PICTURES:)

Just a couple of photos of my life so far! :)

A example of what my everyday work wear looks like.

My own DIY (do it yourself) project! Now my jewelry hangs neatly on the inside of my wardrobe. :)

I have the greatest parents, they sent me a package and stocked my cabinet with American spices, hot sauce, protein bars and whole wheat products!

A snapshot of Seoul! It's such a beautiful city right??

More pictures to come:)

Why you must have thick skin to be a teacher.

This week was "Comparisons Week" in my 6th grade classes. I (along with my co-teacher) taught the kids how to properly use adjectives to make comparisons between people, objects and animals. For example, I am faster than you or an elephant is bigger than a rabbit. We had various activities and games that emphasized the use of comparisons in reading, writing and the most memorable, speaking. After a quick PowerPoint review of the last lesson with my students I asked them to compare my co-teacher and myself which turned out to be a big mistake. My co-teacher is small for a Korean women, who are already small people. To put it simply she is VERY, VERY petite. Back at home I am of average height/weight but here I am something similar to Godzilla. So my co-teacher and myself stood in front of the each class together to allow the students to see us side by side. The activity went very well in most of my classes, they enjoyed applying what they had learned in an on the spot situation. But then came THE class. Every teacher has the class. What is the class one who is not a teacher might ask? Well it is a class that just might have been spawned from the devil himself. The class could have a number of the following traits

1-Sometimes they are so quiet you question if they are even alive
2- They look through you not at you
3-They feel as if they have something better to do than sit through your lecture
4- The kids can be just BONKERS, like they ate a box of Frosted Flakes with chocolate milk type of  BONKERS
5- Manners do not exist. Neither do inside voices, shouting is the only form of communication
6- Rules? you couldn't be sure if they have ever even heard of them
7- Smart-mouths are more common than not
8- The fact that you have a college degree and many years on them means nothing, they still know more.
9- They consciously attempt to test your patience in every way possible
10- Being difficult is all they know

The class is the reason new discipline and participation strategies are conceived and where they are tested.

Well during  the class in the beginning I wasn't sure if they were even awake. But as soon as I asked them to compare ____ teacher and myself they suddenly came to life, so eager to give their comparisons you might have believed I shot them up with pure sugar, they were climbing all over each other falling out of their chairs in desperation to be called on. The first comparisons were similar to those in all my classes.....

"Kala teacher is taller than ___ teacher."
"Kala teacher is stronger than ___ teacher."
"____teacher is shorter than Kala teacher."
 "____teacher has longer hair than Kala teacher."

But then the students got creative and more excited, hand raising went out of the window and yelling began..

 "____teacher is WHITER than Kala teacher."
 "Kala teacher is BLACKER than ___ teacher."
"____ teacher is OLDER than  Kala teacher."

and the icing on the cake and the loudest shout...

"Kala teacher is MORE FAT than ___ teacher."

First, I went bell ringing crazy to regain order in the class,  after I managed to settle everybody down  I corrected his English, "Kala teacher is FATTER than ___ teacher," and moved on. Were my feelings hurt? Not at all, but I didn't want to see what else these little demons could come up with. They weren't speaking out of malice, their vocabulary only goes so far and fat just happens to be apart of it. But even at the sake of our feelings my co-teacher and I could not really complain because at least they were speaking English.

#CHEERS2HAVINGTHICKSKIN

****follow up: After speaking to other teachers of the same grades I am pleased to say my students are angels in comparison to the stories that they have told me.

The end of week two

Above is the Google Map version of the area in which I live! To take a look just type in Sau-dong, Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea in Google Maps.

It is hard to believe that it is already the end of my second week here in S.K. Time sure has flown by! As of now I still know nothing, where to eat, what to eat, how to order, I am pretty much handicapped if I want to eat something besides the 2 weeks of chicken and eggs I have at home but on a positive note, I have become more familiar with the area that surrounds my apartment, now I can venture beyond the supermarket, my gym and my apartment.  Since I am still phone-less I refuse to travel outside of my safe little city. Okay, well technically I am not phone-less, my recruiting agency, Korvia, provided me with a phone to use until I am able to obtain my own. The reason I say I am phone-less is because they gave me a phone from the early 90's. We all remember those slide up phones, where you have to text using your number pad and the ring tones are a various selection of popular songs from the 90's (mine is Celine Dion My Heart Will Go On) that are barely interpretable because they sound like they are recording of elementary school flute players.While I am extremely grateful for the free phone, I absolutely hate it. It has not only put in perspective the trouble my mom has when trying to learn how to do something new on her computer, as simple as it may be to me it pretty much is a foreign language to her (and most of her generation), it has also shown me how dependent I am on modern technology.  I feel so incapable of reprogramming my mind to use a phone that doesn't already think for itself already! What's the point in thinking when you have Siri?* When I got the phone it already had 10,000 KRW on it (a little less than 9 USD), I still haven't run out of time, just to show you how little I use it. It took me 5 WHOLE minutes (and I am not exaggerating) to send a text that was maybe 15 words long, where with my awesome iphone I could have typed a dissertation in that time and ALL 15 of those words were in capital letters because I have no idea how to take the caps off. So, I am phone-less and as for now I can just pray my ARC card comes soon so I can happily utilize and abuse my dependency on modern technology again.

#CHEERS2MODERNTECHNOLOGY

*Siri is the iphone's "intelligent personnel assistant." Basically Siri is the iphone if it were a person. You can ask her to do anything on your iphone and she will do it for you.

Hello Gimpo, Korea

I have finally arrived at my new home, Gimpo, Korea and to say the least and speaking less than a week in, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. Upon arriving in Korea I have witnessed a country that is in the middle of modernizing itself. Infrastructure is being rebuilt, bridges, buildings, schools, roads ext.... are all under construction or have been reconstructed into beautiful architectural pieces. The atmosphere of the people is intoxicating. Between being extremely proud of who they are and what they have become, they are also very kind and thankful for the thousands of foreign teachers that are in their country helping them. I have been given free fruit, people have been patient with me and my "western ways" and my co-teachers and other fellow teachers have warmly opened their arms to me ensuring that I am comfortable, safe and able to get out of my apartment and around the city. My apartment is a studio, small but cozy, in a great building with all western teachers from all over the place. My bed is my only complaint. It is hard, I almost rather sleep on a rock! But other than that, I have no complaints.  A woman from South Africa has kindly taken me under her wing a little bit and has shown me around and she lives just across the alley. My next door neighbor is this Englishman, who off the bat was awesome. A complete type A personality and took me partying my first weekend, my kind of guy! I have met many other westerners on the street, we have ( I am just becoming familiar with it) our own little tight knit community, everybody takes care of each other, something my Mom would be pleased to hear. But as of now I must go. More once I obtain internet.

#CHEERS2KOREA