Post Card

Most days I feel like aren't worth writing home about. I don't think: wow, I should write about this on one of my many post cards.

All month I've been getting to school early and not having a chance to really sit down and breath until 1pm. To say my energy has been drained is an understatement. I changed up my diet to see if that will help. I gave up rice and am slowly cutting Korean food out of my diet (no complaints here, I am over it). Starting May first I will be off of my school's lunch plan (praise the Lord).

I haven't had much time to blog because when I do sit down at my desk at 1pm I have to quickly start lesson planning for the next day's class and edit my students essays (which is slightly less painful compared to last semester). I have decided to start calling students out on using translators because it is SO easy to see which ones do it. They are the essays that have huge words in the wrong tense that don't make sense. Oh little kiddies, use the words you know not vivacity or methodical.

After today my life should slow down some because the English play will be finished (or as the Korean's say: finishee). I have enjoyed the experience but I have had many pull-my-hair-out moments that mostly involve the language barrier. I think the students are ready for the performance and hopefully are prepared for the competition aspect of it. I think they are winners but I know there is pressure from the adults to win.

There are two days from this month that I think are "post card worthy".

Two Fridays ago I got to tag long on the 5th grade field trip to some nature reserve near the ocean. There were indoor and outdoor gardens and a reptile building. The students seemed to enjoy the event and I was thankful to be out of school and in the fresh air. Some of the students got to hold a big snake and when the man giving the lecture held it out to me I went to touch it and before I could he put it around my neck. Man, the kids got a real kick out of that. My favorite part of the trip was just having random students come up to me to chat or share their snacks.

Another great day was last Saturday. Ulsan had a whale festival to celebrate their ancestor's whaling history (yes, I said whaling). There were boat races and food and random craft tents. They even had straw tents like they lived in hundreds of years ago. I think that's the most foreigners I've seen in one place since coming to Korea. It was a bit overwhelming. After that we went to this very fancy (very expensive) buffet. I just assumed that this place was going to be Korean food but I was wrong. It was tables upon tables of delicious western food. We all ate ourselves silly and went home in a food coma. Sadly that place isn't in any of our budgets for frequent visits.

 

Bless friends!

This is Korea

I'm not sure what life is like outside of Korea but I am guessing it has the similar tone of the CNN articles that I have stopped reading - worry.

Inside South Korea life moves on as if its any normal day of the week and the more I have talked to Koreans, the more I am discovering that this is any normal day of the week. They have grown up in a country that receives threats of war yearly and they have learned an exceptional way of dealing with it - don't worry.

When the North Korean's launched that rocket in the air back in 2012 I asked one of my co-teachers what they thought about the rocket. She told me that they don't worry about what North Korea does. "If someone worries about them then they should live in another country". I am slowly understanding her statement. If they lived their lives worried about the next thing North Korea was going to do, they'd never have a peaceful moment.

I can't recall all of the threats or strange things that the North has done since I arrived in the South, but it has been enough to fill two hands. Not once have I heard a Korean friend or coworker bring up the topic in a worrisome way. They just shrug it off and say that they don't worry. And you know what, I believe that they are right. They don't have anything to fear.  

With the increasing media attention of North Korea's threats I have received a lot of concerned messages from family and friends. Which is sweet, but honestly, waking up to those has been instilling fear in me. I start to wonder, oh no, what happened while I slept?! I quickly check my email and phone to find no message from the American Embassy. Nothing to concern me. When I got to school the day "war" was suppose to happen the kids were playing soccer and hitting each other and yelling "rock paper scissors" in Korean. The teachers were quickly moving from room to room doing who knows what. All the while the world worried.

I am learning what the South Korean's have learned long ago. That bully up north, who is family, is going to be there so let him blow off steam and continue living your life. I think their mentality has been working so far and hopefully they can be left to they own version of "keep calm and carry on" and not be convinced that something bad is going to happen any second of the day.

I do realize that this time could be different, and I have taken the proper precautions that the American Embassy has advised all expats to do, but until my Korean friends start running for cover - I'm not going to worry either.  

6.

Today feels like a big deal and I guess in a way it is. Today marks my sixth month anniversary of living in Ulsan, South Korea. I am amazed by how much I have done and also by how much I haven't done. Thankfully now with the nicer weather and a few four or five day weekends coming in these next six month I should be able to see more of Korea besides my own city. 

As I have constantly been saying in my blog, I have been very busy and some days I seem to add to my own work load. Just today I finished a self given project of a poster board called "excellent works". My goal is to update it once a month with the work the students do in my class. I felt bad throwing away creative charade papers so instead I decided to make a way to save those creative, make me laugh but in a proud way, works. Now the piece of paper that reads, "I will learn how to train dinosaurs" can live on outside of a garbage can.  

Have you ever experienced something that was a big deal but felt anticlimactic? I'm not talking about a birthday that was a let down. I'm talking about something you worked so hard towards but in the end it was like, "oh cool". That's how I felt when I got my degree in the mail. I felt like confetti should have been popping out and a choirs of angels singing. Instead I ripped open the big envelope and the only paper inside was my degree. After all my hard work it would have been nice to get a little note tucked in saying, "good job. Treasure this degree and all of the experiences that you received while working towards your degree." I do realize no one has time to do that, but still, it would've been nice. 

I got the same "oh cool" feeling last night when I checked my bank account and noticed the funds I paid towards my loan was gone. Two days before I had clicked the lovely button in my loan account that said "pay off account" and I knew that in a few days time I'd be finished with one of my student loans. I was expecting some form of acknowledgement from my loan company. A simple email saying "your account is paid off" would've been enough. Instead I quickly signed into my loan account and saw two magical things. My balance was at $0.00 and my status said: Paid In Full. My loan is now paid in full! I think it is still sinking in and hopefully soon I will be jumping up and down and dancing, but for right now it feels anticlimactic. All I can think is "really? Not even an email?" 

I have been able to see a lot of cherry blossoms the last few weeks. A first I was super excited to see them. But after the second time I wasn't experiencing the same aw I had before. It is crazy to see so many cherry blossoms throughout the city. I've seen so many that they have stopped making an impact to my day. But I will be very sad when they are gone. They really have brightened up the city. Soon the trees will be green and I cannot wait to see some grass. It's funny how much I miss grass. 

Here are two of my favorite pictures. Bless friends. 

Who let the comedian out?

My students are funny! I'm not sure why they never made me laugh last semester, maybe I am able to see their humor now that I am able to give them creative freedom during my lessons. That is certainly a motivation for me when planning lessons. I want to give them an opportunity to enjoy English!

I'll share a few instances of their humor.

In 4th grade the students were suppose to be preparing a conversation based on two pictures in their text book but these two boys took it to a whole new level.

Student 1: Here is your coffee.
Student 2 looks at his fake cup: Americano? (tosses the fake cup aside) I want a caramel maciatoto.
Student 1 makes a new cup: Here you go.

In 6th grade we are practicing the future tense and when I asked where I will be in 10 years.

Student 1: You will be a grandma.

Also in 6th grade during a future tense lesson I told them the world will end in two years and asked how it will end.

Student 1: Dinosaurs will come back.

In 5th grade we were talking about countries and I gave each group a different country and they had to answer 4 questions: we are from... here we have... we eat... our sports are....

Student Group 1: We are from Canada. Here we have Santa.

Student Group 2: We are from America. Here we have Obama. We eat Americanos. Our sports are football.

Both 3rd and 4th grade have really gotten into the role plays that are inside the book (I wish we would have used them last semester!) and they have started to do voices for the characters. That is bound to give my coteacher and myself 20 minutes of laugher in the class.

The kids really seem to be warming up the concept that they can be creative in English and even some kids who don't have the ability to construct a sentence try.

Student 1: Teacher! Ah... it goes (lots of hand motions) and then BOOM (exploding hand motions).

At least they are trying!

Bless friends.

Repeat

I find myself once again fighting against the, "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all" that I fought back in October.

But I have finally decided to instead quote my co-teacher, "I'm so busy these days".

Since arriving in Korea I have heard my co-teacher say those words at least once a week and now I say or think those words everyday.

I went from reading a script every class for 20 minutes to solo teaching for 40 minutes. Two of the grades I cannot use the text book and am expected to come up with my own material using the key expressions from the book. The two younger grades I have the same 4 pages that I will teach each lesson.

I am still trying to gain a feeling on how long activities take the students. So far every lesson I have planned is too long and we end up not doing my last activity. Which has helped me plan for that class's next lesson!

Since these are now "my" lessons I am in desperate need to develop my "angry teacher face" but so far the kids either laugh at me or aren't effected by it...

Another new addition to my workload is "Storytelling". I was not at my maximum teaching hours so I had to invent a new class so I would be. My storytelling class was birthed out of frustration and self-preservation (because I didn't want to come in after hours to teach a random class). So instead I will be coming in early so I can read a chapter to every 5th and 6th grade class, in their own classroom, in a three week cycle, for twenty minutes. Confused? Believe me, I still am but it was the only way I could find time in the typical Korean student's already busy life to fit in a class that was fair for all (instead of seeing two classes twice a week and other classes only once a week). I will be reading Bridge to Terabithia and I thankfully found it at a second hand book store (and a few other great finds for myself). It's at their grade reading level according to America so I'm hoping that if I read it slow and with a lot of expressions then half the class will understand parts of the story. Ha. Wish me luck. I begin that class next Tuesday.

The ever dreaded (by most co-teachers and native english teachers) has begun: the Ulsan English Drama Festival. Basically this is a competition between the public schools in Ulsan to see who can put on the best play in English. I am happy to say that my major is finally being used! (Although it would've been nice if North Park had offered a children's writing class then I could've just used an old assignment). I wrote my schools script last week and this week is auditions. From what I was told about the play, last year my co-teacher had to drag kids to participate but this year my new 6th grade co-teacher has magically gotten 26 kids to audition! I think this could be a real neat experience for everyone involved. The only downside is I will have to get to school at 8am for practice and that my co-teacher put a ton of pressure on me by saying, "you will make the school proud if you write the play"... ahhhhhh. At least the writing is done and now it's up to the kids to be expressive in English.

Hopefully by the end of this month I'll have my crazy new schedule down so I will be less tired when I come home. Real teaching is a lot more draining then playing "Vana White" from Wheel of Fortune.

On a positive note the sun has been shinning and the weather has been nice. I bought new running shoes and I have even seen some flowers blooming and little birds singing. Soon my mission of see-as-many-cherry-blossoms-as-possible will begin. I'll be sure to post pictures.

Blessings friends.    

5.

When I woke up this morning I planned on writing my 5 month anniversary blog post while desk warming (which was a "maybe" all day task) but I never got the chance.

Shocking I know. I was at school for over eight hours and I was fairly busy the whole time (I add fairly because some time I just stood/sat while everyone else spoke in Korean and I waited).

I'll back up. I haven't been to school in two weeks because I had teacher training for seven days and then I was on vacation for three of them. The training was good but it would've been more helpful if I had a training when I first got here. I did enjoy learning new activities to do with the students and meeting all of the new teachers. It was also nice to get away from the school for awhile, it was like a breath of fresh air to be around so much English. Vacation on the other hand, was full of me sleeping and eating because I got another nasty cold. I think my body knew I had a few days off and decided to stop fighting.

I came into school today knowing the following: it is a new school year, there is a new principle, I have two new CTs, and that I "maybe" won't have classes. When I walked down my hall I was greeted by the two 2nd graders (now 3rd graders) that came to my winter camp. The rest of the new 3rd graders watched me walk by with big eyes, some were even brave enough to say hello. I noticed the kids seemed to get smaller - then I saw that the classrooms were changed! Last year I walked down the 4th grade hall to get to my room and now I pass some 3rd and 2nd grade classrooms.

When I reached the end of the hall I noticed the English "experience" room (that I have been in once) was open. Inside was one of my new CTs. She is a mom of two of my students and has been teaching English for the last 6 years. Her English is great and she seems very sweet. Since she has been teaching for so long she expects A LOT more out of me, which is going to take some time getting used to. I am a little nervous at the thought of leading a 40 minute class by myself for every 6th grade class but she promises she will help manage the classes.

So how did I spend all of my time? 70% on waygook.com looking up teaching ideas for this week. 10% listening to various meetings in Korean. 10% hearing about my new role. 10% moving the new CT into her room. Good thing I had made my introduction powerpoint on vacation or else I wouldn't be ready for tomorrows classes.

My large silver lining is that the CT I share my classroom with is still my CT and she wants to take coffee breaks with me this year.

Flexibility continues to be key when teaching in Korea. Hopefully I'll have more time to update this week. Bless friends.

Trends

For a small country Korea has a lot of people all following the same trend. One of the biggest trends in Korea are smart phones - big smart phones. I'm not talking about big like a wallet. I'm talking about greeting card big. I have even seen some as big as a man's hand.

When I first got my new phone I didn't know where to put it because it felt so big compared to my simple but reliable phone I had in the states. I quickly discovered that my smart phone is in fact small and compact. Some of the phones I see on the bus are too big to fit in pockets and are even made bigger by the cute cases with animal ears on them.

My phone came with a free white plastic case and I cringed inside because I knew that it was only a matter of time before the case was gray. Over a month ago I began my exploration for a new phone case by visiting the many phone case stores around the city. These stores are covered wall to wall with bright colored cases. Some have ears and others have covers to protect the screens. Each time I came into a store I'd look for my phone model and either give up or show someone my phone. Sometimes they would show me to a small section that held 5 cases that all had cats on them and I'd leave disappointed.

Two weekends ago I walked into a new store and showed them my phone and the lady took me up the stairs into a small room with only one wall covered in cases. Once again there were only about six cases for my phone but finally I was able to find one that didn't have cats on it!

What have I learned? When the Koreans move onto bigger and better things - they don't stock the past!

Blessings friends.