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Published: April 26th 2011
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From Mt. Palgong (Palgongsan). It was a great day for a hike!I can’t believe I’ve been in Korea for over 2 months now. At first I was counting by days, then weeks, and now suddenly I’m counting in months. I’m keeping busy in general so time is going quickly.
A couple of weeks ago I had the revelation that I no longer care that I am the 'foreigner'. I used to feel really strange getting on the subway and knowing that I was the person who didn't belong. I guess I felt Koreans analyzing me. It's not that now I feel Korean--it's more that I live here and this is my home. So there's no reason for me to feel so strange. It's like a small weight has been lifted off.
I’m still enjoying teaching. After about a month, I was really starting to get the hang of my students’ level and what kinds of activities work well. It’s still a challenge to create lessons with activities I know they will understand the directions to. Three of my Korean coteachers are amazing and really help get across the main points if the students don’t understand. However, I kind of have to plan around the other 2 teachers who either do
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From Palgongsan not help at all or help and give directions that are different or completely make up new activities (ie derail the lesson). In fact, in some cases, the one insists that the students can’t do things, and yet for all the other classes, the students can. It’s just a matter of getting them to pay attention and then explain correct directions to them. Is that too much to ask? I don’t know.
But unfortunately, last week was the first week of my non-teaching-classes-month. This is due to a number of factors. Last week, the students did not come to our class and, instead, studied in their homerooms because they have mid-terms next week. This week they have mid-terms, so no class. Next week they are practicing for the English speaking test, so I don’t need to plan lessons. The week after that, we have some holidays and then the students have field trips, so the classes will be no new material (we’re going to play Jeopardy). And the following week (this will be the third week of May), they will take the English speaking test all week, and I will grade the first-graders only. So what I will be
Wooden Figures
On Palgongsan. I don't know what they are for. doing is “deskwarming”. This is a common practice for GETs here. We have to come to school, and yet we have no classes. I should mention that I do have 2 afterschool classes every week, so I will plan lessons for those at least.
I’ve started taking Korean classes every Tuesday evening for 2 hours. By some strange twist of fate, I was put into level 2, which makes me the Worst Student in the Class. But it is really forcing me to put a lot of effort in, and hopefully it will begin to pay off soon. I really like my class (even though I usually feel stupid)—I didn’t know any of my classmates before the class so it’s a new group of people. Also, they are all nice and have lived here longer than me.
On Wednesday nights, I have rotating dinner with a group of friends. Sometimes we go out, but more often, we’ll cook at someone’s apartment. Most of my friends are still wayguk (foreigners). Eventually I’ll make Korean friends, but I feel really lucky that I found so many people I get along well with.
On the weekends I usually go out
to bars. Sometimes I end up at Pasha, which is my favorite club in Daegu. It’s almost all Koreans, and they are much more likely to talk to us when they are drunk, so that’s fun. They usually play techno and the Koreans, especially the guys, really get into it. The daytime of the weekends so far have been pretty productive—I’ve gone to some parks in Daegu, a basketball game, a baseball game, hiking, a cultural festival in another city, and away to Seoul. So in the next post I’ll tell you about Seoul! Look through the pictures to see the other events.
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Loora
Laura Oxenreiter
Glitch
I don't know why, but for some reason the photos from page 2 are messed up. If you see only 50 photos and they all have captions, that's good. What I'm seeing are 74 photos, most of which don't have captions. Sorry, I'll try to see if I can get it fixed!