, I've got it covered"

REALLY?

really?

REALLY

He never did tell me where he learned that must have been some song or something. It was probably one of the highlight of my teaching career, although there was the kid that said two...

Well there was the one boy who would never speak English and I went over to him because he had his hand raised. So He crinkled his brow stared at his paper in complete concentration looked up at me and said, "Two?" while pointing to his paper.

I was so proud of him I nodded and said, "Yes, write it twice"

He got so proud he sat up straight in his chair shoulders back and beaming with happiness began writing. His friend, who grew up partly in America looked at me and commented snarkily, "He's very proud for only saying one word, " Prat!

I smiled and told him that that one word was perfect and I do not require my students to say, "Excuse my professor, but am I required to write this word for a total of two times?," "Two?" would suffice just fine.

Open Class

So I had my open class today. Open class is when you teach a class and other teachers from other schools (or your school if they have free time) come and evaluate you. And it is not just for English Teachers. ALL teachers in Korea have to have one open class every year.

I was sick as a dog and afraid my voice would fail, but we did a really really awesome job.

My school posted a video but my Korean is pretty rusty so all I can find right now are the pictures:

The little Korean before the pictures says,"In 5 period today, the 3-grade English teacher with a class has a public class. 3-grade class are nice too calm so well done, guys!

Good job~ Excellent! "

http://daeseon.es.kr/?act=gallery.read&code=1711&id=376

:-)

The most random uncultural blog EVER

Sooo...

My friend I usually send daily pointless e-mails is out of town, so rather than send an e-mail to not be read for a few weeks, I am writing my usual pointlessness in blog form.

First off, todays class was ok...except I forgot to remind them to bring jump ropes in so we couldn't do that part which is a fun part :-(

Lunch I have with the teachers, which is nice. Turns out one of the teachers speaks WAY more English than I thought, he's just uber shy. But since it was just me him and another teacher he felt he had to talk. Really his English is AWESOME! So its nice to know I have someone I can go to other than the three friends I have at school that speak English.

So I stopped by my new little grocery store (just veggies and fruits) they rebuilt after the fire. The dude there's English ROCKS! I am totally shopping there all the time. He teaches me the names of veggies in korean and tells me my Korean rocks..which it doesn't, but I am sooo going to pretend he's right :-)

Finally, I was just looking at my fridge deciding what to drink, this is my thought process, "Cheap wine, expensive wine...macoli, guiness....cheap wine, expensive wine, macoli, guiness...hmmmm..."

ahh yes mystery option I had COMPLETELY forgotten about..."Box 'o wine" ohhhhh yeah :-)

Friends leaving/Pool Tables/Festival Videos

OK, I have lots to post about but I am just going to post about whats going on NOW and then catch you up on what's happened later.

Two days ago my light bulb changing husband of a friend David got some bad news from home and had to leave on a family emergency. His work wouldn't give him time off so he quit.

Studying abroad was always hard as well. You meet these GREAT people become AMAZING friends and then suddenly they're all gone.

Teaching abroad is different. Most of your friends are on one year contracts. So sporadically throughout the year you start to lose these amazing friends. Its like slowly these great bonds you made are gone...it's a crappy feeling. But you adjust, you smile knowing that you made FANTASTIC friends you will now have around the world!!!! YAY!!!

However, once you finally start getting used to people leaving constantly you also get used to the fact that you have a heads up, you know that in October Aaron leaves, in February I lose Patrick, and in April...well in April I'll lose everyone because that's when I LEAVE!

But having this, having someone just leave without any warning...SUCKS!

And in other recent news...my school has treadmills, pool tables, ping pong tables, a little put put golf room, and one of those waist massager thinggies..we're pretty fancy I tell you!

Oh and also, from a WHILE back when I posted about that festival we went to that was really cool with Patrick's co-teachers, he made some videos on it so voila:

30 speeches, lots of facts

OK random facts about my school taken from 30 of my students speeches on my school.

First all the numbers:

My school just opened, October 4, 2005!!!

My school's library opened November 14th, 2006.

Our English hall just opened! December 13th, 2007!!

My school has 4 stories (I think we have 5 actually), 20 classrooms, 657 students(someone else said 653) and 49 teachers(someone else said 44).

There are 7490 books in my library.

Mottos ...:

The motto is, "Righteousnessand Wisdom" (ok some other student wrote Be Honest and Wise, and another stduent truth and wisdom)

Our school flower is a rose, and our tree is a pine tree.

The school is called a green school, so we can be friends with nature and learn to play safely with fresh air to breathe.

Etc:
Did you know my school's website won an award? Something about EQ and management...I don't know.

The library is called the dream hall!

DIRECT QUOTE FROM A STUDENT'S SPEECH, "We have lots of handsome male teachers"

We have a school band called "Chungcularam" (I have been wondering what the heck that band was called! They're pretty good, CONSTANTLY playing, "you give love a bad name")

TWISTER

OK...so I hate Thursdays BUSIEST day. AND I have teachers yuck

Today was the best teacher's lesson ever. We played Twister :-)

Woot

They learned

Red
Green
Blue
Yellow

Foot
Hand
Right
Left

and I added

On

woot

Condoms and Potatoes

Some kid asked me what a condom was in class today. I asked him to repeat the word and use it in a sentence. I've found that asking where they heard it helps. As my friend who had a child ask her about the word sex found out. She tried to explain how when two people love each other they hug and make babies and that's sex. Turns out the girl was asking about secs, as in, "I'll be there in a few secs"

He said he had overheard it the other day. He's a good kid so I told him that a condo was like an apartment but you own it like a house. And then I assume his friend whispered the real answer in his ear in Korean. And the poor boy turned bright RED.

Poor boy!

I remember when Brad Lewis said "Coolo" in Spanish class in high school and Senor Naranjo told him that does not mean cool :-)

Or in Spain when Madeline walked into class late and said she was so "embarazado." Yes we mostly giggled. It is a bit hard not to when someone says they are a little pregnant.

And then there was the time in Spain I was trying to translate my cosmopolitan. And I was pretty sure lamed meant to lick. But I asked my teacher. She asked me to use it in a sentence (smart girl) I said "como con un dulce" like a candy. I didn't want her to know it was actually from a magazine referring to licking the sweat off your significant other's skin. Needless to say she came over to look at my sentence and began to blush. Hey I was trying to be polite lady, you were the one that had to look.

Basically, what I am saying is, learning languages is hard!

In other news. I had the Lotus root for lunch. Yes that's right the flower of enlightenment. It tastes like potatoes.

I also vacuumed yesterday. I really need to buy a mop but I keep forgetting to. Oops!

Koreans must be great at faking it

I have a degree in communications. I STUDIED communications for FOUR years. I KNOW what I am talking about...

yet...

I CANNOT read a Korean crowd.

I do not know if they understand or don't. They all look very intently and nod at appropriate intervals...but when asked a simple review question...NONE of them know the answer...and it is not just being shy as I thought at first...nope it is just NOT knowing

VERY bizzare

Woke up late today

Wake up time 8:10

At school: 8:30

I didn't embarrass America...I threw on a dress, did my makeup in the elevator, brushed my teeth at school (we all keep toothbrushes there for after fishy lunches) and put my hair in a french twisty thing to hide the fact I didn't brush it

Basically....I rocked it

First day of solo lessons went ok, but we'll see

Boring stuff

Well I paid my first gas bill :-)

Gas, electricty, water $140 or maybe less...I dont really remember right now

My bank is all in Korean :-(

So I am confuzzled

but Ji-Yeon helps me out :-)

Taught my first "teachers" class

NO ME GUSTA

I like to teach KIDS not ADULTS

but it's only an hour and a half a month (30 minutes every week except the third week) so...I suppose I'll survive

Yep

So my lunch costs $36.00/month.../about maybe $1.50 /meal (I think theres about 22 work days...so yeah)

Pretty darn good deal if I do say so myself

I learned how to work my stove!

The "gas safety" lady stopped by to make sure gas wasn't leaking, and..its not and...I learned how to work my stove!

Wohoo!

So other than that. Today I had my first solo class...i was nervous because A. it was my first solo class and B. it was the first lesson plan I've ever written C. It was the worst lesson plan I've ever written D. It was a class I've never met E. It was a level I've never taught

Yikes

I did OK I got nervous and spoke too quickly, but overall good. Then I went to the hospital got my results (cannabis negative, TB (not our TB its an abbreviation over here for a drug test) negative, AIDS negative...so they were allowed to let me stay

I applied for my Alien Registration Card...so we'll see how that goes. I had to give them my passport...I HATE giving people my passport...I feel so naked

OK...I am boiling water (on my stove!) to make tea

Then sleep

Pictures from today at school

My classroom :-)

My lunch

it was yummy

Every day you get a soup, rice, some kind of meat, some kind of kimchi and some kind of green thing...seaweed???

My first real "day" in Korea

I tried to make some semblance of my apartment putting things away, making a list of what I needed etc. but after about two hours of that I decided I was tired as hell through a bunch of stuff in a bag and fell asleep.

The next day I woke up at around 7:30 I was supposed to be ready for school at 8:20 when my co-teacher would pick me up at my apartment. I sent off a few e-mails got dressed (minus my shoes) throw my hair in a decent looking thing (I even ran a brush through it) and then the doorbell rings(a whole ten minute early mind you)...dun dun dun of course as I am brushing my teeth. I spit rinse and deal with the doorbell.

My doorbell is actually pretty cool, it is attached to a camera...so I see whoever is outside and can pick up the phone and talk to them before opening the door.
It is my co-teacher. So I go to open the door.

Mind you I live in a very secure apartment I have three and a half locks on my door it takes me, on average, two minutes to open my door...I always forget to unlock one of the locks. After fighting with my door, I let in the teacher. Quickly throw on my shoes and leave.

Remember how I quickly threw on my shoes? Yeah...I threw on one brown shoe and one black shoe...I have major skills. Luckily one takes their shoes off when entering buildings so not many knew of my foolishness.

So at school I met a lot of the staff. They were all very very nice. The Vice-Principal brought me fruit on my first day to make sure I was eating. Most of the teachers want to improve their English, but they are very shy. Starting in May I think I begin teaching the staff too, that makes me a little nervous I like kids more than staff, but they all seem sweet so I'll try!

My co-teacher served as translator throughout the day. I felt bad translating is exhausting. There were days in Spain where after speaking, studying and reading in Spanish I just needed to call someone and speak English for an hour or two, or my brain would explode.

Things that I now know about my job:

I teach 3rd-6th grade. Fifth and Sixth grade twice a week, 3rd and 4th grade once a week.
I have a curriculum complete with books, worksheets and really lame games I probably won't use.
My classroom is awesome I'll take pictures on Monday.
Our principal likes the environment. Our classroom is filled with green plants and topiaries and fun stuff. His office has like three fountains!
I will teach with my co-teacher for a month starting in May we split the class and I have my own part.
The school provides me with lunch :-)
I have work M-F 9-5 (well 4:40 ish) and the first and second Saturday of the month from 9-1 (but I only teach 22 hours/week)
I have my first holiday on Wednesday.

So after school (which consisted of me walking around and having little kids come up to me giggle and say, "Hi!" my co-teacher walked me to a store I could get some stuff at...HomePlus. I bought some food, and hangers. I don't get my moving in allowance until Monday so I held off on most stuff.

Then she bought me a burger (she's so sweet!)

I cam home re-orgnized my apartment (MUCH better) and tried to find my way back to school. I found it! Walked around school a little and headed back.

On the menu for today: finish organizing apartment, clean bathroom and kitchen, walk around a little, and sleep :-) Tomorrow the principal introduces me to the school.

:-)

Carissa