Short week!

Saturday March 11th.
I woke up too early, though that being said, I was actually moderately productive. I started putting together the materials I need for my open class. I was actually thinking about going into school to prepare, but the laziness which I suffer from took a hold of me.
I was planning on going out and just wondering and going to a few stores before the Lantern Parade. As I was getting ready, Sarah asked what I was up to, and she asked if she could join. So we went out. I went by a camping store to look for my lantern stands. They didnt have any I could easily see. But the did have something that I almost bought. A hammock. Not just a mesh net hammock, but a heavy duty one. It cost 40 bucks. I did not get it, but there is a chance I will. Just the thought of going to a park to read a book and lay in a hammock sounds amazing.
We got to the Lantern Parade about an hour and a half early. We got seats which we were not really supposed to get. There is a foreigner section. Thats where we sat. Appearantely we were suppose to reserve seats which we did not do. We did not get kicked out. We were supposed to hold some seats for others that were coming, but were unable to do so. Eva was able to make it and we pulled up a chair so she could sit with up. I took a ton of pictures, but almost none of them came out. I will have to go through them and try to find a few.
The lantern parade was amazing. Thousands upon thousands of people marched holding lanterns. There were also huge paper lanters that had to be pushed and pulled. A completely amazing experience. They gave us cheap plastic lanterns to put in front of us during the parade. Near the end of it, they invited all of the foreigners in my section to march. I did. I loved it. A lot of pictures were taken of me. I had a huge smile on my face. I was also wearing a shirt that said Nepal, which is where Buddha was born. So that just made it even cooler. I paused for pictures, I waved at people. So great!
After that, we went to Hondgae and got dinner. We had 김치전 (Kimchi Jeon) which is a kimchi pancake thing. Not exactly sure what it was other than delicious. I had a huge appetite, and apparently the others did to, so we ordered more food. I have no idea what the next thing we ordered was. The best I can describe it was Korean style Bangers and Mash with french fries covering it. Interesting... but I would go back to that restaurant again just to get it.  It worked really well with the mixing of flavors.
We went to Joons because it was his birthday. A good time. We played a game of beer pong, and me and my partner won. It was some guy that Sarah knew. It was him and I verses Sarah and Eva. Sarah and I did not drink much there, Eva had a little more. Getting her into a cab was a bit tricky, but we were successful! Sarah and I went back to Bobo and saw Ama and his GF just getting back too. Random chance at 4am.

Sunday May 12.
Mothers Day!
I woke up early, especially considering that I did not go to bed until late. It is what it is. I worked on some stuff for work and did my laundry. That was it. Went to church, and after that, they dad dinner. They had spaghetti. I think it is funny how much Koreans love spaghetti. Anyway, they gave me a fork because they were afraid I would not be able to eat spaghetti with chopsticks. WRONG. I am not great at chopsticks, but I was better than some of the Koreans. I was able to pick up a bunch of noodles, I was able to pick up single noodles without breaking them. All were impressed. They thought it was really spicy, and none of them could believe that I did not break a sweat. All of them did.
I went to homeplus because I wanted to buy some stuff. When I got there, I did not feel like buying anything, so I just walked around and looked at stuff.
I got home and called home and talked to my parents for nearly 2 hours. Got ready for bed. Very simple Sunday.

Monday May 13
School. Energetic kids. Short week. Sharon cried again today. It really interesting because she did not used to ever cry. She was loud, so Ronnie came in and asked what was going on. She was crying because I would not let her get water. Why did I not let her get water you may be asking. The rule in my class is one person can get water at a time unless it is snack time. Someone else already had water and she was behind on her work. The other rule is that you have to be on the right page, which she was not. Right when she was stopping is when Ronnie came in and got her. I have no doubts he gave her water.
This is something that all of us foreign teachers have noticed. These kids are babied. If they get in trouble and have to see Ronnie or Louise, they do not get yelled at, they get given candy. If they cry, they get taken out of class and are given candy. I know the school wants to keep the kids happy, but when this happens, it completely undermines the rules and authority of the classroom. Kids used to fear being sent to the principals office. Now if they go, they know they wont get yelled at and will get candy. If a kid cries for some simple reason, instead of bucking up, they get given everything they want. There is cartoon that talks about this. I will have to find it...
One thing that I am starting to do a little though we really are not supposed to, is to drop a work of Korean in. Granted, I do this extremely rarely. Today when the lunch lady came by to pick up the trays left in our class, I quietly said thank you in Korean (she does not speak English). Or when I hear students pointing and saying 'this' or 'that' in Korean, I say, no not that in English. Or if they are talking about something where I recognize a word, I use that word in English. So if they are talking about water in Korean, I go up and start talking about water in English. It keeps the kids on their toes. If they think I know what they are saying in Korean, they do not seem to speak as much Korean. Its like sometimes they talk it as a secret language, but if they think I understand it, they don't want to get in trouble. It is one of the tricks that the English teachers use. It seems to get us a little respect with the students. Then when they ask you to say something in Korean, we never do, we just say English only at ECC.
In my Canada class, I have a girl that lifts up her shirt. Most of the time it is just to her belly but sometimes it goes a bit higher than that. It just started, and I keep telling her no. I tell all of my students no. She seems to be doing it to elicit a reaction from the class, which she gets, but then after she does it, one of the boys does it ant it gets a far bigger reaction. This has only started since the weather started to get warm. They are only first graders. In one of the other classes, they had paper doll types of things talking about clothes etc. And both the little girl and the little boy were topless. So maybe in Korea there is not the same shaming standard put on children... Maybe that does not happen until later in life. I'll talk to one of my co-teachers about it. I do not want to impose any standards that are against the cultural norm.
I stayed after and worked on my open class stuff. I have done more cutting today that I have probably done in a decade. printed and then had to cut out the numbers 0-10 (twice) the words zero-ten (twice) groups of apples 0-10 (twice) and then the  +-= signs twice. So that is like 72 things I had to cut out. Then I had to laminate them all. then I had to cut all 72 things out of the laminate. So that took far longer than I was expecting.
I was going to order McDonalds today, because I was just worn out and did not want to have to leave my apartment and I just wanted some junk food. Instead I went and got Pizza. More food for less money, and still fulfilled my junk food craving. Sometimes you just want something that is cheap and will fill you up. Lunch today was huge. It was the birthday celebration day, so there was a lot of extra fruit with normal lunch. But the 7 hours between lunch and leaving school just really depletes that lunch energy.
I came home and worked on the open class project for Denmark. Now I am getting ready to go to bed.