silly little things...

Krystal and Blue!
Krystal, Maggie, and their new friend Carpet.
Awwww Carpet!Maggie and some pups.
LOVE

Number 3

This past weekend I went to a cafe in Busan where you can have as many smoothies and cakes as you want AND PET DOGS!!! haha so random. You walk into a room where there are 20 or so dogs just running around ranging from super small to HUGE! Then you can order smoothies and go into the connecting room to get cakes and take a dog or two with you just to pet and play with. Sounds unsanitary....maybe, but i got to play with dogs for hours!

Number 2

When I first started working my students kept asking me for my phone number...easy enough, I didn't have one. Now I keep my phone away and haven't shown the students that I have one, hoping they won't ask again. WRONG: conversation between me and 4th grade girls"

student 1 - "teacher can i have your number?"

me - "sorry i don't know it."

student 1 - "you memorize and give it to me tomorrow?"

me - "no sorry I don't give my number to students."

student 2 - "but teacher I know handsome man"

student 1 - "yes me too, handsome man"

other girls - "yes, yes, yes handsome man"

me - "sorry"

RUN AWAY!!!

Number 1

This weeks lesson for 5th grade is days of the week and months of the year. Today we talked about holidays. Korean holidays and American holidays. The first slide on the power point made for me was Martin Luther King Day. As soon as the picture came up:

student - "teacher...Obama?"

me - "haha um...no Martin Luther King"

student - "teacher...Obama's father?"

me - "no, MARTIN LUTHER KING"

hahahaha

korean food

So far I have tried everything that has been placed in front of me. This includes a lot of fish still with bones and scales, cuttlefish (a personal favorite of theirs, not mine!), dried sardines (absolutely disgusting!), and an assortment of other seafood. I LOVE a lot of the food such as kimbap, bibimbap, shabu shabu, kimchi's not so bad, a variety of noodle soups, mandu, lots of rice and lots of noodles.

School lunches on the other hand are very much hit and miss. They're not awful, but hey it's a school lunch. I definitely learned my lesson one day about going to lunch without my co-teacher. I normally ask her what everything is and either way I'll try it. The first day she did not join me at lunch I still decided to give everything a try. There was one thing that did not taste very good and had a texture that i did not like at all. The flavor wasn't very strong, but still not good. After asking my teacher what it was after lunch I found that I had my first run-in with pig intestine...lovely. Learned that lesson! Well, check that one off the list : / haha

I'm getting really good at using chopsticks! One day I was even able to get all of the bones out and eat my fish at lunch (i use to just skip over the fish), big accomplishment for me! haha I was quite happy. Now I'm working on mastering the noodle soups without getting the broth all over me! My co-teachers are very happy that I'm not a vegetarian and that i'm so willing to try everything.

I'm trying not to be hesitant in what I eat and to keep an open mind...looking forward to many more food adventures!

settling in

Cheongdo Bull Fighting Festival
Hannah and I at the Bull Fighting Festival in Cheongdo
Haeundae Beach in Busan
Jung Ang Elementary School!
Looking from Old Downtown to my side of town across the Taewa River
Apartment: Kitchen and bathroom
Apartment: living room/bedroom and another room

I can't believe how quickly it already seems time is flying by here! I'm about to start my fifth week of classes tomorrow! I didn't do much the first couple weeks, just planned, talked with my co-teachers, and got everything I needed to get settled in. The last two weeks on the other hand have been CRAZY! I started seodong classes which are two hour long classes Monday thru Friday from 4:30 - 6:30. It is a lot of work, but I love it! I have a book that is 8 units long so I use the book the first and second day of the week and then expand from that teaching basically whatever I can think of. I'm having a lot of fun creating lessons, activities, powerpoints, and worksheets....but it is A LOT OF WORK! I'm at school from about 8:20 am - 6:45 pm. At least I'll be making quite a bit more than if I were just doing the regular school classes and nothing else. My co-teachers are still fantastic and the kids are pretty good...they are kids. haha I think the novelty of having a foreign teacher is starting to wear off. I've had to get a little more strict with some of them. One student brought in a penny one day for show and tell. It was pretty cute. I'm also not able to go home between my regular school hours and my after school classes, so I had been getting pretty hungry, but the last week my students have been bringing me tons of food! The teachers are very strict with the students, but they also seem to get away with quite a bit too. One of my friends had a student bring in a hamster in their pocket one day! When her co-teacher went to talk to the student, all the student said was that they forgot it was in there....riiiiiggghhht! There is a lot of pushing, wrestling, headlocks, flicking, and hitting that just seems to go ultimately unnoticed. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Maybe that's the Korean motto!

Besides school, I've gone out with my co-teacher Kimmie a couple times to get dinner and books for classes. I meet up with Hannah (a really good friend of mine) quite a bit, and Maggie who I met at orientation. Maggie and I went to Busan for a day two weekends ago and went to Haeundae beach. Luckily it was a sunny day and i definitely had to take my shoes off and put my feet in the water/find a couple shells despite the cold water! The weather has been very back and forth! It even snowed here one day which I guess it hasn't done in quite some time! Recently it's been around 7 degrees celsius, rainy, and bit overcast. It should start getting really nice soon though. I can't wait for the good weather and the adventures to come. I'm definitely going to be visiting Busan quite a bit. The train ride is only 45 minutes and 3500 won (under $3.50). I have some friends there, plus the beach, PLUS the aquarium (where you can dive in the shark tank)! Apparently there is a really good Thai restaurant there too. As much as I love the food it will be nice to mix it up every now and again.

Last weekend I went to Cheongdo to go to the bull fighting festival with Hannah, her boyfriend, and friend. It was definitely interesting to see. It was two bulls fighting one another and really they just pressed their heads against one another until one of them turned away. Some had more action than others.

I finally spent this weekend at home, got some planning done, and just walked around new downtown, not to mention i'm sick for the second time. Apparently it is yellow dust season, which is when all of the polluted air and dust from China is carried over to Korea...how lovely. haha I guess it means a lot of people get sick...maybe there is a need for those surgical masks i see so many people wearing? i bet i could rock it! : P I tried to buy a couch from a second hand store on Saturday, but it's been sitting outside in the rain for the past two weeks so unfortunately i was not able to get one yet. There is another shop I'm going to check out this week...fingers crossed! It would be nice to have a bedroom separate from my living room (right now my bedroom is my living room) but i'm going to try to move my bed into the other room, which isn't really a bedroom, and find a couch! Five of us met up saturday night and ended up walking around for a long time just trying to find somewhere that had wine that wasn't outrageously priced. After three or four restaurants where we were sat and left...whoopsi...we ended up going to The Outback, which I have never even been to in the states! I ended up splitting a pitcher of Hite with the guys while the other two girls got a bottle of wine.

I might go to Busan again this coming weekend, or just work on another part of town here. In two weekends though, I am going to Busan with Maggie who volunteers at an orphanage the second Saturday of the month and then going to a cherry blossom festival on Sunday. I got my first paycheck this past week and a lovely package from my madre with some MUCH needed tea and love!

Well, I should be getting off to bed now...i'm hoping to wake up miraculously completely healthy in the morning and start a new week of classes without feeling crappy!

I will try my best to keep up with the blog and I have an address now if you want it, let me know!

cheers!

and so it begins : )

Ashley, my roommie from Oregon during orientation at JeonJu...
Krystal, Vanessa, me, Maggie, Jason leaving for our cities!
Vanessa, me, Maggie, and Krystal on the field trip
Bibimbop!!! mmmmmm along with some not so good stuff
Market in JeonJu
Market
Hanok Village

I've now been here 16 days and I know I haven't given many of you an update. It has been extremely crazy. Here's what has been going on:

I arrived in Seoul on Feburary 17th at 5pm. After going through customs, collecting my bags, and checking in with EPIK (English Program in Korea) we took a lovely 3.5 hour bus ride to JeonJu where we stayed at JeonJu University ("The place for superstars"...no joke!). The first two nights it snowed, followed by some sunny-wonderful days, followed by a bunch of rainy days. We had the complete spectrum of weather in 10 days in JeonJu.

During the time at the university we took classes from 9am-8pm. They were mostly about teaching techniques, what to expect, lesson planning, co-teaching, the curriculum, camps, after school classes, and a bunch of different activities and ideas for teaching. We had two very short classes on Korean culture and history and the night classes, from 7-8, were Korean language. They tried to teach us the alphabet and how to pronounce the sounds ...it was really difficult. We had one day free from classes where we went to a traditional Korean neighborhood with Hanok's (traditional Korean homes). We walked around, saw a traditional wedding re-creation, participated in a traditional Korean dance, made Korean knots, and ate Bibimbap. One night I went to a Norebong (basically karaoke, but you have your own room with friends) and got to visit my first Korean bar and experience soju (Korean liquor) for the first time. It was a bit strong but I like the cheap beer, Hite. The week was full of classes and was a bit tiring, but great (once i got over the jetlag which hit me pretty hard! There were 340 of us training at JeonJu from Ireland, U.K., South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. We are placed all around Korea...it's nice to know people in different parts when traveling!

Then it was off to Ulsan. Out of the 340 people at our training, 8 of us got on a bus to go to Ulsan on the 26th. We had one stop during the 4 hour bus ride and it happened to be right when Kim Yu-Na (Yuna Kim...the Korean figure skater) was skating. The rest stops are basically little food courts that are really nice. The entire place stopped and huddled around the t.v. to watch her skate. Yuna Kim is a national hero here and watching her win and seeing the excitement around us was so cool. The bus driver wasn't happy that we took longer than 30 minutes...I guess he wasn't too excited. They took us to the Office of Education in Ulsan where our co-teachers picked us up. I was a little nervous because my co-teacher, Sam, was really nervous around me! haha He immediately took me to my school which was great but the first thing we did was go into the Principal's office...so intimidating! Sam and the Principal spoke in Korean for a bit while I sat there. Sam then took me to the motel I had to stay in the first couple nights because my apartment wasn't fully ready. It ended up being a love motel! haha It had a flashing strobe light above the bed, a huge picture of a mand and a woman kissing over the bed, and an assortment of other...things. haha There are a lot of "love motels" around Korea.

I was extremely nervous my first day in Ulsan...it was the first time I wasn't around a bunch of people who spoke English. Once I started meeting more people, such as a woman and her husband who work at the school and helped me buy some things on my second day, and met my main co-teacher, Kimmie, who is FANTASTIC, I started to feel much better! I have a good group of friends here and Kimmie is super bubbly, outgoing, and energgetic. We're going to get along really well!

Classes started this week, but I won't actually start teaching until next week. Right now I've just been going through the books, asking lots of questions, and brainstorming ideas. I'll be teaching English to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. I'm a bit nervous to start teaching because communication is obviously a bit hard, but I'm more excited and optimistic than anything else. I'll be teaching about 4 regular classes a day, 2 hour long after-school classes, and might start teaching after school classes every day from 5-7!

I went to my first staff dinner the other night...the food was fantastic, conversation was difficult, but it was a lot of fun. I've learned that even if Koreans know English they are very shy and worried about actually speaking in English, but hey I feel the same way when they try to teach me Korean! Every Wednesday after school all of the teachers play volleyball too. I'm so excited for that, although I won't be able to play if I start the 5-7 classes. Apparently they play staff from other elementary schools every now and again!

This weekend Kimmie and I are going to dinner and to buy a book for our after school class and I'm meeting up with some friends for dinner tonight. As of now I am loving the food, it's all so different. Not sure if/when I'll get sick of it, I guess we'll see! The transportation system is very easy and cheap and I live in the middle of the three major parts of Ulsan (new downtown, old downtown, and the University district)...PERFECT!

Well...that's all I can really give you for now. I'm still at school and might have to do some work :) I don't have internet at home yet, but I just applied for my alien registration card and should be receiving it next week. Once I get that I will be able to get a phone and interenet!

I hope all is going well!