Life In Seoul Continues... The March Edition

Monday, March 2nd: This day was... *cue the ominous music* the first day with the new preschoolers!!! Not gonna lie, the thought of teaching twenty 6-year olds with little to no English knowledge TERRIFIED ME!!! I had been teaching a class of 6-year olds and a class of 7-year olds in the last session, and while they were both first year classes, I started teaching them 6-months in so they were pretty good at communicating in English by now. Now I teach 2 classes of 6-year olds (Cherry and Banana class) and honestly, had reason to be scared when walking into that first classroom. Here were 10 tiny children (They really are tiny, but smaller than my last set of 6-year olds! Especially some of the girls. They look like dolls in their oversized SLP uniforms! Although I had to remind myself that these kids were born in 2004, so are in reality 4 and 5, hence their mininess.) staring at me wide-eyed, whispering to each other in Korean, unsure if this tall wagook in front of them was a monster or not. This day consisted mainly of singing silly action songs and colouring, hoping with all my might that no one would cry. I also tried to learn everyone's names, which wasn't made easy for us foreign teachers. The kids were wearing name tags, but with their Korean names on it. Their lockers were labeled, but again... Korean names. Awesome. A few were able to tell me their English names, but not everyone, so I made sure to ask Jinny if she could help me out with that. Oh, forgot to mention that I'm once again paired with Jinny which makes me so happy! She's an incredible teaching partner and is super easy to deal with so I was thrilled when I found out. Anyways, it took a few days to learn all their names, especially one whom I dubbed Smiley for the first 2 days because whenever I'd talk to him, he'd just smile and giggle. On day 3 I finally discovered that his name is James. And yes, he's still very Smiley. I actually don't think I've ever seen him look sad or angry, now that I think about it. All I gotta say about that first month of teaching these kids is that it was INTENSE because of the immense language barrier, but also very rewarding. These reasons will be discussed at a later time.

Wednesday, March 4th: This marked the first day of the 2009-2010 session, meaning new afternoon classes. I'm actually really happy with how my schedule's set-up now, since I'm off at 4:10 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays (MUCH better than getting off at 7pm like I used to on those days) and off at 5:10pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays (that stayed the same). I now teach two IE1 classes, which means I'm teaching kids that were in the one-year 7-year old preschool program last year and who now come in every afternoon for 90 minutes (from 2:40-3:25 with one teacher, 3:25-4:10 with the other teacher). The upside to teaching this level is that I already knew a lot of the kids since I'd taught the majority of them in afternoon preschool. I also teach 3 of my old students from Kiwi class, Julia and Michael in my first class, Anny in my second class, which has its upsides and downsides. Upside is that they're fairly easy to get under control, since they've known me long enough to know how I work, downside being that teaching the same kids everyday for this long gets a little tedious and my expectations towards them tend to be higher because I know what they're capable of. My third afternoon class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is a Hi-Kids 1 class, meaning these kids are fairly beginners at English and the little that they do know is whatever they've learned in elementary school. They're 10 and 11-years old and I'm lucky because they're actually quite bright and know more English than I initially thought they would. They're a very energetic bunch (mostly good energetic, although they can be a bit much at times!) and for the most part all eager to participate.

Wednesday, March 11th: Happy 2nd birthday to my adorable nephew, Logan!!! I can't believe it's been two years since you were born. <3>

Saturday, March ?: Can't remember the exact Saturday that these events took place, but I do remember that it was a good day. That afternoon, I had a girls days out in Insadong with Amanda, Tara, Kelly, Jen, and Meghan. Insadong is a large touristy shopping area that has many traditional Korean shops for all your souvenir needs.

The day started off with a bang when Tara and I discovered WineAid, which we purchased in the 7-11 located in the Balsan subway station. WineAid is a basically a wine cooler, in a can. Yes, you read that correctly... in a can. Here's Meghan, Tara and I showing off our cans of winey goodness. (Pretty sure the girl between Tara and I was less than appreciative of the photo op. The man next to Meghan looks pleased to be included though!)

Once we arrived in Insadong, Kelly and I felt the need to enter the mystical realm known as the 'Auto Toilet':

Not sure if it's clear or not, but the sign inside the Auto-Toilet reads "This is an automatic sanitary restroom. The whole toilet stool is cleaned and sterilized after every use and the floor is washed regularly." I just though it was really funny look and was amused that the doors close behind you as if you're in some secret lair or something. There's also a time-limit which I believe was 10 minutes, but if you want to get out before that time, you get to press this giant yellow button:

Nothing like a giant yellow button to make a girl's day! Anywho, the remainder of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets of Insadong venturing into one shop after another. I ended up buying a pretty paper fan (it was sooo hot that day! Definetly a sign of spring!) a pair of earrings and a pretty amethyst ring. Korea's fairly reknown for its amethyst and since it's my birthstone, I felt it was necessary to buy myself a piece of amethyst jewelery.

That night, a bunch of us headed to Hongdae for a fundraiser at a little bar off the beaten track. I wish I could remember what they were raising money for, but my focus was on the fact that all the bands were covering 'Beatles' songs. Excellent! The bands were quite good, especially one who had a sax player and a trambone and other random instruments that you wouldn't expect to find in a little bar like that, but who rocked! There was lots of singing and dancing involved and I left that bar with high spirits.

April - to be continued...