This quote, "If you're comfortable, you're not growing," was spoken by the wise Mrs. Shim. I think this describes my stay fairly well. I am not 100% comfortable with everything around me, but I think I am adjusting well.
School is awesome. I really like my students and all of the co-teachers and teachers are great. They are very helpful and the students are all very interested. It might be because I am still new and they are just curious, but so far they are pretty good. Their English levels are not the best, but most of them are able to shout out some words here and there. These classes are definitely not the typical school environment. The students are chattering a lot, but it is mostly in English or Korean to help explain to others or work out what I am trying to tell them in English....at least thats what my co-teachers say and that's what it looks like. I know some of my ETA pals are trying to get students to raise their hands and be quiet when others are speaking and all of that, and this definitely works in some environments, but I would rather have students at least practicing their English or helping each other and keeping a high energy level. My co-teacher is impressed with how loud I am and says that it can scare the students into doing what I want them to do haha. I am really liking it so far and I think that the trend will continue, as long as I put in the effort to get to know them and to keep the lessons fun and interactive.
I also had my first teacher workshop. These are little workshops where the English teachers and I read an article from a newspaper (usually about an education topic or something similar...this week it was merit-pay) and we discuss a book. Today we picked a book! I offered a few choices and the one that they decided would be best is Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I'm pretty excited because it is an interesting book and I think the level is about right. Enough for them to understand, but it will give them a challenge too. I am really looking forward to these workshops!
I am also going to start teaching club classes next week! Club classes are basically extra classes for the really advanced English learners who may need more of a challenge than the regular lesson. I have three club classes, which is a lot, most ETAs do one, but I am getting a little extra compensation so that's exciting. I also volunteered to teach an English class to all the teachers in the school that are interested. It will only be an hour a week so it is not a big deal and it is a great way to build jeong, a strong relationship with my co-workers.
The homestay has been going well of course. My host-father apparently signed up for an English academy that he is going to be doing. He is so eager to learn. It's great to see. Today was the twins' birthday! I believe Young-Jun is one minute older than his brother Young-Chan. They are both super attached to each other and are fun to be around. When I offer to do something or buy something, they are always the first to be shout "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" The boys and their older sister, Hui-Chan, looooove to play Monopoly. I brought it from the States for them and they are definitely big fans haha. They told me they have a Korean version of the game, but they play it differently so that it is shorter (once no more properties can be bought, the game is over!).
But there are some things that I am still adjusting to. For example, I am still trying to adjust not being around my pals all the time. The closest ETA is like 45ish minutes away and the closest group of them are about an hour away. I haven't really seen anyone yet which is a bummer (except for Elaine's little video message! Loved it!!!!!). I love helping others with their English, but there are times where I just want to talk like I naturally do instead of slowing everything down and using simple vocab. I am also adjusting to living with a homestay family and making sure that I am balancing the home life, school life, and personal life well. Right now, the personal life has been put to the side for a little while I am still in the settling in phase, but I am definitely seeing that this cannot go on for too long.
But like Mrs. Shim said, If you're comfortable, you're not growing! I am definitely taking steps outside my comfort zone and most days, it seems like I am just flying by the seat of my pants, but that's what makes it exciting. I came here looking for adventure and adventure is what I am finding.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
I'm here!!!
I made it all the way down here and have settled in fairly well. My host family is super nice and welcoming. It is tricky to communicate sometime but we make do! I have a grandma who is always laughing and shares a bathroom with me, a police officer/yogi father, a middle
school teacher mother, a crazy smart 5th grade girl, and twin 3rd grade
boys who pound food down even harder than I do! I am able to talk a little with the mother (with the help of her phone translator), a bit more with the father (so incredibly eager to learn!), and conversational-ish with the 5th grade girl so it's pretty good! I haven't done much Korean yet because mine is so poor but I read them my speech that I am giving to the teachers tomorrow and they seemed impressed (even though the grandma was smiling and laughing the whole time). They are going to take me to a picnic by the sea on Saturday and then an Ice Hockey lesson (or possibly game that I will participate in?!) on Sunday night. The foreigner community in Gwangyang is famous for being one of the tightest and coolest around and have already invited me to a shindig. I'm probably going to pass because my host fam may or may not have already made plans for me. But yeah everyone has been pretty awesome thus far.
The school is great too. It is an all-boys high school that has 700ish students. I'm teaching 15 classes of the U.S. equivalent of sophomores and juniors, 3 club classes (extra curriculars to help out the most advanced students who might be a bit bored in the other classes), and 2 hours of a teacher workshop. Still not 100% sure what this all entails. I think it is either a literature type discussion or teaching strategies discussion. I really don't know so I'll probably just wing it haha. I sat in on one class and it was great! I didn't understand all of what was going on since most of the instruction was in Korean but it was good to see students in that type of environment. Most were paying attention but there were a couple of sleepers but the teacher would be sure to wake them up each time. Except for one student which I was surprised about. She told me later that he is a Taekwondo student and she and the other teachers let them sleep since they have to have their physical strength for the afternoon and they aren't taking the high-stakes tests. Not sure if I completely agree with this philosophy, but I am not really here to completely change the culture of the school and this sounds like it is something that wouldn't change easily. For now, I will just go with the flow but we'll see about down the road.
Oh that graduation ceremony! Well basically we all graduated (some of us with higher grades than others) and it was pretty good. Then we did our presentations. Some people did skits and others did videos. My class did both. Our first video didn't fly with some of the teachers and they said it was too similar to the intermediate class. Unfortunately, we only had 5 days to until we performed it in front of everyone and half of that time we would not see our teacher at all. And the majority of it had to be a skit which was especially bad for me seeing how I had to have romanized cue cards to film the movie. Luckily, I was able to be in the movie part mostly and my presence on stage was limited to beeping and forming an "O" with my hands. Oh and we had a dance number. Those of you who are fortunate enough to still have eyeballs after seeing me dance know that I am not exactly the best and most coordinated dancer. It was pretty much a mess but our teacher got up on stage and completely stole the show. He is a crazy good dancer and was going nuts with his half improv half choreographed dance. I think I may have accidentally stopped dancing and just stared for a few beats. But the crowd loved it so I guess that's what matters!
Alrighty, I am heading to bed. I was told that my room was formerly my host sisters room. I felt bad for taking it but I think she is sharing her parents room so the twins don't terrorize her in her sleep. And I have hello kitty bed sheets. I love it here.
The school is great too. It is an all-boys high school that has 700ish students. I'm teaching 15 classes of the U.S. equivalent of sophomores and juniors, 3 club classes (extra curriculars to help out the most advanced students who might be a bit bored in the other classes), and 2 hours of a teacher workshop. Still not 100% sure what this all entails. I think it is either a literature type discussion or teaching strategies discussion. I really don't know so I'll probably just wing it haha. I sat in on one class and it was great! I didn't understand all of what was going on since most of the instruction was in Korean but it was good to see students in that type of environment. Most were paying attention but there were a couple of sleepers but the teacher would be sure to wake them up each time. Except for one student which I was surprised about. She told me later that he is a Taekwondo student and she and the other teachers let them sleep since they have to have their physical strength for the afternoon and they aren't taking the high-stakes tests. Not sure if I completely agree with this philosophy, but I am not really here to completely change the culture of the school and this sounds like it is something that wouldn't change easily. For now, I will just go with the flow but we'll see about down the road.
Oh that graduation ceremony! Well basically we all graduated (some of us with higher grades than others) and it was pretty good. Then we did our presentations. Some people did skits and others did videos. My class did both. Our first video didn't fly with some of the teachers and they said it was too similar to the intermediate class. Unfortunately, we only had 5 days to until we performed it in front of everyone and half of that time we would not see our teacher at all. And the majority of it had to be a skit which was especially bad for me seeing how I had to have romanized cue cards to film the movie. Luckily, I was able to be in the movie part mostly and my presence on stage was limited to beeping and forming an "O" with my hands. Oh and we had a dance number. Those of you who are fortunate enough to still have eyeballs after seeing me dance know that I am not exactly the best and most coordinated dancer. It was pretty much a mess but our teacher got up on stage and completely stole the show. He is a crazy good dancer and was going nuts with his half improv half choreographed dance. I think I may have accidentally stopped dancing and just stared for a few beats. But the crowd loved it so I guess that's what matters!
Alrighty, I am heading to bed. I was told that my room was formerly my host sisters room. I felt bad for taking it but I think she is sharing her parents room so the twins don't terrorize her in her sleep. And I have hello kitty bed sheets. I love it here.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Seoul Weekend
Okay so this weekend, I headed up to Seoul with the Fulbright crew to do some official type things and have a mini-vacation/finale as an ETA class. It was our last weekend all together because we leave tomorrow for our placements!!! I am super pumped about it but admittedly nervous being far away from all of my new buddies (the closest is like 45-60 min away). We finally learned about our host families yesterday so that was pretty exciting. I am going to be staying with a family of five. The dad is a police officer, I think, and the mom is an educator. There are three children and all of them are in elementary school. The oldest is a girl in 5th grade and there are two boys in the 3rd grade and I presume that they are twins. It will definitely be different having such young siblings but I am pretty excited about it. Also, the family lives in Suncheon, which is the city right next to Gwangyang where my school is. Suncheon has about 250,000 people or so and is considered the ecological capital of Korea since there is so much nature around it. It has everything from mountains to reef beds so I was stoked to see that.
But before all of that, I ventured into Seoul. It was a pretty nifty city if I do say so myself. Really big with lots of people but it wasn't too terribly crowded since it wasn't really the best weather outside when we were there.
We left Goesan at 3:30am in order to be there on time for all of the events that we were doing. It was literally a jam-packed day and they had us moving from 3:15am to 9:30pm.
This photo explains how the vast majority of us felt. I am the very last one in the back with the contorted neck.
Believe it or not, that was not a posed photo. After our little rest on the bus, we did a great tour of the DMZ (conducted partially by US soldiers and the USO). We were able to go around the different buildings they used for negotiations and look around at what of North Korea we could see (which was a pretty good amount). I technically set foot in NK since the one building was half South and half North Korea. Here is a photo of me in both SK and NK at the same time.
I'm pretty cool aren't I? Anyways we went to a few different sights and had a mini bus tour of the area and it was pretty interesting. I also went into this underground tunnel that some North Korean defectors dug underneath the DMZ. It was really intense because we all had to crouch down really low to get through parts of it and the tunnel was also very narrow. Only two people could be side by side at a time so it was pretty much single file the whole way as one group of people were heading up and the other was going down at the same time.
After our DMZ excursion, we went to the Ambassador's house were we had a nice little pool party with the Fulbright Office Staff and the Embassy staff. The ambassador was initially supposed to be in America still but I guess he flew back early or something, so he was there to give a nice little welcome. And they had great food! It was all delicious American food like hot dogs and cheeseburgers. It was the first American food I have had since I have been here. It was great, especially the cheese.
We did a few other things and then went back to the hotel. I got up the next day and a few of us strolled along the man-made stream called Cheonggyecheon. Rachel, another ETA was telling me the story behind it. So Korea has undergone a massive urbanization over the past 50 years. Of all of the other countries in the world right now, Korea looks the most different today than it did 50 years ago. There used to be a large highway that ran through the city that helped with transportation and all of that. However, in this flurry of industrialization, there were some that forgot about nature and the natural resources that Korea offers. 10 years ago, the mayor of Seoul decided that the highway should be removed and a stream built where the highway once stood. There were other things motivating the project such as a mini stimulus to the local economy and so on, but the main premiss behind it is interesting.
What else did I do? Well I went to the lovely Trick Eye Museum which is basically an optical illusion museum. I'll post pics later because I am running out of time! I went to Hongdae later that night but left early because it's just not really my scene with the whole crowded bars and clubs and stuff. The next day, I went to a University district and walked around and then went to the park along the Han river to walk around solo for a couple of hours. It was really great. Oh then graduation! I will have to talk about that later because it deserves more time than I can give it right now. Alright I have to go to dinner so peace out!
But before all of that, I ventured into Seoul. It was a pretty nifty city if I do say so myself. Really big with lots of people but it wasn't too terribly crowded since it wasn't really the best weather outside when we were there.
We left Goesan at 3:30am in order to be there on time for all of the events that we were doing. It was literally a jam-packed day and they had us moving from 3:15am to 9:30pm.
This photo explains how the vast majority of us felt. I am the very last one in the back with the contorted neck.
I'm pretty cool aren't I? Anyways we went to a few different sights and had a mini bus tour of the area and it was pretty interesting. I also went into this underground tunnel that some North Korean defectors dug underneath the DMZ. It was really intense because we all had to crouch down really low to get through parts of it and the tunnel was also very narrow. Only two people could be side by side at a time so it was pretty much single file the whole way as one group of people were heading up and the other was going down at the same time.
After our DMZ excursion, we went to the Ambassador's house were we had a nice little pool party with the Fulbright Office Staff and the Embassy staff. The ambassador was initially supposed to be in America still but I guess he flew back early or something, so he was there to give a nice little welcome. And they had great food! It was all delicious American food like hot dogs and cheeseburgers. It was the first American food I have had since I have been here. It was great, especially the cheese.
We did a few other things and then went back to the hotel. I got up the next day and a few of us strolled along the man-made stream called Cheonggyecheon. Rachel, another ETA was telling me the story behind it. So Korea has undergone a massive urbanization over the past 50 years. Of all of the other countries in the world right now, Korea looks the most different today than it did 50 years ago. There used to be a large highway that ran through the city that helped with transportation and all of that. However, in this flurry of industrialization, there were some that forgot about nature and the natural resources that Korea offers. 10 years ago, the mayor of Seoul decided that the highway should be removed and a stream built where the highway once stood. There were other things motivating the project such as a mini stimulus to the local economy and so on, but the main premiss behind it is interesting.
What else did I do? Well I went to the lovely Trick Eye Museum which is basically an optical illusion museum. I'll post pics later because I am running out of time! I went to Hongdae later that night but left early because it's just not really my scene with the whole crowded bars and clubs and stuff. The next day, I went to a University district and walked around and then went to the park along the Han river to walk around solo for a couple of hours. It was really great. Oh then graduation! I will have to talk about that later because it deserves more time than I can give it right now. Alright I have to go to dinner so peace out!
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Time Flies
I cannot believe that this is my last weekend in Goesan! We have the rest of this week, then Friday we leave for Seoul, we come back Monday, and then we have our Departure Day on Wednesday. Pretty crazy but I am excited to get out and see what else this country has to offer beyond the quaint town of Goesan.
I was able to get a taste of it yesterday when about 20ish ETAs and I ventured into the city of Cheongju. It seemed like an awesome city and has about 600,000 people in it. I didn't really get to explore very much because we had our cooking class! I took my first Korean cooking class and it was a ton of fun. We made kimbap and a beef and vegetable dish that the name is escaping me right now but it was really good! I am hoping to take a few more cooking classes as I go about my grant year. Here are some photos from yesterday.
So yeah it was a great time! Today I am just attempting to study up a storm in preparation for our last week of Korean classes. We have to deliver a speech tomorrow, take our 4 hour final exam on Wednesday and finishing shooting/editing our final project for graduation next Monday. The material is still really hard for me and many others. I got my lowest grade so far on last week's quiz. I'm feeling better about this speech though and we'll just have to see what the final looks like I suppose.
We did get to take some time to relax with our teachers last week for a little picnic outside. We were going to go out but we didn't really have access to a place that could accommodate all of us at once so we just order a bunch of pizza and other goodies and hung out at Jungwon. We ate a ton of food and played some games and stuff and it was a pretty good time.
We are going to have the annual talent show here coming up in a few days. I'll probably participate in a Limbo Contest/Act for my contribution and then just enjoy the rest of it from the audience. The theme is Hunger Games (or the Kimchi Games in our case). I never read the books but I watched the movie for the 1st time this past weekend. It was actually better than I thought it would be. A lot of people were a bit disturbed by it, but I just saw it more as a story and knew that it obviously wasn't true so it wasn't a huge deal to me. But at least I will know what is going on now (hopefully).
Here is a photo that I stole from my ETA pal Katelyn that shows a map of where all of us ETAs will be:
Where am I you may be asking? Well see that tiny red dot all by itself on the very southern-central tip of the country? That is me. I am a bit isolated, but the closest people are only an hour-ish away so I don't think it is as bad as it looks. I am excited to finally get down there and see what it is I will be doing for the rest of the year.
Until next time.
I was able to get a taste of it yesterday when about 20ish ETAs and I ventured into the city of Cheongju. It seemed like an awesome city and has about 600,000 people in it. I didn't really get to explore very much because we had our cooking class! I took my first Korean cooking class and it was a ton of fun. We made kimbap and a beef and vegetable dish that the name is escaping me right now but it was really good! I am hoping to take a few more cooking classes as I go about my grant year. Here are some photos from yesterday.
Our Instructor
Monica dominating at rolling kimbap.
My great group of Chef ETAs!
So yeah it was a great time! Today I am just attempting to study up a storm in preparation for our last week of Korean classes. We have to deliver a speech tomorrow, take our 4 hour final exam on Wednesday and finishing shooting/editing our final project for graduation next Monday. The material is still really hard for me and many others. I got my lowest grade so far on last week's quiz. I'm feeling better about this speech though and we'll just have to see what the final looks like I suppose.
We did get to take some time to relax with our teachers last week for a little picnic outside. We were going to go out but we didn't really have access to a place that could accommodate all of us at once so we just order a bunch of pizza and other goodies and hung out at Jungwon. We ate a ton of food and played some games and stuff and it was a pretty good time.
We are going to have the annual talent show here coming up in a few days. I'll probably participate in a Limbo Contest/Act for my contribution and then just enjoy the rest of it from the audience. The theme is Hunger Games (or the Kimchi Games in our case). I never read the books but I watched the movie for the 1st time this past weekend. It was actually better than I thought it would be. A lot of people were a bit disturbed by it, but I just saw it more as a story and knew that it obviously wasn't true so it wasn't a huge deal to me. But at least I will know what is going on now (hopefully).
Here is a photo that I stole from my ETA pal Katelyn that shows a map of where all of us ETAs will be:
Where am I you may be asking? Well see that tiny red dot all by itself on the very southern-central tip of the country? That is me. I am a bit isolated, but the closest people are only an hour-ish away so I don't think it is as bad as it looks. I am excited to finally get down there and see what it is I will be doing for the rest of the year.
Until next time.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Placement, Hike, and more!
I have been meaning to update but I keep putting it off so here it is! Well my last post was a lot about Korean class so I guess I should start with that. First I want to clarify that I am not unhappy in Korea or wanting to return home. I was just obviously not having the best day but it has been much better since! I actually ended up getting a 16/20 on that quiz so I was pretty stoked about that. I still have mandatory office hours, but at least my average is up now. I took a quiz today but don't feel quite as confident about getting a 16 or higher so who knows what will happen. But we are also going to start our big class project soon so that will be exciting. We have to perform a 6minute movie/skit in front of our peers, teachers, the Fulbright Office, and important people from Korea University all in Korean! We are going to do a movie so at least I won't have to memorize all of it. I want to keep it more of a surprise so I'll leave y'all in suspense about what we are doing.
The biggest piece of news that I have is that I have received my placement! I will be in the city of Gwangyang teaching at Kwangyang High School, which is an all-boys high school. I am pretty excited about the prospect of living in a coastal city since this is something I have never really done before. There are not really any other ETAs in the same city (except one renewee that I have yet to meet) but they are only an hour or so away by bus so I will still be able to see a lot of them. I was told that my students English abilities may be very limited but hopefully it will be enough where we can somewhat understand each other. I will probably have relatively small class sizes (25ish compared to the normal 40) so I am very pleased about that. I will be teaching the 1st and 2nd graders (US equivalent of sophomores and juniors) and they will be leveled in Advanced and Regular classes.
I still don't know a whole lot about my city but I am finding things out bit by bit. I guess the foreigner community here is pretty tight knit so I will probably have a nice support system. Gwangyang is a port city with a lot of factories and other industrial type buildings. I am in the south Jeolla Province of Korea which is known for being coastal and allegedly has the best food so that is huge for me. There are about 138,000 people in Gwangyang so it is a big city for me and a suburb by Korean standards. The nearest big city is Gwangju which has 1.4 million people. Busan is also fairly close and it is the 2nd biggest city in Korea. I am excited to find out more about the area and when I do, I will try and post it on here.
Today was my last day of Taekwondo so our extra curriculars are starting to wrap up. I wasn't able to go as often as I would have liked these past couple of weeks because of Camp Fulbright and all these other things that were going on but I was able to go at least a couple times a week. We did some sparring today which was quite entertaining to watch and do. My round ended in a draw and apparently looked completely ridiculous. I thought we got points for punching but I guess we didn't so I will just blame that rather than my kicking inadequacies. TKD was fun but I think I will probably pursue other activities instead while I am in Gwangyang.
This past weekend, twenty-five or so other ETAs and some OCs went to Songnisan National Park where we hiked up Songnisan Mountain. It is a huge 3,400 mountain with crazy views from the top. Since I haven't uploaded any pics yet, I will let my friend yahoo images show you what it looked like up there:
It was definitely an arduous hike going up but it was worth it. Hiking is huge in Korea and there were tons of people out that day. Many of them were all decked out in full hiking gear complete with a pair of walking sticks and a visor. Hiking is definitely on my list of things to do for this year and my province has plenty of mountains that will allow me to do that. When we got back down, we went to our pension (motel/hostel thingy) and had some dinner and hung out for the evening. It was nice to just have a chill evening to relax with my buddies.
Other than that, nothing too new or exciting has happened. This week we are doing a bunch of cultural workshops about homestays and all sorts of neat things. We only have like two weeks left of orientation and then we are finished! We are heading to Seoul next week on Friday for our Graduation from Korean class, an office visit, DMZ tour, and more. Can't believe it is almost over already!
The biggest piece of news that I have is that I have received my placement! I will be in the city of Gwangyang teaching at Kwangyang High School, which is an all-boys high school. I am pretty excited about the prospect of living in a coastal city since this is something I have never really done before. There are not really any other ETAs in the same city (except one renewee that I have yet to meet) but they are only an hour or so away by bus so I will still be able to see a lot of them. I was told that my students English abilities may be very limited but hopefully it will be enough where we can somewhat understand each other. I will probably have relatively small class sizes (25ish compared to the normal 40) so I am very pleased about that. I will be teaching the 1st and 2nd graders (US equivalent of sophomores and juniors) and they will be leveled in Advanced and Regular classes.
I still don't know a whole lot about my city but I am finding things out bit by bit. I guess the foreigner community here is pretty tight knit so I will probably have a nice support system. Gwangyang is a port city with a lot of factories and other industrial type buildings. I am in the south Jeolla Province of Korea which is known for being coastal and allegedly has the best food so that is huge for me. There are about 138,000 people in Gwangyang so it is a big city for me and a suburb by Korean standards. The nearest big city is Gwangju which has 1.4 million people. Busan is also fairly close and it is the 2nd biggest city in Korea. I am excited to find out more about the area and when I do, I will try and post it on here.
Today was my last day of Taekwondo so our extra curriculars are starting to wrap up. I wasn't able to go as often as I would have liked these past couple of weeks because of Camp Fulbright and all these other things that were going on but I was able to go at least a couple times a week. We did some sparring today which was quite entertaining to watch and do. My round ended in a draw and apparently looked completely ridiculous. I thought we got points for punching but I guess we didn't so I will just blame that rather than my kicking inadequacies. TKD was fun but I think I will probably pursue other activities instead while I am in Gwangyang.
This past weekend, twenty-five or so other ETAs and some OCs went to Songnisan National Park where we hiked up Songnisan Mountain. It is a huge 3,400 mountain with crazy views from the top. Since I haven't uploaded any pics yet, I will let my friend yahoo images show you what it looked like up there:
It was definitely an arduous hike going up but it was worth it. Hiking is huge in Korea and there were tons of people out that day. Many of them were all decked out in full hiking gear complete with a pair of walking sticks and a visor. Hiking is definitely on my list of things to do for this year and my province has plenty of mountains that will allow me to do that. When we got back down, we went to our pension (motel/hostel thingy) and had some dinner and hung out for the evening. It was nice to just have a chill evening to relax with my buddies.
Other than that, nothing too new or exciting has happened. This week we are doing a bunch of cultural workshops about homestays and all sorts of neat things. We only have like two weeks left of orientation and then we are finished! We are heading to Seoul next week on Friday for our Graduation from Korean class, an office visit, DMZ tour, and more. Can't believe it is almost over already!
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