Time flies

Its Saturday evening. Finally. Although this week did go fast it was a week that made me feel like an expensive babysitter more than a teacher.

I'm taking Korea classes. Just in February. I'm trying to learn the alphabet, but like I said once I can make the sounds of the characters, I still have to translate them into words that I know. But I hung out with some Koreans that I know at the bar last night, and practiced. It was fun.

How do I know said Koreans? I'll tell you. Like 2 weekends ago, Ashley and I went to a Korean housewarming party. It was Sunny and Dahee's party. They own the bar, Underground. So we went to their house and met their friends and played with their dog and ate Korean food. It was really fun and we learned a lot!

I talk to Mowgi on skype sometimes. I miss him. There aren't really dogs here. Some real small ones that people carry around. But no big, normal size dogs. I guess theres not enough space.

My last kinder class of the day decided that they were puppies yesterday. And they spent the hour we spend together acting like dogs. Crawling around, barking, biting my pant legs. Then Esther stood up and chomped my arm! I have a bruise.

I wish I could show you pictures of my kids. They are so cute. But we're not allowed to take pictures of them. So I can't. But trust me. Very cute. They all have english names and korean names. Usually their parents pick their english names. Sometimes at birth and sometimes just when they sign up for school. I'll list all the names of the kids I have so you get an idea.
In Apollo: Bryan, Gordon, Kevin, Jayme, Paul, Julia, Annie, Rosie, Jack, and William. In Aurora: Brian, Jenny, Edward, Bill, Albert, Nayoon, Justin, Robin, and Zidam. In Titan: Nancy, Esther, Eileen, and Clarus. In the afternoons I have a class that is Billy, Lily and Jessica. A class of Matthew, Thomas, Sarah, Silvia, Sally, Diana, and Jenny. Then I have Juliete, Vicky, Mickey, Alex, Max, and Jackie. A class of Brian, Charlie, Ann, Sunny, and Sally. A class of Amy, Suji, Kate, Ryan, and Hana. And finally a class of Alex, Cindy, Sally, Julie, and Clara.

Bet you really liked that last paragraph.
At the Korean Housewarming. Hanging out on the floor eating raw shark because it makes you strong. I liked it. And drinking rice wine and soju.
This is Bartender Sunny's dog. She may have been the smallest dog I have ever touched.

Woah Wednesday Continued

I was trying to add this picture and somehow posted the last post and couldn't find the edit button. This is said owl in front of said blog. Two points of interest for you.

1) I went with Ashley to play darts last night. We had been playing on the weekends under less-than sober conditions and it had not been going well, so we decided to try is sober. It was really fun. We played a couple games, met and hung out with some people. Good night.

2) I'm trying to learn the Korean Alphabet tonight. Maybe things will go well and I'll be able to a better job with this blog.

Enjoy your Wednesday!!

Woah Wednesday

One thing I will say about this deal is that time FLIES! I can't believe Wednesday is over! Thursdays are my favorite days so heyoo!! Wednesdays are long. Today was not really going well. I could not get my kinder's to sit still to save my life and we found out that monthly tests were moved up, which the afternoon kids were not real happy about. And yesterday we found out that we are going to be working 2 Sundays in February to make up for the snow days at the beginning of January. Which is fine. I would rather get them out of the way now instead of over summer break. It's still a bummer to hear though. So today was long, going fast, but long.

This picture is where the magic happens. It is also a picture of Ashley Teacher's butt. This is the teacher work room. Its where we regroup and prepare. It's where all our stuff is. That chair with the white vest on it is mine.

Anyway, today was not a great day. Not terrible, but not wonderful. And then, I got packages from my parents!! That totally turned my day around! It was mostly just clothes that I had to take out of my suitcases at the airport, but there were some surprises in there. Like chocolate. And an owl.

Field Trip

Today we had a surprise field trip! I say surprise because it was supposed to be on Thursday. I guess Monday is fine. We took the kinders to a Traditional Korean Education place. My understanding is that it is where you go to learn about Korea culture, and it is not just a traditional school, as in the opposite of the private english situation I work at. But, that's just what I think. I'm not positive. Anyway, we got there with all 42 Kinder's and they had to take their shoes off in the door way, and excuse the language, but lets just talk about what a clusterfuck that was. Times two on the way out. And you're not supposed to step on the door jams. So we finally got everyone inside and fairly quiet into this giant room with no furniture. Then two old Korean ladies came out and started yelling at the kids. It was the first time I've heard them be so silent. They were terrified. It was kind of nice. We split the kids into two groups and half of us went and I think we learned about how to pour tea and be respectful and eat traditional stuff. This is all just a guess. But we did get some tea and some sort of bean paste cookie thing. Then we switched and learned about the various bows and signs of respect. (I think). It was very interesting, but if I think about the situation as a whole, it's weird. We drove out into a old part of some small city, got out in an alley, walked into a giant room with no furniture and 2 old ladies and listen to the kids be scared silent. Very interesting.

We came back to school for lunch and the day finished up as normal. I have decided to learn how to read Korean. I've been told that its pretty east to learn the characters. As far as I understand it, the tricky part is then figuring out what those characters mean in English. But it should make some things easier. I hope.

Typing up this post, I realized that I said "as far as I understand it" a lot. Which then makes me realize that most of what is going on here is pretty far over my head and I'm basically just going with the flow. Suits me just fine. Shoot me an email if anything cool is happening with you! I feel very out of the loop over here.
This is my apartment, from the outside. See those curved windows on the left side of the picture? Im in the second one. Well actually, thats the room my washing machine is in.

My email copied to the blog.

Hello from the future!

It is currently Sunday January 24th at 6:24 pm in Suji South Korea. It is also 4:24 am Sunday morning in Indiana. I think that some of you were curious about what I'm up to and some of you aren't so if you want to, you can read this email and if you don't, I understand. I am going to set up a blog at some point but I was just looking at google and its all in Korean, so it's going to take me a while to figure that all out. So here's whats up!

I'm in Korea. South Korea. I like it pretty well. I live in a small one room apartment with a bathroom and a little porch type situation that has a washing machine. Even though it's small, its nice. Its enough space forthe amount of time that I spend here. The bathroom is different. The shower is a hose attached to the sink that has a shower head that hangs on the wall, so when you shower the whole bathroom gets wet, then I leave the window open to let it dry. It would be ideal for me, because its essentially self cleaning! The problem is that my hot water doesnt work right now, so I take realcoldreal quick showers and havent had ahot shower in 2010 which is pretty depressing if I think about it too much. I also dont have an oven or a microwave, only a gas range with 2 burners. That makes it challenging to feed myself, but luckily I like eggs. In Korea, heat comes through the floor. There is apanel thing on my wall that controls the temperature of the floor and when I leave I push a button to turn it off so that I'm not heating an empty apartment. Its sort of weird having the floor be the only source of heat, but its not bad.

So school. I work at Brighton Junior School in Suji. I believe Suji is a southern suburb of Seoul, but I'mnot 100 percent on that. I have about a 4 minute walk from my apartment to school. Its on the third floor of a building. They build up instead of out, so almost everything is on a floor of a building, finding things is hard, especially because Ican't read the signs. Anyway, I leave for school at 9am and that gives me about 45 minutes to prepare for the day. Kids come in at about 945 and the bell rings at 10. From 10-230, we have kindergarden which the age range is from 4-7. Then from 230-630, we do after school programs for kids ages 6-10ish. Each room is named for a greek god and maximum studen capacity is 10. There are 4 teachers like me at my school, myself, a girl from Iowa who came the same day I did, a guy from Texas who has been here since november, and a guy from Canada who has been here 18months. We work with 3 Korean co-teachers and then there are 3 older Korean ladies who run things. I like everyone who works there and the kids are so cute, which is very ucky forsomeof them.

A typical day- On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I spend all of the Kindergarden time in Apollo with 10 advanced 7 year olds. It's a challenge to say the least. Subjects range from learning vocab for everyday things to reading to science, arts and crafts, experiments, math, story telling, and hand writing. I haven't found a great way to get everyone to pay attention or believe that I will discipline them, but I'm learning. Everyday goes better than the day before. At 11, its snack time! This is their favorite time because its about 20 minutes that not only do they get to eat, but they are allowed to speak Korean as well. Then we work until 1230, and its lunch time! Lunch last for an hour and teachers can go out or eat at school. I've been eating at school because I don't get paid til February 14th and its free. The catch is that you have to eat with your students and if you think learning how to use chopsticks while being criticized by 6 year olds is fun, you're silly. But free lunch is great and I figure that if I'm going to try new and weird foods, at least I'm not paying for them. As a side note, I enjoy Korean food for the most part. Its weirdly spicy, but not bad. They eat rice the way we eat bread, so you dont find deli meat and cheese which are staples for me at least, you find rice and kimchee, stewed spicy cabbage. And seaweed soup. At eery meal. Anyway, after lunch the kinders have about 40 more minutes. I go to Titan everyday where I have 4 5year old lower level girls. I read them a story and we write about it. They hate it, so we play a lot of simon says. Then I bundle them up and the bell rings and Kindergarden is over. We walk them down to the bus and have 10 minutes to regroup and get ready for after school kids.

The after school kids are lower level, but older. From 230-330, I have either 7 kids or 3 kids, alternating days. We work on vocab and play a lot of hangman. Then from 330-630, I have 4 chunks of middle level 10 year olds. We read a text book and do some work book pages. They have vocab quizes every day.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am in Aurora for the first part of the morning. There are 9 advanced kinders in there and I teach science and art. Then I go back to Apollo. Afterthe 230chunk, on Tuesday I have a break and then fro 5-6 I have readng club. Reading club is 4 10 year olds and we read chapter books and write book reports. On Thursdays after the 230 chunk, i have talking club until 430. This is me and an 11 year old girl and we sit in a room and talk. She was born in Oklahoma and lived ther for 6 years, so shes very advanced but her mom wants her to work on her hand writing, so we do someworkbook stuff, but mostly just talk about whatever shes thinking about. Then I get togo home. So Thursdays are my favorite! I get out 2 hours early!

I come home after work, eat dinner, usually eggs, take a very fast shower and then either read or watch TV. Then I get up and start over. Somy days are long, but like I said, each one gets better as Ifigure things out and getmore comfortable with everything.

On the weekends, I go to a bar where other foreign teachers hang out and meet new people. I also have been exploring Suji. Once I get more settled, i'm going to try the public transportation and see more of the country, but for now I;m just excited when I make it home everyday.

I bet that was way more than you wanted to know, but that's what I've been up to for the past 2 weeks. Here is my address in case you want to send me things. I also just want you to see what a mouth ful it is.

(line 1) Katie Dale (line 2) Brighton School (line 3) Haemyeong Building 3rd Floor (line 4) #1028-13 Poongduckcheon 2-Dong, Suji-Gu (line 5) Yongin City, Gyeonggi-Do (line 6) South Korea 448-555

One last thought, the kids call me Katie Teacher, so all my coworkers and I call each other that, no idea about last names. Its weird not hearing Katie Dale all the time. Just a thought.

Social Life

Even though I seem to have gotten myself into a situation where I have a real job that I have to go to 5 days a week every week from 9-6:30, I do have a social life. Sort of. It's been a little tricky because we only get paid once a month and I haven't done a month yet, so no money yet. But I still try to go out and meet new people and relax. I've been playing darts lately and a little pool. Everyone that I've met is super friendly and so nice. Everyone is helpful and questions are welcome, which is fantastic considering the situation. It's also funny talking to other English teachers. You can tell what we do because we have to make a very conscious decision to speak in full sentences to each other, and the sentences can have more than 6 words in them AND can contain words that have more 2 syllables! It's funny though how after only 3 weeks of teaching young kids, I already find myself talking with my hands a lot more and not using words like "a" "the" and "this". We're exposed to broken English all day and we all pick it up. It's pretty funny when I catch myself talking to people from the U.S and when they ask me where I'm from, I say Indiana, while making the shape of the state with my hand.

Here are the Korean words I know. Hello, Thank you, May I have another beer?, cheers, rock, paper, scissors, and no.
This is my school. There on the 3rd floor. Brighton Junior School. It's pretty cool. I think this is a good deal.

My blog

I can't read Korean at all, so I'm not 100% sure that this is working. This is just a test entry. I even have a Korean dictionary next to me so that I could try to figure this out. However, even that is confusing. So work with me please.