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...

Trophy Wife in Training

I never thought I'd see the day where purchasing an oven was the highlight of my weekend. But, low and behold, that just happened. The absence of an oven in my life was taking it's toll on me so I caved. It's bigger than a toaster oven, but smaller than an actual oven. SIZE DOES NOT MATTER my friends. I'm ecstatic to be able to roast vegetables, make my own granola, and bake! To celebrate, me and my oven made chicken fajitas tonight-complete with homemade tortillas! Such a culinary genius I am. I'm going to make some lucky gentleman very happy someday. HA.

Oliver the Oven in all his glory

The smell of bell peppers, onions, and garlic roasting will ALWAYS bring me back to my kitchen in Cusco. I think about my time in Peru pretty often and as much as I'm enjoying Korea, I'd give anything to be back in that apartment every sunday for "family dinner". Speaking of my Peruvian family, I'm currently chatting with two of my favorite girls, Carolina and Taylor, who are in Spain and Argentina respectively. I think it's the coolest thing in the world that we can be on 3 different continents but are still able to stay in contact as often as we like.

On another note, I've finally beaten the flu. That illness is NO JOKE....NO JOKE, I tell you. I spent an entire week in absolute misery. Work was rough, but I survived. The turning point was Friday afternoon (yes, the last day of the week) when I had Science with the littlest nuggets in school and we got to make glow-in-the-dark glasses. I had been lethargic and probably quite boring in all of my classes leading up to this point. But there's nothing in the world that could keep me from having some glow-in-the-dark fun with the cutest kids in the entire universe. Oh, the glasses make us look like scuba divers? You bet your ass I'm gonna play shark and chase you around the room for an hour. Their cuteness still kills me, even after 3 months.

HOW could I forget? The other highlight of my week involved these little angels as well. In the middle of Science on Tuesday, Emma teacher came knocking on my door with 2 of the little munchkins pictured above who wanted to show me something. Emma had told them to draw their favorite teacher at SLP, and 2 of them drew me! They gave me a big hug and I melted even more than I do on a normal day when I see them! Absolutely precious. Top notch teacher moment right there. I've decided that the two on the bottom of the picture are the two I'll be kidnapping and bringing home with me.

What better time to blog...

than when you have a stomach virus? I haven't had one of these since I was a kid! #teacher problems. I'm out of work today and have caught up on nearly all the TV shows I watch so thank you to the child who gave this to me!

I haven't written in a while and I promised myself I'd keep up with it much better than I did in Peru. Oops! To be fair, I had a visitor for the first 8 days of February. My friend from college works in China a few weeks or months every year and one of his trips worked out so that he could add a little trip to Korea on his way home. We had a blast and it was great to have a visitor as I have been a bit homesick lately. Unfortunately, I couldn't take off work so while he was exploring the city and doing fun touristy things like eating live octopus, I was stuck at work. But, we did have a few crazy nights in Seoul staying out until the wee hours of the morning.

Out in Gangnam

Cat ears! So Asian

Nothing has changed much in the past few weeks but will be changing very shortly. The semesters here start in March and September, so at the end of this month my class schedule will change. I'm keeping about 4 or 5 of my old classes, and getting some new ones. Two of our kindergarten classes are graduating, and I just found out that one of my favorite classes will become one of my afternoon elementary classes so I'm excited! They're a hilarious and rowdy bunch, so it should be a bit of a challenge, but fun at the same time. Quite a few teachers are leaving as well and their replacements come in about a week. I'm excited to get some new foreign teachers! Maybe I won't be the only American anymore.

March is just around the corner which hopefully means warmer weather and prettier scenery! I'm very excited for cherry blossom season and to be able to start hiking. We've got another 3 day weekend in March and one in May so hopefully a trip outside the country will be planned soon! I'm dying to get to China or Japan. I really never thought those words would be coming out of my mouth a year or so ago. Crazy how fast time flies!

In other news, I'm trying to be more technologically savvy and have started using Instagram (kind of, even though I only follow animals and Kasey). I'll leave you with some pictures of my cuties.

I adore this little roly poly nugget.

Little 4 year old angels! Top left is the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen.

Winter class SUCCESS!

My 3-week winter music class was easily my favorite class so far. I'm pretty heartbroken that we won't be meeting every Tuesday and Thursday to sing obnoxiously loud and annoy the lunch cook in the next room. On our last day, they chose 2 songs to sing for some of the other teachers. They managed to memorize "You Are My Sunshine", but only got the chorus down for "Country Roads". Regardless, it was fun and they are adorable. Enjoy...

Also, these kids had hands-down the best chosen English names. Sunny, Lala, Noah. Killin it in the name AND cuteness department.

Apple wine, sleigh riding, and naked spas...

make for a fun, relaxing weekend. This weekend, 2 friends and I decided to do something different and get away from the city for a little day trip. Not that I live in the city, but I spend every weekend there. So, we booked a trip to Yesan, a province just south of the one we live in.

We set off at 5am (on a Saturday!) to head into Seoul where the bus left at 7:30am for Yesan. Lucky for me, I've gotten used to sleeping on buses, planes, etc. I snoozed most of the way there. Our first stop was an apple winery (i didn't know they existed either!) where we took a tour, tried some samples, and made some homemade apple jam to take home with us! It was a cute, quiet, peaceful place. I even got to see a big, white, fluffy dog which may or may not have made my day!

Next, we drove to Seoduksa temple. We walked through a cute little village and up a small mountain/hill to the temple, stopping along the way to take pictures. The whole area was beautiful. I was, however, briefly overcome with a bit of sadness when I realized that the entire thing had been rebuilt not too long ago. Tragically, most of Korea's beautiful, ancient temples and monasteries were destroyed during the Korean War. Very few were spared, and those that were are in the southern-most provinces. It made me feel very grateful to have grown up in an area with so much preserved history. I may have moaned and groaned about trips to the Liberty Bell and Smithsonian when I was a kid, but one of my favorite things to do when I'm in a city now is walk around and see all of the old buildings, churches, statues, etc. I grew up in "Historic Newtown", just miles from Washington's Crossing, Trenton, Philadelphia...places full of history that dates all the way back to the American Revolution and before. It makes me sad to think that the kids I'm teaching now and generations to come will have nearly no authentic evidence of their beautiful country's history. That being said, I took pictures of the temple that is there now. Ancient or not, it was still a sight to see and reflects the peace that radiates from all things Buddhist.

Our next stop was the Duksan Hot Spring Festival. In spite of its name, it seemed to be more of an ice festival to me. There was a giant hot bath you could soak your feet in, but the main attraction was a huge man-made ice rink where people were playing games and "sleigh riding" on the ice. We gave it a go!

Last but NOT least, was the most interesting and best part of the day! We headed over to the Duksan Spa! For those of you who I haven't told, a "jimjilbang" is a large, public bath house furnished with hot tubs, showers, saunas, massage tables, etc (thank you Wikipedia). It is a heavenly place of relaxation. The only drawback for some foreigners is that you must go naked (don't worry, it's gender segregated!). Once you get past this little detail, it is like I said, a heavenly place of relaxation. This one in particular was huge and quite crowded as it's attached to an indoor/outdoor water-park so it's a popular tourist destination. My friends and I got right on the bandwagon and went straight for the hot tubs in our birthday suits. It was great! They had bubbly hot tubs with chairs and massage jets, a green tea hot tub, several steam rooms, a dry sauna, an ice bath (yes, I even did that!), and a ton of showers to use before and after you indulge yourself in pure bliss for hours. We stayed for hours. I haven't felt that relaxed in ages...even after my weekly Steve massages (that I miss so much). Obviously there are no pictures from this part of the trip. You're welcome.

Afterwards, we hopped on the bus and got back home in time for some delicious Korean BBQ! It was a fantastic, relaxing day with two awesome girls. I'm looking forward to more trips just like it!

On a different note, my friends and family will all be amazed to hear that I've officially adjusted to the cold! After walking to the grocery store and realizing it was a "WARM 38 degrees", I decided to go for a nice run...outside. I kid you not. This girl, who thinks anything below 50 is cold, ran outside in 30-something degree weather. I was shocked too.

One last thing even though this is already a ridiculously long post. I've started using Picasa and Google+ to share my photos because I don't post them all on Facebook or this blog. If anyone wants to see the random pictures of buildings and signs and funny things and animals (if I ever see any) in addition to the pictures with humans in them, this is where you can find them: http://plus.google.com/photos/114810979859376257861/albums

Much love!

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!

Bow&Arrow day in Science (with 6 year olds, lucky me!)

Jeungyeun

Mad-Libs has become a favorite in my night class.

A New Year's to Remember!

A happy, healthy 2013 to all of my friends & family! I hope everyone's holiday was well spent.

Mine was spent climbing this mountain!

Seoraksan, taken from Google

Just picture that with a lot more snow and ice...and wind. Then, picture me on top of it!

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I were discussing New Year's Eve and decided that we wanted to do something different than the typical drunken debauchery that everyone seems to indulge in for the holiday. It's Korean tradition to watch the first sunrise of 2013 and many Koreans choose to do so from the peak of a mountain. We though it sounded like a great idea. We're only here for one New Year's (most likely), why not?

A group of 6 of us ended up going. The bus left at midnight, so the turning of the New Year was pretty anti-climatic. Around 4:00am we arrived at Seoraksan National Park to being our hike. Sunrise was at 7:45(ish) so we had just under 4 hours to reach the summit. It was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit at the bottom of the mountain, only to get colder and windier as we ascended. The hike proved to be much more difficult than anticipated. Very steep, very icy, and very difficult to control one's body temperature and avoid sweating (and subsequently freezing once it got colder towards the top). The group separated for the most part, but I was able to stick with at least one person for most of the way. It was too cold to stop for long periods of time so I wasn't able to rest/snack/hydrate as much as I would've wanted, but I certainly didn't want to be on that mountain any longer than I had to. After a long, exhausting several hours, I finally reached the top with two of the guys I was with. We took our hands out of our gloves long enough to take a few pictures each (and to feel the stinging pain of frost bite setting in). Oh, remember how I said it was tradition to watch the first sunrise from the peak of the mountain? Welp, we hiked in a snow storm. A very cloudy, white snow storm. No sunrise :( I was definitely disappointed, but it was so cold that I don't know if I would have stayed at the summit long enough to watch it anyway! It was -18 degrees up there. Never in my life have I experienced such temperatures!

Jordan and I 

There is nothing real about those smiles. SO. COLD

Finally, we started the trek down the mountain. I knew it would be difficult because it was steep on the way up, but it had been dark so I didn't realize just how steep it was. My fingers were burning from the cold, my legs and especially my knees were already exhausted from the ascent, and my spirits were pretty low thinking about the 2-3 hours we had left on the mountain. I needed some cheering up. Luckily, I was behind two special guys who just could not manage to stay on their feet. Minutes into the descent, both of them were sliding and rolling down the mountain like tumbleweeds. I did fall once or twice, mostly because I was laughing so hard. It was exactly what I needed to keep me going. We also had the pleasure of meeting some very kind Koreans on the way down. I think most of them felt bad for us as we probably looked like fools slipping and sliding our way down. Two men called us over and offered us hot (HOT!!!) coffee and some chocolate. They also offered some strange booze, which I did not try once I saw Jordan's reaction. A while later, the nicest man in the world may or may not have saved our lives. Cameron's crampons (the spikes you put on your shoes to hike in the snow/ice) were malfunctioning and this man took the chains off of his own shoes and put them on Cameron's. He also gave each of us one of his walking poles. He continued down the mountain, but didn't get too far ahead of us so he could keep an eye on us the whole time. When he stopped for a break, he gave us chocolate and oranges and whiskey, which we gladly accepted. It was truly a selfless, random act of kindness and I wished I had something more to offer him than a hug at the bottom of the mountain. That man has some seriously good karma coming his way! We finally made it down the mountain, but I spent the better part of the last hour cursing, moaning and groaning as my knee and ankle were in bad shape. I had been knocked over twice by eager hikers, landing on my right knee both times. I also rolled my ankle at one point. It wasn't pretty, but I made it! I had a few low points during the day, but overall I got to start 2013 with a sense of accomplishment and some new friends. Oh, the sun DID come out eventually and it was beautiful :)

Halfway down the mountain, first glimpse of sun!

Compliments of Jenny's camera. I stayed on the bus at this stop.

The trip home got delayed due to snow and a few stops. This made for some rather grumpy people (I was definitely one of them...shocker!), but we made it home eventually. One of the stops was in Sokcho, a town that lies north of the 38th parallel, aka is basically on the DMZ. It used to belong to North Korea, so many of the locals have relatives who still live there. It was a small town, not too impressive. But, I did get to see the ocean and it smelled of salt water which reminded me of home!

Overall, it was a great experience. I teach English abroad so that I can see the world and try new things. I'm glad I chose this instead of celebrating NYE the same way I would have in the states. That being said, I miss everyone tons and definitely thought about you all boozing the night away in a WARM bar while I was nursing my wounds at the bottom of the mountain :)

Much love & luck for 2013!