new puppy and moving

hello! well since last post we got a new puppy!!! jens found him at his school!

here's the story he posted on facebook:
Expats in Korea have an itinerant habit of taking in stray animals, at which I always laughed in my Rabelaisian way. But yesterday I pulled into my school parking lot to find some first-graders tormenting (with love) a shaggy Maltese pup. I liberated the poor guy and realized, once I picked him up, that I could not put him down - not that I would not, or should not, but that it was simply not an option. I called Randi to okay it, and we had another member of the family!
He was in bad shape, with long streaky tear stains and muddy belly and sooty greyish fur on his back and snout - road pollution, like snow on the side of a highway. His hair was comically ragged - someone, a child or possibly retarded adult, had long ago tried to cut his hair with scissors, but given up partway through. There were bald patches and half-hacked patches; he looked like a mop run over with a lawn mower.
I took him to the vet. I didn't have a dog box with me for the scooter, so I tucked him into my jacket and zipped him up, with his shaggy head poking through my collar. The Koreans looked at me, shall we say, "with interest". But he rode calmly all the way to the vet, fortunately not urinating on my nice red-striped shirt.
I played with him in front of the vet's office while waiting for the vet to show up. He sniffed around the parking lot with lively interest and stuck his tiny head all the way in a drainpipe to lap up a little bit of water. The pitifulness of this TRANSFIXED me, and I ruminated thus: "Poor guy..."
The vet arrived and I deposited the pup with orders to groom and examine him. Randi and I toyed with names all day; initially I favored "Perestroika", but she suggested "Hobak," which is Korean both "pumpkin", but is also slang for "ugly girl". But it didn't quite roll off the tongue, so we went with "Jjang", which is Korean for "very good" or "awesome," and is fun to say.
After work, I returned to the vet's, and he told me that Jjang has a mostly clean bill of health, except for an inflammation of the anus. Wow! But a shot of antibiotics ought to clear that up. He weighs only about two kilograms, it turns out, after the shaving. I took him home, and he met Sadie. They warmed up to each other quickly and were soon chasing each other up and down the apartment.
Jjang slept in Sadie's old bed next to our bed - he won't get to sleep ON the bed until he's pad-trained. Still working on that. When I came home from work today, he went berserk and tried to climb up my leg. He's attached! So is Randi. Not I. I am immune to human sentiment.

so yeah, things are going pretty well so far! sadie and jjang play all the time! jjang is much tinier than sadie but he holds his own! he's 4 lbs. and she's 10 or 11. we're in the process of pad-training him. he pees on the pads about half the time and on the floor half the time :o( it's been quite a while since we've had to pad train a puppy so it's hard getting back in the swing of it and realizing we need to be veerrry patient! i'm hoping he learns faster than sadie did! it took her about a month or two to totally stop peeing on the floor.

now if all i was having to deal with was pad training a puppy it wouldn't be so bad but since we're also in the process of getting ready to move and start at new schools we've got some added stress. tonight i've been trying to clean the apt. up because my co-t is coming to inspect it tomorrow. i guess to make sure all the stuff is in here that needs to be in here. and it's been quite a hassle since i've already had to clean up pee twice and settle some fights over bones, etc. lol

i just hope it looks decent enough for her tomorrow and that we can get it all spic and span before we move (for the new people).

the movers are also coming by tomorrow to give us a quote on how much it'll cost to move the stuff we need to move. we're taking a few pieces of furniture with us that we bought ourselves like the dresser and bookshelves along with all our small junk. i think they might be dropping off the baskets that we'll be putting all our stuff in too (they don't use boxes here. they use these big plastic baskets.) i was surprised they'd be dropping them off so soon cuz last time we moved they didn't give us the baskets until 1-2 days before we had to move. so i'm glad we'll have longer to pack this time.

it's getting so close!! jens and i went to immigration today and extended our visas and alien registration cards for another year. that's expensive! 80,000won per person for a multiple entry visa. that's a little less than $80 these days. and the multi- entry is so that we can visit other countries and come back. everything went pretty smoothly so that good! :o)

i'll be getting a raise this year which is nice :o) jens doesn't get one because he's already at the highest level (well there's one more level but you have to live here like 5 years or have a masters in educ. or something to get there). and almost all the english teachers in jeollanamdo will be getting another raise in the next couple of months because the exchange rate is so bad right now. so that's really nice! we're really hating the exchange rate right now. we don't even wanna send money home because we'll "lose" so much. for example before the economic crisis if we sent 1 million won home it'd be about $1000. but now if we send 1 million won home it's only $755!!! we're hoping it'll get better.

anyway, we've got a busy weekend lined up! sat. we're celebrating little eoghan's first birthday in the afternoon and then that night the fighting mokpo all-stars (band jens is in) will be performing at alex and katrina's going away party at p club (that's the couple we're replacing). then on sunday there's a picnic on yudal mountain which i'm really looking forward too. i hope it's warm. it had been pretty warm for a few days there but today it was a little chilly because it rained over night.

then next week is my last week! i can't believe it! i don't even have to work the entire week actually. wed. is my last day and i might get out early because jens scheduled the movers to come then. we're off thursday! (yaaay!) so we'll get to unpack and settle in. then friday is our first day at our new schools. but i duno if we'll have to go in for the full day and actually teach or what. all the brand new teachers will just be getting into mokpo that day. so i doubt we'll have to teach. i wanna get my room set up with all the things i bought in the states when we visited. i got some big continent posters, abc cursive chart, a couple other posters, etc.

then that sat. we'll meet our replacements, show them around town and then there'll probably be a welcome dinner for all the newbies that night.

i think jens and i will have a housewarming party on sat. may 2nd which will be fun. i'm still super excited about having a bigger place :o) you'll definitely be seeing some pictures once i get time to load them.

speaking of pictures. i'm gonna go add pics of jjang to facebook right now! have a great week! live*love*laugh!

Almost time to move!!!!

It's April! Yay! I feel like writing a colorful blog today! :o) It's actually beginning to look a lot like Spring here in Mokpo, South Korea! The Cherry Blossoms are blooming :o) I LOVE them! It's still pretty cold though so I'm hoping it'll warm up soon!

But now that it's April I feel like I can begin my countdown to the time we move and start our NEW jobs!!! We've got about 2.5 weeks! Woohoo!

Now, first of all I wanna get some venting out of the way. So here goes:

I was a bit frustrated this past week because I called in sick on Monday (everyone has a cold right now) and on Tuesday my co-t actually gave me crap for it. She said I shouldn't ever call in on a Monday because I should have time to rest on Sat. and Sun. which I can understand to a certain extent but you can't help what day you get sick! I felt the worst on Monday so I called in. In Korea they don't have the concept of - if you're sick, STAY HOME! They think you should always come to work no matter what. I've never had a co-t that has ever taken even ONE sick day! So you can imagine the conflict between the Korean teachers and the foreign teachers here when it comes to sick days. Foreigners see it as- I get FIFTEEN sick days in my contract so I'm allowed 15 days. Period. No questions asked. Yet as soon as a foreigner takes ONE day their school freaks out! The first time I took a sick day my principal had my co-t come to my house to check on me! (Which would be so inappropriate in the U.S. - an invasion of privacy). It was like he thought- omg, if she called in she must be dying! Better check on her! either that or - I don't believe she's sick, better go see.

What frustrated me so much this time was that it's the beginning of the school year. I'd only be working at this school for 2 months of this school year. I've got like 10-12 sick days left to use. This school has been working with me for 2 years. They know that I take sicks days eeeeevery so often. And I'm about to leave forever and never work for them again. Yet STILL when I take ONE sick day they have to scold me over it and act all put out. The thing is I know I didn't put out my co-t by not being there Monday. I know for a fact that she has no problem teaching by herself. I know this because she practically takes over my portion of the teaching every time I try to teach. It's obvious she'd be happier if I just wasn't there. But because she had to tell the principal that I wasn't coming to school and because of the way Korean culture is she felt she had to say something.

In my opinion it just created unneccesary awkwardness and tension between us. Because she scolded me it made me angry and frustrated and made me not want to interact with her for most of the week. I felt like it was a bad time to pick a battle ya know? I've got 2.5 weeks left! What's the point in trying to change my "sick day" behavior now? It's like just wait 2.5 weeks and you'll be rid of me! lol

What I think needs to happen though is this- Korean teachers need to be better informed of what foreigners are like, what their culture is like and how they're going to think about certain things. For example- sick days. Korean teachers should be told that in most English speaking countries- when you're sick, you call in, no questions asked (within reason of course! if you call in like 3 days in a row someone might need to say something. or if you call in like once a week for 3 weeks or something that's definitely grounds for a talking to but you get what i mean). KTs should just be aware that FTs have a right to take 15 days a year within reason. They shouldn't say something to us the first time we ever take a sick day. Or if we only take one like once every 3 months or something they shouldn't scold us. No FT I've ever known has ever taken all of their 15 days. It's not like we're abusing the privelage of having the days. Most people take one just eeeevery once in a while- like you might back home. And I think Korean teachers (and principals, etc.) just need to accept that. There are things we FTs have to accept about Korean culture and I just believe this is one thing KTs should back down from. It's not that big of a deal and esp. in elem. school it doesn't mean that the classes won't get taught- there's always a co-t there to fill in, no problem.

Ok I'm off my soapbox now :o)

Anyway! I'm hoping my new school (the high school) won't be as uptight about sick days. I've already asked my "predecessor" about it and apparently he's never had much of a problem. His co-t doesn't act put out, she doesn't call him later in the day or show up at his apt. to check on him and doesn't scold him the next day at school. So that sounds nice :o) This whole sick day ordeal at my school has been the bain of my existence for TWO YEARS! I have always gotten flack for it every single time I've taken a sick day so it'll be really nice not to have that problem anymore :o)

Of course I do realize I will have other, different problems at my new school lol Mainly, the main co-t. I don't have to teach with her but she's sort of my "guide" in and out of school in Korea. I go to her for help with immigration issues, apt. issues, getting a cell phone, and anything related to "life in Korea" and my "predecessor" calls her "the retard" lol ...for good reason! She apparently has no clue how to interact with people (asks inappropriate questions and is super awkward), gets confused about the simplest of things (even in her everyday life in Korea...not due to translation problems), and many other things. So I'm not really looking forward to dealing with her. But! it sounds like there will be several other English teachers that are really cool and helpful. So that'll be good :o)

I'll be teaching 1st and 2nd grade high school (which is 10th and 11th grade in the U.S. - I know it's really weird how they do it here) and I'll have 8 classes of each grade so 16 classes a week I believe...plus one extra class and one teachers class. Something like that. Doesn't sound bad at all.

I'll have my own classroom with my very own attached office! Plus I'll have another desk up in some teachers staff room which I'll have to go to every once in a while. So all in all I'll have like 3 desks in the school which is pretty cool. I'm most excited about having my own classroom though. Like really my OWN! I don't even have to share it with a co-t like I do now at the elem. school. So I can really and truly do whatever I want!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I'm ecstatic about that!!! I can decorate it how I want, I can make my own rules and punishment system and ACTUALLY implement it! And I can teach whatever I want, however I want (to a certain extent of course- I'm sure if I just showed movies every day that wouldn't fly lol). But I'll have total autonomy- I can't even believe it! I've been dealing with co-ts at my current school for so long I can hardly imagine what it'll be like to actually have some say in what goes on in my classroom! Yipee!!! When I leave the elem. school I'm really gonna have to resist the urge to say SO LONG SUCKA'S!!! lol

Now I know I will be replaced by another person and I don't want it to sound like that person is going to have a horrible time at my school- they most likely will have a fine time if not a great time! Why? Because it'll be their first year. I think the first year is the easiest in a lot of ways because you're brand new, you don't know much about the country and how it works and why it is the way it is. So when weird things happen at school you kinda just blow it off. You chock it up to cultural differences and don't worry about it that much. It's when you've finished a year here and go through a second that things start to get a little difficult because now you know a lot about the country and you see why certain things are the way they are. You see the things you believe to be faults and how they could fix them, yet they don't fix them so it's frustrating, ya know? I know that sounds really ethnocentric but it's true. You can't help but project your own values and culture on Korea when you're here long enough. That's just how it is.

So yeah, I'm sure the new girl will be just fine at the elem. school. It's a pretty good gig overall. The schedule is good. It doesn't look like they're going to force extra classes on her. There's an English classroom which makes so many things so much easier. The co-t speaks really good English so there's not as much chance for things to get lost in translation (there's just the chance of cultural differences getting in the way). There are a lot of things about the school and the job that are positive. I've just worked there two years and need to move on to something different. I need a change.

Anywhoooo- tonight is the 1950s style welcome to Mokpo/birthday party for our contact person at the JOE (Jeollanamdo Office of Educ.) The entire office is moving to Muan so she'll be living in Mokpo now (they're next to each other). The Fighting Mokpo All-Stars will be performing! It's Jens, Alex B., Nick K. and another guy I've never met. They've been practicing 50s tunes all week and it's been pretty fun to listen to :o) I grew up listening to that stuff with my parents on 98.7 KLUV! lol Made me kinda homesick.

I'm gonna try to find a pink scarf to wear in my hair today. I think Katrina is gonna go downtown with me. I also wanna see if there are any affordable, business-style clothes down there. I feel my wardrobe is a bit too relaxed compared to what Korean teachers wear most of the time. I just wanna get a couple items to spruce things up a bit...if there's anything affordable. Last time I looked I could only find tops for like 100,000won! Koreans spend way too much on clothes!

Then tomorrow is little Eoghan's b-day. He'll be 1 year old! It's crazy to think it's already been over a year since Crystal and I threw Amanda her baby shower! That was the first baby shower I had ever helped host and now I'm about to co-host a 3rd one! Abby's pregnant and Shanna and I are planning her baby shower for end of June/early July. I'm so excited! I love party planning in general. Wish I could do it back home but I dunno how to get into it...plus it prob. doesn't pay much...

Pretty soon here we're gonna have to go over to the new apt. and figure out what all we wanna keep/switch out, etc. We're gonna switch out some of the stuff that we bought ourselves. Like we wanna keep our coffee pot, dishes, some utensils, etc. So we'll take ours over there and bring theirs over here. We won't be taking anything that's meant to stay in this apt. though. Stuff that belongs to the school.

I'm SO excited about having a 3 bedroom apt. though!!! I just can't wait!! It's gonna be so nice. I was pretty content with our apt. this year but it's just really exciting to finally be living in one of the big apts.! We'll actually have space to walk all the way around our bed! and we'll have a table that can seat SIX people! and we'll have a REAL desk! (not a converted vanity table on stilts lol) and we'll have a looooong balcony and tons of storage! and a BIG sink! and TWO wardrobes! oh AND a closet!!! omg the list just goes on and on! not to brag or anything :o) I'm just getting excited to finally have all these creature comforts :o) some people are lucky enough to get a big apt. their first year. It's just a matter of what job you happen to get. So it just so happened we were stuck with a tiny apt. our first year and for our 2nd year we convinced our schools to move us but we still ended up with a less than ideal-sized apt. It was definitely better than the first so that's why I've been fairly content with it. But it's just awesome to finally get one of the biggest apts. out of all the foreigner apts. in Mokpo. Now I'll have no problem when it comes to having big parties! I can invite everyone! Yay!

So that's what's going on in my world- finishing up the elem. school job. About to move to a big apt. and start working at the high school. Going to birthday parties. Cuddling with the puppy :o) (she's doing just fine by the way). Enjoying the coming of Spring! Anticipating warm weather! And that's about it for now :o)

I may not update again til after we move. Not sure yet, we'll see. Until then I hope you all have a wonderful April! :oD

things are good :o)

so last friday jens and i had some korean friends over for dinner- his co-teacher (kim ool ji), her boyfriend (___ seon oo - don't remember surname. he is a p.e. teacher at my school) and pak ji on (a young, male, 6th grade teacher from jens's school). they're all younger than us- like 23-24. we made fajitas and they liked them. then ji on grabbed jens's guitar and started playing so jens broke out his electric and they started jamming a little. then ool ji noticed we had a violin (which i thought was broken) so she got it out, tightened the strings and started playing that! it was so cool! at one point jens and ool ji did an interesting rendition of la bamba on guitar, harmonica and violin lol

we also looked at arlington, tx and mokpo on google earth and had strawberry shortcake for dessert Po: it was a great time! we're gonna go to ji on's this friday and have korean food so that should be fun. i'm hoping he makes something we like! lol

sat. we went to kat and alex's for brunch and they made some yummy east coast canadian style food: fish cakes, baked beans, fried eggs and fruit. it was so good! then we just hung out and chatted into the afternoon. we talked about their current jobs/our future jobs and what we'd want them to keep in the apt. for us. i'm SO excited about having a bigger place! it's got THREE bedrooms! one will be our bedroom, one will be the office and one will be the yoga room/guest room.

sunday we had a book swap at a coffee shop near our place but not many people showed up. then that night we went back over to kat and alex's for a game night. shanna, joe and jason joined us and we played chez geek, catan and madgab. oh and katrina had made some amazing chilli for dinner! omg it was awesome! i'm definitley gonna have to make chilli sometime here. i guess i never did before because beef was so expensive for so long and then jens and i started eating vegetarian at home. but i'm definitely going to make some sometime Po:

the past two days at work have been alright. i was a little frustrated monday but i got over it lol i won a small battle with my co-t. she wanted to show the kids this horrible, slightly racist role play video on the cd-rom but i prepared another activity to do instead and she gave in :o)

next week i'll be starting a conversation class with the 6th graders. it's not really an extra class. i won't get paid for it because it won't go over my hours i'm alotted in the contract. each day after lunch 1/2 of a 6th grade class will come in and have a very informal convo class with me for 20 mins. i only do it 4 days a week. so that amounts to 80 mins. a week. the schedule will go like this: monday 6-1 girls, tuesday 6-1 boys, thursday 6-2 girls, friday 6-2 boys. and it'll go on until i've gone through all six of the 6th grade classes and then start over again. so each group will see me like once a month...that's really not much. but korean people love to look like they're doing something worthwhile lol

anyway, in other news- we got an english world map! this 2nd grade teacher randomly gave us one! i dunno where he got it! i was gonna get one but didn't know where to buy one in korea and didn't really wanna spend the money to get one shipped from the states and then lo and behold one appears! pretty cool! so now the kids can finally find the various countries on the map that we've been talking about the past 3 weeks lol

another thing that recently appeared in mokpo and that i'm even more elated about is a tom 'n tom's coffee!!! it's this cool coffee shop that sells pretzels :o) like the good handmade kind with different toppings :o) mmmmm. jens and i went to one in seoul and liked it and now we have one in mokpo! yaaaay! mokpo's really moving up in the world! lol

this weekend we've got that dinner with our korean friends, then it's our friend's b-day party sat. night and sunday jens is having a chess tournament at ti amo (coffee and gelato place). so it'll be another busy weekend!

we've just got about one month til we move and change jobs! i think we're actually going to get one day off to move and arrange our apt. which i'm really happy about. i was afraid we'd have to call in sick or something lol

overall things are going well. we're making it through our last month at our school, jens has started writing his second novel, we've been exercising in various ways, having fun with friends, cooking new foods, and having a good time! :oD

second week down

this past week was our second week of school in which we actually taught classes. we have 6 6th grade classes and 6 3rd grade classes. we see 6th grade twice a week and 3rd grade once a week. we have a seating chart for each class which i think will help a lot with discipline and it's already been helpful in calling on students. i'm doing to write the romanization under each korean name so that the new girl can read it when she first gets here. most likely she won't know how to read korean yet...at least not perfectly.

so things went pretty well. we just introduces the rules and punishments to each class. well to the 6th grade at least. in the 3rd grade classes my co-t didn't want to tell them about the punishment procedures for some reason. i think she thinks the 3rd graders will be so good that we'll never have to discipline them....yeah i know, it's crazy! lol i think i'm going to talk to her this week about letting them know the system the next time we teach them.

we also had a bit of a disagreement on how to dismiss the students. she would tell them bye and wait until they were halfway out of their seats to tell them we had a specific procedure for leaving the classroom. THEN she would tell them how to leave. it was unneccesarily confusing. but not that big of a deal.

a bigger deal was that she went over time in every single class and then the homeroom teachers kept having their students show up early. i told my co-t we should have the students line up outside the door until it's actually time for class so we can actually have a break but she said- can't they come in and sit in their seats? i was like well we need a break between classes. and she just gave me a look that let me know she was going to completely ignore what i said lol so yeah, all the classes have been coming in early but i'm still taking my breaks between classes. i need them to stay sane. i have to have that 10 mins. to just sit down and prepare my mind for the next class.

lunch has been more fun than usual now that the 5th and 6th grade p.e. teachers have been sitting with me and talking to me in english. it makes a world of difference! they're really funny. they talk about the most random things sometimes. i guess because they're not sure what to talk about and also they have limited english. the 6th grade p.e. teacher is dating jens's co-t so we're having them and another teacher from jens's school over this fri. we're gonna make fajitas. it'll be really nice to have some korean people over. we haven't been that successful in making korean friends here. the two we have live in other cities now and it's hard to see them. in fact we have a 3rd korean friend but she lives in australia! lol

anyway, the weekend was nice. i think we stayed in friday night and all day and night sat. there was a hike planned sat. but it actually SNOWED sat. morning! isn't that crazy? being texan we couldn't really get over the fact that it had snowed and couldn't bring ourselves to go out until like 5pm lol we took the dog for a walk, got a few groceries and then went in again for the night.

sunday i made biscuits and i used the baking powder abby and j brought us from canada for the first time and MAN did it make a difference! korean baking powder is crap! it makes all our baked goods smell like chemicals for some reason! like bleach! it's horrible. but not only did the canadian baking powder not smell like bleach but it also made the biscuits taste better than any biscuits i'd ever made with korean baking powder. they were AMAZING! if i do say so myself ;o) lol

then i met up with a bunch of my girl friends at ti amo (coffee and gelato place) to vote on who we thought would win this season of america's next top model! :oD we're all putting 10,000won in "the hat" and whoever picks the girl who wins will get the money pot! we did it last season and i won, which was nice :o)

then that night we had dinner with a and j.

and today was monday! we're doing the second part of lesson one with 6th grade this week and it's all about "where are you from" so i gave 10 kids a different country's flag each and then i asked them where are you from? after they told me i looked up that country on google earth and they loved it! they thought it was really amazing to see real pictures of all these different countries and cities. i showed them my parents house and our school and it was really fun :o) i LOVE google earth!

no one has mentioned extra classes to me and i'm wondering if they're going to have me do any before i leave. like i said before i gave my co-t a list of my "demands" lol but i dunno if she really understood the fact that i'm either gonna do that or nothing. i'm worried they're planning it all out a different way and they're gonna come to me and say oh here's what you're teaching next month. the kids have already signed up and the parents have paid, etc. and if it's different than what i said i'd do then i'm gonna be pretty annoyed. i'm just gonna have to say no. i told you what i would do and this isn't it. it would be so AWESOME if i didn't have to do any at all before i leave though! i'm loving having the afternoons free. it's such a relief to come back from lunch and be DONE!

i know a lot of people would consider me lazy because i'm complaining about possibly having to work one more hour a day but i've just always hated working! i dunno what it is! i mean i know a lot of people don't like to work but i've also known a lot of people who have said- i like to work to keep busy. i dunno what i'd do with myself if i didn't have to work, etc. i, on the other hand, truly, truly hate it. i'd be ecstatic if i never had to work again! i mean i've really liked some of the jobs i've had at the beginning. but it doesn't matter how much i like it in the beginning i ALWAYS get sick of it! and i wonder if that's how it's always going to be. if i'm never going to find a job that i don't get sick of after a couple years. i have ideas of jobs that i think i'd be interested in and possibly passionate about but i worry that i'd just get sick of those too. i wish i could just not work and just volunteer doing things i'm really interested in and enjoy doing and i can hop from one thing to another so i never get tired of whatever i'm doing! that'd be great!

but for now i guess i just have to stick this out! :oP

alright i'm gonna go make dinner! have a great day!

the first week of school is done!

so this past week was the first week of school. kind of weird to get back in the swing of things. i have the same co-teacher as last year. she didn't want to teach english this year. she wanted to be a 4th grade homeroom teacher but she was denied. she actually threw a tantrum like a two year old which was pretty weird but hopefully she's gotten over it and won't be a horrible co-teacher...

the best part of the job this year is we have our own english classroom! we spent the first few days cleaning it and organizing it. it made me want to bring the wonderful invention of the 4 foot long broom to korea. all the brooms here are like 2 feet long and you have to bend over to sweep. and for some reason they don't use vacuums in schools so it takes FOREVER to clean the floors. they don't even bother mopping...

there's a desk at the front of the room which will be my co-teacher's desk and we'll use her computer for teaching the class. i have a desk at the back of the room and it took all week to hook up my computer and get the internet going. so needless to say i got a little restless. i cleaned, i read, i tried knitting but didn't like the yarn i was using, i slept, ate hershey's kisses and doodled.

finally i got internet on my computer thursday at 4pm and spent all day friday on it...making up for lost time i guess lol

i've tried talking to my co-teacher about this next year but she's not been very receptive. i made a rules sheet and then she acted like i had wasted my time. i suggested a punishment system and she avoided talking about it. i asked her what she wanted to do for discipline and she said she'd think about it and then never brought it up again. i told her what i would be willing to do for extra classes the next two months and she said the parents would decide (???), so i didn't bother telling her my ideas for classroom procedures or how we should teach. since she's been so resistant and i'm only there two more months i don't feel like pushing too hard. i have a feeling that even if i got everything set up wonderfully that once the new girl gets here my school/co-t would still do whatever they want. so whatever...

we have a new principal. i've seen him but haven't officially met him.

we're teaching 3rd and 6th this year. korean students start taking english in 3rd grade so they should be really easy. 6th graders on the other hand start out normal and then turn into little demons...glad i'm not gonna be here for the end of the semester/year lol

we've been talking to alex and kat about their schools. we're taking their jobs at the end of april. sounds like both schools are gonna be pretty awesome. alex has some new co-teachers and he says they're all pretty cool and kat has a new co-t who's a young girl so she's easy to work with. i'm hoping things go really well with these new jobs. i hope we want to stay two years. having the bigger apt. is gonna be great! i can't wait for that! :o) we're gonna have THREE bedrooms! freaking awesome!

friday night we had a little welcome back dinner with friends at the gamchatang restaurant and then song's beer. well after dinner a bunch of us went to ti amo and had coffee and ice cream before meeting up with the others at song's beer. it was fun :o)

yesterday jens and i chilled at the house and then alex and kat came over for dinner. i made irish stew and i have to say - it was amazing! lol i hadn't ever really made anything like that before - a dish you have to cook for a loooong time. it was soooo gooood :o)

then this morning there was a book swap at dunkin' donuts in hadang. it was the biggest one i had been to. lots of people showed up so that was cool. we weren't going to take any books but we couldn't help ourselves lol

after the swap some of us had lunch at little jakob's. then jens and i went home and took the dog for a walk. it was actually not freezing today! makes me think winter might actually end!

after that we came back to the apt. and jens played video games while i watched a movie. i watched american teen a movie which is a documentary about some real life teens. it was good! made me somewhat nostalgic for high school but also really glad i'm a lot wiser than i was in high school lol sometimes i wish i could go back as the person i am today...i think i'd have a lot more fun than i did back in the day!

the weekend went by really fast. i guess cuz we did so much. this next week we start teaching. the first lesson in every class will just be intro though so that'll be easy. teaching the book will be easy too but i'm a little apprehensive about it. i guess it's just cuz i haven't worked for soooo long. i'm out of the habit lol

i think this semster will go by really fast though because we're changing schools. i think i'm gonna volunteer at the orphanage too so i'll be busier. a bunch of my friends volunteer there and i'm looking forward to being involved in that.

jens met some guy at the book swap that has pretty much all the same music tastes as him and loves to perform music so i think they're gonna try to jam soon. jens said this guy wants to learn the drums so maybe that pressure will be off me now lol drums were fun but i don't think they're really my thing...

a friend of mine is talking about leading some yoga sessions on the weekends which i'm really excited about :o) jens and i have been pretty good about doing yoga on our own but i usually have to lead our sessions (unless we use a yoga video) and i really prefer following someone else. so i'm happy to hear there might be a class situation in the works! esp. in english!

anyhoo, that's about all for now. hope you all had a lovely weekend! peace, love and happiness to everyone!!

this is so important to know!!!!!!

If you don't smoke but live or work in a smoke-filled environment, that's still going to age you. Spending just one hour in the presence of secondhand smoke is the equivalent of your smoking four cigarettes. Whether the smoke you're breathing is from your own cigarette or someone else's, it ages your arteries, increases your risk of heart and lung disease, weakens your immune system, and promotes cancer.

- Dr. Oz on Oprah

and people wonder why i hate being around smoke so much!

it's korean spring break!

so! the end of graduation week was pretty nerve-wracking because my computer broke and i couldn't use it for about 3 days! one morning it just turned off and never would turn back on! the "computer girl", as i call her, was super busy and never had a chance to come fix it. she looked at it quickly once and said- sorry i can't fix it now. so that was that. i spent a lot of time reading, planning for this school year and knitting. my co-teacher kindly let me use her computer quite a bit so i wasn't totally technology-free but it was definitely nerve-wracking nonetheless. without my computer i felt it was even more pointless for me to be there. it made it even more obvious that i had absolutely nothing to do at school and should just be at home lol

but! i got through it and i learned some important information. my school will have a new principal this year! this could change the entire environment of my school. this is what happened at jens's school. jens loved his school for the first year and a half. it was the reason that no matter how much i didn't like my school we wouldn't change schools because we could end up with TWO schools we didn't like. so we stayed. then...jens got a new principal last semester and it completely ruined the nice little thing he had going on there. i won't go into it but suffice it to say that the principal has a lot of sway and can make you either love or hate your school. my principal has always been pretty cool so i'm anxious to see what the new one will be like. whatever the case i'll only be there for two months so it won't matter much whether he's cool or not.

the thing that will affect me more on a day to day basis is the fact that i will most likely have a new co-teacher also. my current co-t wants to teach 4th grade this year (and didn't tell me until i dragged it out of her). no one will know what they will be teaching this year until feb. 25th. that's right, they don't tell anyone what their job will be for the semester until about 5-6 DAYS before the school year begins! i asked my co-t if she just had to prepare for the new job ahead of time and hope she got it and she said yes. she said if there is no one else to teach english then she will just have to teach english again and not 4th grade. so she will have prepared to be a 4th grade teacher for nothing. now if they told the teachers what they'd be teaching this year, say, in dec. then they could prepare all break for their new job. makes sense right? i have no idea why they don't do that.

so next week on feb. 25th i have to go to school, sit through a meeting in korean and then find out who my new co-t is (if i have one).

the GOOD news is: my school will have an english classroom this year!! yaaaaaay! it will make teaching SO much easier! you see for the past (almost) 2 years my co-t and i have had to go to each homeroom class to teach the kids english. going into each class was like going into a completely different environment everytime. this was the homeroom teacher's domain. s/he decided the seating chart (and when to randomly change it), the set up of the room, the rules, what kids could get away with, etc. it was chaos! we never had any real authority.

but with our own classroom things will be really different. it'll be OUR environment. the kids will come to us. we'll have it set up the way we want, we can post our rules, etc. AND have seating charts of our own so that we might actually be able to learn kids' names, see who's absent, etc. it'll just be so much better. i've told my school this ever since i've been there and they always said that they just had too many students and there were no extra classrooms. but this year there are less 6th grade students so they'll have one room free- FOR US! yaaaaaay! it's kind of funny that i'm so excited about something that i'll only use for 2 months. i guess it's because i know it'll make a difference for the new girl too.

by the way, jens and i have been in touch with our replacements for quite some time now. ever since we were in texas. they're a couple from canada and they seem really nice. we've been giving them lots of info about korea. they'll be taking over our jobs at the end of april (when we move to our new apt. and jobs).

i told my co-t that we've already been in touch with them for a while and she was totally shocked! lol she was like what??? already? but how? she was pretty much dumbfounded and i wanted to be like yeah- north americans like to plan things IN ADVANCE! you should try it sometime lol korean people most likely don't even think about the english teacher replacement until about a week before they're supposed to arrive lol i have to say that i will never enjoy the korean way of waiting til the absolute last possible minute to decide anything.

well after that i remembered to mention to my co-t that jens and i will need to be getting our key money back when we move. see, our first year here we were living in this tiny box of an apt. and so the second year we asked to be moved to a bigger place. well it turns out that the reason we were living in that tiny place is because it was an officetel and didn't require key money (large deposit). if we wanted to live in a big apt. complex we'd need to pay key money. neither of our schools nor city hall would cough up the money so we figured it'd be worth it to pay it ourselves for the extra square footage. and it was. (the only reason we thought we wouldn't have to pay for it was because most other couples have big apts. with no problem). i just hope that now that we're moving we can get that money back from somewhere without any trouble. if the schools want to keep the apt. they'll need to give us the money. if they don't wanna give us the money then they'll need to find a different apt. and we'll get paid back from the apt. complex. i talked to my co-t about it and she said the schools wouldn't probably just look for a new apt. which is surprising because the key money is 1 million won (which is like $650 with the exchange rate these days) and it seems like it'd be a lot easier for them to keep the apt. and just pay us back rather than search for a new place. but korean people seem to be verrrry uptight about money.

for example, last semester i asked for a raise in extra class pay - the kids' parents would only have to pay me an extra $5 or $10 a month (depending on the class) but my principal said no way. we have to have a meeting with the parents and officially change the rate between school years! can you believe it? this was between semesters and they still thought it'd be too big of a deal to ask for $5 or $10 more per month! i can't believe they'd even need to have a meeting with the parents about it at all. i would just be like- hey it's $15 instead of $10 now. period. lol but so be it.

at the beginning of this school year i'm going to tell my co-t (whoever it is) that if they want me to do extra classes this is how much i want to get paid. period. if they don't want to pay me that then i won't do them. it's the principal of it. i get paid less than other english teachers do for their classes. and i want it to be fair. esp. for the next girl. i want to get it changed before she starts working there so she doesn't get taken advantage of like i was when i started. anyway, that'll be my main beef when school starts lol

the other things i'm gonna have to let my co-t know is that i don't go to monday morning meetings and i don't go to volleyball. i just got that set up at the beginning of last semester and now i'll have a new principal AND a new co-t so i'm hoping they don't give me any trouble on that. hopefully they'll cut their losses and not worry about it since i'll be leaving soon.

i know i must sound like a hardass but i'm about to start my 3rd year here and i've learned that if you don't stand up for your rights you'll get walked on.

the way i see it i'm not gonna be in korean society long enough to reap the benefits of being a brown-noser like the rest of the young people here so i'm not going to let them take advantage of me. ya know what i mean? if you're korean, you do everything for your elders when you're young. then when you get older people do things for you. but me, i'm not korean and i'm not going to live here for more than 4 years. so i don't really fit into their society and therefore shouldn't have to work under all the same rules they do. i'll do my job and i'll even do some favors but i'm not going to be a slave if i'm not going to reap any benefits from it later.

i just wish korean employers wouldn't expect their foreign employees to bascially BE korean. we need to learn from each other. i'll do a couple extra things at school, i'll bow to everyone, i'll hand you things with respect, i'll speak as much korean as i can, etc. but then the korean people need to understand things like: we shouldn't have to come to volleyball if we hate it and that they shouldn't punish us with shortened vacations because we didn't.

anyway, i didn't want this entry to turn into a "what i don't like about korea" post lol there are just a few things i'll never like. i may understand the way it is but i feel like i'll never really accept certain things. i'll always think there's a better way of doing them lol

now let me go back a bit and clarify that i don't think there's anything wrong with doing things for your elders. i think that's great! it's wonderful to honor your elders for their sacrifice and to respect them and do nice things for them. BUT i feel it goes a little too far in korea sometimes. i feel the elders take advantage of the young people quite a bit. the elders expect the young people to do absolutely everything for them from fetching them coffee before they even ask to putting up with their illegal smoking in elementary schools to i dunno- just being ready to spring into action with a snap of the fingers. the young people seem to live in fear and anxiety of their elders. it's so robotic that it never seems genuine when a young person does something nice for an older person. it just seems like protocol. and the elders are so used to having things done for them that they don't even try to do certain things for themselves. it's especially bad with men. men seem to have authority over women in every case no matter the age. it wouldn't surprise me if some men don't even know how to make their own coffee or wash a dish.

ugh, i'd better stop now. i seem to be in a venting mood lol

i don't want people to think that i hate korea or that i'm a negative person. i'm just making social commentary. just talking about the things i see here and how i feel about them. i am grateful to be here. i'm glad i've been hired to teach english in korea. it's been a great opportunity to live in a foreign country and see what it's like. there are some great things about korea and some negative things about my own country. it goes both ways. i guess it's just easier to put up with my own country since that's where i'm from lol

which reminds me of one more thing- it seems like in korea there's all this shame around admitting that there are negative things about their country. if you ever try to mention anything negative, korean people try to turn it around on you and make it seem like you're being positive or they criticize you for being negative. it's like they just want to ignore the bad stuff. whereas in america if we see that something is negative about our country we admit it and try to change it. it's like oh that's wrong? ok let's change it and move on! no big deal! we don't seem to really feel shame about it.

quite interesting indeed.

it's even more interesting to think about how when a person comes here, or to any foreign country, they basically bring their whole country with them. the culture, the ideas, the opinions, the way of doing things. you come with more baggage than just your suitcase. and it really affects your life. if you want to see how your country has made you who you are, just go live in another country! lol

my country has made me:
see everyone as equal whether they're my student or my boss
expect to be judged on my work rather than how i socialize
sensitive to injustice
prone to activism
tolerant of different people and their different likes and dislikes
accepting of constructive critism
desire variety
want to plan things in advance (at least a little in advance, esp. when it comes to work!)
prefer central ac and heat and closed windows! lol

and on that note! i'm going to bed! have a great day or night!