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....