Wednesday, February 29
When you’re away from home, getting mail means so much! Today I came home to this card from my dear friend, Joni. It made my day.
A year in photos – Day 4
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Tag Archives: EPIK
A year in photos – Day 3
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Tuesday, February 28
All good things must come to an end, including vacations. While I still have 2 days left until I have to go back to work, Dave has to go back tomorrow morning. We just landed safe and sound in Busan.
A year in photos – Day 2
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Monday, February 27
We are having a lovely time in Jeju. The food at the hotel is really great and the dessert is even better. Our favorite so far has been the chocolate crème brûlée. It’s amazing!
It’s official…
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Sunday, February 26
Year one is over and as of today I have begun my second year in Korea. If the upcoming year is anything like today, it is sure to be the best year of my life so far.
Dave and I are on Jeju Island for a long weekend and we are having an amazing time. I can’t imagine a better way to spend a weekend away. I’ll post more about it soon.
During this contract year, I’m going to do my best to take a photo every day and post it to my blog. Today’s photo is just Dave and I after dinner. It was really good (especially dessert!) and now we are just sitting around listening to the sounds of the ocean. More about that later though…
Hello, strangers!
I haven’t been posting very often. I tend to struggle to find the motivation to get back to blogging after I get so behind. Plus, I’ve been quite busy lately… if you don’t believe me, ask my Hulu account. My queue is almost always over 20 episodes these days. (If you don’t know, Hulu is a website that you can legally stream the latest TV shows from)
A lot has been happening. In the past few months I have renewed my contract, fallen in love, been to Texas and back and have been making lots of travel plans for the next year (Jeju Island, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Hawaii, China)! Life is pretty amazing. To make up for my slacking, I will post another edition of…
THINGS THAT JUST DON’T SEEM STRANGE ANYMORE
Part III
Boys don’t mind sitting in each other’s laps and playing with each other’s hair.
The school bell makes you crave ice cream.
Fish and rice belong at any breakfast table.
Outdoor gyms at the top of mountains absolutely make sense.
There are 3 shower settings – boiling hot, luke warm, freezing cold.
Someone is always watching you.
You are now always ready for anything to happen.
When the department store opens, the staff will kindly bow to you just before they are nearly trampled.
The only thing Chinese about a Chinese restaurant is the name.
You need a new pair of shoes before you will be allowed to work out at the gym. They must never be worn outdoors. Ever.
You can’t be trusted to teach regular class alone but if it’s after school or camp, they’ll expect you to teach multiple grades, levels, and gender groups alone.
Who needs a janitor when you have a school full of kids?
There is no better browser than Internet Explorer.
Mechanical pencils break after each letter but students love them.
Even if the cab driver has no idea where you want to go, he will spend 10 minutes pretending that he does.
The perfect side dish to pizza is a pack of sweet pickles.
It makes perfect business sense to open a cell phone store right next to 20 other stores that sell the exact same thing.
Who needs a peephole when you have a video camera that shows you who’s at your door?
Every store carries covers for your umbrellas on rainy days.
You like 2 of the seasons. The start of Spring and Fall are more anticipated than Christmas.
Your hands are cold all winter. You can’t stop sweating all summer.
It’s a tradeoff between using the toilet and staying warm.
Broom handles are needlessly short.
Flashing red and blue lights are more effective at controlling speeding than actual police cars.
The elderly have more active lives than you do.
The most used feature on the phone is the mirror.
You can conveniently buy thermal underwear on the subway. Its use will also be demonstrated for you.
Matching outfits show a committed relationship.
You never know how to dress. It might be school picture day or you might be going on a staff hike up a mountain. You just never know.
You can often make purchases by swiping your card, without entering codes or signing anything. You still feel very secure about your finances.
Korean women can do anything in high heels.
Koreans love freebies when they go shopping. Especially when they’re given out by young women in short skirts wearing headsets.
At least 1 student has gotten your phone number somehow.
And in case you missed them, here’s the previous editions of…
THINGS THAT JUST DON’T SEEM STRANGE ANYMORE
I borrowed most of these images from other blogs. I tried to link back to all of their sites and they all happen to have really nice explanations of the pictures so check them out if you’re curious.
**Click on any picture above to see the full sized image.**
And finally, HAPPY BIRTHAY, NANA!! Love you….
Renewing My Contract
I finally made up my mind to stay in Korean for another year. The problem was, I didn’t know if my principal and vice principal would want me to stay or get a new Native English Teacher. Every day I would see all of my friends talking (online) about their schools asking them to say, signing contracts and getting medical exams. I didn’t hear anything from my co-teacher.
I already knew that our applications to renew were due on December 5 and I also knew that included the medical exam results and it takes up to a week to get those back. I was starting to stress out so I started asking my co-teacher a lot of questions about the renewal process. It turns out she was pretty clueless. She didn’t even know that I needed a medical exam (so it’s a good thing I asked).
The vice principal of our school was supposed to be out all week so I had to wait around for a week not knowing if my school wanted to keep me or not because it’s basically her decision. The following week, I kept asking my head co-teacher if she had heard anything from the vice-principal. She said there was a meeting with the vice principal and the head teachers about me, but she hadn’t heard anything. On Friday, I decided to ask my other c0-teacher to see if she knew anything. She told me that she really wanted to tell the VP that they should keep me, but she hadn’t because she doesn’t want to teach English next year.
I’m not sure how it came up, but my co-teachers spoke to the VP at lunch that day and she told them that all of the head teachers wanted me to stay so I could stay at the school if I wanted to. I was so excited to hear the good news!
Since then it’s been a whirlwind of paperwork… and I had to go get another medical check. That was an adventure.
Step 1. Check in at the front desk
Step 2. Escorted to a dentist chair where he looked at my teeth for less than 10 seconds then said, “Your dental condition is very good!”
Step 3. Take a number.
Step 4. My number was called so approached the unknown desk and was asked to pay 60,000 won (about $55).
Step 5. Walk back to the front desk and then escorted into another room.
Step 6. Height/Weight check
Step 7. Blood Pressure
Step 8. Chest Measurement (Does anyone know why they only measure our chests??)
Step 9. Color blind test. The woman opened a notebook. Inside they had glued some of those dotted pictures with numbers hidden in them.
Step 10. Hearing Test
Step 11. Eye Test
Step 12. Chest X-ray
Step 13. Urine Test
Step 14. Blood Test
Step 15. Instructed to sit on a bench outside of some closed doors. Sat there for half an hour as the two men inside chatted in Korean.
Step 16. Go into the room and sit in front of a doctor for “counseling.”
Doctor: Do you have any problems with your body?
Me: No.
Doctor: If you have problems with your body, you have to come back here.
Me: Okay.
Doctor: I don’t want to see you again.
Me: Me too! Bye!
I picked up the results yesterday. I passed!
Today I turned in my medical check results. My co-teacher had a meeting with the principal and vice principal. The principal asked her to translate his words to me. She typed it out and gave it to me. I thought I would share it with all of you.
First of all, thank you for last 1 year.
Your face looks so good than first time I saw you. getting brighter and brighter.I think it maybe you spend good time at this school and Korea life.
Thank you for your passionate teaching. Student’s English ability getting rising and they like English.I want to recontract with you and please make sure you do your work (teaching English, broadcast, Morning English, etc) with sincerity & passionate.
I wish I expect good result.
-principal
My Week and a Video Bonus
Sunday, October 16
It had been a long time since we had our Sunday morning McDonald’s breakfast so Faith and I met up to enjoy some delicious McMuffins. Faith was running a little late so I got to have a nice chat on the phone with my Nana while I waited. It’s not often that I have free time to talk while my family and friends in Texas are awake.
I met up with Jamie and Shanna, two of my friends that live in my neighborhood, for dinner. We went to the local Kimbap Cheonguk. It means Kimbap Heaven in Korean and it’s a big chain here (there’s two on my block). It’s cheap and quick and they have a pretty big selection. To get an idea of what you can order in places like this, check out the translated menu from another kimbap restaurant… http://maryeats.com/2006/11/16/kimbap-nara-menu/
Monday, October 17
I had my weekly check-up at the ear doctor. I was almost in disbelief when he asked me to pop my ears. It had been about 9 months since I was even physically capable of popping my ears. When you have a hole in your eardrum and you plug your nose and blow, you can feel the air blowing through the hole. Before my injury, I used to pop my ears often. It was an awful habit. The only good that’s come out of this whole ordeal is that it’s helped break me of that. I don’t have to go back for 2 weeks and I think that may be my final visit. Hopefully I’ll be at 100% by then.
Tuesday, October 18
At lunch, one of the teachers mustered up all of the English she could to tell me that she thinks I have beautiful skin. I have to say that it is nice to be in Korea sometimes. I can walk around in shorts and skirts and never have to feel self conscious because I’m too white.
Wednesday, October 19
Most of the teachers left school at 2pm on Wednesday to go hiking, but I had an after school class so I couldn’t make it. The teachers that had to miss hiking met up with the other teachers after school for dinner on the mountain. The restaurant had a van and they came to school to pick us up. The drive up the mountain was miserable. I get motion sickness pretty easily and a winding trip up the mountain was torture. This wasn’t any ordinary mountain road. Every 100 yards there were 90 degree turns. I don’t know who designed this path up the mountain, but I hate him. I did notice something interesting on the GPS system in the van. It was so exact that it included every single speed bump. Impressive.
I had been dreading the dinner anyway because my school almost always goes to raw fish restaurants. We found out in the van that we were going to be eating meat. We got there at the perfect time because the teachers were walking up the driveway as we were pulling in. Dinner was so good! We had grilled duck. They brought out so much food and I felt like I ate a ton, but all of the teachers around me asked me why I had such a small portion.
The atmosphere was really lively. The 5th grade head teacher is always the entertainment at teacher functions. He goes to all of the tables to make sure people are laughing and having a good time… and drinking. Every table had soju (it’s sort of like watered down vodka), beer and makgeolli (rice wine). If you don’t want to get drunk, make sure you never have an empty glass around the 5th grade head teacher. He will see to it that you get a refill. He’s a funny guy and the principal was very impressed by his English skills. The principal wanted to know how I felt about the atmosphere of the dinner and I said that it was fun. The 1st grade head teacher was sitting between me and the principal. She asked me if I wanted to stay another year and after I said yes, I heard her talking to the principal about it. I hope he wants me to stay. Only time will tell, I guess.
The drive home was another rough one. Once I got home I was very worried that I was going to get sick. I did laugh a bit that it was so like me to get sick the one time my school actually goes to a good restaurant.
Thursday, October 20
My throat started getting sore before I went to bed on Wednesday night and by morning it was miserable. I took my vitamins without eating and that made me feel incredibly nauseous so I ended up staying home from school. Even though I have plenty of sick days left, I shouldn’t be taking them if I want to be renewed. Hopefully that didn’t cost me my chance. Oh well. I just couldn’t think of teaching. I did go to the doctor and he wasn’t very thorough. I feel like I have the only doctor in Korea that doesn’t over medicate his patients.
Friday, October 21
I was back at school on Friday and my co-teacher let me give speaking tests to the 6th graders so I could rest my throat. Maybe I’m a little delirious from being sick, but I found two of my 6th grade boys’ first names a little amusing.
1. 유범 – “You bum”
2. 영범 – “Young bum”
My doorbell rang late Friday evening. It was a postman coming to deliver a package from Mary, one of my co-workers at Curves. Her package made me so happy! It was so thoughtful and packed full of goodies for me and my students. I just loved everything about it and it was so sweet of her. Thank you, Mary!!!
Saturday, October 22
My sore throat is gone, but now it’s all in my nose. It’s was a rainy Saturday so I just rested up and got some things done around the apartment. After many complications, I finally was able to finish my 6 months in Korea video. You may remember that I posted my 3 months video a while back and I finally put together a video that shows some things that happened during months 4-6. Enjoy!
And if you missed the last video, here it is again:
Open Class, BIFF, Scavenger Hunt… Oh My!
Sunday, October 9
I never left my apartment on Sunday. I was fairly productive though. I did a lot of laundry, cleaning and organizing. I bought a new comforter on Saturday and I was worried that it would be too small for my bed, but it fits. It’s quite warm so I’ll have to wait until it gets colder to use it, but it is incredibly soft and I am very excited about it.
Monday, October 10
I have taken it upon myself to teach one of the 4th graders to read. His name is Tae Gyun (sounds like Gyoon). During class I told my co-teacher that I think he’s very smart, but he can’t read so I want to help him. After she explained to him, he looked at me and said, “Thank you, Meagan Teacher!”
He was in my low level summer camp class and he is one of my absolute favorite students. He is just the sweetest thing. His listening and speaking level is normal, but he doesn’t know how to read or even basic phonics. I will be tutoring him for about 15-20 minutes every day after lunch. It’s on a completely voluntary basis. I don’t get anything out of it except the personal satisfaction of helping out a great kid.
Tuesday, October 11
On Tuesday, I watched a movie at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) outdoor theater. Read this blog post to find out more about the festival and see more photos.
Wednesday, October 12
I had my open class on Wednesday. In the morning as I was walking out of the secretary’s office, one of them ran out to me and said, “Meagan! Today your open class day??” I said yes and then she held my hand and said, “You be a good teacher. Cheer up!” It was so sweet and so sincere.
I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I was last semester. I didn’t feel like it went that great, but my co-teacher said it was good. After lunch she sent me an instant message on the computer that said, “Principle said you did a good job today. and keep up teach passionly.” He observed for about 60 seconds. But hey… at least he enjoyed every minute of it.
After work I was walking through my neighborhood when I saw a group of middle school boys on their way home. They were racing each other down the sidewalk and when they stopped, I noticed that they were all instinctively fixing their hair. They had to make sure each piece was in its place. It was quite humorous.
Thursday, October 13
After school I met up with my friend and neighbor Jamie to get some dinner. We wanted to venture out into a new area for dinner so we walked about a mile to see what there was to eat near the baseball stadium. We ended up eating a spicy chicken fried rice meal that I loved, but it was a bit to spicy for Jamie’s liking. The great thing about it was that it was only 4,500 won per serving. Afterwards, we did some wandering about and stumbled upon some lovely finds.
Friday, October 14
6th grade girl: You have a very white face.
Meagan Teacher: Is that good? (even though I already knew the answer)
6th grade girl: Yes.
Meagan Teacher: Thank you!
Saturday, October 15
On Saturday I participated in a scavenger hunt with 4 other friends. We had 2 lists of challenges, one for pictures and one for videos. Each challenge was assigned a point value and the top 3 teams at the end won prizes. There was also a prize for best costumes. My team didn’t have time to go all out on costumes so we just decided to color coordinate. We wore black and red and called ourselves the Red Hots. We ended up coming in 2nd place (out of at least 15-20 teams) at the end and we had an amazing time! I have so many pictures and videos that the Scavenger Hunt will get its own post in a few days. Here are a few pics to hold you over until then…
Take a photo of your team performing in an airband
Bonus Challenge: All 5 team members must do a human pyramid and take a shot at the same time
Take a picture of 4 team members with at least one body part in the ocean
Arm wrestling students CAN be educational…
Sorry for the lack of pictures in this blog entry. I promise there will be pictures next week!
Sunday, October 2
I had a lazy Sunday. I stayed in the apartment all day, did a few loads of laundry, finished season 5 of Dexter and watched a few movies. It was nice to have some down time. My stomach was upset all week and seems to be doing better now so I think the rest was exactly what I needed.
Monday, October 3
Monday was the National foundation Day of Korea. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but it’s a national holiday so I had a 3 day weekend. Jamie and I went to Shinsegae, the world’s largest department store. I guess it’s technically a department store, but it’s more like a mall. There are tons of stores within the department store, like Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gap, Banana Republic, etc. I needed to go there because I had a few gifts I needed to pick up. On the way out, we stopped by the international foods area of the grocery section of the store and I picked up 2 cans of Hormel Turkey Chili and a box of 8 Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Bars for 17,050 won (about $15!). Afterwards, we went to Seomyeon to get a burger at TGI Friday’s. We sat by the window… across the way we saw a bar called COOL and another one called OOPS.
Tuesday, October 4
My students are pretty funny. They notice everything… while I was walking down the hall, some students yelled, “Hi, Meagan! You’re so beautiful!” while running past me. Later on, two girls were amazed by the rings I wear (I usually get asked if they were given to me by my boyfriend). Finally, a 6th grade girl seemed very frustrated with English when she couldn’t think of how to tell me that she noticed I have my hair parted on the opposite side of my head as usual. She did a great job with hand gestures though!
After school I went back to the doctor. It was my first time in since Friday and it was also the longest I’ve gone between visits. I got great news from the Doc! He said that my ear is 70-80% healed and he doesn’t want to see me again until next week. Also, he took out all of the packing so now the only thing I have stuffed in my ear is a single cotton ball.
Wednesday, October 5
Wednesday was our school’s evaluation. Everyone was dressed up. I made sure to wear dress pants rather than just jeans. I tend to avoid wearing my dress pants because they’re all too big and way too long. My jeans are too, but they don’t look as silly when I roll them up.
The evaluation took place in the library, which is on the same floor as my English classroom. Instead of the kids coming to our classroom, we went to the students’ classroom for classes.
After school I went to the grocery store and stocked up on all things breakfasty. That night, I went home and cooked a breakfast casserole (eggs, onion, bacon and broccoli) so I wouldn’t have to go without breakfast anymore. Not only is it the most important meal of the day, but my school lunches have been pretty inedible lately so breakfast is more important now than ever.
Thursday, October 6
Thursday was an interesting day. Our schedule was slightly interrupted because there was a classical music concert during 2nd period that extended halfway through 3rd period. The concert was lovely. The students yelled en-core at the end so they played “O Christmas Tree.” My co-teacher said that in Korea the song is about a pine tree.
During 4th period, I had my best class. The were playing “Go Fish” with some vocabulary cards from the book. A few students finished the game before everyone else so I went over to talk to them. Somehow arm wrestling got brought up and I ended up arm wrestling 3 girls… left arm, right arm, and then one on each. They were some strong chicks! One of them beat me. I decided that I needed to at least teach them the English word for arm wrestle so that there was some educational purpose to it. They returned the favor and now I know that arm wrestling is 팔씨름 (pal-shil-um).
After class, the girls told the tale of our arm wrestling match to another boy. He was very interested in arm wrestling me. The girls warned me (in their own way) that he might be short, but he is very strong. They were right! As I was arm wrestling him, the girls told me that my face was getting pink. In my defense, so was his. I could see that he was getting tired so my strategy was to hold strong until he gave up. It eventually paid off. And that is my story of how I beat a bunch of 5th graders at arm wrestling.
Friday, October 7
Quotes of the day:
There is a 4th grade boy that has started yelling “What’s the meeting you here? What do you think so?” at me and then running off. Friday was the second time it happened so finally I made him come back so I could try to make sense of what he was saying. He said is slower then skipped off (yes, acutally skipping). I had to figure out a way to make sure this didn’t become a habit. I went back to the office, wrote down what I thought he might be trying to say (“It’s nice to see you. Don’t you think so?”) and took it to his classroom. We’ll see what happens next week.
6th grade boy: “Teacher, your ear have ouchy?” (because he saw the cotton ball in my ear)
My 6th grade lessons were about comparative adjectives. We did a survey to see who was stronger, luckier, taller, etc. We got to arm wrestle for an educational purpose (to see who’s stronger) and many of the students wanted to arm wrestle me. After beating one of the boys he said, “Teacher, you have man power!” So much for girl power…
Saturday, October 8
There is a Korean man named Charles that organizes cultural trips for foreigners in Busan. On Friday night I went on my first “Charles Trip.” I went with my friend Jamie and made a new friend named Nicole. We went to Jinju to the Lantern Festival. We met up at 8pm and didn’t actually leave Busan until close to 9pm. We took a bus to Jinju, walked around for the lantern festival and then headed back. The festival was gorgeous! I ended up getting home around 4am, but it was definitely worth it.
Off to Seoul!… or not.
Sunday, September 25
I went to Costco with some friends. It was my first time to shop at Costco since being in Korea. I was in search of a big bag of frozen chicken breasts. I ended up spending about 45,000 won on 6lbs of frozen chicken tenderloins, a loaf of whole wheat bread and L’Oreal Go 360 Deep Clean Facial Cleanser. I see the ads for that face wash every time I watch anything on Hulu and I have been wanting it so I thought, “Why not?”
Monday, September 26
EPIK hires new people each semester and the new people arrived about a month ago. It turns out that 4 new EPIK people moved into my neighborhood (3 girls, 1 guy). Two of the girls had birthdays this week so we went out to dinner to celebrate.
Tuesday, September 27
My co-teacher told me that it isn’t official, but she’s going on maternity leave in mid November and she won’t be coming back until next September. That means that my school will hire a substitute teacher to fill in until the end of the semester. I hope s/he is good!
I went to dinner with JuHye on Tuesday night. We ate at a Mexican food restaurant near Pusan National University (PNU) called Taco’s Family. We had chips and salsa as a starter and JuHye had enchiladas and I had a beef chimichanga. The food wasn’t amazing, but he weather was perfect. I love eating dinner on a patio with a cool breeze blowing through.
I heard a Korean guy at the table next to us answer his phone, “Bueno” and it made me happy. Then, he explained to all of his friends at his table (in Korean) that that’s how they answer their phones in Mexico.
Wednesday, September 28
My busiest day!
8:20-8:40 – “Morning English”
Everyday I greet the students as they enter the school and make them read a short dialogue off of a poster.
8:40-8:50 – English Broadcast
I do a live broadcast to the school every other Wednesday and every Friday. On Wednesdays I read a low level children’s book (twice). Today, the principal watched and said it was so interesting that she would listen every day. I hope that’s not her way of telling me she’s considering increasing my air time.
9:00-12:10 – Regular classes
Today I taught 4 classes of 5th graders. It was an easy day… they just studied, took a writing test and played a word game. It’s kind of like scrabble, but they don’t use tiles. They just fill in any word they know.
12:15-1:00 – Lunch
Today we had tuna fried rice, kimchi, a cucumber and onion salad, some kind of fried patty with ketchup on the side and a soup of some sort (I rarely eat the soup). Overall, not bad.
1:00-1:40 Free Period
This is my down time. Today, I bought tickets to the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF). Many of my friends and I will be attending an outdoor screening of a Japanese movie called Star Watching Dog.
I usually use the extra time to plan lessons, but today I almost forgot that I had class.
1:50-2:30 – After school class
On Wednesdays I have 6 6th graders that are signed up for my afternoon class. They are all low level. It didn’t matter that I almost forgot I had an after school class today because none of them showed up. I thought last week’s 2 out of 6 was bad!
4:20 – Quitting time! ^_^
4:30-4:45 – Check-up at the doctor’s office
I am 2 weeks post op. My ear seems to be doing much better. The doctor said it’s mostly white (not red and swollen like last week) and mentioned that my veins seem to be taking to the graft. Or something along those lines. He gave me some good news and some bad news. Good news… my ear is 70% healed. Bad news… I can’t go to Seoul this weekend.
You see, on Monday I told him I wanted to go to Seoul this weekend and he told me that he’d let me know on Friday. I just decided that I couldn’t wait until Friday and I was just going to go because I’d been cooped up inside for the past 2 weeks and walking around wouldn’t hurt me. Well, on Wednesday he explained that the reason why I couldn’t go to Seoul is because the fast train would put strain on my eardrum because of the pressure. I didn’t even think about that. That’s something he probably should have mentioned on Monday.
5:00 – Cancel KTX reservations
Yesterday my friend and I booked our KTX tickets for a Saturday departure. Fortunately, it’s free to cancel your tickets online if you do it at least two days in advance, but the fee is still less than 50 cents (400 won) if you cancel it from 1 day – 1 hour in advance.
6:30 – Dinner with friends
I met up with Megan, Sonal and Grace for dinner at the place we just call “the cheap alley place.” The guy there loves us and always gives us something free (“servicee”) every time we go. This time it was free Cider (soda that tastes just like Sprite). I’m sure they don’t get many foreigners coming in because it’s down a small alley, but we were taken by a Korean friend that had been taken by one of her Korean friends. It’s amazing and sooo cheap. A giant meal will cost you 4,000 won (under $4) or less.
Thursday, September 29
My after school class (5th graders) went well. They are all very low level. We played some reading games. There’s only 5 of them and most know basic phonics, but one of the girls doesn’t. It’s quite difficult to figure out how to cater to all of them. My main goal is to just help these kids learn how to read.
I came out of my after school class to find the print shop guy and one of the custodians painting the hallway. Every few years the elementary schools in Busan are reviewed and my school’s review is coming up on October 5th. The school has been in full gear trying to get this place ready. The custodians are cleaning just a little bit harder, there are new flower arrangements in the front entry way, and over the summer the exterior of our school was painted some bright new colors.
Friday, September 30
I teach 6th graders on Fridays. This semester my co-teacher wants me to e the lead teacher and she is the assistant. I am responsible for planning the class and finding material that is suitable for the lesson. It is really good for the students because they are exposed to a lot more English. It’s still a little difficult for me because the students aren’t used to being taught in an English only environment. Friday was pretty exhausting for me. I actually ended up napping in the office for about 30-45 minutes at the end of the day.
After work I went to the doctor then got a pizza from Domino’s and went home. I ate really fast because I was starving. Lunch at school was quite awful and I didn’t have breakfast. Afterwards, I caught up on season 5 of Dexter… just in time for the Sunday night premiere of season 6.
Saturday, October 1
I was supposed to be on a KTX to Seoul, but the doctor shot that down because the speed of the fast train causes strain on the eardrums. Instead, I hung out with my friend, Jamie. We went to Beomeosa Temple. I had been there before, but it’s really beautiful so it was worth going back.
I hope you were able to make it all the way through my week. If you read about my week, you should tell me about yours. I miss everyone back home and I want to hear from all of you. Leave a comment or send me a email or Facebook message. OR you could even send me a card or letter in the mail. I would like that. If you don’t have my address, just ask.
Life Outside of Texas 