Dracula Time

My costume inspiration


Halloween is always, without a doubt, the one time of the year that makes me feel homesick. It happened in college, and it's happening now. Halloween is Ross' favorite holiday, and it's been a very massive bummer that for the last 5 years of my life I don't get to celebrate with him.


The last two Fridays have been Halloween parties for both A and B week. Lots of fun. The kids were really excited. Some have had Halloween parties with other teachers, some just liked the sounds of it. We talked about Halloween words, Halloween traditions. I was going to play Halloween bingo with some of my classes, but there were some serious issues with the copy machine and I abandoned that endeavor. I did Hansel and Gretel with some of my classes, and Sleepy Hollow with another class. All my tests were done on Thursday, and then Friday was all about snacks. I got Chocopies and lollipops for all the kids, in some classes we played games (or wrote Halloween stories as a whole class). I had a highly censored conversation with some of my 7th graders about how Halloween is celebrated in college and how people usually dress for Halloween in America. I dressed up as a baby seal with a fish on my head, a la my pillow. Koreans seem to like putting food on the heads of their cute animals.

Mr. Lee, our supervisor, was out most of Friday, because his wife was having their second baby! It was a boy! No definite name yet.

I'm hoping to attempt an apple pie in the near future, but first I need to go to emart and try to find a pie plate... Trips to emart always make me wish this residence was a little more permanent. It feels like home, I call it home, but I'm trying very hard to keep it in the same mentality I kept my dorm rooms. That said I'm always wishing I could spend a little more of my hard-earned money on nice things for my place (like a new set of curtains). Well, I have no real plans for the weekend, and my life is pretty safely uneventful. It is a nice change of pace to having my classes secretly recorded! I am frustrated because I have twice as many students as Lyn and Britton, and there are actual problems with the majority of my classes not having enough desk space for all the students. I mentioned it to the school's director, but he said there was nothing he could do. I need to revisit the issue, because students keep being moved into my classes, and its just not going to work, maybe if I had a bigger classroom, but not the way things are now.
To everyone back in the states, have a happy Halloween!
~Hannah

I'm back!

Ok, so, first things first. My internet connection is all better now. There was an unnecessary connection box that was messing it up, but it's all hooked up correctly now. We'll see if this holds out. The fun part is that he didn't speak English and had to call Mr. Lee to communicate.

I decided to try bribing my classes this week. I've discovered I like baking, so I told them the class that loses the least amount of minus points would get cookies. it was the best behaved I've seen them. That might have had something to do with the fact that most of the problem children have been transferred out of the my classes. It was a little annoying that I had NO warning about the kids leaving my classes, and that one of them I was finally making progress, and now it's all gone. But what can you do? Fun connecting note the guy came to fix the internet connection while I was in the middle of baking, so that was fun.

I did not go to the Kimchi festival yesterday. I wanted to sleep in, badly, I've been exhausted all week. That plan failed a bit because my body decided to wake up at, like 7 am, but I still tried. I did however go to the "Foreigner Dinner" last night, with Hannah and Mieka and DuYeon. I met some cool people there. The dinner was good, I was a problem child again because it was pork, but I don't eat it so I got these really good, spicy, cold noddles. I think I made some good new friends! Especially this one woman, Ellen, from CA, I see myself hanging out with her sometimes. YAY! Anyway, moving on. After dinner a group of us went for drinks and I ended up staying out really late, just talking with this awesome group of men from America, England, Ireland, South Africa and I think I'm forgetting a country. Oh, and for some of it there was a Korean man there who had pretty good English, knew MunHwa fairly well, and knew Tyrone. He was fun to talk to. But by the end of the night it was me, Seth (the other American), two Irishmen and two Englishmen. The conversation was amazing! We talked about everything from history, to politics. I got into a rather long conversation with one about tennis and soccer. It was a fun night, I'm glad. Everyone was so nice, and open, and welcoming. And I finally made contact with the guy who does the Running club here and joined that Facebook group, so now I have people to run with at least one day a week.

Apparently the Kimchi festival runs for a few days. And I'm going this afternoon, I think, with some of the guys I met last night. I'm kinda excited about that.

I can't think of anything else to say, other than the fact that I highly encourage everyone to take a couple days, unplug the internet and just exist without it for a few days a least. As much as I disliked not being in contact with my friends, not having it was actually a pretty good thing. I ended up liking it a lot, haha. That's all.

~Lyn

Say Kimchi!

It's 750 am. Hannah rolls over, looks at her alarm clock, and says several words that will not be repeated here. "Do I really want to go to the darn kimchi festival?" She asks herself, pulling her baby seal pillow in closer. "What's so special about making kimchi anyways." A few minutes of grumbling later, Hannah's instant coffee is cooling down while she deliriously showers, hoping she can get to the GIC for the 910 bus departure (she does).

So that was my morning. I am very glad that I went to the festival, and also very glad that I went early, because it meant that I got to see the opening ceremonies, which meant I got to see "Kimchi: The interpretive dance!" (People with large vegetables danced around the stage... it was weird). There were people dressed as cabbages walking around, but they disappeared before I could take there picture! I had my kimchi making experience (pretty easy when all you have to do is massage the ingredients into a cabbage), and my kimchi is now sitting happily in my fridge! I also stole the apron they had us wear when we made kimchi, because stealing things is cheaper than buying a t-shirt! Then I walked around the Biennale, which is like there art museum. They had an exhibition called 1000 Lives. Most of it was interesting, some of it was freaking weird. Also, because I went with the GIC I got to meet some new people. It was fun! There's a larger foreign population than you'd think here in Gwangju, and not just teachers, there are also a lot of college students.

Of course, the kicker to the first part of this story: As soon as I got back from the festival and was snuggly in my apartment I got a call from my friend Mieka. They were just getting to the festival... so I totes could've blown off the GIC and gone later... but I guess then I wouldn't have gotten to see my interpretive dance.

Classes are going well, aside from the fist fight in my 5th grade class on Weds... I yelled (really yelled) for the first time at the two boys who were fighting, and now the class is scared of me. The trouble makers in 6th grade are doing better. I had Halloween parties for all my kids on Friday, it was a lot of fun. I gave them all chocopies and lollipops. I'll be doing it again with my classes next week!

Tonight is the monthly Foreigner dinner, so I'll be heading out to that shortly!

~Hannah

In Which Hannah Explains Where Lyn Went and Rambles About Some Other Stuff

Firstly: The internet in Lyn's apartment up and died. That's about all I know of that particular situation, but I'm sure you'll get a full update once that issue is fixed.

It's been a rough weekend here on my end of things but I have decided that, as the focus of this blog is Life in Korea, this is not exactly the place to delve into it. I have my friends and I have my paper journal for all dealing with these moments.

I had my first experience with a Korean pharmacy on Thursday. I've had a horrible cough (probably an upper respiratory infection) for about two weeks. I've put off getting any medication for it because I've been really nervous about accidentally taking something with acetaminophen in it. I had my Korean teacher write me a note to give to the pharmacist that would ensure I didn't get something I couldn't take. The way the pharmacologist determined what medication to give me? He had me hold different pills in my hand and with each pill he swung this top on a string over my hand. When the top spun a certain way it was the "correct medicine." It appears to be working.

I've been taking tea classes with one of my Korean friends at her place of employment. I'm apparently in the 'advanced class' because I have my Korean lessons during the time of the beginner class. It's filled with old women who think I look like Sandy and ask me to get things off of high shelves for them. They are very patient with me, and slowly but surely I am getting the hang of proper Korean etiquette!

I've also had students correctly identify a puppy, and while grading essays I got to make a comment that "It is inappropriate to write essays in crayon." This essay was for a 6th grade class. I've also been giving the unfortunate news that the three major troublemakers in my class will still be in my class this upcoming week. I am once again filled with dread about dealing with my B week classes. I'm at my wits end and just the thought of dealing with that class makes me feel so defeated. I guess we'll see.

~Hannah

In case you were interested...

The 6th grade class that I complained about in my last entry?

One of the transplant students (and also my favorite student ever) recorded the class on his cell phone the other day. He brought that to his parents, saying that he didn't want to come back to the academy. His parent's brought that to the school. I was asked to name the students who were on the recording (the three boys I've had the most trouble with), explain exactly what was going on in the class, and then they had me listen to the recording. It was all in Korean, so I couldn't understand what exactly the boys were saying, but apparently it was pretty vulgar. It was bad enough that Mr. Kang is now considering kicking the boys out of the academy.

I have mixed feelings about all of this. On the one hand, I am of course thrilled with the prospect of getting rid of these insubordinate troublemakers. On the other hand, I'm afraid that this will reflect badly on me as a teacher, and I certainly don't want to come across like a pansy who is incapable of controlling her class.

So I guess we'll just have to see where this goes. On the bright side, they replaced my awesome work computer with a crappy one, and our Korean Class midterm is tomorrow!

Oh... wait...

~Hannah

Hell Week, Awesome Weekend

First of all I would like to point out and apologize because the date/times on our posts have been way off. I fixed it. On to the actual post.

So, this week isn't as bad for me as it is for Hannah, but it's still my worst week, sort of. I'm a little odd with my classes. My B Week classes (this past week), are my less advanced classes. They like me better then my A Week classes on the whole, but they are ridiculous to control. And by ridiculous I mean nearly impossible. My A Week classes I like better because they listen a little better, but for the most part they don't like me. It amuses me. Anyway. I'm glad that I'm done with this week, it was worse then normal.

On Saturday we went to the Gwangju Food Festival. It was AMAZING. They had food from Greece, Japan, Thailand, The Philippines, Russia, North America, Nepal, Nigeria, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, and China. The food was delicious, though in some cases kinda random. For instance, North America (i.e. USA and Canada) had Mac and Cheese, Biscuits and Gravy, Cookies, Brownies and Ice Cream and Pierogis while Russia had Russian Cup Cake, Apple Pie and Cabbage Vegetable Rice. Not to say all were random, but those two definitely threw me for a loop. As well as Greece having Hummus and Lemonade in addition to Kabobs (yummy, though disappointing soulvaki) "Greek Salad" (which wasn't real Greek Salad but America's version of it, sad kittens), Lentil and Rice Pilaf, and Rizagalo Pudding.. Vietnam's was the best, though, hands down (even if Greece managed to win the contest, Greece was disappointing). Outside with all the food was a flea market, which we went to towards the end and there wasn't much left, but Hannah got two comfy shirts for cheap. There was also a booth to try on traditional clothes. We both tried them on. Hannah, I think, already put her pictures up on facebook. I will after I post this. They were surprisingly hot, they look so light and flowy, but we were both sweating. Inside there was a bunch of booths and displays for various food companies and different food items. There were also displays of food and they were so cool! I took a lot of pictures of them because the presentation was so awesome. All in all it was a lot of fun.
(UPDATE: I put up my pictures and added one to the post)

Getting there was a little interesting, we had to take the 59 bus downtown (sort of, there's a festival going on so the routes are a little wonky) where we caught the 1000 bus. We took that to the bus terminal which put is in the right area (I can't spell it for the life of me, but it's where Petra lived and I think Hannah's mentioned it before, starts with an S, anyway) and from there we grabbed a taxi. We were about to do this in reverse order to get home, but catching a taxi proved a little difficult. There was a comment made about us feeling awkward because we felt a little like hookers standing on the corner like that, then we saw a 1000 bus drive by and decided to just walk to the bus stop to wait for the next one. This turned out to be a problem because when we got to the bus stop there wasn't a sign for the 1000 bus. So we kept walking. That area is GORGEOUS. It was a really nice day out and the view was great. We ended up walking almost the entire way back to the bus terminal before we found a bus stop that had the 1000 bus on the sign. So we waited there. We were going in the right direction so we stayed on it. When our stop was coming up we pushed the button and stood up to start walking towards the front of the bus. This failed to get the bus drivers attention and he drove past 2 stops before finally stopping to let us off. Being adventurous that day we took the 98 bus (which came first), which also gets us in the area of home, but the 59 stops right in front of the apartment so we usually stick with that. Anyway. We finally got home with plenty of time to get ready for our next plan for the night, Britton's welcome back party.

We went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was me, Hannah, Britton, Heather and two of Britton's friends, Van and Da Hee (I think I spelled that right), who we hadn't met yet. They are so cool! Van also likes tennis and we had a mini-discussion on that. YAY making new tennis friends. After dinner Van had to leave but the rest of us hung out for a while longer. It was a good time. All in all it was a good day. Today (Sunday), I cleaned my apartment and realized that I can't do it as thoroughly as I would like because I lack the necessary supplies which made me sad. I have to find them at E-mart. I think I'm going go running with the running club later, but I'm not sure, I'm awaiting a text. That's all I have to say for now!

~Lyn~

Brought to you by the letters H, н, and ㅐ

It's hard to believe but in a few weeks I'll have been in Korea for three whole months! I'm settled in and I've stopped noticing how Asian everyone is and how much I stand out. I haven't really gotten homesick yet (although, like I said in a previous entry, I've been getting "people sick"). Overall things have been going really well. I have finished writing all my grad school essays and now it's just time to edit them. I promise that when they are all sent out that this blog will not turn into me complaining about having to play the waiting game.

Last night I made my new favorite dinner again (beef, mushroom, garlic in balsamic vinaigrette over pasta) only this time I made it with Hanwoo, Korean style beef, instead of imported American beef. It was fantastic. The other night I figured out how to work my shiny new rice cooker and made some shrimp scampi over rice. Also delicious. If you hadn't guessed, I'm enjoying cooking for myself. I also plan on kicking the baking up a notch, I also found a coffee shop that sells European style hot chocolate, the thick creamy delicious kind like I drank in Russia. It was a fantastic find.

Speaking of Russia: A new girl name Lala has joined our Korean class! She is from Azerbaijan but speaks a little bit of Russian, which means after a refresher course I should have someone to practice with! Korean class is going well, we're learning how to tell time, and we all know that analog clocks are the bane of my existence. I really appreciate Korean class not just because it's helping me learn Korean but because the more I know about the language the easier it is for me to empathize with my students (I'm constantly reminded just how hard learning a new language is) and it also allows me to see why they make some of the grammatical mistakes that they do. I feel like I'm more patient and better at explaining their mistakes when I know why they're making them.

In other food news, I have found the foreign food mart, as well as a great little restaurant called 'The First Alleyway' which serves American/British food and is run by English-speaking foreigners. It's delicious! I also received an amazing care package from my cousin Jessica filled with all sorts of American foods I've been missing. As much as I love cooking, some nights I just want comfort foods. When I finish this post it's off to make some banana bread (with a recipe I found online... we'll see how this goes!)

The past two weeks have been a little rough for me, and one of the main issues has been the crazyness that became my schedule. Each day has six 45 minute periods, and we have an A Week and a B Week. My A Week used to be: recording, 4th grade, recording, 6th grade, 7th grade, recording. My B Week used to be: 3rd Grade, 6th Grade, 5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, recording. B Week has always been somewhat hellish for me just because the classes are so packed together, leaving me little to no time to make photocopies, print things, grab a snack. On top of that B Week is the week with my worst classes. I love my 3rd Graders dearly, but they're a handful, my two 6th grade classes have tons of behavior issues (they're all so insubordinate!). My 5th graders and 7th graders are both calm and well behaved. My B Week classes all had between 18-21 (except the 3rd graders).

A Week was my favorite weekend. I was close with three smaller classes filled with great kids. I had fantastic relationships with all of my students and it was just fantastic.

Weds of last week I found out that my 4th and 6th grade classes on A Week were being dissolved. I was getting a new 4th grade, a new 6th grade, I was getting a 5th grade class that was a composite of my old 5th grade class and new 5th graders. I had been warned by Lori that my schedule could change at a moments notice, but that did surprisingly little to prepare me for the upheaval of it actually happening. It was very hard to loose all but my 7th graders and get my happy small sized classes replaced with more classes of 18-20 kids. Two of my best students from my A Week 6th grade class were moved to my worst B Week class. It's hard to deal with now, I've lost a lot of the footing I had, and also lost my place in many of my classes because the addition of so many new students has made things difficult. The larger classes also have more behavior problems across the board. Needless to say I was not happy about the change.

So I just finished B Week, which is always depressing and discouraging. I really hate my 6th grade classes this week. Especially my second 6th grade class... the one they moved my good students to. There are a lot of behavior issues in that class, but there are three boys who make teaching the class impossible. They are loud, rude, and insubordinate. They throw things. They verbally harass the other students, and apparently they have taken to the habit of calling me vulgar names in Korean. Nothing seems to work for disciplining these kids. It affects the other students abilities to learn, and they can tell that I've just giving up. I spend so much time yelling, taking minus points, trying to get them to just behave and it doesn't work. The first day in that class the two transplanted students had looks of shock and horror. I had never yelled at them, never had any of the behavior problems I did in that class, and we had such a great relationship all together. I actually had to speak to the Korean teacher about the problems in that class. I hate it.

Some fun news though! I have employed Dinosaur comics in my teaching. I printed out a comic, whited out the dialogue, and then made photocopies. My students had to create a story for the comics and describe what was happening using emotion vocabulary. In this weeks 7th grade class we've been having a lot of fun. I've had between 9 and 5 students, with the average being 4 students this week. Many have been absent because they need to study for the big exams they all have this week. So I've had the students who have come creating dinosaur comics, writing stories, and the past two days we played a fantastic bastardization of scrabble. Not only was it fun, but I think it helped get these newer students used to me. The class is usually 20 students, so it's nice to interact with some of them one and one and now we all know each other better. I've also done penpals with some of my more advanced classes. They're writing letters to students at the school where my mom works. I got the first batch of American letters yesterday and it was so much fun to read through all of them. I can't wait to give them to the students!

There's a big festival tomorrow in Sangmu which Lyn and I will probably attend, so you will probably get an update about that soon.

The title of this post has to do with my name. In the three languages I know how to write my name (English, Russian, and Korean) there is always a character that looks like an H! In English it is of course the H, in Russian the N, and in Korean it's the A. If I can ever figure out how to type in Hangul I'll show you.

Sound of Settling

To start the post off, this weekend was AMAZING. My best time here so far, and I have plans for more awesomeness to come. But before I get to the weekend, a quick update on my classes :/ On the upside my students are getting used to me, on the downside they are getting used to me. This is both good and bad. In some classes it means that the students now know I'm serious about taking points. On the other hand it means they are more comfortable talking back to me because they know I'm fairly easy going about most things. My grade 4s this week informed me that I am the meanest foreign teacher in the entire school. I am not only stricter than Britton, but I also take more points (a lie), and "Hannah-teacher doesn't give a lot of homework" (another lie). I was advised that I have to stop being an American and I need to turn into a Korean to become a better teacher, another student then jumped in to say that I just needed to stop thinking like an American and start thinking like a Korean. The thing is, from what I've seen, the Korean teachers are a lot stricter/give more homework. But my grade 5s are having fun and talked me into not working from the book next time we see each other because they want to learn Latin (I LOVE THEM). I'll be doing the root-word unit with them, except altered because they are a little less advanced then the other students I've tried it with. My Grade 6s are finally starting to understand why I've been torturing them with prefixes/suffixes and root words. Which is a plus. All in all I'm getting used to teaching, definitely, and I love it. Even when the kids tell me they hate me (which is actually really funny, because it's only 2 or 3 of the boys, the rest of the class seems to like me).

This weekend I had my apartment warming party thing. I was a little nervous actually because I've had bad experiences planning parties and then no one showing up. I had nothing to be worried about. Hannah, Britton and Heather showed up first. Then Woo Hyeon. And we hung out talking for a little while. Then Mieka, Du Yeon and Prisca (a new friend) showed up and the party really got started. It was great. We ended up playing scrabble in pairs. Mieka and Hannah paired together, I was paired with Du Yeon, Woo Hyeon and Britton, and Prisca and Heather. It was so much fun, and hilarious. We had a good time, and somehow Hannah and Mieka ended up winning (and then failed 3 times at a high five). But all in all it was a success. Before the party Hannah and I hit E-Mart to get party supplies and cleaning supplies. I also got a fish. If he survives the week I shall name him Andre (because Hannah's fish is Steph, and Andre Agassi is married to Steffi Graff, so yeah...everything comes back to tennis!), and while discussing this at the party I learned something awesome. Mieka seems to be a tennis fan too! And she plays! I'm psyched.

So then, today (Sunday), we went out to brunch. There was wonderful planning and we ended up going in two groups, Heather and Britton went (and invited me but I was being a lazy bum and skipped out), and then me, Hannah, Prisca and Mieka. We all went to First Avenue which is delicious food. The other three got full English Breakfast. I got a strange breakfast burrito thing, with Spanish rice, egg, some sort of yummy salsa, all wrapped in a tortilla. It was so good. Then the four of us went shopping/wandering around downtown. I had a great time. So yeah, this weekend was the best weekend ever, so far. I have friends! :) I also learned about a running club group thing that meets every Sunday and goes for a run, then goes out to dinner. I'm joining and I'm excited.

Onto the less good portion of recent times. Our school is RIDICULOUS! Hannah's classes got all switched around and some new ones added and Britton got some new classes too. And I have to most open schedule they should add people to already huge classes (like they did with some of Hannah's classes) or give so many classes to just one teacher. It's crazy! And not only that. But we didn't find out things were going to be switched around until a couple days before they did, and they didn't even tell us everything. Apparently it's normal to find out these things at the last minute, but it sucks. Classes should be reorganized because right now they are really lopsided and mixed up, and then distributed evenly. But that might not happen. Oh well, such is life. We just have to deal with it. A good life lesson. That's all I got.

~Lyn~