Married in Korea

Well, as you all know, two of the greatest people I've ever met got married this month. Here is a picture of the happy couple. Lizzie and Iain, I wish you all the best. It truly couldn't happen to two better people!
As for me, life hasn't changed much since I last wrote. I'm still teaching, although I must say, I actually feel like a teacher this time around. Last year, my classes changed almost every month. Most of the books we used were meant to be completed in a month, so we'd get new material for the next one and for the most part, I never repeated a lesson with new students. This year, I am a lot more familiar with the curriculum and I am finally getting the chance to use what I know works, and tweak what doesn't. It can still be a challenge to do all of the things I'd like to with my students, but I don't really see how I can change that, since I am on a pretty tight schedule. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but on top of completing a set of books (or unit, depending on the book and class), I am also expected to help students in most of my classes prepare a presentation. Each month, I come up with a new topic for each class that relates to the material they will cover that month. We pick out key words or ideas from the unit and then use those to make sentences explaining their mean. At the end of the month, each child gets in front of a camera and presents what they have written and worked on for that topic. It's meant to get the kids comfortable using English the correct way. Sure, this is a more formal way, but it is better than nothing. I also try and push my kids to answer questions I ask them in complete sentences, which is a challenge, even for some of my more advanced students.

I certainly didn’t plan on saying that much about school; of course I’m not finished yet. At the end this month, October, new parents will be coming in to decide if they want their kids to attend iSponge. So, Ivy asked me to have the 7 year old Kindergarten class prepare presentations, all on separate topics, instead of the same, as they usually do. Edward will be talking about a typical day at iSponge. Eric will talk about 3 of our most fun classes. Sherly will talk about a few of the field trips we go on- remember, these are rarely educational, just super fun! Haha Sarah will talk about Drama class and the plays they have presented and worked on. Sally will finish us off by talking about Halloween and what we do at school for that holiday. We will also be having another Halloween Party, like last year. I’m excited :)

Outside of teaching, I’ve just been spending time with friends out at all our usual places (String, BBQ, Club Davey) and of course, hanging out with Dan. He took me out to a very nice dinner a few weeks ago up in Daegu. We got all dressed up for it. It was very cute and cheesy, which I love! Haha Kate’s birthday was this past Wednesday so we went out to String for that. She wanted to have a Rubik’s Cube party this weekend, but turns out many people will be gone since it’s a long weekend, so we’re doing that next weekend instead. I’ll take lots of pictures and puts some up here. :) Of course we’ll have a Halloween party too, outside of school. I have to figure out what to be… Dan wants to be a zombie soldier so I have been looking into ways to make him all bloody and gross. Should be an interesting month!

So I've been slacking a lot lately; I've been too busy..... watching TV shows and movies on my computer. Haha Actually, now that's it's been so nice out, I've been busy almost every weekend going to Busan, Suncheon, Namhae, or just out in good ol' Gwangyang.

This is at String.. one of Fritz's last times there, except not really because he ended up coming back..

Anywho.. life is really good right now. I have no complaints. :) I have decided to stay for another year, at the same school I'm at now. I should be signing a contract within the next few days. Also, my school is giving Kate and I a month off. They still owe us a week in our current contract and they are giving us 3 more so we can go home! YAY!!! We are using that first week to go to CAMBODIA with Rhonda. It should be a blast! We are all really excited!!

Also, I'm going to really try to keep this thing more updated. We shall see how that goes..!

Goodnight world!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

So first off, I have to say Happy St. Patrick's Day!! I know it has been a while since my last post and things haven't been too interesting really, until today.

First, let me catch you up on my life since February. Kate and I went to the Busan Museum of Modern Art about three weeks ago. The whole experience was a lot of fun, travelling via bus, taxi, and subway trying to find the museum, and then later trying to find our hotel, and on Sunday, shopping. HA! The museum was featuring a trick art exhibit which was complete mindblowing. We spent a few hours there taking pictures of each other and asking Koreans to take ones of us together. I have a whole album of them on Facebook. They are definitely worth checking out. Below you can see a play on one of Van Gogh's paintings and another of me battling a shark.

Then last week, I came back from lunch to shower and watch an episode of one of my favorite shows like normal. However, when I went to watch it, I was told that I could only watch it if I downloaded some viewing license. Not thinking, I clicked it, which downloaded some virus and restarted on my computer. When it restarted, the blue-screen-of-death appeared and there was nothing I could do about it. Like an idiot, I had not backed up any of my pictures from while I have been here, so all I have now is what's on Facebook, which stinks, but I'm just glad I have my computer back, working again and I can start capturing new memories!

As for today, I came to school, teaching like normal. It was time to teach my last class and I noticed that one of my students was not there. I ran downstairs to grab a few supplies I needed to teach the class and saw the other student, so I waved and said hello, got the materials and went back upstairs. After a few minutes, I said, "I wonder where Carly is," thinking she had time to change her shoes and get to class. Then one of the two other students in the class, Sunny, told me that she isn't in the class anymore. When I asked why, she spoke to the other girl, Lora, for a few minutes in Korean, trying to figure out how to tell me in English. Together, they came up with this, "We don't like her, so we complained about her. She reads too slow and she says words wrong, like in Kate teacher's class she said 'eve-er' instead of 'ever'. It's so simple! Also, she is not friendly with us. The other young students are friendly with us, talking about their life, but not her." I brought up Carly's age because she is in second grade whereas Lora and Sunny are both in fifth, thinking that might be why they don't like her, because she has such high English skills at such a young age.

As they were telling me this, I was in shock! Instead of teaching for the first 10 or so minutes of class, we just discussed this. I didn't understand how they could complain about a student and get her removed from my class, especially when I had seen Carly there and hadn't heard anything about her no longer being in the class. Midway through class, after we had moved on from the conversation, Ivy came in asking for the books that are at the level just below the class these girls are in. I saw her take them into the office with Big Mama, Carly and Carly's mom. So I guess that means Carly is now in this lower class?? Oh boy.

How can this be okay, you ask? I think it's all because of money. They would rather have Lora and Sunny's parents continuing to pay tutition and keep their kids at our school and risk losing one, although it looks like they somehow found a way around that, probably by telling Carly's mom that the class is too hard for her, but what do I know? :/

SNOW in GWANGYANG!! :)

Hello Peeps!

So yesterday a wonderful thing happened. It SNOWED in GWANGYANG. For those of you who don't know, or who forgot, this is the name of the city I live in over here in Korea. Anyway, snow is kind of a big deal over here because it doesn't usually happen this far south and even when it does, it's very very light. Yesterday it was much lighter compared to Michigan, but it was still more substancial than any snowfall I've seen in my part of Korea. Overcourse, it did not stick, but there is always next time...!! I took a picture of it using the restaurant aross from my apartment building as the backdrop, since they have nice dark windows. I can't believe how excited I'm getting about snow. I really don't like snow, in fact I always complain about it. Who woulda thunk!? haha

Other than that, not much has happened. Lizzie came back last week, so that's been really great. I've already seen her a few times. Fritz is back too and I finally saw him on Wednesday. Now Rhonda just needs to come back from Italy and the Gwangyang crew will be reunited!

On a side note, I can't believe it's already been about 7 months since I first got here. Only 5 months left!! Then, who knows.. The only thing I plan on doing in the near future is going to Busan, which is much bigger than Gwangyang and about 2 hours away, and going to the Magic Art show and probably doing a lot of eating and shopping. Busan is also home to an aquarium where you can go diving with sharks, sea turtles and many other sea creatures. As of right now, I still plan on doing that come Spring, unless I chicken out!

Best Field Trip Ever!

Hola! Or should I say... Komsamneda!

So I have been back in Korea for about a month since traveling home for Christmas. Those of you who saw me know I really enjoyed my trip back, but I really missed everyone I couldn't see too!

Anyway, since I've been back, not too much has happened. My teaching schedule changed a bit again, but since it does almost every month, this isn't really news (even though I've never blogged about it). I just added a class and Kate and I traded a few of our students with each other. I have 2 big classes now- one with 10 students and one with 8 students. It's so strange having that many kids at once because when I first started teaching here, the most I had was three at a time. Let's just say, I've definitely learned some new classroom management techniques for when I get back to the states, not that I'll need them there haha!

A few Fridays ago, (1/14) we went on a field trip to this water/snow resort/park place. That's honestly the best way I can describe it! It's called Bukgo Hawaii and it has indoor and outdoor pools and water slides, lots or fair rides, and a snow covered hill to go tubing down. It was without a doubt, the BEST FIELD TRIP EVER!! As you can see, Kate and I really enjoyed it as much as, if not more than, the kids. Good times :)

Everyone here in Gwangyang is either on vacation, just getting back, or about to go. It's strange. Those of us here have been hanging out quite a bit in each others apartments and just laying low. Although, we have a few days off (5 with the weekend) coming up in the first week of February for the Lunar New Year, so I wonder if we'll plan anything to do. Also, Lizzie is back today so it will be nice seeing her a lot again! Other than that, things are same-same, as my students say. Hope all is well at home! I'll let you know how this weeks break goes!

Merry Christmas to ME!!!

Hello All!




So first off, I must say how terrible I've been at keeping this thing updated lately. For those of you who check it, you can see that my last post was from Halloween, nearly two months ago! However, I don't think you have missed much.
As you know, I've decided to come home!!!! I'll get in Christmas Day and leave early-ish on New Year's Day (not a long break or good time to travel, but I know it will be well worth it)! Because I spent so much on tickets home and back to Korea, I decided I should lay low for a while and save money. I have been doing well with that and have only gone out to String and to dinner a few times. My most recent trip to dinner was last Saturday, December 18th, for a goodbye of sorts, since so many of us are leaving for the holidays. We went to my favorite somgyp sal restaurant. It's a Korean BBQ place and it's DELICIOUS!!! Afterwards we went to a Soju Cocktail Bar which I believe is called Fish and Grill. Soju, in case I haven't mentioned it before, is a Korean alcohol similar to vodka in that it's alcohol content is quite high and you can mix it with almost anything. The difference is it comes in a "beer bottle" and it's dirt cheap. It's Awesome! I'm bringing some home for people who want to try it. A soju cocktail is essentially a fruit icee with lots of soju in it and this bar has 8 or 9 flavors. We had a lot of fun, as you can see here.

It's supposed to be a funny picture. We were imitating some Koreans. As you can see, there are some new faces in the group. From left to right, we have Louis from Reno, Nevada, Me, Connie from Toronto, Kate, Trey from Oklahoma, Rhonda from Canada, Dan from Australia, Laura from Canada, and Fritz from New Zealand. This was early in the night.

The only other interesting tidbit is that I ate live octopus about a month ago. We were at String talking about it because Louis had just recently had it for the first time. We talked about going to try it later that week when all of sudden, we were leaving to go eat it right then. I tagged along with Louis, his Korean friend, Pete, and a guy named Wes who came here a few weeks prior to this point. So we go to this restaurant and order our food and some soju, because there's no way I was going to do this sober. :)

They bring out the soju. We all take a few shots. Then we hear this pounding noise coming from the back. I was told that this was the cooks taking the octopus, cutting off the tentacles and pounding it into chunks, between 1 1/2 and 3 inches long. Then a Korean lady brings out a single plate and sat it down in the middle of our small circular table. I look at the plate and see these chunks of tentacles slithering around like worms ready to get hooked as bait. I took one look and immediately backed my chair up a few feet with a very disgusted look on my face. I watched as the others decided how to eat this. The Korean man sitting next to me, who speaks very little English, took a few pieces and put it in this red sauce next to me. We were each given our own small dish of this sauce. He told me that the sauce helps to "kill" the octopus and sure enough, it stopped moving. As everyone else was eating this, I was getting up my courage, and asking questions about it. Strangely enough, I never asked how it would taste, just how it would feel in my mouth, moving around on it's own. I was told that I had to chew profusely so the suckers would not grip the insides of my cheek, tongue, or worst of all, throat. This had me really freaked out, but since the others seemed to be eating it no problem, I decided to give it a shot.

I took one of the pieces from my dish of red sauce, looked at it barely moving, put it in my mouth and chewed and chewed and chewed... It didn't taste bad or good. It was bland, from what I remember, of course I had it in my mouth for as short a time as possible before I knew it was safe to swallow. I only had one other piece, a much bigger one, but I was amazed at how the others and especially the Korean we were with took several pieces at once by chopstick in their mouth.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures or videos of this experience, which just means I'll have to get up the courage to do this at least one more time!

Until then, I will see you all soon! I will try to be better about posting on here, although I know I won't again until I go home and come back!

Halloween in Korea

I had two Halloween celebrations in Korea. The first was at my school and the second was Yeosu at a bar, about 45 minutes from where I live. At i-Sponge, Kate and I had to give a presentation about Halloween. So I put together a PowerPoint and we presented it to the group. This is a picture of about half of out students, and their friends who came, but there weren't many friends. After the presentation, we had pictures taken and then we broke off into two teams. There was a Kate team and an Ashley team, although I'm not sure why because Kate and I ended up staying together in the gym (pictured below) to lead the game, which turned out terribly. For the game, we did bobbing for apples. The apples were quite large so Kate cut them up. However, the kids still couldn't pick up the apples and it turned into chaos... oh well haha
We also had face painting, a haunted house, which was actually quite scary, and food, lots of food.

Yeosu was fun. I went as a vampire like at school. Connie, Kate and I went to Suncheon to meet a few people and then travel to Yeosu together so we split a cab to the bar when we got there. It was fun. I didn't take any pictures here so I'm only tagged in a few on Facebook but below you can see Connie, Will and myself.

Here you see me, Connie, Lindsey, as Poison Ivy, and Alex and Ian as the two main guys from the movie Fight Club.