A Good Monday

Mondays are generally awful days for everyone. For teachers, it's hard to get motivated and it doesn't help that students don't want the weekend to be over (especially here where Sunday is their only day of the week without school). But today was one of my best teaching days of all time. When you teach 7 or 8 classes a day it's hard to be on your A-game 100% of the time. For me, every class is different and the curriculum and level change from class to class. Generally I have a few good classes and the rest are average. A lot of times its just drills or spelling tests or review. But today I was on my game in every single class and I felt like each class learned and I connected with all of the students. It was great.

Here's one nice thing that happened today:
In my first class of the day (6 students, all 8 years old) one boy was trying to spell the word "those" out loud. He kept on spelling it incorrectly so I kept encouraging him that it was ok and to try again. Unfortunately the other kids started laughing at him quite meanly. He tried to keep going but his little eyes welled up and tears started spilling over. Instead of comforting him which I figured might embarrass an 8-year old boy even more than crying in class, I gave all of the students a calm reminder that we all make mistakes and that part of a being a good friend is not laughing at each other when we mess up. One little girl was so convicted by this reminder that she started sobbing uncontrollably. I ended up having to take her out into the hall so she could calm down. As I stroked her hair she was still crying but saying, "Teacher! I'm very sorry! I am a good friend. I'm sorry!" It was precious. When the little girl and I came back into class the students started apologizing to the little boy they had laughed at and comforting the girl who had cried and it led to a nice discussion about what it means to be a good friend. I wish there hadn't been so many tears in that class but I felt like the kids learned a valuable lesson.

I'm Back!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged for a while. Shortly after my last post, I found out I was moving in a few days instead of in a few weeks like I originally thought. Needless to say, it has been a very stressful and busy past couple of weeks with packing up, moving, and trying to furnish and arrange the new place. Moving in Korea was certainly different from back home. A few days before I moved the moving company came to my apartment and dropped off a ton of reusable boxes and large plastic containers. These were for me to pack in and have ready by the time moving day arrived. At 11am on February 9th as promised the movers showed up at my door. They loaded all of my furniture and boxes into a truck and I was outside my new place with all my stuff within 1 hour. I felt bad that since I'm on the second floor apartment the movers would have to carry all the heavy items up the big flight of outdoor stairs to get them into my place. I was mistaken. No sooner had we arrived at the new place with the moving truck that another truck pulled up. Instead of a truck bed there was a flat metal surface which, after being loaded with a few items, was lifted upward like a crane and movers on the second floor simple pulled my items off of it onto my balcony and then in the door. So there was no carrying anything up the stairs! I was impressed. I'm finally getting settled into the new place. It's much more homey than the place I was in before which, despite being clean and new, was hopelessly tiny. Living in a studio gets old really quickly. I will post pictures of my new apartment soon but there are still a few finishing touches to do before I'm ready to show it off.

Work is going well. We started a new school year this month so I've been getting used to a new schedule and new students. Overall I seem to have good kids this year. No one sticks out as a problem-child yet but there's plenty of time for that to change and kids are always dropping out and joining throughout the year which keeps things interesting.

I'm excited about going to my first concert in Korea. I'm seeing Jason Mraz (singer/guitarist) in Seoul on Saturday so I'm very excited for that. I've been a fan of his since freshman year of college and I never thought I'd be seeing him live in Korea!

I've been enjoying the Wii and Wii Fit I purchased recently (they are much easier to get and a lot less expensive here in Korea than they are in the States). I'm not really a big video game person but the interactive and social aspect of the Wii is really enjoyable especially when friends are over.

I'm not 100% sure and it's still a long way off but I have a 4 day weekend in May and I'm hoping I'll be able to squeeze in a Beijing trip then. The travel agency with whom I booked Thailand, Hong Kong, and Cambodia/Vietnam (I can't believe I've been to all those places!) has a 4 day/3 night Beijing sightseeing tour where you see all the big things. Obviously a longer length of time would be preferable but just in case I don't get the opportunity again, I want to make sure I see the Great Wall while I live in Asia.

On a more general note, I am really loving life right now. I am glad to be back in Korea, work is going great, and I am so comfortable and happy in my new apartment. Now if only I had enough money to fly home and see the people I miss whenever I want!

Changes

So it's the start of a new school year, which means I now have a new schedule of classes and mostly all new students. It's an exciting time because I get to start all over and "reinvent" myself as a teacher. Plus after a whole year my students and I are pretty tired of each other and it's nice to get some new ones. I really want to be more organized this year as well...but we'll see how that goes.

In other news I am very excited to announce that I am moving in a few weeks out of my studio apartment and into a real 2-bedroom place. I am so so so excited! The new apartment is closer to my school and it's not in a big apartment building like the one I'm in now - it's in a villa. Very exciting...

Here are the hockey pictures as promised. Hockey in Korea is almost exactly like baseball in Korea. Same energy level, same constant cheering, same dried squid instead of nachos and fries. Just replace the clay and grass with ice. Actually it was quite fun, although it was packed since the arena only held 1200 people! The teams were the Anyang Halla (Korea) vs the Seibu Prince Rabbits (Japan). Korea won!