Market Sunday

It really felt like Sunday today.

1) I got up and went for a walk early this morning. The sun was coming up over the ocean and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was totally freezing, but beautiful.

2) During my walk I stopped by the Browns Bay market and got some of the nicest vegetables I've seen in ages. Everything was very cheap, and had actual dirt on it from the ground. I'm waiting for the avocado to ripen, hopefully it'll be a good one!

3) I've been thinking about using some of the money I'll (hopefully) earn in Korea to do some volunteer work - perhaps orphans in Thailand or Vietnam? The plan is far from thought out, but it feels like a good direction to go in.

4) Brook's discus laid some eggs! They have eaten them all now, but it was pretty cool to see that they are comfortable enough to breed.

5) The nicest thing about today? I didn't HAVE to do anything :)

Bumper post: Friday and Saturday

I had a great day at work on Friday, and had the chance to see one of the shyer students I teach really come out and speak some great English! I doubt it had anything to do with me, but she's a real sweetheart, so it was nice to see her really enjoying herself. We played some English board games on Friday afternoon, and all the students seemed to really enjoy it.

Friday evening was my first Birkram Yoga experience with Jetts. It's where you basically do yoga in a sauna. As all my workout clothes are at mum and dad's house, I had to go along in track pants and a t-shirt. There were people there wearing only their swimming costume. It was so hot! The yoga was pretty intense, and we went to 90 minutes, and by the end I think I was actually the sweatiest I have ever been! I enjoyed the experience, but I think I prefer Iyengar yoga. The poses are held for longer and it's less dynamic that what I did on Friday. I like the feeling of being able to have the time to concentrate on the pose rather than moving on as quickly as we did in Bikram. I will certainly try it again if I get the chance though. I quite enjoyed the heat!

Catching up with Jetts was great too!

On Saturday, Brook and I celebrated my birthday, which isn't until Wednesday, but we moved it for convenience :) He organised a whole surpirise day for me, and it was awesome. First he made me pancakes for breakfast, which were yummy. Then, he took me to Sky City and up the Sky Tower, which was pretty cool. It was a cloudy day, so we couldn't see as far as you possibly can, but what we could see was really interesting. It was quite disorientating seeing the city from above. I enjoyed it a lot.

However, the real experience of the day was feeding a red panda at the Auckland Zoo! The red pandas and the otters are my favourite animals at the Zoo, and Brook had organised for both of us to go on a tour and feed a red panda named 'Maya'. It was amazing! We had a really lovely tour guide who knew heaps about the zoo and all the animals, and we got to go into the red panda enclosure and watch Maya, and then feed her some grapes and pear. Red Pandas have just gone from 'threatened' status to 'endangered', so it was nice to know that the money Brook paid was put towards red panda conservation and education. Feeding Maya was a wonderful experience, red pandas are beautiful animals, and I'm so glad I got to do it! She was really inquisitive and interesting to watch, and SO keen on the food. She took a real shine to Brook :) The tour lady took lots of photos, which they put onto a CD for us. Here's a couple:

 

 

It really was amazing, and a truly great birthday present!

But it's all ok (or will be) Thursday

So, I was feeling pretty bummed this morning. I was feeling like I was really starting to move forward with getting to Korea, and then this set-back! I felt stalled, thwarted, frustrated, and pretty negative. Somehow, though, throughout the day, this feeling wore off, and I'm back to happy-positive-hopeful :) This was thanks, in part, to soaking up the happiness of my students. The last half of my morning class was taken up with making brochures, and I had them colouring, cutting, glueing, and just generally having a creative time. They got really into it, and I had to promise them we'd have time for them to finish their projects tomorrow. So, that was nice, and then in my afternoon class we played a board game. It was a bit silly - a 'what would you do if...' game, like 'what would you do if you had a dinosaur as a pet', or 'what would you do if you were a bug'. I thought they'd find it too childish and complain that it had nothing to do with IELTS, but they went at it really well, and seemed to find it really fun. It was pretty funny listening to them talk about if they were a movie star, or if they had a teleporter! The students' good mood rubbed off on me, I'm pleased to say.

1) Had a fun day teaching.

2) Came to terms with losing Pyeongtaek, and probably all chance of getting a public school position in Gyeonggi. I've widened my search to now include private schools, which effectivly means my holidays for the year get halved. I'm going to hold out for a good deal though, I don't want to take a cut like that and get no benefits!

3) I'm going to hot yoga with Jetts tomorrow evening. I'm kind of looking forward to it, kind of dreading it. At least it will be warm, but I've been so inactive lately, I bet it's going to be torture! Also, all my gym clothes are at mum and dad's house, so I'm going to have to wear track pants... in a yoga sauna. Oh dear!

4) I made crumbed chicken and couscous for dinner. It was yummy, and feels like the first 'proper' meal I've cooked in ages. It was all done on the stove top using only two burners, and I thought 'Ha! I could make this in Korea!'. Assuming, of course, that they have couscous. Which is doubtful :D

5) Tonight I'm not going to bum around on the internet for hours. I am going to go and read a book.

Disaster has struck! Wednesday

Ok, not disaster so much as a forced change of plan. Most people take public schools jobs in Korea for the added security they provide, right? Well. My recruiter emailed me yesterday to tel me that funding has been cancelled for the whole of Gyeonggi province's public school native English teacher program. This means I lost my job in Pyeongtaek! The email he sent me was reiculous - it contained no details, just a link to a new paper article about the budget cut. He even asked if I wanted to reconsider that Christian school because they still had open positions. I'm not surprised really... perhaps it's because they're nutjobs?!? The oh so sensitive email he sent (out of the blue) to tell me I had lost my job which I have been super excited about (and quit my job, and started moving for):

Samanta  as this  article, all gepik schools announced  stop hiring

nothing much I can do at this moment.

can yo still consider the christian school?

they still need 2 more teachers

pls let m eknow

tha you

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/07/117_91266.html

I was a little confused, to say the least. I've had some more reliable communications with other people since and I have, indeed, lost my job! I was a bit bummed last night, but I have since come up with a new plan. 

I'm going to go to Korea anyway and find a job while I'm there. I'm predicting I'll have to go for a private academy, which means I'll be teaching kindy and only get 10 days holiday, but I'm going to go and make sure the school and the accommodation are awesome before I commit. What makes this even worse is all the other GEPIK teachers have lost their jobs too, so the market will be flooded with native English teachers! But, I have my heart set on Korea, and my mind made up to go to Gyeonggi, so I'm going to do what I have to do to make this happen. So:

Christian School

Pyeongtaek

= New amazing plan of adventurous awesomeness.

I now just have to work out where my rather expensive bundle of documents are in Korea and whether I should leave them with the recruiter or try to get them back. I'm thinking that getting them back might be a good idea, in case I get over there and magically, despite all assurances, can't get them.

ARGH! I was so nice and settled on the public school in Pyeongtaek :(

Picnic on the floor Monday

1) It was Brook's turn to cook dinner tonight, but because he is a lazy bum, he bought it. We ended up having roast chicken and potatoes on the floor of the study, heater going full bore. It was pretty fun! It's so cold tonight, so being shut in this small room with the heater on seems like a good option. However, every time I say that 'it's so cold', I think 'holy crap, this in NOTHING compared to how cold Korea will get'. Everyone tells me it's not so bad though, because their buildings are all built with the cold in mind, whereas ours are a bit crappy in that regard. Well, I sure hope they're built to be warm, or else I'll be cuddling my hot water bottle 24/7. And yes, I will be taking it with me.

2) Had a great day teaching-wise today. The students were well behaved and participated well, we had some good class discussions and I felt effective. Not much more I could ask for really.

3) I made home made hummus and took it to work with some carrot sticks for morning tea today and it was really yum! I never need to buy hummus again - it's so easy to make, and so tasty!

4) I met a couple of my old students outside school today, and they had heard I was going to Korea. There were both Korean, and one had worked in Pyeontaek and Songtan before. They told me that Pyeongtaek is famous in Korea for having delicious rice, and that it was a nice place. Woohoo for delicious rice!

5) I'm just overall happy for no one in particular reason.

Too much information Sunday.

Well, today I was given too much information! I'm not going to say by who, or about what because this is the internet after all, and it was definitely private information, but goodness, it was far more than I EVER wanted to know. Made me laugh at the absurdity though :)

So, it turns out that ice hockey is awesome to watch live! Brook and I had a great time, and Canada won! It was close, the two teams tied on 3-3, then had to have a shoot out, tied again on 2-2, and then had to do some 'sudden death' thing. It was really fast paced and exciting, and our seats turned out to be really great. We could see everything and we weren't too far away. I enjoyed it heaps!! I'm definitely going to try and go to more sport type events in the future.

1) Brook's birthday dinner went really well. The pork belly came out crispy, the mashed potatoes were smooth and yummy, and the salad went well. The lemon meringue pie was a success too! Really lemony, and my short pastry came out pretty short :) It was very nice.

2) I put some music on a danced in the kitchen while I was cooking. I'm pretty sure that contributed to it's success.

3) We watched this REALLY boring movie, called 'Stone' this afternoon. It really was truly boring. Why does this make it into my top five things for the day then, I hear you ask? Well, it made my life look warm, lovely, exciting, and ridiculously fun in comparison! Of course, my life is all these things (touch wood), the film just made me think more about it for a moment.

4) I found this webpage. I enjoyed reading what the guy had to say, and it made me feel positive and hopeful about my own travels. His site also made me consider Spain as a teaching destination sometime in the future.

5) It hasn't happened yet, but I am really looking forward to bed tonight. Warm, cosy, and sleepy, three of the best things about night time in the winter.

Surprise Saturday

So, tonight I'm taking Brook to see USA play Canada (he's part Canadian) in ice hockey. I'm pretty excited, I've only seen really amateur ice hockey games, and I think the skills will be pretty impressive. Hopefully it's not too violent! And, hopefully Brook likes it.

1) I started packing up my stuff to move home. This is both exciting and sad, but mostly exciting. It was also a bit daunting, so I figured I'd do it in small chunks. It's a bit difficult to know where to start when you're packing up your whole life, but also picking out from amongst someone else's. Just FYI, I started in the bathroom :)

2) I was at the supermarket today, and I decided I wanted some apples. I walked over to the big display of all the different types and I was just looking - honest, I was nowhere near touching them - and an apple avalanche began! They made that hollow bumping sound apples make and cascaded down onto the floor. I tried to catch some, but being a bit slow, I didn't save a single one. I hovered between embarrassed or amused and settled on amused, and burst out laughing. I wasn't sure whether to put the floor apples back or not. A just gathered them up and sat them neatly on the floor. No one wants bruised floor apples!

3) Brook told me to surprise him for his birthday dinner tomorrow, so I'm making pork belly and lemon meringue pie. Yummy :)

4) I've spent the last half an hour trying to understand the rules of ice hockey so I know what's going on tonight. I'm totally not a watching sports type person, but it's been really interesting. They sure do make some complicated and arbitrary rules for a bunch of people trying to hit a little thing into a net!

5) I've had a lovely relaxing Saturday so far. A little cooking, some grocery shopping, packing, and some reading. Nice!