Korean Costco and K-Pop

First I'll say I'm happy to announce that the mail system has been proven to work and I got not one but TWO letters on Friday. One from my parents who kindly sent my air miles card and one from my Rach and Aart - an early birthday card! Ok, on to the weeks info.
Costco and K-Pop are totally opposite topics to talk about, but since I experienced both this weekend that's the info you're going to get. ok, K-Pop has been on going since I got here, but I haven't said anything about it yet and it got more serious this weekend. What is K-Pop you might be asking? For those old people reading this (and I include you in that category Mom and Dad - as the newspaper already reminded you this past week) K-Pop is Korean pop music. The first hour after I landed in Seoul our whole group was instantly exposed to the world of Korean music. As we landed at 2am and were wide awake because of the time difference, the coach bus driver played music video after music video or Korean singers. We learned rather quickly that the Banana Girls, Girls Generation, Rain, 2pm and many more bands/singers were very popular in Korea. For a country music fan like myself all this pop music got annoying after a bit. However, every single Korean student is obsessed with one or more of these bands. I have learned more information on the male singers of 2pm from my 14-16 year old female students than I know about North American pop singers! While channel surfing the other day (ok, surfing between the five channels that play a fair amount of English movies or tv shows) I ran into a music video being played. Can't say I know what band it was, but they were singing a song every single student sing constantly. So I got to listen to the whole song to figure out what my students loved so much about the singers. I would've listened to some on youtube to know what the students love so much, but as there is still no sound on my computer, that was a procrastination I could not indulge in. Anyway, I'm not sure what's so fascinating about these singers since about all I can get out of the girls is "they're soooo hot!" (about 2pm) and the boys "they're soooo pretty!" about the girl bands. Oh, I did learn that the main singer of 2pm said some bad stuff about Korea and has now left to go back to the USA which is apparently where he grew up anyway. All the girls are depressed about that right now.
Costco! Yesterday a girl we're friends with from church took us to Costco in Daejeon about a two hour KTX train ride from Gwangju. The KTX is faster and a nicer ride, but a little more money. Unfortunately for me, my school administration is "lazy" (my co-teacher's words not mine) so while they were informed I needed my plane ticket reimbursement and settlement fees by the 25th they didn't get it to me on time. Therefore, I had very little money to spend at Costco and since it cost about $40 round trip, I had even less. However, that also meant I actually thought about my purchases before I bought them. Unlike when Mom and I go to Costco...basically everything that looks good ends up in the cart. Korean Costco's don't carry exactly the same stuff as in Canada, but we were able to get a few necessities...like real cheese! which I had to force myself to only eat a bit of when I got home. Just some cheesy potatoes and cheese and crackers. So nice to finally have cheese again! I also got, cream cheese and sour cream, sliced turkey, frozen strawberries and veggies, croutons, caesar dressing (unfortunately for me, there was no ranch so I had to settle...), bread that wasn't white bread, peanut butter, and best of all, pumpkin pie! Cherrah, the girl from church, was buying apple and pumpkin pies for church today (I'll explain why later) and when we got to the pies they were giving out samples of the pumpkin pie. I ate three. oops. so good! I decided then and there a pumpkin pie would be my birthday gift to myself. That became a regular justification for a lot of things I was planning on buying. Like a massive bag of pistachios. Mom, you know the huge bags you and I buy (well, you buy and I eat) and then you and me eat through the whole thing in a week? yeah, I was going to buy that (as a birthday gift of course!), but it was $34 and since I didn't have much money to begin with (and I really wanted the pumpkin pie for thanksgiving) I had to put it back. I did find out after I bought my stuff that I over estimated the cost of my things and could've afforded it, but maybe it was a good thing I didn't buy it... I'll wait until I need to buy myself a Christmas present! There was so much I wanted to buy like marshmallows, icing sugar, campbells soup, real baking soda (the bag was WAY too big for my needs!) and more, but sadly my brain decided to think that day and told myself half this stuff you don't need because there's no one to eat all that baking you do, or the massive meals you make and if you buy those pistachios you WILL eat it in a week (sadly, my brain was probably right). Maybe it's a good thing the Costco isn't in Gwangju. My Dutch self won't let me go back there until Christmas.
To end this post I will mention about this morning and Church. This morning I watched the Leafs pre-season hockey game against the Red Wings on line. Sadly, without sound. Last night I got a call at 10pm from Amanda (Hwasun friend and fellow Haldimand County resident) who missed her last bus home and needed a place to crash. So I didn't get to sleep until late and slept in. Not that it mattered, church is late out here. Church this morning was a special service where afterwards we listened to the best Jazz band I've ever heard. The pianists we phenomenal! The stuff they could do on the key board was amazing. I have never heard anything like that. Then there's the drummer...so good! and the bassist played this solo which was amazing as was the other guitarist who got this hilarious look on his face when he went all out on the guitar. It was so worth it and all FREE! We also all got served lunch - for free - (the best sandwiches I've had in Korea!), fruit, and of course apple and pumpkin pie. The most wonderful thing about Koreans is they don't care for pie too much and the foreigners who attend the church apparently are all on a diet. We got our huge section of pie, but they forgot the whipping cream. I went up to get it and had to teach one of the korean's how to use a whipping cream bottle. It was hilarious. He didn't understand so I kept showing him and kept getting him to practice - on our pie section. In the end, we had a TON of whipping cream. Best apple pie ever. But then, I say that every time. Then, because the Korean's don't eat much pie, Cherrah brought more over. Between Kristen, Amanda, and I we ate about 3/4 of those massive Costco pies. Turns out Cherrah and her friend ate another half to themselves. There had to have been at least 50 people at the lunch. Four pies for everyone and five girls ate over one to themselves. I'm stuffed. Don't worry, the pumpkin pie I bought is safe in the freezer...now (yes, I ate a piece when I got home from church too. oops.) Oh, and we got welcome/new comer gift number THREE today. Apparently they're just going to keep giving us welcome gifts even though they all know our names and we come every week. This time though it was this amazing pound cake stuff that I've been forced to eat a number of times at school so I wasn't complaining. Yes, it's in the freezer too. Man, these Koreans are going to make me fat. Now I have to lesson plan for next week. I've done nothing yet. oops again. But, it's a short week next week! Korean thanksgiving - so I have a four day weekend and a trip up to Seoul to look forward too!

T-I-G-E-R-S spells Tigers!

Saturday night was absolutely amazing. With a little help from one of my co-teachers we were able to get tickets online for the Gwangju Kia Tigers game against the Seoul LG Twins. I felt like I was back at home watching baseball. I was so excited I can't even describe it. After a few webcam conversations with my family while they are watching the Jays play and just describing to me what was happening I sure was happy to be watching my own baseball! Of course, being me, I wanted the best seats in the house. Since tickets are general admission only we arrived three hours early to stake out our seats. They were awesome seats just down the first baseline, four up. Unfortunately the stadium has netting all around so it was difficult to get good pictures with the netting there. The Tigers are at the top of their division and this game was really important as one of my baseball crazy teachers lectured me on before the game. The LG Twins could catch them in the race if they won (at least, I think that's what she said... the language barrier thing made it confusing) so the Tigers HAD to win the game. They didn't disappoint and we left with a 9-6 win. The fans here are INSANE! It's nothing like being at a Jays game. They have this cheer man who yells the cheers and chants into the mircophone and they scream these the whole time their side it up to bat. Not like North America where everyone gets quiet and the music stops when plays start. Kristen and I were the crazy white people in the crowd and were quite frequently the only one's standing and screaming at the umpires or other players. We also sang our old childhood baseball songs... you know the ones: "there's a hole out there, (echo) there's an h-o-l-e hole out there, so hit the ball out there (echo), so hit the b-a-l-l ball out there..." and "there he goes just a walking down to first singing do a diddy diddy dum diddy do. Next batter up says walk me to singing do a diddy diddy dum diddy do... etc." I'm pretty sure they thought we were crazy, but it was well worth it. We even saw many other teachers from our company there as well who were also crowd favourites for writing Tigers across their chests and walking the entire stadium, even making the highlight reels the next day! I'm also positive my co-teacher will never look at me the same after witnessing our crazy Canadian ways at the game with us! All in all, it was a great game even though by the end our legs were cramped from the tiny seats and I'm sure the guy in front of me went home with bruises on his back and head from me. All an accident. They don't make those seats for Dutch people that's for sure. They also have actual cheerleaders who don't really cheer, just dance. And they gave us balloons half way through and you blow them up and let them go at the same time. oh, and these paper airplanes all rained down at one point and streamers. No idea what they were all for either. It was awesome!

Computers, eel and baseball!

hmmm so I don't know what to write about. Nothing too interesting happened this week. Just the usual. Getting told an hour before I leave that I was actually going to dinner with the teachers and I had no choice but to go. Had no way of contacting Kristen to let her know I wasn't being abducted (don't even start me on the getting a cell phone issue...), but that didn't really matter to the teachers. Found out that the menu was eel. Just when I thought I'd tried it all... It was quite literally every part of the eel. Including the backbones that were toasted...yes, I tried it. Just a bite. couldn't figure out why in the world someone would find eel backbone tasty though! the eel itself tasted like fish, but I'm not completely sure about the taste since I once again loaded it with hot sauce and wrapped it in a couple pieces of lettuce! Afterwards I got taken to this other place for beer. I quote: One teacher: " oh, you don't like beer? ok, drink this" *hands me a beer*... um...right. The teacher who took me to the dinner also left before me without informing me how I was getting home. He also left with my backpack. That had my keys in it. So after some confusing phone calling and the other teachers telling me nothing of what was going on, I eventually got my keys.... at 9:30pm. It was funny though, because the day before Kristen forgot her keys at her school and had to stay over at my place for the night. Good thing that wasn't the day the teachers took me to dinner because then I'd find her sleeping outside my apartment when I got back. Definitely a God thing. If either event happened a day earlier or later...
Speaking of things happening. My computer/korean technology have officially declared a silent war against me. I took my computer into school yesterday and they hooked me up online with a Dell Service Centre in Gwangju to look at the sound on my comptuer. Like I expected, they couldn't do anything. So I take it home. And guess what? the internet doesn't work. I can connect to the wireless at Kristen's apartment, my internet says it's connected, but it doesn't work. Go figure. Just my luck. So I don't know what they did to my computer, but some setting on the internet must have been changed so they could look at my computer online. I don't know much about that kind of stuff though. Now I am internetless for the weekend and spending my time at Kristen's apartment using her computer for the internet and webcam. Of all things to happen when I'm half a world away... I try to look on the positive side though. My school it great and the kids are easy to teach. My schools are in the countryside so I get away from the city every day which is amazing (since I've made my dislike of cities clear enough!). I've also finally been able to bake! just easy stuff since ingredients are hard to come by, but bake I have! It's made me really happy!
that's all for now. I'm heading back to my place to get ready because I'm going to a Kia Tigers professional baseball game today! It's Gwangju's team and they're in the top of the league right now. I'm so excited! I'll post pictures when I can finally access the internet from my computer.

Hwasun

It's titled Hwasun, but I'm not starting with that trip.
On Thursday I went to my third school that I teach at called Sinheung Middle School. I have a male co-teacher at this school and he picks me up at 7:50 am each week. It's nice because every other day I have to be ready by either 7:10 or 7:20 so the extra bit helps! The co-teacher though is crazy friendly and doesn't stop talking. He's funny though because he always thinks his English is awful and is scared to say stuff he isn't sure of in front of me. I think I'll enjoy him as a co-teacher though. This school is smaller than Wednesday's school - 24 students! It's located in the country with lots of mountains around that some of the teachers hike during lunch so I plan to join them next week! My first class went really well and the students were into the lesson. My co-teacher didn't bother to be present at most of the lesson, but since there was only 6 students it was fine. My second class was the oldest students, but their English is really poor. My co-teacher has to translate pretty much everything I said. No matter how slow I talked or how easy of words I said they just didn't understand it. I ended up really improvising my lesson because it was planned for Samgye middle school students who have much better English. My last class went horrible. The student's English was actually pretty impressive so my co-teacher skipped out on the lesson. There were 12 students, but they were much more interested in asking me questions and ohhh-ing and awww-ing over the ages of Stanley and Andrew who they thought were the cutest boys ever. I think every single girl who has seen my slide show on me has fallen in love with my brothers! Specifically Andrew since he's 16 and these girls are between the ages of 12-14. It's cute though. Anyway, this class was not paying the slightest bit of attention to the lesson (which I admit was boring, but I was told I had to teach on it so I did what I was told) so I gave in and we just talked about me or about music. At least now their curiosity is hopefully filled!
Lunch was interesting at the school. Their cafeteria is being fixed so they use the gym. They also share with the elementary school next to them so during our lunch there was a kids karate class going on. They were impressive and probably only 8 or so. The instructor looked like he could cut me in two with his hands. I hope I don't have to cross him...
My first teachers workshop was also that day. I hadn't been told what I was supposed to do so I came prepared with a bunch of introduction stuff. I pulled out a Zietsma teaching technique and told them that I'm not going to talk much in the workshop because it's there for their English to improve by speaking it not so I can talk to them about nothing. Thank-you Zietsma! I learned something from his class after all... What I learned from the workshop though is NEVER to ask a Korean English teacher their most embarrassing moment teaching. If you do, make sure they know what you mean. I got sob stories about how they are embarrassed because their English wasn't good enough or their teaching wasn't good enough... not exactly what I was going for. They also don't really understand the game two truths and a lie even though they told me they do. Oh well. I know now!
Ok so Hwasun. Kristen and I went to visit Laura and Amanda where they're living and teaching - Hwasun. It's a small city that's close to the mountains. We arrived late Friday night, missed our stop and had to take a taxi since we had no idea where we were. We ended up ordering pizza for the night and for those that know me well, I cannot eat anything past 6pm or I will feel sick. yep, I went to bed with a full stomach...not a good idea. Felt kinda gross in the morning. Then we had chocolate chip pancakes...also a bad idea. First because we were improvising with the ingredients we had plus leaving out a bit, but also because pancakes sit in my stomach a long time. Oh well, they were good! We went to go hiking the mountain around lunch time so we bought some Gimbap (not sure how to spell it...) which is basically rolled up rice and seaweed with veggies and meat in it. We had tuna. These mountains were so much nicer than the ones in Gurye. There was undergrowth here so it didn't look bare like in Gurye. We hiked halfway up, ate, then back down. took a few hours to do the whole thing. We also stopped at these random exercise things that are all over Korea. Basically a weight room outside, minus the weights being there. There's none close to us in Gwangju which kinda sucks.
Here's an actual embarrassing story (not like the Korean ones!) There were also these outdoor bathrooms which were made of stone. We wanted to check them out, but weren't sure which one was the women's. We were certain there weren't anyone in either of them because we didn't hear anyone around (ok, I was certain there wasn't anyone around. I won't pin my stupidity on the other three girls!) So I checked one out. I picked the wrong one. Which had a man in it. Turned around thankfully, yet still completely naked. I am never doing that again.
On our way back we bought some Duckbooky (that's how it's pronounced...no idea how it's spelt!) which is basically rice something or other. These were round ball like things. I don't know how to describe them, but they tasted good. I probably won't make a habit of buying them though because they weren't THAT good. Just good.
Lastly, Kristen and I ended our day going to this grocery store under the bus terminal in Gwangju where I found out they sold MENTOS! I was so excited! Sure, they're not King or Wilhelmina Peppermints, but it's better than nothing! I now have church food for tomorrow! They also sell spices...which we were told are hard to find in Korea. Parsley, Thyme, Paprika, Basil... it was awesome. There still wasn't any vanilla extract or regular brown bread, but I'm hoping our Costco trip might provide those for me! We shall see!
In other news, I've finally decided to tackle cleaning my apartment. I was putting it off because I didn't want to find something gross. I've already concluded that hippie woman was a surface cleaner. Definitely never cleaned behind, under or around things. I almost gagged at some of the stuff I found. I have to buy some more cleaning stuff though before I finish the job. Not looking forward to that, but I will be glad when I know what needs to be cleaned and what doesn't. I don't enjoy finding surprises in my apartment. Like the ants. Which apparently they give you ant traps for, but I didn't know they were ant traps until Kristen told me so now, no ant problem! Hippie girl told me she just lived with them. Gross. I know they're high in protein and all, but still...

"Law" Fish

Today was my first day at my second school Samseo Middle School. My co-teacher for this school lives very close to me so she gives me a ride every morning and night. Unfortunately that means I have to be ready by 7:00 am rather than 7:20 am. My co-teacher is really nice, but a little...friendly? I think that could be one way to describe her. Immediately upon meeting her she linked arms and patted/petted my arm the whole way to the car. She really reminded me of old hippie women who was all touchy feely as well. As most of you know, I love giving hugs. I do not love people petting me or putting their arm on my leg and caressing it while they talk. This women does it all! Her English is very good, though I am getting the impression that no matter how good of English a Korean has, they will never understand some of my questions or what I'm talking about. Upon finding out that this school actually has a GRASS soccer field and grass around the school I asked if during my breaks I would be allowed to wander around outside. She just looked at me and kept talking about my class thinking that's what I was talking about. After a while I gave up and just said, yes, class is going good! During my last class of the day she fell asleep at the back of the room and woke up at the very end and promptly said: "great class today! the kids really loved it!"...and she knew how?!?
I really like this school though. There's a total of 34 students so split between three classes that's very small. It's really quiet and out in the county more than Samgye is so it's much nicer that way. I like it better than Samgye I think. Oh! This is interesting... they have this dance thing they do in between 2nd and 3rd period. I'm not kidding. They all go out side, line up in five or six lines and do this choreographed dance for ten minutes. They made me do it with them. It's easy to catch on to and I love the fact they do it. It's the only school I know that does it. The boys don't seem to keen on it, but the girls love it.
I never thought that I could be called "pure" and "fresh" so many times in one day. I'm fresh because I'm not a 53 year old hippie. I'm pure because I don't have a boyfriend. My co-teacher keeps asking me if I think the gym teacher is handsome. I just laugh it off to avoid an awkward conversation. Like I've said before, Koreans are full of compliments and this school is no different. They are also blunt. I got told a million times today how I'm the "beautiful Canadian with gold hair", but I also got told that I could be more pretty if I wore makeup. I almost died laughing because that sure ain't going to happen anytime soon. Way too much effort.
I was informed at lunch time that there was a teachers dinner tonight. Though they asked if I had plans, I got the impression that even if I said I did they'd still take me to the dinner! I was told it would be "law fish". Took me a few seconds to understand they meant RAW fish. Since in Korean "L" and "R" are the same sound, they quite often mix the two up in English. So if you hear them talking about eating "lice" they are really meaning RICE! Anyway, the whole afternoon I'm freaking out and wondering how I'm going to manage raw fish. I love fish. Cooked fish. Not raw fish. Thankfully I remembered that every Korean meal comes with a million side dishes so I figured I could get away with it. Oh did I have a meal coming to me!
When we were seated, first comes these eggs that looked like a bird just laid them. Not chicken eggs, some other small spotted eggs. Thankfully stuff I started to recognize came out. Recognize meaning I have no idea what it is, but I ate it before and it was good. They gave me these boiled peanuts and let me tell you, peanuts should not be boiled! They taste just enough like peanuts to know what they are, but soggy. Blah. I got more Korean pizza (which as I mentioned before, isn't actually pizza) and apparently it was obvious I liked it because they got the waiter to bring a whole one just for me without my knowledge so I felt compelled to eat it even though I didn't want anymore. Food after food came out. I ate lobster, oysters, clams and who knows what else. Then comes the raw fish. I thought by this point they wouldn't notice if I didn't eat it, but of course they have to make sure I do. Thankfully they gave me lettuce to put wrap it in. I was also told to put this salty salsa like stuff on it. I planned on dunking the whole thing in it to drown out the taste by my co-teacher would have none of that saying I was taking too much and "only a little" was needed because it was way too salty for me. Well, that kinda was the plan, but like the good girl I am, I only took a little (which was literally a dab on the end of a chopstick). When she wasn't looking a grabbed a spoonful of hot sauce and added it to the fish and quickly folded the lettuce and stuffed it in my mouth. I can't say I know what raw fish actually tastes like, but it's very chewy. By the time the lettuce was all mushy I still hadn't chewed totally through the fish so I just swallowed it whole, not planning on finding out what it really tasted like. I had to do this twice before they stopped asking me to take more. Then more fish came. I've never had more fish stare up at me begging to be eaten than I did at this meal. Then when I thought the meal was over (I was surprisingly stuffed), they bring out more food and more food. It just kept coming. I thought I'd get out of having octopus...nope. It came. Bbq octopus on a stick. I ate a bite, but that was about it. Making it bbq octopus doesn't make it taste any better. Finally they served the last course which during orientation was a meal in itself. I don't know how Koreans eat this much and stay skinny! I couldn't fit the rice and fishy mixture that came because I was so full. The principle pretended to have a broken heart because I wouldn't eat it, but unless he wanted me to puke, I wasn't going to eat anymore no matter how much they wanted me too! All in all it turned out to be a good dinner I think. Though I won't be begging for them very often I can say that for sure. I wish I could take a picture of the places we go for teachers dinners, but I'm not sure how they'd feel if I took out my camera and started snapping pictures. Maybe once I get to know them better, but until then, it's just my stories!

Myeongsashimni Beach (or Wando Beach)

Yesterday all the teachers who met during orientation plus those that are already here from our company met up at Wando Beach this weekend. Wando beach is located at the very southern tip of South Korea on the eastern side. The county of Wando is made up of tons of islands, most of which are connected by bridges. The beach itself is known as the best beach in Korea and I agree completely! My first impression was that is was absolutely gorgeous! It was even more beautiful by the fact that Korean beach season is only really the month of July and beginning of August so we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. There were about 50 of us or so who made the trip from our various cities and towns we live in. For Kristen, Amanda, Laura, and I it took about 2 hours 10 minutes for the bus ride down from Gwangju. The bus ride there was $14 and splitting a taxi to get to the beach was $2.50 each. We spent the same amount on the way back and other than food that was all we spent money on! A lot of the teachers who have been here for a year or more had their own tents that they pitched on the beach. A few people combined in on a motel, but the rest of us toughed it out and slept under the stars. A few people slept right on the beach, but our many encounters with crabs during the day made us decide that we were going to sleep on these tables that are meant for Koreans to eat meals on, but since they're basically like those wooden tables you pitch a tent on when backpacking, we just slept on it. All we had were our clothes, a backpack for a pillow, and a thin sheet. That didn't matter though because it was warm enough out. Thankfully, the weather cooperated and it didn't rain!
I couldn't tell you which sea we were actually swimming in. I think it was the Korean Strait, but it could've been technically the sea of Japan. Either way, it was the ocean and it was amazing. Naturally, a road trip wouldn't be a road trip without getting yelled at by Koreans for breaking the rules (not like we knew what they were anyway). Kristen and I decided to swim to the buoy's out along the shore line. While there Kristen kicked something like a metal grate or what not which we're not sure what it was. The beach patrol guy on a seadoo whose job is to tear up the beach line on a seadoo while telling people what they are doing wrong came up to us and in his limited English got the point across. "No" and "dangerous". Needless to say he drove beside us the whole way back to shore to make sure we went. We weren't the only one's who got in trouble though. Pretty soon people getting in trouble just asked for a seadoo ride which he was more than happy to give!
The washrooms along the beach have these outdoor foot wash things that apparently you're supposed to wash your feet under before going into the washroom to keep the sand out. Who knew? Unfortunately Kristen, Amanda, Laura, and I were the unlucky recipients of the cleaning lady the next morning who came while we were getting dressed and reamed us out for making a mess. 50 people were there the night before so you can imagine the sand that was in there and she thought we did it all! She didn't speak a word of English, but she sure got her point across!
For dinner we tried Korean pizza which is basically an omelet with octopus and onion in it. It was surprisingly good (the ocotpus was really small! I thought it was ham at first. Oops). We also had deep fried chicken which is like KFC, but 100x better! I won't mention what our breakfast was since they don't have breakfast restaurants and the only thing with food open was a 7/11. Real healthy let me tell you!
Being at Wando for the weekend was amazing. It was so nice to finally be able to smell fresh air again! I know I go to the countryside for school, but it's still next to the city. Wando is WAY out there and far from the concentrated pollution of the cities. When we came back I just wished that I could be back where the air is fresh and you don't gag every other breath! It is actually like that in Gwangju a lot of the time. I can't stand the smells so I'm really glad I'm only here at night.
I posted pictures of my school from one angle (I'll get more eventually) and my apartment in the previous post so check those out as well!

One Week Down

I promised my sister today that I'd update my blog by tonight (this morning for you guys) so I figured I better get on that before heading over to Kristen's. Yes, that's right, I FINALLY have my own apartment! In my opinion it's nice than Kristen's. A little bigger, more stuff (rice cooker, big toaster oven) and cleaner. That's also because the person before her apparently never learned how to clean. Then again, Miss Hippie before me can't clean either. I don't know if she thought she'd was being nice by leaving me food or if she's just too lazy to clean it out. Either way, I have all this lovely vegetarian and dietary crap that I'm never going to eat if it was the last on earth. There's a full thing of Soy milk and that's about the only thing I can recognize. There's mushy cucumbers and some squishy stuff I'm afraid to smell. She was even kind enough to leave me plastic containers to hold food, only she left food in there. Like a little bit of trail mix...while I love trail mix, it's kinda disgusting eating it when it's found in your apartment. Joy. Besides that, it's a nice place.
So, the school. I've only taught two days so far since the other two school's I'm at on Wednesday's and Thursday's I don't start until next week. The co-teacher for the grade one's (equivalent to grade 7) wants lesson plans galore. There's a new co-teacher for the grade two's (grade 8) and she's fluent in English with barely an accent. I can talk my speed to her and she understands! Plus, she's only 26 and leave a 5 minute walk from me. Too bad she doesn't drive or I wouldn't have to take the bus :( she also took me to the Paris Baguette today and bought me a cheese panini. She's insanely nice and helpful, but tells me the same things over and over again. My co-teacher for the grade three's (grade 9) doesn't seem to care what I do in his classes. His only recommendation so far was that I speak slower. I was a little nervous for the grade three's since they tend to pay attention less and since half the time they won't even listen to their Korean teachers they're sure not going to listen to me. I think the classes went ok today though. It's difficult to get the class to understand the activities sometimes though. They say they understand, but I know they don't so I have to go around to each table and re-explain it. They always understand once I talk to them personally, but never when it's to the whole class. The Korean kids are funny and so polite (even if they don't listen in class!). Of course they bow every time they see you. They love saying hello and nice to meet you. They also love complimenting you! if you need a confidence boost come to Korea and they'll make you feel like you're the most amazing person alive. haha! Today in class we were writing dialogues and I went around to read them. One kid had a very random conversation going on and was like "do you think Tara is beautiful? yes I do". I wanted to laugh, but I didn't want him to be embarrassed so I walked away quickly and laughed later. It was cute. I also presented an intro slide show about myself and every single class gasped when I showed pictures of my family and told them how tall my brothers were. The girls also commented on how good looking they were. I forget the words they used, but they were definitely not words we'd use in Canada to describe boys!
My co-teacher (the main one) took me home yesterday to look through my apartment and buy me whatever I needed that wasn't in the apartment. I was hoping they'd buy me a DVD player since Kristen has one and I get a lousy VHS, but they said they can't because computers have DVD players now. What happened to big screen TVs? Computer screens are tiny! never mind my sound doesn't work either. So my co-teacher bought me a welcome mat (I really didn't want one, but she insisted), a bathroom mat (she asked what Kristen had and I didn't have...I just didn't mention Kristen bought the bathroom mat herself. oops), a steak knife (she tried to convince me a butter knife would be just as good...haha.), pillows for my couch, glasses (she wanted mugs thinking glasses would break. I said I have them at home and they never break. I hate mugs.) and I think that's all. Not much, but I would've had to buy it otherwise so I'm not complaining! She did spring the whole go to your apartment thing on me last minute so our whole way here I'm thinking: it's a disaster, clothes everywhere... she walked in (I warned her) and it was definitely worse than I remembered. Rather embarrassing actually. I'm not going to mention here what was accidentally left lying around. Anyway, I promised Kristen a movie date a half hour ago so I'm going to go do that now and hopefully you guys all enjoy your Friday! I'll post a picture of my apartment here once I clean it up a bit....