It's Gonna Be MAY

May is going to absolutely fly past. This upcoming weekend is a much-needed holiday, if the general attitude of my students is concerned. I've been almost bitten, hit a few times--all out of love, because for some reason a few kids under the age of 6 think that acting like dicks gets positive attention. Reality: In terms of biting, all it gets you is a chair in the corner and a lot of tears. Honestly, I don't remember everything from when I took Child Psychology in college, mostly because I only paid attention to the teenager chapters while thinking, "There's no way in hell I'll ever teach kids under the age of----" Anyway, I seem to recall something about a child's brain being made of blueberry muffins until about age nine, so maybe that has something to do with it.

So as I said, this is going to be a much needed vacation for the entire peninsula. I've had my share of dealing with mass Asian holidays and am actually staying put. An entire nation on the move for beaches and mountains with their kids in tow means I hide in my own city, so I'm doing a stay-cation in Seoul. Mid-May I'm heading down to Jeju Island with a few friends, and between that I have a baseball game to go to with a co-teacher, and then another wine gathering. May is really, really going to disappear fast.

After that, hey guess what--I'm going to Boracay Island in the Philippines for our summer vacaion at the end of July! Which means lots of fun in the sun, and lots of not doing anything on the weekdays leading up to it so I can pay stupid amounts of money to become PADI Open Water certified to scuba dive. So I aplogize for any forthcoming posts about, uh, knitting or reading in the park.

I have five months left, so I'm starting to make a list of things I've wanted to do. The end of living abroad has a real way of sneaking up to bite you in the ass. Example: My last week living in Tokyo, I remembered I'd never been to the island of Odaiba or the original Pokemon Center, which lead to some hard decisions, my friend, let me tell you. (Pokemon Center won out because I am a gigantic nerd.) In China, I went on a whirlwind tour of Shanghai, Beijing, the Great Wall, and Sujou in a week's time and slept like the dead on my plane home to the USA.

So, I've learned my lesson. Probably.

On my to-do list:

• Jeju Island (May)
• DMZ (June)
• Train ride up to Chuncheon for delicious dak galbi (This weekend!)

Not planned, but I know I have to get off my ass and do it:

• Seroksan, a gorgeous mountain maybe 4 hours away, and the neighboring park adorned with penises (Yes, you read that right.)
• Busan, the second largest city in Korea with a beach down south

...other than that, I truly have no other musts. Really I'd just like to get around Seoul a bit more and explore areas I haven't been to yet. It's a gigantic city--the second largest in the world after Tokyo, so cut me some slack!

Ferry disaster

Many people around the world have heard the horrifying news of a ferry sinking off  the coast of South Korea. The ferry was  carrying hundreds of high school children from a school in my province.

The official mood  in Korea has been somber thus far. Out of respect for the families (and perhaps as a precaution) all public school trips have been cancelled for the rest of the semester. My hagwon cancelled a simple picnic excursion as well, which was probably for the best. Therre's no reason to give parents anything to worry about this week, even if we were only going to be on a bus for 10 minutes.

Additionally, many festivals and events are being postponed and cancelled. Charities are taking donations of clothing, snacks, toiletries, and other items to deliver to the families who have gone to Jindo Island and wait in a school gym for news of their loved ones.

In my school, life is continuing, but I can't imagine the mood at the affected high school.

Lesson idea: Numbers & Sports Jerseys

Need an idea for teaching kindergarteners number order and recognition, yet also hoping to indoctrinate them with love for your favorite sports teams? Fear not, there's a lesson for that!

Print out pictures of jerseys for the numbers you want taught, then have students pin them up on a clothes line in the right order. Educational AND sneaky? Sign me up!

Is it fog or smog?

Luckily, there's a website to tell you how bad the air is in Korea on any given day!

Most of the smog comes from China, the gift that keeps on giving. 

I WILL HELP YOU WIN A PRIZE IN THIS INCREDIBLY INFORMATIVE POST

DO U NO A PRETTY LADY? SHE  WITH NOW? OF COURSE SHE IS, YOU'RE VERY ATTRACTIVE AND HAVE A GREAT PERSONALITY. 

IF U SEE TILES... YOU PAY A KOREAN MAN, TO BREAK TILES. NO, IT OK; THEY NOT REAL TILES, THEY BREAK IN HALF, IT OK DON'T BE SCARE.

THERE STACK OF 5, STACK OF 15, STACK OF 25. DON'T BREAK THE 5, IT TOO EASY, SHE WON'T BE IMPRESS. THAT PRIZE TOO SMALL FOR PRETTY LADY, TRUST ME. DON'T TRY 25, 25 TOO HARD, U FAIL. U FAIL BAD AND PRETTY LADY WILL SEE. SO DO 15, 15 GOOD NUMBER.

THEY GIVE YOU GLOVE. YOU PUT ON GLOVE. GO, 'Hnnnnnnngg!' AND SMASH TILES LIKE ANGRY GOD. 'Hnnnnnnng!'

THERE YOU GO, NOW U GET PRIZE. BUT YOU HAVE TO GIVE IT TO PRETTY LADY, SORRY ABOUT THAT, I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT CATCH. GOOD LUCK!

Letters to Superheroes

Asked my oldest class to write a letter. I--to their utter dismay--used Loki as my example. Most students wrote to Iron Man and Mickey Mouse. Except Aron, who shares my sympathies and just earned an A.

'My Family'

When we learn about family member vocab, I like to get the students to make a family tree and present it to the class. It's pretty easy and fun; what kindergartener doesn't like talking about her family?

However....

"My god," the English teacher said under her breath. "I hope that's hair and not a headwound..."

Half-way point

I'm here, I've made it: I am half way through my contract in South Korea.

When I arrived in Korea in October I was:

• Broke and saddled with credit card debt
• Pretty desperate to get out of America and begin traveling again long-term
• Exited to start teaching again
• Interested in learning Korean
• Ready to get my shit together!

Now, six months later, I am:

• Not broke, but still paying off debt because of LASEK (No regrets!) 
• Ready to move on to the next thing after Korea
• Pretty over teaching in a hagwon (private school)
• With ten Korean words in my vocabulary because so many people speak English here
• At 13% Shit Togetherness, by my best scientific estimates

About that:

☞Some advice: I really, truly would not risk coming here with credit card debt unless you absolutely can at least make the minimum payments for a few months. Most teachers get paid monthly and you'll have a lot of 'set up' costs to cover your first month. This could be anything from paying for your health screening and food to furnishing your apartment and going out to meet new people. I actually had to pay for the previous teacher's utility bill because I arrived at a weird time in the month but, at least, the next teacher will pay mine. (Yeah, bullshit, I know.)

I will say, if you look on Craigslist and Facebook groups, you can usually find cheap or free things to get for your new apartment. I was lucky enough to just buy everything in my apartment off of the teacher I replaced, saving me from a lot of hassle.

☞Korea is a very comfortable place to live and it's easy to see why people end up staying here year after year. I originally came over with the idea that I was only going to stay for a year, but I'm looking into staying on this side of the world for a bit longer. Hopefully in another country, but if a job opportunity came up in Korea, I would have to sit down and seriously consider it.

☞However... I have very little desire to teach kindergarten and preschool again! I like my students and the job isn't particularly difficult, but my god is it exhausting. Think of the drunkest person you've ever seen. I mean falling out of chairs, slurring their words, sobbing in the corner--that kind of drunk. Then think of ten miniature copies of that person in a room. That is the best way I can describe teaching preschool. They are adorable and easily entertained but I go home bone-tired.

Also, as I previously mentioned, hagwons are typically businesses first and schools second. Most hagwons are franchises that use the same materials and lesson plans. For some reason, the franchise--or at least the branch--I work at does not have an actual rubric for the English teachers. We were only just given teachers' manuals for the (randomly selected?) textbooks we teach out of. There was never an outline, core, or rubric for teaching distributed at the beginning of the semester. The 'rubric' is, "Go, teach English. And make sure the kids are happy." There's homework (in kindergarten, I remind you), yet no tests. Although, I suppose the 'test' at the end of the year is the final performance were students have to sing and dance amidst laser lights and a professional MC, then read an English speech that has been meticulously picked apart by the director.

Teaching in some of these hagwons is like buckshot; you do many things and hope something will stick. I have no idea how 'real teaching' in the 'real world' works as I've not done it, but the hagwon set up does not align with what I learned in college about education. Granted, I knew from secondhand stories that this was what I could expect at a hagwon, and I figured I had the fortitude to deal with it for a year. I can make it another six months, but the teacher in me is going to be burnt out by the time September rolls around.

Whadd're you gonna do.

☞I am embarrassed to say this, but I just don't have a passion for the Korean language. Added to the fact that every time I try to speak it, the other person responds in English, my motivation has been quite low. I can read and write the alphabet no problem--after learning two Japanese alphabets, Korean letters make so much sense--and I can actually understand about 15% of what is being said. Korean has a similar grammar structure to Japanese and uses a few similar words as both Japanese and Chinese. I actually need to remind myself to stop answering the students in English when they speak in Korean, though, this is a really bad habit I have. A few classes are under the impression that I'm fluent in Korean and my co-workers have had to tell students many times that I am, in all actuality, a dumb foreigner.

Sorry, Korean. It's not you, it's me.

☞Ha-HA! I lied. I don't have my shit together at all.



I like Korea, but this was only ever meant to be the beginning of an adventure.

Link: 50 Beautiful places to visit in South Korea

It saddens me that I'll likely not have the money or time to visit most of these places, but perhaps you will: 50 Beautiful Places to Visit in South Korea