BIG UPDATE

A lot has happened since my last post. I'll try and remember everything important!

I went to Seoul last weekend alone for some shopping. I ended up spending way more money than I was expecting (about $150) but I bought a new winter coat, two new skirts, and two shirts. I also was able to visit the Quilt Museum and Namsan Park. It was a nice day.

I thought this quit was pretty cool, just for the crazy pattern, and the metallic fabric in the bottom left corner.

The view of Myungdong from Namsan Park. That's a traditional village down there.

My new clothes! I really love my coat, and the flared skirt.

I saw Letters to Juliet twice last weekend, once on Friday with Miok, and then again on Sunday afternoon with people from church. I really liked the movie! Super sweet. I went to the Baekjae festival (again) with Miok some day last week, I can't remember what day.

My students are fantastic. I absolutely love going to school every day, even if I don't have a lesson plan just yet. My students just make me happy. And I've finally caved and started using the TaLK workbook, so it has lesson plans already down, I just have to figure out what I'm going to be using that day, and then improvise a bit. I took my 3rd graders on to the playground one day to practice prepositions, saying things like "sit on the jungle gym" and "stand next to the slide" and "sit in the merri-go-round". I also showed my students the video Suzie gave me, and they were all pretty amazed. They kept asking "When?! Suzie in America? When Suzie make it? How? Teacher? How you get it?" It was pretty funny. But when I asked them if they ever wanted to record anything for Suzie, just let me know, they didn't seem very interested. Later though, the 4th grade girls recorded a dance (I wanted to upload it here, but kept encountering an error. I think it might be too long. I was having troubles getting it onto my computer), and today, The 5/6 grade girls, excluding Jenny (T_T) are going to do the dance to Miss A's song "Bad Girl Good Girl". I am so conflicted with that. While I think the dance is fun, I don't know how I feel about my students dancing to it, regardless of the fact that they are young teens (12-13). Oh, and today, Meena, one of my best students, said she wants to write a letter to Suzie, so she's going to work on that. In class today, she was giving all of the answers, and the 5th grade teacher kind of yelled at the rest of class and asked them "Why is JeeWon giving all of the answers? Why aren't you trying?" I felt kind of bad. I know some the students aren't that great, but a lot of them just don't try. The 6th grade John who never does any work did his work today, though. The 5th grade teacher sat right next to him and made him do it. Usually, I just don't have time to baby-sit him. The other students are always calling me, and some of them try but need help. John won't even try, even if I tell him what to write, or give him the words to say. It's like pulling teeth every day when I take attendance and he is supposed to say a word (reviewing the vocabulary).

Other stuff going on related to school? My principal asked me if I thought Dokdo was Korean land or not. I said "Yes, of course. Korean land." and he started clapping. It was strange to me, but I felt like I had passed some sort of loyalty test. Although, last night I had a nightmare that he called me into his office and yelled at me for not properly brushing my teeth and rinsing out my toothbrush. He was saying "No! You brush your teeth too fast! Watch the P.E. teacher! He does it right! And your toothbrush has food in it! You have to comb it out afterwards! Don't you use a toothbrush comb?!" It was weird. I guess I worry that I'm not brushing my teeth well enough?

This weekend, I went to Daejeon for a Rock Festival. There were a lot of TaLK scholars there, and I got to make some new friends. I had a lot of fun! The concert was scheduled to last until 5am, so Miok and I were going to stay the whole night and just go home on the first bus. BUT, the police came and shut us down around 11:30 because of noise complaints. I was REALLY angry! But a group of us went to the night life district to find the bar where everyone was moving to. We couldn't find it, so we went somewhere else. Hung out there for maybe an hour, and then tried to find where the festival people had moved. We found it, thanks to some kind Korean boys who wanted to help foreigners. But when we arrived there, they told us they had just been shut down again by the police, so they were done performing for the night. This was at 2am, so we still had a long time to go. So we hung out at the bar with everyone there, and when that bar closed, we went on the search for another bar. All the ones people knew about were closed. One guy actually went into a convenience store and bought some beer and paper cups. But by that time we had found a bar that was open. So we sat around while they drank the beer until they were finished. Our group was a strange one by this time. There were only two TaLK scholars (myself and a 4th gen. named Arthur), an EPiK teacher, Miok, and then some girls from Poland, a guy from Eastern Europe, a Vietnamese girl, some other Western foreigners, and a few Korean guys. Miok and I talked with one of the Korean guys, who was in one of the bands scheduled to perform. He was only there to look after his friend who had a little too much to drink. He was really nice though. He invited Miok and I to a party he is having in November, so I hope we go. I'm not really into punk rock, but if every punk rocker was like Young Woong (his name means "hero" in Korean), I would probably be into punk rock.

Charlotte and Ben eating pizza and being awesome!

Some of our TaLK group at the festival. Charlotte, Ahra, Ben, and David.

"Hero" He was so tired at 4am. But he was such a sweet guy for taking care of his drunk friend.

The remains of the party.

Next weekend, I'm planning on going to Andong by myself. I'm a little scared, but everyone has plans, and I don't want to wait any longer. I'm planning on going to a hanji (Korean paper) factory, the traditional village, Hahoe, and maybe to a temple in the mountains if I have time or money left in my budget.

And now, you get two weeks of pictures from my school, 10.11 and 10.18.

2010.10.11 The leaves were falling from the cherry tree (tree in the foreground) but you can't really tell. It sounds pretty though.

2010.10.18 It wasn't as cold and rainy today. You can sort of see that the leaves are turning, but not fast enough for me.

What have I been doing other than slacking off in the blog updates?

Let's see..I went to the Baekjae festival in Buyeo with my school last week Friday. It was fun, but the festival there wasn't as exciting as the one in Gongju. The museum on the other hand was way more fun than the previous time I went (last year). Since going last year, they have built a HUGE reconstruction of Sabi Palace, where the royal family lived when the Baekjae capital was in Buyeo. It was a lot of fun to walk around through it with the kids and take fun pictures. John, the student with a crush on me, finally sneaked in a kiss, as we were walking through a rather crowded doorway. He was holding my hand and pulled it in front of his face and kissed it. No one could see it because it was so crowded, but I saw and felt it. It was sweet, but awkward. Sweet because that's how I always think of parents kissing their kids (I really like the book The Kissing Hand, read it if you haven't). It was awkward because he's my student, not my child. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that these are not my children, and that they're just my students.

The students all lined up at Sabi Palace

The students really like feeding me at lunchtime.

This past weekend...I did nothing. Andrea, a South African woman from church, had a pasta dinner for the younger girls at church. It was good food. Then she asked me to share my testimony. That was pretty terrifying. On Sunday...I went to see Eat, Pray, Love with Andrea and Ms. Kim. It was an alright movie. Not really my style, but okay. It made me miss Max.



This past week at school, I've felt pretty crazy. I feel like school and teaching have been a lot of work lately but I couldn't figure out why. Until yesterday, when my mentor teacher asked me to e-mail my lesson plans and daily plans to her. I realized that I didn't have any! And that's why my days have seemed so hard. Making it up as you go takes a lot of effort and classes usually feel like they're lacking something. So I'm trying to get back ahead of myself. I have next week planned out already, but I want to get the week after that also planned out. I'd like to always stay at least two weeks ahead of schedule.



All this past week, the other teachers have all been really busy, so my mentor teacher couldn't take me home. Instead, the vice-principal has been driving me home. He's really funny. He can't speak English, so in the car, we just listen to music and don't say a word, unless there is a bug in the car, in which case, he rolls down the windows and talks like mad. I don't quite know what he's saying, but I understand that he's trying to get the bug out of the car, so I try and hurry it out.
At school today, I was helping to clean up my classroom because there is some sort of event going on in there tomorrow. In the classroom, it's me, Jaehwa, and my mentor teacher. Suddenly, the vice-principal shows up and says to me "Kayla! You like chi-can? Chi-Kan?" I say "Chicken? Yes, I like chicken." He then cracks me up by saying "OKay! You like chi-can! Chop chop!" and grabs my arm and starts pulling me out of the classroom. I was so confused, but I followed him. Turns out, someone bought a lot of fried chicken in the office, so they wanted to share it with me. I had a good time eating a few pieces. They kept asking me what one part of the chicken was, but I had no idea what it was. I THINK it might have been a chicken testicle? Do they even have them? I don't know, but they kept laughing, saying bathroom, and saying in English "say-back pocket". They tried getting me to eat one, but I didn't want to try it. Then they tried getting me to eat a chicken foot. They kept picking it up, and scratching it on their hand. The vice-principal thought it was funny that it was called a chicken foot.

One day this past week, I recorded my 3/4 grade class singing the Hello Song to send to Suzie, the TaLK scholar before me. She's really nice, and I'm super glad I talked with her. I know she misses the kids, and so I'm trying to keep her updated and included in what is going on. The students are really shocked that I 'know' Suzie. They keep asking me "You know Suzie teacher? You are friends?" Suzie wants to make a video for the kids and have me show it to them. I'm really excited about that idea, and I can't wait for her to make it. BUT, she's in school right now, so she's pretty busy and hasn't had a chance to make a video. I haven't told my kids about it yet, but I'm dying to tell them.





About this weeks picture....It was a rainy Monday. The weather was pretty cold, and I can tell it's Autumn, even though the leaves haven't changed yet. The mornings are freezing, and the days are warm.