Today I still feel like dancing

I hadn't been dancing in a while, but last weekend in Seoul I went out both friday and saturday night and danced. It was great, and the Koreans girls loved it (from afar). I thought I would be good for awhile, but then...

My co teacher and I had a little spat today I think. We were doing the second half of a shopping lesson. She wanted to take half the class out in the hall to punish them for not still having their dialogues in their notebooks. Some of the kids had changed notebooks, since the last time I saw them was two weeks ago. This would have caused problems for two reasons. One, she wouldn't have been in the classroom, and I couldn't explain what we were going to do in English. Second, on the way to the classroom I had explained that with this lesson we needed to make good use of time. and if she took time to punish the students, then my lesson doesn't get done. So I told her not to punish them now, and called the students back into the room. I could tell she wasn't happy, but I'm not happy when she decides to go nuts on kids every three classes. I tried to tell the kids to copy the dialogue from someone else in the room, thinking co teacher would translate, but no luck. She was not into helping for the rest of class. It's okay though, we'll have a little chat soon enough.

Then after lunch I had two very low level classes, where we don't really accomplish much other than the fact that the kids are at least exposed to English for 45 minutes. So today was one of those days where I feel like we'd all be better off if I just brought music into class and danced for the kids. I would have a lot more fun, the kids would have a lot more fun, and so would the Korean teacher in the room with me. Maybe the last week that's what we'll do. I can picture it now... Merry Christmas kids!

Aside -
I had three fried eggs, a plate of spaghetti, two kiwis, and yogurt for breakfast. Delicious. Thank you host mom

New pictures

This was on the board when I walked into class, and then the kids sang happy birthday. Very cute. They thought maybe I would leave it on the board and just play a game... almost.

I have a plus account with 23hq.com now, so here are more pictures from the birthday and almost all my good pictures from my time in Korea. I will update the picture site whenever I get new pictures.

School English Examples

When I taught the conditional (didn't use the word though) I had the kids make example sentences using if. I gave them most of the if statement's and they had to write the then statement. Here are some good ones:

"If Korea celebrated Halloween then I would be _______"
Answers: scream; [friend's name]; power ranger; gollum; and my favorite answer, from one of my basketball boys: small monster because scary.
I now know him as "small monster."

"If Korea won the world cup then I would_____"
Answers: much pride; SCREAM!!; not watch because not like soccer

"If I was older then I would ____"
Answers (You can guess which ones the girls wrote and which ones the boys wrote!): travel with husband; marry a husband; cooking well; buy cigarettes; go to love motel; be better at basketball.

Jeju Island Trip Recap

I've been really busy the past few days for a change, which has actually been nice, so it's taken me a little while to post about my weekend trip to Jeju. But here goes.

I went to the airport without my passport. It wasn't an international flight, and to me it was just another weekend trip. Luckily they let me through security with a US driver's license, a Fulbright ID, and a "sorry! won't do it again!" or two. When I got off the plane in Jeju it was cold and rainy. Come on! I thought.

Friday night I stayed with Shoni, another ETA, and tried to cheer him up a little bit. He's going through a little (understatement) culture shock. I did bring him some Peppero since it was Peppero day though. (Peppero day is a holiday for giving Peppero, little chocolate sticks, instituted recently by the company who makes Peppero) Not sure that he fully appreciated it.

Saturday I met up with the other ETA's on the island - Lauren, Henry, Laura, and Lindsay. One of the English teachers from Lindsay's school took us on a little tour of Jeju City all day and night. It was fantastic. I picked a really good weekend to go. Some quick highlights:

1. the mixture of smells at the 5 day fish market, fish, pets, produce, worms, and really anything that could be sold at a market
2. Rolling on the mysterious road - I was a little skeptical, but on the right spot of this famous road it looks like you're rolling uphill if you're in a car and put it in neutral. Natural optical illusion. So MYSTERIOUS...
3. Traditional tea ceremony - besides working on sitting on the floor for a while, I tried some new teas, learned how to properly sip tea the korean way, and got a new nickname from a Korean guy - Strong Breast.
4. Eating sand at dinner - it was a seafood stew and the creature I dug out of a shell still had some sand in him. Not really a highlight.
5. Loveland - a sex museum in Korea. I know, Korea! Innocent, prude, little Korea. It's in Jeju city and has a lot of statues of naked people in various poses. Lindsay's English teacher was thought it would be a funny stop, and he was right.
6. Trying to eat a Jeju tangerine for every waking hour I was in Jeju do. I almost made it - 23 little oranges for 25 hours.

The saturday tour was really awesome, easily one of the cultural experience kind of times I've had since I've been here, thanks to the other ETAs (esp Lindsay and her extremely nice English teacher) for making it happen.

Tomorrow's my Birthday!

I'll be 23! That's crazy. I don't know what I'll be doing or if many people here in Gyeryong will remember. Birthdays aren't as big of a deal in Korea as in the states, so we'll see. I do know that you're supposed to eat seaweed soup on your birthday. It's not bad, but it's no birthday cake.

Seoul with Beth and Mike

Sat afternoon I met up with Beth and Mike in Seoul and we set out to paint the town red. First we went to the COEX mall, which we discovered has a better English book selection than Kyobo, so ETA's, make a mental note. The mall also has an apple store which is always fun.

Next we ventured out to the tallest building in Korea - "Building 63." It has 63 floors, although 3 of them are underground. From the top, you can get a nice view of the city in exchange for buying a $7 beer.

On Sunday I saw the weirdest (worst?) movie of my life. It was called Drawing Restrain 9 and it was a "modern art" movie. Apply what you know/think about the kind of modern art that looks like a 3 year old could make it and then draw it out over a weird plot for 2 and a half hours. Let's just say my only thoughts after the end were not only did about 100 people just sit through that, but we paid for it! Hilariously ironic.

As Beth and I were enjoying a dunkin donuts dessert on sunday and about ready to leave, we saw Dr. Larson (2nd in charge of Fulbright program, and is an absolute character) and his wife stroll by outside! We finished up quickly and ran outside to catch them but they had disappeared.

I've seen several people wearing a shirt that says "absence makes the heart grow fonder." I want one.

Eight year old Korean genius enters university

An eight year old boy is starting college because he's a physics genius and wants to build flying cars. Maybe it's something in the water?

I also find it amazing that he passed his elementary, middle school, and high school tests in 9 months because those are not easy in Korea.

Blog redesign

So as you can tell I redesigned the old blog. I still have a few things to work out, such as centering the page in the browser screen, and trying to get rid of the blogger bar at the top. But let me know what you think.

update: I think I have it working. If you have firefox the site looks good.

Cheongju Party

I hadn't seen any other ETA's in three weeks, so last weekend was good. I went to Cheongju and saw Annie, Mandy, Henry, Sarah, Jes, Forest, Esther, and my friend Tom. Friday night we learned an important lesson - don't go into restaurants that have no one in them. We did. We got some drinks, and snacks, because you have to buy them too in most bars in Korea. After eating half of the nuts, beans, etc we found maggots crawling in them!

In Korea, 'service' means free. Some ETA's get a lot of service when they go out. I hadn't really experienced it until Friday night. We went to a small tent restaurant and got double the rice wine and food we ordered. Service!

Saturday we walked around and saw Annie's homestay family. She lives in a really small town that doesn't even have the high rise apartments. She gets her own little apartment! Kind of jealous. Sat night we helped with a halloween party. One of Annie's Korean friends is a teacher at an English academy, so we played with 100 elementary school kids and helped them with their English. A fun sat night. I don't get much exposure to the elementary school kids so it was fun to see them going crazy. I'm glad I don't have to teach them though.

Me and Mandy and some friends for the picture

Cheongju's official mascot. The hair spells Cheongju in Korean. It's all over the city. Not kidding, and no it's not just for the Olympics or something

Forest makes his entrance just like he does in the classroom

Me on a bridge briefly contemplating the fact I've been here for 4 months