아이고~~

from an activity in today's grade 5 class:

the president of korea is: ___kimchi_______

umm, what??

lady gaga, america's president

last week, i was playing a random trivia quiz game with my 6th grade students. my coteacher just wanted me to plan 40 minutes worth of games, not based on what they had been learning from the text book.

the object of the game was simple: i had about 100 cards with random things, food, people, and places written on them. i would pull a card of of a box, and describe it through words and/or actions and students would guess to earn points for their team.

at random, i pulled a card from the box. it said "obama" on it.

me: america's president.
students: lady gaga!
me: no...the president of america.
students: lady gaga!!
me: no...not a singer. president...leader...
students: beyonce!
me: NOOOO! like lee myeong-bak [south korea's president], except in america.
students:lady gaga!
me: NOT LADY GAGA! president~!!
students: ..................

at first, i thought they were just trying to be funny. but i asked my coteacher about it after class, and she said that those students told her that they actually believed that lady gaga was the president of america...and they had no idea who obama was.

i should probably add that the rest of my 6th grade classes had no problem differentiating between obama and lady gaga.

dancing queen

this week in fourth grade, we were learning about "she/he is a _[job]___."

today, we played a hidden picture game, where i showed the kids a picture of various jobs, covered with squares so they couldn't see what it was. i removed one square at a time, revealing a part of the picture, and as soon as they knew the answer, they could make a guess.

they were only supposed to say the key sentence as their answer.

one picture had been almost entirely revealed. a boy got super excited, and his hand shot up in the air. so, i called on him to answer.

his answer: "he is a dancing queen."

it was a picture of a doctor.

sick

this week i've been really sick, and with each passing day i've gotten progressively worse. according to webmd, i've been stricken with either: a.) certain death, or b.) the flu.

i feel [and look] like i've been run over by a bus, dragged for a couple of miles by the aforementioned bus, and then hit by several very large trucks. my entire body aches [especially my head], i have chills, a fever, and i'm pretty sure there's enough pressure built up in my face that an explosion will almost certainly occur in the very near future.

somehow, i've been able to muster enough energy and strength to drag myself to school and teach my classes as enthusiastically as possible. i've never asked my school for anything, aside from permission to sleep in peace at my desk in the afternoon [this week, i don't have any classes after lunch time].

however, this morning [due to the fact that i felt particularly crap-tastic, and incredibly dizzy] i asked my coteacher [who shall remain nameless] if i could leave for only 30 minutes after lunch to go to the doctor. i didn't think it was asking for much. i mean, i wasn't asking her or anyone else to come with me. my intention was to struggle through the doctors visit using my limited korean skills + my bangin' charade skills. [i'm pretty much left to fend for myself anyways...so i'm used to it...] also, the doctor's office is literally a 2 minute walk down the street from my school. the entire trip could not possibly take more than half and hour. [i planned to return to school after the doctor visit, which i told her.]

when i asked her on tuesday, she told me [in no uncertain terms] that "suffering builds character". [although, i think that whoever said this quote originally intended it to mean suffering from persecution, not illness. whatevs.] but today, i suppose she lost all of her patience with me. about 5 minutes after what i thought was a perfectly legitimate and innocent request, she got all up in my face and said the following: "i have a real problem with you being sick. if you're going to keep being sick, then i'm going to write you a negative performance review."

seriously, what the heck. i mean, it's not like i can really help being sick [aside from living in one of those plastic bubbles so that i never come in contact with the outside world]. also, it's not like i wanted to be sick, or purposely became sick. i wasn't even asking to take a sick day. i wasn't asking to sleep during my classes instead of teaching. i'm obviously legitimately very sick. i mean, you can pretty much tell by looking at me. so i don't know what her problem is.

additionally, it should be noted that during the past [almost] 2 years of teaching at this school, i have only ever taken ONE FREAKING SICK DAY. why?? becuase i had the SWINE FLU. i had a note from the doctor and everything, that explicitly said [in korean, to avoid any language confusion] that i was to have a full week off of school, to avoid contaminating students and teachers with the swine flu. however, this same coteacher only allowed me to take one day off of work. ohh yeah, and to prove that i was dying and needed the day off, i had to walk all the way to school so that she could watch the nurse take my temperature. the thermometer reading? 104 degrees. and after seeing that i had a super high fever, she still had the audacity to ask the nurse if i could teach. the nurse looked at her like she was a crazy person. so guess who inadvertently started the swine flu epidemic at my school?!? yeah, it was me. [i should add that, during that hellish week of teaching with a 104 degree fever, i cried every afternoon while sleeping at my desk, and i passed out while teaching a class of 3rd graders, who have now probably all been scarred for life.]

the thing that makes me the most frustrated is that whenever this same coteacher even has a slight headache, she leaves school. but she won't even allow the same consideration for me. i mean, i can work with headaches. but fever and chills?? a little bit harder to put up with. also, according to my contract, i'm supposed to get 9 sick days. [i've taken a grand total of ZERO since renewing my contract.]

so, for the duration of my illness i have come up with a brilliant plan for revenge. she forgets that i have one thing that she doesn't have: FLU GERMS!! therefore, in between teaching and sleeping, i plan to use my free time coughing on her//her stuff as much as possible, as well as blowing my nose//sneezing and touching her things. mwahahaha.

the new teacher

since the new school year officially begins next wednesday [2 march], all of the new [and old]teachers are at school today, moving into and out of classrooms, redecorating, etc etc etc.

also, today i met my new coteacher.

my first impression of her was: "holy crap, she strongly resembles yzma from the emperor's new groove". however, i was unwilling to let my initial prejudice against the woman effect my judgment of her character, teaching abilities, etc.

and then, i met her.

it's probably not a good sign when the FIRST thing your english coteacher says to you is: "englishee. no." while making a giant X with her arms.

she then proceeded to give me a double thumbs up and say: "you. me. BEST...[insert long pause here] together."

i can already tell that it's going to be a terrific year.

graduation

today, my precious little 6th graders graduate and move on to middle schoolㅠㅠ

it just hit me today that this is actually happening, and--not surprisingly--i'm really sad about it...

these students have been my favorites ever since i first started teaching at buwon--back when they were in fifth grade. i mean, they were just really, really good students. they were fun, smart, and they always tried hard and seemed interested in my classes [ok, so maybe they weren't really interested, but they sure did a good job acting like it].

anyways, i'm really bad at saying goodbye. like, horrifically bad. usually, my m.o. is just to leave--no goodbyes necessary. but today, i'm obligated to attend the graduation, and say goodbye to my 300 favorite students.

and now i'm wondering why i wanted to be a teacherㅠㅠ
this sucks.

winter camp~~

so the past few weeks have been kinda crazy/boring.

despite the fact that the last day of school was on Christmas eve, i've still had to come to work everyday. [ps i'm the only person at school. except for the office people. who occasionally come to check on me to make sure i don't escape.]

anyways, my first day of camp i walked in to school SUPER unprepared, because my coteacher refused to ever tell me my camp schedule. i just planned a few all-age appropriate random lessons. it ended up working well.

last week was definitely my favorite camp week, probably ever. i had 4th graders first, from 9-10:30 everyday. day 1, i had them make namecards with either their korean or english name [basically, whatever they wanted to be called for the week]. during the activity, a boy and i had the following conversation:

boy: "teacher, teacher! i will make a new english name."
me: "that's really cool! what name?"
boy: "i want to be called mr. eddie!"
me: "you mean...eddie??"
boy: "no, teacher. mister eddie. is it ok?"
me: "oh, absolutely."

BEST. ENGLISH NAME. EVERRR.

and then in my advanced english class [which met everyday], we had "spy camp". so i had the kids solve a crime, do scavenger hunts, interrogations [for some reason, i was the only suspect...], and solve/write codes. they absolutely loved it.

저는 너무 바빠요~!

i'm pretty certain that i'm the busiest person on the planet right now. [i'm writing this during the 6 free minutes that i have planned out for today...]

here's a small glimpse into my weekly schedule:

monday/wednesday:

7am--wake up

8:30am--arrive at school

9-12:30pm--teach classes

12:30-1pm--lunch time

1-4:40pm--varies [teach afternoon classes, plan lessons, study korean]

5-6:30pm--work out at the gym

6:30-7pm--shower

7-9:30pm--korean class

9:30pm-7am--eat/watch tv/sleep

tuesday/thursday:

7am--wake up
8:30am--arrive at school
9-12:30pm--teach classes
12:30-1pm--lunch time

1-3pm--varies [teach afternoon classes, plan lessons, study korean]

3-4pm--advanced english class

4-4:40pm--study korean/fall alseep at my desk
5-6pm--grocery shopping at lotte mart [only on tuesday]

6-7pm--korean class

7-9pm--gym

9pm-7am--eat/shower/watch tv/sleep

friday:

7am--wake up

8:30am--arrive at school

9-12:30pm--teach classes

12:30-1pm--lunch time
1-4:40pm--varies [teach afternoon classes, plan lessons, study korean]

5-6:30pm--gym

6:30-until?--meet up with friends [finally!!]/eat/shower/watch tv/sleep

saturday:

sleep/eat/gym/hang out with friends

sunday:

11am[ish]--wake up

12:30-4:30pm--church

4:30-5:30pm--clean

5:30-until?--dinner/watch tv/skype/sleep

it seems like i have next to no social life...but that's not entirely true. i have friends at the gym and in my korean class. i just sucks that i don't get to see my other friends until we can coordinate a free friday night/saturday.

it's no wonder that i've been sick for the past 5 weeks.

pictured: me.

bukbu english festival

last wednesday [20 october] was the bukbu english festival, and my school was invited to participate. it involves the local elementary schools, and each school's english club is expected to give a performance entirely in english, as well as prepare a poster to display in the lobby of the event hall.

i have 4 coteachers. the one who is in charge of my school's english program did not want our school to participate, for some reason. so the other teachers got into an argument with her over it. in the end, she relented, but stipulated that only 4 students could attend [the english club has about 25 students], and she put a different teacher in charge. also, she said that i wasn't allowed to go or help the students prepare. i guess the principal found out and got mad, because last tuesday i was told that i would be permitted to go after all.

when my coteacher and i arrived at the festival, we were discouraged to see how severely under-represented our school was. i teach at the biggest elementary school in the area [more than 1500 students], but we had the smallest group at the festival. we also had the youngest group: 2 were third graders, 1 fourth grader, and 1 fifth grader. the other schools only brought their 5th and 6th grade students.

anyways, the event was supposed to start at 2pm. at 1:30pm, i was informed that i was supposed to be performing with my students. now normally, this wouldn't be a problem at all, except that my students were performing a song. in sign language. the song we performed was called "i will", which i have never heard before in my life. the students desperately tried to teach me, and i struggled to learn very quickly.

and then, my school's principal showed up to watch. excellent.

basically, it ended up being like napoleon dynamite's happy hands club. except with me as napoleon.

yep. it was pretty much exactly like this.

6th grade trip~

dear lovely readers: i sincerely apologize for having temporarily disappeared from the internet for the past week and a half. life has been [and still is] crazy busy. 아이고~~

wednesday, 13 october: "do you want to hear the fish death sound?"

almost two weeks ago, i had the chance to accompany the 6th grade on a three-day trip. since the 6th graders are my favorite students, i jumped at the opportunity. we went to 금산 [geumsan] which is a mountain three hours away from my school. [along the 금강 (geum river) which is apparently famous(??)].

i wasn't given a schedule for this trip, so i had no idea what to expect. it was much, much different from past school trips that i've attended in that, on those, we travelled from place to place to see museums and other national treasures. this trip was more like a camp. we stayed at the same place the entire time. there were counselors working at the facitility who were in charge of watching the kids, so the teachers went off and did their own thing.

the first day, i hung out with the other teachers. we went walking along the river and then hiking in search of chestnuts. as it turns out, i'm quite good at cracking open chestnuts with my feet. [i've got mad skills~~]

also, some of the teachers went fishing. since i have a [completely legitimate] fear of fish, i decided not to join them. however, i had no idea that they intended to catch fish for dinner. so i was completely surprised when a bucket full of fish was brought back to the room. apparently, a certain type of fish makes a "death sound". they happened to catch this fish, and all of the teachers held it up to their ears to listen. a coworker asked me if i'd like to hear it, but when i said no [and did the big "hand x"] she proceeded to shove the fish in my ear anyways.

congratulations coworker, i've been scarred for life.

thursday, 14 october: "teacher, you have a dolphin scream."

the other teachers decided to go hiking on thursday, but i wanted to spend time with my students so i hung with them for the day.

first, i was told that we would be going rafting. which i found out really only meant "row from one side of the river and back again." i shared a raft with some of my girls, and we were embarassingly lacking in directional skills. for some reason, we could only manage to go in a giant circle, and the counselor definitely yelled at us. oops.

next was archery. two years of working at a summer camp where i had to teach archery has let me know that i am completely untalented in this area. sooo, i didn't even make an attempt. instead, i talked to and played games with the kids that were waiting for their turn. one of the boys tried to throw a dragonfly at me, and when i screamed, other boys joined in by carrying grasshoppers and more dragonflies. so i screamed and ran away. [insects: another completely legitimate fear that i have.] when the boys had finally had their fun scaring the poor english teacher, they told me that i sounded like a dolphin when i screamed. excellent.

the camp had a huge zipline set up over the river, and i got to ride it! that was definitely the most fun thing i got to do that day. except that, at the end, i forgot to move the handles back and forth to brake, and i definitely ran into the counselor at the end. luckily, i shrieked a warning so he was prepared. oops.

also, i got to go with my students to "rec dance", and we learned the dance to bigbang's world cup song. yeah, i pretty much suck at dancing.

that night was the talent show [my students are sooo cute] and a bonfire. after the students went back to their rooms, i went on a walk with one of my fellow teachers, and we saw a shooting star!

friday, 15 october: crazy bus driver

i nearly lost my life on the bus ride home.

for real.

korea is infamous for crazy bus//taxi drivers, but this dude was BY FAR the worst [that i've ever ridden with, at least]. he was more concerned with changing the radio station than paying attention to the road. [and he kept the volume turned off, so i have absolutely no idea why he even bothered messing with the dial...] he also decided that he wanted to drive in the far-left lane, which was UNDER CONSTRUCTION, so he'd drive in there for a bit, and when he came to bulldozers or construction workers, he'd move back into the right lane. he definitely ran over at least 5 orange traffic cones by doing this.

his worst offense happened near the end of our journey. we were ON the INTERSTATE. he missed his exit. did he drive to the next one and turn around? of course not. instead he put the bus IN REVERSE. and BACKED UP. on the freaking INTERSTATE.

luckily, no people or vehicles were physically harmed during the duration of the bus ride.

pictures:

adventures in desk warming [part three]

FRUSTRATION!!

this pretty much sums up how i feel right now: AKLJFSDFAKLJWEIOUAFKLNSDF8903KLJSDFAKLNXVUASFJLKLAJKLNVKNAKLDSJF2908AJFLKVN

grr.


internet shopping.

on an unrelated, happy note:

i am completely obsessed with the korean shopping site, g-market. it's pretty similar to amazon.com, and it's the greatest thing ever.

today, i purchased a piano on g-market. it's small but may or may not fit in my apartment. so my bed may be looking for a new home.

this was not an impulse buy. last year, i bought a really small, cheap, electronic keyboard. it works great, but it only has 61 [unweighted] keys. a real piano should have 88 [weighted]. to a lot of people, this wouldn't be a problem. except that i have played the piano for more than 13 years, and i really miss being able to play chopin.

my new piano is real pretty, and i am eagerly anticipating its arrival!!

child star

apparently, there's a new student at my school, and people were making a really big deal about it this morning.

this is because the new student is...

...A CHILD STAR.

apparently, she's a relatively famous child actress in korea. her most recent film was 그랑프리 [grand prix], a movie about horse racing that was released over the chuseok holiday. in this movie, she starred alongside actress 김태희 [kim tae hee], who is one of korea's most famous actresses [kim tae hee was also in the tv drama "iris" with T.O.P].

anyways, i guess my school is kinda famous now. too bad the girl is a first grade student, which means i don't get to teach her.

adventures in desk warming [part one]

this week, i will be playing the role of "desk warmer", due to the fact that i have no classes [at all] because of midterms.

ordinarily, it is nice to have the break. and i can usually stand one day of it, two at the maximum. but five?!?!?!?!? i will more than likely end up losing my mind.

since i have no real work to do, and i have ample time to search the internet...you can expect more posts like this to follow.

huzzah??

this is bigbang's newest cellphone ad. it popped up on my homepage this morning. it's annoyingly cute. also, i officially hate the smurfette, and g-dragon has awesome hair.

탑이랑 결혼하고 싶어요 *^^*

he has the greatest hair ever. EVER.

portraits~

a few weeks ago, one of my sixth grade students gave me pictures that she had drawn of me that week while i taught her class.

for the record, my skirt was NOT that short...

photoshop

today was picture day at my school, which i found out this morning at approximately 7:30. shockingly, this is more advanced notice than i normally get for any school event that involves me in any way.

i thought it was just going to be the standard teacher group shot. that's the only yearbook picture i was in last year. in the previous yearbook, for my single shot they used the picture from my arc [alien registration card] which they obtained...somehow.

anyways, after the group shot was taken, my coteacher turned to me and said, "we don't have a picture of you to photoshop. so you should take a solo picture."

i mean, i knew beforehand that all yearbook photos were photoshopped. last year, they put one teacher in charge of digitally altering ALL of the students' photos. i'm not exactly sure why you'd want to change the picture of an eight-year-old, but the teacher diligently spent about 15 minutes per photo, enlarging the eyes, whitening the skin, and removing any freckles or moles from the faces.

aigoo. i can only imagine what my picture is going to end up looking like. i can see it going one of two ways: either they try to make me look more korean, or they fix my picture the same way they do everyone else's and i end up looking like an anime character. excellent.

also this morning, my coteacher explained to me that the only teachers who had to have an individual photo taken were either: 1.) new, or 2.) wanted a "face upgrade".

in other news, the new substitute music teacher--an fifty-something man with kramer hair--is sitting in the corner of my office talking to himself. this has been going on for a while.

아이고~~

ahh~~typhoons~!

apparently, there is a typhoon. i'm not exactly sure what this means, but i'm just going to go ahead and assume that it's something like a hurricane.

i'm not too concerned, but people here seem to be really worried.

ehh, whatever~

today my school had a two-hour delay. but after i got here, i found out that all classes have been cancelled for the day.

ordinarily, this would be great. except that now i get no christmas vacation because that's when we'll be making up these classes. awesome.

last day of school [kinda]

today is my last day of school. [like, real school...i have summer english camp beginning next week.]

i would be sad, except that i officially signed my new contract yesterday...so i'll be back for year 2 when school starts back august 25!! but i guess i'll miss these kids for the next 5 weeks~~

this is to celebrate summer [almost] vacation:
the following video gets the coveted miranda-seal-of-approval.

soooo...

this week, students gave me pictures of T.O.P to add to my desk/shrine.

my coteacher also made me give my students a vocab quiz. in korean.


오늘 저녁에 집에서 식사해요.
그리고 요리해요!

fajitas~~and it's going to be delicious!!
^___^

ghetto avatar

last wednesday, thursday, and friday, i went on a trip with my fifth graders to 부여 [buyeo] and 궁주 [gongju] to learn about 백제본기 [the baekche dynasty]. it was significantly less exciting than the 6th grade trip, which is probably why i have delayed in writing about it. [not that my -2 readers actually care, i'm sure...]


since the bus ride was going to be approximately 123494 hours long, the driver decided we should watch "avatar". i was excited, because i was literally the only person in the world who had not seen the movie yet. [SPOILER alert: i still haven't seen it.] little did i know that we were about to enjoy "super ghetto bootleg avatar".

i'm assuming that the original film had a legit, at least semi-epic ending. also, i'm assuming that in the original film, the battle sequence that would ultimately decide the fate of pandora did NOT end with the music video for 비/rain's "love song". because that is exactly what happened in the bus driver's version of the film. just when things were starting to get all intense and epic-like, BAM! rain comes onto the screen and starts ripping off his shirt and singing and dancing in the street. not that i minded, i just would have preferred to have seen this after the end of the movie. [maybe instead of the credits or something...not in the middle of the climax.]

PICTURED: NOT part of the original U.S. theatrical release.

also, i did not do my g-dragon "heartbreaker" performance. this is either because 1) my coteacher forgot to tell the guy in charge, or 2) the mc decided to not allow a crazy white girl to sing and dance to this song. [i would like to assume it's reason #2. good decision mc, good decision.] but, i did have to wear a kitty-ear headband and dance to t-ara's "bo peep bo peep". which was somehow less embarassing.

on the trip, i saw a lot of places that were kind of interesting [mostly museums] and had an ok time overall. the four tour guides that were assigned to my school were muy caliente, which always helps. and i learned 17 new korean phrases.

so now i can say the following conversation:

• 영어 할수있어요? [can you speak english?]
• 한국말 조금해요. [i can speak a little korean.]
• 관심있어요? [are you interested in me? (drop the ? and it becomes "i'm interested in you".)]
• 잘생겼어요. [you're handsome.]

SCORE!! [almost ready to meet T.O.P *^____^*]

i figured i should include an actual photo from the trip.

my students are better than your students

probably.

i cannot emphasize enough just how fantastic the 6th grade field trip was. we left buwon elementary school early monday morning and spent the past three days soaking up korean history in gyeongju.

since i rode in the 6-10 class bus, i spent most of my time hanging with them~~totally ok with me, because this would be my favorite class if i was allowed to have a favorite ^__^

we did so so so many fabulous things on the trip: touring buddhist temples, palaces, parks, and museums. i learned a lot about korean history, but the trip was so amazing because it really gave me the chance to get closer to my students and the other teachers. i teach approximately 1,200 students, and i only see each grade once every month, making it virtually impossible for me to really get to know my students. i have to admit that i was very nervous about this trip...but all of my students were eager to practice their english, grab my hand, and drag me after them to tell me something that they had learned or teach me new korean words.

this trip also gave me a really great opportunity to become closer with the other teachers. i work in the 6th grade office since i no longer have an english classroom, but many of the teachers are afraid to talk to me because they aren't confident with their english [and i am too scared to practice my korean]. this trip seemed to break down these barriers--i was speaking korean, they were speaking english...it was really great. last night, some of the teachers even invited me to a game party that they were having. [and apparently, i am really bad at all korean games.] but it was an awesome time, and we all stayed up talking until lateeee.

it was just a really great trip. i don't think i can express it in words. also that might be because i got negative two hours of sleep last night.

so many fantastic things happened: ju sun and ji sung, two of my favorite girls, decided to keep my company on the 4.5 hour long ride to gyeongju. they also decided to follow me around the entire time~~sooo cute. the girls from class 6-1 spent two hours walking with me around a park, teaching me korean history. min ju, another of my favorites, taught me a kpop dance [sign by brown eyed girls]~~and it also turns out that her cousin is minzy from 2NE1. awesome. on the bus ride back today, songhee sat next to me and talked to me for 4 hours. straight. in amazing english. at the talent show last night, three of my boys danced to a song by kara. which was pretty much the funniest thing i have seen. ever. class 6-1 invited me to their "cookie party"~~and they wrote me really sweet notes. i also spent a lot of time with the 6-10 teacher, gyu-ri. turns out, she's pretty awesome. and speaks near-perfect english.

i almost can't believe i'm saying this, but i'm really looking forward to going to school tomorrow. i have the best job EVERRRRR.

also my students are freaking adorable:

class 6-1 girls~~at millenium park

silly boys~~

songhee, gyu-ri, me, min ju, min young, songee, and ju sun