Mickey Mouse Yogurt

 Wow these weeks are flying by faster and faster every time I post! While I wait here in my apartment for the fridge maintenance man to arrive, I will update you on how everything is going here! Firstly, yes my brand new fridge that was installed in the first week of moving into my apartment has already decided to rebel against "the man" and be an oven instead of a fridge. Now I'm not one to judge, you can do whatever makes you happy, but when the water inside my fridge is warmer than my morning coffee I have to take a stand for my rights. I am looking forward to having an awkward-language-barriered moment soon! I wonder if I should play some crazy music just to make it more uncomfortable? Maybe some screamo...or show tunes...or just play the "Bill Nye" version of Gangnam Style on repeat to make him feel more at home? We will see what I'm feeling when he gets here.

Overall update: I am really feeling completely at ease here. At work I have really gotten a hang of the schedule and the way things work. My students are all used to me and my teaching style now (for better or for worse, they are not scared of me anymore). The other teachers are so kind and I am looking forward to spending the next 11 months with them! Getting around the area has been really easy to learn as well! I have ridden buses, subways, and taxis on my own and have not gotten lost (yet..). I met another teacher last night who said she did not have any support system when she first arrived so it took her a little longer to get used to traveling on her own. Thank you Katrina, Amanda, and Shanna for really helping me get used to things here! Living on my own has been nice as well--update- nice little Korean maintenance man just arrived, I used my limit of Korean "Hello, yes, no, friday, thank you"---I love just coming back from a long day of work and doing my own thing, having my own space. Ive gotten used to hanging up laundry to dry and listening to loud Korean conversations from outside my window. My neighbors are all pretty non-existent. The only reason I know someone lives next to me is because he smokes and the smell seeps into my bathroom sometimes. Over the past few weeks I have gone up to the smaller rooftop to sit out in the sun and read. I get a lot of stares from people walking by, because Koreans hide from the sun. Being pale here is seen as beautiful. I must look like some sort of freak of nature sitting out soaking up the rays. ---quick update--through a very broken English/Korean conversation I have just been informed by the maintenance man that I will not have a fridge/freezer until Monday...Oh goodness...---well, time to go with the flow!

So now, time for an update on my super cute Korean students. Friday was a "sports field trip"! Not knowing what that really meant, we all piled onto the buses and drove to Ilsan, about 20 minutes away. Most of the kids were wearing their Little America sweat suits (more pictures later). One of my students however was donning a different sweatshirt-- this is dedicated to the San Diego Saads!

Padres sweatshirt!

 We pulled up to the park and were greeted by lots of people in safari hats and khaki outfits. It was difficult to figure out the theme of the park really. There were several live animals (a monkey, some pigs, and some parrots/other birds) around the area and then walking through the area we saw bonsai tree displays, giant fish statues, and then a water park area?

"Stay Healthy, Beydakol Theme Park"

 After setting up camp at a picnic area, we brought the students to the sports complex area. This consisted of a soccer field sized area with soccer balls, goals, and other games for the kids to play with. After a week of school and being stuck in the bus for an ungodly 20 minutes, we opened the door to heaven and the kids screamed and ran like they haven't been given the opportunity to do so for their entire lives. The teachers just stood the the side and let the chaos ensue.

After running around for a solid 15 minutes, the gym teacher, Bear (yes. His name is Bear) showed up to lead some more organized forms of exercise. The students were broken up into two teams (blue and pink) and thus the Korean theme park Olympics was born.

The first game involved foam rectangles with a blue side and a yellow side. The Blue team had 30 seconds to flip over as many of the rectangles to the blue side as they could. Then the pink team had the same time to flip them all back to yellow. After each taking their turn, Bear had both teams out in the field together flipping over rectangles like they've never flipped rectangles before.

Other games included running and bike relays, and three-legged races. After the first few games I started to see the competition really taking its toll on the teachers rather than the students! Some of the Korean teachers got really into the games trying to get their classes to beat other teacher's classes. It was funny to see them getting all worked up when the kids were just happy to run around like banshees. The final game involved students crawling in giant foam tubes like hamsters. Keep in mind these are kindergarteners, so they should know how to crawl pretty well, however this required some higher gross-motor-skills that some students just haven't quite developed. While some students could crawl quickly without any problems others worked through several strategies during their turns in the foam hamster wheel. Here are a few of my favorites:

Ricky decided a bear crawl would be the best strategy.

This gentleman could stand up and run instead

and he just kept running, good thing the fence was there!

He started flat on his stomach pulling with his arms..

Bear teacher adding some problem solving opportunities

The sports day ended with a tie! I had the pink team all cheering "Go Pink Team!" when Bear teacher looked around and said "pink?". Apparently he had been calling it the blue and red team the whole time. It's OK Bear, gym teachers have different standards for certification.

By the time the sports day activities had finished the kids were hot, sweaty, thirsty, and hungry messes. We walked them back to the picnic area and they enjoyed their kimbap and plethora of unhealthy Korean snacks they had packed to share between them. I sat with Jay, who had yet another Korean genius invention that the rest of the world needs to incorporate into daily life.

 Field trip days are always fun but tiring! We get back to school to get ready for Elementary classes. Every month Elementary has something called "Best of the Best" where a student from each class is chosen to receive an award for completing some sort of task. This month the students had to write a movie report on a Wallace and Gromit cartoon. I enjoyed watching the cartoons as well as reading some of the reports from the eyes of Korean students!

The afternoon went by pretty quickly with the breaks between classes to celebrate the students who won "Best of the Best". One of my classes finished their pen pal letters to a class in America of another Hood graduate! They are all excited to hear back from students over there. I am interested to see what they learn and what discussions stem from the differences in their educational experiences. Its incredible the amount of stress that is put on students here. Even my young elementary school students feel the effects of the pressure from parents, teachers, and schools to do their best every day. Not only to these students go to multiple schools but they also participate in extracurricular activities and study for endless hours after school and on the weekends. When I ask them what they do on their free time, 95% of the time I hear "I study" or "do homework". It is sad, because they are still kids and need to have some fun in their lives, but that is just the culture over here! I therefore do my part for these kids and try to make my classroom as much of a stress-free and accepting environment as possible. Hence lots of games, singing, listening to music, and just talking about anything and everything!

After work on Friday, Katrina, Seol and I headed to Bupyeong to meet up with one of their friends Rich for dinner. While waiting for a table, a man dressed up as Mickey Mouse stopped and handed me an entrance ticket to a night club nearby. He then handed Rich a small, warm, yogurt drink. While we were trying to work out the connection between the two, Mickey Mouse skipped off to continue handing out random items to people along the street. Only in Korea. After a night of delicious food, drinks, and darts, I curled up in bed ready for a quiet next few days. Next weekend a group of us are going hiking to see the leaves change, which should be beautiful! It is going to be a long and crowded trip to get there and back, but it will be worth it! Of course, it will be blogged, don't worry. 

Until next time!

xoxo

Korean Word of the Post (This one's for you mum!) : 찻잔 [chat-jan] = teacup