Sunday, December 30, 2012

A snow day and a trip to Yeosu

Thursday:
  • Today was my last day of school!  Well, it was supposed to be Friday, but we had a big snow day so Thursday was the last day.  I will certainly miss my students, but I'm looking forward to having a chance for the students and I to recharge over vacation.  However, I am very sad that I will not be teaching my second grade classes anymore.  I really had some great classes with them, but they must move on to third grade and I cannot teach the third graders since they need to focus all of their efforts on preparation for the Suneung, national test.  I am actually a little bit nervous about teaching the first graders since their levels tend to be noticeably lower than the second graders, but perhaps with a switch-up with the teachers and classmates, it'll be fine.  I guess we'll see!
Friday:
  • So my coteacher called me at about 7:20am to tell me that I need to meet the music teacher, Ms. Jin, at 7:42 to hitch a ride with her to school.  I don't know why it was exactly 7:42 but I just go with the flow.  I pretty much have to here haha.  So I scrambled to get my clothes on and I had to run out the door without breakfast and I met up with Ms. Jin, who lives a few blocks away.  We drive through the snow (Suncheon, and from what I hear, the rest of Korea, lacks snowplows and/or salt so it was a bit messy) and we stop in front of my apartment.  I told her it was my apartment and she exclaims in Korean "What? Why didn't you tell me you lived here? Your co-teacher tried to explain, but I didn't understand her directions!" Now mind you, I would never be able to give you an exact translation nor could I ever articulate that myself, but I'm 99.9% sure that's what she was communicating.  Guess I should've told her earlier.  Oops.
  • And coming from my complex about 10 minutes late was the school nurse, who doesn't speak a lick of English and sounds very angry and boisterous when she talks.  She isn't angry, but it just sounds like it.  So we try to make our way to school.  It takes about 20 minutes to go the distance that is normally 5 minutes and we saw several spun out cars on the way.  So we decided that it really wasn't worth it so we turned around and went back home.  My host mother later told me that it took her two hours to get to school when it normally takes a little over 20 minutes.  I wasn't even teaching that day, so it wasn't a huge deal.  
Saturday:
  •  I actually got up relatively early (9:45) to head out early with the host family to see Les Miserables.  They have a ton of Hollywood movies here in Korea and they just have Korean subtitles.  I don't know. I thought it was okay.  I'm not a fan of musicals, but it was definitely really well done.  It's just it was 95% singing and 5% talking which was just odd for me.  I'm sure if I liked musicals I would've thought it was the greatest thing ever, but they just don't appeal to me all that much.
  • Later in the afternoon, it was more family fun time!  We were heading to Yeosu to hang out with my host mother's sister's family.  Yeosu is one of the southernmost cities in Korea (except for Jeju-do of course) and its claim to fame was holding the World Expo last year.  I've been meaning to go for a while, but just never got around to it.  We took the train down got to her apartment.  It was pretty nice.  It was a little smaller than ours in Suncheon, but they have a smaller family.  
  • Once other family members arrived, we headed out to a restaurant for oysters.  I actually really like oysters so I was happy!  They had us sit at a table that had these big covers in the middle of them.  The servers unveiled the covers to reveal about 100 oysters at each of our three tables.  We had about 12 with almost half of them being under the age of 10 people in our party so approximately 300 oysters for 12 people.  We did some major damage, but in the end, we simply could not overcome the challenge. 
  • After dinner, the uncles took me out for screen golf!  I love screen golf!  I only watched this time, but it was still really fun.  We got home and then watched some TV and then turned in for the night.  The family insisted that I take the one cousin's room to myself (he is a super-duper nice 1st or 2nd grader in high school by the way).  Most of the others sprawled out on blankets over the living room floor.  
Sunday:
  • We woke up and had breakfast, which was a huge bowl of soup with some rice and other things.  Then one of the uncles and my host father took me to a nearby sauna.  The water was so hot!  I definitely don't remember the last few saunas being that bad.  Maybe it was because it was so cold out.  It was good, but wasn't quite as relaxing as the other ones I went too.  
  • We reunited and then had some bibimbap for lunch.  I'm not a huge fan of bibimbap, but it wasn't too bad.  Then we headed our separate ways and now I'm here at home typing this up.  It was a great last weekend with the host family before I head to Busan next week!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The Last Week and Christmas

It's my last week of school for the year!  I'm doing a Christmas lesson since it was Christmas week.  The students aren't super thrilled about having to write during the lesson, especially since their exams are finished and they start their winter break on Friday, but I can't just sit back and watch a movie again!!  We are watching a little bit of a Simpsons Christmas episode with Korean subtitles so that helps make the writing a little bit easier.

And, of course, it was Christmas!!  Yay!  It actually is not a big deal here in Korea.  Schools are closed on Christmas day and a few other businesses here and there (including CrossFit Suncheon) but that was pretty much the only way I would have noticed it.  No santas in all of the stores or Christmas music being blasted on the radio (at least that I know of since I don't listen to the radio often here), just a nice vacation day.  No one really even exchanges gifts from what I have seen.

For my Christmas pow-wow, I headed over to one of my favorite cities with some of my favorite people, Mokpo!  Sara, Nina, Liam, Ammy, Tracey, Robyn, Lizzie, and myself all just hung out on Christmas Eve/Day and it was great!  We just rented two motel rooms and got to just enjoy being around friends for Christmas.  It does get a little isolated in Suncheon sometimes with no other Fulbrighters being that close, but the one good thing about that is that when I do get to reunite with them, it makes it that much more meaningful.  I really do treasure the moments when I get to see my fellow ETAs and am able to let the "Fulbright English Teaching Assistant and Cultural Ambassador" side relax a bit.  It was certainly an unconventional Christmas, but a great one!

I only have about 10 days left in Suncheon before I head to the big city, Busan!  Still looking around online for things to get involved with and I found a few things I am interested in, including a coffee making class and possibly boxing lessons haha.  I figured since I'm not going to be able to do CrossFit, I need something active!  I would also really be into a climbing gym, but I haven't had much luck with finding that.  I'll think of something!

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and is enjoying their time off!

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Wrapping Up and 2 Wonderful Dogs

Wednesday: 
  •  The big news Wednesday was the election!  There was no school and some businesses were closed (including CrossFit Suncheon) so people could get out and vote for their new president.  The winner was.....Park Geun-Hye!  The conservative female who many of her critics had named her "The Daughter of a Dictator" due to the negative feelings towards her father, Park Chung-hee, a former President of South Korea who ruled in the 1960's and 1970's.  He is credited with completely transforming Korea's economy (prior to his rise to power, North Korea actually had a stronger economy than South Korea), but he had several human rights abuses, jailing and torturing political opponents and banning things like mini-skirts and rock music.  Many Koreans have very mixed feelings about him and his daughter.  
  • My province/state, Jeollanam-do, does NOT like them.  In fact, a whopping 89% of voters in this state voted against Park Geun-Hye!  I was shocked!  Apparently, I live in the San Fransisco of Korea haha (except I don't think there is any place in Korea that in anywhere near as liberal and radical as SF).  Many of the policies of the two candidates were quite similar actually, which makes it interesting.  I think it was more an election about whether or not people wanted the daughter of Park Chung-hee in power.  It was a close election though.  Here is a table that is from Wikipedia that explains the election results.  My state is South Jeolla.
regions · provinces · cities Park Geun-hye.jpg Moon Jae-in cropped.jpg


Park Geun-hye
Saenuri
Moon Jae-in
DUP
Votes % Votes %
Sudogwon Seoul 3,024,572 48.18% 3,227,639 51.42%
Incheon 852,600 51.58% 794,213 48.04%
Gyeonggi 3,528,915 50.43% 3,442,084 49.19%
Gangwon 562,876 61.97% 340,870 37.53%
Chungcheong Daejeon 450,576 49.95% 448,310 49.70%
North Chungcheong 518,442 56.22% 398,907 43.26%
South Chungcheong 658,928 56.66% 497,630 43.26%
Sejong 33,587 51.91% 30,787 47.58%
Honam
(Jeolla)
Gwangju 69,574 7.76% 823,737 91.97%
North Jeolla 150,315 13.22% 980,322 86.25%
South Jeolla 116,290 10.00% 1,038,347 89.28%
Yeongnam
(Gyeongsang)
Busan 1,324,572 59.82% 882,511 39.87%
Ulsan 413,977 59.78% 275,451 39.78%
Daegu 1,267,789 80.14% 309,034 19.53%
North Gyeongsang 1,375,164 80.82% 316,659 18.61%
South Gyeongsang 1,259,174 63.12% 724,896 36.33%
Jeju 166,184 50.46% 161,235 48.95%       

Thursday:
  • I had school today.  We were doing more apocalypse lessons and I did the Pokemon review game with the 1st graders.  I'm so glad I waited until the end of the year to do it, because I don't think they would do anything else except maybe watch a movie.  
  • I was also helping one of the English teacher, Ms. Choi, with a speech.  She, along with about 30ish other English teachers from Fulbright schools, are heading to Texas for two months to study English and American culture and to teach about Korean culture as well. Ms. Choi was chosen as the leader of the group and she has to write and deliver two speeches on behalf of all of the English teachers.  She was pretty nervous so I helped her out a bit.  I think they'll go over well!
Friday:
  • The big project of the day was finishing up the workbook for Winter Camp.  It is pretty much done and I think it is going to be so good.  It really is a high quality camp and I think the ETAs and the campers will have a blast.  It's in 2 weeks!!  I am really excited for it.  I saw who all was going to go and it's a great group of boys.  We are definitely going to challenge them, but it'll be fun too.
  • We had a free day at CrossFit and it was intense as usual.  I did clean lifts, kettlebell swings (300!!), box jumps, and double unders.  I only have about a week and a half left of it until I head to Busan!  I'm definitely bummed, but it'll be good to see if I can keep up my fitness levels for these two months.
Saturday:
  • Today, we headed to Ms. Choi's house for lunch.  She is also my host father's sister, so the parents and twins and I piled into the car and headed over.  She actually lives in a house, which is a little unusual, especially in a place as big as Suncheon.  Her house is nice though and she has two wonderful little dogs!  They were barking like mad at first because they didn't know who we were, but they were pretty friendly afterwards.  The twins were absolutely terrified of them though.  They refused to go anywhere near them and would run away from them if the dogs even looked at them.  I petted and played with them though.  I tried to play fetch, but they had no clue what it was.  I don't think they are really trained and they just live outside.  It was nice to play a little with animals though!
Okay, I think I'm going to head to The Liz coffee shop to work on a few things for winter camp then I'll just take it easy for the rest of the evening.  I'm making plans for Christmas!  I am going to hang out with my Mokpo friends and we are going to have a little pow-wow in a motel and play board games and stuff.  Should be a fun time!  I'm glad I'll be able to spend Christmas with my friends! 

Have a great weekend and congratulations on surviving the Apocalypse! :)

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Apocalypse and more days off

Sunday:
  • I don't even remember what I did Sunday.  I think I just had a sleeping coma for a chunk of the first part of the day and then I went somewhere to work on my lesson plan for Monday.  Can't remember haha.
Monday:
  • Yesterday, I had school.  I only was there for the first half though because they were preparing for the incoming 1st graders.  The Korean school year ends in December so we are getting a whole new group of students in March.  They have to take their placement test first though to see what levels they can be placed in so that is what they did Tuesday.  On Monday, they had to get all of the tests ready and move the classrooms around and all of that.
  • I also taught a new lesson (maybe my last of the year?).  I figured everyone does Christmas lessons and it is a great topic, but, surprise, surprise, I wanted to do something different.  So I hear the world is supposed to end on Friday (though I'm not sure about the time difference) so I figured we would do a lesson about the upcoming Apocalypse!  We watched a few videos (Linkin Park's The Catalyst and the trailer for 2012) and then we looked at some old predictions of the world ending that happened starting way back in the 1000's (though there were many before this).  
  • Then the students had to make their own apocalypse.  Some students were not into this at all, especially since they took their final exam last week and they were just tuned out for this week.  Nevertheless, I had them write their own or with a partner and I got some interesting ones.  One student said that he got so good at the soccer video game FIFA 2012 that everyone just committed suicide because no one could beat him.  Another said that there was a giant Chocopie (a Korean Moonpie) that covered the Sun and everyone on Earth was destroyed.  His friend had a similar story except it was a Chocopie cloud that rained chocolate that destroyed everyone's hair (not quite sure how this counted as an apocalypse, but it's creative!).  I'm doing it Thursday and Friday too so should be interesting to see what they come up with!
  • In the afternoon, I worked out more details of the winter camp like the reward systems, certificates of achievement, shopping lists, and all sorts of other things. It's a lot of work and coordinating, but I think it is going to be worth it.  We have almost everything worked out now and I'm really pumped!  I think it's a really high quality camp and the students will learn a lot and have fun too.
Tuesday:
  • So I had another day off.  All of these things just keep happening at one time and it has resulted in my not working a ton haha.  I didn't really do that much today though.  I just did some laundry and made some food.  I cooked up some Chicken Scallopini for dinner and it was delicious!  Everyone said they liked it too and I'm pretty sure they did since there wasn't too much left over.  Even the grandma was slurping up the pasta noodles.  And I literally mean slurping.  It isn't really considered rude here so most people just slurp their noodles or soup or whatever.  It's not the most appetizing sound, but it could be worse.  
Tomorrow is the big election!  Korea has its presidential election tomorrow.  It's pretty close from what I can tell.  Everyone around my area likes Moon Jay-In.  He's the more liberal candidate.  From what I have seen the conservative candidate, Park Keun-Hey, has a slight edge over Mr. Moon.  She would be the first female president of Korea if she wins.  Should be interesting!  If you are going to look up information about it, you'll have to check the names because my Romanization is definitely not right.  I can write their names in Korean though!  I can't really type it though since my computer doesn't have Korean installed on the keyboard haha.  I guess I did learn a little bit from all of those office hours at Orientation after all haha.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

The Teacher Retreat

Friday & Saturday:
  • I got up relatively early for a day off (9:15 haha) and we weren't leaving until 12:30, but being the devoted little CrossFit fan I am, I actually got up to go do my WOD!  It was pretty difficult.  It was a choice day, but I didn't really like the choices very much haha.  So I did this situp thing for a bit.  It's like a stand so you are elevated about 3 or 4 feet and you are in normal sit up position and have your legs wedged into the one part so they can't move up or down.  This is important because you actually lean all the way back so you can touch the ground and go all the way back up.  It's pretty tricky and I had to switch back to regular situps after a while because it was hurting my lower back for some reason.  I also did some pushups and rowed 2km.
  • Then I headed straight to school to meet up with all of the teachers to head out on our trip!  I met my co-teacher and she told me that she suddenly couldn't go.  She's usually the one I hang out with most so I was a little unsure, but I saw that some of my other pals are going so I was excited about that.  I could hang out and talk with a third grade English teacher, Mr. Yoon, and a few of the younger female teachers that I used to have "tea time" with.  So we all piled on the bus and headed out!
  • Korean tour buses are always decorated in an interesting manner.  This particular bus was decked out in mostly pink and purple and featured rainbow lights.  I headed towards the back with Mr. Yoon and almost immediately other teachers were showering us with snacks.  We got candy, oranges, and a lunch of kimbap.  We also got cans of beer which was interesting.  Never thought we would get that on a bus.  I took mine to be polite but then I just shuffled mine into my backpack and I think it might still be there haha.
  • We went to Bugok, a small city between Changwon and Gimhae for those that know Southern Korea.  For those who don't, it's pretty much a really small town that is basically in the middle of nowhere.  I think it's famous for its hot springs and a mountain.  There were actually a lot of hotels which I was surprised since it seemed like no one else was around.  We all met in an auditorium where there was a performance.  I wasn't really sure what to expect, I'm not sure if anyone did actually haha.  Some cheesy techno music was playing and then out came four dancers, including three women dressed in vegas-style costumes with feather headresses.  There were magic acts and dancing.  The whole time, I kept thinking this was America's Got Talent and I was seeing these untalented acts and I wanted to buzz them off the stage.  I really was not terribly impressed.  There was an interesting act where a guy was switching masks without using his hands, but that was about it.
  • After the performance, we had dinner.  It was Korean BBQ so it was pretty good.  It is pretty traditional for teachers to drink a pretty good amount of alcohol at dinner meetings and that's what what was going on here.  Not all of the teachers, but there were quite a few.  I had a little bit since it is pretty rude to reject another teacher, especially one that is older (which is everyone).  After a while, I headed out with some of the younger teachers who didn't have a whole lot like me.  We went and got some ice cream and just hung out for a bit.  I went with Ms. Nam and Ms. Kim and we ducked and hid around the hotel (we didn't want other teachers to see us and make us go to karaoke) so we found a spot, brought some nachos and hung out and spoke some broken English (and a tiny bit of Korean). 
  • The next day, we headed out and went to the city of Namhae and got to see some wonderful sites.  Here are a couple of pics:
 

 
  • It was really nice.  I'm glad I got to build some jeong (building a stronger relationship) with my fellow teachers.  It got awkward sometimes, but it was worth it!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Recovery and A Trip to Mokpo (and Gwangju)

Tuesday:
  • I finally began to feel back to 100% from my weekend illness.  I will definitely remember to stay hydrated and take it easy when I need to.  At school, I "taught" my classes with Elf and then I had three days off!  It's been great to relax a bit!
  • On Tuesday, I felt good enough to go to CrossFit again.  It was pretty tough though with a workout that focused on arms, which is pretty much my weakest point.  There were a ton of people there too!  There have been more and more people trickling in since I have been there.  I think the owner has really been stepping up with his marketing because I see his signs all over town in these advertisements.  It's been paying off that's for sure!
Wednesday:
  • I got to sleep in very late again since I had no school.  When I woke up to go shower, I saw my host grandma chatting with two of her pals at the table.  I didn't really want to try to talk them too terribly much since their English is non-existent and my Korean is pretty much not there either.  So I was pretty brief and by the time I wanted to leave, they were all hanging out in her bedroom.
  • When I got out, I went over to Lime, the local sandwich shop.  It was really great!  They have a ton of different sandwiches to choose from and I had a mozzarella, lettuce, and tomato sandwich and a vanilla latte.  It was reallly good.  I just brought my laptop with me and cranked out some work on my winter camp things.  I'll definitely be heading back more often during next semester!
  • Around 2:45, I got on a bus (running to the terminal with about 4 minutes to spare) heading to Mokpo, a city about an1 hour and 20 minutes west of Suncheon and one of the easternmost cities in Korea.  Right on the coast!  There are also 7 of my Fulbright friends there!  I got there around 4:15 and I was able to meet up with Anne and Lizzie in one of the coffee shops.  We were able to catch up a bit and then slowly other Mokpoers came in, Liam, Ammy, and Tracey.  Then we went to get some dinner.  I ended up eating a bunch of dumplings for dinner.  These are usually more an appetizer and the waiter put a plate dumplings on each end of the table.  Nope! Those are both for me haha!  So I had two plates of dumplings in front of me and I was very happy.
  • I had to leave a little earlier than I wanted since I had to go home to Suncheon and the last bus left at 7:40.  I was pushing it a bit with the time, but I thought I could make it.  Several red lights later, I realized I was not making that bus.  Oops.  I was now stuck in a city an hour and twenty minutes away with no bus going back to my city.  Pre-Korea, I probably would have panicked and just worried a lot.  Now, I just thought oh well that's unfortunate.  I wasn't sure what to do for 2 minutes than I thought well I mind as well go to Gwangju (the biggest city in Jelloanam-do, my province) since I think they have a lot of buses going to Suncheon.  So I went to Gwangju and I was right.  They had a bus back to Suncheon in ten minutes. Yay! I actually got back to Suncheon in the same amount of time (maybe a little faster) than if I would have caught the Mokpo bus, since it was the slow bus that stopped at many cities.
Thursday:
  • I slept in. Surprise.  It was nice.  Then I walked up to Lake Park which is a 20 minute walk up the street.  It is a nice lil park, but it's definitely better in the fall.  I had a nice lunch of a chicken sandwich and enjoyed moseying around that part of town since I don't go very often. 
  • I did CrossFit again tonight and it wasn't too bad.  It was toes-to-bar and kettlebell swings.  There was like no one there though!  It was only a class of three today.  But whatever!  I'll see them all soon.  I only have 2 weeks left though :( :(  I'll have to find a gym or something at Busan.  I looked at the Crossfit Busan, but it's like $200.00 a month! Rip off!  So I'll have to look around, maybe ask my students.  
Tomorrow, I am going on the teacher's retreat.  Still not sure what to expect, but hopefully it'll be fun and not too awkward.  I'll be back in Suncheon Saturday!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Finals Week

Monday:
  • Well, it's finals week!  The students are in a bit of a tizzy with last minute cramming for their final tests of the year.  My part is done so I'm happy about that!  Also, I only have two days this week! Monday and Tuesday!  Whoop whoop!  I'll probably head out of town for a bit and explore so that'll be good.  Might check up on some friends in Mokpo.
  • I hate to admit it, but I really don't have much of a lesson for my students this week, largely due to fact that they have exams and we already did our review game and I certainly don't want to teach any new material right before their tests.  Therefore, I have succumbed to doing something I personally resent.  I am showing a movie.  I loathe showing movies because it makes me feel very lazy and that I am not doing my job but I feel like it was justified here since students are very stressed and otherwise probably would not have retained any more new information.  I am showing part of Elf.  There have been a few technical issues since its an American DVD and it doesn't want to talk to the one Korean computer, but we're making it work!
  • I also skipped CrossFit for the first time in a month or so today.  I was sad to do it, but my body needed a little more recovery time from my being sick this past weekend. So far, I feel 100% today, but I have to wait it out to see if I'll go.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Snowball Fights and Being Sick

This week I was continuing my review sessions with my class and playing our Pokemon game.  It's a really great game and there were some fantastic rounds with some last minute game-changers.  I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Friday
  • We had a pretty big snow storm on Friday, one of the biggest Gwangyang has had in a long time.  It was probably about an inch or two of snow (not a ton by Ohio standards but big where I am at).  It was enough to cover the ground and make snowmen and snowballs.  Naturally, there were some intense snowball fights that occurred.  At my school, there are 10 minutes between each class where students are free to do literally whatever so most opted to head outside and play in the snow.  I joined them for a bit and got myself wrapped up into a snowball fight.  I was holding my own for a while, but eventually the number of students was too many and I had to retreat inside the school.  Some students brought snowballs into school, but I don't think any were launched.  I know one student in my 4th period class brought a snowball in and I just gave him a weird look.  After 10 minutes of it melting in his hands, he says "Teacher! Can I go to trash?" to throw it away.  Didn't quite understand that one haha.
  • After school, I went to CrossFit and had a pretty intense workout.  I did some double-unders, pull-ups, kettlebell swings, and a particularly tough rowing workout.  It was good, but exhausting!
Weekend
  • Unfortunately, the main highlight of this weekend has been me being sick.  On Friday night it was pretty bad with vomiting and more.  By Saturday morning, I began to hydrate myself a lot better and I got a ton of sleep.  Right now (Sunday afternoon) I feel about 100x better and am only a little bit tired.  I still don't have much of an appetite, but it's better than what it was before!
  • I also have to make my lesson plans for winter camp.  I'm pretty excited about it though.  The theme is decades and I am going to teach about pirates (1700's not really a decade, but whatever), inventions (1890's-1900's), and boy bands and pop music (1990's).  I can't wait to see what my other ETA friends are coming up with.  I heard a few of their ideas and they seem great.  Definitely more academic than mine, but I think that can be a very good thing.  We'll see how it goes!

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

The cold and an epic battle

Tuesday
  • So I have been doing the Pokemon review game with my classes and its a pretty big hit.  There was one particularly memorable class today.  There were three teams and they were going at it and answering the questions and then "Team Top" got a mystery ball slide.  This offers three options/poke balls to the students and they have to pick one. This team picked a ball that revealed a clip about Mewtwo, the most powerful Pokemon (at least back when there were 150).  At the end, it told the students to trade points with one team.  Naturally, Team Top switched with the team that had the most points, which was Team Yes so Team Top was now in the lead.
  • About four slides later, Team No (the students came up with these names) encountered another mystery ball.  They picked one of the three balls and lo and behold it was another Mewtwo.  Of course, they stole from Team Top and they held onto their lead for the rest of the game.
  • The final round was finished and Team Top answered a question to unveil a disappointing Jigglypuff, worth a mere one point.  There was still one question left on the board and the students were interested enough in the game to where they wanted to have it so I decided to let it be a free for all and whoever answered correctly first, got to move to the reward slide.  The question was "What sport is this?" and it had some clip art of a volleyball game.  A student on Team Top shouted "Volleyball!"  He was right.  I clicked on the slide and much to my and everyone else's surprise, there were three mystery balls.  There are 26 questions total and 6 mystery ball answers and I thought they were used up, but I was wrong.  Now came the decision.  Could they have a chance to steal their points back from Team No?  They picked the aqua ball.  The screen faded into black.  A pokemon slowly began to appear.  Who was it?  It was Mewtwo.  Team Top let out piercing screams of victory and pounded on their desks in elation.  I glanced over at the now downcast Team No to see stunned faces.  Team Top stole back all of their points for the win.  I couldn't believe.  This narrative account doesn't really do the whole moment justice, but it was pretty fantastic.  It's going to be hard to beat that one.
  • In other news, it is freezing outside.  Thankfully, there isn't snow, but it did snow up north in the middle of the country.  Hoping it doesn't come down here!  The school is freezing!!  I don't understand, but they frequently leave doors and windows open which naturally makes the building freezing.  I don't know if it's because they are afraid that the all male adolescent student population will cause smells of havoc or what, but it is crazy!  I have to bundle up a lot.  I wore my coat, scarf, and leg warmers (courtesy of my host father) to all of my classes today.  It doesn't really snow much in Gwangyang since we are pretty far south, so hopefully it stays that way!

Monday, December 3, 2012

Pokemon and Busan

Monday
  • I still had to finish speaking tests, but it is much, much better only having to do a few every class.  Some classes have 38 students so it was basically impossible to get all of them in 50 minutes, but it is not a big deal to have them this week.  After the tests, we got started with our review game.  The Pokemon Bomb Game. It is the most amazing PowerPoint I have ever seen.  It has movie-like animations, voice-overs, the original soundtrack from the game, and it's just really fun.  I am glad that I waited until the end of the semester to do it though, since there is no way I can top this.  The guys went wild though and it was really a nice way to review and have fun after a stressful speaking test and the final exam next week.
  • I began writing my syllabus for the class at Pusan National University that I am going to be teaching over winter break.  I am really excited about it!  I'll be teaching very high level students and they will probably be close to my age so it is a completely different dynamic than Gwangyang High School.  I've advertised that I will have "international guest speakers" aka my Fulbright friends and a few have already graciously volunteered to come by for a class so that will be great!  I want to try and keep it fairly casual, but still productive and creative.  Like I said, I am still in the planning stages so we'll see how it goes!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

More Speaking Tests, Tabata, and Naju

Now that speaking tests have (almost) wrapped up, I can have more entries in my blog! Yay!

Thursday-Friday
  • Just more speaking tests.  They went much quicker as I finally got my system down.  It was all a bit stressful but I managed it well enough.  My co-teacher said none of the other ETAs have every done all of them in one week.  I can see why!  But they are almost done so it's fine.  This upcoming week, I am going to do a review lesson for their upcoming exam (which I have a few questions that I am responsible for creating).  Shouldn't be a problem. :)
  • On Friday, I went to CrossFit after school as I usually do and I saw that we had a free day on the board!  Free day means we get to pick one or more of the workouts offered on the board and customize our own workout.  Well this particular free day was focused largely on weight training, something that is definitely not my speciality and I actually prefer more active, cardio workouts out.  5 of the 8 were weights so I looked at the other three. One was 5 rounds of 20 pushups, 15 situps, 10 squats, and 5 burpees.  That was out because I knew I was not going to do a single squat that day since the day before I did 160 of them in addition to running a mile. The next non-weight option was 7 rounds of 20 double unders and 10 situps.  Not bad, but I knew that I could only do maybe a few rounds of the double unders as I am not very coordinated with them (they are when you do the jump rope and the rope goes under you twice rather than the traditional one time).
  • That left me with the last workout, Tabata.  This is the most notorious workout at CrossFit.  It's basically six 4 minute rounds of intensity.  You pick a thing to do, pushups for example, and go really hard for 20 seconds, then rest 10 seconds, and repeat 8x.  Then rest for one song (~3 minutes) and do it again with another thing (situps, box jumps, etc.)  I did this with pushups, situps, box jumps, jump ropes, medicine ball throws, and toes-to-bar.  It was pretty horrendous.  I'm still sore in some parts and it's been two days.  But yeah, that is Tabata.  
Saturday
  • I slept in (of course!) and then I moseyed around the house for bit.  Later in the afternoon, I finally decided to be productive and I went shopping for ingridents for dinner later that night.  I ended up cooking a lovely mushroom and beef macaroni that ended up being too salty.  It was still tasty though and it was good to give my hard-working host mother a break.  
  • I also went to my favorite local coffee shop, The Liz, the work out the schedule for the Winter Camp.  It looks great and I am realllllly excited about it!  It's going to be a great time.  
  • My host parents also took me to a table tennis place where my host mother slaughtered me in ping pong.  It was fun to watch her and my host father duke it out over the table.  It was intense!  Apparently, they both took some lessons a few years ago.  If I was better and not already doing a lot of things, I would totally take the lessons.  Alas, I don't think it was meant to be.
Sunday
  • I got up nice and early to go on a trip to the famous Naju to visit some friends.  I took the train up there.  I love taking the trains.  It's a great way to see the countryside of Korea and to just relax a bit.  It can take longer sometimes, but I think it's worth it.  I just got to sit down and read my book for a bit and I really enjoyed my ride.  
  • So yes, I got to Naju and met up with my pals, Jason, May, Courtney, and Hana.  They were all hanging out in their favorite coffee shop doing some work.  I was there to serve as a wonderful distraction to all of them and I would say I was quite successful.  We ended up getting some lunch (an amazing beef soup who's name escapes me right now) and then back to the coffeeshop to "work" some more.  Well, everyone but me worked haha.  It was so nice to see them!  I absolutely love Suncheon and my school is great, but I am very jealous of the fact that they all have each other so closeby.  Sometimes they get to see each other multiple times a week!  I am usually able to see another Fulbrighter a few times a month.  Oh well.  I suppose no one can have the perfect placement!  Naju is a great place for a little day trip, but I'm very happy to be back in Suncheon.  Naju is just a bit too rural for my liking, after I have been spoiled by the urban living of Suncheon.  Every placement has its pros and cons.
Okay, now I have to find my review activity for tomorrow!  Hope things are good in the States.  Happy December!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

A Hike and Speaking Tests

Weekend:
  • Honestly, I didn't do anything too exciting this weekend, namely because I just came back from Seoul so I needed to spend time with the host fam and I didn't want to spend a lot of money.  We went for a wonderful hike on one of the mountains in Suncheon.  It wasn't all that tall, but it wrapped around a couple times and it was nice to be able to be out in nature.  The path was really great, a bit narrow, but I kinda like that.  There weren't many people out either which also contributed to the peaceful ambiance.  Overall, it was a great hike!
  • Also caught up on sleep and slept in until a rather embarrassing time.  I also went into Gwangyang to go buy a few winter clothes (two pairs of sweatpants and a hoody for about $24.00!).  I ended up buying that Ohio University hoody that I posted on facebook haha.  I'm surprised I saw it here, but I have to represent my state!
Monday - Wednesday
  • All week I have been doing speaking tests with every student.  By the end of the week, I will have had a one on one talk with the 500ish students that I teach.  I had to switch my schedule all around to accomodate every class since we were notified a bit late that I would have to do the speaking test, but it worked out so we are happy.  It's just a bit tiring since now I have double the first graders I normally see.  Yesterday, I had 7 classes in a row!  It's funny how Fulbright has spoiled me a bit since I used to have days like this everyday in student teaching and I forgot how tiring it can be (Hence, the lack of posts).  
  • Of course, I have been faithfully going to my CrossFit classes and the workouts are still intense!  On Monday we had thrusters (where you do a squat with a bar and then stand and thrust it into the air, repeat 20 times) and sit-ups.  Tuesday, we did some lunges (which I am actually good at so they are one of my favorites) and today was a big mix of things.  My pal has had mini lessons about Korean words and culture at the workout board this week and they are pretty amusing.  Today's lesson was about shoe sizes (I couldn't tell him my Korean size because I don't know how and my shoes are too old and faded to see the label) and a mini-map of America to show him how far Ohio is from California beaches.  Except we had to erase and clean the board pretty quickly as there were prospective gym-goers working out and the owner wanted it erased.  Oh well.  I still got to keep my self-portrait up!  It's basically a drawing of me looking like a body-builder.  I'll take a pic of it tomorrow.
Busy, busy, busy!  I have to prep for tomorrow's tests.  Four classes this time. Sorry for the lack of updates, but nothing too exciting has happened so you haven't missed much!

Friday, November 23, 2012

School Festival

Thursday
  • Every year, schools all across Korea have large festivals showcasing the talents of their students and giving them a chance to let loose a little bit before the final push of the year (the Korean school calendar ends in December, not June).  There is lots of singing, dancing, carnival-style games, and some great food.
  • The performances were pretty great.  I was really impressed at how elaborate everything was.  When I say elaborate, I mean like those fire torch things that synchronize with music and cannons that shot streamers.  It was a legit show.  Each homeroom class had a little dancing or acting number they did and I was so impressed by how well rehearsed everyone was.  It really looked like everyone was in sync and really getting into the performance.  I can't imagine anything like this at an all boys school in America!  There were many costumes too, the most popular being school girls and dinosaurs.
Some of the dinosaurs dancing
These guys weren't quite as elaborate, but they had really neat masks!
  • There were also the carnival games and a soccer tournament.  Among the games were a three point shooting contest, a screaming machine that measured your decibels, an eating contest, and a horrible contest to see who can stand on a block of ice the longest!  I opted to do the first two and just witnessed the latter two.  It was fun to see my students having fun and enjoying themselves so much.
Not my idea of a fun time!
The Eating Contest. Obviously something shocked the guy in the back. And one of the dinosaurs was participating.
The 3 point contest. I made three out of ten shots.
  •  There was also two food stations.  One had deok-bokki (an amazing spicy deok/rice dish) and sweet potatoes that two students were cooking in an outdoor oven.  I'm not a huge fan of sweet potatoes but I definitely couldn't refuse my students!  They told me to come back anytime and that I didn't need any food coupons to get some :)
  • The best part of the festival was just getting to see and interact with my students outside of the classroom.  So many of them just came to life and it was just wonderful to see them have so much fun.  Even if they weren't able to really speak much to me, their beaming smiles and friendly high-fives said much more than any English they could have told me.  Definitely making seeing my students outside class more often a huge priority for next semester.
Friday:
  • I got up at a rather unpleasant time this morning, but it was worth it because I got to Skype with some family back home!  Every year, my fathers side of the family comes to my house to have a nice lil shindig so I got to see a lot of the aunts and uncles and my grandma.  It was really nice to see them!  I felt bad because I couldn't talk too loudly since the weather change has destroyed my voice in the morning and I was afraid I would wake up my host-family.  But it was really nice to see them and I can't wait to join them for Thanksgiving next year!
  • I did my appearance lesson for the last time today.  Ugh.  It's a good lesson and all and the students get the picture, but I have taught it so many times!!!  It has gotten a bit old.  But it went well as usual so it was worth it.  Basically we talked about eye colors, hair textures, skin color, etc. then the students had to read each other descriptions of famous celebrities to each other while one person read and another drew, then they switched.  It was good.  I also did my Thanksgiving lesson with my 2nd graders today.  They have come up with some great designs for their turkeys and some great things to be thankful for.  When I get back to school Monday, I'll try and write down some of the more memorable ones.
  • My co-teacher took me out to lunch today.  She asked where I wanted to eat and I said as long as the restaurant had chairs, I'd be fine.  Well turns out the only restaurant in Gwangyang with chairs is actually a coffee shop that has mediocre food so we had to succumb to the floor.  It was tasty though so I didn't mind too much.  
  • Crossfit was great today.  We had another free day where we get to pick our workouts.  I chose to do some kettlebell swings, overhead squats, situps, and double unders.  My pals tried to pressure me into doing more, particularly a nasty set of 100 burpees, and I had to fake them out to get out of it haha.  They just rolled their eyes at me everytime I would cheer them on in the workout.  A few of the shyer ones are definitely opening up a lot more and trying to use more English and stuff and it's great!  It's really one of my favorite parts of the day.  I am definitely going to miss it when I'm not here in the winter!
That's about it.  I might have a new addition to my winter break plan, but I have to see if it will work out before I can commit.  It would be really really exciting though and it is something I have always dreamed about doing and never thought I would actually have the chance!  But I have to see if I can iron out the kinks before I reveal any details :)  Only a month-ish left of school yet and then I start my exciting winter break!  Good stuff!

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Preparation and Tests!

Monday - Wednesday:

  • Well I've been a bit busy at school so I haven't been able to post the last couple of days.  The main reason why I have been so busy is that I was told on Monday that I will have to do speaking tests for all 500ish students next week.  Oops.  I knew there was a possibility of the tests for 1st graders (but wasn't definite) but the 2nd grade one threw me a little off guard, but it's getting fairly taken care of but there are still a couple of things to work out.
  • This week for the lessons we are learning about Thanksgiving!  I am doing this with the 2nd graders.  We are going old school and we are making hand-turkeys!  I wasn't sure how they would react if they would like it or not but they have actually been really into it for the most part! I am having them make and draw their turkey and then they have to write what they are thankful for.  I am hanging up the best ones on my desk in the teachers office for everyone to see!
  • The 1st graders are doing the sports lesson this week and they seem to be getting a kick out of it.  Some students were a bit devastated about the test, but I couldn't really tell them any earlier since I didn't know!
  • Today (Wednesday), students were preparing for the festival tomorrow and doing different rehearsals and things like that so no one had class in the afternoon.  My co-teacher invited me to go on a hike with her and a Physics teacher, Mr. Ree.  I saw the mountain we were going to climb and thought it wouldn't really be a problem.  We could get up and down and back to school in an hour.  Took 2.5 hours -__-  Oh well, it was a great view.  I saw both Gwangyang and Suncheon from the same spot so that was cool.
  • Nothing too new with the gym.  Just doing the workouts and all of that.  Today, we did box jumps, thrusts, and burpees.  I think I have finally mastered the double-under too!  That is when you are doing the jump rope and instead of just jumping over the rope the normal one time, you do it twice.  I was practicing everyday after the WOD and I got about 25 in a row today!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Thanksgiving in Korea!

Weekend:
  • It was Thanksgiving day!!  Well at least the Fulbright Thanksgiving.  The fantastic Fulbright Office invited all of us ETAs up to Seoul to have an AMAZING Thanksgiving dinner with them and some of the Embassy staff, including U.S. Ambassador Kim and his family. 
  • The food was awesome.  We had turkey!!! Turkey is not really eaten in Korea since they don't live here so it was really special.  We also got to partake in other traditional Thanksgiving fare such as stuffing, mashed potatoes, pie, salad, rolls, gravy, real butter, and a ton of other stuff!
  • Our group was also lucky to see some performances.  We saw traditional Korean songs as well as some acts performed by my talented fellow ETAs.  It was great!
  • Afterwards, I hung out with a few pals that I don't usually get to see.  We met up with Luke's girlfriend and her aunt and had a really great time.  It's always refreshing and fun to see my Fulbright buddies!
  • Luke was also fantastic and he helped me get a new computer!  A Samsung that is pretty basic, but it's what I wanted.  It was about $550 so it wasn't too bad!  Definitely worth it since my other one was basically kaputt.
  • Sunday was pretty relaxing. Just wandered around Seoul for a while and then took the bus back.  I bought another copy of Atlas Shrugged to read on the bus.  I actually got through 120 pages or so.  The train ride up made me think of it the whole time so I figured I mind as well get it as it will definitely keep me occupied for a while since it's huge!
Have to plan my lesson for tomorrow!  Thinking about Thanksgiving and holiday traditions.  We have our festival this week so a lot of students will be in and out so it can't be anything too terribly important since a lot of students will be missing it.  It will still be educational though.  We'll see how it goes!

Friday, November 16, 2012

Without Power

Friday:
  • So yesterday my co-teacher mentioned in passing that I wouldn't have any electricity in my classroom today so I was technically given a days notice about the upcoming event.  Nevertheless, I brought my trusty red USB drive in the slight hope that I misinterpreted my co-teacher. Nope. The entire school had no power.  No lights, no heat, no computers, nothing. Except the bells to signal when to go to/leave class.  
  • Luckily, I only have 2 classes on Friday so I didn't have to teach too many classes in the dark.  I wasn't able to do the lesson that I had planned, so I had to come up with some back up ones.  I cranked out the old high school year book for one class and then played a word game (six degrees of separation?) with the more advanced 2nd graders.  The yearbook class was a lil tricky since not all of the students could see it, but the word game class was a pretty big hit.  Unfortunately, that class is already behind due to missed days, etc. so they are now even further behind! Ugh.
  • Also went out to eat for lunch with a few teachers.  We drove like 20 minutes to a restaurant where they had handmade tofu and this amazing noodle soup. It was sooo good.  Definitely the best tofu I've ever had. 
  • It was a free day at the gym today which meant we get to pick our own workout from a few on the board (or make our own with Teen-Seok's (the instructor/owner) guidance).  I always enjoy these days because I like having the choice, but today I was not feeling super energetic for some reason.  Once I got into it, it was better but I was pooped by the end!  
  • And they all keep trying to feed me more too! Lately, there has been a lot of food on the front table and the keep beckoning me to come over. Today there were some tasty-looking baked goods and some permissions(spelling?). I have a bit after the workout, but I can't really eat anything before or else I feel sick.  I think we've had some sort of food every day this week out on that table.  Good thing I'm burning the calories during the workout haha.
  • Tonight, Hui-Chan, my host sister, left for the Philippines to study English for three months.  I am sad to see her go, but it's going to be a really great learning experience for her and she is going to do really well.  She is very smart, one of the top students in her class.  She won't be back until February!  
Tomorrow, I will go to Seoul and I get to see my Fulbright friends!!!  I am super stoked!  I will also get a new computer! Should be great.  The adventures continue...

More Cancelled Class and Winter Camp Planning

Thursday 11.15

  • First thing I know this morning is that my first class is cancelled!  We have our school festival coming up so I think a lot of preparations are being made for this.  I did have my club class though....but only 2 showed up because everyones busy.  So we just talked a lil and I showed them pics of my hometown on google maps. Actually turned out fairly well!  I've been having a tricky time with this class since they seem to either be bored with my lessons or its too easy or something. I don't know.  I'm going to try and really re-structure some of it next semester.
  • Winter Camp plans are finally coming into place! Thank goodness!  I have a 4 day, 3 night winter camp in early January that a few of my fellow ETAs and I are running and I am realllly excited about it.  It's going to be some of the more advanced students so everyone will be speaking English and we get a lot of freedom with our lessons and clubs.  I'm planning on doing a cooking club to teach the boys how to cook American food haha.
  • The host family and I went out to dinner tonight since Hui-Chan, my host sister, is leaving for the Philippines tomorrow to study English for three months.  I will definitely miss her but it's a great opportunity for her.
  • Going to Seoul on Saturday. I think I am going to officially buy a new computer since this fan is dying fast.  It shouldn't be too pricey and an ETA friend and his Korean friend will help me so that's great.  
  • I also started looking into possibly planning some spur of the moment winter break plans but we'll see :) I don't have a ton of time off since I am doing my internship in Busan so I wasn't really planning on doing a lot of traveling since my pals are mostly traveling in January when I work, but I have been looking at some prices and it's tempting! I have to do a little more research.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The Fire Drill and a day off

Tuesday:

  • The biggest highlight of the day was THE fire drill.  So on Monday we had a drill for the fire drill.  I've heard rumors about how fire drills worked in Korean schools, but I was still unprepared/blown away. It was announced that at 2:00 we would start it and I would have no class because of it.  2:00 came and all of us in the office had to go outside.
  • When we got there, we were briefed as to what will occur (at least I think this is what happened since it was all in Korean).  I was pretty distracted by all of the students hanging out of the windows and waving/seeing what was going on.  All of the teachers were outside so basically all of the students were inside without any adults, which is another thing that would never happen in the states.  Then we headed back inside and waited for it to officially begin.  I walked back inside and my co-teacher told me she had that she couldn't join me since her task was to shout "Fire! Fire!" throughout the hallways. And she told me I shouldn't be laughing and smiling so much since it was supposed to be serious.
  • Next thing I knew some of the male teachers were getting a fire house set up and taking it outside.  Then it started.  I don't remember exactly everything that happened because it was just sensory overload.  Teachers were shouting, the PE teacher was outside soaking the front of the building with the fire hose, students were running outside towards the basketball court to get a good view of the action, and I was just standing there trying to take it all in.  I managed to make my way outside and I looked up to see what exactly the PE teacher was hosing down and I saw some purple smoke spewing from the fourth story window.  Apparently someone set off a smoke bomb to simulate the fire. I couldn't control myself as I burst into a fit of giggles.
  • In the midst of my laughing, I hear my name being called from behind me.  I turned to see three of my students standing in the middle of the parking lot waving at me and shouting "Fire!" Then I saw an ambulance flying into the parking lot and heading directly towards my friendly but oblivious students.  I started shouting at them and waving them towards the basketball court before they get mowed down and one of the Korean teachers also warned them to get away and they finally did.
  • I was then motioned to go towards the gazebo where a few of the other teachers were at and I just watched what happened.  A fire truck came after the ambulance and they also got their hose out and started soaking the school.  By this time, the purple smoke bomb has gone out so it's just spraying the school for fun.  Then I see someone in the corner of my eye and it appears to be a student being carried off by two teachers in a stretcher to the ambulance where he is loaded in. Eventually the fire truck discontinues the soaking of the school and leaves the premises with the ambulance and we all calmly head back inside like nothing happened.  This concludes the most interesting and hilarious fire drill I have ever and probably ever will see.
  • I also went out to lunch with a few teachers beforehand.  Only my co-teacher was an English teacher so they all did not really speak English expect for a few words here and there.  So it was mostly just me eating a fish soup and nodding and smiling. I would answer some things here and there through my co-teacher.  We all really wish we could speak with each other and my co-teacher has told me this before, but unfortunately, it really isn't possible with our language abilities :( We are still trying though and we are planning on meeting at least once a week or so to try it out and see what we can do.  It can be very frustrating sometimes when we all really are interested in getting to know each other but simply don't know how.
Wednesday:
  • I have a day off!  I slept in very late, woke up and had a small breakfast, did some laundry, got some lunch, and have pretty much been loafing around.  I had a break because students are taking another test of some sort so I have no classes.  A couple of my host sisters friends came over.  I was putting my laundry on the drying rack and I hear a bunch of girls come to my door and say "Hello" and then I hear one "Hey what's up?" in perfect English and with no Korean accent. I looked up and saw all Korean school girls, but apparently one of them has lived in Canada for several years so she is completely fluent and doesn't have an accent at all!  Just goes to show you that you never know who speaks fluent English here!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Fire Drills and Eel Soup

Monday 11-12
  • Today I started new lessons with my 2nd graders.  I am doing a fun lil lesson about different sports and then a game using flyswatters and hitting the correct answer on the board/screeen.  I only did it twice yesterday, but it seemed to work out well both times!  Even students who normally sleep and stay silent were up at the board at least once so that was awesome! I bought the two flyswatters yesterday for 1,000 won which is just under one dollar so it was a pretty good deal!  One already has a crack from students hitting each other, but it's all good.
  • We also had a fire drill today.  Or I later found out that it was actually just a drill for the fire drill which will be tomorrow.  I am still a bit confounded by the whole thing.  Bascially all of the teachers piled out of the building, then the students followed.  The students went back in while the teachers stayed outside and went over a script of what to do and say during the fire drill.  The hose was brought out but not used...I'm guessing they are going to crank it out tomorrow!  Should be quite the experience.
  • I also had to stay late today to help one of the English teachers write questions for her test.  It took a while because the questions have to be in a very specific format that mimics the style of the standardized tests they have to take, but we got it done!  She and the other first grade teachers took me to dinner where I had my first taste of eel soup.  It actually tasted much better than it sounds and I will definitely have it again!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Weekend!

Late Friday & Saturday:
  • On Fridays, I only have classes until lunch time so I usually leave after lunch, and that is exactly what I did this Friday! I just went back to the apartment and relaxed for a little bit until I went to the gym.
  • The workout on Friday was a free day so we got to choose from a list of 7 or so workouts.  For some reason, I chose to swing a 12kg kettleball up and down 200 times and I chose to do 100 burpees.  I was pretty tired and I had to rush so I could get to the bus terminal to pick up Ryan!
  • So my Fulbright ETA friend Ryan lives about 1 hour and 20 minutes away in Jinju.  He is pretty isolated too so he decided to pay a visit to me in Suncheon!  So we hung out with the host family for a little bit and then headed to dinner.  We were wanting some western food, so we went to the local Outback Steakhouse.  It was a bit pricey for my liking, but it was tasty!
  • When we got back, we played with the host family and headed to bed early because the next morning we were heading to the Seonamsa Temple, which is the most famous temple in Suncheon. It was very beautiful and we took a lot of pictures.  I took mine with my 35mm so I can't really put them on here, but Ryan took some with my phone so here a few:
Along the hike that we took

Me, my host father, and my host sister

Ryan and I

Traditional Korean Houses on a beautiful Autumn day

Ryan, Me, and my host family (minus Yung Chan, the other twin boy)
  • It was really nice to hang out with Ryan and show off my city and host family a little bit.  Hopefully, I can do this more often with other visiting ETAs!

Sunday:
  • Sunday was a day I was a little excited for but was dreading at the same time.  It was the day of the Suncheon Marathon.  I did not run a full marathon.  I intended to do a 5k, but was signed up for a 10k so I had to do that instead.  At Crossfit, we do many types of workouts but running is usually pretty rare, and when we do it, it's for a mile (or 1.6km) max so I didn't exactly prepare myself very well for this.
  • There was seven of us running, all of us doing the 10k, thanks to the one individual who signed all of us up.  We met at the gym and we all drove together in the gym van (which I just learned about upon entering it.  I had no clue we had our own van!) We picked an extra passenger up on the way and then headed to a large soccer stadium to get ready.
  • Unlike American races, we already had our numbers and computer chips and everything so we just had to show up.  We did one lap and a couple of stretches and then we were ready (My HS cross country coach would NOT be happy with that).
  • We lined up by the line and everyone was ready to go but the emcee of the race just kept talking and talking and talking.  My listening skills in Korean are not the best, but I could tell most everyone around me was getting annoyed, especially since it was getting cold and it was lightly raining.  After 10 minutes of rambling, he let everyone start and we were off.
  • These big races take a while to start since there are so many people so it was just walking for the first minute or so, but I soon plowed my way through the crowds and managed to get to a place where I could comfortably pass people or get out of the way of speedier folk.  That was pretty much it I guess.  I don't know how to describe running a 10k in a fascinating manner haha. My final time was a little over an hour, but I'd say it was actually under because of the delayed/walking start and that was my goal so I did it!
  • After the race, we all headed back to the gym to shower and order some lunch.  We were all in dismay to discover that the hot water was not working.  I tried to shower with the cold water, but I quickly scurried out of the shower after approximately 5 seconds of the the water touching my leg.  Everyone else braved it, but I could not face it.  Those that know me, know that I do not do well with the cold.  Luckily about a half hour later, I checked again and the hot water was back!  
  • Then we had our feast.  It was a ton of food and we just sprawled it out on the gym floor and went to town.  I had some black bean noodles which was amazing and then some of the others had a spicy seafood soup.  There were also some egg rolls and some glazed vegetables.  It was awesome!  It was a great way to wrap up the day.  It was awesome to get to hang out with my gym pals outside of the regular class.  Communication can be a little tricky but between my very little Korean (I don't even have a toddler's vocabulary) and their various levels of English, we made it work and everyone had a great time!  Here are a few pictures from the day:
All of the Crossfit Suncheon runners!

A ton of people were there!


This is the expression on his face 98% of the time.  This is the owner of the gym and he is a very happy man.

And then he made us do a couple of squats. I clearly do not look pleased and I look like I am going to tumble backwards any second.

Now I have to get working on my lesson for tomorrow.  I have the idea, but now I just have to work out the logistics of delivering it.  I'm the worst Sunday night lesson planner haha!

Friday, November 9, 2012

Thursday and Friday

Thursday:
  • No school!  All 3rd grade students had the 수능 test today so I did not have to come into school.  I took advantage of that and slept in very late. 
  • I bought my first ramen in Korea and it was pretty much a complete fail.  I totally messed up the cooking process and it didn't turn out nearly as well as it could have.  It was cheese ramen too!  It's probably the closest I will get to mac n cheese until I return to America.  I know now for next time!
  • Speaking of food, I decided to make dinner tonight since my host mother was monitoring the test all day (it was 9 hours!!) so I made some spaghetti and meatballs with garlic breadsticks and a salad.  All in all, it turned out really well and was probably the best meal I have made so far!  It's a little tricky trying to think of things to make without an oven so I'll have to think a bit for the next meal I do.
  • Crossfit was pretty tough today.  I went to the 7:00ish class since I had to make dinner.  We did some pull-ups, lunges, and lifting.  My arms are the weakest part of my body and that's pretty much all we focused on today!  Hopefully today will be better.
Friday:
  • I only have 2 classes on Friday so it's pretty nice!  We are going to be talking about jobs and careers in both classes and then play a game I made up called "Tanks" where the teams/tanks get to attack each other and give each other minus points.  They get a huge kick out of that haha! 
  • Later tonight, I am having my first ETA visitor!  I don't get many visitors because I am pretty far out from everyone else (the closest group of ETAs are an hour and twenty minutes away) and my city isn't too terribly large or have any really great attractions so I usually go to everyone else.  I'm excited to be able to get to show someone what Suncheon is about though!  Probably going out to eat and walking around town and meeting the host family.  Should be fun!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Wednesday 11/7

Wednesday 11/7

  • I only had one class today!  My school is preparing the national college entrance exam which is tomorrow so we did not have afternoon classes.  This is easily one of the most important days in the lives of the 3rd graders(seniors) as it will determine where they go to university, what they can major in, and essentially what kind of job they can get.  Intense!
  • It was a good class.  Did more laws.  When I first walked in there was no monitor at the desk for the computer.  I was pretty worried but the students were struggling to hide their pleasure at the possibility of having a free period.  But then I turned on the TV that is connected to the computer and lo and behold there was the desktop!  I clapped gleefully as I scanned across the class seeing all of the disappointed faces and hearing groans.  It turned out to be just fine though and most of the students were really getting into the game that we played.
  • I went to check out a local sandwich shop that I saw over the weekend during a walk and I picked up a delicious BLT and went to the store to get some sour cream and onion chips.  It was a great lunch!
  • Of course, I went to the gym and I did my crossfit routine.  Today we did kettlebell swings, box jumps, and these awful things called grasshoppers.  I posted a decently fast time so I was pretty happy!  I have the 10k this weekend that one of the gym-goers signed me up for.  I went into it thinking it would be a 5k but discovered yesterday that my name is under the 5k!  The owner of the gym/instructor and I are going to try to get back into the 5k since he doesn't want to the 10k either haha!
  • I think my computer is finally on its way out :(  First the keyboard went out and I had to buy a new keyboard that I plug into the usb port, then my battery has been pretty bad.  It only lasts about 10 minutes off of the charger.  And this week the internal fan has been acting all loud and crazy.  The fan still works because my computer is not getting hot or anything, but it's pretty noisy.  Even if the computer goes out on me, I still have the school computer and I have a smartphone so I can send emails and things but I'm hoping it will last a little!  I don't know if I could get the fan replaced since it's an HP and they are pretty uncommon in Korea.  I'll think about it and see how it goes. 
And that's about it!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

A Little Taste of America

Here are some highlights of the day so far:

  • One of the students brought some homemade chocolate chip cookies to the teacher's office!  It was the first time I have had these types of cookies since I have been in Korea.  It was definitely pretty tasty and I appreciated it!
  • We had this amazing soup for lunch with all sorts of vegetables like mushrooms, bean sprouts, etc. as well as some beef, kimchi, and noodles.  It was a bit spicy but really good!
  • My lessons have gone fairly well today.  The advanced students are waking up because of the game, but I think I lost some of my lower-level ones.  I had them write some laws today as part of the law lesson.  The paper said "It is illegal ____________ because__________" Here are a few:
  • "It is illegal to smoke outside because it smells very bad"
  • "It is illegal to no night study because students should be sleeping." [There were a ton like this]
  • "It is illegal couple because I am solo.
  • "It is illegal to breathe in the toliet because smells are terrible so you can knock down."
  • "It is illegal to make drug because people receive very big pain"
  • "It is illegal internal organs trade because not columny people sacrifice." [what?!]
  • "It is illegal I Love you teacher because _____" [semi-successful attempt at flattery and getting out of the assignment]
The grammar clearly isn't the best, but for the most part they get their main idea across which is what I am shooting for.  These were actually mostly my advanced students who wrote these but a couple were from my general-level.  I just chose the ones from today and only one out of the four classes I taught were general-level.  I'll look around for other interesting ones to post during the week. 

I have to help a teacher make some questions for their exam and then I am heading back to Suncheon for Crossfit.  Also discovered I only have one class tomorrow and I have no classes on Thursday because of the national test.  I'll probably just hang around town on Wednesday, but I want to go somewhere on Thurs.  I might hike with my one ETA friend in Gwangyang but we'll see!

Monday, November 5, 2012

My Monday

Look at me posting so quickly!  So here are the highlights for my Monday:
  • I had my four usual classes today.  I have three 2nd grade classes and one 1st grade. I taught my lesson about laws to the 2nd grade and the 1st grade learned about careers and jobs.
  • My best class was my first one, which is the advanced 2nd graders.  They are usually pretty dead since it's the very first class of the week and they were dead for the first 20 minutes, but once the game started, they began to slowly come back to life.
  • My least successful class was the third class which is my lowest level of 2nd graders.  A lot of them don't speak any English and my co-teacher translates almost everything.  Also a ton of people were sleeping today and some teachers randomly came in 30 minutes in to fix the speakers and I couldn't teach for about 10 minutes.  It was a pretty frustrating class but hopefully it will be better next week.  Definitely felt like an ETA, Entertaining Teacher from America rather than an English Teaching Assistant.  Oh well.
  • After school, I had my Crossfit class.  It wasn't too bad.  It was lifting (push pressing?) a 20kg bar and doing some burpees (basically pushup and jump squat combo) for 8 minutes.  I ran a mile afterwards and did some sit-ups.  One of my Korean friends was coming up to me before I started my run and felt my stomach and said "Bad. More sit-ups." He proceeded to do this for my chest, arms, and legs.  It seems only my legs met his standards which honestly is no surprise since my legs are completely out of proportion to the rest of my body.  On the plus side, he invited me to go hiking with him in a couple of weekends.
  • I got home and it was a late but tasty dinner.  We had fish, rice, seaweed soup, tofu, beef, cabbage, kimchi, clams, and octopus.  Dinners typically have a huge number of dishes rather than really big but few ones.  I learned clams are apparently the famous food of Suncheon.  I also had some octopus and I tried to remove the head, at least where the eyeballs were from the rest of it but my host father protested.  In the end, I did get the head off, but I wouldn't say it was a complete victory since the ink or whatever black liquid was surrounding the eyes leaked all over the rest of it.  Oops
So those were the highlights from my day!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

New Structure and Updates!

So this blog has been kind of a fail lately.  Oops.  Sorry!!!  I really meant to write a few days but I always seem to put it off and find other things to do. I think I am going to restructure this so rather than writing my usual novel-length entries, it is short tidbits every couple of days.  A few ETAs are using this structure and they stick with it soooo hopefully that will work for me!

For today, I will just give the highlights of things I have done since last time (Chuseok):
  •  Teaching has been great!  I have done lessons about careers and jobs, natural disasters(filler/catch everyone up lesson), last week I did elections to commemorate the upcoming US and Korean presidential elections, and this week I am continuing this theme and we are going to learn about government and specifically laws.  
  • My club class has been good, but I feel like I need to put a lot more time into it.  It is hard to tell if the students are interested or think it is worth the time.  Then again, it is early in the morning and three days a week so perhaps this explains the lack of enthusiasm.
  • We are planning our winter camp!  It is coming up at the beginning of January.  I am trying to get a theme down this week so I'll let you know about that.  It is actually a 4day 3night camp which is highly unusual for ETAs so I think I am actually pretty lucky because I will get to know the students a lot better and see them outside of a classroom setting.  And I get to bring 3 ETA friends with me to help teach!
  • I went to Mokpo for a dinner and visit with my friends.  Mokpo is about 1.5 hours away.  Seemed like a neat city but I didn't get to stay too long unfortunately.  And the bus ride back took forever cuz we stopped at a bunch of different small cities along the way! It was so annoying but it was worth it so see my buddies!
  • Speaking of seeing buddies, we all had our first conference in Gyeongju!  It was sooo nice to see everyone and to catch up with each other.  We also had a lot of great sessions and got lots of great advice from my peers.  I went to sessions ranging from Money Management to Planning Winter Camps.  It was a great conference and it makes me excited for the next one...on Jeju Island!
  • The last major trip I went on was to Seoul last weekend.  I went with a few friends and we had a mini class reunion with our Korean teachers from Orientation!  It was so great to see them! I reallly miss my Korean teachers and I am sure you know from my last few posts that I am quite fond of them. I will probably see them again sometime during winter break.
  • Speaking of winter break, I landed myself an internship!  I am going to teach a couple of extra-curricular classes at Pusan National University in Busan.  I was thinking I wanted to live in Seoul for the break, but this internship seemed like a great fit.  The only issue right now is housing.  They offered a place in a guesthouse/hotel for $45.00 a night!  I was pretty shocked because we planned that I would be there for 4-6 weeks.  Yikes.  So we are trying to find a more affordable option because that will definitely NOT work, especially since I am not allowed to be paid.  Hopefully I will find something that won't completely break the bank!
  • Next Sunday I will be running in the Suncheon Marathon/5k.  I am obviously doing the 5k part because I am not crazy and silly enough to put myself through a marathon.  I am running with a few of my gym friends.  I am totally loving my gym and I am so sad that I will not see them for two months during the winter!  I always look forward to walking down the stairs to the gym and hearing the music blasting away and cringing everytime I see the WOD (Workout of the Day) on the board.  It's great though and always a ton of variety which helps!
  • I went to my first Korean wedding two weekends ago with my homestay mother.  It was definitely a lot different than American weddings.  It is very fast paced with a few different weddings going on at once and everyone was talking through the ceremony.  There wasn't a reception afterwards, but instead just a huge buffet lunch and we were back home by 4.  A lot different, but good!
I think those are the major happenings lately.  Next major thing I have to do is figure out winter break travel plans, if any.  I might just hang around Korea and travel throughout here instead since I will be in Busan for a decent amount of time, but who knows!  I don't have basically anything set in stone which is bad since ticket prices are probably going up.  If I were to travel, it wouldn't be until the end of Feb so I still have some time I suppose.

Okay now with a new format in mind, I think I will be good to go with the blogging world.  Thanks for putting up with it!  If you ever want to know what's going on, you can always just facebook or email me too!  I am much quicker with that haha.

Hope things are good!