It's a Small World After All

I've just started reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. If you haven't read it, I suggest you do. From the first pages, it's mind blowing, enlightening, and entertaining all at the same time. Bryson's metaphors for how the universe came to be are profound and put into perspective how massive our universe is and in comparison how small our planet is. In the past year, I've had two experiences that further support the age old expression of "it's a small world we live in".

A) Just last week, I ventured to the next town over with some other foreigners to try a new restaurant. I was at a table with six people, only two of whom I knew. I eventually got to talking to a girl at the other end of the table and found out she had lived in the U.S for most of her childhood. After a series of questions, I found out that she lived in Pennsylvania. Not only Pennsylvania, but Philadelphia! Where in Philadelphia? Well, a nice suburban area called Bucks County. In the words of my mother, or Aunt Jill, or someone along those lines: "well slap my ass and call me Judy". This girl lived in Doylestown! For those of you who aren't familiar with suburban Philadelphia (which I'm pretty sure that all 5 people who read this blog are), Doylestown is maybe 25 minutes from where I grew up! SMALL WORLD!

The next story is much cooler, I promise.

B) In December 2012, I secured a job teaching English with Maximo Nivel in Cusco, Peru. My "mentor teacher", or the guy whose class I taught for my practical teaching week, ended up having two rooms available just as my friend Maggie and I were looking for a place to live. We moved in just after Christmas. The guy who had lived in the room before me, Pat (who I never met), was also from Philadelphia. I found this to be a cool coincidence at the time. Fast forward to Summer 2012. One of the girls who lived in the Cusco apartment with me was living in New York at the time, but was spending a weekend in Philly visiting Pat, so I decided to go for a visit. I was given his address and my immediate thought was "no way". Pat lived in Yardley, the town next to where I grew up. I immediately put his address in Google Maps and was blown away at what I saw. Pat and I, who at different times lived in the same exact bedroom in Cusco, grew up one mile away from each other. One mile, and our paths took us to the exact same spot with the exact same people in Cusco, Peru. SMALL. WORLD.

Anyway, school is school. I had two very long days last week. We sent one of our kindergarten teachers for training so I had to fill in. That means I taught kindergarten from 9:40-12:40 and then elementary from 1:30-7:10. I was exhausted after ONE kindergarten class. I gained a whole new respect for mothers and teachers everywhere. I also told my own mother that I questioned ever having kids because 18 years of that would just be eternally exhausting and she replied with: "18 years? I'm going on 25 and 29". Well played, Mom. Well played. Despite being exhausted, I did have fun and discovered a new favorite student! His name is John, and he is precious. He declared himself my helper, and I declared him the cutest child on the planet.

Killing me in that sweatshirt

Two of my other favorites

Some of the kiddos I had the pleasure of teaching last week

In other news, I've been waking up at 7am everyday to go to the gym and have started a new clean eating regimen. This probably sounds awful to most people, but for me it means I get to play with new recipes, my oven, and my blender. Today, for example, I made my first green smoothie in months! It was refreshing, delicious, and nutritious. I also made BUFFALO CHICKEN QUINOA SALAD. There's nothing unhealthy or unclean about it and it's ah-maaazzeee-ing.

Apple, ginger, cucumber & spinach!

YUM

Some pictures that won't make it to Facebook...

My homemade protein/fiber energy bars!

Yummy latte from my favorite cafe next to my house

And of course, more pictures from Science class!

Ahrim and her claw.

One of my favorites, BumJun (pronounced Bum-June). ALWAYS smiling and giggling.

Soohyun, "eating my phone" with her claw.

The (kind of) Great Wall of Korea!

After the New Year's Eve hike debacle (which was a great experience, don't get me wrong), the thought of doing anything in the snow didn't quite appeal to me. I've never been a fan of the cold and I've accepted this fact. It has finally started to warm up around here (see: 40's and 50's) so we thought a nice and easy hike in Seoul would adequately feed our appetite for some outdoor activity. Seoul is unique in that it is surrounded by mountains and even has a few small mountains right smack dab in the middle of the city. Back in the 14th century, an 11 mile fortress wall was built around the city and residents had to enter and exit through one of its 8 gates. It guarded the city for around 500 years, up until the Korean War--the longest period for an existing fortress in the world (thank you, Wikipedia). Today, Seoul is much larger and only about 6 miles of the wall remain, much of it reconstructed. In a few years, it's being added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list. It's a huge part of Korean history, kind of reminiscent of the Great Wall of China, and is something I definitely wanted to see while in Korea!

My coworkers and a few friends from Pyeongnae set off at 10am (which quickly turned into 11am), got to Seoul, and started the hike around noon. My friend Kevin, having done the hike before, showed us a cool part of town with a lot of street art, aka photo opportunities.

The first bit of the hike was interesting because we climbed small hills, walked past one of the gates, walked along the wall a bit, and then had to go through part of the city again to get to the next part of the hike and wall. Once we started the major part, there was a lot of uphill climbing. It was a very hazy day, so a lot of the views were obstructed, but it was still very surreal to be on mountain in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world. At one point, we had to show ID and get a pass to see part of the fortress. There were military personnel monitoring every few hundred yards as we were close to the president's house. We weren't allowed to take photos in most places, but I managed to sneak a few when I could!

One of the 3 gates we passed

Part of the wall where I was able to sneak a photo

Sneaking more photos

Would have been a great shot if it weren't so hazy.
I snuck this photo with a soldier 20 feet away. Oops!

Overall, it was a great hike. It was 70 degrees and sunny and felt amazing to get some outdoor exercise. We ended the day by heading to Hongdae for some delicious Mexican food at Gusto Tacos (recommended by my coworker). Having not eaten since 10am, I was fantasizing about carne asada and fresh cilantro by 4. When we got there by 6, we were so famished that my friend and I each had a burrito AND split tacos. It was the most satisfying meal I've had in months. I will be a frequent patron of Gusto Tacos, especially because the owner and chef is a former Wall Street CFO who gave it all up to live a chill life in Seoul making tacos for foreigners. He even makes his own corn tortillas and remembers everyone who comes in. Basically, he's the man.

Good day, good food, good friends. Life is good!

Marchy

There are a lot of things about Korea that confuse me, and one of them is the academic culture. I could write novels about it, but one thing that I know will strike my American friends and family as odd is that they go to school year round here! NO BREAKS. No 3 month summer vacation to spend swimming and sunbathing at the country club? Blasphemy. Instead, their semesters run from September to March, and March to September. In other words, we just started a new semester at school! We go two new kindergarten classes and the whole elementary schedule changed! I still teach about half of the same classes and students, but have picked up quite a few new ones. I'm only on Day 4 of the semester and it's already proving to be quite the challenge. I went from teaching the highest levels in the school (which I still teach!) to teaching a LOT of beginner classes. When I say beginner, I mean I've sang the ABC song so many times this week I've lost count. Anyone who knows me knows that patience is not one of my virtues, so these classes are absolute torture for me. The children are absolutely adorable and precious and I want to squeeze them, but teaching them is a huge challenge for me. That being said, I accept the challenge and am taking it as an opportunity to grow as a teacher. And play silly games.

My other major challenge lies in a class we'll call Purple Class. A week ago, they were a kindergarten class at SLP. But, they graduated which means they all go to regular elementary schools now (think private pre-school then public elementary). Because of the emphasis on academics, they also still attend private institutes in the afternoon: English institute, Taekwondo institute, Math institute, Jump Rope institute (yes, that's a real thing). You get the point. Well, all the Purple Class graduates come to SLP now as their afternoon English institute and guess who is their teacher? Teaching kids who went to SLP for kindergarten has its pros and cons. On one hand, their English is great, they already know me and the curriculum, and I already know their personalities. On the other hand is their personalities. They were hilarious and fun when I only taught them "science" for 50 minutes once a week. Now I see them for 1 hour, 3 days a week, teaching them full blown English rather than "blow up this balloon and rub it on your head". Those 3 hours are the hardest hours of my week. Disciplining them is extremely difficult. We've gotten all of our work done, but not without me raising my voice more times than I'd like to. I hate yelling, especially at children, especially at adorable children who I love. The problem is that I think they're hilarious. I'm a big kid at heart, so when someone makes a fart joke, I have to yell at them, but it's damn near impossible to yell at them without a smirk on my face. I think the hardest part about being a teacher is drawing the line between fun teacher/favorite teacher and stern disciplinarian. I definitely lean toward the fun teacher side, but I know how to discipline them when I need to. If only they knew how to listen...

All that being said (and I apologize for the boring-ness of it!), I had a few really great moments this week. I lost one of my favorite classes and was pretty bummed about it. The second day of new classes, one of my Korean co-teachers came to me and told me that Danny and Jennifer (from that favorite class) asked why I wasn't their teacher anymore and were very upset and wanted me back as their teacher. Melt my heart why don't you?! She also told me that Jennifer got very upset when she thought I had gone back to America already. Melting even more! The best part of my week though, was on the first day with Purple class when one of them asked "Molly Teacher, you will still teach us science right?". Bless his little heart. I felt so bad breaking the news to him that science was only for the kindergarten babies, but I promised that I'd show them some cool science stuff if they behave. Oh, did I not mention that all the kindergarten students think I'm a scientist? About that...