Independence Day! Go America.
My Thursdays this month are going to be awesome! Out of the 6 Kindy classes I teach, 3 are gym time. Which means I do nothing. Out of the other 3 classes, one is Cartoon. so that is an easy class. So I pretty much teach 2 Kindy classes, my firstgraders, and Korea class. Not a hard day. Ama and I even went to Subway for lunch. Got a meatball sub and it was delicious. Nobody cried for me... though when I went by the gym to check on my kids, Juliet was crying.
Korea class was okay. I need to talk to Louise and Rachel. We are supposed to go over 2 chapters in one class. Each chapter has 20 words and 3 work pages. That is 40 words and 6 work pages in a 50 minute class. The class would be so much easier to teach if I got to spend time actually defining and giving examples of the words they are supposed to be learning. Brushing over them quickly is not a great thing to do, and it makes the class so hard to teach because the kids have no time to learn the words. I would have a tough time learning 40 new words and definitions in 50 minutes, let alone trying to do all of the other work. I also had the kids write down songs last week that they would want me to play in class. I did. It seemed to make the class go a little quicker because it livened up the students. What I can do to make it fun... well that is what I need to try to do.
Rob and I had a quasi double date. Not a real one. He was going out with a girl and she was bringing a friend. So Rob brought me along. It was obvious that her friend was just there incase Rob was a creeper. As soon as she sat down, she was on her cellphone the entire time. Perfectly okay with me though. We went to a German restaurant. Though we only had Korean food there. I was disappointed. The one good thing they had was beer that they brewed themselves. It actually had flavor, and that made me happy. So Rob, the girl he was there to see, and myself all had a good time. It was raining outside, but I got to see some cool looking buildings in Gangnam. I want to go there some time and look at all of the architecture there. Some parts of Seoul is very boring architecturally. But some the buildings that have been being build in the last 20 years are fantastic.
Rob and I came home and it was just a simple night.
Friday July 5th
School went pretty quickly today. We did cartoon in france class. We have to assign characters in class. All of the other classes are okay with it. They can work out who is who, or if they can, I just assign them randomly and the kids are disappointed, but they accept it. Not with france. They cry when they dont get their way. So I just made them sit quitely for 5 minutes and told them I would have their assignments on Monday. Very frustrating.
I need to change my schedules around to make all of my classes have better schedules on Friday. They kids are all antsy, and my Friday schedules are all boring. I need to have a fun class with good subject matter on Friday.
Firstgrade was good. Billy got mad and threw a pencil. So I sat down and spoke directly to him and had him pick up the pencil. He would not get it. Ronnie came in. He did not say anything! He just stood. I kept asking Billy to pick it up. I took Billy into the hallway and spoke to him. I praised him for being a good and smart student and told him he was a leader of the class and I needed him to act like it. We went in, and he went to pick up the pencil, though the class already picked it up for him. He then apologized to the class. Then William, the person that got Billy mad, I had him apologize to Billy. After class Ronnie asked me what happened, and I told him. He just shook his head. But I appreciated him not taking matters into his own hands. Billy is a student that many people did not like (He was the kid that made another students nose bleed earlier this year). Teachers were afraid of him. I think Ronnie may have just not wanted to get involved. But I praising Billy and treating him like an adult seems to get him to act better than coddling him.
Angela (my coteacher for Greece) was talking to be about getting work done in class. She was telling me everything that I needed to do. So I pulled out one of the things that she wants me to do in class. She is Korean but fluent in English. It took her 5 minutes to figure the answers in one excercise... I am supposed to do 4 of those with my students, plus our reading, plus our workbook, plus listening to our CD. I do not think she realized how difficult these things were. She expects 10 year olds that are just learning the language to be able to do something that she cannot. I'll try to figure out how to do it.
At night we went to Hongdae to meet up with one of Robs friends, James. He lives in the southern part of Korea. He comes up occasionally. We went for BBQ, then went to Joons because we wanted to play beer pong. So it was Rob and James vs me and Ama. We won. then It was Sarah and Bella vs Me and Ama, and we won. Then we played some strangers and won, played against other strangers and won, then finally it was Joon and his friend, vs, Me and one of the people that I previously beat. We won. I was undefeated in 5 games of beer pong. The good thing about winning is you drink less. The other team drinks whatever cups you still have full. Winning you drink a lot less then losing.
Got taco bell and we took a cab home.
Saturday July 6th.
We were going to go to a big water park today. We were going to meet downstairs at 8. Well last night 4 people cancelled. So Sarah, Rob and I all texted. It was just us 3. So we decided that we were not going to do it. Ama texted when he woke up. By then it was already too late. Instead of a water park, we went to a pool. The swimming pools in Korea are pretty horrible. Everyone (including bald me) has to wear a shower cap in the pool. The pool was only about 4 feet deep. And everyone has to get out of the pool for 15 minutes out of the hour. They literally make everyone get out of the water for 15 minutes. Its incredibly weird. We running joke (at least among expats) is that if you are in for longer than 45 minutes, you will drown. There are a lot of Koreans that are scared of the water and scared of drowning. Never the less,there are the mandatory rest breaks. So if I wanted to spend all day in the pool, well, I cant. Even though I could be on my knees and my head still above the water. No diving boards... no deep part. But thats how all pools are here. Also it was comical to see all of the kids in the kid part of the pool with life vests, floaties, interttubes, and evertything. The water there was even more shallow than the adult side. But every kid had a flotation aid of some sort. We left the pool and got back to Bobo.
Rob, Sarah, and I instead of staying and drinking, we decided to go out and explore. We walked across the bridge of life at night and got to see the signs light up. We took a cab to Namsan Tower (Seoul Tower). We took a cable car to the top of the mountain.
By the time we got there, the tower itself was cloased so we could not go to the top of that, but we walked around the top of the mountain, looked at the city lights of Seoul.
There is a fence on the tower where people put locks to symbolize their love. We tried to find the lock that Rob put up there with his ex. we could not find it. There are literally millions of locks up there and he loosely remembered the general area.
We walked down the hill. As we were looking at a map, we started talking to 2 girls that were a little confused. 2 Teens from Hong Kong visiting Seoul. So they joind us for the walk down. I think there were a little scared to walk alone. They could speak English, but not Korean. So we ware walking down. Then 2 bikes pass right by me, I could feel the wind from them. They are speeding down the side of the mountain. I say "well thats safe." Then a few seconds later, wack. A bike speeds into my back and hits me hard. I am walking on the walkway, not the road where the bikes are going. I guess he took the turn too wide. I take 2 quick steps and maintain my balance. This guy gets thrown from his bike and slides. My friends said it looked just like him hitting a brick wall. Nobody was hurt. Though if he would have hit anyone else (especially one of the teens from Hong Kong) then someone could have gotten injured pretty bad. We get to the bottom of the mountain, and they catch a cab.
Rob and Sarah and I just keep walking and talking and looking around Seoul. I climbed and sat on a wall with rocks overhanging. I scratched my arm a little, but I was happy I was able to climb it.
We walked and walked. We were walking till nearly 3 in the morning. Then we took a cab back to Bobo.
We did the whole trip not drinking. I think the three of us are strarting to feel like we are getting a little trapped in the same routine. Not only the drinking aspect, but the things we do. So it was refreshing to get out of that. Not that there is a problem with that routine... but going to Hongdae and drinking and dancing, or sitting out in front of the GS mart all night... there is so much more to do. Hopefully we will start doing more things like this.
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