1 Month.

Thursday March 21...
Classes went pretty normally. Nothing big or major... that is until my last class of the day. I think I have spoken of them before, and how the kids do not want to work. On Tuesday they did not have their homework done, same thing today.  I gave them the quiz, and all failed miserably. Well I talked to them like adults...There are only 5 of them. I asked them what was wrong... Nobody was speaking. So I got paper and told them to just write to me and let me know what was going on... Depressing.
One kid does not want to learn English but his mother forces him to go. I think he knows he cannot fail out, so he just doesn't care. Other kids wrote down about all of their other work and everything they have to do. Its horrible how much pressure these kids are under... not just at my school. But their elementary school, other hagwons, and other organizations. Homework in each of these... these kids are like in the 5th grade and they go to school and other places from 8am till at least 8pm, then each place gives them homework, and they have several hours of that every night... So I am going to try to see what I can do to at least make it more fun for these kids... Only one seemed to have any interest in learning. So, we will make it interactive.
After work, Ama, Sarah and I went out for dinner. We had budae jjigae, also known as army base stew. It came about after the Korean War when food was hard to find, so they just threw things Americans left into a stew. Hotdogs, spam, veggies... It was delicious. It is more or less just a spicy stew. After that we went to the bar in Bobo, called M Flani. Nobody had been there before... there were a lot of rumors about it. We went... upscale. They had beer which was all bottled and was not cheap. Cass was 7000 won for a bottle. Normally it is 3000. For liquor, it was bottle service only, so you would have to buy an extremely over priced bottle. Needless to say we wont be going back. We got some soju and beer, and went to Ama's room and listened to music and drank. Fun and relaxing.

Friday March 22.
1 Month. I have been in Korea for one month. Wow the time is going extremely fast.
The students all seemed to be rather quiet today. I think all of them are worn out. I know I am.  I think I started to have a little break through with one of my students. He has never really talked and is really quiet, often he doesnt pay attention. Well, in class I used a funny voice for a little while. This kid just started laughing and seemed to be happy. First time I have seen him smile. Then for the rest of the lesson he was following along and doing his work. If he keeps that up... well it may be a really good thing. One of my classes seems to be falling further and further behind. I do not think they are up to the level they are supposed to be. I know one of the things with Hagwons, since grades do not matter, is that the students are pushed along even though they do not get the material. I am not used to that and I care about teaching these students. The schedule is so rigid that I cannot spend more time on a lesson if I need to... It is frustrating.
After work Rob and I went out to Joons. We just went there cause it is an awesome chill place. Good music. Joon, the owner is awesome. A guy that used to be a bartender there, but had to quit for school, was there. Kim. He is pretty cool. He is my beer pong partner, and we are pretty good. So we played beer pong. It was Joon and Rob vs Kim and me. And instead of it beeing beer pong, it was Joons Tonic (Gin and tonic) pong. Kim and I lost the first game. So we rematched. Kim and I won that game. For the final game... we did it was just beer. Joon and Rob had an early lead, but Kim and I went on a roll and ended up winning. We then went on to listen to music. Rob was trying to meet up with some other people too, so he left, and did not come back. Once again, the no cell phone made life difficult. So I took a cab back to bobo.

Saturday March 23.
Lazy day today. I slept in a little, but that is still hard with my window not being blocked. I watched some West Wing, played on the internet, and then went out to walk around. I took the Subway to Seoul Color Park. It was nice. The weather was nice... I think once it warms up more there are fountains and little streams. I took some pictures and in my next picture post I will post those pictures. I walked from there all the way back to Bobo. I stopped at a fast food restaurant for a burger. I love hamburgers. The place is called Lotteria.  I had one called the Lotz burger, which seemed to have a coleslaw on it. The other was Bulsae burger. It was on a long bun and had 1 patty of fried shrimp and the other patty with bulgobi. It was pretty delicious. . It has just been a very chill and relaxing day. Just getting some of that well deserved rest.