Whoa! This must be like backwards week, because one of my not so good classes was REALLY good today, and one of my good classes was not good. Strange...
We're doing a Happy Birthday theme lesson this week, so I taught them to shake the present and ask, "What is it?"^^ They liked saying what they were "giving" me and hearing what I was "giving" them. I got a dress, a robot, food, candy, a doll, a lion, a tiger, a toy car, a book, etc. It was pretty darn cute!
After school, I hung out in the first grade office to make some more Christmas stuff. I made red and green bells and snowflakes. There are colored snowflakes to replace the color cubes for their tables, and white snowflakes to decorate near the snowman in my classroom.
At almost 5:00PM, I went upstairs and put the snowman and new decorations up. I didn't leave school until 6:00PM; when I stepped out of my classroom, PITCH BLACK! Not even joking! The security guard comes by every night and when I stay late, he comes in to say hi, says something in Korean, I pretend to understand, and he leaves and shuts the lights off in the hall. LOL! I think he is just telling me to lock up before I leave. I wondered today at what time the school doors are locked, and at what point I am going to be locked in the school for the night.^^
Nobody was home when I got home, so I just hung out until my host fam got back with dinner. They had chicken, and I had tuna rice rolls.
I talked to my host mom for a bit after dinner, and then I just lounged around the house. It still takes me a while to realize that when they talk about their family, they include me! It's a great feeling to have family in Korea! My host mom met Seok Seonsaengnim (the teacher I made kimchi with) and she said, "Oh, you're Stacey's mom." LOL!
Time for bed.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Yakety Yak - Wednesday Nov. 28, 2007
My birthday lesson definitely needed revamped asap; I could just tell it was a little on the boring side. Wednesdays are my slightly wacky days; I teach a second grade class, then a first grade class, and then another second grade class. So, I had time to change the powerpoint; I added a bunch of pictures of cakes. The kids got a kick out of them. They really enjoy looking at pictures. Classes went well today in general.
I finally got my phone bill paid; I've been putting that one off for a while. Not on purpose; the bank is just always closed by the time I leave school, or I have something else to do right after school.
Again, nobody showed up to the teachers' class. When I headed down to the first grade office for a short time, 1-5 teacher apologized repeatedly and told me she forgot about it. Even if she had remembered, everyone else still wouldn't have been there.
At 5:00PM, I met 1-5 downstairs to go to dinner with her and her friend. We're going out to do stuff once a week, so they can learn English through simple interaction with a native English speaker. I was hesitant to accept, but they're paying for whatever we do each week. A weekend in December, we are going to go to the Sharing House that houses 10 surviving Comfort Women. I talked to 1-5 teacher about it, she talked to her friend, and her friend has been there before. So, they offered to take me! It's something that I really wanted to experience while in Korea.
At dinner, we talked about a bunch of random stuff; travel, life, work, etc. It was nice just hanging out with them. 1-5 teacher's friend is only 30 years old, but I still need to figure out her name. I hate asking, because I know I've already been told at least twice. They are the same two that I went to the basketball game with. I told them that I have an ex-fiance, and 1-5 was super surprised. She and I have talked about marriage before. We both agreed that we are too selfish to be in relationships right now. We have plans for our lives, and we're not really willing to sacrifice those plans for marriage. The difference is that: she is 39 and I am 22; she never wants to get married, and I would like to get married someday. One day I'll find someone with similar life plans, whether my plans are to travel the world or to finally "settle" down. 1-5 told me that her plan after retirement is to travel, and teach abroad. That is only her plan right now.
We were at dinner for about three hours. When I got home, I had to book it on making a topic for the Friday meeting. I was drawing a blank on a topic, but under pressure, I managed to pull something out. I got a text from Kevin (the leader of the group this month) so I felt a lot more pressure than I really had to, because I called him and he said that I didn't need to have it up until Thursday. I still decided to get it out of the way. The topic is equality in Korea and throughout the world. I made questions that go along with the topic. Unfortunately, I found out that I have dinner with the first grade teachers and the principal on Friday, so I'm going to dinner with them, leaving to go to the meeting for 2 hours, and then heading back to meet up with the teachers if they are still out and about. These are the questions for the discussion on Friday:
There's an amazing website that you should check out: http://www.freerice.com/index.php
This kept me up until 2:00AM. That and talking online.^^
I finally got my phone bill paid; I've been putting that one off for a while. Not on purpose; the bank is just always closed by the time I leave school, or I have something else to do right after school.
Again, nobody showed up to the teachers' class. When I headed down to the first grade office for a short time, 1-5 teacher apologized repeatedly and told me she forgot about it. Even if she had remembered, everyone else still wouldn't have been there.
At 5:00PM, I met 1-5 downstairs to go to dinner with her and her friend. We're going out to do stuff once a week, so they can learn English through simple interaction with a native English speaker. I was hesitant to accept, but they're paying for whatever we do each week. A weekend in December, we are going to go to the Sharing House that houses 10 surviving Comfort Women. I talked to 1-5 teacher about it, she talked to her friend, and her friend has been there before. So, they offered to take me! It's something that I really wanted to experience while in Korea.
At dinner, we talked about a bunch of random stuff; travel, life, work, etc. It was nice just hanging out with them. 1-5 teacher's friend is only 30 years old, but I still need to figure out her name. I hate asking, because I know I've already been told at least twice. They are the same two that I went to the basketball game with. I told them that I have an ex-fiance, and 1-5 was super surprised. She and I have talked about marriage before. We both agreed that we are too selfish to be in relationships right now. We have plans for our lives, and we're not really willing to sacrifice those plans for marriage. The difference is that: she is 39 and I am 22; she never wants to get married, and I would like to get married someday. One day I'll find someone with similar life plans, whether my plans are to travel the world or to finally "settle" down. 1-5 told me that her plan after retirement is to travel, and teach abroad. That is only her plan right now.
We were at dinner for about three hours. When I got home, I had to book it on making a topic for the Friday meeting. I was drawing a blank on a topic, but under pressure, I managed to pull something out. I got a text from Kevin (the leader of the group this month) so I felt a lot more pressure than I really had to, because I called him and he said that I didn't need to have it up until Thursday. I still decided to get it out of the way. The topic is equality in Korea and throughout the world. I made questions that go along with the topic. Unfortunately, I found out that I have dinner with the first grade teachers and the principal on Friday, so I'm going to dinner with them, leaving to go to the meeting for 2 hours, and then heading back to meet up with the teachers if they are still out and about. These are the questions for the discussion on Friday:
- Is everyone created equal (Is everyone born having the same worth?)
- How are males and females treated differently in Korea/in other countries? Are there “roles” that women and men are supposed to fill (Are there specific jobs for women and men?)
- How are people of different races and nationalities (black, Hispanic, Japanese, American, British, etc.) treated in Korea/in other countries?
- Are people of different sexual orientations (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, etc) treated equally in
- Give one or two experiences from history or personal experience where someone has been discriminated against or treated unequally.
There's an amazing website that you should check out: http://www.freerice.com/index.php
This kept me up until 2:00AM. That and talking online.^^
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Warship?! For real?! - A Rant!
Ok, I know that my last few beginnings have been of a somewhat stressed nature, but it was all pretty light hearted. This one won't be...
*Warning: There might be some explicit content and things you might highly disagree with from this point on.
I got a disturbing email from a close family friend today. I am in no way attacking her for sending it to me or for her beliefs, but am actually quite grateful that I received it despite my feelings.
"USS New York
Why Why Why?! Why would they create a WARship out of the rubble from the World Trade Towers?! A warship?! Seriously! Perfect; now we have something to exact our revenge on those terrorists who destroyed our country! It doesn't work like that!
That is like someone writing their child's name on a bomb that is to be dropped on Iraq, because their son or daughter was killed in the war.
What sense does that make?!
"Never forget?" What does that even mean?! I used to think that it meant we would never forget the men and women who lost their lives. That's not what it means anymore! It means that we will never forget what those "terrorists" did to us, we will never show forgiveness, we will never forget that our mission is to, "...hunt down the folks who committed this act."
I see what our country is made of!
*Warning: There might be some explicit content and things you might highly disagree with from this point on.
I got a disturbing email from a close family friend today. I am in no way attacking her for sending it to me or for her beliefs, but am actually quite grateful that I received it despite my feelings.
"USS New York
It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center .
It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite , LA to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, "those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there."
Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the "hair on my neck stood up." "It had a big meaning to it for all of us," he said. "They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back."
The ship's motto? "Never Forget"Please keep this going so everyone can see what we are made of in this country.
Why Why Why?! Why would they create a WARship out of the rubble from the World Trade Towers?! A warship?! Seriously! Perfect; now we have something to exact our revenge on those terrorists who destroyed our country! It doesn't work like that!
That is like someone writing their child's name on a bomb that is to be dropped on Iraq, because their son or daughter was killed in the war.
What sense does that make?!
"Never forget?" What does that even mean?! I used to think that it meant we would never forget the men and women who lost their lives. That's not what it means anymore! It means that we will never forget what those "terrorists" did to us, we will never show forgiveness, we will never forget that our mission is to, "...hunt down the folks who committed this act."
I see what our country is made of!
Snowfriend - Tuesday Nov. 27, 2007
I woke up at an amazing 8:15AM and had 10 minutes to dress, eat, and get my butt out of the door.
1-6 decided to stage a mutiny and basically ignore anything I had to say. Oh goodness! I felt badly, because their teacher felt badly about them not behaving for me. I hate when the teacher feels bad about it, because she actually helps me try to control them. That doesn't necessarily happen in my other trouble spot class.
I've been feeling exhausted for the past week. I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night, but that has never been a problem for me before; I was pulling off 3 hours of sleep and student teaching last year.
After school, I decided that I was going to build a snowfriend (the PC term for snowman that we came up with last year^^)...out of the main material I absolutely despise, styrofoam. I took big pieces of styrofoam from the second grade office down to the first grade office to work on it. At first I used felt to make a rainbow; 1-5 teacher used this amazing measuring method by using a piece of cardboard as a compass. After that...back to the snowman; I used a pie plate for the head, a drum for the middle circle, and a large clock for the base circle. Using my resources... 1-5 teacher helped me cut them out with an exacto knife. Off and on they made fun of my western style "snowman;" apparently Korean snowman only have two circles (one for the head and one as the body) and they wear straw hats. Whatev. I made a scarf and earmuffs for it out of felt, the face out of black paper with a felt nose, drumsticks for arms, and super cute kid mittens from a give-away pile! I already have two teachers that have dibs on it for next year. Eh, I'll let them fight it out,^^
I headed upstairs, wrapped a box to look present-like for my "Happy Birthday" lesson tomorrow, and finally took off around 6:00PM.
After dinner, we watched Flight Plan as a family; it is a movie about a woman, Jodie Foster, who loses her husband and is flying his body back to the states, her daughter disappears on the flight, and there is an officer that must detain her for the entirety of the flight. It was a good movie, but there was a part that irked me big time. At one point in the movie, Jodie Foster blames a man from the Middle East for her daughter's kidnapping; so as if the ignorant racism and discrimination toward Middle Eastern people isn't enough after 9-11, might as well put some idiotic stunt like that in a movie. The end of the movie slightly redeems the situation of her accusations, but seriously...!
I talked to my host mom a little bit about it afterward; I was pretty frustrated with it. Anyway, my host mom and I sat around talking for a while. I told them that one of my friends is switching homestays, because the living situation is not good. She grabbed my hand and told me that she doesn't want me to leave. She was so cute about it! She knows my friend, so she was a little shocked, but thought that it was a good idea as well. My host father asked me if I want to move homestays, and I asked him if he was trying to get rid of me. He told me that he thinks of me as one of them and that I have the right to make my decision. My host mom grabbed my hand again and said no. She then said that he could leave and I could stay! LOL! LOVE HER! He actually got up and walked away. It's hard to understand if you don't know my host family's sense of humor, but they're pretty darn amazing!
1-6 decided to stage a mutiny and basically ignore anything I had to say. Oh goodness! I felt badly, because their teacher felt badly about them not behaving for me. I hate when the teacher feels bad about it, because she actually helps me try to control them. That doesn't necessarily happen in my other trouble spot class.
I've been feeling exhausted for the past week. I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night, but that has never been a problem for me before; I was pulling off 3 hours of sleep and student teaching last year.
After school, I decided that I was going to build a snowfriend (the PC term for snowman that we came up with last year^^)...out of the main material I absolutely despise, styrofoam. I took big pieces of styrofoam from the second grade office down to the first grade office to work on it. At first I used felt to make a rainbow; 1-5 teacher used this amazing measuring method by using a piece of cardboard as a compass. After that...back to the snowman; I used a pie plate for the head, a drum for the middle circle, and a large clock for the base circle. Using my resources... 1-5 teacher helped me cut them out with an exacto knife. Off and on they made fun of my western style "snowman;" apparently Korean snowman only have two circles (one for the head and one as the body) and they wear straw hats. Whatev. I made a scarf and earmuffs for it out of felt, the face out of black paper with a felt nose, drumsticks for arms, and super cute kid mittens from a give-away pile! I already have two teachers that have dibs on it for next year. Eh, I'll let them fight it out,^^
I headed upstairs, wrapped a box to look present-like for my "Happy Birthday" lesson tomorrow, and finally took off around 6:00PM.
After dinner, we watched Flight Plan as a family; it is a movie about a woman, Jodie Foster, who loses her husband and is flying his body back to the states, her daughter disappears on the flight, and there is an officer that must detain her for the entirety of the flight. It was a good movie, but there was a part that irked me big time. At one point in the movie, Jodie Foster blames a man from the Middle East for her daughter's kidnapping; so as if the ignorant racism and discrimination toward Middle Eastern people isn't enough after 9-11, might as well put some idiotic stunt like that in a movie. The end of the movie slightly redeems the situation of her accusations, but seriously...!
I talked to my host mom a little bit about it afterward; I was pretty frustrated with it. Anyway, my host mom and I sat around talking for a while. I told them that one of my friends is switching homestays, because the living situation is not good. She grabbed my hand and told me that she doesn't want me to leave. She was so cute about it! She knows my friend, so she was a little shocked, but thought that it was a good idea as well. My host father asked me if I want to move homestays, and I asked him if he was trying to get rid of me. He told me that he thinks of me as one of them and that I have the right to make my decision. My host mom grabbed my hand again and said no. She then said that he could leave and I could stay! LOL! LOVE HER! He actually got up and walked away. It's hard to understand if you don't know my host family's sense of humor, but they're pretty darn amazing!
I HATE MONDAYS! - Monday Nov. 26, 2007
Why do I hate Mondays? Why? I could tell that I was in a cranky mood when I woke up this morning, so it didn't surprise me that I wasn't too keen on taking a lot of talking in my class from my students. 1-1 was their usual wonderful selves (take the sarcasm and run with it), and just to keep me on my toes, 1-3 decided to make 1-1 seem like they were off of their game today.
I don't have a lot of time to spend with the first grade teachers on Mondays, because I'm always preparing for the orphanage after school. I spent about an hour down there just hanging out and cutting out my new month signs.
My host mom picked me up from school and took me to the orphanage. I love walking up to the building and having little kids wave at me from the bay-esqe window! I started with asking how they were today. LOL! That was fun! These kids know NO English (and apparently neither do I considering I originally typed "no NO)! I'm working on that with them obviously!^^
We learned the letter C and filled in that page of our mini books, then cut out and made color turkeys (their feathers were all different colors), then I read them the ChickaChickaBoomBoom book, because they love it so much. They're catching onto the days song I'm teaching them, too! I'm super excited when I come back and they actually remember something that I taught them the previous week!
The girl that sits in with me to help translate drove me home afterward. She is only 22 and super nice! She is a college student. We couldn't talk much, because of the language barrier, but we had a small conversation.
I mostly just relaxed when I got home and finished up a workshop for my project in January.
I don't have a lot of time to spend with the first grade teachers on Mondays, because I'm always preparing for the orphanage after school. I spent about an hour down there just hanging out and cutting out my new month signs.
My host mom picked me up from school and took me to the orphanage. I love walking up to the building and having little kids wave at me from the bay-esqe window! I started with asking how they were today. LOL! That was fun! These kids know NO English (and apparently neither do I considering I originally typed "no NO)! I'm working on that with them obviously!^^
We learned the letter C and filled in that page of our mini books, then cut out and made color turkeys (their feathers were all different colors), then I read them the ChickaChickaBoomBoom book, because they love it so much. They're catching onto the days song I'm teaching them, too! I'm super excited when I come back and they actually remember something that I taught them the previous week!
The girl that sits in with me to help translate drove me home afterward. She is only 22 and super nice! She is a college student. We couldn't talk much, because of the language barrier, but we had a small conversation.
I mostly just relaxed when I got home and finished up a workshop for my project in January.
A Bicycle Built for Two - Sunday Nov. 25, 2007
I woke up around 9:00, because my host family isn't the quietest family in the mornings. Everyone was up except my host bro and Nahi's husband. We had ramen for breakfast; I got cheese in mine!! Then we headed for my host father's parents' house to make kimchi. My host mom got a phone call saying that the kimchi had already been made and that they wanted to go to a jimjilbang. So, we changed our plans and hung out in Seoul.
We went to the river walk and rented bicycles!! OMGoodness, it was sooo much fun! I love riding bikes, and I really had fun being with my host family! My host mom cannot ride a bike, so she and my host father got a double bike; he steered, and she pedaled along with him. It was pretty darn cute!
After that we went to Lotte Department Store to "window shop." Wow, I failed at that! I bought some winter clothes and socks, so I think it is justifiable. OH!! There is an ICE SKATING RINK in the middle of the mall!! Seriously! I was SO amazed! There was a Christmas band show when we walked by!! My host mom said that sometime we can go and skate; seeing as how I have never ice skated in my ENTIRE life, this should be an interesting experience. I'm sincerely looking forward to it; I've always wanted to try to move around on ice on something other than my butt (referencing the pond behind our house that my dad used to push me around on.)
To top off the wonderful day, we ate JAPANESE food!! It was yummy!
We headed home with my cranky host sister seated next to me. When we got home, my host sister and brother passed out for a few hours. When we started a movie, my host sibs both managed to wake up. We watched Hairspray! It was awesome! If you haven't seen it, I hightly recommend it! If you have seen it and didn't like it, I highly recommend you watch it again!
We went to the river walk and rented bicycles!! OMGoodness, it was sooo much fun! I love riding bikes, and I really had fun being with my host family! My host mom cannot ride a bike, so she and my host father got a double bike; he steered, and she pedaled along with him. It was pretty darn cute!
After that we went to Lotte Department Store to "window shop." Wow, I failed at that! I bought some winter clothes and socks, so I think it is justifiable. OH!! There is an ICE SKATING RINK in the middle of the mall!! Seriously! I was SO amazed! There was a Christmas band show when we walked by!! My host mom said that sometime we can go and skate; seeing as how I have never ice skated in my ENTIRE life, this should be an interesting experience. I'm sincerely looking forward to it; I've always wanted to try to move around on ice on something other than my butt (referencing the pond behind our house that my dad used to push me around on.)
To top off the wonderful day, we ate JAPANESE food!! It was yummy!
We headed home with my cranky host sister seated next to me. When we got home, my host sister and brother passed out for a few hours. When we started a movie, my host sibs both managed to wake up. We watched Hairspray! It was awesome! If you haven't seen it, I hightly recommend it! If you have seen it and didn't like it, I highly recommend you watch it again!
Seoul Has NO Soul - Saturday Nov. 24, 2007
I laid in bed for a good deal of today. Lauren and I were going to get up to meet Jeremy for coffee (he was swinging through Wonju on his way to Gyeongi-do), but we decided the night before that we needed to sleep in. Also, it is about a $6 taxi ride just to get anywhere near the bus station.
My host family headed out to Seoul around 3:50PM...and LITERALLY, folks, it took 4 hours to get to a destination that was only supposed to take 1 and 1/2 hours had there been no traffic!
When we finally got there, the five starved family members sat down at my host mom's sister's new apartment. We went to a house warming party that was just family. I love hanging out with my host mom's family!! They're so much fun and laid back; kind of like my mom's side of the family back home. I've noticed a lot of similarities between my host family and my family back home; sometimes just strange similarities. Like the fact that my host mom really likes caramel and tootsie rolls like my mom in the states, or that my host dad really likes to be out in the sun like my dad in the states while my host mom prefers to stay out of the sun like my mom in the states. My host mom only has sisters and no brothers like my mom in the states.
I played ping pong in a slighty creepy ping pong room in the parking garage with Youngjin, my host sis, and my host bro for a bit. When we got back, my host mom went out to meet a friend. She left at 12:00AM and came back at 3:30AM. I stayed up talking to Nahi, her husband, and my host father until 2:30AM. We got into a slight political debate, or rather I caused a slight one between my host father, Nahi, and Nahi's husband. LOL! I manage to do that a lot somehow; I didn't mean to. I simply talked about one of my friends from yesterday's meeting supporting Mr. Moon. I then learned that my host father and Nahi hold opposing views. I quickly stepped out of that one!
I couldn't stay up any longer after 2:30AM. Apparently my host father, my 10 year old host sister, my 12 year old host brother, and Nahi's husband all stayed up until my host mom got back.
My host family headed out to Seoul around 3:50PM...and LITERALLY, folks, it took 4 hours to get to a destination that was only supposed to take 1 and 1/2 hours had there been no traffic!
When we finally got there, the five starved family members sat down at my host mom's sister's new apartment. We went to a house warming party that was just family. I love hanging out with my host mom's family!! They're so much fun and laid back; kind of like my mom's side of the family back home. I've noticed a lot of similarities between my host family and my family back home; sometimes just strange similarities. Like the fact that my host mom really likes caramel and tootsie rolls like my mom in the states, or that my host dad really likes to be out in the sun like my dad in the states while my host mom prefers to stay out of the sun like my mom in the states. My host mom only has sisters and no brothers like my mom in the states.
I played ping pong in a slighty creepy ping pong room in the parking garage with Youngjin, my host sis, and my host bro for a bit. When we got back, my host mom went out to meet a friend. She left at 12:00AM and came back at 3:30AM. I stayed up talking to Nahi, her husband, and my host father until 2:30AM. We got into a slight political debate, or rather I caused a slight one between my host father, Nahi, and Nahi's husband. LOL! I manage to do that a lot somehow; I didn't mean to. I simply talked about one of my friends from yesterday's meeting supporting Mr. Moon. I then learned that my host father and Nahi hold opposing views. I quickly stepped out of that one!
I couldn't stay up any longer after 2:30AM. Apparently my host father, my 10 year old host sister, my 12 year old host brother, and Nahi's husband all stayed up until my host mom got back.
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