A weird weird day

Today has been a combination of awesome and awful. I'll spare the gruesome details, but will share this:
1. I broke a girls' spirit while playing review Jeopardy. She almost cried. She is the best student in that particular class. I was emotionally distraught
2. I was only emotionally distraught until I started filling in birthdays and American holidays on my new 2010 HELLO KITTY calendar. Oh. My. God. It is so cute.
3. My coteacher informed me there was a three day training thing going on in the middle of the time Thomas is coming to visit. I wanted to cry. Luckily, they are working it out for me.
4. After lunch, I have just one class. It is grade 1, class 1. I HATE THAT CLASS.
5. One girl in grade 1-1 made me cry today. She was incredibly disrespectful, and I had no co-teacher to monitor the situation. I almost lost it and swore and screamed, but I held it in. It was heartbreaking though. There are some really really good students in the class, and I feel incredibly bad for them because they want to learn, and there are about 5 girls who blatantly interrupt their ability to learn by being talkative, disruptive or rude for no real reason, except that they are poorly behaved and mean-spirited.
6. One student brought me a BigBang/2ne1 poster! SO HAPPY.
7. I am finally learning names. Lots of them. There is: Chrissy, Scarlett, Amy and Audrey, plus Jeong Yeon, Ha Eun, Eun Yeong, Jin Ha, Minji (times 3), Ara, Jinsu (times 2), Areum, Saerom, Hyeju, So-Yeon, Hyeon-bin (who has a pet goldfish named poo-poo. seriously, I can't make that shit up), Sara, So-un, Eun-bin, Da-eun, Da-un, Hee-Jin(school president) and some others than I'm forgetting at the moment but legitimately know. It's so hard.
8. My Korean teacher said that for the next term I should go to the intermediate class. HOORAY!
9. Delicious dwaeji-kalbi (bbq pork) for dinner.

It sounds like on the whole, the positives outweigh the negatives, but that one girl in my grade 1, class 1 really irritated me to the point that I questioned whether or not I can handle being in Korea for another year. I am over it now (sort of), but I think that now I will have this awful bias against this one girl.

On a lighter note, Christmas is in full swing here. Hooray! Pictures from Christmas in Korea:

At Myeong-Dong, the busy shopping area in Seoul. I wish I had taken a picture of the obscene crowds. At Christmastime, there are easily THOUSANDS of people crowded in this 5 block x 5 block shopping district. It's intense.

This is Etude House, a make-up/beauty store in Korea. It is very famous and popular amongst younger girls. It is adorable for Christmas, I think.

Also, I went to Lotte World (but only the ice skating rink, not the whole theme park)on Saturday with Ara. We had coffee and chatted (and met with Guenwoo, another former ELI student) and that was quite fun. Then we went ice skating which was AMAZING. There are some good pics Ara took up on facebook, including my new Korea-tastic profile picture. I was terrified at first (it's been almost 10 years since I've ice skated), but I got back into it in no time. However, my ankles were beat by the end. Afterwards, we went to Omuto Tomato, which is an omurice place. Here are pictures (AND VIDEOS) of that.

This band came on the ice and played instruments, while these two weird Disney-esque rip-off characters ice-skated around and sort of danced in a poorly choreographed manner.

It seemed to me like they were only concerned with actually choreographing only the band's movements and tiny portions of the characters ice dance, as much of the "dance" included off beat head bopping and knee bending, and occasional sidelong glances at each other in an obvious attempt to figure out what the other was doing and then mimicking it lamely. But the band was pretty good.

Video 1- The Doxology

Video 2- O Come All Ye Faithful

An update.

Things here have continued in their insanity. I am so busy, but then I am completely not busy. It’s a mystery to me how I get anything done. I’m at work for 8 hours a day, but only teaching somewhere between an hour and a half and four hours on any given day. Unfortunately, the things that I am busy doing are things that require me to move around and not be at school. Christmas shopping has been a nightmare thus far, as I feel obligated to by Korean things for my friends/family, but that is a vague notion in itself, and then I can’t stick to clothing because it’s just so damn weird here. Plus, the sizes are all crazy. Add on top of that, grocery shopping, Korean classes, eating food (which lately involves me eating out) and I have zero time for myself. My sleep patterns are all out of whack, and I’m tired all the time. And we will not even talk about the appalling disaster that is my apartment. It looks, currently, like my closet vomited all my clothing onto the floor, and then I took a three-inch binder and emptied its entire contents onto my bed/desk/coffee table and then decided to not clean my bathroom or vacuum my floors for three months (honestly, it’s been a week and a half, but nothing stays clean on hardwood, and my bathroom was disgusting from the day I moved in, and I’m still trying to recover it).

Buuuut, I love it here.

I promise to post Christmastime pictures soooooon. Plus, a VIDEO.

p.s. I may start doing video blogs, if I get the inspiration.

Funny things in Korea

This isn't the predicted next post, but I had to let you all know.

While shopping today for Christmas gifts (LOEF secret santa halfway done, Melly halfway done, plus nail polish, headband,necklace,and hairclip for me ^^) I saw two hilariously awesome articles of clothing. The first was a sweatshirt/sweatpants combo that had this written in HUGE all-caps lettering across the chest and down the left leg: FAT. bwahaha. Next, a sweater with a bear in a sweater on it. Caption of the picture reads, "Recession, got no job, but my tan looks fine." Oh Korea, you slay me. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, so I couldn't capture these two gems. This was in the same place that has a store called Jeworld, which makes me think they sell Jews, but it's actually Jewelry.

Also, two of my students made me SUPER happy the other day. I don't know if I have mentioned this on here before, but my school has this thing where students get stamps from me for speaking English to me. They all have a piece of paper with a maze type thing on it and they get one stamp per English sentence that they speak to me, with a max of three stamps/day. As a result, I am ridiculously busy between classes and after school. Students are literally sprinting to be the first to talk to me (and thus be guaranteed plenty of time to create and say their sentences as I often have to rush some girls or simply tell students, sorry, next time. After class). Last week sometime, two friends came together and one of them was talking to me about books. Apparently, many of my students have read some English and American classics. I've spoken to some students before about Grapes of Wrath and the Great Gatsby. This girl asked me if I like reading, and I said yes. They she said, no joke, do you know the book Jane Eyre? Oh course, I said. She then proceeded to tell me that was HER FAVORITE BOOK. She knew that Charlotte Bronte was the author and was able to talk about it. I about peed my pants because Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books. What are the odds?

The next girl wanted to talk to me about movies. She asked who my favorite actor is and I proudly announced Jim Carrey (in the States this garners shameful looks and shock as Jim Carrey is NO ONE's favorite actor, but here, students fully appreciate my Jim Carrey love because he is pretty well known. My student then said, "Oh! He's my favorite actor!" Too much right, I was sure they had some how found out that I loved this book and actor, but how? The student then proceeded to say, "My favorite Jim Carrey movie is Truman Show. Do you know?" And I pretty much leaped out of my chair and hugged her because IT'S MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME. And I was searching their faces for some sort of prior knowledge, but they were as surprised by my enthusiasm as I was.

I was SO happy. I showed them my facebook page to show that those really are my favorite movie and book. They were really happy too. But it was awesome!

That's all.

A Very Korean Thanksgiving... or two.

Since Thanksgiving was last weekend, a bunch of the Incheon English teachers from August EPIK program (sometimes aptly titled the Incheon family) got together and celebrated by having a feast of sorts at Bennigans. Now, Bennigans, as you may well know is all but out of business in the United States. However, Korea is probably single-handedly keeping Bennigans afloat via their financial support of this American "institution." Now, they don't have a whole lot of turkey (think a club sandwich with turkey on it), but they DO have pumpkin soup and mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, no gravy and no pumpkin pie. However, given the circumstances it will do. It was super fun and a big group of about 15 of us rolled into Bennigans and had a great time! I ate to my heart's content (chicken and green beans and mashed potatoes and pumpkin soup-- not too shabby for a foreign thanksgiving), and laughed and enjoyed good conversation with friends. It wasn't the same as being home for Thanksgiving, but honestly, I couldn't have asked for better circumstances for my first Thanksgiving away.

After going to Bennigans (which had a tree decorated for Christmas-- since they don't gauge Christmas season by Thanksgiving, they can bring out the decorations a touch earlier), we went to the underground near Bupyeong station and saw a Christmas tree and some wreaths that had been put up right in the center.

On Saturday, I went to Myeongdong for some shopping (as per usual). I got a white coat (omg, so cute, pictures coming soon) and a ring and pair of earrings. Afterwards, headed to Bekahs (also as per usual). At Bekah's, the frisbee group was having a big festive Thanksgiving dinner. Bekah had ordered (from the USO) Thanksgiving dinners complete with Turkeys, and enough stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberries and gravy to feed a small army. Plus, everyone brought a little something extra to share, so in addition there was mac&cheese(thanks Melly!), green bean casserole (a la Canadian Allie), amazing mashed potatoes (Carne), chocolate cake (beth), tiramisu (Julie) and lots of appetizers like cheese & crackers and veggie platters. Let me tell you what, it was AMAZING. I was so happy to be able to have a *real* Thanksgiving dinner and be with the people I am closest to here in Korea. Honestly though, I love the people I play frisbee with. Such a good, warm group and I feel like in 3 months I have melded right into the group and it's so wonderful. Here are some pictures from our big evening:These are the people who live in the apartment and hosted the Thanksgiving dinner. L to R: Bekah (go gators!), Dave & Beth

This is disc hotel. These are the people that live in this apartment, plus the people who live in this apartment on weekends.

This is most of the people who were at the Thanksgiving dinner. Note the adorable small children at the bottom. More on them later.

Oh captain, my captain. Chase, one of the Korean Team captains, teaches us how to model. For this I am thankful.

These boys are very thankful and very full.

I only posted this picture to show off my new ring. It is bling-tastic. If you can't see it, just click the image for a bigger size to show up. ^^

Korean boys first turkey! Junseok and Heejeong. They are SO MUCH FUN.

Ben (middle) is teaching Dave and Tweezy some trick with two wine corks. Ben is full of tricks. He rides a unicycle. He can juggle anything. He often juggles while unicycling. His mother is the only person in his immediate family that cannot simultaneously ride a unicycle and juggle. Fun facts, right?

We decided to allow two Korean boys (heejeong, left & Jihoon, right) pull the wishbone, since they naturally had never done it.

The kiddies. On the Right is Jihoon and Jae-eun's son, and to the left Aaron and Yoonee's son. THEY ARE SO CUTE OH.MY.GOD.

So after eating a ton of food, we all got ready to go out. And by we all got ready, I mean Bekah did my hair and make-up and made me look BEAUTIFUL. She also did Beth and Cat's eyes. And then we went out. Pictures of everyone on their way out:

Some of us. BUT, some of these people didn't go out *ahem, Bekah, Tweezy, Chase*

Me and Mark. A good picture of my eye make-up/hair. Also, Mark is Canadian but a really cool one.

The girls with sexy eye make-up headed out to King Club. Also, this is my new coat, which you can't see very well.

That's all for now folks. Coming up next: Seoul and my classroom Christmas'd out!