Out of order weekend recap

Alright I think I am mostly going to recap the weekend. I don’t really remember much from last week and basically the only thing I do during the week is teach and all those days run together after awhile. Friday was an awesome day. For a school field trip we went to a water park, so fun! We took a charter bus which was nice but whoever decorated that thing OMG. I wish I could have taken pictures it was awful is the best way possible; purple curtains, tassels, maroon seats, and when you dimmed the lights the overhead lights were red, and green; which to the decorators credit when the lights where dimmed/almost off the purple curtains did match the maroon seats. This was the first long field trip I have been on. We got on the bus at about 10am and didn’t get home until about 9pm.

The place we went to was nice, it had an indoor swimming park with a wave pool, lazy river, several slides and different swim areas. At this place too they had an indoor ski slope with fake snow and there were large windows so you could watch the people skiing or snowboarding. Once we got to the water park we had lunch in a private room. It’s so funny to see what a typical “field trip” lunch is, everyone had kimbab/gimbab or samgak gimbab (this is the triangle shaped one), kind of like Korean sushi. Not one child had a sandwich :) Also everyone used Tupperware; when I think of all the garbage that is created with sack lunches which honestly I always thought was stupid. If you had room to bring it with you, you have room to bring it back, or if you’re afraid of losing a lunch box, don’t bring the gold plated lunch box or make sure your kid isn’t a dumbass that looses their stuff everywhere. I would tell them, hey if you lose your lunch box you don’t get a lunch for the rest of the year, done and done.

So once we had our fill of Kimbab we got ready to go swimming, this is where all the cuteness happened, a bunch of little kids in their adorable swimsuits with matching swim cap, almost every student had a matching swim cap, so cute : ) Then we took them all down to the pool. I was a little confused because I was the only teacher that actual wore my swimsuit, the rest just went in their clothes, and I was worried that I was going to look super covered up, I figured with all these skinny asian bodies they would be rocking the bikinis, guess not. All the students had to wear a lifejacket which was a good idea, almost everyone at the pool had one on so I don’t know if it’s required if you’re under a certain age or if everyone just does it. I was okay with it, then you didn’t have to worry about kids drowning, it was hard enough keep track of them as is. I became a hero for several students in the wave pool, they got in it and quickly realized they didn’t like it. It was kind of funny because there is this one boy who is 7 years old and a bigger kid for his class, usually a little bit of a trouble maker and can be a bully but he started freaking out, almost crying. He kept saying, “Marcie teacher, I don’t like” haha I understood that he meant he didn’t like the situation he was in, I didn’t take it personally. So he was clinging onto me for dear life as well as 3 other students; I took them safely to shallow water.

After the indoor pools we went outside and they had a water gun field, it was about the size of a soccer field and there were a ton of water guns and the kids just had a free for all. Then they had a pool with rafts in it were they were pushed around by workers to make it seem like they were on rough water, then there was an outdoor water slide and these pool toys you could sit on and ride, kind of like those bouncing balls that you sit/jump around on. After that we got dressed and then we had some dinner and played around a little bit. Then we went back outside and they had kind of like a summer camp song time, except this had a DJ. The workers were like the camp counselors leading the dances, it was really run, I had a great time spazing out. However my boss was there taking a million pictures so I’m sure once I see how ridiculous I really looked I might regret it :/ Then we headed home, the trip home was okay except 2 of my least favorite students were sitting by each other and I can’t believe I didn’t pull a grandma geri and slap someone. If you’ve listened to a 13 year old fake snore for over an hour then you can understand where I am coming from.

Friday morning I got my bank account and bank card! So I feel like I’m rich! Haha I made sure I thoroughly checked to see if it worked this weekend ; ) I bought a few things, I did some damage at the bodyshop, I love that store, I bought some shoes I don’t need but are really cute so I could find a need for it. I finally saw the last Harry Potter! So I can enjoy my life again.

I did have an adventure trying to get home on Sunday night, my friend and I caught the last train, which we didn’t realize ended only 2 stops away from where we started, FML right?! Also the subway worker was not in the mood to help 2 lost American girls, he just kept yelling at us OUT! However I did feel a little bit of justice because another guy started throwing up everywhere, gross but kind of awesome considering how I was feeling towards the worker. Luckily when we got outside this nice Korean girl and her boyfriend helped us figure out where we were and told us were we could get a cab. We had been denied by a cab already, why, the world may never know, but we walked a block down and the cabs were very happy to take us home. It ended up working out because we weren’t as far away as we thought we were so the cab wasn’t too bad. I guess the lesson learned is to never take the “last” metro train.

Saturday night was another night filled with all night dancing and shenanigans, followed by breakfast and tea in the morning before heading home for our Sunday naps ; )

As you can see I am running out of steam. I will have to tell you about Emart another day. Also my older kids are having their pop song contest tomorrow which is bound to be good : ) Love you all!

PS. I start my summer vacation week Thursday! I think I'll get my phone on my day off too! 

some sharing and over sharing

Hello everyone. Sorry I was being dramatic last week… I won’t stop blogging, yet ;) Blogging is kind of hard to get used to doing, it feels like a one sided conversation. After awhile it can feel a little awkward, you feel a little narcissistic; however I am a filthy hypocrite because there are several people’s blogs that I read/spy on and never leave a comment, so I guess you can call that Karma.

I’ve been keeping pretty low key this last week, it was pretty rainy last week so you don’t really want to explore when the streets are flooded. My school did have a talent show on Friday for the younger kids (4-7 year olds). The older students will have their talent show next week right before break. The talent show was really cute, I naturally was the MC and did the most amazing job ever : ) haha. The kids did a lot of songs and dances and recited a few stories they had memorized. The two 4 year old students did a few lunch time songs and chants which was cute, but the funniest part was that they had these towels wrapped around their heads like princess leia hair (the cinnamon buns over the ears). I have no idea why they did, or how it related if at all to their skit, but alright, plus I’m not going to lie I’m impressed that the teacher was able to do that with a towel.

Some exciting news for me was that I got my alien registration card this last week. This is your idea card while you’re in Korea.  You can’t open a bank account or get a cell phone contract without it. I think you also need your card id number to use a lot of websites too. However I think since I’m foreign my number doesn’t work on the websites, I will have to ask or try it out. I should be getting a bank account this week then, which I am very excited about, I hate dealing with cash especially coins! I just hope I can have online banking, I’m not sure I can function without it

Sunday I met up with a friend I met a few weeks back. It was really fun to explore Hongdae with her during the day time. I’ve only been there at night because that’s where all the clubs etc are. Hongdae has a ton of coffee shops it’s crazy, in this small area there are like 300 coffee/cafes ( do not quote me on the number I have not verified this “fact”) We walked around and did a little shopping I only bought some nail polish and band-aids because I still needed to go grocery shopping (which I did today). However once I get paid on Friday I am very very very prepared to spend some money, shopping is seriously a hobby in Seoul, there is always stuff being sold everywhere and for the outdoor markets you can haggle the price : ) We did get some dinner at Taco Bell which was kind of a fun reminder of home, I think there are 3 in Seoul. It isn’t really the same, the menu is way smaller and the price is way higher but it’s more or less what you expect when you think of Taco Bell. Unfortunately Taco Bell is about as Mexican food as you’re going to get in Seoul, I think there might be a few other hidden Mexican food restaurants but they are few and far between.

Tomorrow I am going to Emart for the first time, it is kind of like walmart in the sense that it is a superstore, one stop shopping, but it doesn’t have the negative stigma attached to it. Hopefully it isn’t too crazy. My school is taking a trip to the water park on Friday so I wanted to buy a beach towel and get some summer/water clothes, like shorts/flipflops etc.

Today I went grocery shopping which is always fun. I was being my smart shopper self and totally came in under budget! If you don’t bring your own bag you have to buy their plastic bags, however they are pretty stingy with them; considering they are only like 5 cents I would gladly pay for two bags instead of trying to shove everything into one, heaviest bag on the planet. I need to buy some reusable bags but I also like using the store bags for my recycling, considering how much you can recycle here you go through bags pretty fast. However having to carry your groceries home makes you want to buy/eat less, which is a good thing. But once you get home with all your delicious groceries you always want to eat everything or at least some of everything. Speaking of, I should go make some dinner! I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

Oh I almost forgot, today when I was teaching the 5 year olds one of the girls lifted up the back of my dress so I mooned half of the class…awesome. Oh my gosh. Hopefully I was quick enough that those poor kids didn’t see too much of me, but I now know to be on my guard next time. 

blahing

I am so over blogging already :/ I need some validation that what I am writing is A)being read and B) being enjoyed. With that said here is a little random recap of the last week.

Teaching has been going well, overall. I did get super mad at one of my students and kicked him out of the classroom. I just meant for him to go in the hallway but he just went home instead. Luckily he came back the next day and I was able to talk to him. I just wanted to smack him upside the head. He is 14/15 years old and has been a problem in class for awhile. He isn’t a bad kid and I know he can do a lot better which I think is why I get so frustrated with him. I hate it when students don’t try, I am very willing to help someone learn but they have to make so what of an effort. I’ll lay out the scenario for you, there are 4 students in this class, it is the last class of the day, I get it we are all tired. We just read a short story/conversation then there is a fill in the blank section that is set up exactly like the conversation we just read and the students get to fill in their own answers. Ex the text says, I just got back from China; we stayed there for 2 weeks. What the students have to fill in… I just got back from _______; we stayed there for __________. Easy right? So the other students were filling in their answers and this student just had his head on the desk. I went over and told him to do his work, trying to help him, asking him what country do you want to visit? How long did you visit? At this he started writing 1000000000000000… and that is when I took the pencil out of his hand and took his book and put it outside in the hallway. Basically it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you’re going to acted stupid acted stupid by yourself and stop wasting everyone in the classes time.

This week I have to write evaluations of my students which I have mixed feelings about, because I really don’t know what level they really should be at, I am just comparing them to their classmates which doesn’t seem very fair. Plus I don’t want to write too harsh of reviews so it reflects badly on the teachers but I don’t want to be too easy either. Basically I am trying to stick to strengths and weakness, saying areas that the students are doing well/improving in and then areas where they need to spend more time practicing. I guess I just feel a little guilty because kids work way harder on their studies than we do back in the states, so it seems mean to tell them they need to work harder, but as they say When in Rome ;)

I have one favorite student who is 5 years old, I just want to kidnap this kid he is so cute, he has this fat head and he is just so funny and sweet. I think my favorite thing about him is that he doesn’t really smile, you tell him to smile and you get maybe a little movement in the cheeks, but there is this one song that we sing that he just LOVES and gets so excited about, you’d think I just told him we were going to Disneyland, he gets this huge smile on his face and he is giggling almost shaking with anticipation. I just love it.   

On Friday we had another cooking day, but we made milkshakes and ice cream sandwiches, it was pretty fun, the kids were super excited about it and it is always fun watching kids really enjoying eating, they get so messy and are so happy looking. However I don’t know if Koreans understand the difference between cookie and cracker, what we really made were ice cream cracker sandwiches, the kids didn’t seem to mind so I just went with it, but it was weird to me. From what I can tell Koreans aren’t that big into sweets so that could explain why. In my afternoon class we made funny face pizzas which turned out pretty good. We used tortillas as the crust and it turned out well, I might be making them at home sometime in the future. I am thinking about getting a toaster-oven. This not having an oven is really annoying but at the same time I really wonder how much I will really use it if I do buy one.

Saturday I just stayed at home and slept and cleaned, it was actually really nice. I got all my laundry washed and really cleaned my bathroom. That is the one pro to having a Korean bathroom it is so easy to clean, you just soap and scrub everything down then you rise everything off with the shower head, then you let it air dry out, it is awesome. Just make sure you put everything away and that you don’t need to use the bathroom for a little while. I also did a lot of reading this weekend. I just finished reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes  I hadn’t read it before and I really liked it a lot. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it because sometimes those books written in the older style can be hard to get into. Not so with Sherlock plus you always feel smart when you figure it out before they tell you what happened. I also finished reading a book called The Secret Holocaust Diaries this was another random book that was free for kindle and was really good. It a compilation of this Russian/Ukrainian woman who was born in 1927 and was the only surviving member of her whole extended family and her life before during and after the holocaust also living in Communist Russia etc. I was an amazing story and unbelievable that she was able to survive so much. I was really interesting to see the holocaust from a non-jewish perspective, especially a Russian perspective because the Russian alliance between the Axis and Allies was so shaky. It has gotten me on a Russian kick and I am trying to decide if I want to read War and Peace or Anna Karenina by Tolstoy or Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.

Today Sunday was a nice day, I went to the park for a while and practiced my Korean. Shout out to Aunt Stephanie that binder of lessons is awesome! I have all the vowels down and almost all the consonants. I have been lazy about studying but I think I am going to try to spend at least 30minutes a day practicing I’m tired of not being about to speak/read/understand anything. I have also been looking into taking a beginner Korean class, there is a free one that is coming up in September that I might take but I will see if there is one sooner.

I have summer vacation coming up at the end of the month which should be fun. I think I will go to the Southern part of South Korea with a few friends most likely Busan. I don’t really want to travel outside of Korea yet I will save that for my winter vacation days :)

I love you all! I hope this wasn’t to rambling for you.

Looks like someones got a case of the Mondays

I have been lame with my blog, sorry about that. I know I should update more but I have kind of fallen into a routine so everything seems too boring to write about. It also has been raining a lot and you know how I feel about rain… it ruins your life and makes you the laziest person on the planet, more or less.

However it is a good thing that I am feeling more at home and comfortable teaching, I know what’s expected of me. I know where the supplies are, I know all my students names, I am getting better at understanding the Korean/English accent, and I am definitely becoming more animated when teaching. I don’t worry so much about if I am doing a good job or not. I stress a lot about doing a good job, I want to make sure when I do a job that I do it well, so you can get a little paranoid when everyone is speaking a different language, you always wonder if it’s about you.

I had a good weekend, Friday I went to the grocery store after work, which is always an adventure. You’d think by now the grocery store workers would avoid me like the plague but no they come up and ask me if I need help, or at least that’s what I think they are saying. I polity pantomime that I am okay, just looking, thank you; the one phrase I know…thank you and say it all the time, I figure if I speak English and pantomime but end it with a Korean thank you it’s about equal to speaking all Korean ; ) I just don’t know how to explain to them, that it’s okay that I am looking at this shelf for 20 minutes, I am just trying to figure out what it is then which one is cheaper/the best deal…but wait make sure it’s still the same product.  Luckily most things have pictures and some even have it written in English, so it’s not too difficult. The most annoying this though at the grocery store is the damn announcers, I think they are telling about the store deals but freak it is non-stop loud monotone announcer voice, the Charlie Brown parents spoke with more emotion. English is very sing-songy compared to Korean, my students struggle with it, I have to be very expressive when I speak or read, basically over emphasize.

Saturday was very fun; I met up with a Korean boy my age that had been an exchange student of one of my mom’s friends. We met at Myeongdong, which is an area in the city famous for its shopping, oh my gosh! It was amazing, (un)fortunately I didn’t have any money so I couldn’t go shopping but man I can’t waited to do some damage there : ) We got some tea, I tried pine needle tea, which is surprisingly delicious, I would totally get it again, it was sweet but not candy sweet. Then we took a bus to Namsan, it is a government protected park/mountain, might be a little over kill I’d say big hill but there is a tower kind of like the space needle and you can see a panoramic of Seoul, we saw it at night so we could see all the city lights. It was a really cool place, I want to go again when I have a camera, it would also be cool to see it at different times of day as well as seasons. We didn’t stay long because he had to get back to his city because he had to work in the morning. He was really nice, I’m sure we will hang out again. After that I met up with some friends and we went to Hongdae again (the club area), it was a lot of fun again, we danced all night and met lots of new people, my new friend Brittany will talk to anyone/everyone I really admire that about her, I want to try to be more like that. There is one of her coworkers that reminds me a lot of my brother, maybe it’s because they are around the same age and are some of the few guys that really get into dancing, but it was kind of a fun reminder of home.

Speaking of my brother, I was able to talk to him, via skype Sunday night, which is way more fun that just IMing. It was great chatting with him and hearing about his adventures as well as sharing mine.  I think he would have a field day if he visited or taught here, his personality would just fit in really well, I really don’t think you can be too goofy when teaching Korean kids, they just love it.

Today (Monday) was a little ridiculous, it wasn’t a bad day but one of those days when you ask yourself “really?!” several times throughout the day. It started off with one of my students crying because he was being scolded by the Korean teacher, I think he didn’t practice his reading. Then later during lunch one of the girls threw up, I don’t think she was sick, I think she was just trying to hurry up and eat and that made her sick, then literally like 3 minutes later two kids bonked heads together and one got a bloody lip ( I think they were just spazing around and knocked heads, they’re 7 it happens). Then later I come into the classroom and a shelf has been knocked down, what I can guess, a student was trying to reach something off the shelf above and knocked the one lower down. One of the 5 year olds licked my arm. Then to round out the day I had to scold my older students, one in particular, he even got a head flick; but I did promise those students that if we get finished with our class work early I will teach them a few slang words (feel free to leave some suggestions).

I hope everyone has a good 4^th of July! Shout out to Regan and Janet’s family you know how big of a deal 4^th of July is to us. I wish I was there to celebrate it right with you all! Love you all!!

PS. Enjoy this youtube video in honor of 4^th of July

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8adJShQSX8o