Last minute before moving

It's 10 pm on Friday.

I will move tomorrow around 6pm.

I am a little annoyed that it is so late, but I don't really have much of a choice.

I have all my clothing packed (except the stuff that is still drying from my laundry yesterday).

I have all my bathroom stuff packed.

I packed everything in my bedroom (essentially).

My kitchen, however, is a freaking disaster.

I can't pack up kitchen stuff because I just don't know how. It's totally over my head.

Also, I ran out of boxes (I have one left and all my kitchen stuff left to pack)

But, I am way better off than I was in the last move.

Plus, I got word from the part-time job that she will pay for the visa run IF I get my fbi background check by the first week of September. That gives me one month. LET'S GO FBI!

Please, everyone, fingers crossed please. I really need this job. Like seriously really need it.

Moving and Tears

I move to my new apartment on Saturday, which I'm sure I've mentioned like 600 times.

Tomorrow is my last day to come to Shinheung Girls Middle School. Next week I have an English camp at another nearby middle school.

Today I have to move a bunch of my boxes and stuff from my office.

Yesterday I had my last dinner with two of my co-teachers (the two I am by far the closest to)

We went to the same place where we had our first teacher dinner, mostly just by coincidence.

It was fun and talk-filled, but seriously, it was so so so so sad. Seriously. I cried like a baby. We took some polaroids and ate and chatted, and we all cried. And they gave me this beautiful pair of earrings from J.Estina and I just can't tell you how thankful I am to them.

They have helped me when I didn't know enough Korean, or when I didn't know where to look for something, or when I needed to sneak out early to go to the post office or bank, or when I just wanted help with anything. They have so much stress as homeroom teachers and with paperwork and discipline and extra classes I never could understand how they managed it, but they always did everything they possible could to make my life that much easier.

It's not like I'll never see them again, but I won't see them in the same capacity, and it's just so crazy.

A huge chapter of my life is closing. And a new chapter is opening. It's exciting, but bittersweet.

I'm no longer in the beginning of my Korean life.

Desk Warming

Today is an unfortunate day. It's New Year's Eve and my plans with my boyfriend got scraped because he has to go to church with his parents and I can't even come to help him endure the torture (it's a long, messy story... under normal circumstances, he'd have invited me). At least I've made alternate plans with a couple girlfriends here. Otherwise I'd be totally devastated and alone tonight.

Then, after I got to work this morning, an English teacher comes into my office asking for another English teacher with whom I share my office. Unfortunately, she's not in yet. Teacher leaves, then returns to inform me that the vice principal wants me in the main office with the other teachers so as to avoid using the heater unnecessarily. This means I'm now stuck on a computer running only internet explore version 5 or something and so I can't comment on youtube videos or watch hulu (no vpn), I can't really do any serious work because it's weird sitting at some other teacher's desk, nor can I sleep without feeling really guilty or leave early (which I had planned on doing almost every day... only about 15-30 minutes early, which I make up for by always arriving some 15-20 minutes early every single other day of the year). Plus, I can't use facebook chat due to the old verion of ie. And I can't download the new version of ie (I think I can't download anything) and I'm super depressed.

The only good thing that happened today is that my principal and a bunch of other administrators and teachers all agreed that they really love me and that they want me to work at my school forever. Unfortunately, I'm planning on going to Seoul to study Korean for somewhere between four and eight months next year. Also, I may or may not be going home for a few months at the end of 2011.

Oh, Happy New Year. I hope your NYE sucks at least a little less than mine... :-/

Things at Haesa Go

Things at Haesa Go have been a little shaky these days.

After a particularly rough week last week, things are finally starting to look up. To start with the negatives:

Monday: I called in sick to work because I felt like hell and couldn't possible teach for three hours.

Tuesday: 1st period. One student looked me in the eyes and repeated constantly for at least 10 minutes (followed by intermittent repetitions for the next 20 minutes) only "Teacher, you ugly, ugly, you ugly, you ugly." This was interrupted only by his answer to my question, "What does a zombie look like?" which was, "Zombie ugly like you." Another pair of students spent 30 minutes talking (not whispering) throughout my speaking, my instruction giving and preparation of an activity. I repeatedly asked them to stop and they completely ignored me. Another student found a sewing kit (not his) in the desk at which he was seated. He proceeded to open the kit, pull out a needle and begin playing with it. I told him to stop (uh, playing with a needle that isn't yours??? WHO DOES THAT?). I turned to write on the board and I turned around and discovered this student had put the needle in his ear (which had already been pierced, but that's entirely beside the point). Who puts a needle (let alone one that isn't his/her own) in his/her ear?????? So, livid at the general disrespect I had been shown by my class, I sent this student out of my classroom. One minute late, one of the constantly talking students raised his hand and blurted out, "teacher, bathroom." I said, yes, go and don't come back to my classroom. I was completely fed up with this class. It's unfortunate because two or three of my best students are also in this class and I feel awful for them. After I sent the two students out, two other students began complaining, "teacher, me too. Make me leave too." At the point, I lost it. I looked at the remaining students in the class (the bad ones at least) and I just said: "WHY? Why are you so rude? Why do you disrespect me? If I was Korean, would you do this? If I spoke Korean, would you do this? If I were the principal, would you be rude like this? You are always talking and you never do you work. You take my pens and you waste them. You throw away everything, you are unprepared for your tests. You are wasting my time and it isn't fair to me. Every day I come here with work that I did, and you don't care." They understood nothing and just looked at me and said 뭐? (What... in low speech). At that point I lost it. I started crying. Hysterically. And I made everyone leave.

What a fucking waste of my time. I almost quit on the spot. I'm glad I didn't because my 2nd and 3rd classes were quite good and I was happy.

I complained to the schools native speaker. I complained to my co-teacher at my middle school.

And the school informed me that there would be dire consequences for students who misbehaved (a separate class with disciplinary teachers).

Wednesday: I came to my first period, the boys were like corpses. Like dead bodies, seriously. No one looked at me. No one talked to me. Just sheer anger. They were mad at me????? what. the. fuck.

Anyways, today was better. My students were only a little bad as opposed to positively hellish. So I am now in a good mood.

I just wish I could make the first class less evil.

The good news: 4 more weeks. To be exact: 11 classes. That is, 33 hours. Then, I am done with that stupid place. Forever.

Good night!

A

Busy Bee

Today I've been really busy. I just have so much to do and not enough time to do it. I didn't prepare my lessons completely until this morning, but I managed to finish with two minutes to spare and so I didn't get totally screwed. Actually it turns out my students really enjoyed the lesson. Or if they didn't enjoy it, they seemed to get it, and that's nice. I'm not sure it's because it was too easy (they seemed to not know some of it until I taught it), but they did a good job, and I'm happy.

Now I'm prepping my high school lessons for the week. Luckily, I can just recycle my grade 3 lessons with them since the high school boys are only one year older and not one level more advanced. This week we are working on the simple past. It was a tiny bit difficult for some of my girls, but I think the boys will be able to handle. Especially since there are only ten of them as opposed to 36.

I have to go to Itaewon sometime this week to pick up some books I ordered from What the Book? This will be my first time going to what is ostensibly South Korea's largest used and foreign book store. I've heard good things, but haven't made it out there. Itaewon is just such a bitch to get to from Incheon (too many transfers) and I'm so busy most weekends.

Next week is me and the bf's 100 day anniversary. But, nothing special planned. I have no school because our 100 day anniversary happens to fall on my school's birthday, but he has exams that week, and so he will be super busy. I'm supposed to be teaching at the high school but I figure I can call in sick. Maybe? Maybe I'll actually get a little sick and it'll warrant the calling in sick. meh. Either way, I'm not sure we'll be doing anything, which is kind of a bummer...

xoxo
A

Haesa Go

First off, sorry for being a pretty mediocre poster these days. I'm just really really really effing busy.

Anyways, today I have a free moment so I figured I'd post an update.

Like I said, I moved. I still have no pictures up of my apartment because I've been so busy. I still have to order a desk from gmarket (I picked out out and then ie crashed and I lost the page and I've been lazy about it). I still have to buy some shelves/drawers to store my purses/sweaters/winter hats/scarves. I still have to determine if my ant problem is gone or if they come back. I still have to get internet in my apartment. Once those things are finished, I will take some pictures and then I will post those pictures. k?

My apartment is great besides the ants and the strange humidity and lack of circulation in the apartment. I have two rooms, and my a/c is in the bedroom which makes the living area/kitchen a bit stuffy. But oh well. My refigerator is perpetually empty but I swear that one day I'll fix that. Currently my fridge contains: two pre-made steamed rice bowls, two natures valley salty&sweet chewy granola bars, three hot dogs, a bottle of water, a bottle of strawberry/veg juice, and a bottle of apple/carrot juice. And that's it. I swear I'll start cooking again.

The main reason I'm not cooking these days is because four days a week I am not home until 9 p.m. or later and I eat out.

Monday through Wednesday I'm teaching English at a nearby maritime high school (imagine a technical school specializing in ship navigation and mechanics) from 6:30-9:15 each night. I get to the school everyday at about 6 p.m. and me and the other English teachers eat dinner there at the school. On Thursday nights, I eat in 구월동, which is the arts center area, because I have Korean class near there. There is a donkasu place I like there. Maybe I'll take a picture of the donkasu I eat one day. Who knows.

Teaching at Haesa Go (that's the shortened form of maritime high school) is a trip. It's all boys. All my students are grade 1 (so they are 16 years old, roughly). They like to talk about sports and  music and insulting each other, but it's a whole different world from teaching my girls. I've learned to become really intense. About a third of each class is terrified of me, the other 2/3 thinks it's hilarious. I find those proportions to be satisfactory for my needs. The students have very low levels, but they are hilarious.

I teach three periods a night, the same three classes each day. My first period class is my favorite, and my second period class is my least favorite. My first period class has taken to calling me 누나 and I think it's really funny. I didn't like it at first, but now I think it's cute and endearing. For you non-Korean speakers out there, 누나 is noona, and it's a word that boys use for girls who are older than them, but not a ton older. It really means older sister (only for boys to use to girls, not girls to girls). It's a semi-respectful word, but it shows a certain level of closeness, usually. My second class is like a living hell. The boys are bored and disinterested and disruptive. I hate it. My third class is just kind of mediocre.

Anyhow, I'm teaching those classes and they are quite a toll. Yesterday at the very beginning of 3rd period, I had a student (not mine) come to my classroom and hand me a little chalk box and he said, "present". I took it and knew it wasn't chalk. I opened it and it looked like there was something wrapped in a leaf. My students all said, oh teacher, 곱등이! I didn't think that was it, but that's what they were yelling. 곱등이 (gopdeungi) is this bug native to japan, Korea and Taiwan. It's a jumping bug and it's pretty nasty looking. I dumped the box out and it turns out it was just this really fat long bright green caterpillar. He was actually pretty cute. He's skin/shell/whatever it is was meant to look like a leaf so he could blend in. He was super bright green. I wish, in retrospect that I had a camera with me to catch a picture, but I didn't. My boys were pretty afraid of it, but I dealt with it. I put it back in the box and figured we could release it after class finished. After class, I took the box and pretended like I would throw it on one of my students. He subsequently freaked out and ran away terrified. Then I gave the box to another student and told him to take it out, and he took the box and pretended he would throw it on me. I freaked a little too. Eventually another teacher took it and we brought it outside.

It was pretty awesome.

This is 곱등이

What was actually in the chalk box, more or less.

Another student told me about how a grade 2 student beat him with a tennis racket. It was horrifying. The reason he got beat? Because during dinner he made eye contact with the grade 2 student. >.< omg, crazy. Then, later that class, that same student got a text message that his best friends father had died. Most depressing day ever.

Anyways, a friend of mine who teaches at the school just got admitted to the hospital for gastro issues. That sucks a lot, especially because he was supposed to plan today's lesson so now I'm a bit up shit creek in that respect. I hopefully will go visit him today or tomorrow, depending on my schedule.

That's it!

xoxo
A

School's Out!

Today marked my first day of summer vacation. How did I ring it in? Well, by going to school and working of course.

I know that sounds strange but here's the reasoning.

My last day of school was yesterday. Today, there is one teacher at my school, one office worker and the vice-principal. Oh, and me. Because I am a special kind of teacher, I work through the holidays and am only given 20 days of paid vacation a year. It's the downside to not being a certified Korean teacher here. Granted, my job the other 200 or so days both me and the Korean teachers work is much easier for me than them, so I'm willing to take the trade-off.

I am pretty happy I got to come in today because it meant several things.

1. Free lunch. The other teacher bought my lunch, which was 떡만두국 Or rice cake and dumpling soup. It was really really good and I was happy upon eating it.

2. I was able to finish (mostly) the planning for my summer camps and submit the last bit of paperwork for the camp.

3. I got to watch 전우치, a Korean movie starring the super famous Korean actor 강동원 (Kang Dong Won), who is a total babe. This is the first Korean movie I've watched, which is pretty pathetic given that I've been here for neigh onto a year now. I just don't really like movies. But this one was fucking awesome. If you can find it stateside, and don't mind subtitles, it's hella awesome. Seriously. There are goblins and archgods and taoism and fighting and a beautiful widow and a dog/horse/man/woman. You can't go wrong with that combination.

The bad news is that waiting for me back at home is a pile of laundry, a terribly dirty apartment, and a shower drain that's so clogged, there is standing water in it from my shower yesterday morning. Luckily, I bought some drain-o which will hopefully clear up that problem, and then I'm going to Hooters tonight to celebrate Miranda's birthday and maybe I'll get a new ear piercing? Things are all kinds of crazy for me these days, what with me designing another tattoo, and getting piercings, and watching movies and cleaning my apartment. Who am I and what have I done with wally?

Anyways, time to pack up and head home through the rain. >.<

Oh, and did I mention, second date tomorrow~~~~

xoxo
A

Damn, I wish i was a native Spanish Speaker

Korea's office of Tourism is hiring a native Spanish Speaker to do translation and other website maintenance work (blogging, etc.) for their Spanish section of the visitkorea.or.kr website. They prefer native Spanish Speakers who are already living in Korea, but are taking application for those who also live abroad. You must have a high level of English OR Korean speaking ability (imagine if you had both) and experience translating from English or Korean to Spanish. I think that my writing and reading abilities would probably suffice for this position, but my speaking and listening is regretably low, especially now. Plus, I'm not a native speaker of spanish, so i wouldn't qualify.

Anyways, if any of my readers out there want to come to Korea and happen to be fluent in Spanish and English/Korean, you should apply. This would be a really great opportunity to work in a reliable job here on the peninsula. ^_^

For more information click here to be directed to the want ad posted on the visitkorea.or.kr site.

Sorries

So I've been kind of an epic fail at posting these days. I know I know, it's been less than a week since my last post, which is way better than most of my blogging friends out there, but it's pretty bad compared to my recent 3+ posts/week that had been going on for the last couple months.

I'm still hella busy, which is why I haven't been posting. I started a post on Friday, but that never got finished. So I'll leave you with these bits of blogging ridiculousness:

1. I FUCKING HATE HANGUL WRITING PROGRAM. This is not the written language that I hate, but rather a Korean word processor that I am required to use to prepare my worksheets/lessons for my summer camp. It's used for all government documents here, which I think is just fucking stupid. Here's the thought process: hey, we need a Korean language word processor, and right now (btw it's 1989 or something like that), nothing exists for that. Let's make one. *Fast Forward to 2000* Hey MSWord has Korean compatability now, and that's what the rest of the world is using, should we use that? Nah, fuck it, why would our government want to use that? It's not like we have to interact with other countries, right? So, now I'm stuck using this stupid program that has the weirdest formatting (when adding pictures it makes portions of your type disappear in the editing section, but when you print preview it, everything is there-- frustrating much?), and which doesn't work on my office computer so I have to use my significantly hotter and more uncomfortable classroom computer to even create these effing documents, which I cannot access on my mac laptop at home, nor will I be able to access stateside if I ever decide, hey, those were some good activities, I'd like to use them again.

2. I love M&Ms. My co-teacher bought me a couple bags. They are supposed to be for my summer camp class, but I have an extra bag of peanut m&ms which I just looooooooove. So, yeah, those are mine.

3. God tutoring the business man I tutor is ridiculous. So strange. He just shares with me these uncomfortable theories and stories and other things. These are the things he told me last night alone:
a) "Drinking one bottle vodka, okay, two bottles, I crazy" (I asked for clarification, how many people are drinking said bottle of vodka? He said, "me only one bottle, friend and me drinking together, two bottles vodka" Just thinking about drinking a whole bottle of vodka made me feel like I had severe alcohol poisoning)

"One bottle vodka okay, two bottles I crazy." 

b) *while discussing whether U.S. cities are dangerous, after baltimore was brought up* "Baltimore have many black people?" to which I replied, "yes, a fair number" to which he responded, "I see. In Seattle, very safe. My friend say Seattle is very safe, not many black people. I think in United States no job is very big problem. Many black people, not just black people but black people, hispanic people, have no job, and I think it is a very big problem to the government. People with no job take some money from government and other people work very hard and lose their money. But the people with no job, the black and hispanic people with no job, don't work, only take money." I attempted to clarify that often, the jobless people aren't jobless because they choose to be, but because they can't find work, due to the economy, lack of education, lack or resources, lack of a great number of things. It's really difficult to explain the idea that certain communities of people (black, white, hispanic, asian, middle eastern african, whatever) are basically raised into lives with few opportunities as opposed to other communities (of more wealth) where things like education, food, homes, and safety and handed to the inhabitants on a silver platter.
c) *showing me a text message he had received from a girl which contained her measurements* "shoulders is that just here to here" *points from right should to left* Yes, of course. *writes down all measurements* "Her waist, is ____cm (I don't remember). How many inches is that? Is that big or small?" After a quick calculation, I reply, "It's tiny." And her shoulders and like half of mine. "ah, I see. This is for Chinese girl. Very nice. She is the secretary for my business partner. She drives us to factories and helps negotiate sometimes. She is very pretty so good at negotiations. I am very thankful so I say I give her present. She says she wants Korean dress." Oh, she wants a hanbok (traditional Korean dress)? That's surprising. "No, she wants red dress, short skirt like this (indicates a very short skirt) so I must get this dress." Are these dresses not available in China? This is all too strange.

 I am certain that red mini dresses are available in China.

d) The kicker. "In Australia, I smoke Marijuana." (Mind you, this is all completely unprovoked. Like, he out of no where is like hey, I smoked pot back in the day). "In Australia, everyone smokes marijuana, you never try?" In response, I truthfully say, "nope, I've never tried marijuana. It's not my thing. A lot of my friend smoke, but not me." "Really?" he says in surprise, "Everyone in U.S.A. smokes the marijuana." Well, not everyone, but okay, I see his point. He goes on, "my friend and I one night Australia drinking, talking, drinking, and we go outside and he goes to a narrow street, you know, for the pissing (DIRECT QUOTE I SWEAR TO GOD), and I look over and he sit down and is rolling, you know, the marijuana, and then the police come, and they see him. I very nervous about the marijuana, and the police bring more police and they see the marijuana, but it is less than 12 grams so it is not for the selling so they say, it is okay and we go." Should the guy I tutor be talking about his run-ins with the Sydney law enforcement agency over marijuana.

I swear to god I did a google image search for "Australia Marijuana" and this was the fifth picture.

So, yeah, that's what I've been up to.

xoxo,
A

Work. School. Work. School.

A quick update on things in my life.

Right now across from me, my Korean co-teacher is cutting her hair with office scissors. I find this to be strange but comforting. I can get away with doing pretty much anything I want here. Korea is so weird. It's like teachers don't really teach.

I finally caught up on most of my work. In spite of a terrible computer fail earlier today, I managed to finish all of my final exam questions, and begin working on my lesson plans for my summer camp. My computer decided to eliminate all of my grade 1 and 2 exam questions, as well as all of the charts and pictures I had to include in the exam. So, I had to recreate everything, re-edit the photos, and re-write the questions. But I finished!

I also FINALLY wrote all of my stupid letters back to my students. They do this thing where they write letters asking for advice from a teacher. I get a lot of letters, because I'm intriguing to students, but they don't actually ask for advice because they don't know enough English. So, instead, they just write these ridiculous letters that basically say: "TEACHER! I LOVE YOU!" and the like. So I write back these equally ridiculous letters like, "wow, thank you very much. I hope you love English class a lot too!" and I decorate them with hello kitty stickers and various gelly roll pen doodles. I sound like i don't like this activity, but really I do. It's an ego boost when I have 10 letters on my desk and the other teacher in my office has three. ^_^

I also finally created a board with outstanding student work. It has stars and gold and drawings by my students right now. It seems to spruce up the room a little.

Also, we finally finished stamps. THANK GOD. I hated giving those stupid stamps with a passion. Now, stamps are over. Or at least until next semester! *^_____________^*

Now I just have to adjust to a totally new schedule that was just changed.

Oh, and for the best news of my entire week. This one student, the evil one who made me cry back in November. The one who seems to intentional try to make every teacher go mad, has reformed. By some miracle or some grace of god, this student today in my class was a perfect angel. We had free study time, so it's not like thre was really much of anything to do. But, still. Previous free studies have been like torture for me, where she just loses control and goes crazy. Today, she spent the entire 45 minutes studying. She even raised her hand and asked me a question. And while her question was in Korean, and I had trouble explaining, she sat and listened until she understood. And then she went back to studying. I've never felt such sheer unadulterated joy in my life. And so after, to reward the 5 or 6 students who were really good, including reformed demon student, I had them stay a minute late and I gave them Chupa Chups lollipops. The one student, when I said she could have one, looked at me with a look that could only be described as utter shock and awe, and said, "Teacher, ME?!" and when I said yes, she said, "Oh teacher, really very very thank you! I love you! Thank you!" I think that she and I have been growing on each other. I have to give her lots of attention, but that's okay. If I praise her (even verbally, not just with candy/bribes), she seems to perform much better. So everyday, I look for some way to say something positive to her, in hopes that she will continue to behave well. Then, at lunch, she and her friend came back to my office to talk to me, and reformed demon student MADE ME COFFEE. omg. I can hardly handle it.

So yeah. That's my life these days!

xoxo
A

Some things

So I just wanted to take another break from posting our last day in Shanghai in order to share some things.

1. World Cup.

Korea won. 대~한민국!!! I tried to go to City Hall with Miranda to watch the game (ok, really it was so I could see Big Bang who was going to have an appearance at 5 before the game). We got to city hall at 11 and it was raining and there were not many people at all there. We got a bite to eat and I bought an umbrella and a red poncho and we got in the short line. We saw a bunch of big bang fan club vip girls. THey saw us and asked, Big Bang see? And we said yessss. And they said, no come, and formed the x with their hands that is a universal no sign. But they were still waiting so we thought maybe there was a miscommunication. We asked another guy if big bang would come and he said, at 5. So we sat down in some grass and started playing Go-Stop. We got confirmation that Big Bang was no going to be there, but we were playing go-stop, and it wasn't a big deal. It was raining a bit. Then we met two Korean guys who were impressed by my go-stop skills. And they joined in on the fun. Then it started raining a lot. After two hours in the rain, Miranda and I left, defeated. We went to Myeongdong and I got a red striped shirt to show my korean patriotism during the game. I watched the Korea game at Dillinger's, a frisbee favorite haunt. Then went to street stalls for food after the game, plus then Candacee's for relaxing and trying to stay awake and eating popcorn and squid and playing dice. We played dice even through Yong dropping one out of the window and therefore making the game a bit more tricky. Then Rocky Mountain Tavern for the USA v. England game. It was really hard to stay awake since the game started at 3:30 a.m. my time. By the second half, I felt like I was gonna die. I was nodding off and barely made it. By miracle, USA pulled out a tie (as I'm sure you all know) due to a big mistake by England's keeper. But anyways, I'm rooting for Korea, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

This is how I felt when I found out I couldn't see my 대성이.

These are the 천원 (1000 won) bets that the boys made on everything from who would have the next corner kick to which coach would get the next close-up on camera.

2. Tutoring

The gentleman I tutor here is a funny man. He is as old as my parents but he seems nice enough. He has lived in Incheon pretty much his whole life (minus a 10 or so year stint in Australia). When he was young (high school age) Incheon was obviously a much smaller city. He still keeps in touch with a number of his high school/middle school friends. As I had mentioned a bit ago, election day was a couple weeks ago. He had three friends running for seats in the city council and another running for something he called the manager of the district. It seems like some sort of mayorship role, but for a district. I don't know what the word is. The district is Yeonsu-dong, which is where Songdo is. Songdo is a huge area Incheon is pouring money into calling it an international free economic zone. Incheon is banking on Songdo becoming the biggest port area in East Asia. As such, construction in that area is booming. The man I tutor works in a granite import/export company (by works in I mean is the CEO of), and he has a decent amount of work largely in Songdo. He said to me, "my friend in Yeonsu-dong he is a good man. much better thn the city council friends. Honest. No bribes." I responded well, that's good. An honest politician is hard to come by. He said, "yes, I had dinner with him the other night. Big dinner. I pay. And I say to him, friend, you send business people to me. I work for you. He must because I always buy him dinner last year when he had no job. He must."

I laughed.

3. I got a new tattoo. I'm going to hold off on posting pictures because people read this who don't necessarily need to see my new tattoo (read: my parents and the occasional student). Don't worry Mom & Pops, I didn't get a naked she-devil tattoo or anything. Not anything to bizarro. Just some flowers. It's just that they're big, colored, and currently super painful. Like wrecking my life painful. Like I literally lept for joy when I discovered I couldn't tutor because the man had to meet with a business partner because it mean that I could lay under the a/c and hope to escape the fire-y burning that is overwhelming me.

4. My students made these awesome pictures for parents' day which was like a million years ago, but my school didn't get around to putting up the posters until way afterwards (anyone surprised? not me), but they are pretty cool. My students can draw. They are all grade 1&2 middle school. One of the pictures, the one with the frog, references this Korean story I read for homework when my co-teacher gave me that children's story book. I was proud of myself for understanding! *^__^*

Oh, and I saw this out my window last night. Thought I'd share. A bit blurry, but it was the nicest sunset I'd seen from my window so far.

xoxo
A

So yeah.

Exhaustion.

WHAT HAVE I DONE TO MYSELF HERE?

I'm so effing tired. Here is my weekly schedule:
Monday: 8:00 leave for school. 4:00 school ends. 4:30 after school class with teachers begins. 5:45 go home. 7:00 tutor. 9:00 go home.
Tuesday: 8:00 leave for school. 4:45 go home. 5:15 leave for Korean Class. 6:30 Korean class starts (I usually get a coffee en route). 7:45 Korean Class ends. 8:00 Kimbap Cheonguk for dinner. 9:30 at home.
Wednesday: 8:00 leave for school. 4:45 go home. 5-6:30 break time. 7:00 tutor. 9:00 go home.
Thursday: 8:00 leave for school. 4:45 go home. 5:15 leave for Korean Class. 6:30 Korean class starts (I usually get a coffee en route). 7:45 Korean Class ends. 8:00 Kimbap Cheonguk for dinner. 9:30 at home.
Friday: 8:00 leave for school. 4:00 school ends. 4:20 after school class with grade 2. 5:45 go home. Usually I go to dinner with friends this day since it's the only day I can do anything.
Saturday: 8:00 wake up (I can't sleep in past that). 11:15 leave for Ichon Station, Seoul. 1:00 frisbee practice. 3:30 frisbee practice ends. 4:00 eat. 8:00 go out.
Sunday: 9:30 wake up. 10:45 go to Ichon fields. 11:00 practice. 2:00 League games. 5:30 go to subway. 7:00 kimbap cheonguk or McDonalds for dinner. 8:30 home, shower, pass out of exhaustion.

Today has a slight change in that I went with Melina to do touristy stuff in Seoul. Finally went to the top of Namsan tower. Chonggyecheon was beautiful. Shopped too much in Hongdae and Myeongdong.

Pictures to come shortly to review my last few weeks. Sorry I haven't been posting as much, but god good I've been busy.

Two things

1. I am going to kill my grade 2 class 6 students. They are pure evil. Last week I assigned classwork and then collected it to check and grade and such. This morning as I was grading my last batch of work (I graded over 600 papers for student because I see them all in a week), I checked grade 2-6, and discovered that they did literally nothing. I assigned them work to do, basically just pair work where they ask their partner questions about a calendar schedule they received. Then, they had to write their sentences down to get credit. Of the 36 students, 8 did work. The other 28, NOTHING. This, in spite of me going from student to student and specifically, individually, explaining the activity and forcing them to speak. They wrote literally nothing. 28 students. As a result, today in class, I am going to make them miserable. I don't even effing care, I'm so pissed. This class is consistently bad, ignoring instructions, talking over me, sleeping, distracting each other and making mean jokes. At least 20 papers had only doodles. Gaaaah. So mad.

On a lighter note...

2. Just now at lunch time, my grade 3 students were preparing for their class picture for the yearbook, which I guess is a big deal or something. They were all huddled in the girls bathroom (I always brush my teeth after lunch and saw them there) hiding and using a hair straightener. I thought it was completely ridiculous that they were all crammed into one tiny bathroom stall, so I told them to move to my office to prepare. They were so shocked that I didn't mind them using hair straighteners in school, and they all rushed over like kisd in a candy store. Also, some girls were putting on make-up (eye liner, concealer, the works) and such. They are 15 years-old for goodness sakes. They should be wearing that much make-up. Then I saw the kicker. One student pulled out a glue stick (literally a classroom glue stick) and applied GLUE TO HER EYELID, in order to create the coveted double eyelid. Completely effing ridiculous. I about lost it just then. I was like, are you crazy? Glue is not for your eyes! But my co-teacher in my office said, "oh, lots of korean people put glue on their eyes."

I think my eyeballs about fell out of their sockets and my jaw basically unhinged and bounced to the floor. Effing Korea.

For those of you that don't know (all you Euro-trashers out there reading my blog), the before is regular asian eye, and the after is the double eyelid, which many many many women undeergo cosmetic surgery to create.

 This is not make-up. It should not be near your eyes.

Positivity

This weekend was rough and exhausting. Not necessarily in a bad way, just in an exhausting way. On Friday night, I went to Bupyeong for dinner, then to Hongdae for clubs (Ho Bar then Cocoon). Got home Saturday at 3:15 a.m., after a taxi ride from bupyeong in which I had a legitimate conversation in Korean with the taxi driver. Then woke up at 8 a.m. and skype my sister and parents from 9 to 11 a.m. Hopped in a taxi to the train station, got to Ichon station in Seoul at 12:45. Walked to the fields, played ultimate in the cold wind for an hour and a half. Grabbed a taxi back to itaewon, where the disc hotel is. Then hung out for one hour to shower and check e-mail and chat. Then hopped a bus to gangnam where I had ddeok sam, which is AMAZING (and is thin sheets of rice cake wrapped around samgyeopsal-- slammin') Then, back to disc hotel. Then to Dillingers in Itaewon, this bar. Then to King Club-- terrible. Then to B1-- terrible. Back to disc hotel with Beth at 4 a.m. Up at 9:30, eggs&bacon a la adam/bekah, back to Ichon at 11. Practice for 2 hours. League for another hour. Train to Incheon. Now here I am.

My ankle hurts and I'm so tired.

But, I just officially paid off almost 1/3 of my total student loans, since I sent some money home with my parents and it got deposited this week. I felt like I could finally drop some real bones to work on paying down my debt. My goal at the end of two years, I think, will be to have no loans or debt at all. This is going to be difficult, but I think doable. I started out with about 11,000 USD in debt, so if I can pay all of that off in two years, I'll be relieved and happy, especially since the anticipated repayment time was 10 years.

On another note, t-minus 4 days until I am sitting mere meters from my future husband.

Good Days.

So, I just had a pretty good couple days, which was much need given my previous post and couple days.

Yesterday I had normal work, and normal tutoring. Everything was just about average. After tutoring, I stopped by Zaxby's to cash in on my 5 free chicken fingers w/ purchase of a drink coupon for dinner. Then I had coffee talk. For those of you who haven't heard me rave about coffee talk, let me explain. For my job at the ELI, we have weekday/afternoon activities as well as weekend activities. Each weekday activity is sponsored by an LA (that's what I am), and then if enough students go, any additional LA that attends can get paid as well. I am the sponsor of Volleyball on Tuesdays. I also go to coffee talk most wednesday. Coffee Talk is basically just students and LAs hanging out at the Starbucks on Archer Road, drinking coffee and talking about whatever we want.

So last night's coffee talk was extra fun. It starts at 7 p.m. and we just hung out for a bit. Then I started a round of the wah game (long explanation, it's just a dumb game). Then I was talking to different students asking how to say "my name is allison" in their native language. So far I'm up to: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Arabic. Korean is bar none the most difficult to say. Transliterated, it's roughly: nay il-rum uh (with teeth clenched) Allison im-ni-dah.

As coffee talk was wrapping up, a group of the students decided they wanted to go bowling. So, with about 15 of the other students, I went to AlleyKatz for Quartermania. I got a discounted rate (I just asked please and stuck the lower lip out... works like a charm!) and bowled for like two hours, till 12:30 with them! It was so so much fun! I bowled mostly with some of the Arabic students, but there were also lots of spanish speaking students there and some Russians.

Anyways, today was good too. Class was super fun. We played Taboo and the students just loved it. They got really competitive, as they always do, and it seems like they really enjoyed that game. One of our Arabic students got the word arab and he was like ME ME ME! Then he pointed to another Arabic student on his team and was like you and me are this... and he said "friends!!" It was hilarious.

Today I also go new headphones because my ipod earbuds were breaking. The new ones are a little bit strange (they go more in my actual ear, which feels a bit weird) but I like them a lot. The sound quality is really good, much better than my old ones.

Tonight I'm going out to Brophy's as part of Dan Reed's going away party/saddness. It's crazy how people are really moving away. First Ali, whom I'll never see again, ever. Now Dan Reed.

xoxo,
A.