(these are from ryan/abby/alex/scott's last day, which is the cause for celebration. wahoo!)
(so attractive.)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
workplace
in case anyone is curious, some pictures recently surfaced of our office. for some reason i feel like they're of interest, mostly because i feel like they're a visual representation of the clusterfuck that is our administration's organizational methods.
(these are from ryan/abby/alex/scott's last day, which is the cause for celebration. wahoo!)
(so attractive.)
(these are from ryan/abby/alex/scott's last day, which is the cause for celebration. wahoo!)
(so attractive.)
Sunday, April 11, 2010
literate
i learned the korean sign language alphabet last night! i am now more fluent in korean sign language than american. this will be super useful for speaking to all the deaf koreans i know, as i can now spell out the forty words that i know rather than mouthing them.
weight off my shoulders
weight off my shoulders
Thursday, April 8, 2010
STILL ALIVE
for all my loyal reader (anna cotter), i provide you with a summary of the past month:
four of my coworkers finished their contracts; three left the country. among them are besties ryan and abby, who are currently tanning and doing drugs in thailand and regularly reminding me how wonderful their lives are now. super jealz.
we have new teachers, both foreign and korean, and it's definitely changed the work atmosphere. more importantly, i have a new kindergarten class. my old 6b kids still go to our school (thank god), but they're in seven-year-old classes now, and i'm teaching the lowest-level six-year-olds we have. it's already been an insane challenge - it's already hard to get a room full of four-year-olds (they're six by the korean system, but most of my kids won't even turn american age five until the fall) to sit down and stop talking, but when they don't understand what you're saying it's borderline impossible. it's incredible what they've picked up already, though: in a period of five weeks, all of my kids can fluently say, "may i go to the bathroom, please?" and "can i please go get some water?" they can repeat pretty much everything i say to them, and today laura said, completely on her own, "teacher, i love you very very many." my heart melted.
i haven't gotten that many pictures of them, unfortunately - i'm too busy wrestling them into their chairs or trying to distract them with "do, re, mi" - something else they've been picking up pretty quickly. i did manage to catch a few during easter, since my amazing coteacher chloe was in the room and kept them under control for me.
with tony. he's adorable and looks like an old man most of the time, except when he gets really excited. he tends to get really worked up about minutiae, but not in an upset way. a few weeks ago he forgot to change his shoes to go home, and we didn't realize it until my boss pointed it out when he was waiting in line for the bus. she muttered, "oh god," and when he looked down and looked back up at me his eyes were wide and yelled "OH GOD!" he then BOLTED back to our classroom, as i tried to follow him to ... help out? he just kept yelling "OH GOD!" and "OH NO!" alternately, until he made it to his shoes, which he didn't even have time to put on all the way before he about faced. he was hauling ass until he ran into chloe teacher and realized he absolutely HAD TO TELL HER WHAT HAD HAPPENED. it was possibly the most adorable thing i have ever seen, ever.
lisa and emma. emma is usually a little less unimpressed than this, but not much. lisa is ridiculously on top of her shit - not only one of my best speakers, but also the oldest kid in the class, so she has the best motor skills and general cognitive function. she's the one who always has to explain the assignments to the other kids or show them how to use rubber bands. the other day she was writing notes to emma on her project in class, but she had written emma's name in korean - 에마 사랑해! (emma, i love you!) i got jealous and told her she should write "건갱님 사랑해! (teacher, i love you!) so she thought about it, and wrote: 클로외 티차 사랑해! (kuh-lo-ee teecha, i love you!)
this is the aforementioned laura. she's actually way more adorable than this picture conveys - she's about two feet tall and has a ridiculously high-pitched voice. she's also the only one to repeat the things i ask the class to say, ever.
nancy, irene, and tristan. nancy barely talks, except to say "NOOOO!" when the other kids say that i'm a monkey or flower or whatever. "TEACHER IS TEACHER!" irene demands to be held at all time and has an amazing koala-like grip. tristan is the son of one of our korean teachers, and despite being a complete spaz, he's a tank and is generally hilarious. he pretends to understand everything i say, even when is acknowledgment of understanding goes in complete contradiction to his every action.
this picture makes them look so much calmer than they have ever, ever acted. tristan looks especially displeased back there. probably because i made them all dig their bunny ears out of their backpacks so they could wear them for this picture.
aside from the new class, not much has changed in my life. kindergarten is definitely far more exhausting than it used to be, physically speaking. we get to do fun kindergarten-y activities, like coloring and singing songs, and way less in the way of book work like i used to do (but will do again soon, worry not!) i do FAR more wrestling/holding/running than before, though, so it evens out. elementary has gotten easier, as i have one less story class, which means one less class to do intensive planning for, so i can devote more time to the three i have, and i have more subject classes, which are generally more low-key.
the geography class that i created for kindergarten seems to be going pretty well, but i haven't really bothered to sit down and plan much farther than i already had, so i'm a little concerned about what's going to happen in the coming weeks. i had a sort of show-and-tell thing for class this week, and the majority of the school's parents seemed to misunderstand the instructions, even though the korean teachers clearly understood when they communicated it. the problem here is that i just discovered that i'd planned show and tell for next week, too. oh well, we're moving onto world geography soon ... i hope.
quick recap of non-work things (which make up an extremely minor portion of my life):
1. i've started going to seoul during the day now that it's warm out! i actually haven't been out partying in the city since ryan and abby left, which is actually kind of embarrassing, but kind of refreshing in that i'm no longer spending 100 000 won every time i want to drink. instead, i do things like go to museums! namely, the seoul city museum to see some warhollllll.
this is actually the only picture i managed to score in the actual exhibit before i was caught with my camera, but it is DEFINITELY worth a read. they were all like this. so magical.
this is my life motto.
my stale 4 000-won sweet potato tart. there seemed to be some artistic minimalism in its excessive serving style.
aaaaaaaaaaand the most ridiculously mind-bending sculpture ever. this picture doesn't even do it justice, since it looks like it's just been resized. in real life it gives me an actual headache, as my brain attempts to reconcile the bizarre proportions.
2. i bought a bike! i haven't bothered to take a picture yet, but i've been riding it to school and we're planning on many a bike ride in the near future. as in, this weekend, during which we will have a picnic lunch and read books and generally be awesome.
3. i have a library card! hopefully i will finally become well-read, but it's doubtful. the jukjeon library has a pretty decent english section, but it's inexplicably at least 9% star wars novelizations and extensions. this wouldn't be that big of a deal, except there are only about 300 books all together. i guess i'll just become an expert on kashyyk. or else i'll just settle down with their spanish copy of bill clinton's autobiography.
four of my coworkers finished their contracts; three left the country. among them are besties ryan and abby, who are currently tanning and doing drugs in thailand and regularly reminding me how wonderful their lives are now. super jealz.
we have new teachers, both foreign and korean, and it's definitely changed the work atmosphere. more importantly, i have a new kindergarten class. my old 6b kids still go to our school (thank god), but they're in seven-year-old classes now, and i'm teaching the lowest-level six-year-olds we have. it's already been an insane challenge - it's already hard to get a room full of four-year-olds (they're six by the korean system, but most of my kids won't even turn american age five until the fall) to sit down and stop talking, but when they don't understand what you're saying it's borderline impossible. it's incredible what they've picked up already, though: in a period of five weeks, all of my kids can fluently say, "may i go to the bathroom, please?" and "can i please go get some water?" they can repeat pretty much everything i say to them, and today laura said, completely on her own, "teacher, i love you very very many." my heart melted.
i haven't gotten that many pictures of them, unfortunately - i'm too busy wrestling them into their chairs or trying to distract them with "do, re, mi" - something else they've been picking up pretty quickly. i did manage to catch a few during easter, since my amazing coteacher chloe was in the room and kept them under control for me.
with tony. he's adorable and looks like an old man most of the time, except when he gets really excited. he tends to get really worked up about minutiae, but not in an upset way. a few weeks ago he forgot to change his shoes to go home, and we didn't realize it until my boss pointed it out when he was waiting in line for the bus. she muttered, "oh god," and when he looked down and looked back up at me his eyes were wide and yelled "OH GOD!" he then BOLTED back to our classroom, as i tried to follow him to ... help out? he just kept yelling "OH GOD!" and "OH NO!" alternately, until he made it to his shoes, which he didn't even have time to put on all the way before he about faced. he was hauling ass until he ran into chloe teacher and realized he absolutely HAD TO TELL HER WHAT HAD HAPPENED. it was possibly the most adorable thing i have ever seen, ever.
lisa and emma. emma is usually a little less unimpressed than this, but not much. lisa is ridiculously on top of her shit - not only one of my best speakers, but also the oldest kid in the class, so she has the best motor skills and general cognitive function. she's the one who always has to explain the assignments to the other kids or show them how to use rubber bands. the other day she was writing notes to emma on her project in class, but she had written emma's name in korean - 에마 사랑해! (emma, i love you!) i got jealous and told her she should write "건갱님 사랑해! (teacher, i love you!) so she thought about it, and wrote: 클로외 티차 사랑해! (kuh-lo-ee teecha, i love you!)
this is the aforementioned laura. she's actually way more adorable than this picture conveys - she's about two feet tall and has a ridiculously high-pitched voice. she's also the only one to repeat the things i ask the class to say, ever.
nancy, irene, and tristan. nancy barely talks, except to say "NOOOO!" when the other kids say that i'm a monkey or flower or whatever. "TEACHER IS TEACHER!" irene demands to be held at all time and has an amazing koala-like grip. tristan is the son of one of our korean teachers, and despite being a complete spaz, he's a tank and is generally hilarious. he pretends to understand everything i say, even when is acknowledgment of understanding goes in complete contradiction to his every action.
this picture makes them look so much calmer than they have ever, ever acted. tristan looks especially displeased back there. probably because i made them all dig their bunny ears out of their backpacks so they could wear them for this picture.aside from the new class, not much has changed in my life. kindergarten is definitely far more exhausting than it used to be, physically speaking. we get to do fun kindergarten-y activities, like coloring and singing songs, and way less in the way of book work like i used to do (but will do again soon, worry not!) i do FAR more wrestling/holding/running than before, though, so it evens out. elementary has gotten easier, as i have one less story class, which means one less class to do intensive planning for, so i can devote more time to the three i have, and i have more subject classes, which are generally more low-key.
the geography class that i created for kindergarten seems to be going pretty well, but i haven't really bothered to sit down and plan much farther than i already had, so i'm a little concerned about what's going to happen in the coming weeks. i had a sort of show-and-tell thing for class this week, and the majority of the school's parents seemed to misunderstand the instructions, even though the korean teachers clearly understood when they communicated it. the problem here is that i just discovered that i'd planned show and tell for next week, too. oh well, we're moving onto world geography soon ... i hope.
quick recap of non-work things (which make up an extremely minor portion of my life):
1. i've started going to seoul during the day now that it's warm out! i actually haven't been out partying in the city since ryan and abby left, which is actually kind of embarrassing, but kind of refreshing in that i'm no longer spending 100 000 won every time i want to drink. instead, i do things like go to museums! namely, the seoul city museum to see some warhollllll.
this is actually the only picture i managed to score in the actual exhibit before i was caught with my camera, but it is DEFINITELY worth a read. they were all like this. so magical.
this is my life motto.
my stale 4 000-won sweet potato tart. there seemed to be some artistic minimalism in its excessive serving style.
aaaaaaaaaaand the most ridiculously mind-bending sculpture ever. this picture doesn't even do it justice, since it looks like it's just been resized. in real life it gives me an actual headache, as my brain attempts to reconcile the bizarre proportions.2. i bought a bike! i haven't bothered to take a picture yet, but i've been riding it to school and we're planning on many a bike ride in the near future. as in, this weekend, during which we will have a picnic lunch and read books and generally be awesome.
3. i have a library card! hopefully i will finally become well-read, but it's doubtful. the jukjeon library has a pretty decent english section, but it's inexplicably at least 9% star wars novelizations and extensions. this wouldn't be that big of a deal, except there are only about 300 books all together. i guess i'll just become an expert on kashyyk. or else i'll just settle down with their spanish copy of bill clinton's autobiography.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
ice-uh!
two weeks ago shannon came up from daejeon for a trip to the hwacheon ice festival. she and joanna and i left jukjeon around 9.30 on saturday morning, and after missing our first bus out of seongnam by four minutes, as well as our bus out of chuncheon due to over-fullness, we managed to make it to hwacheon by 3.30. here are shannon and joanna attempting to recover from four hours of bus ride over some bibimbap:
hwacheon was adorably tiny. it's a small mountain town close to the border with north korea (we actually crossed the 38th parallel on the way up), and i believe that this fishing/ice festival is their biggest event all year. all over town were these adorable fish lanterns, winding through fences and occasionally sending us messages of love:
when we finally made it down to the festival we only had about two hours to spend there, or else we would have missed the last bus back to seoul from chuncheon. this turned out to be super upsetting, as the festival was AWESOME. there were giant snow sculptures galore. some super creepy:
and some super baller:
here i am entering the cave of wonders:
on the inside it was even cooler than aladdin would have me believe. it was completely lined with giant blocks of ice backlit with colored lights. we heavily desired photo ops (we went through twice), but it was a little overpopulated to get the effect we wanted. hence, the presence of this guy:
to be fair, i wouldn't be opposed to being his buddy. we also got arty:
wacky !!
afterward we scored free tickets (probz because we're white) to this massive ice slide. we sat in inner tubes and were shot out onto ice, where a dude holding an inner tube was responsible from stopping us from running into a wall. sweet. here are shannon and joanna being terrified in anticipation:
the entire river was frozen over (if we had had more time, we could have gone ice fishing and immediately cooked up our fish on a number of barbecues). there was also this sweet ice formation under a bridge with those fish lanterns and trees attempting to free themselves from it, which i will now share with you:
another activity offered was hand-fishing, wherein the fisherman (or woman) would get into an almost-freezing pond in a t-shirt and shorts to try to, you know, catch fish by hand. it was highly popular:
in an attempt to find the mythical room full of ice sculptures (which we only managed to discover minutes before our bus left, so upsetting), we found more adorable snow sculptures. here i am with my bestie, that cartoon penguin that i see everywhere:
look at all the fish and lights everywhere! hwacheon you are so cute !!
we were very sad to leave, as it was a legitimate cultural experience/we really wanted to see ice sculptures. fortunately i scored this sweet christmas picture to remember it by:
lots of love, 화천 !!
hwacheon was adorably tiny. it's a small mountain town close to the border with north korea (we actually crossed the 38th parallel on the way up), and i believe that this fishing/ice festival is their biggest event all year. all over town were these adorable fish lanterns, winding through fences and occasionally sending us messages of love:
when we finally made it down to the festival we only had about two hours to spend there, or else we would have missed the last bus back to seoul from chuncheon. this turned out to be super upsetting, as the festival was AWESOME. there were giant snow sculptures galore. some super creepy:
and some super baller:
here i am entering the cave of wonders:
on the inside it was even cooler than aladdin would have me believe. it was completely lined with giant blocks of ice backlit with colored lights. we heavily desired photo ops (we went through twice), but it was a little overpopulated to get the effect we wanted. hence, the presence of this guy:
to be fair, i wouldn't be opposed to being his buddy. we also got arty:
wacky !!
afterward we scored free tickets (probz because we're white) to this massive ice slide. we sat in inner tubes and were shot out onto ice, where a dude holding an inner tube was responsible from stopping us from running into a wall. sweet. here are shannon and joanna being terrified in anticipation:
the entire river was frozen over (if we had had more time, we could have gone ice fishing and immediately cooked up our fish on a number of barbecues). there was also this sweet ice formation under a bridge with those fish lanterns and trees attempting to free themselves from it, which i will now share with you:
another activity offered was hand-fishing, wherein the fisherman (or woman) would get into an almost-freezing pond in a t-shirt and shorts to try to, you know, catch fish by hand. it was highly popular:
in an attempt to find the mythical room full of ice sculptures (which we only managed to discover minutes before our bus left, so upsetting), we found more adorable snow sculptures. here i am with my bestie, that cartoon penguin that i see everywhere:
look at all the fish and lights everywhere! hwacheon you are so cute !!
we were very sad to leave, as it was a legitimate cultural experience/we really wanted to see ice sculptures. fortunately i scored this sweet christmas picture to remember it by:
lots of love, 화천 !!
COME HANG OUT WITH US
so i figure i should go ahead and do a post about the philippines, since i completely neglected it.
quick rundown: we left our apartments at four am on christmas eve, and got to manila around two o'clock that afternoon. the plan was to stay in the city for a night at a backpacker's hostel and then bus it north to a beach on christmas, but our cab driver got us all nervous about the prospect getting onto public transportation, and instead drove us straight to a bus station. we hopped on a six-hour bus to san juan, which featured both under siege and under siege 2: dark territory, as well as double impact, starring jean claude van damme, with jean claude van damme.
"WE HAVE BEEN ON FIVE MODES OF TRANSPORATION AND AWAKE FOR NINETEEN HOURS HOW ARE WE DOING?!"
when we got to san fernando we stayed the night in the city, checking out an adorable christmas eve mass in the square, as well as dozens of delicious street food vendors.
lights!
mass!
the next morning we headed a little farther north to san juan, a crazy remote beach town inhabited by filipino squatters/surf instructors and several retired australian surfers. obviously we blended.
check out our adorable hostel!
$14 a night. total.
look, i match the room!
the beach was magical and ryan learned how to surf while i learned about george orwell's dystopian future.
ryan is surfing here somewhere.
how cute is this jetty?
we were utterly useless all week, and it was glorious. we made lots of friends for the night:
including some koreans who were studying english nearby (because apparently the philippines are the best place to go for english?) who made us 삼겹살 for new year's eve dinner deliciousssss.
we also borrowed these puppies from the hotel we splurged on the last night. you know, the one with ac, a massive shower, two double beds, and a private balcony. for $30. what is wrong with us.
neo !!
neo and ej !!
new year's eve was on the beach with the one hundred stick-in-the-sand-and-run-away fireworks we bought at the market. which the koreans knocked over, launching at least ten into the surfboard rental booth. nice-uh.
frenz !!
ryan partying hard with filipino besties.
what would new year's be without some karaoke??
the one tragic causality of the new year was my relatively brand-new pair of rainbows. camouflaged in the sand, they were never to be seen again after i was distracted by some pancit and kpop jams. :(
new year's day we packed up and left, hopping on a miserable six-hour bus back to manila. we had a lovely night in our air conditioned room with no sand, where my gaping foot wound had a chance to recover. though we were sad to end our very warm vacation, we were excited to be heading back to the land of both bip and bap:
OH AND GUESS WHAT. we were late for our flight because the manila airport has three different security checkpoints, as well as a line to pay a departure fee. when we got to the desk, we were informed by the very apologetic woman that the flight was full. we bugged out, until she explained that we'd have to get bumped to first class. i mean, if you insist.
course one, nbd.
o hay, row six !!
quick rundown: we left our apartments at four am on christmas eve, and got to manila around two o'clock that afternoon. the plan was to stay in the city for a night at a backpacker's hostel and then bus it north to a beach on christmas, but our cab driver got us all nervous about the prospect getting onto public transportation, and instead drove us straight to a bus station. we hopped on a six-hour bus to san juan, which featured both under siege and under siege 2: dark territory, as well as double impact, starring jean claude van damme, with jean claude van damme.
"WE HAVE BEEN ON FIVE MODES OF TRANSPORATION AND AWAKE FOR NINETEEN HOURS HOW ARE WE DOING?!"when we got to san fernando we stayed the night in the city, checking out an adorable christmas eve mass in the square, as well as dozens of delicious street food vendors.
lights!
mass!the next morning we headed a little farther north to san juan, a crazy remote beach town inhabited by filipino squatters/surf instructors and several retired australian surfers. obviously we blended.
check out our adorable hostel!
$14 a night. total.
look, i match the room!the beach was magical and ryan learned how to surf while i learned about george orwell's dystopian future.
ryan is surfing here somewhere.
how cute is this jetty?we were utterly useless all week, and it was glorious. we made lots of friends for the night:
including some koreans who were studying english nearby (because apparently the philippines are the best place to go for english?) who made us 삼겹살 for new year's eve dinner deliciousssss.
we also borrowed these puppies from the hotel we splurged on the last night. you know, the one with ac, a massive shower, two double beds, and a private balcony. for $30. what is wrong with us.
neo !!
neo and ej !!
new year's eve was on the beach with the one hundred stick-in-the-sand-and-run-away fireworks we bought at the market. which the koreans knocked over, launching at least ten into the surfboard rental booth. nice-uh.
frenz !!
ryan partying hard with filipino besties.
what would new year's be without some karaoke??the one tragic causality of the new year was my relatively brand-new pair of rainbows. camouflaged in the sand, they were never to be seen again after i was distracted by some pancit and kpop jams. :(
new year's day we packed up and left, hopping on a miserable six-hour bus back to manila. we had a lovely night in our air conditioned room with no sand, where my gaping foot wound had a chance to recover. though we were sad to end our very warm vacation, we were excited to be heading back to the land of both bip and bap:
OH AND GUESS WHAT. we were late for our flight because the manila airport has three different security checkpoints, as well as a line to pay a departure fee. when we got to the desk, we were informed by the very apologetic woman that the flight was full. we bugged out, until she explained that we'd have to get bumped to first class. i mean, if you insist.
course one, nbd.
o hay, row six !!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
SNOW DAY
school was canceled ALL DAY today after updates every two hours. best christmas break ever? we went to ryan and abby's around noon to drink and eat and watch tv and eat and go on fun outings and eat. most fulfilling day evar !! we also went on a trek, which was super embarrassing as we felt compelled to walk single-file the entire time. pictures follow.
these guys were shoveling around the track at the park (i guess?) and stopped to offer us some makkoli and to ask if they could take pictures with us. of course we obliged.
drinking in the snow, we are too cool !!
"zomg i should be on the bus right now but kindergarten is cancelled !!!!!!":
awww look at my neighborhood! so many crosses !!
these guys were shoveling around the track at the park (i guess?) and stopped to offer us some makkoli and to ask if they could take pictures with us. of course we obliged.
drinking in the snow, we are too cool !!
"zomg i should be on the bus right now but kindergarten is cancelled !!!!!!":
awww look at my neighborhood! so many crosses !!
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