I survived...

...my first week of teaching! Success! But first, some more observations abour Korea/Anyang:

-People use umbrellas, come rain or come shine. I've been told they use them when it's snowing as well.

-Despite the fact that they use umbrellas, they also wear these ridiculous-looking wide-brimmed visors, to shield from the natural forces as well. I may have to invest of one of these.

-Most people wear t-shirts that have some sort of positive and/or motivational message, in English. Some of them are slightly less-than-perfect translations, and therefore offer endless amusement; i.e. "Reach for the star". I haven't actually seen that, but my mind is drawing a blank for a concrete example.

By mid-Friday last week, I was feeling exhausted. One of my elementary student's grandmother's brought some food for the class though, so that was a little perk. Traditional Korean rice ball stuffed things - they are sweet-tasting and can be filled with various items: beans, bean paste, other grains, brown sugar (we made brown sugar ones for a Chuseok activity during my observation classes). She also brought me some of this rice drink. It's also sweet-tasting. I should add to the list: rice rice rice, sugar sugar sugar. I can't say I wasn't warned. Anyways, another perk at the end of the work day was going for Korean BBQ with my coworkers Jennifer and Tony. The veggies and meat and flavours are so delicious! Wrap it in a leaf of lettuce, and enjoy. I ended up going to bed at a reasonable hour Friday evening, and the sleep was welcome.

Saturday was rainy, so our hike up Suri mountain was cancelled. (I still got out for a walk in the morning before the rain came.) Because we were all free though (Jennifer, Karen, Romo, and me), we ended up being out and about anyways. Decked with our umbrellas, we headed to the Anyang Art Park. It's a lovely forest filled with permanent art installations. We also happened upon the 9th Annual Anyang Festival, and watched some traditional dancing, singing, and drumming, all enhanced by the colourful traditional costumes. I liked the drumming best, and had the urge to perform a rain-dance. I held back (a little). Later in the afternoon we grabbed some food and went to the movies! Eat, Pray, Love was one of the only English flicks playing, so that's what we saw. Though I would have liked to have read the book first, I still enjoyed it. We all did. All having the traveller/nomadic lifestyle, we could all relate to the story in our own way. After the film, we stopped in the stationary store in the same building, for an obligatory photo-shoot, with magnifying glasses. Evening sillies? I think so. We definitely had some not-so-sublte passersby look at us a few times. We were laughing so hard. We headed back to Karen and Romo's place to finish the day. Somehow I didn't get home til 3am!

Sunday I did laundry and groceries. When the sun came out, I decided to go out and do a little shopping. I got home just before it started to pour. Lucky me! I made a CD for my Mercury class, just so the kiddies have some fun tunes to listen to when we're working on things. The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Barenaked Ladies, The Little Mermaid, Glee...lots of fun songs. You know you want to be in my class.

Today I had a really great day! The class was relatively on task and cooperative! Julian really surprised me. I learned his name VERY quickly during my observation classes, as he is the king troublemaker. Last week he was only in class for Thursday and Friday. Sure enough, he was climbing the bookshelves and being a little monkey. I don't blame him, as he's very smart. Today he was an angel! He was telling the students to be quiet, was always the first done his work, and would help out the others. He gave me hugs and held my hand and came over to be my partner during yoga. New week? New day? New Julian? One day at a time...don't want to jinx it! It was a pleasant surprise though, and for the other teachers as well! Did I mention I love my kids? We started a new story book today: Monster Monster. The kids were super into it, especially little Alvin. All day he was pretending to be a little monster and would attack me. At one point, I had a group of about 5 little boys attacking me. Haha I WANT TO KEEP THEM!

I would just like to point out that for arts and lessons, I am quite relieved to be teaching the youngest age groups (I also teach Venus and Jupiter: they are 6 years old, with one and two years experience at school, respectively). Last week's lesson was origami - I can only handle the easiest paper-folding!

Feeling refreshed: showered and fed after a great day at work and a workout at the gym. Happy Monday to all!