Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Skip a week, you forget what happened!

Time for a blog update! Actually, I'm way overdue. But I've been busy, as usual.

Let me think of what I've been doing! I honestly can't remember anything that happened the week of the 8th. I'm sure I did stuff, but I don't know what.

I went on a field trip with the other teachers at school on the 13th. We went to Jeollanamdo, the province to the very southwest of Korea (where Miok is from), and visited three temples. It was a fun time. My vice principal is crazy! He came up to me on the bus at 8:20am and said "Kayla, soju." I told him it was wayyyy too early for drinking and his response was "Come on, baby!" I think I turned bright red. I have no idea where he is getting his English from. He got drunk at dinner that evening and started saying "Thank you thank thank thank you very much!" because I agreed to tell someone we both know to call him. He said "Oh, you great great friend! So good!" He also told me to not show up to school on Monday because I didn't take the soju he gave me in one shot. He said "No! Monday. Monday? Monday! I don't want to see you!"

Me with Miyoung, my mentor teacher

Some of the staff waiting

The maples were SO beautiful! This is what I was looking for last fall.

Last week I only taught three days. Thursday was another school field trip (gosh, I love those!) so we went to Taean, a city by the west coast. We went to a garden where the kids had to listen to a woman talk about the trees and take notes. Then we went to the beach! It was so much fun hanging out with the kids there.

Listening to the tour guide talk about how the island looks like a turtle. Looks like Judo in Wando to me.

Kids being kids.

Oh goodness! These 5th grade boys are so hard to handle! They do what they want, when they want! ToT

So cute! These two are some of my favorite students, mostly because they're picked on a LOT! The other kids say they smell bad, but I've never noticed anything. John isn't the cleanest kid ever, but he's a kid. He's just as dirty as Joseph, and Joseph isn't picked on. As for Lisa...I think she has extra tutoring, so the other kids have labeled her as an outcast.

Friday, I had to go to Cheonan for a TaLK training event. It was really boring and a waste of time. We didn't even get trained. It was just other TaLK scholars talking about what they're doing at school. We're all doing the same thing, so why did we need to hear it all? After the training finished (late), groups of us went to a Pho (Vietnamese noodles) restaurant. I say groups because I was in a group of four, and after a while, two other groups of TaLK scholars came to the same restaurant! Tammy was taking stalker pictures of another group and at one point, people started using chopsticks as wands. We were all pretty crazy from having been stuck in the same room all day. After dinner, I bought Krispy Kreme donuts, and came home.

Tammy taking stalker shots!

Posing with an awesome display for MAC make-up. They had Disney villains and it said something like "Venomous Villains"

Super tired Charlotte eating Pho

Saturday, I did nothing but homework. I didn't leave my room at all. I made posts, I did my drop box assignment, and I studied for my test. I took the test on Sunday after church and got a B. Good, but I was hoping for an A. I currently have a 89% in the class. I thought my grade would be a lot lower than that with all the stress I was feeling in the beginning.

Three weeks of pictures!

2010.11.08

2010.11.15

2010.11.22 - Looks nearly identical to the week before. I had to check to make sure I wasn't posting the same picture twice.

Friday, November 5, 2010

I'm so lost

I honestly don't know what all has happened since my last post. Just a lot of busy and stressful stuff. I'll try to remember everything, but my brain is fried.

Andong
The weekend of Oct. 23rd, I went to Andong, a pretty historic city. I went alone and I was planning on spending the entire weekend there. However, after just one day of sightseeing on my own, I was done. I learned that as much as I hate having people ruin my trips by doing things they want to do, it's much better than going somewhere new all alone. Miok called a Hanji Factory I was planning on going earlier in the week and they said that was fine. But when I arrived, they were having some sort of company event that was closed to the public, so I wasn't supposed to be there. I was able to do my factory tour only because everyone was too afraid to speak to me. Then, a bus driver said I could pick up a bus from a certain spot, but I waited and waited but no bus came. Eventually, a farm truck pulled up next to me with two college boys. They spoke very good English and asked where I was going. I told them I wanted to go to Hahoe Village, so they offered to take me. They were very nice, but made me feel lonely, because they asked "If you have Korean friends, why are you traveling alone?" After the traditional village, I was able to ride the bus back to Andong city, and when I got back around 4pm, I was just done. I didn't want to go to any more museums. I didn't want to spend the night in a jimjilbang again. I didn't want to be alone! So I bought a bus ticket back, and was home by 8pm that evening in time to have dinner with Kristen and Leigh, two other TaLK scholars in Gongju.

Online class starting
My online class started the week before going to Andong, so part of my stress was also related to worrying about my class. So far, I feel I can safely say, I do not like online courses. It's just so hard for me to focus on the work when I don't have a class to attend. I don't know how anyone is able to finish a degree online while also working. I don't even have a full-time job, but it feels like it! I have a lot of time that isn't available for anything. My hour-commute to school is pretty useless, and while at school, I can't get my coursework done because the computers don't allow the program required. So of course, by the time I get home from a day at school of discipling my children (who have gotten much rowdier lately), and working on lesson plans, I just don't feel like reading about American Social Policy.

CJ dying
Another HUGE block for a blog update was my brother-in-law passing away. He died Oct. 24th and I found out Oct. 26th. I was going to make a blog update that evening, but I found out in the morning, and I pretty much couldn't do anything all day. I went to school because I thought I would be okay, but when one of my students asked me how I was feeling, I just started crying. My mentor teacher told me to go home. So that was frustrating. It takes one hour to get to school, but then I had to wait at school for one more hour for the bus going the other direction. Add on another hour to get back home, and you have the most excruciating bus ride I have ever been on. I couldn't stop crying, which is really awkward. Of course the people on the bus look at me and some stare no matter what I'm doing. So when I'm upset, everyone on the bus knows about it, but they're all too scared to try and communicate with me to see what is wrong. It's extremely isolating.

Halloween in Seoul
Miok and I, as well as some other friends, had been planning on going to Seoul for Halloween for a few weeks, so even though I was still pretty upset about CJ dying, I still went out. Honestly, it was a really good time. I participated in a zombie walk (as a zombie killer, air-soft gun included) and then went to a club (read: tiny basement bar) and saw some of the same bands perform who were at the Daejeon rock festival. We were able to see SkaSucks again (REALLY nice band), and Hero. Some guy was sort of flirting with me. He kept telling me I was really cute and that he hoped he would be able to see me again. It was awkward. After the club/bar shut down for the night, a group of us wandered around. After it dwindled down to just four of us, we went to a DVD room and rented Shutter Island. This was around 4am, so everyone was very tired. I was the only person to stay awake and watch the movie. Everyone else (Miok, Charlotte, and Tammy) slept. We left around 7, and we were home by 9:45. I slept ALL day Sunday.

Me being all First-Person Shooter (FPS) on Zombie Charlotte!
We took the zombie walk onto the subway. That pissed off some Korean guy. He followed us when we got off, and then called the police. One police officer came down and basically told the guy we weren't doing anything wrong.
After the zombie walk, I changed from a zombie killer to a 'lion'. I still had fun waving my fake gun around the rest of the night though. One of the bands, Attacking Forces, wears camouflage , so the singer took my gun out of my hand and mimed shooting it around before shooting himself. @_@
Jinsuk, the lead singer of SkaSucks. The whole band was dressed up as zombies, so I really enjoyed shooting them randomly through-out the night. They're all nice guys who don't mind crazy foreign girls.

Homesick
Other than all that stuff, I've been feeling pretty homesick lately. I love Korea, but that's the one thing I can't stand. Things are going great, and you're having a great time, and then suddenly, you get homesick. I literally came home one night after a really great day, sat down in my computer chair and just started crying. I had no idea why, it was just overwhelming. I missed my boyfriend, I missed my family, I missed my cat, I missed playing xbox, I just missed everything. I think part of my homesickness is that I ate a ton of Halloween candy in one week. After I ran out, the sugar high wore off and I felt HORRIBLE.

Extra
On another note, I turned in my application for extension today. I don't have to make a decision until I am offered an extension, but it's better to ask for one and turn it down than to not be given a choice later and want to stay. I'm still unsure. Honestly, I do want to stay longer. I love my school, and I love Gongju. But I feel like I'm hiding from the future here in Korea. I just feel I'm trying to put my life on hold until I figure out what I want to do, but that's not how things work. Life is still moving on in America, and I think I'm just now realizing it. SO, I don't know if I will accept. I'm pretty sure I will, but not positive. We'll see how I'm feeling in December when extension results are posted.

2010.10.25 - Not much difference between this picture and the previous week. The big ginkgo tree has a few more yellow/orange leaves than previously, but other than that, not a huge difference.

2010.11.01 - WOW! What a big difference one week makes. The leaves are all gone from the big ginkgo, and they're quickly falling from the cherry trees around the playground. It's fun to watch the students throw leaves at each other after school. It's interesting to compare the change in shadow the tree in the foreground makes. Last week, it was quite solid. This week, it's empty!