100 days in seoul & a teaching breakthrough

In Korea they like to celebrate everything it seems. Not only do they have Valentines day, but they have pepero day, and white day, as well as a celebration for the 100th day (birth, anniversary, etc). Today I am celebrating my 100th day in South Korea, and I received the best gift a teacher can get... albeit small, I am finally seeing progress in my students! My hardest grade to teach is grade six, they are about to graduate and move on to middle school so their motivation is nonexistent, and getting them to participate in class is like pulling nails. Today however, my least motivated class got really into the activity we were doing which consisted of them answering questions and taking shots at a "basket" being held by myself and the other teacher. Maybe it was the fact that they got to hit us with balls, but it doesn't matter, every single student participated and they liked it!
A second breakthrough I have seen is that two of my students ride my bus to and from school, before they used to avoid me like the plague, but now they actually approach me on the bus and we have simple conversations since their english is limited and my korean is nonexistent. One of the boys from my bus has recently started approaching me in the hallways at school and telling me what he ate for lunch, and how he is doing, today he even gave me a choco-pie!

Baby steps, but three months in I finally feel like I'm doing something worthwhile here!

EDIT---
First Thanksgiving in Korea went a lot better than I imagined. I kept having nightmares that I would spend it alone in my apartment missing my family, but luckily, I have met some great people here, so some girls and I got together for some fried chicken and mashed potatoes and had ourselves a pseudo thanksgiving meal. It was definitely nice and it warmed my heart. The Saturday following I went to the foreigner area of Seoul with three friends and we enjoyed a nice sit down buffet meal which consisted of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and other delicious food. Maybe the holidays away from home won't be so bad.

i made it to month 3!

Three months in and the honeymoon is just about over. I'm still enjoying my time in Korea, but the things that were exciting and challenging at first, are more annoying now.
Now I am 1/4th of the way done with my one year contract, and I'm nowhere near sure if I want to renew or not.

introducing cultural & leisure time

Last month I was introduced to something called cultural & leisure time. Basically what that means is that once a month the staff at my school gets to leave at 2:00 P.M. rather than the usual 4:40 P.M. During this time we are free to do as we wish, although it's encouraged that we go to a park, movies, or you know... take part in something cultural. Last month I was exhausted and completely overwhelmed so I took advantage of the extra two hours and went home to nap. This month, however, the teachers at my school were going out for a hike and dinner and invited me to come along. We took a short bus ride and arrived at Mt. Bukhansan National Park. This was only my second time hiking in Korea, and maybe only my third or fourth time hiking ever, so I found it quite challenging but there were others just zooming past me. The way up was exhausting, but I found the way down to be the worst; it had just rained the day before so the ground and leaves were moist, and I was definitely wearing the wrong shoes so I slipped and fumbled the entire way. The hike took around two hours, and afterwards we headed to a nearby restaurant where I experienced my first ever staff dinner. Staff dinners are very common in the Korean workplace, and are an entirely different experience from staff dinners back home. It was really nice to mingle with the homeroom teachers outside of work and see them let loose and relax. Everybody is always so kind to me, but I definitely felt like they were not as self conscious about speaking English with me once they had a couple of soju shots in them (soju is the Korean equivalent of cheap vodka). Overall I'm really enjoying cultural & leisure days, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Seoul as seen from a peak at Mt. Bukhansan

playing catch up

So I've pretty much put this blog on the back burner since arriving in Korea, and I definitely didn't plan on that. I just got...busy/forgetful/insertotherlameexcuseshere. After chatting with some friends, and reading through blogs of fellow teacher, I've been motivated to pick this up again. If not for the people who may or may not read this, but for myself. I'm not yet sure if I'll continue teaching after this year, but I definitely know that I'll want to remember these moments in the future. It's impossible to recall in detail everything that I've done since arriving in Seoul, but I'll attempt to catch you up via list form on the events that stand out most in my mind:
-During the last weekend of September Chuseok happened. I've been told that Chuseok is the Korean equivalent of American Thanksgiving, and thanks to that we were off school for three days. During this time my former roommate, and good friend from uni came over from japan for a short visit. Since neither one of us has family in Korea we couldn't celebrate the holiday as it's meant, so instead we spent the time playing tourists in Seoul. We went sightseeing, shopping, ate loads of delicious food, and finished off with a trip to South Korea's largest theme park, Everland.
-First visit to a Jjimjilbang. I was too chicken to try out the naked spa, and opted out for rotating in and out of the sauna and napping on the floor.
-First language cast meetup. I've gotten into the habit of only hanging out with my fellow teacher friends, and haven't really met any local Seoulites so I thought this would be a great way to meet new people and learn some Koreanl I only accomplished one of those things. I met new people, but they were only interested in bettering their English skills so no Korean was spoken.
-First weekend trip. I found a group through facebook that does weekend trips to various locations, and the one that caught my eye was going to Jinju (a small town about 4 hours South of Seoul) for the Floating Lantern Festival. I went with some friends, and we spent the first day exploring Jinju, and taking silly pictures with the awesome lanterns. On Sunday before heading back to Seoul we went on a Hike through some pretty amazing temples, but unfortunately I can't recall the name of the place.

I'm sure there is much else I could write about, but unfortunately I tend to have the memory of a goldfish and I can't remember much else without pulling up Facebook and looking through photos (and I'm at school with co-workers at the moment, so I can't really do that). The weather now is really cold, entirely too cold considering we are supposed to be in Fall right now.
As far as teaching goes... well, everyday is a challenge, but luckily not all challenges are bad. Fourth grade is loads of fun, but sixth grade is more intense. They are at that weird stage where everything is boring, and even if I manage to come up with something fun and interesting, they are still too cool to show that they are actually having fun learning. I was told I have my first open class coming up next month; open class is when the principal, vice principal and headteacher sit in and observe one of your classes, and then I guess they let you know what you're doing well and what you should change. My co-teacher said this is important because it determines whether they renew my contract or not.

So I think that's it for today's catch up session. Hopefully the next time I write it will be about more current things so I can give better details, and have pictures to go along!

walkway from my school to bus stop

2 monthsss

I have been in Korea for two months and 2 days now. Great accomplishment considering some people (myself included) didn't think I would make it past two weeks. ahhh..

i'm a teacher

This evening a nice, friendly cable guy showed up at my apartment and re-introduced me to the 21st century by installing super fast speed internet. No more bumming from the neighbors or using my cellphone as a hotspot device! to celebrate, I'll post up some photos of my time at school. These are only from my sixth grade class, sometime soon I'll snap some photos of the cute little fourth graders I also have the pleasure of working with :)

He is such a ham. I didn't have to ask if I could take his photo, he saw me take out my cellphone and immediately started posing.

 Birthday messages for me on the board.

The classroom where I teach sixth grade. In the back you can see projects from when the old teacher was there.

 gift from one of the girls on my birthday

a project we did to wrap up the lesson "This Is My Blog".

one month

 

Today marks one month since I arrived in South Korea. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to waking up to this every morning.