COEX Aquarium

(click to enlarge)

On Sunday, Dave, Craig and I travelled to the COEX mall to check out the aquarium. We were all quite impressed by the size of it and the number of animals they had. I was even more impressed by Dave's knowledge of water creatures. Check out the pictures.

Moving in Ilsan

Moving Day (click to enlarge)

Lately, Craig and I have been noticing these huge latters moving large objects out of nearby apartment buildings. It wasn't until someone moved out on our floor that we realized that this is how they move everything from the 9th floor to ground level. I wouldn't trust all my furniture to be moved by a latter ... but that's just me, I guess. :)

November Birthdays

Kenny & Dave

Today we celebrated the November birthdays. There was added excitement with the first (very very very brief) snowfall. I've never seen so many kids shout and scream all at once over a snowfall. I posted the rest of the birthday photos under the Kindy Pictures

Doris

I have a girl in my Thursday night classes ... Doris. I call that class my Doris class because she definitely stands out. She's not a typical private school student. She's quite rebellous; dresses (against the Korean norm) in oversized jeans and plaid shirts. She's always showing up to class late, never does her homework and barely passes her vocabulary tests. I think her home life is quite difficult. Her mom and sister live in the States and she lives in Korea with her dad. At first, I was nervous teaching her, because she definitely has the apperance of and acts like she could be a problem student. She openly dislikes the other girls in my class for being very girly-girl. However, as I started teaching her, I learned that her English is far beyond any of the other girls in that class. I now never give her a hard time because she never gives me any problems. Matt taught her before I did, and he was always telling me about her interesting pictures she would draw for him while taking vocabulary tests. (From Matt's website: picture 1, picture 2, picture 3.) Lately, she has warmed up to me. I once took the class out for dok boki (rice dough cooked in greasy sauce ... yum?) and after I did, she put her arm around me and said thanks (the only one who thanked me, mind you). She has left me little presents on my desk, and most recently, has been staying behind the class a couple extra minutes asking me questions. I talk to her about visiting her mom in Chicago and if she likes to ski. She seems to like it. When I talk to her one on one, I see this shy, humble 12 year old who is beyond creative. She doesn't care about marks; her presents are not because she's sucking up, because she knows that I'll continue to give her C's if she doesn't do her homework or study for the tests. She is by far my favourite elementary student, and I wish I could just teach her English one-on-one because she's far more advanced than the stupid Good Times English books we use for that age group. She makes teaching til 7:35 a little more enjoyable.

In the meantime, I'm on the hunt for a keyboard. I'm thinking that I'll put those 8 years of piano lessons to good use, pull out some Tori Amos sheet music and practice on those 1-3 hours I have off between my kindergarten classes and elementary classes.

Carne Station

Gabe & me (click to enlarge)

The infamous All-You-Can-Eat/All-You-Can-Drink Buffet. Made for an interesting Saturday evening.

Gyeongbokgung

Hot coffee in a can ... what will they think of next? (click to enlarge)

Gyeongbokgung Subway Station

Walk under the archway and you'll never get old. (click to enlarge)

Persimmons

Persimmons

I never heard of this fruit before I came here. But they are everywhere in Korea. Every little tent selling fruit on the corner has these. If you're looking from a distance, they look like tomatos. Had one once, was given them as a gift from one of the bus drivers. It's hard to eat though. You have to peel the skin (which isn't an easy task) and the fruit itself is harder than most. Funny enough, I found an article about them the other day, saying how good they are for you and how popular they are in Korea, Japan and China. I see persimmons more often than grapes, bananas, and carrots combined.

Garage Sale

Teddy at the Grocery Store (click to enlarge)

Yesterday, the kindergartens had a garage sale. Mothers brought old toys, clothes, and made food for the kids to buy with their "fake" American dollars. You quickly saw which kid would be the big spenders and who would be the savers, when they are older, in a matter of a few minutes. It was an interesting morning.

Before

Ryan Before (click to enlarge)

After

Ryan After (click to enlarge)

Ryan, in Craig's morning class, received a perm yesterday. Poor boy. Doesn't his mother know that it looks ridiculous?

Pictures

He's at it again: Daniel's Fantasy World - clocks!(click to enlarge)

I have been sorting my pictures recently and starting to group them. Made a few albums. The Kindergartens and the Staff. I'll probably be updating these albums as the year goes on. Enjoy!

Boston

Boston (click to enlarge)

Dave teaches the Boston kindergarten class in the mornings. Today he was telling us about an email that he sent to friends back in Arizona telling them about the kids that he teaches. He sent me a copy of what he wrote about the kids. Some of his insights are hilarious, yet so very true.

There's Sally Kim, she is standing on the far right. I told the kids to look unhappy, and for the most part they did. But Sally always looks like that. She's the Korean kindergarten version of (the cartoon) Daria. Sometimes when we're doing something childish, something that kindergartners are suppose to do, she will turn to me and say, (very articulate) "this is really stupid and childish" just as serious as cancer. It cracks me up. She speaks 3 languages and says she is going to be a doctor. A doctor! That girl is gonna be president one day. She truly scares me.

Then we have Kenny (pictured front row far right). He's the only blue collar kid in the school and also the only kid in the school with a mullet. God blessed me when he put him in my class. He is funny. Now Kenny can't really speak a lick of English. He really shouldn't even be in my class which is accelerated. If asked him to say something like, "the dog jumped over the cat," it might come out of Kenny as, "d do dum d do d dat," but hey patience is a virtue right?

And then there is this other kid. John. This child is the bane of my existence. He is standing top row far left in the picture. Every day I have to yell at him for kissing some bewildered boy. It's also his voice and the fact that the poor kid has ADHD. I hear his voice before I get to the classroom. I hear his voice outside the school. I hear it in my sleep. His squeaky, fingernails on chalkboard, voice. There is even a desk in my classroom that is referred to as the John desk, which is isolated and used for punishment. This desk was instituted by the teacher before me. No kid wants to sit in it. I need only point at it to get silence. John was at his worst on Halloween. I think the mixture of candy and all the visual stimulation caused him to cease to be understandable even in Korean to the Koreans. He was just speeding a million miles an hour. His costume was this lacy, shiny, strange affair that left all the faculty completely perplexed as to what it was was supposed to be. But I guess to John it was just his way of being "fabulous".

All us foreign teachers make predictions for our kindergarten's futures. Dave made a good sum up of his class:

I will start with John top row and work my way to Kenny far right bottom row.

1. John: a woman!
2. Danny: a cop because he's always snitching on everybody.
3. Rupina: a house wife. Just one of those things I know in my gut.
4. Juliet: a disco bunny who will be wearing that school girl uniform or one like it until she's 40.
5. Byoung Joon: He's gonna be Korean! Why? Cause no one ever gave him a western name.
6. Sally Kim: She's gonna be God
7. Beckham: He's gonna grow into his enormous head. I hope. For his sake.
8. Jack: He'll be a lawyer. I just know these things.
9. Kenny: Kenny will work in a carnival by day, and be a psychopathic killer by night.

I had a good laugh, I hope you did too. Just a little insight on the kids that we teach everyday.

Finding Out

For the afternoon students, we use a particular book series called, "Finding Out". I don't find them very useful, I only use them as a layout to what I need to teach the kids next. One day, Craig and I decided to skim through the Teacher's Guide of the series to see what tips they gave for teaching the students. Here's what the suggestion is for teaching, "Are you a ...?":

Mime an animal. At first do not make it too obvious which animal you are mining. When a child makes a guess, help her form the question patern, (yes, there is a spelling error in the Teacher's Guide) "Are you a ...?" If she is wrong, just smile mischievously and encourage more guesses. Continue until a child gets the right answer and say, "Yes, I am". Drama is important in this activity.

Next, open class books. Appear fascinated by the page. Let the children guess what is happening and read by themselves. They then read aloud either individually or as a class.

Appear fascinated??? Smile mischievously??? I don't know how to smile mischievously without looking like I have a face deformity.

The best usage for these Finding Out Teacher's Guides is to read them on those days that you need a laugh.

Pepero Day

Today is Pepero Day. The kids were telling me about it yesterday, but I had no idea what they were talking about. The Korean teachers said that the Lotte Company here made 11/11 Pepero Day as a way to sell their Peperos, chocolate covered cookie sticks (11/11 because it looks like 4 sticks ... *groan*). The kids and couples give them to each other, and most schools give these sticks out to the students. One of my students left one on my desk in the staff room yesterday and I thought it would be a good 6 o'clock sugar fix. It was the most disgusting, bland cookie I've ever tasted. I threw more than half of it out. Oh well, at least there will be no temptations to eat them today.

Homework

Today I had my 6:10 Columbia class, my "Big Show" class. We've learning, "She is going to....", "I am going to...."; so for homework they had to write sentences using "going to". While I was checking them today, one boy, Thomas, wrote:

"She is going to eat dog"

and

"He is going to throw bombs on the school"

Not only do I have a Big Show on my hands, but Mr Creativity as well.

Olympic Park

Olympic Park (click to enlarge)

Yesterday, Craig and I traveled to Olympic Park. At first I just wanted to see the Rings and see where the Olympics were, but I didn't realize how beautiful the park was. Even though the Olympics were in 1988, the park has been kept up and turned into a big rollerblading park, and behind the flags, there's many trails for hikers to go on. The weather was great yesterday, so it made for some great pictures.

Immigration

Amongst the flood of reports on the aftermath of the U.S. election results, Craig found an interesting article. Take a look.

First Korean Haircut

For awhile, I was thinking about growing my hair long again. But 3 months into the growing process, I couldn't stand it. I was a little nervous about going to a local salon, since most Korean women don't have short hair. Also, I've heard of a lot of horror stories from foreigner women who have received cuts and highlights here. Since I was going into Seoul for the weekend, I visited Itaewon (the foreigner district) and went to a hair salon that I know deals with a lot of foreigner hair. I was expecting to pay a lot, since it was a salon in Seoul, but I was surprised to pay only 15000 won (about $15 bucks).

The $15 included:

• a shampooing
• a head massage
• some high singing from my very...uhhh... feminine male hairdresser
• blow dry and style
• one short cut for one low price

Luckily, my first haircut experience in Korea turned out to be a good one.

More Fall Colours

View from Apartment, Ilsan (click to enlarge)

Fall Colours

Gyeongbokgung, Seoul (click to enlarge)

The fall colours are here. It's very rare to see a grouping of trees here in the city, but when you do find them, the colours are beautiful; especially with the mountains in the background (how I love mountains). The weather in October was beautiful. Lonely Planet says that autumn is the the best time to come to Korea, and I'd have to agree. The weather's not too hot or cold and for the whole month of October, it didn't rain once. Actually, I think it was sunny almost everyday. Now that November is here, the leaves are falling off the trees, and the coats are now needed, but there's that crispiness in the air that reminds me of Thanksgiving weekend back in Niagara. The only thing missing is the hot apple cider and homemade oatmeal cookies.

Here's another little tidbit I didn't know: Korea doesn't turn back their clocks. So, now I'm 14 hours ahead of Toronto time. Korea's always full of surprises.