Halloween at the Hagwon

At this point Halloween has come and gone (and now we're past Thanksgiving), but there are always fun pictures floating around! Halloween isn't as big a deal here in Korea, but the schools like to highlight the holiday and apparently it's just another excuse for older Koreans to go drinking. That said, we had a good time at our hagwon's celebration.

The timing was quite interesting though as we were told that some of the parents would be coming in to observe class before our "party". So we each had a couple of parents who had come in to see how class works and we, of course, had to be on our best behavior and show off.

Zach had planned ahead (I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, or at least not how intentional) and had brought his horse head mask, as you can see above. This was a hit with the kids and our director. I, however, did not plan ahead, but before we left the States I did manage to snag a few silly things from Party City. Thus, I donned a silly moustache which everyone seemed to love. I also managed to remember the pirate hat that had been left by one of the teachers before us. A pirate with a moustache, it worked!

The kids dressed up and we were instructed twice during the day to hand out candy. The parents helped earlier in the day for the first round, the kids would knock on the door and come to all of us for treats. They knew to say trick or treat, but I used the time to advise them to also say thank you! The later round of trick or treating with the older kids was just 3 teachers each in a classroom and that was different in its own way.

Happy Thanksgiving from South Korea!

Happy Thanksgiving in the States to those of you who have been up for a while preparing for the big day or possibly just got up too. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and have a good time with your loved ones, be they family or friends or both. We are celebrating here with delicious chicken from a local place that we visit about once a week. It's close to turkey, right?

Today was pretty much a normal day for us, however, since Koreans celebrate Chuseok (which was in September this year) which is the closest holiday they have to our Thanksgiving. We worked in the morning and had lunch (today was rice, tofu, soup, radish kimchi, and a few other small things) and then Zach stayed here for the older kids while I went on a field trip with the boss lady to a milk factory in Cheonan. I will definitely be posting about that little adventure sometime soon. Tomorrow is also our monthly birthday party, so it's been an eventful end of the week!

We also found out some interesting news about Saturday, December 1st when there will be some sort of open house at our school and Zach and I will be having a faux class for potential kids and their parents. Should be an interesting day.

That said, I leave you with a final picture of our delicious meal. Have a wonderful day and have a little turkey and fixings for us over here. ;)  And if you also happen to go out on Black Friday, be safe and have a good time. Don't take it too seriously! I've already made my (probably one and only) online purchase for Black Friday which will be waiting at home for me in 9 months!

So, so delicious. A bit of crunchy, a bit of sweet, and a touch of spicy. 

The continuing path of becoming a teacher

From left to right Kate, Lily, Aiden, Carley, Susan

One of my lessons

So now that I have been in Korea close to 3 months it is time to talk about(after a long hiatus of not posting sorry about that) what my feeling are as a teacher and what turning into a teacher is like for me.  For a long time I actually dreamed about being a teacher and helping shape children into successful adults.  I was hoping there would be children who looked back upon my classes fondly, but due to being a terrible student (or at least having a bad first few semesters in college) my dreams of being a teacher were put aside.

So my topic today is how I feel about being a teacher and my continuing path to actually feel like I am a teacher.  When I first arrived in Korea I was overwhelmed at the idea that I would be in charge or (close to) 10 children all of whom I would have to take care of, teach, and furthermore discipline if they got out of hand.  The first two weeks didn't really help matters.  The former teachers Rob and Rachael warned us that the kids were going to be worse due to our presence, but it just heightened the overwhelming feeling.

Now that I have been teaching for three months I am finally starting to get my wings with the whole teaching thing.  While Monday and Tuesday are usually lost causes due to the kids being so riled up from the weekend.  Wednesday and Thursday I get some real teaching done, and then Friday both I and the kids are so exhausted from the week once again nothing gets done but that is OK because its FRIDAY!  While the kids still run wild due to being children I think I am getting better at discipline aspect of the job.  I have experimented with a few different formats of discipline, of which writing the offending child's name on the board seems most effective.  Of course this only really working for the Kindergarten class, since they are actually feel shame at being bad.  Contrast this with me Elementary class where the bad kids are the heroes of the class almost no discipline system actually works, other than literally forcing the kids to do what they need to do.

I think I can see my house from here!

Days like today are great, everyone gets along I am in a good mood and things actually get done.  Whats even better is that these sorts of days are increasing, and with it my comfort in teaching in general.  I'm three months through our ESL Honeymoon Adventures and I am looking forward to the next 9 months and of course to coming home to start a brand new domestic adventure afterward.

Home for Confused Photos

Not all pictures are lost, some are just confused or otherwise don't really know where to go. So in this case we'll call it a home for confused photos, but it's all the usual here. Looking above though, this was on a timer for our food when we went to eat at Lotteria one of the first times we got here. The picture and the text says it all. This is the Lady Burger we're talking about here. "Sorry, Boys! Only for Ladies!" Clearly it's a "MUST-EAT" Hahaha. We got a giggle out of that one.

Speaking of food, what is this even? This is a bacon cheese donut from Dunkin Donuts that's down the road from us. They have some delicious things, but this is not one of them. I do like the fact that pretty much every place you go (that is fast food or something like DD) tells you the basic nutritional value and the kcal count.

Speaking of food, and things that are not food, another perk of living here is that they love to give you free things. This cereal has free small cereal packs attached and you see this pretty frequently. HomePlus likes to give you free things by way of their 1+1 sales too. You see the free attached things everywhere though, whether it's feminine products, frozen foods, or other miscellaneous products.

We first saw this amazing car when we started traveling down near the hub of the bus station. I love the pumpkin and I wish I could be cool and have a pumpkin like this one. It's worth noting that the road that the car is on in the direction it is facing is the local market.

Speaking of transportation, advertising comes in many shapes and forms and this is just one ad for an English school that was on the side of a bus. I like how the school can make kids into English speaking superheroes.

It's not uncommon to see ads inside the local buses advertising for various drawing and animation schools. This is similar. They're ads that are posted downtown (Shinae) near this little craft/youth hub that is next to a Dunkin Donuts. Sometimes there is singing or dancing and quite a few people gather in the general area. These are the ads for the school you want if you're looking to specialize in anime girls apparently.

Speaking of Shinae, the other day we were downtown just roaming around as usual and we ran into this event happening. There was singing, dancing, cameras, you name it. It kind of seemed like a Cheongju's Got Talent sort of thing. Yes, those are backup singers.

We were advised to also check out this underground mall downtown because it has this cool fish tank and is generally kind of interesting. There are so many tiny businesses, a lot of which sell clothing or shoes. Speaking of clothing, the Engrish (or Konglish for here specifically) can make for some very interesting apparel and signs. They're sometimes very logical mistakes considering the fact that there are some sounds that Koreans don't distinguish between. Others are just grammatical mistakes.

Changing gears this time, this is the rice field that we walk by when we come and go from the school. It's all been gathered up and placed very nicely, it's so pretty. By now it's been taken elsewhere and the field is just empty, but it still looks neatly trimmed.

And last, but certainly not least, this time around is this adorable chocolate whale cake that I saw today at Tous les Jours which is a local bakery. They have the prettiest cakes for sale and this one just looks so cute and pleased. Maybe I'll get a cute cake for myself as a treat, hopefully it'll be as cute as this one!

That's all for now though, I'll post another round of pictures in the near future. You never know what you'll find here and I like to appreciate the little things and I hope you do too. ^.^

Pre-Chuseok and September birthday party

I must apologize for the delay in putting this post about Chuseok (which was September 30th) up here because I wanted to have the time to sit down and actually talk a little more in depth about the holiday and the happenings at the school. I also wanted to be able to show you all the neat pictures I was able to take of everyone in their hanboks. 

So basically Chuseok is Korean Thanksgiving. They dress up in their hanboks and visit with family. People are usually off work or out of school to celebrate. We had a 5 day weekend because of the holiday which was very nice. We knew that, but it was a bit of a surprise to suddenly find everyone dressed up in their hanboks on Friday before the Chuseok holiday on Sunday.

We were sitting upstairs until it was time to go down and then we both started hearing little voices yelling "Man Teacher!" and I hear Zach go downstairs and say "oh, you're so cute!" I ran down quick and everyone is dressed in their hanboks. I obviously had to then take my camera with me so I can shower you all with amazing pictures of these little people and their hanboks. 

Friday was also the day to celebrate September birthdays so there was an afternoon party and it was all around a pretty crazy day. The songpyeon was pretty good though. 

Everyone was dressed so nice. This was at breakfast, before classes started. That's James and Julia in the front. Evelyn is watching behind them. 

James seems to think that something is hilarious.

Everyone doing their homework before they eat breakfast.

Sarah and Evelyn sitting in my class in the front (L to R) and then Julia and Stella are in the back.

They're both little hams, aren't they?

Everyone lined up for a class picture. This is one of my favorites. 

I nabbed this picture from the school website, this is me in my natural habitat. Surrounded by tiny people.

Speaking of natural habitats, this is Zach in his. Surrounded by slightly bigger little people.

Luke is being his cute self here, accompanied by Lily's profile. You can also see Carley in the back.

Left to right from front to back you have Chris and Susan and then Aiden and  Kate in the back.

Time to do worksheets!

The boys work on their own worksheets. Also, Daniel has arrived (he's in the front).

My class frequently sees drama, so here you have Julia being motherly and drying Stella's tears. 

I love this picture of John, so cute!

So let me tell you a story. We read a picture book about this little boy who was "turned into" a pizza on a rainy day because he was sad he couldn't go out to play with his friends. Then we talked about pizza toppings and what you put on pizza. Well, the week before we had read Brown Bear, Brown Bear where a macaroni penguin is mentioned. Thus, pepperoni penguin became a thing and this is my stirring rendition of pepperoni penguin art. They all decided suddenly that they were going to erase pepperoni penguin to make me a sad, sad teacher. The end.

In the morning we all helped make songpyeon with chef teacher. 

Hana Teacher wore her hanbok too, it was lovely.

Everyone had a really good time, some of them concentrated very hard while others really didn't.

Songpyeon made by big and small fingers ready to be steamed!

Carley, of course, decided to make snowmen.

After the songpyeon is made it's steamed for a while on a bed of pine needles. They're tasty, but stick to your teeth when they're still warm. They're better when they're cold.

After we had a short class following lunch it was time for the September birthday party. Because some of the kids changed out of their hanboks they all had to get dressed again. Here Julia is helping Evelyn back into hers.

That looks good... oh... wait...

That's better, she forgot a layer!

Everyone waits patiently while things for the birthday party are prepared.

Here everyone is getting ready and lighting the candles on the cakes. This month were birthdays for Christina, Tomas, John, and Jake.

Finally, everyone got to enjoy cake, fruit, juice, snacks, and more. This also meant that we had completed our first month here (give or take a few days)!