Christmas Play

here are the actual songs I'm going to use in the Christmas play:






I think the dance is going to be awesome.

Money and Drugs

So I got tired of not being able to breathe out of my nose on a regular basis and went to the doctor on Saturday morning. I feel fine but I think by this point in time I have a sinus infection so I figured I'd go to the doctor, get some antibiotics and everything would be alright. After all, the place is called Good Doctor.

So I go there and talk to the doctor and the office kind of looks like my dad's office with a medical bench pushed back against the wall. Kinda weird.

He gave me a prescription for 3 days. Don't antibiotics take longer to work than that? I am skeptical as to the effectiveness of these little pills. Especially since several other teachers have also told me that they too are skeptical. And why would I listen to a doctor when I can listen to 10 other 20-somethings?


The drugs came in 9 little individual packages that were stuck together, much like Kathrine's homemade vitamin packets that she brought on the bike trip. Finally, Sophia's joke makes sense 3 months later.


The pills themselves look like this:

If my memory serves me correctly the last time I took antibiotics they were nice pink and blue capsules (recall 365 blog: day 1). I'm not saying that all antibiotics have to be pink and blue but I was under the impression that most of them were capsules.

I'm going back to see the doctor Monday. I saw another teacher over the weekend and she told me to ask the doctor for the shot. I don't really know what it is but apparently it makes you feel better.

I find this funny because the last time someone was given a mystery injection to help them feel better Judy Garland ended up strung out on amphetamines.

.....

In other news, I have decided to take a few months off as I have recently decided to retire from teaching as I have come into a lot of money.

Best package ever

So my sister sent me the greatest care package ever. It included this homemade stuffed animal which was kind of awesome...especially because it took me a little while to figure out. I didn't realize it until I noticed that my sister put my initials on the back. Oh and there was a lot of melamine free chocolate aaaand two newspapers with 3 crossword puzzles.

Play time

I need to write a 15 minute play this weekend that is based on Peter Pan. It also needs to have two songs. I think this might be one of them.

Alive museum

There was another LCI field trip last week. Which means...pictures!! ...and, uh, pictures!!! and then maybe some play time but probably not. I was kind of surprised they scheduled it because the whole thing is in Korean. But when we got their I think I figured it out when we got there: cardboard head cutouts!! What could make cuter pictures than that?

D.Y.

Julie

Another winner, D.S.




This is Brian. He isn't actually in my class. He's in Shannon's. He's kind of
unbelievable and this painting is emblematic of how he dresses. Everyday his outfits
involve some amount of sequins, sparkles, rhinestone or all three.
On the rare day when he doesn't wear any of these things it's because he's wearing
animal prints. On extra special days he's wearing animal prints and sparkles.

Picture day at LCI

**Note: I officially hate my camera and can't wait until I have a chance to buy a new one. For some reason my camera has been washing out all shots that I've been taking, regardless of the lighting. So these picture day pics are kind of bad. Sorry

This Friday was picture day at LCI for all of the 7 year olds. This is not a ramshackle operation. There were 2 professional photographers at the school all day. The kids get decked out for this too. Here are some of my favorite outfits.


Daniel S. Ginger & Julie


Gus Robin

I love Robin's tiny tie, especially because it clips together in the back.

Honorable mentions include Eric, who is wearing a Canadian tux in the background of Gus' photo.

But of course the supreme sartorial victor was my little space cadet: Daniel S.!!


Daniel S.

His mom put him in a little tuxedo!! I love it.


So, anyway, picture day here is no joke. It took 2.5 hours. We started on the roof where we have a little garden. the photographer had them all do little poses at different places on the roof top. Then we went to the Big Room where they had portraits wearing a cap and gown. Severl were taken of each child because they wanted to have a range of facial expressions I guess. Then we moved up to the library where we all gathered around a book that I had to pretend to read. The photographer then came up and stated posing the children all around me, as we all tried to read one book.

Finally, we had the classroom shots, group and individual shots with teacher. I got to leave 5 minutes after the lunch bell rang. My kids told me later that the classroom pictures continued through most of lunch.


In other news, DJ Shadow came to Hongdae on Friday so we went!! Good times were had by all. AND in order to get into the women's restroom you had to go through the laser jail!

Learn all about Pepero Day here!

In other news, my birthday was really nice. Some other teachers and I went out for dinner and hookah. It has been a bit of a long dragged out affair because of the time difference at home and the fact that I didn't really tell anyone except for my kids that it was my birthday. So, Ffriday night it is!

Great things

Well, it has been a pretty good week.  Halloween last Friday was a lot of fun.  I am the zombie in the front row with the bloody t-shirt.  Joel was a theater major in college and he took a make-up class.  Needless to say, we looked great.  In my class of 11 I had 5 princesses (every girl), 2 power rangers and a pirate (complete with a spare moustache in case his were to fall off).  The best part about the power rangers is that they all had little foam 8-packs and biceps.

Claire is a princess!!  (Oh, but so is Julie and Vicky and Yuna and Ginger)

Nooo!!  Teacher!!!!  We don't want to read!!

In more recent news (11/7) a third-year Kinder had a birthday party on Friday.  Uh, this wasn't just any party though.  His mom ordered 15 large Pizza Hut pizzas and chicken nuggets and potato wedges AND a small crate of clementines.  Oh, there was also a giant cake in a big pink box.

This is obviously only 3 pizzas.  The rest are piled on Shannon's desk. 

Here's the actual cake.  There were also 7 matchbox cars on it.  Oh, did I mention that this kid's dad bought a yellow Lambourghini last week?  Because he did.  (Patrick's hand is in there for scale)

Not too much going on

Not too much going on over here. Halloween is tomorrow so my little kids are already really excited.

Some choice quotes from the past few weeks.

from a student essay: "I want a cell phone that is new, expensive and has video conferencing."

from a Kinder's journal: "I am going to the Grandma's house."

a conversation between another teacher (American) and my team leader (Korean):

Teacher: Listen to what one of my students wrote " Australians are too tall." I love this sentence.
Team leader: What's the matter with that? It's true.

Apparently this is how you move in the land of high-rises. Later in the day I saw another one that was getting stuff from the 20th floor of a building.

My favorite Egrish is that which is grammatically correct but still seems a little off.

I am amazing

Well, I am amazing. My open class for the parent teacher conference went really well. I think it's because I gave my little kids an amazing pep talk before their moms came in. Julie P. motivational speaker strikes again!

Today (the day after the PTC) Daniel S.'s mom brought me a cake!! I came down for lunch and had this beautifully wrapped package on my desk!




In other news, the food in cafeteria continues to be delicious because a few other teachers still have PTCs.

More on my Kinders

This is Daniel S. He's kind of my favorite. He's not that good at English and he gets really sweaty any time he exerts himself. He's great because he's a complete space cadet. He's also significantly smaller than every other student in the class. ...And he wears the same robot sweatshirt everyday.








On Wednesday mornings my little kids have playroom. LCI has a Chuck E. Cheese-type play place on the second floor. Upon entering the playroom the little kids start running and screaming and pretty much don't stop for 3 minutes. Fortunately, the glass that separates me from them is kind of thick.

Being sick and PK11

1. I am sick

It's a mega-bummer. I've had an achy throat since the day after I arrived in Seoul. I just chalked that up to the pollution. But this past week I have felt awful...completely drained. So I did the most logical thing I could do which was buy orange juice. But all orange juices are not created equally. So I went to the local GS 25 and bought the 2L bottle that said "100" on the label (fig. 1). Tonight I'm going to go to the grocery store and then go to bed. The last thing I need is a sinus infection.

Figure 1. Orange Juice

2. PK11

Front: Sang Bum, Ally, Ruth, Junhee Back: Yoo Seop, Wendy

This is my PK11 class. They're the most advanced kids I teach and they're pretty amazing. Junhee and Yoo Seop have both lived in the US and, as I found out the other day, Sang Bum will be moving to Canada in a few months.

We had some extra time after class on Friday (I'm sure I forgot to do something) so we talked about snow and things you do in the snow because apparently you don't eat the snow in Seoul. Also, I told them that i was sick and asked them what I should eat. They said "juk". But apparently I need to go to a special restaurant and then they gave me some crazy directions. But honestly, how good can a 9 year old's directions be?


3. Bikes

I finally figured out my bike dilemma. Well, mostly, anyway. After emailing a lot of people about where to go I got some great directions to a bike store in Gangnam, near Apgujeong. Surprisingly, I was able to find it and there is a guy who works there who speaks pretty good English. So basically I'm just waiting to get paid (on Thursday)!

A couple quick things about the bikes. The Long Haul Trucker is meant to carry HEAVY loads and still handle well. The thing is that it has 26" tires. The cross-check seems to be a really versatile bike but it has ony a double chain ring. I can get someone to make it into a triple, right? I'm also worried about toe overlap (big wheels on a smaller frame, I'd probably get the 46cm). Anyway, please advise.

The Surly Cross Check or the Surly Long Haul Trucker??!!?! I can't decide!!

In other news, my class room is getting new wallpaper this weekend. This is good because the other wallpaper was really gross.

Lessons

My Kinder class (Front [l to r]: Claire, Ginger, Vicky, Yuna, Julie, Mary. Back [l to r]: George, Gus, Eric, Daniel Y., Robin)

Lesson #1: It's not a school it's a business
These kids work so hard. It's unreal. Everything at this hagwon is very structured which in some sense is nice because some days you can just go in there and "pound it out" y'know? But it's already annoying because sometimes you want to talk to the kids about different things. I brought a lot of pictures from home and frankly, there is no time to look at them.


Lesson #2: Nights out are fun!
Yep, you sure can have fun at clubs with ridiculous names like Monkey Beach. At said bar there is a nightly fire show. Oh Seoul, you're so wacky. There's another bar called Woodstock that lets you request music. I made sure I line up an 80s hit parade right before we left.






Lesson #3: Shopping can be wacky
I couldn't believe it when I found the following jacket at Dongdaemun Market




Other Things:
Some times our little kids get to have fun. The kinder kids had a picnic this past Friday. Great fun ensued. But we didn't get to play that many games because the professional photographer kept taking pictures of our little kids hiding behind trees and stuff.


Pros and cons:
Koreans work unbelievably hard. It's one of those things that you always hear about but then you start talking to people and you think, "holy shit!" My kinder class is 7 years old and they have all been studying English for 3 years already. Some of them are very good, others...um... but they'll get better. It's funny that now I am a part of this crazy educational system. I'm not really going to wax on about it hear because I'm sure most of you have heard about it and if not you can look it up. I would just like to point out that these Kinders go to school at the hagwon from 10-2:20pm and then they go to Korean school (I'm not sure for how long). Times are good right now. I just started teaching on Friday. It was a little bumpy but today (Monday) went much better. My older kids are really good and you can carry on a normal conversation with most of the kids in my highest class (9 years old).

Other personal tradegies include: having a hard time finding shoes (big feet) and having to wait until Monday to read Postsecret (time difference).

Arrival

So here I am in Korea. I'll be in a hotel for the first few days because there's a big holiday this weekend. I'm going to the school today to meet the people I'll be working with. I've slept for a grand total of 4 hours so today's goal is not to break down and cry in front of anyone.

In other news there is a bike shop half a block from my school. I'm hoping someone can tell me something about biking around here. How great!

No pictures yet.

the plane rides highs and lows

high: Watching Leatherheads
low: watching Speed Racer and also not realizing that it would have been a good decision to sleep the first half of the plane ride when the rest of Korea was sleeping.