Food

A staple for any living creature. To bad I can never find any around here. Or wait, I can I just can't communicate or read what the hell they have at the restaurants. Today was pitiful. After work I was hungry. I was debating on whether or not I wanted to attempt to cook rice or just go to a restaurant. My laziness won over, so I grabbed my Fromers and headed off to a small mom and pop place.

The first one I went to I pass by a lot. It's a sit down on the floor kind of place. So I look at their menu on the wall, look at my book and try to figure out what they had. No luck. Fromers you failed me. I sat there for about 10 minutes staring at the wall then staring at my book. I quickly sneaked out to try and not be noticed. Humiliating.

Then I was about to give up when I saw another, even smaller, place. I get in and I find out it's a sushi place. I like sushi but it wasn't what I was in the mood for. I sat down anyway with my Fromers and translated the only thing that was both in the menu and in my book. Rice with raw fish. Pass thanks, so I left, dejected.

So I decide to go back home. On my way home is a little grocery store. I think to myself, "Maybe I'll get some mu kimchi for rice" (my favorite kind). I go into the store and low and behold they don't have it.

In the end my sad pitiful self ate a bowl of frosted flakes. Thanks Tony the Tiger. Your cereal tastes good in any country.

Insadong

I think is where I was at today. I'm not sure. None the less it was pretty much a foreigner trap with all sorts of little Korean things and so forth. I'm horrible at figuring out what I should take a picture of so here are a few.

Me and my cousin Jun Gu at the restaurant they decided to take me. I had rice with raw salmon. Tasty.

My cousin Seong Hwan and his girlfriend.

This out door touristy thing I don't know. I wasn't to impressed but I'm in this hate shopping phase right now. Tragic I know. That banner is a picture of Kim Jong Il with funny hair and sun glasses.

A giant blob of sugar ginger candy. The guy shaves part of it with this block and then puts a mound of it on a stick.

I was told it was some marketing thing and they were advertising something. The girl saw me taking a picture and posed for me.

Something that I wanted to talk about in Korea. Couples will wear the same clothes. Jun Gu told me that it was a lot more popular in the early 2000's (is that how you say that?) but some couples still do it. This was the best picture I got of them.

Jun Gu flipped out over this guy. I guess he's some famous K1 fighter or something so he insisted that I take his picture. Koreans really like K1 fighters. This famous Russian one was eating at the restaurant next to YBM and the Korean teachers all ran downstairs with their cell phones, giggling like typical Korean girls, trying to take a picture.

We walked a lot today. I started feeling dizzy, or just off balance towards the end so I ended up going home. I felt bad because they had walked me to Lotte Department store but I just didn't feel up for more walking.

Dongdaemun Part 2

It was a pretty uneventful day today. I went to Dongdaemun Market finally but it took me two hours to find it. I had gone into some other 8 floor building stores and looked around before actually finding the market. When I did get there I was to tired to really look around so I decided to go back home. Plus I'm sick so it wasn't all the great. I love shopping and yet I hate it as well.

I went to a different jimjabang tonight at the Hotel Prima. It was okay but not worth the $16.50. I had gone into the sauna and then into a cold tub then a hot one. Towards the end I wasn't feeling very well and figured I needed water stat. Well once I actually got to the water cooler I was starting to feel dizzy and my hands and feet went numb. I took one drink and went down to the floor. I've never fainted or passed out before but I'm sure this was close to it. I would close my eyes for a few seconds and then make myself open my eyes to drink more water. The Korean ladies where all, "Are you alright" and I pretty much just said I needed water. Kind of embarressing sitting on the floor naked by the water cooler but what are you going to do.

I made it home fine. I figure it's probably a combination of eating like crap today, not drinking enough water and being sick. I wanted to get a salad but opted to just eat some cereal. It has vitamins in it. . . Hopefully sight seeing will be okay tomorrow. Maybe I should just stay home and lay in bed.

Incubus of Viral Plague

"The Devil Wears Prada" is on in Korea all of the time and I find that quote very fitting for how I feel. I'm sick for the first time in Korea. Yippy. It doesn't seem to bad right now so maybe it's just a minor cold or something. I hope.

School has been hard as I mentioned it was going to be. However, it's been alright. Since I constantly have class it makes the day go by very quickly but my voice takes a beating. Those little kids suck out your soul.

Dartmouth was so cute today though! I've taught them one other time but when I walked into the room they all yelled "Ashley Teacher!" Then Elizabeth, favorite, comes up and hugs me and tells me I look like a princess. I'm like you're a liar but very cute. I will always be in awe of how these kids love their teachers even though I feel like I'm one of the meaner ones. Like everyone tells me, they forgive easy.

I leave you with a drawing Diana, from my Read and Debate class, drew of me. It's the last class I have for the day Tuesday and Thursday. There's just two of them in there so we get through the stuff pretty quickly.

I don't know. I think I look like a South Park character. Harry, the other kid in my Read and Debate class, drew me as a panda. And no it wasn't a cute panda.

One Month Anniversary

It has been exactly one month since I arrived in Korea and what I have done? Well started working at a real 40+ hour a week job. Visited family. Walked around the outside of Dongdaemun. Went to COEX mall. Learned the subway system. Learned how to kind of read Korean, very slowly. Gone to a jimjabang (a spa where everyone is naked... yeah awkward).

The short list of what I would like to do in the near future: Actually go inside of Dongdaemun Market. Go to Namdaemun. Travel outside of Seoul. Go to Busan. Climb a mountain. Go to a Buddhist temple. Go to a palace. Get a dog. Learn how to speak Korean (this may take all year).

I can't believe it's already been a month. It feels like I've been here a lot longer and yet not long at all. Does that make sense? Anyway after my long hospital stay it's nice to be back at my place. It never really felt like home until today.

Tomorrow is going to be extremely long. I have to be there by 10:10 am and I won't leave until 8 pm. Did I discuss that I found out that I only get paid for the hours that I teach. I get there at 10:10 but I don't start teaching until 11:10 (and only for 40 minutes). So I get paid the 40 minutes that I teach. Alright in short those ten hours that I'm there I get paid for 6. It's basically so I can never get overtime. But regardless of whether I work 40 teaching hours a week I still get paid $2000 a month. That's confusing but I'm tired and can think of no other way to make it better.

I got two packages from Lucas today!! Plus stuff Genea threw in there :). I love my music note pendant it is so awesome and all that tea. I can't wait to try it out. Thank you so much!! And Lucas thanks for everything. I'm eating the goldfish as I type <3

Hospital

Well I lugged my computer and the adaptor (that may possibly weigh 10 pounds) in my backpack all the way to Uijeoungbu to find out that the wireless they have at the hospital is blocked. Lame but they have computers you can get on if you buy cards for them or something. So I'll still be able to get my internet fix. Damn you internet and your addicting ways!

I had P.E. with Yale today and I rocked it thank you very much. I bought a whistle last night and let me tell you it was the best $1.50 I ever spent. It really was quite the difference. They had one of the helper teachers (I don't really know what to call them, they don't teach. They just help or make lunch I don't know) help me during it. She just kind of yelled at them in Korean what I wanted them to do. I really do love Yale though.

When I walked in the room to get them Ethan, who always does this, yelled "ASHELEE!" and hugged my legs. It's so cute. Then YunGee was all, "Hi Ashley! I love you" while hugging my legs with Ethan. And of course there is stinking cute Brian, who is the smallest, comes running up to me screaming my name and hugging me. Just no matter what they do to make you angry they can also be so sweet. It's crazy how they just love you and don't even know you. You're just their teacher and that equals love.

I found out that I'm offically going to be a Kindergarten teacher. I'm going to be taking over the classes that another teacher taught once he leaves. So I will have Stanford (who is pictured a couple of entries back) and Brown. Being a Kindergarten teacher means that I will have to be at school by 9 am :( and I'll leave around 6 pm. At least Stanford knows me pretty well but now I'm going to have to be extra hard on them to get anything done. Usually I teach them Arts and Crafts and Science which are kind of blow offish. But now I'll have to teach them Language stuff. Stuff that is actually important in learning English. Scary.

On the Homoni front, she looks okay. She lays in bed and seems really tired. Hopefully she will be able to leave on Sunday.

Ugh Annoying

I got a new schedule today. I went from 33 classes to 41 classes a week. Yay. I'm so irritated. And what I found out is that they don't count the hours that I'm physically there but the hours that I actually teach. So starting Monday I have to be there at 10:10 am and I won't leave until 7:45 pm. This is over 9 hours but I will get paid for 6. Bullshit.

Loves Korea.

Anyways so mom just told me my aunt has some tumor in her breast and some sort of tumor growing in her uterus. But she isn't going to do anything about it until after Homoni has 3 more chemo treatments. I will never understand how stuff like this gets put on people like her. I mean she really is the nicest, sweetest lady I have ever met. She cares about everyone more then herself and she has to deal with this crap. Sad days.

I'm so glad tomorrow is Thursday, my short day for the time being, and then Friday means I don't have to go to work on Saturday and Sunday. I'm going to stay at the hospital with Homoni Friday and Saturday night.

Vacation goes too fast

It was kind of crappy really. On Saturday I went to Dongdaemun. When I got there I walked outside right into this open flea market thing which I thought was the infamous Dongdaemun Market. Not to impressed I walked around in the sun feeling my face get burned, bought a really light feeling scarf for Homoni, talked to some really mean no haggle Korean people and left about an hour later. Come to find out, as I well telling my mom about it, that wasn't the Market. It was just what it looked like, a flea market. The actual one is in a giant 10 story building or something. I felt stupid and she couldn't stop laughing. Har har. Don't get me wrong I see the humor in it now but at that point I wanted to cry.

So after the market I went to Coex mall where I did a little eye shopping, bought a scarf for my aunt, bought some lunch from a lady that also seemed to have a stick up her butt and left not feeling much better. After that I got home and was on a mission to get to an Emart to buy my uncle some beer (I was trying to bring a gift for everyone in Uijeoungbu because they always give me so much) and mom suggested it. I called a girl I work with and she told me how to taxi my way there. I got there just fine but on my way back I tried to tell this crotchity grandpa the street and he yelled at me something to the effect that he didn't go to Cheongdam. I got another taxi that knew where I was talking but I still felt all sad. Oh well I'm going to chalk it up to being alone and PMS lol.

Anyways when I got to Uijeongbu on Sunday it was officially Chuseok. Family came, they drank a lot of Soju and were kind of crazy. It was fun. The next day we all went out to get Homoni's favorite food duck. It may possibly be my least favorite but I eat it and pretend to really like it for her. She went into the hospital today to go through her second round of chemo. I'm praying she'll be alright.

And with that I leave you with pictures.What I thought was Dongdaemun Market.

Some clothes piled on top of each other for you to dig through.

I should have paid more attention because I want one of those jackets that are on the mannequins.

These brown bug things were everywhere and you're supposed to eat them. I asked the lady if I could take a picture and she gave me a dirty look but said yes. (click on the picture to get a better look)

I should have taken before and afters but all the rest of the family pictures happened around 11 pm. They were pretty gone :) loves my family. I don't know there names so here it goes. The eldest of the three sisters and her husband from my grandma's brother's family

The eldest and the middle child with my Uncle. The man's back on the left is the middles husband and the bigger lady on the right is the youngest of the three sisters.

Middle, my Uncle and my Aunt (who doesn't drink). His eyes look closed but they're not lol. Asian.

Youngest, Middles husband and eldest husband.

There children. Names? No idea. Who do thing belong to? Not sure.

Eldest and Husband

The youngest ones husband sleeping on the bed, my cousin Dongyonee next to him and my mom's brothers son Song Hwan.

Dongyonee, loves him.

I have about ten pictures where he is grabbing a kid or hugging someone and he wanted me to take a picture.

Dongyonee, my uncle and some cousin

This is at the Duck restaurant we go to all the time. Left is the three daughters mom. Right is Homoni.

Homoni with a little bit of a smile. She always sits very quietly and doesn't say much anymore.

Homoni. She makes me feel so sad.

Chuseok Festival Day

Today was the Chuseok Festival celebration at our school. We had the kids play games and make jegi (some Korean toy that reminded me of a hacky sack but harder) and Songpyon (this rice powder dough stuff). I had to be there by 11 to help Pennsylvania make the jegi's. Today they decided to tell me I was fat. I just told them that was very nice to say but they are 6 and don't understand sarcasm. One little girl, Jane, who is my favorite, didn't say anything. After we were done making jegi while all the other kids were going crazy Jane was using her jegi as a broom to sweep up the mess they had made.

She sat down next to me and hugged my arm. Love her.

Stanford and Pennsylvania had a singing contest in the Playground room today and I had to help. Afterwards they had this dancing game they had to do. This was the most active they were the whole time thus why I pick this video to put on here. It's long and a little boring so feel free not to watch the whole thing. I tried to use my IMovie thing on here to edit but then gave up.




I'm so excited to have these next 4 days off. I think I've decided to go to Dongdaemun Market tomorrow and shop. I definitely need some shopping time.

Passive Aggressive Meetings

Today was my first general meeting at YBM. It wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be. To my knowledge I was only talked about in passing with the comment of, "How do you get kids to listen to you like in P.E. or homeroom." P.E. is obviously me. After that who knows thus why passive aggressive doesn't really work in a business setting. John was called out quite a bit though. He's been here a month longer then me. I wonder if she doesn't totally bitch me out because she thinks I'll tell my Uncle and he'll chew her out like he did Paul. Ah that still makes me laugh. Poor Paul.

Speaking of Paul, the assistant manager that really does all the crap work at the school, I am his new 1 on 1 adult conversation teacher. I don't know if I'm doing a good job at it but he seems to be doing alright. He knows very little English and it's funny some of the questions he asks me.

"Is surprisingly same as surprise!" With matching hand gestures. "No" I tell him and then went on to try and explain what surprisingly means. You try it. It's hard!

Tomorrow my school is celebrating the Korean version of Thanksgiving called Chusoek (which actually doesn't occur until Sunday). It's pretty much just saying thanks for a good year of harvesting crops. All of Korea travels to their parents house on this day. Literally. A trip that would take you an hour to make any other day would take you at least 3 if your lucky traffic is that bad. Traffic really is something here in Korea. Maybe for a later post.

I got another gift set today. They are all the rage here. I'm going to assume it was the Chusoek Festival gift or something.

I'm so excited that the end of Friday marks the start of my 4 day weekend. Sad that it's only my second week and I'm already excited to be away from the place for 4 glorious days. But I'll take it! I want to go to Dongdaemun Market or maybe I'll go back to COEX Mall.

To Kim: I just saw the comment on who the "butt" was in my room. That would be my cousin Jun Gu. His picture is a couple after the butt.

Horray For Internet!!

Oh my gosh I finally have internet! I never realized my addiction to the internet was so strong but I'm glad to be getting my fix. So here are a hodge podge of pictures I have taken over the last few days.

Stanford class. I teach them 4 times a week. They are a little rowdy but they are starting to listen to me a little bit better. This was the second time I taught them. They weren't listening.

Again Stanford. The boy looking at the camera is Daniel Cho. He is so little and cute. Today he put stickers all over his face.

What I see on my way to work.

There it is. YBM ECC.

This is in Uiejeongbu. We had to cross the river on these stones. Every step I was thinking it was like that show where the Japanese people walk across the "stones" and some sink and they fall in.

Uiejeongbu Market. I find this incredibly unsanitary.

Would you like some fish?

I went to this Korean restaurant on Monday. Everything was in Korean so I was like, "I have no idea what to order." So they picked for me. It was chicken fried steak with this brown gravy, rice, corn and a coleslaw type mixture. I forgot my camera. But I went back Tuesday and got Bi Bim Bap (which is pictured above). It's rice, carrots, onions, green onions, bean sprouts, this kind of spicy red sauce, topped off with a fried egg.

A gift that was left on my bed today, Spam, tuna and oil. Spam is a delicacy here in Korea. Luckily I grew up on the stuff. Tasty :)

No Internet Makes Me Sad

I still don't have internet at my apartment which means I'm secretly typing this during my "Free Talking" planning time. Not that I have much to update about. Class has been going fine. It's weird but I really feel like I'm starting to be a teacher. I had to pull a girl out of the class and talk to her. Crazy.

Today is Homoni's birthday. I need to call her.

Oh bell. Write more later.

So here is the deal

When I signed up for YBM I was told that I would be teaching English to mostly older "Academy" kids. I'm thinking okay grammer, sentence structure, conversational stuff. Little did I know that I was signing up to be a babysitter until 3 pm everyday. I teach 3 or 4 of these classes every day to 5 and 6 year olds:

Science (where I swear every Science experiment involves them blowing through a straw which leaves me covered in spit by the end of class and completely grossed out)
Arts and Crafts (glorified title for playing with crayons for 40 minutes)
Drama in Education (they read a play and have to memorize it)
Reading Master (bullshit)
P.E. (hell)

Sure I'm no scientist and my drawing skills are lacking but I can handle that. P.E., on the other hand, sucks hard. After about 20 minutes of trying to set up a game for them to play I was sweating like crazy. At one point I was amazed at how I would turn to tell one kid to stop doing something and then turn back around and two others would be climbing on something dangerous. Like they had popped out of no where. Anyway so I decided to sit down well aware that there are cameras in every room so people could see the crazyness that was happening.

Rachel, the head kinder teacher, comes up and goes "You know I can see you right?" and looked at her quite angrily and replied, "Yeah." She told me that I couldn't just sit there and watch them run around. They are 5. She asked me what the lesson plan for the day was and I told her. It was review of some games they had played in July but heaven forbid me think the necessary equipment I would need for these games would be in the playground room. They were not. She told me I should have asked her for them. Hmm, that would have been good to know before the class wouldn't it. These people just assume you know everything.

She told me I should have come up with a new game for them to play with the stuff I had available. I'm sorry I didn't get a degree in coming up with fun P.E. games for 5 year olds when they are perfectly happy running around in circles. So her brilliant game that she came up with was to have the kids pair up in twos and roll a ball back and forth to each other. Genious... I'm sure they would enjoy that for 40 minutes.

After about two minutes of that most of the kids stopped listening to her. Great control I thought. How do you expect me to control 11 kids in a room called "The Playground Room," when I don't even know there names. "Hey you there, stop hitting what's your name!" "Pink shirt quit climbing on that!" "Ugly kid quit throwing the ball at the runny nose kid." Yes very effective.

I do teach the older kids after 3 and they are alright. I have about 3 or 4 of these classes a day. Basically we just go through a book that has stuff like, "What's your favorite thing to do?" or "What do you need for a science experiement?" It's ridiculously boring and they go through it really fast.

Live and learn. If I ever decide to do this again I will ask specifically which classes I will be teaching.

The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

In a round about, very sneaky way, I was lied to. Explain later.

Let being an actual adult begin (thanks Rachael my spell checker)

Well, I am officially an adult. An adult with endless hours of planning for classes, duties to fulfill and young minds to mold. My very first day of teaching was actually yesterday. I was subbing for Ian teacher who left for a better paying job. He's also the one that made my apartment disgusting. Every class I walked into the kids would go "Huh? Where's Ian teacher?" But let's talk about the classes shall we.

The very first class that I taught was drama in education to 5 year olds. The class name was Dartmouth (every class at YBM is named after Ivy League schools. So there is Yale, Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, Oxford and so on). They were adorable. This one girl Elizabeth loved me the second I got in. Did I mention they all pick out American names that you have to call them during class? Anyway when I was helping everyone flip to the right page she grabbed my arm and just hugged me. It was so cute but I had to remain professional and continue helping the kids. It was only a 40 minute class but once it was over I was worn out.

After them I had a three hour break to prepare for my upper level classes. They are all very smart and know how to read, but not speak, English very well.

Today, my first official day as a teacher, was mediocre. I had one class of all boys that absolutely would not repeat after me. I don't think I've ever felt more frustrated. I would say "Okay everyone repeat after me, 'Mike are you sick?'" And they would just all stare at me or at their papers. I'm standing there thinking, you guys can't even repeat the words I'm saying?! You just spoke English to me before we started! We ended up playing some rock paper scissors game which they liked a lot.

Another class I taught named Stanford got yelled at by the Academic Director right before I had to teach them. When I asked them how they were they said "Bad." When I started my lesson they ended up having the wrong books which was fabulous. So I had improvise which I'm realizing is something I'm going to have to do a lot of here.

My last class for the day is one on one conversational English with the Manager of the school. I'm thinking, "Why me? I'm brand new here. Shouldn't someone with more experience do this?" He was really nice though and told me that in the class he is a student not the Manager. Ha, right.

Ah my first picture of "Korean Food." Oh, okay so it's not Korean but it is pizza from Korea. I didn't realize how much I missed cheese until that first delicious bite. I got pepperoni but they tasted like the pepperoni from a lunchables pizza. It's no Pizza Hut or Papa Murphy's or Papa John's (man I miss pizza) but it was pretty tasty.

Short Hair

I have a bowl cut. Oh well hair grows.