First, let me say that I've got to get out of this city...it makes me sneeze. :-P

Now for the Korean Update, Part II:

I spent the first five days of my "vacation" at school. I'd told Beth that I would substitute teach for a friend of hers who was going to play hockey in Mongolia for a few days. So I spent Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning at the school, getting to know Lexi's kids and going over lesson plans and protocol with her. The kids were adorable, although somewhat high maintenence - that's what you get with kindergarteners! - and I made it through the day with little to no problems - not even jet lag!

On Wednesday, I got the kids to myself and let me tell you - I am *not* meant to be a kindy teacher! I don't care what language they speak. Almost every kid cried...I didn't find out until lunch time that Lexi's kids regularly employ the waterworks. Great.

(They're adorable though, aren't they?)






The afternoon kids were a lil' older and a lil' better behaved. It's still tough to teach English to children whose native language is something without even the same alphabet to go on...but I still enjoyed it for the most part.

Thursday was good because every class (excluding Kindy, but they were much better) had a test. Lexi slightly overestimated the time it would take the kids to finish their respective tests, but we played card games and had spelling tournaments that filled the time nicely. I thought I would get out of my late class (T and Th, some classes go until 7 pm), because the class consisted of two girls and we knew one girl was going to be absent. But the other girls showed, albeit 30 minutes late...just when I thought I could safely leave...and so I gave her her test. Haha! That'll show you not to be late... :-P

Friday was great because we celebrated the Lunar New Year (Sol Nal) with the Kindy kids. The holiday actually fell on the 29th, but give us a reason to celebrate, right? So we all dressed in hanbok, traditional Korean attire, children and teachers alike - that's mine on the left. The morning was spent on learning the play and then we got to go down to the multi-media room and learn to bow and say Happy New Year (the kids and Korean staff alike laughed at the English teachers' attempts). Then, after lunch, we played games with the kids that included a game throwing sticks at a basket, attempting to get them in, a game like hacky-sack, with the sack attached to a string, and a game that consisted of spinning a top by whipping it with a string. Violent, violent games. Hands were stepped on, ankles were turned, faces were hit...but the kids loved it. The teachers, maybe not so much...



So that was my experience teaching English in Korea. All in all, a great experience, but I was definitely getting antsy to explore "Dynamic Korea," as all the advertisements proclaimed. I had a long list of stuff I wanted to do and see, but all I'd done and saw were a) school b) doctor's office (for Beth's cold) c) a Canadian bar d) the Dollar Store and e) one Korean restaurant. I was glad that school was over and I was now free to explore.

More on that later.

60 percent of the time, I work all the time,
Lace