Apologies and Chocolate Cake

Yes, I'm fully aware that I haven't written in a long time! Things have been so busy and my computer has been broken. Things are still busy... and the computer is still broken but that's okay because I bought a new computer and she's (yes, she's) amazing! (I'll try to update with pictures soon!) I'll also try to make more time for writing.

After a long winter the weather is finally beautiful in Korea! Spring time is picnic season for students... usually the whole school will go on the same day and each grade will go to separate locations. Today is our picnic day but because the first grade will go on a trip soon they stayed behind while the 2nd and 3rd grade (with their teachers) went on picnics. I taught my first class business as usual. Then I had 2 periods of break during which the science teacher suggested we pit our teams against each other in a game of dodge ball rather than teach. I had such a good time just hanging out with the students and playing dodge ball with them. My team lost the first game, then for the 2nd game they played King Dodge Ball... which meant you select one person on your team to be the King. The object of the game is to hit the other team's King. The first team to do so wins. (You can also hit other people to knock them out.) Of course I was selected to be the King of my class. It was hilarious listening to the students! "HEY!!!! THIS IS PROJECT PROTECT LISA!" and "TEACHER DOWN! DOWN!!!!!!!" My team ended up winning that round! woot!

At lunch today one of the teacher's told me and Jin Young (English Department Head) that she bought us some chocolate cake to congratulate us for doing a successful open class. After classes were finished Jin Young grabbed the cake out of the refrigerator and gathered some other teachers around to eat it (with chopsticks of course). We cut the cake up then the person who bought it walked in. We all started eating and here's how the conversation went:

Cake buyer: Help yourselves! (Koreans say this a lot before you start eating... even when it's not really appropriate in English)

Everyone: Wow! This is really good cake.

Cake buyer: Yeah! it is! Who got this cake.

Jin Young: Uhh... isn't this your cake?

Cake buyer: No!!! This is the wrong cake!!! (Pulls her cake out of the Freezer) This is the cake!

Everyone: (looks down at 1/2 eaten cake)Oh no!!!!!!

Jin Young: Eh, let's just eat it.

Everyone: Okay (cake is finished)


Hahahaha!!! I love my school!

Computer Woes and Happier things...

<<< I think my computer has a virus :( It was working fine, then I turned it on and this is what I saw. Now it doesn't even do this well! That blue "Fatal Error" screen comes up and then it restarts! Sigh... good thing I have friends who are pretty good at comuters so they can help me out!

For now... I don't have internet at home. Unless I can figure out the code to access my ethernet... then I can use my school computer.

Keep your fingers crossed that I haven't lost all my documents!!!


Other than that... things have been really good! I have met a lot of new people in Bucheon! Here is me and Moya.



Here is me and Frodo... appropriately named because he is very short :) He is helping me with Korean which I really appreciate!


Here are Thildi and Matt. Matt is making that face on purpose, so I think it's okay to put up! haha! Both are very cool people.

It snowed again! Here is me after school with my coteacher and other teachers!

And the Bo int he snow!

It's Yellow dust season... here is the sky at a time of the day when it should be blue. I took this picture last weekend. Gross....


Also... formatting this is really really frustrating! So I gave up 1/2 way though!

Doot Doot

School has been good this week. I'm grateful to be just about finished with my intro lesson. Doing the same lesson 23 times gets pretty boring quick! Though... towards the end the lesson is so perfect and runs so smoothly it's almost worth it to do that much! I just feel bad for the poor kids who have to go through it the first couple times!

Things of note:

• I was called Jessica by some elementary school kids in the park. Apparently it's the name of their foreign teacher. Perhaps they think all foreigners are "Jessica"
• I celebrated St. Patty's day by going to an all you can eat and drink night at a Mexican Restaurant. Hey! Margaritas are green... so that's festive, right? I thought I had built up my eating stamina all day by eating a smallish lunch and a snack after school... but no! I couldn't actually eat that much and my 2 and a half margaritas paled in comparison to the 6-10 everyone else had! Probably a good thing anyway! I got to meet some new people, which was fun!
• Yesterday my coteacher whispered shyly to me "The other teachers and I were talking about naughty words... do you mind if I ask you a question?" I said "Sure..." expecting something really terrible or crude to come out of her mouth but then she said, "What is the stuff in your nose that you blow out." haha!
  
• Today is "Parent's Day" at my school. Which means teachers have to have meetings with parents and they parents are electing their representatives and such. Hurray for me because classes were shortened to 30mins, plus 3 were canceled for testing. When the vice principal introduced all the teachers to the parents... she forgot to introduce me. Ji Young, the hilarious teacher said, "She forgot you, so... I hate her."
  
• Tony and Ste arrive in Korea today! ASSAH!
  

Weekend Roundup

Friday:

• Work went by really fast. Classes were good!
• Washed Bilbo... pretty pointless as his feet were back to being gray from all the smelly dust on the road after our first walk. He is in serious need of a haircut!
• Met some new friends for dinner. We had galbi at a pretty nice place with awesome side dishes. When you're in Korea for a while, you really learn to love the side dishes!
• Decided to go out to a party at a foreign bar. Didn't plan on staying late because I was visiting my uncles at his home on Saturday.
• Uh... the plan didn't work. Was out very late and definitely drank too much. It's hard to turn down free drinks, especially when they're just handed to you.

Saturday:

• Managed to wake up on time and get my apartment cleaned up.
• On time wasn't enough time because my uncle showed up 40 mins early!
• Luckily him and his daughter were happy enough to play with Bilbo while I finished getting ready.
• Uncle insisted on buying me something. I insisted that I didn't need anything. So, he bought Bilbo about 50$ worth of dog food and treats. That dog is pretty spoiled...
  
• I started to feel progressively worse and worse as the day went.
• Got to my uncle's house. Couldn't eat the curry his wife prepared (probably because she remembered that I really like it!). I felt terrible, but they were understanding.
  
• I won't go into details... but by about 2pm I felt just about 100% fine.
  
• Spent the rest of the afternoon playing with my little cousin Jiwoo... quite possibly the cutest little Korean girl ever! She's going to English Kindergarten right now so her English is great for her age. We played barbies and made things out of clay.
• Got back home around 7... watched Precious and Ponyo and went to bed!

Sunday:

• Lazy day!
• Went to dinner and coffee with Minguk.
  
• When Minguk came over and the Bo got a bit excited and peed on my bed. ::sigh:: Not a ton, just some drops. But I had to wash everything. I don't have any spare bedding at my apartment right now so I ended up with no blankets for the night. I kept waking up because I was too cold so eventually I cranked the heat up and slept on the floor (which is where heat in Korea comes from).

Today is going by so fast. I'm at school now on my free period. I have one class left then just free time until it's time to go home.

Bad Start Doesn't = Bad Finish

Everything seemed to go wrong this morning. I took Bilbo on his morning walk to the park. While walking around I noticed an exercising ajumma (Korean middle aged women... often on a power trip) giving us the what are you doing eye. By the time B squats to do his business I'm at the other end of the park but that ajumma starts shouting at me. I can't hear a thing because there's a big truck starting up behind me... not that I could understand what she was saying anyway! I pick up B's business, cause I'm responsible like that :) and head back home, passing the ajjuma. She resumes shouting at me to which I reply: "Ajummuni! Waygookin imnida! (I'm a foreigner). Hangukmal jiiiiincha mulaioh! (I reeeeeeaaaally don't understand Korean)" To which she shut up and resumed her workout. Score one point for the foreigner!

After I rushed to get ready but was just running really slow this morning. You would think choosing something to wear wouldn't be a problem as I don't have a lot of options at the moment... you would be wrong. It was my first day of teaching and my first teachers after school dinner at this school... I wanted to make a good impression. So, of course, I ended up in a super casual long sleeved shirt with a hood. And because it took me so long to choose what to wear makeup didn't happen and my hair was a mess.

As I was running up to school there was a fish head on the staircase. You read that right... a fish head! Things were not looking good.

I wasn't surprised when my first class didn't show up because their teacher forgot to inform them that they would have class with me.

Then things started to get better. I actually taught which was good. Buying the students love with candy never hurts, right? I had a great lunch with my coworkers. Some of them are starting to get more comfortable talking to me. Apparently one of them wants to go out in Hongdae (the dance area) with me!

After school we headed out for the teachers dinner. This was my first sam gyup sal and galbi dinner since I've been back in Korea! My coteacher, Na Young worked extra hard to make sure we were not sitting next to the principal because doing so would have guaranteed a hangover tomorrow.

Galbi = delicious marinated pork! You eat it with lots of veggies and various other sides!

Here is me and Ji Young, a Korean teacher and one of the most hilarious people I have ever met. Because of Ji Young we spent the entire dinner laughing like crazy! The man behind her to the left is another English teacher... the man behind me is a music teacher, but also the head teacher. The woman taking a drink back there is the vice principal.
My coteacher, Na Young is on the left and an Ethics teacher, Yoon Jung is next to her. They and Ji Young are close friends. I have found that no one at the school seems to like any of the higher ups. It was funny to hear these ladies talk about certain people...

The school also pays for this dinner so a plot was devised to secretly order the most expensive thing on the menu, which is beef rather than pork. Ji Young asked the servers to bring it to us discreetly... which they actually did but it might have been out of guilt for dropping a hot coal on Ji Young's neck earlier!
Here is Ji Young trying to hide the beef on our cook top! It was decided that it's my birthday tomorrow... so if anyone asks, we're celebrating. We weren't exactly subtle....
At one point the vice principal walked by so the 1/2 cooked meat was thrown back on the plate and hidden under the table. Here it is under the table!

We actually managed to pull the whole thing off! After the meat was cooked we cut it all up and shared with all the tables around us.

I came home to no accidents from Bilbo after being gone almost 12 hours... life is good.

March?

As I was finishing my last entry, my good buddy/sister's boyfriend met me for dinner. We decided on sushi! yay! Funnily enough we ordered the "couple plate" which came with a dragon roll, California Roll and more! For some reason sushi in Asia seems better.





The weekend ended too quickly. Monday came and went with time well spent watching the Oscars streamed live whilst at work. Tuesday came, and with it the freezing temperature! All day I was trying to keep warm by drinking hot water and wearing my huge coat. While leaving school the rain started. As I was walking Bilbo after school it started to slushy rain a bit. I went back inside and watched a bit of Jurassic Park II on t.v. until I couldn't stand it any longer. Opted to work on a puzzle I recently purchased instead. Took Bilbo out for his evening stroll and BAM!

It was really coming down!

I don't believe Bilbo had ever seen it before!

Here he is covered in snow after our return.

The next morning there was a good 2ish inches. I took these on my way to school.

This is a mural for my school. Korea has a lot of murals and not a lot of graffiti, which I like!

School yard

School's back garden.

Call me a kid, but I really like the snow. Everything looks so beautiful and fresh. Even the air feels cleaner when there's snow on the ground.

After sitting at school for a couple hours I headed to a new teachers workshop in Suwon (about an hour by subway from me). The lectures weren't as bad as I was anticipating. The organizers worked hard to make them entertaining. Much to my pleasure, I also met some other newbies from Bucheon. After the workshop we had dinner, coffee, and a lot of conversation.

Tomorrow is my first day of teaching... I'm not too worried, but wish me luck!

The Weekend

I had a great foreign food filled weekend with 2 of my Yeosu ladies (Julie and Krista).

Friday was Krista's birthday. We went out in Hongdae, a university party area, for Nepalese food and dancing. Before we went dancing we went to this cool tiny bar that serves drinks in plastic capri sun like bags. It really reminded me of the kind of place you would find in Bellingham. It was super quirky with tiny little chairs and tables. There were also posters all over the walls advertising bands and such. The drinks were also cheap and delicious! a Definite plus!It took a while to get this picture perfection! (Well... except one of my eyes appears much bigger than the other.

Delicious Texas Tea!

We ended up choosing a dance club because of the cheap cover charge (advertised as 10, ended up being free). The place was called S Club. Not sure if I liked it much. I have been to some awesome Korean dance clubs and this one felt more like a bar with dancing... Well, I guess it was definitely a club, but was just a bit small... and also a little sketchy. I'm not a fan of lurking older men who try to dance with you when you're clearly sending "stay away from us" signals. I also do not enjoy stepping on cigarette butts that get stuck to the bottom of my shoe whilst dancing! It was fun to dance though! I look forward to more nights in Hongdae in the future. It turns out that Hongdae is actually pretty close to my apartment. I was a 15,000won taxi ride... split 3 ways, not a problem! I also found out from the taxi ride that I literally live right outside of Seoul... basically on the line between Seoul and Bucheon!

The next day we got off to a bit of a slow start. Julie knew a quaint little breakfast place with a cool atmosphere and delicious food called FlyPan Blue. I got an Salmon Eggs Benedict, one of my all time favorite breakfast meals!

I'm used to my eggs benedict on an english muffin, but the sour dough bread was pretty awesome.

The rest of the day on Saturday we spent wandering around Itaewon, Myeongdong and Insadong. After dinner we headed back into Bucheon because one of the foreign bars was having a live music singer/songwriter event. Bilbo has been pretty awesome since I've been back in Korea... but unfortunately puked all over my bed while we were in Seoul. It wouldn't have been as big of a deal, but I only have one set of sheets and blankets! He managed to get puke on everything. After cleaning up after him, we headed out to the foreign bar. The music was really nice but we wanted to check out the other bar as well, so we didn't stay the whole time. At the other bar we talked and played some darts.

Today we really got off to a slow start. We went to Hongdae in search of more foreign food and found a little mexican cafe. It was not fantastic, but not bad. Afterwards we went to a little cupcake cafe that Julie knew about (she knows all sorts of cool places in Seoul!). So cute!

Because my school is awesome they asked me if I would prefer to start teaching on Monday or Tuesday. Even though it's a bit boring being at school but not teaching, I opted to start on Tuesday so I could work on some lesson plans and posters and such on Monday. I also got a call from some coordinator of GEPIC teachers in Bucheon and Gimpo saying that there will be some sort of orientation on Wednesday that I'm required to go to. Hopefully it will be a good opportunity to meet people in the area.McDonalds delivers. It is a 2 min walk away, but this scooter is often parked outside of my apartment building. It's called McDelivery... Which is just about the most awkward thing to say!