Slooow Wednesday

So, I am sitting here trying to find things to do. I have made another nice worksheet, this time for use in my after school class. 

I've reached a bit of a difficult patch concerning the 1st grade after school class I teach Tuesdays and Fridays. I think I've said they are a bit of a pain, mostly because there are two girls who are very outspoken and good at English (for their level), two students who are about where I think they should be, and two who basically need to go back and learn the alphabet or something. So, it is a challenge to keep the advanced ones busy, give the middle ones a chance to speak and answer, and keep the really low ones engaged. I have actually not managed it at all so far. I can cope with the middle and top students, but I am really losing the two lower guys.

I think I also said that one of the staff room ladies is coming to this class now too. She's there to half help me with the lower ones, and half because she wants to improve her own English. So, naturally, she's sat next to the problem kids. I thought this was going to be really good, but after class yesterday, it turns out she'd telling Mr Beak my classes are too hard. He told me I need to make them a lower level. This is fine, I don't mind that at all, BUT what about everyone else? The two top girls get everything 90-95% correct, the middle ones are somewhere in the 70's, so I feel I'm about right on that count. The lower ones, however, will barely look at the worksheets (probably because they have no idea what they say). I tried to explain this, but Mr Beak kept talking over the top of me in Korean to Chloe (the offending office lady). I think he understood what I was trying to say, but then just started saying something about next year, and how I need to make winter camp really easy and stuff. Well, that's all good... I can certainly make lower level lesson plans. 

Sadly, what I was teaching yesterday was already an elementary grammar point (and these are almost 2nd year middle schoolers). All we were doing was categorising nouns into 'can count' and 'can't count', and then using the correct quantifier (I'd simplified it down to only much, many, and a lot of). The whole rest of the class, by the end of the lesson, were free forming correct sentences from a picture I put on the OHP. They were saying things like "There are many trees", "there are many children", "there is a lot of trash", etc. They were even getting the 'is/are' difference correct. Just this one kid, the one Chloe was next to, could only look at the picture and burst out with "trees!", or "people!". He looked so proud of himself for these words. And he can totally almost do the worksheets if Chloe helps him in Korean, he just can't speak or respond to questions from me.

So, the boss is telling me to dumb it down, but in my opinion that's ruining it for 5/6 students. I'm not too sure what to do. Luckily (or maybe unluckily because I actually don't get a chance to solve the problem) I have only two more lessons with them left anyway. Come next year, they will be new students in that class, so I actually will have to dumb it down to basics. I'm looking at some new textbooks that might help me do this. With higher level learners, you've got a bit more leeway, but I feel lower level students need language to be covered in a really systematic way so they can kind of get 'building blocks' to work with. Being such a new teacher, I don't have much idea of how to go about this, so a beginner text book would be good. I do have some at school to work with, but they seriously lack a speaking component. Some of them have no speaking at all! That's fine though, I can obviously just design my own speaking activities. Ideally, I'd like a book not made here in Korea though, I am not particularly impressed with them so far.

Ok, enough about work. It's almost lunch time - woohoo!

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Wow, ok, lunch sucked! Stale-ish bread roll with a small amount of chobbled lettuce-mayo salad and some kind of meat cut into 1cm square bits and sprinkled 5 to a roll; a tiny pro-biotic yoghurt drink; kimchi; spicy octopus salad; and an incredibly bland, incredibly thick chicken rice soup. It wasn't bad tasting, so much as no-tasting. Ah well, that pretty much sums up my feeling about today so far. It's pouring with rain and has been all day. Which mirrors my mood pretty well. I had bad dreams all night and woke up this morning a bit down and a bit homesick. It's not that I actually want to go home, but I miss it.

*sigh*

Only four hours till home time.

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Well, after school class went really well, and it's made my day much better :)

And now I've got a hot chocolate... perfect.

100th post Monday!

Ok, the end of the day is nearly here. Well, the school day, anyway. This is my first 'official' day of preparing for my two weeks of Christmas lessons and winter camp. I've worked really hard today, and time has flown by! Seriously, the day has gone so quickly. The only problem is, that now all I have left to do is to photocopy and slightly modify some workbook pages so they suit my purpose and teaching style better, and then I'm done. Like, fully done. Maybe I will plan a second winter camp? I was just going to use modified versions of the same stuff for all three grades, and I probably still will, but making a new camp will fill in my time some more. Look, I have enough time to make my worksheets pretty! This is one of the sheets I made today. I didn't actually make any of the art or anything, it's basically just a collage with my own worksheet material arranged on it.

Just this morning I found out, through Facebook, not through my job or anything (!), about a ESL Korea conference for my area on in Suwon this Saturday. There are some speakers talking about things like teaching techniques, classroom motivation and interesting sounding stuff like that. And it's only $15 to go, and we get dinner. So, I've signed up to go to that on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to it, I missing some of the academic type stimulation I've gotten so used to! And it's being held at Suwon university, so I get to go and check out a Korean university too! I am a bit of a nerd, huh? Oh well.

Then there's another ice-hockey game on Sunday that I am going to go to. Laura's going to that too, and probably bringing some friends, so that should be nice. I actually have stuff planned every weekend from now until Christmas. Not that that is actually that many weekends away!

I've not done much today other than lesson plan, eat lunch, and travel on the bus :) My after school class is soon, and hopefully that goes well! It's the class that can either be really sweet, or devils from hell, so I never know how's it's going to go :) MMmmm... left over pizza for dinner :)

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Ok, after school class went well. We were still working on quantifiers, and really started to make some progress. Slight change of plans with the pizza for dinner though. Courtney messaged me and wanted to know if I wanted to do another Korean BBQ with her as she had a craving. Of course I do! So, now I have to stay up until 10pm before I can have dinner. Normally, I wouldn't do that on a Monday night, but seeing as I have bugger all to do at work this week, I feel ok about it. Plus I was reading that the best way to make friends is to almost never say no to an invite (unless you don't want them as a friend, of course), so I'm going with that :)

And here's a couple more photos from the zoo that I stole of Laura:

Christmas dolphins!

I didn't buy my hat, but Laura did!

Christmas dolphin posing.

Woooo! And this is my 100th blog post! Well done me :)

Custard Chickens Sunday

Today was my trip to the zoo with Laura. We had a great day!

Well, first things first, I made my second attempt at Pa-Jeon this morning, and the came out great! They are my breakfast for the next few days. Then I went to the subway station and caught the train an hour into Seoul to the Zoo. Laura had a bit of trouble getting there, ad was a little late, but it was actually a good thing because as I sat waiting, I noticed this shop in the subway station selling bird shaped pastries. After watching for a minute, I decided to try some and just pray there was no red bean paste hiding in wait. I was in luck! They were delicious little birds filled with custard. They were the perfect size to eat in two bites, which gave me the luxury of first biting off their tasty custard head. Who doesn't love a headless chicken?

Making Pa-Jeon.

It tastes better than it looks!

Custard chicken shop

Mmmm, custard chicken.

Anyway, when I finished my snack, an old Korean guy sat next to me and shoved something in my face. He was giving me some tteok, or rice cake, to eat. Oh, the horrors! Not only do I dislike rice cakes, but this was an extra special read bean variety! I was trying to be polite, so I took it and started to eat it. Then, the old guy on the other side of me (not to be out done by the first guy) gave me a mandarin. I chatted to them for a minute, and then pretended I had to go to the bathroom, but secretly I was ditching the red bean rice cake :-D. Luckily, Laura showed up just then, so we went to the zoo.

Ew. Red bean tteok.

It was a bit of an overcast day today, but pretty warm compared to some of the days this past weeks, so that was nice. It did rain on us later in the day, but we got a good walk around the zoo in before that. We took the chairlift to the zoo entrance, which was really nice, and we discovered we are both scared of getting on and off chair lifts :-D Once we got to the zoo, we just explored, watched the seal and dolphin show, saw a hippo do the most epic hippo poo in history (seriously, it wagged its tail REALLY fast and flung poo everywhere!! It was like a poo propeller). And we took photos and Laura bought a winter hat that is a tiger's head. Korea must be getting to me because this seemed totally normal, and she didn't even look weird or stand out wearing it. I tried these tiny ice cream ball things that weren't that great, and some BBQ squid, which was also not great.

Chair lift ride.

I'm being an otter.

THE hippo

This elephant gave every impression of dancing to the music that was playing. It was weird.

Ice cream balls.

Beaver!

Creepy sloth.

Mmmm, BBQ tentacles.

About 3pm we decided to call it a day, and I caught the train home. I had a really good time! On the way home I decided I wanted to splash out and get a pizza for tonight and tomorrow night's dinner, so I did. Luckily, the Korean for 'peperoni pizza' is 'bepaloni bi-ja', so that's what I got :-D Yum!

Cute pizza box. They give you gherkins with pizza here.

Mmmmm, pizza.

Not too much Sun Saturday

So, the plan was to go outside to get some sun today - but there is not a ray to be seen. It is super overcast, and quite dark and grey. I gave it a go though and went for a walk through some Osan streets I haven't been down before. There wasn't really anything there except for more fried chicken and beer joints, but it was fun looking.

Then I made my way to E-Mart to do next week's shopping. I got an ice cream, mint choc-chip, and bought my groceries. I didn't have any food for lunch, and the selection of ready-meals caught my eye. At home I pretty much wouldn't be caught dead eating one of these things, but for $4 this curry and naan wasn't too bad! The naan was a bit bready, but it all tasted good, and was very fast to microwave :)

In the interest of cutting down on my massive Korean snacking habit I've stocked up my fruit bowl. The bananas have a 'Merry Christmas' sticker on them.

Thrilling fruit bowl.

So far, I've been having a wonderful time today. I really love living alone! I'm not sure why, but I do. I can just do whatever I want, when I want, how I want, with no real worries. If I want to cook pancakes in my undies while dancing to 'Mr Saxobeat' I totally can. Ummm, not that I do that... *cough*.

No Teaching Friday

I've been lesson planning hard out today! I have not had any teaching at all, and as a result have pretty much finished planning two whole weeks worth of Christmas lessons. The lessons I have the next two weeks off teaching to plan. I'm pretty Christmas-ed out now, actually. I've listened to carols to make work sheets, copied a hunderd different pitures of Santa, reindeer, turkeys, christmas trees, and presents for all my powerpoints, and I've watched 'Merry Christmas Mr Bean', 'Shrek the Halls' and 'Spongebob's Christmas Special' and make vocab sheets, worksheets, and discussion exercises for all of them. Thank goodness Christmas stuff is pretty much non-existant outside of my lesson planning, I'd go insane(er). I think I have seen one small mention of Christmas in one shop's window, and one display of Christmas trees in E-Mart. So far, that's it, and with only one month till the big day, that is an epic absence of Christmas Crap! I must say, I am not missing it at all. Many of the people I've met with say how they think they'l feel crappy on Christmas being away from their families, but it's just a day right? Our family was kind of already going off the whole thing before I left, so them and I both will probably all but ignore it this year :) Though, I do like any excuse for a celebration and am planning on buying myself the Sim's Pets expansion pack, and a big banana split from Baskin Robbins. That sounds just right!

So, dinner with Courtney and Jen on Wednesday night was great. It had stopped 'snowing' by the time I went out at 10, but was bitterly cold. The BBQ place was toasty warm, though. We got pork cheek to BBQ, and it was a great cut of  meat. Just enough fat to keep it flavourful, and really tender. I'd look for it again. The girls were good company, and Courtney told us about a buffet place in Suwon that sounds amazing, so we will hopefully plan a trip there maybe next weekend.

As for this weekend, I've cancelled my Saturday plans. I was going on a big walking tour, but after looking at the subway website, it going to take me two hours to get there (so two home again as well), and I just don't feel like it. So, I'm going to have a home day, and hopefully go for a walk and get some sun. I've been feeing a bit crappy these last few days, and I think it's because I don't get outside much during daylight. I get on the bus when the sun is low, spend all day inside school, and by the time I get out, it's dusk. So, sun outside for the weekend, and I'm trying to hang out outside during lunch as much as I can, even if it's freezing. Literally, freezing - all the puddles froze solid yesterday. They'ce defrosted now, but it's only a matter of time untill they stay that way :s

On Sunday, hopefully, Laura and I are going to go to the zoo. That reminds me, I'd better facebook her to confirm. That should be fun, and I bought some snazzy (fake) leather gloves yesterday, which should help keep my hands warm :)

My after school class has been cancelled AGAIN. Wihtout notice. Well, ok, an hour's notice. So, now I have to sit here for two more hours. The reason, I have no idea. I'd just finished my photocopying, and Mr beak told me I had no class. So, no class at all today. And did I tell you I've moved desks? I think I mentioned it last post, but now it is a reality. I have to sit in the English classroom all day instead of the teacher's room... for no apparent reason. If I want to print of photocopy, I have to bring my laptop down to my old desk and print from there. So, I have to work while Mr Beak is teaching all the classes, and then sit alone in an empty classroom while he;s not. Or he comes and works in there too, because he prefers it, but there's only one desk, which he leaves fo me, so he sits at the kids table and works there. It's really not ideal for anyone, but from what I gather, if the vice-principal wants it, you just do it and ask how high. Or something like that. Weird, but luckily, it's only a little annoying. In terms of crappy work stuff, it is very mild. At least the English rom is well heated. And I actually think my chair in there is better for my back. I have this reccuring shoulder pain, and it happens at my teacher's office desk, but not in the English classroom. So, maybe moving is actually a good thing.

Um, in other news, I have made a nice lot of nachoes for the next few days, which are very yummy. I'm planing on attempting to make some biscuits tomorrow to take to the zoo on Sunday, and I want to re-attempt the savoury Korean pancakes I kind of failed at two weeks ago. I have read that the packet mixes of batter are actually really good and yeild better and more consistent results that making your own from dry ingrdients, so I'm going to try that. The packet mixes are cheap, and very available, and I'll buy some marinanra mix to add. I will photograph and report the results next week.

Weird Wednesday

So when exactly does frozen rain qualify as snow? If it's when it is frozen in tiny little bits that blow around and don't make you wet because they aren't liquid, then it is totally snowing right now. Seriously! Ok, it's like, minuscule, and you can't really see it, but it qualifies, right? So. obviously, it's freezing. And tonight is the night I'm going out to meet Jen and Courtney at E-Mart to go out for dinner. In the freezing cold kind-of-almost-not-really snowfrozenrainstuff.

School has taken a turn for the ... I dunno. All my lessons have been cancelled for the next two weeks starting on Friday so I have enough time to prepare for Winter Camp and the two weeks of lessons from the 12th of December where I have to teach a bunch of Christmas themed stuff to all the classes. The next two weeks are the ones leading up to exams, so I guess Mr Beak wants to do all the prep with the students himself, and then take the two weeks after that off while I teach Christmas stuff. That's fine with me, but I don't need two solid weeks of planning time. He told me I'd be teaching these lessons some time last week, and I have about 90% of it done already, and maybe 90% of winter camp done too. Oh well, I guess I'll just have heaps of time to make the lessons awesome.

However, in a bizzare new twist, it seems the vice-principal wants me to move my desk out of the teachers office and into the English classroom, so that will be my new 'home. Apparently he wants the students to be able to come and talk to me in English during break times and lunch time. Well, that's fine I guess. I might complain if my job was difficult because that wouldn't leave me with any break time myself, but seeing as I feel like I'm being paid for doing jack-all, being available to be talked to by the kids is fine with me. BUT, Mr Beak teaches classes in that room without me. So, I have a free period in the teachers room for planning. but he is using the English room to teach. I was like 'what do I do then', and they were all like 'ummmmm... good question'. No one had thought about it. So, there was some discussion about me having my desk in the English classroom and having to move back to the teachers room for the 1-2 hours a day that Mr Beak needed the room (now that'd be annoying!), but then they just decided I'd stay in the English room and ignore the lesson. So, apparently I'm being moved on Friday to begin my two weeks of not teaching by having to sit in the classroom planning lessons while regular lessons go on. Why? WHY? The teacher's room is quiet and well organised, and closer to the bathroom. I have a comfy swivel chair and the photocopier is right there. I suggested that I just spend lunchtimes hanging out in the English room so kids could come and talk to me, but leaving all my desk stuff in the teachers room, but apparently that was not acceptable. *Sigh* Oh well, in terms of annoying stuff, it's not very bad. Just weird.

Just one thing Monday

I have only one thing to say today: Peanut butter Oreo cookies.

Lazy Sunday

Today I stayed in bed until 11am! For no reason other than I had a good book, and felt like reading it and not getting up. It was great! I finally finished the book, and then got up to start my day. Which has consisted of not much really.

I cleaned the apartment, did the grocery shopping, and attempted to make scones. Apparently the baking stuff here in Korea is a little different because they tasted like baking powder - ewww. And I had a bit of an adventure cooking them in a combination of microwave and toaster oven. If they hadn't tasted so yuck, they would have been a success. As it is, I've had to throw them out. I'm going to attempt to make some choc-chip shortbread after dinner instead. Hopefully that will cook in a toaster oven.

Then I watched an episode of Bones, the best TV show ever, had a nap, and am now making wedges for dinner. I think I fail at Korea - I don't cook Korean food, and I'm making no effort at all to learn Korean. It's a bit hard to get motivated when there's so many other fun things I want to do. Though, I'm thinking I might start spending some of the school day down time to learn some more Korean phrases.

And that's all :)

Anyang Halla - Fighting! Saturday

Weird post title, yes? Well, on Saturday afternoon I made it to my first meetup group outing - a trip to see Korean ice-hockey in Anyang. It was awesome!

There was about 10-12 foreigners who all met at the subway and then we went to the stadium together. We bought our tickets and then waited in line to go in. We got there quite early because the seating isn't assigned, and the group wanted good seats and to stay together. Everyone in the group was so nice (and so normal!!). I don't normally feel super comfortable in groups of people my own age, but all these folks were laid back, friendly, talkative, non-awkward and really nice.

One girl, Laura and I paired up right away, and I had a nice time hanging out with her! We're planning on getting together next weekend to do something - possibly the zoo.

This is outside the stadium.

Me with the Anyang Holla polar bear mascot

Anyway, back to the hockey. While standing in line to go in, a mad with a big video camera came up to the group and asked up to yell "Anyang Holla, fighting!" ('fighting' kind of means 'go!' or 'go get 'em'), so we did, and are now probably on Korean TV somewhere! 

So, we line up and get inside the stadium (no security checks here, and you're allowed to bring in your own food, drinks, even alcohol! from outside). Just inside the door we all had to pick a piece of paper out of a box, and maybe win a prize. Lots of people won cakes, cookies, stuff like that. I won a full-sized Anyang Halla (the local team) hockey shirt! So cool! I never win stuff, it seems, so this was a nice surprise. I put my shirt on, even though it was huge and looked a bit ridiculous, and got into the cheering spirit as the game started (after Laura and I got a bit lost, ended up in a 'restricted area' by accident, and then sniffed out the popcorn cart to buy delicious, delicious popcorn). The game itself wasn't anything super amazing, but it was fun, and both teams played well. And Anyang Halla won! My new adopted team thanks to the hockey shirt :)

Inside the stadium.

Andre the Korean from Uzbekistan and I in our new shirts.

Yeah, it's a bit big.

But awesome!

And Anyang Halla won :)

After the game the group went for dinner at a Mexican restaurant (Americans sure are crazy about their Mexican food!?). Apparently it was Koreanised Mexican, but not being very familiar with Mexican food apart from Old El Paso packet mixes, I couldn't really tell. It was just tasty to me. Then some of the group went home, and the rest continued on to a nearby foreigner bar. Not being a drinker, I'm usually pretty uncomfortable in bars, but I felt totally at ease with this group, and we played an awful, awful game of darts where I sucked so bad it was funny :-D But then, at 10.30 both Laura and I had to leave to catch the train, because they close between 11-12, depending on what line you want. It was a bit annoying having to leave so early, I could have happily stayed longer, but a taxi home would have been pretty pricey. Anywho, I got home about midnight.

It was an awesome meetup experience, and has definitely made me more confident to go on more! And, maybe I made a friend :)

Fishy-cake Wednesday

Today has been nice and busy, apart from just now when I have about an hour and a half to use up before my shortned after school class - which for some reason is only an hour long today, but not in a way that mean I get to go home early, in a way that means I have to sit here and start later to finish at the same time. So I'm writing my blog post.

I've just come back from another middle school about 20 minutes drive from Namsa. The school was so big and flash! And the English classroom was amazing! The had heaps of games of scrabble, and all this technology, and it was probably 1.5x the size of the classroom here. It was impressive. From what I heard though, our students are nicer and better behaved. I guess that's what comes from being at a smaller rural school. The class Mr Beak and I observed was one of five first grade classes! We only have two! Not even the Korean teacher at the other school knew who the students were. This is much better, I recognise nearly all the kids, and am getting there with the names (Ok, I don't know that many, but I will get there). So, any way, the lesson we observed was just as slick as the classroom - using flashy powerpoint presentations and all! It was a Korean teacher and an American teacher. One major difference was that the whole lesson was in 95% English. I thought this was really good! What wasn't so good was that there was almost no opportunity for the kids to speak. It was really more like a presentation of some language than an actual lesson. Even Mr Beak, the King of teacher talk said he thought the lesson was boring and that the kids needed more speaking and interaction time. Personally, I feel this was a massive case of the pot calling the kettle black, but I do agree with him.

It was good to go though. It's always interesting to see how others teach. I'm not sure I learned too much, other than a nice powerpoint looks good and that Korean kids love competition games (but I already knew that).

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Ok, I got half an hour of after school class. I have no idea why, but that was what I was told to do. I taught four third graders the same lesson I did yesterday with the first grade. They were so much slower to catch on! I really dumbed it down for them, and eventually they were (mostly all) making correct sentences about Lady Gaga being the most stylish, and the giraffe being taller than the man :) Towards the end of the lesson we did a gap fill activity I had made. It was a short, one paragraph story filled with spaces for superlatives or comaparitves (eg: Jake was the ________ boy at his school). One such sentence was "He lived in the _________ house in the area". They were totally drawing a blank on what to say (I would have been happy with anything - biggest, nicest, whatever-est. Lol, they'd already decided Jake was the "smelliest" boy in his school!). I was trying to prompt them, and asked, "So, what kind of house does Jake live in?". One of the boys, totally seriously goes "out". It took me a sec to register.... an 'out-house'! Jake's a smelly kid who lives in an out-house. You maybe had to be there, but this completely tickled my funny-bone. I cracked up laughing, and then they all cracked up at me cracking up. It was stupidly hilarious. Eventually we got back on track, and decided a bit more correctly that Jake actually lived in the 'biggest' house :) It was a good lesson.

Later, while I was waiting for the bus, one of the girls brought me a custard filled fish (shaped like one, not made of) cake. What a sweety! She told me they are called 'bungeopang'. Luckily she gave me the custard one... they also come (more commonly) in the dreaded red bean paste variety!

This is not my photo! Click for the original website.

Just Chillin' Tuesday

Literally! There was such a big frost this morning. All the fields were frozen, and so were my ears and nose. Goose down jacket, you are my hero! I am so, so, so glad I bought it.

My after school class actually went ahead today. We were covering comparatives and superlatives, and the lesson went really well. I had structured it carefully, with lots of examples and guided practice, and by the end they (all three of them) were making correct comparative and superlative sentences! I had one slide where they had to compare Lady Gaga to 2pm (a REALLY popular boy band here in Korea) and they loved it! The told me 2pm were 'cuter', 'the cutest', 'more popular'. I was impressed. Hopefully tomorrows class isn't cancelled either, I want to see what the third graders can do with the same material.

Mr Beak asked me to write part of the end of year English exam today. I had to write a bunch of multi-choice questions and modify texts from the student's book to use. He told me I have until the middle of next week, but I had so much free time today that I'm actually done already. It made the time go nice and fast! I still have work to do on my winter camp plans, which should keep me busy for the rest of the week. Tomorrow should be a busy day too, because after lunch I think I'm going to some other school to watch another English class. I'm not sure of where, why, or who I'll be watching, but hopefully it's interesting. It'd be awesome if I was some great teacher who I could really do some learning from! I might ask Mr Beak why I'm going, perhaps there's something in particular he feels I need help with. He's all about the indirect communication, and I am typically REALLY bad at that. If you need something, want something, or feel like I should change something, you're going to have to either be really obvious about it (which would probably lead to me losing respect for you) or just ask directly (which would lead to me gaining respect for you and possibly doing something about it). So, I'll try asking him and perhaps short-cut the process.

Thanks to mum, I was watching some funny videos on you-tube (mum, have you seen the Ali-G talks religion one? If I'd been drinking anything at the time, it would have come out my nose!), and I came across this one. I really like Ricky Gervais, both his comedy and the philosophies and ideas he discusses in his shows. I found this talk to be quite a good summation of my feelings towards God and religion too.

Ok, hot water bottle, good book and bed time!

Hate my job Monday

Wow, so I hate my job. It really sucks. I know in the whole scheme of sucky things, this is only sucky-lite, but I still don't like it. The occasional good teaching moment shines like a light (a very rare light) and serves to highlight how sucky the rest of the time is. I am worried I'll forget I like teaching and start to hate this poor excuse for 'being a teacher'. I'm an assistant, that's it. I command no respect and have no value beyond my accent - which they'd really rather was more American (I say eye-ther instead of eee-ther, which is no good).. Blegh. At least I know some pretty important stuff to look for in my next job. You know, I haven't had a job I didn't like since.... my first job. And I've had a few since then! My first job was at Hallensteins, a men's clothing store in NZ. I hated the work, hated pushing products on people, and hated the policy of having to look busy even when there was nothing to do. Since then I've been a Santa Photographer, assistant caterer, assistant event helper, contract lecturer, kitchen hand, front of house staff, census collector, and an ESL teacher in NZ and I have really liked all those jobs. When I look at them grouped together like that, there's a couple of things I can see they all have in common. Firstly, the people I was working both for and with were awesome, friendly, lovely people. They put their trust in me and let me do my job, help them, and take on responsibility. They also all had, to greater or lesser degrees, a lot of autonomy involved. As in, I was left to do the job my own way as long as it got done well, it was all good (within reason). I could feel effective and like I was making a difference, even if it was just being really friendly when I took people's money and served their cake.

Now, sure the same does apply in the classroom. I do chose how I make my voice sound when I read the sentences for them to repeat after :)

Horrible bloody job. And it's cold today.

I think these Monday blues require a Baskin Robbins type of cure after school. As luck would have it, there's a bus I can catch home that drops me right in front of the shop that B..R is in. I conclude that if there is a God, he wasn't me to eat ice cream. I might not have a new flavour today... I've run out of chocolate/nut/caramel ones to try, and they are the best and exactly what I need. So, today can be a bonus ice cream day.

On that note, I know what I want for Christmas! Baskin Robbins makes a banana spit, and on Christmas, I am going to buy myself the Sim's 3 'Pets' expansion pack and buy an banana split. I may also eat pizza.

Weird thing for the day: A boy was eating a pretzel stick before class and it was sticking out of his mouth. Another boy came aong and started eating the other end and the lady-and-the-traped it until their faces got too close and the freaked out. 'Too close' in this case was less than an inch apart. Something you would never see in NZ!

I used my fancy new steamer to make my breakfast this morning. I was sick out super sugary breakfasts, and I was like 'well, eat lunch/dinner food then'. So I steamed some dumplings, carrot and broccoli and had it for breakfast. It was really yummy and kept me full for ages. Big success!

*      *     *

Ok, so my after school class was cancelled, so I didn't catch the ice cream bus home. I believe that was God's way of telling me that it was way too freakin' cold for ice cream, and that doughnuts were a much better option.

Relaxing Saturday and Sunday

I have had a lovely weekend at home! I decided it was time I spent a weekend relaxing rather than travelling all over the place, so I stayed in and played the computer all weekend :)

I did go and do some grocery shopping, and got a snazzy yoga mat, an awesome steamer, and a very cool wall sticker. The yoga mat I needed, because I'm really starting to feel stiff and it's not good. The steamer I needed because I love dumplings, and boiling them was making the very water logged. The wall sticker I needed because it was so cool that I couldn't not buy it.

The steamer goes really small...

Or really big!

My new wall decal. I tested it to make sure it's come off and leave the wallpaper behind.

I have since tidied my desk :)

I also actually got groceries, and have made some yummy burritos for dinner tonight.

My groceries! Some of the veges are from the market, so are from Lottemart.

The tube in the bottom middle, I think is tofu, but has the consitiency of cottage cheese. I used it instead of mince because they don't have 'prime beef mince' here - the mince they do have is pretty expensive and pretty fatty, so I thought I'd give tofu a go. It worked fairly well, my burritos were yummy! I had to use plastic cheese too, but luckily I don't mind my cheese rubbery and flavourless.

A new type of mushroom that I don't know. They're huge!

Phew! Friday

Man, feels like only this morning I was feeling the Monday blues, and now I'm happy it's Friday evening. Where did the in-between time go?

Well, yesterday was my lonely day at work - there were only three people in the teachers' office, including me! The vice-principle sent me home at 12, but I got a good four hours of solid planning done for winter camp, like my co-teacher asked me to do. I've gone all hard-core and am designing a lot of my own material. It made the time really fly! Only I get in to work this morning, and he's like 'Oh, here are the texts books for winter camp'. I was like, 'but you told me to plan winter camp yesterday? I've done lots of planning and none of it involves those books....?', and he said 'Oh, winter camp. I don't know the dates or anything yet... sorry. Here are the books'. Hmmmm, ok. 

So, I've looked at these books, and it's my opinion that they are way above the students level. They are books about writing paragraphs and essays... these kids can barely write a regular sentence. And when I say barely, I mean most of them can't write a sentence. They can not even write 'I like cats', or 'I like to go to the park'. They will instead write 'I like cat' and 'I like go park'. I seriously don't think they're ready to move on to paragraphs or even essays if they can't write sentences. I've seen what happens when they try to write more complex sentences, and it's unintelligible. Well, I have adapted the first chapter of the easiest book to fit into my existing lesson plan. Hopefully that will do.

Things with Mr Beak were better teaching-wise today, but worse from a communication point of view. He really doesn't listen to my questions, and is always trying to reassure me, when I'm asking for information, not reassurance. He acts so nice, but for some reason I just don't like him. I very strongly get the feeling he is acting nice because it is his job. Not that I think he doesn't like me or anything, I just get bad vibes. Not bad as in creepy serial killer bad, just like I'm a job he has to do, and he doesn't see me as a real person. Which I suppose is fair enough, he probably never asked to be made to teach with a foreigner.

Anywho, weekend, yay!

Whining Wednesday

Well, Mr Beak seemed to have a lot of work to do on his laptop this morning, because I was given free reign to do way more speak and repeat than usual. I enjoyed the extra class interaction, but I still hesitate to call it 'teaching'. What was super duper annoying is that Mr Beak will start the class, talk to them in Korean and then turn to me and go 'O.K., your turn to teach', with no extra info or anything (like exactly what I'm teaching). So I deal with that, quickly - disguised as concept checking with the kids -  work out where they're up to, and start the lesson. I'm happy chugging along, and Mr Beak will randomly decide it's his turn again, right in the middle of my sentence, or in the middle of an activity. He'll also 'help' by getting the students to turn the lights on (right after I have gotten them set up so everone can see the screen properly), or by clicking onto the next slide when he thinks I'm done with the one I'm on (and I'm not), or telling me to show the kids the answers right away, when I'm trying to get them to answer me, rather than copy off the board. I'm pretty sure he's just trying to help, but it's rather annoying! And, he gives no space for anything. He doesn't pause to let the kids think, or wait to see if they understand my instructions before translating into Korean. At even the slightest hesitation, he pounces and either provides the answer, or asks someone else. I am a much slower teacher, prefering to listen than to speak, and to give space rather than pressure, for the most part.

So, all the teachers (or which I am clearly not one) left after lunch today to do something to do with the big high school exams tomorrow. I had to stay in the empty office and find things to do. I actually managed to keep pretty busy, making two tests for later in the week, and making an over-all outline for the winter camp. I'm doing a big 'animal themed' series of lessons where the kids can learn good stuff like talking about their likes and dislikes, discussing animals and the environment, describing things, and so on, all under the clever disguise of cute, fluffy, animals. I'm hoping to get a hold of a copy of the movie 'Madagasca' with Korean subtitles for the end of camp party :)

'Cup' cake Tuesday

Again, today was much the same, teaching-wise. I started off feeling really good, as I got to do a smidge of teaching in a couple of the lessons, but then I had three lessons where I did nothing. Then I was told that the vice-principle has decided I can't have Thursday off any more, so I have to cancel my trip to Everland and come to school when there are no other teachers and no students. I'm going to use the day to plan the winter camps that may or may not run. Also, my after school classes have been cancelled for the next few days - which throws my lesson schedule a bit wonky. I had the hell class back again today. I sent one of the boys home. I didn't get mad, but he wasn't there to learn, so I asked him to leave. Blegh.

On the up side, my ARC card came today, so the school helped me open a bank account. I've got an ATM card now, so I don't have to carry huge wads of cash around with me! On Sunday I'm going to go to the Korean Exchange bank to get this account that when you put money in it it automatically transfers it overseas.

I went to the market on my way home, as planned, and got some fruit and vegetables. Everything looks really nice and fresh. I bought the persimmons because someone told me they are in season and are really nice. They are not. I ate part of one and am just throwing the rest away. They hardly have any flavour at all and are all squishy! Not my cuppa tea. I have grown very fond of these mushrooms though... but I'm not sure what they're called - are they those oyster mushrooms?

Clockwise from left: persimmons, spring onions, coriander, green chillies, and mushrooms.

And now, the best part of my day... microwave muffin in a cup! I got it at the supermarket yesterday just as a novelty. You just add an egg and then microwave it for a minute and a half and you have cake! I had to decipher this from the pictures on the back, because I couldn't read the Korean instructions. It was actually quite nice :) Very fluffy.

Intriguing...

Little choc-chips bits in the cup, and the powder.

All mixed up with an egg.

1.30 in the microwave and it's a muffin miracle!

It didn't taste like a 'home made' one, but it was pleasant, and fluffy.