32 /

The most I utilise years of voice lessons lately is in being able to belt over ten children screaming at the top of their lungs. (A secret power I only call on in times of great need.) My youngest class is all about songs. This is our latest jam:

Also, what is it about children and dangerous things? Today a light fell down from the ceiling in the middle of class and shattered everywhere. EVERYBODY started screaming like someone had just spontaneously combusted. I immediately ran to the back of the classroom because you know those kids are going to start poking around the glass no matter how freaked out they are. And they were SO freaked out. They were scared out of their minds. And you know something: they couldn't keep away from the glass anyway. It was like a horror movie. I was like SIT DOWN GUYS SIT DOWN PLEASE so they did, and then I tried to motion to them to stay in their seats while I left the room for a second to go ask the teacher next door for help. As soon as I left they started screaming again at the top of their lungs. REAL FEAR. AND THEN they got up to go look at the glass some more! I literally had to place myself between this little horde of terror and the broken light. LITTLE KIDS DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE. 

I should really update more, but I find that I usually want to talk about the same things over and over again. Time has been slowing down around here in my last few weeks. It's also rainy season, which I'm not enjoying. I can say that the humidity doesn't get to me that much, but I don't like rain. It makes everything smell weird. 

Creepy middle-aged woman encounters have also risen. To be honest, I have creepy/questionable encounters on the daily (or at least encounters that would be creepy back home) over here, but for some reason lately it's been mostly with older mom-types? I don't know why. When I first moved into my apartment, within the first couple of weeks this woman came up to me when I was trying to get inside, said a few words to me and patted my butt. I haven't seen her since. In the past two or three weeks though, I've had at least three other similar encounters.

1. Scary old lady stalking around my apartment building. When she saw me walking down the street, she slowed to walk behind me. I heard her footsteps quickening as if she were starting to run, and when I turned to see what she was doing, she stopped and laughed at me all crazily. I left to go grocery shopping for a pretty long time, and when I came back she was still there? It looked like she'd been just circling the block. She noticed me again, stopped, and just started at me. WTF

2. My ride on the bus is generally not my favorite part of the day to begin with. My bus driver is crazy. He whips around corners, accelerates to go over bumps in the road, cuts other cars off at dangerous speeds, plays chicken with motorcycle drivers and pedestrians, swerves down the highway, etc. Generally it's hard to make the experience more stressful for me, but yeah -- the other day this woman got on the bus, turned around in her seat, and stared at me for twenty minutes. Every bump in the road. Flying up five feet in the air going over speed bumps. Eyes left me maybe twice. Am I secretly a mythical creature or something

3. This morning while waiting for the aforementioned demon wagon, a lady came up from behind and started firmly patting my hips. I turned around like HELLO????????? totally startled (thought I had some kind of horrible bug on me) and she motioned to my shirt, then reached over to pat me some more and look at the pattern. Lol I love it here sometimes. Sometimes the only thing you can do is smile and nod. I know a lot of fellow TaLK program people have had experiences with random women coming up to them and launching into some sort of tangent in Korean. I think most of us are getting pretty used to it by now. Honestly though, I think I could be here for years and never, ever get used to some of the things that happen here. I've always been able to accept them as just... What goes on... But I'm still surprised at times that these things go on.

The most redeeming thing about teaching for me has been the fact that in a classroom full of little kids, it's okay to laugh at stuff like this:

This is as highbrow as it gets for first and second graders. Corny maybe, but I love it when they laugh. We have SUCH a good time sometimes.

... Sometimes.

31 / Good Day

Today was actually a great day at school. :)
It didn't start out that way, but at the end of the day some of my boy students came in with a HUGE VACUUM and started cleaning up my room without being asked. :O !! I didn't even know what to say. Usually these kids are throwing stuff around and making things messier. Wow.

We had a good lesson too. Instead of vocabulary, we worked on pronunciation today. Always hilarious. I definitely feel for these kids when we do something like this, because I'm hopeless at different consonant sounds in Korean. These were the exercises we did. They'd repeat after me, then I would say a word and they'd have to tell me which of the options I meant.

coffee vs. copy
rice vs. lice
feel vs. fear
vote vs. boat
zoo vs. jew vs. chew
ship vs. sheep
tail vs. tell
pass vs. path
bees vs. peas
lips vs. ribs

It's about 50/50 for them hearing the differences when I say these words, but they can't often replicate them themselves. "Bees and peas!" becomes "Bees and bees!" lol

The best is "I feel fear." That comes out like I don't even know what.

Also, the place where I cut my finger really badly is totally healed now, except that it's also totally numb. You win some you lose some.

30 / Couple Weeks Recap

Good Things at school:

1. Kids' immediate and in-your-face joy when I use Korean words.
2. Moment of brilliance in 5/6th grade where they managed to brainstorm 30+ occupation vocabulary words I hadn't taught them.
3. Watching Tom & Jerry with my youngest students.
4. Going home at the end of the day.
5. It's really cute hearing what everyone wants to be when they grow up. (: Animal doctors, teachers, etc.

Bad Things at school: (that sound ridiculous when they're written down, but are so infuriating when they happen)

1. Flies the size of bees. Bees/wasps that I swear are the size of small birds and give me a fight/flight reaction.
2. Humidity is starting to kick in. It's more humid inside my school than outside of it.
3. This morning a couple kids told me and my coteach they would rather "have a punishment" than "learn English". :C why does this affect my mood
4. Kid threw a huge handful of flashcards in the air to avoid doing work.
5. Kids have learned from him and now pretend they have "something to clean up" in order to avoid doing work. (Meaning they knock over stuff in the back of the classroom and then take fifteen minutes picking it up in slow motion while ignoring me.)
6. Had to ask my 3/4th grade to put their heads down for five minutes after awful lesson. They understand this English perfectly, but start playing dumb when I tell them not to play games under the table or to be quiet. Patience tested.
7. Kid brought a tough wire to class and started trying to stab another kid. I try to intervene and he starts kicking him instead. End up having to leave my class, now all going wild, to go and get help. Come back and some get thrown out. :c
8.

So pretty much this has been a rough couple of weeks.
There's going to be a lot going on before I go home, and I'm looking forward to all of it... I have plans to go shark diving at the end of the month, and then I'm heading to a mud festival with friends in July. It may be a symptom of my enduring culture shock, but the smallest things from life back home (that I may or may not have actually enjoyed while at home) seem REALLY AWESOME right now.

29 / Because I Have To

It always really blows my mind sometimes how much time passes between updates when I remember I should be updating. I feel like we saw and wrote about the tanuki like two days ago? Apparently not.

Harrison went home yesterday & things have gone back to normal, or as normal as they can be. My apartment is back to feeling very empty. When my students saw me today, the first thing they asked about was him. I wonder if they'll miss me half as much :p

Then I went home with a stomachache. I got my stitches out today and didn't feel well on the bus*, so I was walking around all nauseous. I feel like for a person already prone to that kind of thing, Korea really brings out the random  in me. Lolllll

*death machine above the law 

---

So my... third? month of teaching is nearing an end. It doesn't feel like three months. I don't know quite what it feels like, but I can say that the thought of two more months is somewhat daunting at this point. I don't dislike being here. I like my school, the other teachers, my students. I greatly appreciate what has been given to me and what I feel I'm taking and contributing, even for all the obvious difficulties. I guess it's just that the difficulties are so hugely obvious it's sometimes hard not to be a little blindsided by them. In many situations I feel like I am personally the largest, most obvious difficulty of them all.

I still really have no idea what I'm doing, though I've been here long enough that I begin to make very educated guesses. My reading is quite fast now -- not to say my comprehension is any better -- and I understand simple conversations in Korean though I cannot replicate them. I am still for all intents and purposes like a baby, so that's not really news. :p I did come here really hoping to get a different insight into language acquisition than I had before, though, and I can say that I very much am. I don't know that I am applying this insight to actually teaching language however. I still often feel that no matter how much I plan, the actual activities matter so little. Something works one day, and then if I modify it to include new vocabulary it totally falls apart. Sometimes I think I've made a breakthrough with my kids and finally understand how to get through to them, and then as we progress it's clearly just a lot of optimism on my part. At least I can say that I empathize with them: people shout foreign words in my face all the time too, and no matter how many times it doesn't seem to stick. :p

Here's some pictures & stuff.

--

These things are delicious. Like... little steamed things with walnut stuff inside? I don't know what they're called, but I love them. It's l-o-v-e

We had shabu shabu the night before Harrison left. Mmm. It's like... boiling broth, and you cook your stuff in there. I don't know if it's Korean in origin. I think that you can get it all over Asia under different names. Like a big hot pot of goodness.

In a noraebang (singing room)... I perform only the classics, like I'm On A Boat and Hot In Herre.

22 / What

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT
Learning days of the week.
We have a days of the week song that goes to the tune of the Addams family.
It was too fast for the kids to enunciate really well, so instead of days of the week
it came out sounding like "tazer the weak".

I laughed until I had tears in my eyes. Then I had to try and explain why.
Best moment of this entire time.

Also, "Saturday" sounds like "salad-day".

It doesn't feel like that much time has passed since I last looked at the blog... Sometimes it creeps me out how slowly the days go by, & yet for some reason time seems to pass by really quickly. I mean, that can be said for most of my life... I still have trouble believing that I've been out of highschool for like... three years? ... Sometimes. But for some reason it feels different in Korea.

Anyway, I have some random things to talk about, because someone has been bothering me to update this. :p

1. Would you say that in the USA it is generally considered the student/parent's responsibility to make sure students get educated? I feel like a lot of pressure is put on teachers and schools to provide quality education -- which is how it should be -- but ultimately, it's up to the kids and to their caretakers to make sure said kids are making use of their resources and paying attention in class, that kind of thing. I don't think it's considered 100% appropriate to blame teachers if kids aren't "learning" or getting anything out of a class unless the teacher is truly and obviously inadequate or not invested in their job. Right? When we don't do well on tests, we don't turn around and say: Well, that's the teacher's fault for not teaching me well enough. Or at least, when I did abysmally in math in highschool, that's not what I did, even if it was true that the teacher's style wasn't helpful to me. Well... Here, it seems to be the opposite -- or so I was told when I asked. If kids don't learn, it's the teacher's fault first and foremost. The teacher didn't do his/her job well enough, and that's why things didn't turn out how they should. I don't know if that is the attitude everywhere, but it seems to be the attitude at my school. I really do like these people, and I'm doing my best to try and just accept how they want to do things -- but it's hard for me sometimes with this kind of ideology. I've only been teaching a few weeks, but I can safely say that it's not a one way street. I give what I can, and I do my best to try and make things interesting and easy to understand -- but I can't open anyone's head up and stick English in there, you know? It's the same of any subject; if the kid has no interest and doesn't want to be in the class, you can't make them have a change of heart just because it would be more convenient. In the end, you have to meet halfway, and if you can't then you can't. In my opinion, my kids are really young -- the majority of my classes are around or below 8 or 9 years old. At that age I knew what I was interested in, sure, and I did my best when it came to everything else; but there was only so hard I could push before I hit my boundaries. That's true even now. Besides that, my students work SO HARD all of the time. I'm as strict and as pushy as I can afford to be, but they need a break SOMETIME & I'm perfectly okay with giving them one. I don't feel the need to breathe down their necks. If lessons aren't working out, we sit down and just try to have a conversation together -- and that's what I was told I should focus on, anyway, not grammar and drilling. /rant

2. Babies. Mothers here carry their babies around in these wrap things: like large blankets tied around their bodies. The baby just sort of hangs out there against the mother's body. You're generally more likely to see that than a stroller or any kind of carrying thing. Personally, I like that a lot. What I don't understand, though, is... I tend to see a lot of mothers wearing jackets or heavy sweaters OVER the baby. Like... Baby is strapped in, and then covered by thick clothing so nobody can see. There's just kind of a baby shaped lump there. And these babies aren't small, either -- they're a few months old, or maybe a year. :/ And they can't see a thing! They're weirdly still and just kind of hang there. I don't know why this is strange to me. I guess because back home if you were to strap your baby to your body and then cover him up with a big old cardigan people would think he was going to suffocate. Also... If the babies are free, walking around or whatever... People here have absolutely no problem with strangers touching their children. Back home, if you were to reach over and touch a baby's head, stroke their cheek, etc... The mother would have a major problem with that at least most of the time, if you'd never met before. Right? Here it seems like most people don't really mind. It's kind of nice to have that level of trust with strangers. I never would have thought that seeing something like that would affect me, but I guess it just goes to show how implicit culture really is; yesterday when I noticed a woman reaching forward to pat a baby's head on the bus, I was ready for the mother to snap at her like woahhh throwdown. But they just smiled at eachother & probably started discussing how cute he was. (: BTW, all babies and children are adorable here. ADORABLE. Not that they aren't in the States.

Which leads me to:

3. I don't think that I'll ever get used to people's reactions to foreigners here. Of all the waygooks in Gunsan, I don't think of myself as particularly fascinating. I have dark hair like everyone here, dark eyes, and pale skin -- so if nobody sees my face, I can get by with no comment. But every day SOMETHING happens that makes me realise just how foreign I really am to everyone around me, whether it's because I do something that seems completely ridiculous to Korean people, or just because they notice I look different. I think that everyone here can relate to that. Every time I see a waygook friend, we exchange stories about bizarre situations we've been placed in the past week. I feel like it never ends. And while on some level I've just learned to expect it to happen, and in a LOT of ways it's totally hysterical, it's still super weird. I wonder how it'll feel to come home and be totally unremarkable. Nobody 1) touching my hair, 2) pushing their eyes open and gesturing at how big mine are, 3) openly pointing or talking, 4) getting in my line at the store to watch me check out & see what food I buy, 5) staring, 6) "BEEE-OO-TI-FURRR", "I LOVE USA", 7) stopping to stare at me while I walk past, etc. I've started to use my safety mechanism for GIs with regular Korean people too. :c Usually if American soldiers try to talk to me etc (I think my mom's insistence that I don't talk to young officers when we lived on a base is still in my head) I pretend that I don't know English and can only speak Spanish. Which works. If someone Korean is trying to speak to me in English, most of the time I try to talk  back & have a conversation -- but if I don't have time, or if I feel cornered, Spanish is a godsend. They don't have a lot of exposure to the language, so it kind of freaks them out? Like WOAHHHHHH a white person without English! It's really funny. :s But then I feel bad, lol.

(Not for long though.)

18 / asdlkghalgdkhd

dear students,

we're playing a game. you're not going to die if you lose. similarly, you aren't getting a million dollars if you win. i'll just smile at you and say good job, which you make fun of anyway.

i can't hear your answer if seven of you on a team are screaming different things at me all at once. then, when i pick the thing you didn't want, screaming at me some more in korean won't make a difference. interestingly enough, i am not pretending i don't know korean. i have no idea what you're saying, and no matter how many times you repeat yourself i'm not going to magically become fluent. in general, even if i did know korean, screaming at me at the top of your lungs generally is not the best approach. i end up leaving class feeling like i have ptsd & cringing at loud noises for three hours afterward.

i don't understand why, when you are easily 70 points ahead of the other team, you feel the need to try and trick me when they answer things correctly by telling me they meant something else. really? you're like ten years old. shouldn't this be fun? see first paragraph.

yes, i understand that you're incredibly smart and precocious.

love,
kat teacher

16 / Hard Day

Title covers it.

Like anyone, my students have good days and bad days. My students also bring out really good things in me, and really bad ones.

The issues for this week:

1. Boy got a new skateboard. Loses all comprehension of English when I ask him to stop riding it in the back of the room while I'm talking. Ended up pointing at him for thirty straight seconds while speaking in my Angry Voice to put it away. He listened. Then another of the boys went straight to the board and started riding it. :c I was so frustrated I literally had to leave the room. I looked at all the kids -- most of the others were running around screaming at this point -- and just said... "Sunsangnim. Korean Sunsangnim." threatening to get a Korean teacher. Then I left the room. When I came back they were sitting nice and quiet. (: Ehehehe.

2. 3/4th graders had a mini-war today. Half the class is pretty advanced in English and studies pretty hard on their own/with private teachers. Half the class is less invested in what we're learning, though they try. They don't study as much away from the school. This has created a natural divide between them: some of the kids in this class pick things up extremely quickly, can learn new games and sentences and vocabulary in ten or fifteen minutes, no problem. The rest need extra help that I personally feel like I need to give them. Cue the advanced kids whining to me that it's not fair we are learning more slowly because of the others. What am I supposed to do about that? I was told my job was to give an opportunity to children who wouldn't have as many. :c I can't just leave people behind. I may not feel like a real teacher half the time, but really. Anyway, the class got very very wound up about this issue and some of the kids started really tearing up a girl who took longer than a couple of minutes to come up with an answer on her turn during a game. It is true that someone cries in my classes pretty much daily, but I was just... appalled? ... at the way my students acted today.

3. No personal space. This will sound bad, but anyone who is in Korea now will understand. If you have a ten minute break between classes, you NEED the ten minute break. Or at least, I do. I have to have a couple of minutes to regroup, think about what I'm going to do for the next class, organise myself, etc. It is ridiculous how frustrating it is to me when kids decide that the time between classes is time to come and touch EVERYTHING I HAVE ON MY DESK, my hair and clothing, my supplies, write all over the board, throw papers on the ground, randomly cut up paper and just leave it lying wherever, stick crayons in the heater that makes our freezing room bearable, etc. :C I mean it makes me happy that they want to see me or talk to me, or that they're curious enough that they can't stop themselves from rifling through absolutely everything of mine that they can see. But Jesus Christ. I know at least that when I was in highschool I was not known for my patience with children. Babies, yes. But children less. I've gotten much better as I get older and find I relate with kids sometimes more than adults :p BUT OMG, PLEASE GIVE ME MY TEN MINUTES. Even just five! FIVE.

4. Kids deciding that they have "drawing" class instead of mine. I have several kids who leave class early to go to learn piano or meet with private teachers, etc. Some of my kids have to miss class a few days a week just because they're so busy. I get it. But the thing is, I've been here for a few weeks now, and I know who those kids are. :p I may not know Korean, but I know you don't have "drawing" class. It's  nice to have snitches in the classroom though. Kids try to get on my good side, and they tell me when the others have just decided to go home. Then, me and whoever actually showed up to class do fun things like tongue twisters. So there, missing students. :c Thankfully this is only maybe once a week... But it makes me feel bad, because frankly I am startlingly overpaid for what I do & it feels like taking advantage of the system when my children aren't there and I still get money for it. Besides that, it kind of makes me feel bad? Like am I really that bad a teacher that you can't handle sitting and listening to me or playing games with me for forty minutes? :c Lol. I love my 5/6th graders because they are at a level where they can kind of understand sarcasm; that brightens my day. And they love imitating my voice in English, exaggerating all the tones... Cracks me up.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have nicer things to write about. I'm going to try and bring a camera in to school. :s I hope no one tries to swallow it.

14 / Masked Marauder

I bought a mask today. People around here wear them a lot for various reasons... If you've got a cold
or some other illness it's supposed to be polite,
but sometimes people [especially my kids] seem
to wear them for no good reason at all.

For me, I got one because I've been getting weird allergies, etc. The wind outside has
the sand in it, and I think it's been affecting my breathing. My nose is always stuffy and
my throat feels like it has stuff in it all the time. :/ Oh well.

12 / Culture Shock is Real

Long bout of introspection etc.

As an anthropology major & person generally interested in such things, I can't count how many times I have heard the term "culture shock" in the last three or four years. I also can't count how many times I told myself that it really can't be all that bad. I suppose the words bring up images of a person that I'm not, or usually assume that I couldn't be.

I am a fairly openminded person most of the time; I like to try new foods, activities, etc & most of my personal beliefs are aligned fairly firmly with subjectivism. For most of my adultish life I've willingly and independently studied other cultures and languages for fun. It never really occurred to me coming here that I'd experience anything more than a few bumps and bruises when it comes to adjusting. I knew that Korea would be different, very different than anything I've ever experienced, but I had no idea it would throw me for such a loop.

And by that, I don't mean that it's hard to adjust to the simpler aspects of life is here. I like the people I've met and see every day, am all right with my area, enjoy the food, the nightlife, etc. I guess you could say that the... exterior?... aspects of my time here have all been wonderful. I have absolutely no qualms about anything I've experienced, from the bath houses to the craziness of my elementary school. For that reason, I thought that I could and was avoiding the dreaded "shock". But I see now that I haven't avoided much of anything at all -- instead, my experience with "shock" has been entirely internal.

It's hard to explain, exactly. Before coming here, my peers and I were repeatedly warned that we would have ups and downs, and told a thousand times over... and over... and over... what the symptoms of classic "culture shock" would be and how to recognise them in ourselves. I remember telling myself during those lectures that they were irrelevant to me. I've done a lot of adapting the past few years; I consider myself as a person who reacts very well to change. And typically, yeah, I do. But since moving to Gunsan, I can't lie: I've had many symptoms.

I don't always sleep well at night, and when I do I never feel as rested as I would. I am always tired -- exhausted -- and beyond that, I require a lot more time to recharge than I do at home. A day at school or out and about and I need a lot of quiet time to recover. It's not that things are particularly strenuous, or that I am physically tired exactly... I think that it wears on me after a while, to know that very few people I interact with on a daily basis actually understand me, or are even understood by me. I function just fine. I go out and buy groceries, attempt to communicate, etc. But beyond the simplest things, even with sincere effort, I am like a walking radio playing gibberish. Even my physical demeanor and gestures are not understood, though I am assimilating the best I can in that regard. I am looked at and talked about everywhere I go. This doesn't bother me as much, but it's just like... Another straw, you know? There's such a large list of differences and reminders every day that just serve to reiterate my complete cultural illiteracy here. I don't know the right way to do anything, and it's very rare that I even really know what's going on around me.

 I know that it's a really good experience for me to have, beneficial -- and that soon, it will not feel this way any more. But it's been a little overwhelming at times. A good and bad kind of overwhelming. (:

I do miss home. To be completely honest, that's not a typical feeling for me. I don't really consider Michigan my home, though I have lived there so long. I more consider the people there and my family to be my home, and I miss everyone SO MUCH. It's unbelievable how much I have come to miss my own simple routines at home -- going to school and feeling like a STUDENT instead of a teacher, being able to read labels and signs, to say what I want or what I need, etc. In some ways I am kind of happy that I came here with little to no knowledge of the Korean language.... It's made things so much more visceral in the sense that I'm not only culturally illiterate, but... Really illiterate. And as a person that can't remember not being able to read, that's been very profound. I feel pretentious saying that or writing practically any of this, but it's true.

 I will never forget as long as I live what it's like to be a foreigner. I have so much more respect now for people who head over to the States with no language skills, no idea what they're in store for; I think it takes an incredible amount of bravery and strength to make a new life anywhere. It's strange because so much of my family is not even from the States, but it never completely occurred to me what an effort that is, though I think they were used to making drastic moves... More used than I am, anyway. I feel a bit slow.

And it's strange, but though I've felt a surge of patriotism recently -- another symptom of "culture shock" apparently -- I don't completely feel like an American. I've always prescribed more to the idea of personal culture, or inner culture... layers of culture? ... and while being American and Argentinian both affect my inner culture, so does my psychology. I feel like an ambassador of myself. I wish I were still in my History of Anthropological Theory class so that I'd remember who to read about this. :s

Happy, worn out, homesick... <3

2 out of 4 months finished! (Almost.)

Also, today I finally bought a really big cuff to wear around my wrist tattoo. I don't know so much that I am concerned about people thinking badly of me, but I know if the kids saw it they'd flip out. They flip out about pretty much anything and everything. Sometimes that's good, and other times that's bad.

The past few days have been pretty hard in class. :/ There is a girl who is constantly getting picked on and excluded, though to be fair she sometimes instigates it... Monday and today my 3rd and 4th grade period was interrupted by her crying hysterically in her seat, which made everyone else angry and refuse to work. :/ In 5th and 6th grade, usually my best class, a couple of boys have figured out how to say "I don't speak English" & now repeat that whenever I try to present them with an activity. It seems like every afternoon there is some new challenge. I'm doing my best, though. (: There are moments that make it worth it, though I can't lie.... there are moments I just want to walk out of the room, I'm so frustrated.

This week we're learning about fruits/vegetables, "I like", "I don't like", etc. Wish me luck.

PS. The yellow sand from China started blowing in this week. :O

10 / You May Have Heard This Already

1. The Simpsons is really weird in Korean.
2. I'm hungry. Food does not stick to me.
3. Need a phone.
4. Weekends too short, slightly too crazy.
5. Gas stove frightening. Cooks fast.
6. Running out of time to buy suitable tattoo-covering watch.
7. Wallpaper in apartment is giving me nightmares.
8. Shoes on-off-on-off makes me scared to wear sneakers.
9. Teaching makes me notice my accent.
10. Hair becoming different texture. Good? Bad?
11. Construction started outside. Wakes me every morning too early. But it's kind of like home, huh? Silly Michigan.
12. Need a vacuum.
13. Cuter socks. Necessary.
14. Counting down till May. Now every day is slower, but also a little easier. c:
15. Kimchi.........................

9 / :O

I haven't known how to condense everything enough to make a serious post, but OMG

I'm having trouble sleeping after taking a nap, and a kid's show in Korean came on... It's supposed to be an English learning show. A cartoon. (Cartoons are pretty much the only thing I put on here.) Dude ok let me try to get this in words.

So. It's like... A bunch of characters meeting eachother, talking about where they're from... etc... I guess to learn things like "I'm from_____" or "Where are you from?"

It starts with the USA. The USA is represented by a donkey wearing an Uncle Sam hat.

USA meets the Japan character, which is a maneki neko kind of thing with bags under its eyes. Are you picturing it? So. It's like... Their exchange:

USA: Hello, I'm going to _____. Where are you from?

JAPAN: I'm from Japan.

USA: I'm from America. What's wrong with you?

JAPAN: I am old and weak.

USA: Will you join me?

JAPAN: Sounds great.

Then, they meet France? France is a chicken. A CHICKEN. The three of them head on over to Germany, where they look inside a kitchen with a bunch of people being loud and swinging beer mugs around. THEN they go to Korea, which is represented by....

A little blonde boy with a mullet? A little blonde boy with a mullet. Why not?

THIS COUNTRY IS AMAZING. I love it here more and more every single day.

--

Today me and my 1st and 2nd graders made Alphabet Snakes together... We cut out the snakes and glued the letters of the alphabet on in order, because we're kind of stuck on phonics right now. Hooked on Phonics? ... No, just stuck. I wish I were an education major sometimes.

Anyway, it was possibly the best lesson we've had. c: The kids love to color, and they are HILARIOUS. One girl accidentally cut the head off her snake, and she was like... freaking out about it... pointing, gesturing... So we had to take the snake to the "emergency room" [big English word] and give it "surgery" together. Everyone was cracking up. I felt like I was finally making a connection with them. (:

In 3rd&4th grade and 5th&6th, we're working on numbers, "How many?", "more" and "less".

8 / My First Day

O_O

... O_O

!!!!

I taught for the very first time today!

Fff, I'm so overwhelmed. I actually just walked in, put some rice in the cooker, and now I'm trying to settle down and think about everything that happened. Phew.

I went to the school pretty early in the morning, way before I was supposed to teach. It was nice because I had the chance to talk to the teachers, introduce myself, and explore the school a little bit more. I really like everyone at Seosu... They are all incredibly friendly and nice people, though they are shy to talk to me. When I would be speaking English with my mentor teacher or the Korean university student helping me, sometimes a group would gather around us to hear me speak in English, but they'd be too nervous to join in. So funny.

I also had lunch at the school. By that point, all the kids [28 total] had realised that I was there, and had varied reactions... Some came up to try and say "hello!" to me, but others were too shy as well. All of the kids are soooo cute, but some are definitely more mischievous than others. Even just in the space of one day I got to see so many personalities.

I'd come up with a lesson plan for my first day as a way to see how much the kids knew already. I'd been told that they would have almost no English skills at all, but I was pretty pleasantly surprised. I'll go into each class in some detail --

1st and 2nd Grade -- The hardest class of the day. Not only was it my first -- and I was pretty nervous -- but these kids were pretty wild. They did not want to be in class at all, had no interest in English, and pretty much mocked me for the entire forty minutes. I had my Korean co-teacher there with me, and she was practically the only reason they listened at all. There were only two children in the group of six who made an effort, and I made sure I praised them a lot, but the others were difficult to control. :p One little boy was kind of the instigator... I attempted to teach them things like "hello" and "nice to meet you", and whenever I tried to get them to repeat after me he'd just go "dadadadada". Too cool for school, I guess. I'll have to try something different with them tomorrow, but I really have no idea where to start. One girl clearly knew what I was teaching already, and she'd just stare at me like "really?" whenever I spoke. ;_; Lol. After this class, I was pretty disheartened, but I still tried my best. Hopefully somehow I can earn their respect. This class will also be difficult because they don't know the alphabet or how to read. They copied some letters well enough, but really had no patience for it. I hope I can figure out how to make it fun. I remember I didn't really find learning to read very fun, even though I took to it pretty quickly as a kid.

3rd and 4th Grade Things really picked up here. I was SO relieved. These children told me they didn't like English, but wanted to learn it anyway. It was a slow forty minutes because while they were willing to try, they didn't know very much. Still, it made me feel so much better. They had very good spirits, smiled a lot, etc. We did dialogues together and wrote our names in English. One little boy kept asking me for "more" to learn to write... So we wrote "Hello! What's your name? My name is _____." together. All of these children too would write notes for themselves in Korean about how exactly I was pronouncing things. It made me feel so useful. c: Tomorrow I think we'll read a story together and review what we did today a little bit more. I am nervous that my co-teacher won't be there, but I think that this class will go all right anyway.

5th and 6th Grade My mind was totally blown away by these kids. They completely, completely surpassed my expectations. These kids knew EVERYTHING I was trying to teach, knew how to read, knew more vocabulary, etc. I was amaaaaaazed by them and told them so. (: We read aloud a story together, did dialogues, and played a game using the alphabet. They had so much energy and even though they knew the material already, were okay reviewing with me. Wow, wow, wow. We actually had fun together! Tomorrow I am going to move on to new material, like classroom vocabulary and dialogue. I hope that it's not too boring for them. A lot of these kids go to private school after they finish at Seosu, which is how they know so much English already. Their parents push them very hard to do well, so I also hope my class can be a little more fun for them too, since they already work so much. I honestly can't even believe how much work these little kids do. :O

All in all, I had a pretty good day. Some hard moments, but it was mostly very rewarding and I'm looking forward to seeing the children again tomorrow. Hoping this is the start of something very good. c: Now to eat dinner and... Relaaaaxxx.

7 / Changes

Hi everyone. Still alive! The past few days have been so busy, it's unbelievable.
I finished up my Orientation and finally moved out to where I'll be teaching and living
for the next few months. Really don't even know where to begin telling about it.

I met a lot of the teachers from my school... Everyone seems very very friendly
and very interested in me. Lol. But all so nice. I can't even believe how wonderful my
mentor teacher and Chenney's have been to us so far. I feel very lucky.

My school is very small, but very nice. I'll hopefully be able to get some pictures or
film of it in a few weeks after I've kind of settled in, but I have an English room
where I'm going to teach specifically. (: It's so cute!

I am getting used to being a foreigner, for the most
part. I'm lucky because sometimes people don't notice I'm not Korean until they really
look into my face, so sometimes I can avoid the awkwardness. Walking around Gunsan
though, people definitely realised pretty quickly that I look different. Hear a lot of
"waygook, waygook" (foreigner, foreigner) when I pass. Though honestly, the people here
are very nice. I have not had a bad experience yet. I'm hoping to learn Korean and
have been trying to use what I know when I'm out, but everyone seems to really dig down
deep to try to speak English to me in the stores. I am not sure if they are trying to be
considerate or just have a little practise, but I don't mind either way. (:

My mentor teacher took myself and Chenney out shopping at the giant Lotte Mart...
Which is like... A store for EVERYTHING. Bought all our apartment supplies & settled
in. Buying groceries here has been a wake-up call. Fruit is outrageously OUTRAGEOUSLY
expensive. Example: A thing of grapes? Eight bucks. Meat is also pretty expensive,
and Western products too. All cereal is around five dollars. I mean, I don't really miss
cereal so it's all right, but I think I know a few people back home who would find that
horrific.

PHOTO BREAK --- Here are some pictures I didn't take from various moments during Orientation. c: Thanks everyone for being such good photographers.

Group 6 being awesome at the talent show. Huge picture, omg.

Giant jajangmyun C: mmm

I believe we were singing Spice Girls.
Ba da ba baaa, ba da ba baaaa, ba da baa, always be togetherrrrrr.
Amy is the best.

In line to kick the crap out of that padded thing.
Look at Justina, she's so fierce.

Steven took a picture of me on the bus, being "reminiscent".
In all likelihood, I was probably just nauseous.

We went to a wax museum.

Me & Che.

My favorite Communist. (:

In lectures, looking surprisingly awake.

Doing the Nut Bush. The Nut Bush, oh yeeahh.

Singing at the Talent Show, accompanied by Daniel.

Being attacked by an Irishman.

Apples to Apples, the Game of Champions.

---


Back to what I was talking about.

I was told peanut butter was going to be ridiculously expensive, too, but I wasn't
prepared for the reality of it. I'm trying not to want it. :c Lol. It's hard. as much
as I enjoy Korean food and really have no problem eating it all the time, when I see
something that reminds me of home I tend to stare a little too long. I wouldn't say that
I'm homesick yet, but every day there are small reminders of how different my life in
Ann Arbor really is. I miss all my friends. I have met a lot of people here that I like
a lot, but you know it's not ever really the same. :p I had my first night alone in my own place
yesterday... I made it through, but I realised how special it is to me to have people I care about share a living space with me. I am a pack animal!

I also miss titi's cooking, oatmeal, No Thai, cuddling, etc. I would probably pay money for someone to cuddle with me right now. So if that sounds appealing to you, come on down to Gunsan. I'll cook for you, too, on my little gas range. You won't be sorry. PS I've been told I sound a little too serious, so here's a disclaimer: I'm kidding. Though there are several people I can think who'd I love to visit anyway. (:

I don't know how I could ever thank Dr. Koh enough for having us make so many lesson plans before we left. I by no means feel ready to teach, but at least I've got an idea of what I want
to do tomorrow! (: Can't believe it's already beginning. I have a feeling that from now on,
my time here is going to be passing even more quickly than it was.

Anyway,
here's an awkward tour of my apartment.

4/ Things

i'm currently focusing on reading in korean... think i am making progress c:
they say you can learn it within a few solid days or even hours.
i think i am getting it down, but the japanese characters i learned keep
getting in the way.

also, the korean L/r sound is really, really hard for me.
my spanish seems to come out like 10x force when i try to do it. :O

other than that, learning lots about education i guess.
my lectures all center around teaching these days.
it's interesting and should prove helpful, but i sometimes zone out. :s ee

we are trying to plan a trip to seoul this weekend.

i feel okay, pretty good really. i just never seem to get enough sleep!

ps i don't think i could estimate in real terms
how much rice i am consuming

pps corn tea? just say no