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).