Shocking

Ok. First, pictures from Busan with Marco. Second, some shocking news.
This is me looking at some mountains at a rest stop heading down south.
This is still me and the same mountains. It was pretty. And cool.
This is a picture of me on a street in Busan, the second largest city in South Korea.
And finally, this is Marco, Me, and David at the Underground back in Suji. Turns out Marco hates pictures of himself, so he only sent me pictures of me. Luckily, I love pictures of myself.

Ok, so the shocking news!

At 6:30 Friday February 5th, our director called us in for a staff meeting. She informed us that Brighton is closing at the end of the month due to enrollment being down and she was also offered a better position at another school. She also reminded us that we had to work Saturday. I was in shock. Ian's contract is up at the end of the month, so he was already planning on returning to Canada. Jason, Ashley and I were not ready to go home. So we all set out to get new jobs.

After a stressful week of interviews and panic attacks, we have all signed new contracts. Jason and I are going to be working at the same school in Jukjeon, which is about a 25 minute walk from my apartment. The new school is in its own five story building and the woman owns the building and the school itself. There will be three foreign teachers, Jason, a dude from Australia, and myself. I will be in Robot Classroom working with 7 year olds. Don't forget that a 7 year old is anywhere from 4-6 in real life.

So our last day at Brighton is this Friday. I'm moving Saturday. Monday is a national holiday. And I start my new school Tuesday. But I believe that the kids will not be there Tuesday, it'll be more of a training day. I think. I'll keep you posted, don't worry.

We had to work this Saturday (yesterday) and during lunch, Jason and I went to the new school and were introduced to the parents.

What does all this mean? One thing is that I'm now under contract until March 2011, two months longer than expected. It also means a pay raise. It also means that I'm now going to have a back up plan and make sure that I always have $1000 dollars in my possession so that if shit goes down again, I will be able to get myself home. I think that was the worst feeling, having no job and no money to get myself home. It also means that I will have a new address for you to send things to me at. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I'll keep you posted, don't worry.

It's so nice outside. The sun's out and its like 45 degrees. BEAUTIFUL. I'm contemplating going for a run. Contemplating.

I apologize for not telling you about the job stuff sooner (mom), but I was hanging on by a thread and was by no means capable of rationalizing anything to anyone. I had to decide if I wanted to stay and what I was going to do. But I'm staying. Unless I get kicked out of the country for Visa stuff, but that probably won't happen.

I have 2 Korean classes left that I've already paid for. I have to decide if I want to continue taking them in March. I think I'm going to wait and see what my schedule is like and how things go. But I'm still learning a lot. And I like it.

Enjoy your week!!

P.S. I have received some emails asking me how to post comments on here. I have no idea. Just keep emailing me. Also email me with news! PLEASE!!! I'm so out of touch with reality.

I hope you're sitting down. It's going to be a long one!

Hello faithful followers! Haha. Sorry it's been so long. I know you're dying to hear about me. Lets see. First off, I can read Korean! Well, I can make the characters into sounds. I don't know what it means. But it's pretty cool to be able to make sounds out of the mess. I feel less retarded now. It's also easier to learn new words since I can read it. Pretty cool. I'm pretty proud of myself.

Secondly, on Thursday (I think it was Thursday) we had a talent show and graduation ceremony with the kinders. It was a success. Each class performed a "musical" and then at the end the 3 classes that are moving on to elementary school received awards and diplomas. Their parents came and it was a pretty fun morning. It was across the street from school at the Suji YMCA. We got there at 9, which is an hour early, and rehearsed until show time at noon. When I say rehearsed, I mean one class at a time was on stage and the other classes fought. Due to a student moving, I played the part of Mommy for Aurora's Alice in Wonderland. I had five lines. It was the least embarrassed I have ever been on a stage before. Apollo class did New Sound of Music. Ashley teacher played the role of Maria. For the actual performance the kids were dressed up in some pretty cute, although at times inappropriate outfits. For example, Nancy from Titan, was a cat in Brenanam Town and was in a little dress that I did not think was appropriate attire for a 6 year old. But what do I know? Here are some pictures that I swiped from Ashley T due to the tragic death of my camera.This is Annie and Rosie from Apollo class. Rosie is the one in pigtails. They are so cute and well behaved when the other one is absent. Together, they are unstoppable chatterboxes. If I separate them, they yell across the room. I gave up and let them sit together and chat. Then I surprise call on them just to get the point across that I know what they are up to.

This is Ashley T and Apollo Class doing the New Sound of Music. During the weeks leading up to the talent show, the Apollo Kinders were singing songs from the movie endlessly. Obviously I watched it when I got home from work.
This is me as Mommy and Robin as Alice for Aurora's Alice in Wonderland. I believe the line here was "Oh Sweetie! You are so good at reading! I am so proud of you" [hug]
This is Clarus from Titan. On normal days she has pigtails and the cutest smile in the world. I like to call her Cutie Clarus and her sister is Crazy Clara. There's a smaller one, Claudia. She's a baby though so no nickname for her.
This is Esther and Eileen. They are the other two from Titan. Clarus and Nancy are the other two. Nancy is the one in the pic in the last post. Keep up guys. Esther is brilliant but a little devil child. Eileen is less than brilliant, but very sweet. At the end of the talent show, all the classes were on the stage singing I'll Love you Tomorrow and at the end of the song, Esther got this look on her face, leaned up to the microphone and screamed as loud as she could. I was very glad that she was not my responsibility at that moment.
Ian T and Jason T supervising the rehearsals.
This is more of Aurora's practice time for Alice in Wonderland.
And this is Zidam and Brian from Aurora. They were guards in Wonderland. Brian is the sweetest kid in class. Zidam likes to throw erasers.

We finally got paid! It's awesome to have money in my Korean account. This week the challenge is to learn the best way to send money from here to Chase to pay my loans. But I'm thrilled to have been paid! Maybe I'll get a camera too...speaking of pictures

This weekend is the Lunar New Year, so no school today! (Monday) In China, the Lunar New Year is a huge celebration. In Korea, the LNY is a time to be with family and honor your elders. Most of my kids said they are going to visit grandparents. I met up with Marco finally and saw some of Korea.

Marco was a senior at Wooster my freshman year. He was a thrower. He's been here for about 2 years and his facebook status is what gave me the idea to do this whole mess. (Korea) So Saturday morning I got up at 9, after going to bed at what I'm pretty sure was 6:30 am and hopped on a city bus. It was my first experience with Korean transportation. It went surprisingly well. So I rode the city bus down to Suwon. It was about 45 minutes. Then I tackled the subway. I have no idea how I did it, but I bought a ticket from a machine with no English buttons. Then I found the right subway...accidentally. And rode it for about an hour to Chenon. I met Marco there and we got on a luxury bus for about 4 hours down to Busan. Busan is in the south on the beach. We had dinner at his cousin's girlfriend's house then went down town. More taxi's, buses, and subways. Hung out downtown. Met a bunch of people. Made it back the house. We were then going to go to another big town to see another Woo grad that I don't know, but that fell through so instead we hopped back on a bus for about 5 hours and came to Suji. I showed Marco the Underground which had to happen because he worked at the UG at Woo! It just had to happen. Marco is also fluent in Korean so I introduced him to all my Underground Korean friends and they loved him. David, a Korean dude with very little English who Ashley and I talk to there a lot had such a good time with Marco translating our conversation that when the bar closed, he took Myself, Marco, and Bartender Sunny out to a Japanese soup place. It was delicious. And Marco learned new words for gentle, beautiful, and kind as David was hitting on me constantly. Due to the unfortunate camera situation, I have to wait for Marco to get home and send me pictures of the weekend so that I can share them with you.

I touched on it briefly, but in Korea, I'm pretty. And they're not shy about telling you. Guys tell guys they're handsome. Girls tell girls they're beautiful. Everyone tells me "You so pretty. Pretty eyes. Beautiful smile" I feel weird about this paragraph, but I think it is an important part of the culture and I want to share it with you.

I told you it was going to be long. Still hang on to mail. I'll explain why in the next post. And add pictures from the weekend. I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!! GrandmaAmy and GrandpaBob, did you get your traditional Valentine's Day card sent out? I bet it was tricky because of the move.

I love you and I miss you! Please please please email me news.

P.S. It's so weird watching the Olympics not in America.

What day is it?

Today is Saturday. We had work and had to do the Tuesday schedule. I'm so confused. I didn't have the heart to really be productive and I'm not really behind in anything, so I played a lot of games and did a lot of coloring.

Some unexpected situations can work out really well right? I hope so.

I'm so excited about the Superbowl and the Olympics and Regionals!! (Good luck Little Man!!)

The argument I had with the kinders today was that punching people in the eye is unacceptable, even if they said you couldn't borrow their brown pencil.

I know this is going to have a huge effect on none of you, but hold on to mail this month. Something funny is going on. I'll let you know asap when you can resume sending me stuff!!

Kisses!

Ga Na Da

Ga Na Da is the equivalent of ABC. See, I told you. I'm learning Korean! Haha. I'm trying. What I really need is to just sit down and study. But that's the last thing I want to do after school all day. So it's Wednesday night. Should mean the week is down hill from here. Sadly we have to work Saturday, so it's just the half way point, which is still better than Monday, but not as cool as Wednesday should be. Monday night I went out with my co-workers, Ashley, Ian, and Jason. We met some of Jason and Ian's friends and had some food at a place that cooks the food on the table. It was the first meat I've had in a long time. It was good. It was also very fun to go out and hang out. Meet new people. Try new things. Then we went and played darts. Then we went to a Japanese place that is owned by a korean girl from the house warming party. So it was just very fun. Then Tuesday, I had Korean Class. And tonight I had to do report cards for my kinders. (not kinder, as in nicer, but kinder as in short for Kindergarten) (Hahaha Cori.)

So I actually have no interesting reason for updating the blog other than to keep you interested!

Don't forget to shoot me an email occasionally to keep me in the loop!!
I swiped this picture from Ashley Teacher. This is Nancy. She's like 5 or six. She's in Titan, which is the class I have the hour after lunch everyday. She's so cute and smart. Sometimes she puts her intelligence to good and sometimes to evil. Although, today she was real wound up and wanted to swing her hair around. So I helped her remove all the doodads in it and she was going crazy. To regain control of the room, I showed them what my hair looked like down. Nancy told me it was very pretty. I appreciated that.

I just remembered another story from today to share. Bryan from Apollo is a cutie, but a trouble maker. Our first fight this morning went like this.
B: Teacher, too hot.
K: BRYAN!! Put your pants on!
B: TOO HOT TEACHER!
K: Bryan, sit still and you'll feel better. Put your pants back on please.
B: NO! HOTTTTTTTTTT!
K: Go out in the hall!
B: No. Pants on. Shirt take off!

Unreal! Hahaha but pretty funny.