Things are good Thursday

School is just as crazy and disorganised as ever, but I am totally just taking it all in my stride. Today, for example, I was told 15 minutes before my after-school class was due to begin that it was cancelled. Bonus though, I asked if I still had to stay till 6pm anyway, and they let me go at 5 :)

I got off the bus really early and walked 20 minutes home, which was great. I've decided once and for all to make a much better effort at being healthier. After my walk I bought some art supplies for a decorating project to do over the weekend. I will post pictures when I'm done. And let me say, the stationary shop here in Osan has the best selection of coloured and textured paper and card that i have EVER seen. I wanted to buy way more than I did... but I couldn't think of anything to do with it. Maybe paper craft can be my new hobby?

After shopping I decided to go to a restaurant for some dinner. I was too tired to be bothered cooking, I knew if I went home I'd eat crap. I've been kind of a scaredy cat about going to restaurants alone here. I haven't done it since I moved to Osan. Tonight though, I plucked up my courage, and felt I'd learned enough Korean to get by with a Korean only menu and staff. And what happens? The menu has perfect English, English descriptions, and the staff speak English. Haha on me :) Anyway, I had a very tasty Soo-gogi Dookbaegi (which means beef... something?). It was a beef. vegetable, and glass noodle soup with side dishes and rice. It was super tasty! And also really relaxing. I actually enjoyed sitting down to eat a meal and not watching TV or having to talk to anyone. I love eating out with friends, but this sort of reminded me that I've gotten into some REALLY bad habits.

Today's five:

1) Got off the bus early and had a nice walk home.

2) got some neat art supplies to decorate my apartment.

3) got to go home early.

4) Had dinner out and tried a new Korean dish (which I'll be doing lots more of!).

5) had a leisurely morning because I only had to start work at 10. So, my day was actually two hours shorter today :) And Tomorrow is some sort of test day for the whole school, so I think I have no teaching. Better take a book.

Pretty big day Tuesday

Phew, what a day! And it's not over yet. I had to teach three regular classes alone today, because my co-teacher was really busy with something else. It was nice to get some teaching totally to myself, and things went well, but the class sizes are well beyond what I'm used to dealing with, so things got noisy. The kids were mostly very well behaved, and I had fun. I'm quite tired from having to constantly speak so loudly though. I jokingly told Mr Baek I was tired from all that work and he was like "Oh, well why don't you take next week off work?". He wasn't joking! I told him that if I did that, I'd have no holiday days left to take in summer, and he seemed to understand. I'll bet the prinicpal wouldn't have actually let me take days off anyway. Mr Baek has offered me things like that before and then had to re-neg because of the principal.

Anyway, halfway through today I'm told I have two hours of after-school class to teach today. Ok, thanks for all the notice. I asked Mr Baek how many kids and what level, and he just said... maybe 10, and maybe low or middle level (whatever THAT means?!?). Haha... oh dear. So, I pick a nice, easily adapted lesson plan I'm familiar with to get me through this first day. I assumed class would run at the time I was used to 3.40-5pm. Well, in Korea, assuming just makes an ass out of ME and no one else. The after-school lady comes and tells me I have 14 students, one from 1st grade, about seven from 2nd grade, and six-ish from 3rd grade. Yeah, three grade levels in one class... crap-sticks. What's more, these classes run from 4.40-6.20pm. Yeah, without warning, they want me to stay at school until after 6 :( It just keeps getting better.

It's in my contract that I only work 8 hours a day though, and I've been at work since before 9am. The school is a real stickler for the rules (sometimes luckily, sometimes not). I just innocently asked Mr Baek what time I was supposed to be coming to work, and he realised the problem. He cut tonight's lesson short by an hour, and told me that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I only come to work at 10am. The rest of the week is regular old 9-5. So, that's all ok, I guess. Now I only have 4 hours of after-school classes, which means I'll have to be in 18 hours of regular classes. Scheduling nightmare for whoever get's that job... and I think it's Mr Baek. No wonder he was so busy today.

OK, today's 5:

1) I have a new fruit that I like: the kumquat. It's like a tiny citrus fruit that you can eat the skin of. Yummy.

2) I managed not to work nine hours today :)

3) I'm going out to dinner again, with Courtney and Nyasha.

4) I had fun teaching the classes solo.

5) Lunch today was better. Beef stirfry - pretty good :)

Getting sick Monday

Boo! I am coming down with another cold. The perils of living in a totally new country - I'm susceptible to every single bug. At least I'm quickly getting the hang of Korean cold medicine. And this time, if necessary, I'll nip the annoying cough in the bud!

Today has been a return to total normality, as far as work is concerned. Which is a bit sad for me, because it means my student interaction and actual 'teaching' time goes WAY down. I'm not sure if/when after-school classes will start back up. Maybe later in the week, or next week. I had to sit in on four classes today, and had about 10 minutes at the end in which I had to do a read and repeat power-point. On the 3rd graders ppt, which comes off a CD that is shipped with the government recommended, full colour, flash interactive textbook, there were two mistakes! And, really often, the example sentence used for the word uses new and complicated words... dumb. For example, say the target word is 'concentrate'. Instead of using a sentence like 'It's good to concentrate in class', they have ones like 'It's not practical to concentrate too long'. Seriously, 'practical'? Dumb. One sentence, with the target word 'although' was: 'the man was old, although he was strong'. Not a great sentence... it should be 'although the man was strong, he was old', or even better 'although the man was old, he was strong'. Luckily, the slides can be edited, so I fixed them up :)

In other news, I got one really great example of a student's written work today:

I asked my co-teacher what I should do with it. He said 'just correct it'. I told him it made no sense, what should I do when the English was so confused I couldn't understand it. He just stared at me in consternation for ages (I swear, like a minute), and then said 'just correct the spelling and grammar'. I told him there wasn't much point, it needed re-writing. Again, with the totally confused stare. So, I read some of it to him. He goes 'Oh, that's so strange! Why is it so strange? Hmmmm, maybe just tell them to re-write it'. I really don't think that's going to help, but there's not a lot I can do - the kid is WAY over their head with attempting this piece of writing. They can't even write 'my name is Ok-Jo', but have written 'I'm... in a Ok-Jo'.

Lunch today was a disappointment too. The main dish was tofu, and while the sauce was nice, I find the blandness and texture of tofu difficult to overcome. There was also a pleasant, but unexciting noodle dish (which the V.P told me is called 'jap-chae' in Korean - he loves to tell me what the food's called), boiled rice, and soup made of salty water and seaweed. It was all totally pleasant, but not as good as usual.

To make up for it I might be going to dinner with Courtney when she gets off work tonight. Just waiting to hear back from her. I'm supposed to go running after work, but I'm feeling all weak and spaced out from this cold. Not sure if it's a good idea to exercise or not. I think what I'll do it take a long way out to dinner if I end up going, and power-walk.

And while I wait the next 40 mins until I can go home from work, here's today's five:

1) The bus was really crowded this morning, but I managed to get one of the last seats. Good start to a Monday :)

2) I just found out that next Monday is the school's birthday - which means we all get a day off! I am going to plan something cool to do, because everyone else will be at work, so it will be quieter than usual out and about. Everland maybe?

3) Damn, I'm stuck on three. Slow day today. Ok, I listened to my new CD again on the bus this morning and am still really enjoying it.

4) Um, it's nearly home time? Does that count?

5) I might get an ice-cream on the way home. I need to get to 5 things somehow...

Lazy Sunday

I have had a very lazy Sunday!

I stayed in bed until 8am (which is really late for me), then played a couple of hours of StarWars. Then I've been reading my book most of the day - really nice and relaxing. I was supposed to go running, but I wimped out and did another walk instead. It was actually a really good walk. I just went wherever I felt like going and ended up in some really quaint residential areas, with all ornate fenced backyards and stuff. It was nice.

Now I'm back home for an hour before Nyasha comes over. We're going out to dinner with a girl, Jess, who I met the other night and maybe her friend too.

So, today's five:

1) Another lovely walk.

2) I bought some biscuits to take to work with me and they are yummy!

3) I'm really enjoying the book I'm reading.

4) I got to level 40 on StarWars.

5) I can comfortably go outside with just a normal jumper and jeans on now. Yay!

Edit: Bonus!

6) Just wanted to add in a number six. Dinner with Jess and Nyasha was lovely. The new restaurant was really cheap, had nice food, and we had a good chat. So, Sunday has been a very nice day :)

Big Walk Saturday

Last night's Osan get-together was awesome! As the night went on, more and more people turned up. I met some really nice people, including a bunch who actually live in the same apartment building as me. Sometimes there did seem to be a bit of cringe-worthy 'I know so much about living in Korea' posturing going on, but it was pretty low key. Also, by about 12am, everyone else was getting very drunk, and I was sick of all the smoke, so I came home. But, I actually had a very fun night, and would like to do it again :)

I did not find any suitable running pants at E-Mart. So, instead I went for a big two hour walk today in my jeans. I couldn't find any good pants on my walk either, so I've actually cut the legs off my too small $5 China trackpants and will wear those until it's warm enough for the shops to sell shorts. I first walked down to the river and along it for about 40 minutes. I had my new Donkeyboy CD on, and I walked REALLY hard. It felt fantastic, and the CD is so good! I really enjoyed myself. About 10-15 minutes into my hard-core walking I got a massive mood surge! I felt awesome.

After the river, I went and had a poke around in the Osan market. I got another yummy whole fried chicken (was more cost effective than buying chicken bits), and had some lunch. I had some kimchi filled potato pancakes, which were very nice. Then I came home, and despite my massive mood high this morning, have been in a bit of a decline this afternoon.

I didn't go to the Korean class in Suwon - I was utterly exhausted this morning, so I just stayed home.

OK, today's five:

1) The new Donkeyboy CD is amazing! I wish I could take it intravenously or something. I really love it.

2) I wore my new running shoes on my walk today and they were great. Very comfortable. I'm going to run tomorrow in my cut up pants, so we'll see how they go then.

3) On-going exercise might be one of the answers to my low mood. And I'm making a concerted, if mostly fail-ridden, attempt to eat better.

4) A nice old Korean guy on a bike gave me a big smile today.

5) A new pet store/ dog grooming place has just opened along the main road. Every time I walk past there's a dog having it's hair cut, and it looks hilarious.

Now, I'm off to eat chicken and listen to my new CD.

Five on Friday

The new school term started today. I didn't know what to expect, but it's pretty much been a normal day. I had to go and get introduced to the school (along with all the other teachers) via a video link that went to all the classes this morning. Why it was done by video and not just in an assembly, I don't know. Anyway, I just had to smile and bow when the vice principal said my name. Nothing very major. I've also been in four classes today. Yeah, been in them, not taught them. And so it begins. Four 45 minute classes of me sitting there and trying not to look like I'm falling asleep while my co-teacher talks to the class non-stop in Korean. Bummer.

I also got a bunch more students who wanted me to correct their writing. I spent my free time today working on a corrections code and chart so that I can just put a symbol by the thing that's wrong and *they* have to fix it. Because what I've been doing is just re-writing their work - not a very good learning/teaching strategy. Most of the work I got given today was really good though. I'll put pictures up here so you can see what some of them wrote. I didn't get pictures of the ones so confused and messed up I had to send them back, unmarked. We're talking sentences with one gap for every three words, and sentences that looked like : "My of lovely, father. And cakes. I love of the My father." Yeah.... what?

Work has been a nice distraction today. School lunch was especially welcome. Dumplings, a juicy beef thing, rice, and soup. I've taken to skipping the kimchi. I don't like it any more.

Ok, today's five things:

1) School lunch is baaaack! Yummy, warm, filling, and served by sweet lunch ladies. What more could you ask for in the middle of your work day?

2) The new 1st graders started today. They were so little and cute (must be about 10 or 11 years old). Some of them were even brave enough to try talking to me. One kid, at lunch, ran around yelling and then tried to play peek-a-boo with me. He was thoroughly delighted when I told him he was crazy :)

3) I'm going out for dinner tonight. I am 100% not in the mood at all - I'm tired, tense, and pretty much just want to curl up in bed with my hot water bottle, a crappy romance novel, and a chocolate bar. There's time for that tomorrow though... I better get my ass out there.

4) I'm very excited about starting my running program tomorrow. I've been getting a little scared these last few days that I might get depressed. You know, it has only happened once, and it was mild enough that I could get better without anything major or medical, but I am constantly on the alert for it now! Any slightly prolonged feelings of down-ness and I'm like "Oh crap! Panic! Don't let it happen again!". Exercise is certainly a well recommended method, and it's what worked last time. So, I am excited to get going. However, I realised last night, I had spiffy new shoes, but no clothes to run in! I can go in jeans :) So, a quick trip to E-Mart this afternoon should solve that. I'll probably have to buy some men's shorts, but that's ok. So, tomorrow, after my Korean class - I'm going running!

5) Hmmm... five is eluding me again. Oh, I know! I was pretty happy to see most of the kids today. For the most part they're a happy, friendly bunch, and I generally enjoy them a lot. They seemed pleased to see me too, so that felt really nice.

Oh, a bonus! 6) one of the lady teachers started talking to me on the way to class! Of her own accord! She was complaining how she was tired and having a bad day, but I'll take whatever I can get :)

Ok, that's all, time to go home.

Day in Seoul Thursday

Today is Korean independence day - they day they seceded (it's my new word) from Japan. Everywhere is flying Korean flags - and because it's a public holiday, I think everyone was shopping in Seoul! My first stop was Itaewon, where I have spent precisely no time at all since coming to Korea. I thought that because it was a massive foreigner centre, they'd have running shoes that'd fit me. I was wrong :( But more on that in a sec. I was there for lunch, where I found a Taco Bell. I love Taco Bell!! Mmmm... I had a crunchy grilled beef wrap thingie. Very yummy! Then I browsed the English bookstore for a while, before heading to Myeongdong.

Myeongdong was insanely busy! I only spent about half and hour there, as there were too many people in every single store. You could hardly move, let alone browse. So, back on the subway and down to the Co-Ex shopping mall. I had a salty caramel ice cream from Basking Robbins, and then AGAIN got lost in the mall. I had a map and everything. I get lost every time!! Anyway, I found the bookstore and had a really good browse of their ESL textbooks. They had a huge range of both Adult and Kids ESL books, and I'm going to ask my co-teacher if the English class budget at school might buy me a couple of new ones. I only have really baby-ish, Koreanised books to use at the moment. We will see :)

Having done a few trips into Seoul now, I've realised there's not really much point in going there to browse. It's a long trip, and there is pretty much exactly the same stores with the same selection here in Osan. With the exception of a few speciality places, the trip's not really worth it.

And now I'm home. So, today's five things:

1) Because they had no women's running shoes to fit me - I got mens! I ended up with a very nice pair of New Balance running shoes, which I have christened "the purple pavement eaters". Why? Because they are entirely purple. Like, really, really purple.

This isn't exactly the shoes I got, but it's pretty close. Mine just look more 'sporty'.

2) Salty caramel ice cream. Need I say more?

3) Taco Bell for lunch. I wish they had one in Osan!

My lunch. Damn, now I want another one!

4) It was so warm today that I spent a large portion of my time outside with only a light cardigan. I'm very excited for the warmth!

5) Hmmm, number five is really stumping me. Well, I was so distracted by being out and about, and not being run over by a hoard of Korean people that I didn't feel crappy or sick all day. Sadly, now I'm home it's creeping back in. I really hope running will help. I'm going to start on Saturday.