1) Weight Watchers. Recently, I joined Weight Watchers. One of my Canadian co-workers started to do it and she looks fabulous after only two months. My first week, I lost 5 pounds! This past week, I lost 3 pounds! Sure, half of that was probably water weight, but it's something. It wasn't tracking my eating and weight here before because I wouldn't attempt to Korean nutrition labels and for the longest time I didn't have a scale. Korean food is so delicious and snacking at the desk was adding up, so I realized it was time to do something! I wanted to show off this awesome Weight Watchers dish I made Friday night called Eggplant Rollatini and Tomato-Basil Sauce. I'm not a big eggplant fan, but it turned out really great!
2) Loogies. I love Korea. However, there is an ever growing list of things that really annoy me about it. I will never get over anyone not chewing with their mouths closed. EVER! (Ugh, it gets me worked up just thinking about it)... but the one thing that has really bothered me lately are the LOOGIES. Older Korean men are notorious for just walking around and having NO shame spitting one out right in front of you. It makes my stomach turn. What's even worse... is that my apartment faces the street and a lot of the time I keep my window open to conserve energy and I can hear them as if they were in my room. I'm supposed to find peace in my apartment, NOT hearing that disgusting noise at all hours of the day!
3) "HELLO!" "Hello, hello, hello, hello!" I was walking home from school three nights ago and as I was nearing my apartment I couldn't help but feel like I was being yelled at. I had one earphone in and one earphone out because I had just seen a friend I had stopped to talk (I don't think I would have heard this man if they were both in). I took the other earphone out to confirm my feeling. An older gentleman with an older lady were sitting out in front of a store. The man was relentlessly saying, "Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello" over and over again and was enthusiastically waving at me. I waved back to be nice, smiled, and said "hello', but then he wouldn't STOP! I just kept walking. Then, I realized he was trying to get a baby in the stroller in front of him to say it too. I turned back and saw the baby stick it's head out, look at me, and SCREAM, "ELWOOOOOOOH!" It was actually really adorable and made up for the slight annoyance I had experienced moments before.
4) Open Class. UGH. Worst idea ever. Every summer and winter, my school allows for parents to come watch us foreign teachers teach their kids for twenty minutes. It's a huge deal to the school because it's what gives us our reputation. Korean moms are always gossiping to each other about things and you're slightly doomed if a momma isn't happy with something. Every teacher hates it. It's basically a performance and the children act for their parents... and so do their teachers. I never thought of myself as a performer, but that's what a lot of teaching has turned out to be. We practiced for this day for a month. My first open class happened last month with my older students. That lesson went really fantastic. This past Thursday, it was my first Kindergarten open class. All my kids knew what to do and they did the lesson perfectly. Sadly, it was too perfect...because it ended a whole 5 minutes too soon. The last thing we did was play a game. It was a fun, educational game... the kids had to match parent animals with what they do for their babies. The kids GOT WAYYY to out of control. Usually, they are so well contained and they do whatever I ask of them with a snap of a finger (yes, I have them trained). I guess because they were in front of their moms, they decided they would act like little heathens! My thoughts as I walked out of the classroom were, "Alright, time to pack your bags. You're going back to America!" Later that afternoon, I received the mom's evaluations and holey moley was I surprised. I had gotten surprisingly great marks considering how the class ended. Praise the Lord! Now, I just have to get through my other open class this week!Which may be rather difficult since this class made T. Sarah cry this past Friday... pathetic. :(
5) ROY. Oh, Roy. Last month, I had a new boy join my afternoon kindergarten class. He is a funny looking kid and is completely incapable of doing anything by himself (also, he wears really horrendous outfits... Mom! What are you doing to this kid?!) The past couple of weeks, he has gotten a lot better and has actually been a productive, happy child. This past week, he seemed really happy to be at SLP (yay!). Monday, we had a good class. Tuesday, he got a little handsy and tried to pull down my shirt. I quickly addressed him and told him to not do that. He responded with a VERY creepy old man laugh. I was pretty disturbed. He also tried to put his hands up my skirt... but, that's a slightly normal behavior amongst kids at my school. Then, there was Thursday. I was simply standing in the doorway to the classroom, saying hello to the class before it had started while also talking to the Kindergarten director next to me. Before I had time to even think, I felt two little hands reach up and firmly grabbed my boobs. I looked down and saw good ol' Roy. I was stunned. I have been touched inappropriately by kids, but never like this! The director standing next to me yelled in a very panicked manner, "Nooooooooooo!" and grabbed Roy. I'm afraid I will never be able to look at that child the same way again.
6) Hangul. I'm teaching a new book called "Speaking Box" to my SR3 students. I like the book well enough. The kids learn how to construct speeches properly over interesting topics. However, they have a workbook in the back of the book and some are having problems with it. Well, teacher has a problem with it too because I don't know Korean! Haha, so in my attempt to help a student out, I wrote the answers in Korean... and I must say, I was really proud of myself!
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