Thursday, September 2, 2010

I'm know as... The Girl with the Yellow Hair


The outdoor workout equipment at the park I LOVE! (paragraph 3)


Some new friends at Skyy bar... one of the 3 delicious birthday cakes of the weekend! (paragraph 1)


Lets see, where did I leave off... the weekend ended nicely. It seemed to be a birthday kinda weekend. Friday night at Bubble bar some people were celebrating a birthday and as nice as Koreans are, they shared their cake with us. Saturday.. I didn't end up laying low (got convinced into going out). We went to several bars.. at Skyy bar some nice Koreans invited us into their private room and shared their birthday cake, other snacks and alcohol with us. Sunday we went to my Friend Jacob's (a guy I work with) girlfriend's house... there, we celebrated our friend Abel's birthday and all enjoyed......... can you guess... CAKE! so, at this point i'm all caked out! Jacob's girlfriend (Sophie) is the owner of another Hogwan (private school), so her place is amazing!! People in Korea don't live in houses... so to show your status, you aren't going to have this crazy, big house like you might in America... instead, you live in a crazy, huge apartment. It was nice to be in someone's home and see what thats like (I mean, all my friends live in apartments that are bought for them for 2 years at most).

So at the beginning of the school week I gave my students their monthly tests... they did AWESOME-- yayyy girls! :) So September is the beginning of a new semester (3 months long) which means I have some new classes... I talked about them in my last blog. They are going pretty well other than the lesson plan writing (I hate it.. it is far from beneficial for the teachers)... lesson PLANs are supposed to be a plan for what your going to teach your class, but the way TNE has us doing them makes no sense! I loveee my students.. although I did have a little trouble with my oldest student Matt. Matt is extremely smart but he is very lazy (when it comes to doing work), impatient and like any kid, full of energy. I had to get really stern with him tonight because I felt as though I was being taken advantage of.... I wasn't going to have it!!! My sternness finally set him off... woops, I made him cry!! Sorry Matt but i'm the boss!!!!

Remember that great park I mentioned in my last blog... well, I finally got some great pictures of it (all of them are on facebook). The other night Laura and I went for a walk in the park. We ventured all over and found lots of little parks and ponds off the original park. We are both so enthralled in it all... not only do we have a great new place to work out but also an awesome "chill spot" where we can admire all the neat sculptures and architecture. One day this week I got to watch another soccer game while I circled the track... Jacob told me that most of the guys playing are taxi drivers (a taxi driver league). When one of the players wasn't in the game, he was on the sidelines smoking a cigarette... I doubt you would see this in America.

I don't know if I told you this but... dealing with trash here is a pain in the ass. First of all, you have to buy special bags from the 7-11 (they don't come in packs... you can buy a couple at a time) and they cost almost a buck for each bag. Now, you have to separate your trash.. totally understandable but heres what finally got to me: since you have to put all your food trash in a separate bag (kinda like a compost but not really since its not going straight to a compost bin or in someones garden) .. that trash gets gross pretty quick. I went to throw mine away this week after about 5 days at most and opened it to put in the a "special" 7-11 trash bag and crawling alllllll over it was maggots. I don't mean to be such a girly girl but Ohh My GOD- EWWWW! I should have expected this but now I know to try and take out the food garbage at least every other day or to expect maggots. Shit happens!

I finally got my green card today so, I'm waking up early tomorrow to set up an account with the Gwangju bank and then I get to work all day long.. until 8:35- how joyous! I'll be in touch after the weekend.. have a good one! :)

Korean Facts/Randomness:

- Gwangju is known for being South Korea's biggest city of art (I love that)... come autumn, there will be a ton of festivals- most of which will be art festivals :)
- As you probably know, Koreans don't have a lot of body hair. My students think its so funny that I have fuzzy whitish/yellow hair all over my arms... i'm one of the only "yellow-haired" people they know- don't worry, they are slowly learning the word "blonde" haha.
- If your looking around the city you will notice that most all business men wear the exact same thing (a short sleeve white collared shirt with black pants).. well, that's this season... who knows what it will change to come fall and winter.
-It's still pretty hot here during the day.. when I go work out, I've got on shorts and a T-shirt. The Koreans wear pants, jackets, hates, scarves.... and then i'm the one standing there with my shirt all wet and sweaty (what's the deal... i'm starting to get embarrassed).... hmmm, oh well... i'm foreign :)
- I am sure some of you are wondering... "wow, Emilie... your a damn teacher- don't you know how to write with out so many commas, ellipses, and sentence fragments?" Let me just tell you, YES! I know how to write correctly but when it comes to this free writing blog... screw it!! My apologies but, this is me... not on the job!

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like your still having an awesome time! So Jealous!

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