Summer fun at school.

Things with my new school are going great. I didn't think I could like/love/enjoy my new kids as much as the ones at my last school, but I can. I guess I just like kids! (well at least most of them... and most of the time).


I've got a few favorites of course and I have found I really enjoy the older kids. I think because I'm able to communicate with them more. However, my 2nd graders are my best class even though they are my biggest class (13 students). They are so well behaved. I'm serious it's almost scary. Yes, of course they are still kids and can get a little rowdy and loud, but the second I say ok, sit down. They do it! I would love to take the credit but I think it's because of this one girl, Dana (picture here), she keeps EVERYONE in line. I'm not kidding. She yells at anyone who isn't listening or doing what they are supposed to. She passes out the books. She tells me who is not there. She takes a stick and smacks it on the table or on their desk when they are doing something wrong. She walks around the class like she owns it... and she does. She is basically teaching the class I guess! I feel like I'm even under her rule :)

One of my favorite students is a 6th grader named Harry. He's one of the best at English, he loves sports, he's tall, he's shy and a little quiet but still talks to me and explains what most of the kids are saying! Although he's started saying, uh, teacher English no. And I tell him no, English YES! haha He reminds me a lot of my cousin, Brian, which just makes me laugh!













July 19th - The RER Production (Robots, English and Reading):

So, Korea loves to put on huge productions and plays and assemblies. They make massive banners and all the parents come and watch. This one on the last day of classes lasted almost 2.5 hours. It was super long!

Traditional Korean clothes and drumming.

Robots. They did all sorts of fun things, like throw things and move and fight. 

Grade 3 and 4: Julie, ?, Ryan, Aaron and Amy.

Grade 1: Brody, Haley, Elijah, Lucy.

Grade 2: James, Matthew, Carter, Aiden, Alex and Ruby.

Grade 5 skit.

My role in the production:

I spent the week before preparing the 6th graders for a reading they were going to do. My mentor teacher, Olive (pictured on the left), picked the book 'I'll love you forever.' And it had a song as well... 'I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always and as long as I'm living my baby you'll be'. It's pretty cute and a touching story. But of course kids are kids and were like, uhhh teacher, why?























So basically we read and sang all week. They would practice reading and I would correct them. They would say Jew I would say it's zoo.. they would gul-rue.. I would say it's grew. They would say looketed.. I would say it's looked. That went on and on and on. But they finally got it, well mostly! And they sounded really good when they did the reading. I was so proud of my little babies :)

The kids who did the reading! Davinchi, Harry, Jerry (Grade 5), William, Tom, Hannah, Ben, Julie, Jenny and Sarah. And Mack (Grade 5) not pictured.

English Camp:
(July 22nd-26th)

Basically something for the students to do while their parents work (sooo... baby sitting?!). I worked 32 hours (when I normally work 15 in a week) and before you think, oh man only 32 that's not even a full 40 hour work week... consider this. I woke up at 6:50 left my house at 7:30, took 2 different buses for a total of an hour, to get to school at 8:45, to teach 4 - 1.5 hour classes, left school around 4 and got home to my house a little before 5:30. So yeah, more like a 10 hour day! But thankfully I co-taught with the Philippine teacher at my school. 


Monday - Sports Day:

The first day we played games/sports with the kids. We did tug of war, limbo, and a relay race.

5th and 6th grade - tug-of-war.

Amy and Alex doing the limbo. (2nd grade).

And these are the types of faces I get to look at everyday! Gosh I love my job! :) (Aaron, 4th grade)

Julie - 3rd grade.

Relay Race:

We did a water relay race, that I learned from working at camp. They had a blast... and even decided throwing water at Teacher was a great idea... and where do you think the water ended up... yup, I a soaking wet crotch for most of the day, awesome! 

Matthew - Grade 2.

Haley and Elijah - Grade 1.

Lucy (grade 1) and Carter (grade 2).

Mary - Grade 3.

Grace - Grade 4.

Tuesday - Songs and more.

We sang songs and did word searches. They seriously love word searches. I made a deal with them that whoever beat me would get candy! A couple students beat me the first time but they were kind of 'haking' (cheating) so it didn't really count. The second time, I smoked em. Huzzah!! I'm smarter than 5th and 6th grade Korean students! That should be a title of a T.V. show... oh wait.

Wednesday - Movies.

We mostly just watched movies and hung out. The 6th graders wanted to watch a horror movie (well 3rd and 4th did too - but I said they were too young). and plus I didn't want to watch a horror movie, I HATE them... and was scared! But the 6th graders insisted.. so I said, fine, whatever. Ug. yeah, I was scared.. but they were screaming too! And the movie they picked basically described my life.. a photographer who traveled. I don't remember much more than that, I tried to block it out once I realized it was basically my life!


Thursday - Cooking.

So I wanted to give the kids a chance to cook and eat something they don't have everyday and that most Americas eat quite a bit of. So what better than french toast? Right? And it's easy enough for teacher as well. Plus Korea has all the ingredients... added bonus!!!!

Grade 3 and 4:

Grade 3 and 4. Mary, Alex and Julie

Mark - Grade 3. One of my difficult ones - but he's still cute! 

Mary mixing the eggs for french toast.

Half of them don't look so thrilled.. I promise they enjoyed this and thought the french toast was delicious!

Grade 1 and 2:

Aiden, Grade 2 - stirring the eggs. They each got 10 seconds of stirring. It was funny how fast they could count, especially when someone else was stirring! 

Alex, Grade 2. 

Aiden, Grade 2.

McKenzie, Grade 2. 

Carter, Grade 2. 

I don't know how I managed to keep all these little crazies from getting burned and or hurt in anyway, how I basically cook their toast for them.. all while photographing the entire process. Dang. Sometimes I impress myself! 

But they sure are cute! Ben, Jackson and Dana - Grade 2. 

Of course they wanted to put the syrup on, but that DID NOT HAPPEN. Teacher was in charge of the syrup for very obvious reasons. 

Elijah - Grade 1.

And the liked it... success! 

Haha.. oh my life. Never ever ever a dull moment. This kid, James - grade 2, is the one who loves rubbing his head against mine anytime I kneel down at his desk to help him. I still haven't figured that out yet!? Oh kids, no more like... oh James.

Tacos:

And I wanted to do something different with the older kids and frankly I wanted to make something I could actually eat... so we made TACOS. Ok, maybe that's more of a Mexico thing, but close enough to American right? But don't worry I taught them a little spanish :) 

Grade 5 and 6: 

Lucy - Grade 5 making tacos. She's one of my top students.

One of my 5th graders was so cute, the boy in the picture above, and instead of eating his second taco that we made it wrapped it up. I was a little confused and then he said (in Korean and Liza teacher translated for me) - that he was taking it home for his mom. So sweet. He made another one for his dad too! :)

Julie - Grade 6.

Henry - Grade 6. (my favorite) He understands me and I understand him and we arm wrestle! It's like he's my little brother :) 

Some of my 5th graders were freaking out about the refried beans and so I told them 'If I can try/eat kimchi, then you can try some beans!' they said okay teacher, fine, but just a little! And after they tried the taco with the beans, they liked it. I said, seeeee!!! You have to trust me! Seriously, trust the American to know how to make a freakin' taco!

















Party!

On friday we made more french toast and some smoothie/milkshakes for grade 5 and 6.

Grade 5. 

Pudding!

Then for 1 and 2 we made chocolate pudding, the instant kind from a box, and smoothie/milkshakes! The kids loved all the food and they freaked out and wanted so much.. then after they were kind of rubbing their tummies.. oops, might have given them a bit too much sugar! haha

James - Grade 2.

Lucy, Haley and Elijah - 3 of my 4, 1st graders.

This is my thought process right before during and after this picture was taken.. oh dear lord please do not break my camera.. and wait, why do you HAVE MY CAMERA. GIVE IT BACK TO TEACHER. phew, safe at last.

Grades 1, 2, 3 and some of 4 also sang me happy birthday and it was so stinking cute! They did it both in English and Korean! It was a great end to a fun and crazy semester.

Birthday, Korea Style

생일축하합니다 (saengil chukha hamnida)

What did I do for my 24th birthday you ask...

From Sarah's camera (thanks Sarah)!!

On Friday night, I hung out with my friend Sarah, who is leaving Korea the beginning of August. We got 팥빙수 (pat-bing-soo). A Korean specialty of -- shaved ice, red bean (sweat beans), condensed milk and some fruit of some sort and other various toppings. I am pretty sure bing-soo has flown to the top of my all time favorite dessert list!

Yes, I am now 24. And yes, I still act like a child and play with my food and utensils!  

And I'm gangster! 

Saturday, my birthday, I slept in and facetimed my family and a friend, cleaned my room and then that evening I went to a 찜질방 (jim-jil-bang) with my friend Alina! Ok, so what's the 'jimjilbang'. Well, it's a Korean bath house, sauna and even a place to sleep. So, let me walk you through how this goes down. You go to one, they are symbolized by a red sign that looks kind of like a steaming bowl of soup - but it's not a food place, don't be fooled. 

not my photo (from google search).

So, you walk in, pay (it's between 7 - 10,000 won usually and then extra for extra services: 25,000 for the extra I got!!), and get a wrist band with 2 keys with the same number, towels, and some pj's if you plan on sleeping or wandering around (like we did). 

First you put your shoes in a locker right inside the door, using one of the keys on your wristband. Then you continue on your way and make it to the segregated part, boys one area and girls the other. You find your locker, strip down, strut your stuff (or be shy if you prefer) -- I got over the shyness after my first visit to a jimjilbang a year ago (this was now my 3rd time!) Then you head into the area with shower, baths, saunas etc. So let me explain the baths.. you might be thinking a white porcelain tub, yeah it's nothing like that. It's more like swimming pools or hot tubs. Different shaped and all with different things and temperatures. Some are almost ice (I refuse to go into to those) and some are so hot people walk out totally RED (I avoid those as well). I am more about the warm ones or slightly hot. So we sat around in a few, got a few water massages by the jets, even did a few 'laps' around one of the longer pools. 

So my friend Alina decided, since it was my birthday I needed to try something I had never done before.




I don't know if you guys are ready to hear what I did.... ok, get ready! Are you ready? 



I GOT SCRUBBED DOWN BY A KOREAN LADY. Yes, that's what happened. I laid completely naked on a table (like a padded doctors table) and she took a scrubber wash cloth and SCRUBBED my skin. EVERYWHERE. Yes, she did. EVERYWHERE. I won't go into too much details, but just know that I got cleaned and I'm pretty sure she took off about 3 layers of skin (I guess it's good we have like 7 or something). When she started scrubbing I couldn't stop laughing (even though it was pretty painful). I kept thinking, oh dear lord... what am I doing?! Alina just stood there (waiting for an open spot) just laughing at me and translating what the lady was saying! 

After the layers of skin were gone from both sides, yup I had to roll over and be on my side so she made sure she got it all, she soaped me up! She put on a green tea face mask, which I really enjoyed and was probably the most normal of everything that happened. Then she oiled me up, rubbed it all in, slapping and hitting me, making loud popping noises as she did it. She was a bit rough, but it wasn't too painful. She would take my arm behind my head, rub it and then chuck it back down, so it would fall fast and hit the table pretty hard (thankfully the table was padded).

Then I got up, washed the mask off my face at the nearby shower, and was finished.... I went back into the hot tubs and that was that. Back to normal, or more like I will never be the same --- EVER.

We continued our hot tubbing for a bit, even went to the outside tub, and then finally decided our skin/bodies had had enough for one night. We changed, put on our super duper rad, stylish, PJ's and walked around exploring the sauna/jimjilbang area. So, we could have stayed the night there (we didn't because my bed was about a 5 minute cab ride away) but if we wanted we could have grabbed a mat and a brick (seriously it's a brick shape and feels about like one) for a pillow and slept on the floor. Yeah, no thanks, I'll save that for when I'm somewhere without my bed 5 minutes away! 

We made it home, after a couple of hours, and I skyped my friend Jan in Germany and his sweet family sang me happy birthday! It almost made me cry. I have such amazing friends all over the world. I am so blessed. And here's to hoping I'll have another great year! I feel kind of super old - but that's ok! :)

So there, that's what I did for my birthday. 

I am pretty sure not many people can say they got scrubbed down by a middle aged Korean woman on their 24th birthday, but now I can! This will for sure be a story for the kids :)