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.