Friday, February 27, 2009
Last post of the crazy update.. Sorry for the length.. I'll try to post more often :[
In other news my carrot sprouted leaves and had lil roots coming out of it. I performed surgery on carrot and eventually made it into small carrot sticks. I should have taken pictures during the surgery, but I was too into dissecting the carrot. :[
Oh I also got another hair cut at the same place. Anthea got a hair cut elsewhere a few weeks back but it cost 10k without hair washing and styling. Mine only costs 20k and has both :D I decided to go ahead and get a haircut because my ondol was broken and I didn't want to take forever washing my hair by dumping boiled water on my head. It took long enough to wash my body that way. After the ski trip, I came home and turned on the heat.. it was working for a few hours but all of a sudden the power would go out. Good thing I knew where the circuit breaker was. I flipped the switch back on but it would immediately overload again. I don't have much plugged in so I went ahead and disconnected everything before I tried again. Next try, nope back into the dark. I walked around trying to think what could be wrong. Only thing else to disconnect was the refridgerator. Since that would have really been bad I didn't even want to try it :p I then saw the ondol control pad and was like.. HMMMMMMMMMMMM and pushed the red button so it would be off when I flipped the switch again.. and wa la! It worked. I left it off for about 3 hours before I turned it back on. It was fine all night long.But the story continues.. I had school that day so I turned it back off after my shower and went to school. When I got back I turned it on for the heated flooring.. everything was fine and dandy until 7pm and boom~ there pops the breaker again. It made me sad :[ This time I left it off all night long until the next morning.. next morning when I turned it back on for hot water it was working fine! See the pattern.. it's slowly dying. I thought it was ok though so when I mentioned it to Jang, I was only joking. But on Friday when it tripped the breaker again I finally messaged Jang and was like, it's totally dead. Jang said "boil water with a stove. cheer up." She's so nice. She called the landlord so the landlord and the repairman would come on Saturday night and fix it.
So that's when I decided to just go get a haircut :D I thought it would be ok since when I got back everything would be fixed.. but no...... Jang messaged and said that the landlord and repairman would instead come the next morning. Anyway when the guy finally came and looked at it, I had thought my landlord said "4" (ne in Korean) so I thought she meant it would take 4 days to fix. But in reality, she meant "I/me" that she would be coming back with the repairman to fix it the next day. I was pretty surprised and relieved to see them the next day. I was also going crazy b/c they kept using all my clean things. They used my clean bathroom shoes, used my expensive toilet paper to wipe stuff, used my clean tub to catch the water they needed to drain, my new clean kitchen sponge, etc etc.. I kept trying to get them to use the stuff I have to dirty things but they didn't understand. I was cringing everytime they picked up something else. I did get some yummy Daeboreum rice + seaweed from the landlord though. It made me have a crap load of leftovers b/c I had cooked that day (enough for a few meals) but it was still yummy :p
Since the other post is unbelievably long, I'll just add it here.. Ashley and I went to see Marley and Me on the 25th and omg it is tear wrenching!! The movie was really really good but everyone in the theater was crying.. My tears kept streaming.. I was on the verge of sobbing haha. Few days before I had been watching all of the 2nd season of Clannad so I was already in sad mode.. I balled while watching that btw.. With all that said, if you have time, watch the movie!!
currently uploading videos of my students.. will edit post when it's finished~
A Snowy Day at my school :D
Class 4-7 Starts off good.. then the formation dies when teacher wants to get into pic -_-
4-8, favorites :D They have the smallest children.. They also clean the classroom. Cleaners are 3 tiny boys, 2 very chubby boys, and one girl. All of them very happy children.
Winter camp ended successfully :) We had some problems because the Principal came into my class when I was showing the 4th graders a movie and because the Korean teachers were nowhere to be found, but I think he's ok with it now since the 2nd time he came in to observe, he happened to come see the talkative 5th grade class that explained everything they were learning to him. Apparently he had instructed the Korean teachers to help me during camp, but just about none of them did. He wasn't very happy to see that ;D Oh well..
I got a new coteacher. The one replacing Jang hasn't been decided yet though.. and school starts on Monday. I don't really understand why they do everything so last minute here. Anyhow, the new coteacher doesn't really speak much English. She really tries though. She told me she's going to study all spring break. I hope she does. I can't really communicate with her too much b/c if she doesn't plan what she wants to say, it comes out as a total jumble with other random words thrown in. So far though, she seems to be having trouble becomming a member of the group of teachers we're in. Other teachers have noted a bit about her mood swings and not being really sure what her personality is like. I don't know either.. all I know is, she does what I ask her to do in class. I'm a little afraid of how she's going to teach the students though.. at least she's only teaching 6th graders alone once a week.. rest of the time she's just disciplining the students while I teach. I hope the teacher replacing Jang will be a bit better.. that teacher will have 5th graders and 3rd graders alone once a week since I don't teach 3rd graders at all.
There have been a few instances where I could tell she's not really accepted. When we were going to visit the VP in the hospital (he broke his leg skiing) she was taking a lot longer to get out of her office so we didn't wait and went down so I could go ahead and change my shoes. After changing my shoes we see her coming down the stairs so we proceed to where the car was parked. We assumed she was following us but when we got to the car she was nowhere to be seen! It was really odd. After visiting the VP everyone was waiting for the elevator to go back down and I had heard her say 'restroom' in Korean so I knew where she was going but she didn't really tell anyone so when the elevator got to our floor, we all went in. I kinda forgot to check to see if she was out yet b/c I'd been busy talking to Jang and the music teachers but in the elevator we were like.. oh crap...... temp teacher missing! @_@;.. It's so bad to forget someone :x
During the farewell lunch we had for the 15 teachers that were transferring to other schools, she totally didn't talk at all and left earlier than us. I find it strange because I was able to converse with the teachers more with short phrases in English while she wasn't able to join the conversation at all. Oh well.. we'll see how this year goes. Here's one of the times I'm glad I have my own office and aren't stuck in the middle of teacher drama.
Graduation was on February 19th and February 20th was the last day the teachers had to come in. February 19th we had a fake field trip where we supposedly went to the movies after the lunch and February 20th we had another fake field trip where we supposedly hiked all day long. I found out later that we had the fake field trips because the group of teachers I'm with actually didn't want to have to do any field trips with the male practical arts teacher. He's pretty annoying..... I mean he's nice, but he's egotistical, VERY RELIGIOUS & pushes it on everyone else, and kinda odd overall lol. I understood after they explained to me XD I don't want to suffer through another debate with him either!
This week is my school's Spring Break. Since I opted not to use my vacation days, they required me to go to school everyday. Jang told me I could leave at 12pm everyday though which is cool. I think it's like during my winter camp where they wanted me to go home right after teaching b/c they didn't want to deal with how I'm going to eat lunch everyday. But it's all good.. I can avoid the awkward meals where I just sit there in silence while they talk and talk and talk in Korean. I have learned to eat even slower (if that was even possible.. everyone knows I eat slow already), but now I do it in even slower motion. That way when it seems like they're finally finished talking, I'm not super super full from constantly eating, but I'm content!
On Thursday, GEPIK had another meeting thing set up with the teachers. This time we were to go to the auditorium at the National Museum of Korea. Some people thought that we'd just be getting a tour of the museum, but from what Jang said, it just seemed like a lecture. It was definitely a lecture.. I could live without such detailed description of hour the gold was melted at whatever temperature to solder the gold balls onto the thing. I fell asleep many times and there was a person snoring behind us. After the lecture, they fed us some traditional Korean snacks that were very yummy :D Upon exiting, they give everyone a free ticket for the museum but it is only good through this Sunday. I highly doubt anyone actually used the ticket.. we were all dead after watching the presentation. I did like the stuff on the Hanbok though. It was the only thing I didn't fall asleep for.
Happiest thing about school right now is.. the 6th graders are gone!! bwahaha.. now the middle schools can deal with the children. Here are some class pics I took.. and the new temp teacher took when I wanted to be in them:
6th graders..
4th gradersI got a new coteacher. The one replacing Jang hasn't been decided yet though.. and school starts on Monday. I don't really understand why they do everything so last minute here. Anyhow, the new coteacher doesn't really speak much English. She really tries though. She told me she's going to study all spring break. I hope she does. I can't really communicate with her too much b/c if she doesn't plan what she wants to say, it comes out as a total jumble with other random words thrown in. So far though, she seems to be having trouble becomming a member of the group of teachers we're in. Other teachers have noted a bit about her mood swings and not being really sure what her personality is like. I don't know either.. all I know is, she does what I ask her to do in class. I'm a little afraid of how she's going to teach the students though.. at least she's only teaching 6th graders alone once a week.. rest of the time she's just disciplining the students while I teach. I hope the teacher replacing Jang will be a bit better.. that teacher will have 5th graders and 3rd graders alone once a week since I don't teach 3rd graders at all.
There have been a few instances where I could tell she's not really accepted. When we were going to visit the VP in the hospital (he broke his leg skiing) she was taking a lot longer to get out of her office so we didn't wait and went down so I could go ahead and change my shoes. After changing my shoes we see her coming down the stairs so we proceed to where the car was parked. We assumed she was following us but when we got to the car she was nowhere to be seen! It was really odd. After visiting the VP everyone was waiting for the elevator to go back down and I had heard her say 'restroom' in Korean so I knew where she was going but she didn't really tell anyone so when the elevator got to our floor, we all went in. I kinda forgot to check to see if she was out yet b/c I'd been busy talking to Jang and the music teachers but in the elevator we were like.. oh crap...... temp teacher missing! @_@;.. It's so bad to forget someone :x
During the farewell lunch we had for the 15 teachers that were transferring to other schools, she totally didn't talk at all and left earlier than us. I find it strange because I was able to converse with the teachers more with short phrases in English while she wasn't able to join the conversation at all. Oh well.. we'll see how this year goes. Here's one of the times I'm glad I have my own office and aren't stuck in the middle of teacher drama.
Graduation was on February 19th and February 20th was the last day the teachers had to come in. February 19th we had a fake field trip where we supposedly went to the movies after the lunch and February 20th we had another fake field trip where we supposedly hiked all day long. I found out later that we had the fake field trips because the group of teachers I'm with actually didn't want to have to do any field trips with the male practical arts teacher. He's pretty annoying..... I mean he's nice, but he's egotistical, VERY RELIGIOUS & pushes it on everyone else, and kinda odd overall lol. I understood after they explained to me XD I don't want to suffer through another debate with him either!
This week is my school's Spring Break. Since I opted not to use my vacation days, they required me to go to school everyday. Jang told me I could leave at 12pm everyday though which is cool. I think it's like during my winter camp where they wanted me to go home right after teaching b/c they didn't want to deal with how I'm going to eat lunch everyday. But it's all good.. I can avoid the awkward meals where I just sit there in silence while they talk and talk and talk in Korean. I have learned to eat even slower (if that was even possible.. everyone knows I eat slow already), but now I do it in even slower motion. That way when it seems like they're finally finished talking, I'm not super super full from constantly eating, but I'm content!
On Thursday, GEPIK had another meeting thing set up with the teachers. This time we were to go to the auditorium at the National Museum of Korea. Some people thought that we'd just be getting a tour of the museum, but from what Jang said, it just seemed like a lecture. It was definitely a lecture.. I could live without such detailed description of hour the gold was melted at whatever temperature to solder the gold balls onto the thing. I fell asleep many times and there was a person snoring behind us. After the lecture, they fed us some traditional Korean snacks that were very yummy :D Upon exiting, they give everyone a free ticket for the museum but it is only good through this Sunday. I highly doubt anyone actually used the ticket.. we were all dead after watching the presentation. I did like the stuff on the Hanbok though. It was the only thing I didn't fall asleep for.
Happiest thing about school right now is.. the 6th graders are gone!! bwahaha.. now the middle schools can deal with the children. Here are some class pics I took.. and the new temp teacher took when I wanted to be in them:
6th graders..
Class 6-7 First class I tried taking pictures of.. hard to control! But generally one of the better classes.
Class 6-6 The class I like.. the boy in the middle volunteered himself as the "best English student" in the class -_-;..
Class 6-5 bad class.. see the boy in the maroon?
Class 6-6 The class I like.. the boy in the middle volunteered himself as the "best English student" in the class -_-;..
Class 6-5 bad class.. see the boy in the maroon?
Class 4-7 Starts off good.. then the formation dies when teacher wants to get into pic -_-
4-8, favorites :D They have the smallest children.. They also clean the classroom. Cleaners are 3 tiny boys, 2 very chubby boys, and one girl. All of them very happy children.
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