Sunday, March 31, 2013

Brown Eggs and Busan

Here are some highlights from this week!
  • School has been going well.  We started a lesson with some classes on Cursive Part II.  Basically we were writing small sentences and then played a relay-race type game using cursive.  Overall, it was pretty successful, but I'm not sure how it'll work with the shier classes, but we'll see!  It's just hard to keep track of it because there are three lessons going on at once since some classes are behind because of days off and all of this.  But I have miraculously become more organized this semester so that's been a big help!  I have folders now, a lesson chart, all sorts of things.
  • CrossFit has been good.  I think I am doing well with it.  We're using a lot of bars and lifting which definitely isn't my forte, but I'm getting there, slowly but surely.
  • Oh something with school that I forgot is debate prep club!  So in June, some of my Fulbright peers and I are going to a conference in Gwangju with our students to have a nice debate/conference!  I'm pretty excited and my students are too, but I think they are a bit concerned since there are going to be some pretty impressive schools there.  I think we can do pretty well, maybe not when but at least do well!
  • On Saturday, I woke up early and I made a trek to Busan!  I made arrangements to meet two of my PNU students for lunch.  I wish I could have seen more, but they are so busy with their semester now!  Anyways, I met Keun Woo and Eun Hee and we had a nice lunch in an outdoor restaurant on a mountain.  It was so cool!  We had a great Korean vegetable pancake (Paejeon), Korean Noodle Soup, and Korean Chicken Soup.  Delicious!
  • I also went to do some shopping at the Seomyeon shopping district.  I pretty much was just at the H&M where I bought a couple shirts, a blazer, and a hoodie.  It was a lot of items but 3 of them were more than 50% off haha :)  After shopping, I grabbed some dinner and headed back to Suncheon.  It was a very short trip, but quite enjoyable!
  • It was my first Easter abroad and my parents sent a lovely PAAS egg dye kit.....but I discovered that there is not a SINGLE white egg in Suncheon!  I went to two of the major Western-style supermarkets and only brown eggs!  Brown eggs everywhere!  I couldn't believe.  There were white eggs in Daegu, but not in Suncheon.  I don't get it.  So we have postponed the egg dying until further notice.
Well that was my week!  Right now I am focusing on working on these crazy foreign taxes, applying for jobs back in the states, and making my new lesson for this week.  It has to be a semi-filler lesson because not all of the classes will get it.  I'm still thinking.  I have until Tuesday so it's all good.  And I'm heading to Jeju Island, Friday for our Fulbright Conference!  Whoo!

Saturday, March 23, 2013

My first full week of the semester

Hello!  As you can tell from the title, I had finally had my first full week of school! Yay!
  • So this week we have three lessons all going on at once so it's a little complicated but I made a nice lil chart to organize all of my lessons so I know exactly what class needs what lesson.  And I got to meet all of my classes so that's good. Up to this point, there were like 5 or so classes I still didn't see at all, but now I've seen all of them at least once so that's good!
  • This semester is going much smoother in general.  I guess it's because I'm used to how things are going now at the school and they are used to me!  I'm definitely liking how things are going though.  I've have raised my expectations overall for the students and they seem to be meeting most if not all of them.  I think I wasn't really sure what to expect or do the first semester and I didn't get enough out of them.  That's changed this time around!
  • The new lesson this week is a two-week lesson on cursive writing.  When I was in Busan at the university, some students said they couldn't read and I don't think any of them could write in cursive.  This was a bit of a problem because some of their foreign profs wrote in cursive so I figured I'd show the Gwangyang guys what it's all about!  So far, most of them are much more interested than I thought they would be.  We were only able to blast through all the letters on the first lesson.  I know with cursive, repetition is key, but we don't really have time to do a lot of repetition, so I just have to show them the basics.  Next week, we are going to do more of the writing and practice actually connecting the letters together which is something some of them had a hard time doing.  But I'm glad I'm doing this lesson!  It's something different and all levels of students are able to do it, even if they can't really speak English because it is simply copying what I do on the board.
  • I'm going to start up a club type class again.  This time it is to prepare for a conference/debate in Gwangju with a few other Fulbright schools.  I'm a little nervous, because some of the other schools are very advanced, but we're just going to go in and be confident and do what we can.  We're having our first meeting this week!
  • I'll also be starting an English class for non-English teachers.  It'll be on Monday mornings when I have a nice free block.  Last I heard, only two signed up, but hopefully that number will increase!  It has to be in the middle of the school day so it's a little tricky with the timing.  We'll see how it goes!
  • What else...oh my Uncle flew into Seoul last week and I got to see him.  It was really great to be able to hang out with him and catch up with the family.  He also brought along a nice care package from my family that had all sorts of goodies for me and my host fam.  It was great!!
  • This weekend I'm staying in Suncheon.  I'll go to the Maewha (apricot blossom) festival tomorrow in Gwangyang when some of my Fulbright buddies will be in town.  That should be good!
  • CrossFit has been good, but hard.  I'm doing more of the Rx'd(aka hardest level) workouts.  It's cool to be able to do them now, but I get too tired to do the extra Challenge workouts that he has for us.   Or if I do them, then it's reallly slow.  I made a new buddy at CrossFit!   He's an elementary school teacher in the countryside so he speaks English pretty well!  It's fun to hear about the elementary school side of things since I'm in the high school all the time.
That's about it for this week.  I don't think I really have any other news to report.  So yeah things are good as usual!

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Spring Semester Week II

Hey what's up?  Sorry there hasn't been a whole lot of updating lately.  Just trying to get back in the groove of things I guess!  Here's some things that have been happening!

  • School has been great!  I'm on this strange honeymoon period with the first year students.  They are doing everything I ask them to and no one is sleeping.  It's bizarre but I like it!  Most of the second years have really stepped it up to (I think largely due to getting rid of a co-teacher who really didn't teach at all/slept through my class).  A few of them have been dozing off but I just wake them up as usual.  I'll just grab their shoulder or lift their desk or if they are super sleepy then I'll have them stand.
  • This week we started my second lesson (even though quite a few still haven't seen my first lesson...just the way the schedule worked out!) and it's about small talk and creating better conversation than just than just the infamous "How are you?" and "I'mfinethankyouandyou?"  So far it seems to be going very well and the students are participating well.  And I haven't played a game at all yet this semester!  I'll probably do one next week though haha.  I think I'm going to try to tackle a 2 week Cursive 101 lesson since almost none of them know it.  They can read it for the most part, but I've only seen one student write it so far and that's because he learned it in a hagwon (English tutoring).  My PNU students said that some foreign professors use it at university so it actually would be helpful.
  • Homestay has been good.  Nothing too exciting.  The kids are going to even more tutoring and hagwons than last semester.  They are so busy even though they are still in elementary school!  We haven't had any trips or anything yet.  It's probably going to be a bit more low-key this semester since everyone is busier.  My host mother moved to a new school that is a lot closer (15 minute walk!) so she is here more often but she is teaching 22 hours a week which is a pretty good amount so she is super busy as usual.  I made some fettuccine alfredo on Tuesday because I had the day off for the school's birthday and I think she was happy she didn't have to cook. But yeah, it's going good.
  • Yes, I had a day off on Tuesday and I had a day off Wednesday since the students were taking an English test so I didn't go to school for two days in a row!  I didn't really do all that much though.  Just planned this lesson that I am doing now and applied for jobs, stuff like that.  And sleep in and watch TV on the computer of course haha.
  • I'm back at CrossFit.  It's been good.  There's definitely a lot more people who have joined the gym since the fall.  There's waaaay too many during the 8:00 class so I strive to steer clear of that one.  I prefer my 5 or 6 that go to the 6:00 class.  It's been tough, but in a totally different way than CrossFit Busan.  Here we are using more weights and bars and stuff for a shorter amount of time where in Busan we never used bars and we did intense workouts for a longer amount of time and we did crazy warm-ups that we don't do here.  My upper body is still pretty weak so I'm not exactly blossoming at Suncheon, but I'm pleased with how it's going so far.
  • This weekend, I'm going to Seoul!  Super pumped about it.  I'm going to meet my Uncle Mark up there who is flying in (he's a pilot) and we'll have dinner and stuff.  It'll be great to see him!  I'll also meet up with my friend./PNU student Su and I think we're gonig to check out this foreigner flea market thing that is happening on Sunday after my uncle heads back home.  Should be an awesome weekend!
That's about it.  So that's what going on here!  Thanks for reading I guess haha.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

First Week of School

Started school back up this week!  So far so good, but I've only taught 2 classes.  My schedule is a lot different and a bit more complex, but now I'm able to see the 2nd graders every week and the 1st almost every week so that's great!  I am teaching 3 extra classes, but they got rid of my club classes so it's the 20 hours a week that I had last semester. 

We're just doing intro lessons so far.  Basically for 1st, I am introducing myself, telling them what I did over break and they have to write about what they did for break in a nice paragraph form (whenever I had them write last year they always made it more list like and I wanted to steer them away from that).  I'm trying to set a more academic and serious tone for the semester instead of just jumping into a game right away.  I have been pretty impressed by 1st grade this year so far.  It helps that they are in classes of 24-25 and they are leveled.  2nd is mixed level and has an average of 37 students in each class so it's a little crazier there.

I didn't teach the first two days because we had to arrange the schedule.  It was pretty hectic but we were able to get it done.  It's like this weird 6 week rotation with the 1st grade so I'm going to have to be super organized in terms of what class is doing which lesson.

We got a lot of new staff members too.  3 English teachers left (including the one that slept in the back of my class so I can't say I was devastated to see him go) but the new ones that I have met seem great so far.  I'm going to hopefully meet all of them later this afternoon at our first teacher workshop.  I'm also able to teach with some of the 3rd grade teachers since they have 2nd grade classes so I'm excited for that.  It'll be nice to work with all of them.

It's been great seeing my old students too!  They greet me with waves and hi's as normal (some of the first graders are still bowing and giving me the Korean greeting which I don't mind but I'm sure it'll change as we move along).  Definitely missing some 3rd graders but I get to seem them in the halls and at lunch so that's nice.  And the lunches have been great too.  I've been a fan of them last semester too so it's good to know that we still got some good ones.

The only other notable things is that I cleaned my desk out completely and threw away a lot of the things that I haven't really used/were from ETAs like 4 or 5 years ago and a first grader came into the teacher's office, went to my desk, and asked me for chalk (except he couldn't remember the word for chalk haha).  It was just reallly strange since I'm pretty much the last person I would ask since I have no idea, I don't know the Korean word for chalk, and pretty much every other office worker and teacher in here does know haha.  But it was very endearing and I'm glad that they wanted to talk to me, even if it was just to get chalk.

So yeah things are good and back to normal here at school.  So far so good!

Friday, March 1, 2013

The Last Week in Busan

Here's what's been happening my last week in Busan!
  • I've been doing my PNU classes as normal.  On Tuesday, my younger sister was a "guest speaker" via Oovoo/Skype which was pretty neat.  She's adopted from Korea and my students say she looks 100% Korean but acts and sounds 100% American.  They got to ask each other some questions and things and it was pretty cool.  We also got to play a couple of games on Wednesday and then on Thursday, our last class, we went to the American Corners building here in Busan and then got some lunch and coffee.  I was a little bummed that there weren't a whole lot of students in the afternoon class, but we still had a good time with everyone that was there and we eventually reunited with the morning class.
  • I have most of the topics for my upcoming semester in Gwangyang sorted out.  Now it's just a matter of executing those plans and thinking of how to teach the said topics.  I'm excited/nervous to meet my new students!
  • I'm going to be able to see some family in person next month!  I'm pretty stoked about it.  My Uncle Mark is flying to Seoul and we will be able to spend some time together during the weekend.  It'll be great to finally get to see someone from home.
  • I'm back applying to jobs.  I took a small break since there weren't all that many schools hiring yet, but now they are starting to post some jobs so I'm applying for them!  I'm pretty much going all over the country.  I was applying to the more selective independent schools since they were the only ones posting their openings, but almost all of those want candidates with 5+ years of experience which I definitely don't have so now I'm able to broaden my range.  I'm trying to get three done by today but they take so long!!  
  • I went shopping the other day at H&M.  I got some pretty good things at fairly reasonable prices so I'm happy about it.  I got a few t-shirts, a blue button down long sleeve shirt, a pair of grey pants, and a black vest.  I might hit one more store up today for I leave Busan tomorrow.  I'm heading back to Suncheon tomorrow night.  And I haven't packed basically anything.  I'm reallly not looking forward to packing.  I remember barely getting my things all to fit in my bag in the first place and now I have some extra clothes and a comforter I had to buy so I just don't see how it's going to happen.  I might have to actually buy a new bag which wouldn't really be tragic since the one I have is broken anyways.  But still!  It's going to be painful.
I guess that's about it!  So yeah, Busan has been great.  I didn't exactly get to travel to a bunch of exotic beaches, ride elephants, or get to go back home and pig out on Chipolte, but it really has been an awesome winter break.  I've learned so much about Korean culture from my students, I met some wonderful friends that I will be visiting throughout the rest of my time in the country, and I got to live on my own and call a new city home.  All that being said, it's hard to complain.  But alas, I must return to my original purpose of being in Korea and teach those crazy high school boys.  I can't wait to see them!