Boobi Boobi

The day after we went to On the Border was a Wednesday and I have come to realize that once it is Wednesday it will suddenly be the weekend!  Time really flies by here! School continues to be a great experience. No matter how tired I am in the morning, I don’t mind getting up because I know that my students will quickly wake me up.  I love talking to new students every day.  After school that day I finally made a much-needed trip to E-Mart.  I needed many things, however, I am still getting used to only buying what I can carry home.  Not having my X-terra to get me home has been really strange.  I tried to only buy the necessities but still ended up buying way too much and dying trying to get into a cab.  The cab driver loved it though.  It’s probably not every day that he has someone who looks like me fall into his cab and have to act out how to get home because I still can’t say my address in Korean.

Found this gem at E-Mart

Thursday was another great Thursday.  I love my classes on Thursday and I have my after school class.  We watched Toy Story and I gave them candy, so they hugged me and told me I was the best teacher ever.  They are so easy to please.  That night we went to our usually Thursday night spot, Dillinger’s.  Dillinger’s has trivia every Thursday night and we have rounded up a good group of people.  That night was Marissa, Lydia, Andrew, Andy, Simon, Rory, Fintan and myself.  We ended up tying for first and receiving a free pitcher of beer so we were pumped ; ) We then headed to Brixx for ladies night.  Girls get treated very similar to the way we were treated in America.  Free drinks on Thursday! After some time at Brixx we headed back home.  Simon, Rory and I shared a cab.  Rory was really tired and ended up falling asleep in the front seat.  When Simon and I got to our place, Simon used his limited Korean to tell the cab driver how to get Rory home.  He ended up saying “Us two here and that thing keeps going” haha poor Rory. The cab driver loved it though and had a great laugh!  Rory at least made it home safely : )

Friday at school was really fun.  All my students were really great and participated in everything I asked of them.  After school, I started my teachers guitar club.  I was really nervous because I have never played the guitar before and I knew it would all be in Korean.  However, when I got there all the members were really excited I was joining.  They gave me a guitar and tuned it for me.  The teacher then used his English and introduced me to the club.  “NOW, all the way from America, our newest member, ANDREA! .. and clap-ee” Then everyone started clapping and cheering.  What a warm welcome : ) However, after that I became very lost.

They have all been taking guitar for a while, and have learned the basics.  They began playing and singing and I had no clue what was going on.  Finally, the teacher showed me the A chord and told me just to play that for now.  After class he kept me after and taught me three chords, how to play “Doh, rey, me, fa, so, la, ti, doh” and gave me homework to try and learn one song.  (all in Korean) We realized that it was already past 530 and decided to end the lesson there.  However, when we had finished packing up our guitars, he asked me if knew Elvis Presley “love me tender”.  “Of course I do” I responded.  He then sat me back down, pulled out his guitar and sang from start to finish all of the song while looking me in the eyes.  I really wish I could’ve had it on video.  It was hilarious and awkward.  We then packed up, I thanked him for letting me join the club and we headed home.

That night Marissa came over and we decided to go to dinner in Hongdae.  We found a place called Boobi Boobi : ) which looked delicious. It really was! It was a restaurant where you sit on the floor and we ordered some beer, bibimbap and a tray of different items.

Everything was delicious! We were sitting next to a table of 8 boys and they were playing the typical Korean drinking games.  They lifted the screen that separated us and asked if we wanted to play.  Of course we agreed and began playing many games with them! We then found out that is was one of the boys birthdays and they were out celebrating.  Turns out he was turning 20 (19 in American years) which is equivalent to turning 21 in America.  We were very excited for him but realized that we were hanging out with people who had graduated from high school last year.

yep. I'm old.

It made us feel very old :  ( After a few hours of games we decided to head home.  We had big plans for the next day!

On Saturday we decided to first explore somewhere we hadn’t been to yet.  We went to Yongdeungupoo Market.  We had heard from someone that it had great shopping! However, when we arrived at the market, we realized that it was the shopping district of horror! Pigs heads, pigs feet, chicken feet, and unnamable organs lined the market.

Yummy

I found it mildly hilarious that the fun shopping was a meat district and walked around and took pictures of the people there.  It is interesting that it doesn’t faze any of them, when it seems SO strange to us.  However, Stephanie couldn’t handle it and decided to wait outside.  We then decided to make some videos for my classes to learn from.  Stephanie, Marissa and Lydia were great actresses and I knew my kids were going to eat it up.

Afterwards, we headed to our first baseball game in Seoul! The game was at Mok Dong stadium and close to my house!

The game was soooo much fun! The crowd was so into the game and there were so many cute babies for me to snap a picture of  : )

They also had random K-pop groups and the cheerleaders were hilarious!

After the game we decided to show Stephanie and Lydia Boobi Boobi so we went back to Hong Dae.  The girls of course loved Boobi Boobi!

After dinner Stephanie still didnt feel well since she has had mono so she decided to go to bed and the rest of us headed out for another fun night! We played until late and met up with Rory and Fintan! After the bars, Marissa decided to stay with me and Fintan didn’t want to have to take a cab back to his area by himself so we all went together and had a sleep over!

The next day the girls and I decided to go to the Vagina Monologues.  For those who don’t know about the Vagina Monolgues it is a collection of stories to support VDAY- An organization to stop violence against women. Www.vday.org I had attended the Vagina Monologues when I was at UNCW and we were all really interested in seeing what they would be like in Korean and English.

They were great! Parts of it were very funny and other parts were very sad! Koreans are usually very reserved about sex and their body so watching some Koreans talk about it openly was great! They did a mixture of monologues… some in English and some in Korean…. Some we had heard before and some we hadn’t.  They did a monologue on the Korean comfort women, and begged Japan to apologize for the atrocities they had committed against Korean women…. we were all in tears.  I even received a pin to support the cause that says I love vagina in Korean.

However, since then many Korean’s have seen this pin on the inside of my purse and have FREAKED OUT haha ohhhh well! There is to much of a language barrier to explain that it is for a charity so now they probably think that there is a vagina loving blonde running around their area.  OOPS : )

Fools, Mexicans and Wine buffets

I have fallen a little behind on my postings, so to all of you who have been reading I am sorry. I have just been really busy! The beginning of April has been really busy so lets start from April 1^st.  April Fools Day at Yanggang middle was a little crazy! All the classrooms at school have numbers on them, which keeps me from getting confused when switching between my 22 classes. On April fools day, my students went around and changed all the numbers, so the teachers were getting confused.  I thought it was hilarious, but I think I was the only teacher who did.  The students then went outside and played on the playground saying that they couldn’t find their classrooms haha.

I found it hilarious to walk into class and write pop test on the chalkboard.  Most of my classes found it funny after I told them it was a joke.  It was really great to watch them sweat when I made them pull out a sheet of paper. That will get them back for all the times they don’t listen or just make me look stupid by speaking to me in Korean! Only one class didn’t understand that I was joking.. so the whole class they were on pins and needles waiting for their test. Ooops shows me not to try to pull a joke on a D level class with Suho (the one co-teacher who I am convinced doesn’t know any English)

Typical Suho... reading instead of helping me control the class

After school I went to Wine buffet in Gangnam with Andre to meet up with some friends.  The wine buffet was great! I hadn’t had a glass of red wine since leaving America so it was wonderful to relax with a bottle of wine after a CrAzY day!

: ) heaven

There was delicious food as well … Sushi bar, nacho bar, cheeses, and many different Korean dishes.  Lydia came and met us at the buffet and and shut the place down around 1030.  We had met two girls named Skyler and Mary and we decided to head to Itaewon to meet up with some of Mary’s friends! We started at a country bar where we found out that they twit on twitter

…nothing makes me smile more than some of the things that are posted in English here.  We met two people Sam and Eun and headed to the next bar! Marissa came from a teacher’s dinner and met us! She informed us that she had been served a platter of chicken feet and asked to try it at her teacher’s dinner.  She of course acted appreciative and tasted the feet.  She explains it as tasting like spicy cartilage.  YUMMY

Jeremy and Andre came and met up with us at a new place called Brixx.  Brixx is the kind of place where you can really loose time.  It’s underground and before we knew it is was passed 3.  Marissa was tired and decided to head home but Eun, Lydia, Sam Jeremy, Andre and I decided to head to a norebong to show off our vocal talents. After a wine buffet and a few bars we all thought we had the voices of a God! We stayed at the Norebong for over 2 hours singing such jams as Whitney Houston I will always love you and Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock Picture.

If only someone had it on video! By 6 we were all exhausted and headed back home for some much needed sleep.

The next night was our friend Emily’s birthday and we headed out for another fun Saturday night.  We met up with Rory at Taco Bell for a delicious and nutritious dinner.  After dinner we headed to a bar that we only knew by name as “the cave”.  When we got there it pretty much was that and looked like the bar from Star Wars.  We met up with Emily and told her” happy happy birthday!” Many of our friends were out so we played at the cave until we got antsy for new surroundings.  We headed out and randomly found friends in the street.  We loitered in the street with our friends since it was one of the first nights that we didn’t need a jacket and two hours later we were still there! We finally decided to make moves and headed to a place called People’s Pub.  Many friends came and we all hung out and chatted until early in the morning.  Once again time flies when you are having fun and before knew it the sun was coming up.  We headed out to the street and all decided to grab a cab.  Marissa was spending the night and Simon lives next door so we all decided to take a cab together.  The one thing about Seoul here is that catching a cab can be a very difficult process.  We haven’t figured out if they just don’t want to take westerners home or what but when we got in the first cab and told him where we were going he said “change-eee partner” hahah whatever that means.  The 2^nd 3^rd and 4^th cab did the same thing! We have learned to just jump in and hope that they will take us home! We finally found a cab to take us home and it was looking like a beautiful morning! Simon has a rooftop terrace so we decided to head up and watch the sun come up.  By this time we were no longer tired so we headed back to Simon’s apartment to check it out.  His apartment is very similar to mine with a loft.  We sat around and were looking through his itunes when Simon asked us if we liked minieggs.  Marissa thought he was talking about an artist and asked “Ah are they a hot new artist” I took it as him meaning do you want many eggs so I asked “are you going to fry up some eggs”.  Marissa and I were very confused when Simon got up and walked to his kitchen and pulled out a bag of something.  Turns out Minieggs are a candy from England that are a lot like MnM’s and very delicious.

We ate up some minieggs and then headed back to my place to get a few hours of sleep!

The next week started much like the others, but started with a very nice surprise! My package had arrived containing my precious item… BLANKEY! I was so happy.

For those of you who don’t know Blankey,, she is my blanket that my grandmother made me before I was born and I have been sleeping with her since birth… I will probably still sleep with her when I get married I love her so much : ) I also received other things like sheets and food so I was very happy.

That week the weather had finally started to warm up so we all wanted to be out and about.  On Monday, Marissa and I went to Hong Dae and ate some delicious Vietnamese food and did a little shopping.  However, I had to get back home early because the next day was a big day for me! On Saturday I had woken up to my co-teacher calling me multiple times.  She informed me that on Tuesday the SMOE (Seoul Metroplitan Office of Education) would be attending one of my classes.  I mildly freaked out.  None of my friends were having the SMOE come to there classes so why were they coming to mine?!  Turns out they come to many schools and that mine was just the first school chosen. My school has two foreigner teachers so the SMOE is expecting a lot from Yanggang middle school.  I showed up to school on Tuesday a little bit of a nervous wreck.  When I arrived at school I noticed a big sign that I hadn’t seen before.  When Andre came into the office he laughed and said “have you seen the big sign downstairs?’ It was a big sign directing everyone coming   to my open class. : ( oh nooo.  They weren’t visiting until my second period so I had the first period to sweat a little.  Towards the end of my first class, my co-teacher came up to me and said “’ohhhh  I heard what is happening to you next period.  Im so sorry.  If you want you can leave this class early.”  I took this as an advantage to go back to my desk and review my lesson one more time! However, when I got back to my office, the school inspector was already sitting with Eun Jin waiting for me! She was very nice and introduced herself and told me that I was very beautiful.  She then explained that she was there to evaluate my teaching skills and give me feedback on what to do with the students.  We all walked up to the open class together and there were many people there.  Other principals and vice principals from schools around the district, my principal and vice-principal, members from SMOE and other teachers from my school. Crap! I was so nervous! At least I was teaching with Miae who is one of my favorite co-teachers and I was teaching an A class.  If I was teaching a D class I probably would’ve been fired because those students don’t even know how to say “hello, my name is”.  To make things worse, they were filming me and taking pictures.

http://yangkang.ms.kr/?act=gallery.read&code=2910&id=478
UGH I did my whole lesson and the students participated.  Thank god that was over! I then was whisked down to the principal’s office to chat with them about their critiques.  They all started telling me that they liked my clothing and my hair was beautiful.  That I looked like a bright and happy person haha. They then told me that I followed the book to much and that I should teach the students more just about western culture and use my experiences. Just another time where they contradict themselves.  “use only the book” “don’t use the book so much” I have now tried to blend the two together.

That afternoon we all decided to take Haesol to On the Border.  Haesol studied in America at Marshall so she had learned to love Mexican food but she had never tried On the Border.  We all met at the subway station in Sinchon and headed to On the Border.

We were so happy to be there! There is nothing like hearing a Korean say “Hola, Como estas” We all had margaritas, delicious Mexican food, and introduced Haesol to On the Border.

Haesol even coined her new phrase “New people, new places, new rice”.  Many Korean’s don’t like Mexican rice because it is not sticky like the rice they are used too.  However, Haesol stated that she is very open to new things so she likes the “new rice” It was such a fun dinner but after such a long weekend and such a stressful day, I headed home early to get some much needed sleep!

Minieggs

Being a teacher of a foreign language has been the craziest experience of my life.  I have been put in situations where I have to think on my toes and if I don’t I will be slaughtered by my class.  For example, one day after lunch I walk into class and all the students are your typical after lunch students.  I am busy working with the computer to get class started when I realize that my students are eerily quiet.  I look up and in the second row a boy has his head down and is sobbing.  His partner is rubbing his back and speaking to him.  All the students’ faces look horrified and my co-teacher is nowhere to be found.  CRAP.  I walk up to the student, kneel down and ask him if he is ok… no response.. I think I’ll try to pull him up a little to get him to leave the class with me… he won’t budge.  I don’t want to leave the class alone but after multiple attempts to get him to get up with me and failing I decide I need to go to my office to try to find a teacher to speak Korean to him.  As I’m running down the stairs up strolls my co-teacher! UGH but thank god I found someone… she comes to the class and gets the student up out of his seat and takes him out of class. Crisis survived and I can now start class.  I still have no clue what happened to this student but I have seen him since and he looks happy and fine.

Another time a student came up to Andre and I in our office and looked extremely worried.  He is one of my favorite students so I was very worried.  He began to explain to Andre and I that his family had recently moved to the area and he was afraid to walk home from school.  The language barrier was difficult but we figured out that people were harassing him on his way home from school.  He was coming to Andre and I for help I think because Andre is black.  We asked if the people harassing him were black and he nodded yes.  We then asked what was happening to him and he said that they were asking him for money and roughing him up a little.  We assured him that English teachers and military wouldn’t treat him this way.  Andre told me that many Nigerians come to Korea to work in the factories so Andre has decided that they must me Nigerian.  We asked him if he could walk home with friends but he lowered his head and said, “No, I don’t have any friends yet”.  I could’ve cried.  I felt so bad for this kid.  He is such a good student of mine… he sits front row and always does what I ask of them.  He also is my computer helper so he helps me get the projector running.  We brought him to Minji and Miae in hopes that they could think of a solution for him but as of now I don’t think they have fixed this problem for him.  I have his class again soon so I will check on him in a couple of days.

Even though I struggle through certain situations, I LOVE my life in Korea.  It is an adventure everyday at school and I can’t wait to see what’s coming next.  The language barrier can lead to many interesting situations… For example, last week I was at lunch and one of the science teachers came and sat next to me.  He can speak broken English, so he isn’t afraid to sit with me at lunch (Mnji asked me one day if I noticed how people avoid me at lunch… it’s because they are afraid I will speak English to them and embarrass them.. haha I’m the one who can’t speak their language or properly use chopsticks but whatever) He told me that he is the teacher for the teachers guitar group and told me he wanted to join.  Of course, if I get invited to do anything at school I have to say yes because it’s an honor to be included in something that doesn’t involve English.  However, later that day at school, many teachers were coming up to me and saying things like “you, guitar, happy” or “guitar class, international club, great” or “you, spring show, excited” So apparently I am now officially apart of this guitar club and will be playing in the spring show… they are going to be really disappointed when they realize I can’t play guitar : ) oh well, Miae told me she is in guitar club and that all the teachers are really happy to now have an “international” club.

 

After-school clubs are very popular with students and teachers.  I found out last Monday that I would be teaching an after-school conversation class starting that day! I do get paid extra to teach this class : ) but I had no time to prepare for this class! So typical. Haha I had enough time to print off a questionnaire on things that the students may be interested in.  They could check off things they are interested in like current events, pop culture in Korea and western cultures, television, fashion, etc.  I was really excited for my after school class because it’s a small class of eight students and I thought I would really be able to get close with these students.  However, when I walked into class that day and said “HELLO CLASS”…. Crickets could have been heard chirping.. none of the students responded.  Oh no…. I have an hour and a half with these kids and nothing prepared! To make it even worse, the computer has a sign on it, which I think meant that it was broken.  Typical. I tried to evoke some sort of response from them.. “how are you doing today” “nice to meet you” but no one would speak.  I have since figured out that these students are the students that can’t afford to attend hogwons (private academies that many students attend after school) Soo they can’t speak English well.  Just another time where I am really going to have to improvise! I passed out the questionnaire and read each topic.  That only took up about ten minutes… so I still had an hour and twenty minutes ahhhh… I then had the students move the desk into a circle to hopefully get the students talking… I started by asking if they had any questions about me.. they said nothing..ok well I’ll tell you about myself… I then rambled about my life, where I am from, what I like blah blah.. I then asked if they understood… no response.  AH So then I decided to ask questions about them… what’s your name, where are you from, what’s your favorite sport, when’s your birthday, what’s your favorite candy, this only lasted for about 45 mins.. ughhh killing time seems like an eternity but if I’m enjoying my class time flies by! I then asked again… do you have any questions about me? The only question asked of me was “what kind of phone do you have?” This makes me laugh that the only thing they cared about was what kind of phone I have.  I told them I had an iPhone and then decided screw it and let them pass my phone around and play with it to kill time.  I then went on a rant about how they were old enough to take care of themselves.. so I would let them pick the subjects and only in force rules if necessary trying to be the cool teacher.. however, I don’t think they understood. Oh well my rant took up the last 15 minutes of the class! WAAAA (waaaa is like saying yayyy in English : ) )

 

These are just some of the interesting events that happen on a daily basis now in my life and there will be many more to come!

 

Oh Na Na What’s my name

On Monday the 21^st I officially started teaching my students from the required curriculum.  My 1^st grade class (6^th grade) first unit was called “Meet the twins”

A lot of my 6^th grade book is still in Korean, so I just decided to do whatever felt right.  I had to teach them how to say nice to meet you, what’s your name, what do you do for fun?, What’s your email address?,  and what’s your phone number?.

I went over the book using a few of the listening activities, which are unbearably boring.  I am almost in tears doing these exercises and the voices they use for the listening activity are absolutely ridiculous.  The kids always start cracking up watching the videos and doing the listening activities… as their teacher I try to keep a straight face so that they won’t go crazy but I can’t help but crack a smile.

My goal as a teacher is to get the students speaking.  They have a class 4 times a week on writing and grammar, so the one day I have them my goal is to get them interacting with each other and speaking to someone new everyday.  This week for the 1^st grade I decided to have them draw their neighbors face.  I handed out a sheet of paper and told them to draw their neighbor and they looked terrified! I was already terrified that they were going to turn out looking the same way…. However, as bad as it sounds… I have quickly learned that not all Asians look alike.  It is very easy to tell them apart even when they wear the same uniform.

One student drew me : )

I walked around while the students drew each other in the first class and was very pleased.  Everyone was taking it seriously and worked quietly on their drawing.  However, in classes to come I would have the exact opposite.  If a boy were sitting with a boy then he would draw a devil or if they had pimples then they would take out their red correction pen and dot up their whole face.  I had girls drawing other girls with hearts for eyes and another boy on the page… they would then point to the boy and scream love love… if they could turn colors..  I know these girls would be red as a beet.  I had one boy draw a girl as a pig and write probably one of three words he knew.. FOOD.

The poor girl was mortified and looked like she could cry.  (Andre had told me a story the day before about his last school that I thought might come true at my school.  In Korea, saving your face is VERY important.  At Andre’s last school, a girl was being made fun of so she opened up the window and jumped out from the 3^rd floor. She survived but shattered the lower half of her body.  Poor girl.  I was terrified this girl might jump! It scares me how much Korean’s will risk to save their face or their families face.  That is why the subway system now has doors… too many Korean’s were jumping in front of trains to save their families face. ) Anyways, most of my students were very polite so it wasn’t surprising that 10 out of 800 were mean.  I then collected all the drawings and handed them back out randomly so that each student had a new face.  I explained that I wanted them to get up and find the persons drawing they had by asking, “is this you”.  The exercise went well in my A and B classes (The classes that scored high on the English proficiency test) but in my C and D classes it was a little bit of a struggle.  Overall though, the exercise went very well.  I had students meeting new students and using the language.  I was a very happy teacher!

Miae explaining the directions

One of my 1st grade classes : )

In my second grade (7^th grade) class, my students were learning about feelings.  Unit 1 was titled “The New School Year” and we were talking about how we felt and what we hoped for.

I taught the kids to “how are you doing?” “How’s everything” “how’s it going” etc.  They then learned how to respond by “great”, “super”, “fantastic” “wonderful” “So so “ “Im ok, I guess” “not bad” “Terrible” “Don’t even ask” I also taught them how to new ways to say hello and good-bye.  I taught them “long time no see” “See you again” “Take Care”  I had my students practice in groups and then demonstrate their dialogue in front of the class. For my A and B classes it was great.. all the students wanted to participate (to get a good grade in my class all you have to do is volunteer to participate) However, in the C and D classes NO ONE wanted to volunteer.  It was so hard trying to get these kids to speak and I am still brainstorming new ways to get the C and D classes to want to speak.  It may involve bribery… I then taught the classes about hopes.  We looked at different pictures and were talking about what different students were hoping for.  “I hope to get better grades” “I hope to travel this year” “I hope to become healthier” etc… In their book they then had a place to draw what their hopes were.  I gave the students a couple minutes and let them draw their hopes.  Many students hoped for a boyfriend or girlfriend.. so cute.  Others hoped to see a Big Bang or 2ne1 Concert.. I then had some that hoped to quit smoking or quit drinking.  Smoking and drinking is a big problem in schools here.  I’ve caught many students sneaking off campus to smoke but I don’t have the power or language ability to punish them.  Smoking is also very socially acceptable so even my co-teachers don’t pay much attention to it.  After having the students draw their hopes I let them volunteer to tell the class..  In one class, a girl raised her hand and stated “ I hope to do my boyfriend” .. I responded with “You mean you hope to GET a boyfriend” .. her response “NOOOO I hope to DO my boyfriend” while pointing at another boy! I was mortified.

One of my 2nd grade classes

However, other than a few crazy students, I think my students learned something…I really have loved teaching them and watching them try new words.  They are so cute and many really work hard to make me happy.