This is when the magic begins! 7:32am. I haven't woken up that early since high school. Or maybe if I had to catch a flight or a bus. Neither of us are morning people. I've gotten into the routine of showering the night before and hitting snooze until the last possible minute. We make sure our clothes are all picked out and our bags are packed and ready the night before. Mornings- blah!
We are about 20 minutes away from work, on foot. It's been really cold this past week... around -14 in the mornings... so we've been opting to take cabs. It's so cheap! 1900 won (approx $2 Canadian) to get both of us to work warmly. We've let the other teachers in on our secret to arriving so early and yesterday morning we had a full cab, each person contributing about 50 cents.
We don't start teaching until 9:30, but the school requires us to arrive by 9:00 so the first half hour of my morning is usually spent pressing the "refill" button on the coffee machine or staring into a computer screen. Yesterday, however, we decided to spend our half hour naming adults. A lot of Koreans take english names, especially if they work around a lot of foreigners. Above is the new Grace, Ben, and Steve. They seemed really excited, wore their nametags all day, and even began responding to their names. Mel and I made the "Ben" tag.
Then it's off to class! Yesterday I taught "board game" class at 9:30. It's my favorite class because all I have to do is play cards, scrabble, or jenga with kids. Well, actually... I don't think I even have to play with them but it makes the time pass and I now kick ass at the popular Korean card game, "One Card".
I had no classes between 10:15-1:30 so I decided to go home. My schedule is like that on Thursdays and Fridays, but I have no free periods at all Monday-Wednesday... so it's not all breaks and slacking, just so you know. On the way home I picked up a Popeyes burger and then kind of felt disgusting when I realized it was about 10:45am and I was eating a fried chicken sandwich and curly fries. What a healthy breakfast. Oh well, it hit the spot!
I followed that up with some sleep, and then it was back to work.
I taught a class of "Golden Bell", which is a quiz show for the kids, and then my homeroom group practiced and performed their play "Mud Puddle" for the school. It was my third week in a row performing "Mud Puddle" so I probably could've put it on as a one-man show, but I let my kids have their moment.
Last period of the day (and the week!) was graduation. We give out certificates to the standout kids in each group, show them a slideshow, give goodbye messages and then they're urged to get our signatures and take our photos. There is nothing, NOTHING more awkward than a dozen girls circling me with their camera phones, flashes going off, each one yelling "teacher, teacherrrrr look here!!!".
Sometimes you take a photo with kids you actually like. The one on the right is named "Monkey", and the two closest to me in the pic taught me "One Card". The other kid was just annoying, I'm not sure how he made it into the photo.
After work most of the teachers went to "Beer & Joy" to cap off the week. At some point in the night we were able to get Jamie and Jo to kiss (4th and 5th from the left) which brought Jo's grand total of kissed co-workers to 3, and counting...
Afterwards, and some 15 hours after leaving for work, we returned home for a game of Blockus. As evidenced by the photo, Sarah was the only one that cared that Sarah won.
Everyone went home so Mel and I relaxed with some soup and two action-packed episodes of "Days of our Lives" that we downloaded. We both watch this show wayyy more now than we ever did at home and trust me- it's getting good!
Well, it's officially New Years Eve now, and although it's not really a celebrated holiday in Korea, we'll find something to do and blog about. Hope you all have a good time- Happy New Years!!
No comments:
Post a Comment