Where to go next?

I am starting to narrow down where I would like to go after I leave Korea in January.  So far on the list, I have found decent (ok, amazing) jobs & benefits at the following countries:

1. Kazahkstan
2. Kyrghistan
3. Taiwan
4. Hong Kong
5. UAE
6. Brunei (I believe I may need another year experience before getting into this one)
7. Saudi Arabia

So many options! :)  Maybe too many options...

*cough cough* *achoo* *cough*

I made the mistake of leaving my window open yesterday and last night.  Ok, so it was purposefully left open because it's gorgeous weather and I didn't feel like turning on the air quite yet.

This morning I woke up barely able to breathe from all of the dust in my apartment! Not only is this country ridiculously dusty and it covers everything, but of course they were doing construction this morning that helped blow some more into the open window.

I literally had a dust bunny floating in the air... *sigh*

So the first goal of today, before I am allowed to go out and play in the sun, is to clean this apartment from top to bottom and make it dust free once again (haha, like that will ever happen in this country! At least as dust free as possible--for the day. Tomorrow will be a whole new battle.)  It's another warm day but I have decided to keep the windows closed for the time being.

I'm sure my lungs will thank me for it.  

Flooding

The other day my students and I were talking about weather and I mentioned that back home in the States there were many tornados and a lot of rain lately.

"How much rain?"
"This much."  Showing a large amount of rain with my hands, clearly exaggerating.
"Woooow.  Do they use a boat?"
"Yes." 
"Cooool.  I want to go to school in a boat!"

These students are about as easy to tease as Kayleen was when she was younger... :) 

What I find fun about all of this is when I was teaching my 7th grade students about Monsoon season in Asia, a student said, "Cool! I want to go to school in a boat!" 

Make a story

Today, the students had to make their own story up after listening to a story.  The dialog had to follow something along the lines of,

___________?
I'm ________.
___________?
___________.

I heard,

"Who are you?"
"I'm a monster."
"Do you want to die?"
"I will bring you to hell with me."

and when we told them they weren't allowed to say "Do you want to die?" they said,

"Do you want to go to heaven?"

Also, during "American Culture Minute" I taught them how to say, "What's up?/Sup?" complete with the head nod.  Oh yeah, bringing back the past one student at a time! ;)  

I need to think of some more fun slang words to teach them. 

So cute

Today, my after-school year 3's were learning about body parts.

Me: "What's this?"
Them: "Arm!"
Me: "What's this?"
Them: "Fingers!"
Me: "What's this?"
Them: "A leg!"
Me: "What's this?"
Them: "....    ........   ...foot fingers?"

Love them. 

Pretty certain

I am pretty certain my students were laughing at me today.  In almost every class I had students looking at me with a glint in their eyes and their hands over their mouth, trying to hold in a giggle.  I'm not entirely sure what would cause this reaction, as I looked in the mirror and I don't look any more silly than normal. 

Then again, maybe they weren't laughing at me.  This is generally the same reaction I receive when I say hi to them in the hallway or street. 

Speaking of students, today they learned that hitting in America is not only considered to be impolite but you could end up in jail if it's serious enough.  They also learned that you would more than likely be suspended from school if you hit another student--and your parents would have to talk to the principal (this is possibly the worse thing that could ever happen to a student in Korea).  I could see a few of the trouble making boys torn between loving the idea that the hogwon (private after-school schools) teacher wouldn't be able to hit them and hating that they wouldn't be able to hit each other anymore. 

I swear, all day long during every class all you see if one student punching another. It's a wonder they're not all black and blue.  Walking down the hall I will see students rolling on the ground wrestling each other.  The part of my mind that's still in the American culture mindset always starts to try to break it up but then I realize that they're not serious and I just keep walking. 

Oh, Korea

A woman just came to my apartment and waved a wand (much like a radiation detector) around my stove and washing machine.  She then bowed and left.


...?

How old are you? Part II

This morning for first period we had a bit of a technical difficulty which resulted in a delay of using the computer (and since the entire lesson is on the computer...) for an entire class period.  My co-teacher told me to delay and "review" the lesson.

Um, ok.  Sure.

I had to review the key words, "Happy birthday", "thank you", "this is for you", and "how old are you."  Right, that took all of maybe a minute to review as they had this material down three lessons ago. Since they aren't at the English level to actually converse yet, I had to come up with something and hope they would understand me enough. Eventually, I became desperate and started asking every student how old they were even though I knew they were all 10 yrs old. We made it into a slight game and the kids were giggling as they answered "one million years old!" or "I am 65...an old man!"

Finally, one of the students said to me, "Jessica Teacher--I think you are 30."

"Oh, no!" I said.  "Not thirty!"

This brought us to an hilarious new game of "guess Jessica-teacher's age."  I received anything from 20 years old (said the boy that likes to give me compliments) to 68 years old.

The Koreans are trying to pre-maturely age me.  They never did guess my age and therefore they still have no idea if I am 20 or 68.    

Long Holiday weekend

This past weekend was a long weekend.  I had Thursday off for Children's Day, worked Friday, and then had Sat-Tues. off for Buddha's birthday.  Since I had four days off in a row I decided to go all the way south to visit Corrie!  If you look at the map provided, I live north of Seoul up next to the border and Corrie lives all the way in the south of Korea near Taegu...kind of.  I think.  


In any case, it took 6 hours almost exactly (ok, 6 hrs and 4 minutes plus a 20 minute walk to the subway station) to arrive.  I took a subway and then a four hour train ride but finally I arrived! 


Visiting with Corrie was fun.  On Sunday we headed into Daegu where I went shopping! I had to get some make up and ended up getting a brand I have recently started to hear about--BB.  Apparently all the concealers in Korea has skin whitening stuff in it as Koreans are all obsessed with looking pale.  So now the fair-skinned me is a proud owner of a "Whitening Duel BB Cream."  Heh.  While I doubt my skin could actually become any lighter than it already is, it does cover up my freckles pretty well so that's nice.  Plus, it's 35+ sunblock which is always an added bonus.  


While in Daegu, Corrie and I met her friend Joo Ock (Rachel), her cousin, Jae Woon (Ethan), and her cousin's friend which I don't remember his Korean name so Jake.  The five of us spent the day together and it was a lot of fun! Apparently we were Ethan's first foreign friends.  ^_^  We had dinner at Holy Grill where I ate an enormous burger.  Pictures of said burger is posted on the earlier post.  


Monday was spent traveling back to my apartment.  On the subway I encountered the sweetest old man. Not only did he offer me his seat on the subway (which I didn't take because he was old and needed it more than I did), but he also got my attention again when a new seat opened and saved it for me, AND helped me carry my bag (a rolling suitcase full of clothes) down the subway stairs. 

All of this without a word being spoken between us aside from me saying thank you in Korean and bowing. :)  

Today was spent with most of it traveling to Itaewon, a section in Seoul.  There is an English bookstore there, What the Book?, that I went to and picked up a copy of "The Seven Storey Mountain" which is an autobiography of Thomas Merton.  I am pretty excited to read about his story of becoming baptized as a Catholic and then becoming a Trappist Monk.  

It's sounds delightful.  

So yeah.  That was my "exciting" weekend.  It was just like any other weekend I would have in the States. :-p 

This is why I am joining a gym...

My before and after pictures of "Holy Cow!" from the Holy Grill.  Be amazed at my eating abilities. ;-)