Don't Drink the Water: Molly's Adventures Around the Globe: Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Being a teacher is something I have always considered for my potential career (I use this term lightly now, as I'm not so sure I believe in a person having one career in their lifetime. Especially not me!). I've always enjoyed kids---babysitting was my first "job", if you can call it that. In college, I chose a path that would lead me to someday become a Spanish teacher in American public schools. This made sense as Spanish was a subject I excelled in greatly, not to mention the fact that I enjoyed it. There has always been something special and inspiring about learning to communicate with a person from a culture and a world completely different than your own. Learning a new language has opened my eyes to so many things. Clearly, I'm not inspiring our nation's youth to explore the world and become global citizens like I once planned. However, what I'm doing now inspires and fulfills me just as much. Teaching English to people from different countries makes the world a smaller place for me. It has enabled me to connect with people from all over the world in a way I never knew was possible. In Peru, I found great joy in knowing that my students' success in my classroom enabled them to get better jobs so that they could provide for their families. In Korea, I'm helping these children solidify their future. Learning English is a very valuable tool in a culture where education is held in such high regard, where acceptance into a good university is so extremely competitive. I may not agree with the academic culture in this country (see: children are slaves to their books and their test scores. sometimes in school until 10pm), but if learning English will help them get into a good university where they will become someone or something important, that makes me happy. Heck, maybe one of these tiny, adorable, geniuses will become a scientist or some sort of engineer and cure cancer. Even better, maybe one of my beautiful little girls will become a K-pop star! (hey, at least she wouldn't succumb to the house-wife standard).

Back to my point. A few years ago when I said I wanted to become a teacher, if someone had asked me what I wanted to teach, I can pretty much guarantee that "music", "science", or "grammar" would NOT have made the list. Low and behold, here I am in South Korea of all places teaching just those things. "Science" is not exactly science. Most of the times it is closer to arts & crafts, but a few lessons have touched on things like static electricity, the phases of the moon, balance, etc. Music is a new class that I'm teaching during winter vacation (vacation for kids in Korea means EXTRA classes, poor kids). Every Tuesday/Thursday I teach a bunch of 8-9 year olds classic American songs like "Let It be", "I'll Be There", and my personal favorite, "Country Roads" (video coming soon!). I am a horrific singer, but I have an absolute blast playing the air guitar and singing (shouting) LET IT BE, LET IT BE at the top of my lungs. Grammar lessons aren't very common as most of my students are under the age of 10 and focus on speaking and writing more than perfect grammatical structure. Still, I have several higher level classes and get to use the Grammar Nazi skills i acquired in my TEFL class in Peru. I actually have found that I miss teaching grammar (in Peru that's ALL I taught) because it really is crucial to proper communication in our complex language.

Anyhoo, I realized I hadn't written in quite a while and this is what came to mind. I apologize if anyone was hoping for a more lively post. Work and the weekends have been quite uneventful lately. I've had a few nights out in Seoul, a few hungover days at home. Don't worry, I'll leave you with at least a few pictures!