JenChe09

It's been an interesting few days. Brooke, I hope you'll accept Facebook status updates/pictures in place of blogging daily. lol Today, I had lunch with the nutrition teacher (she teaches students how to cook nutritious meals... why did I never have this class? lol). It happened like most of my going-out-to-eat-with-a-Korean-person experiences. She asked me if I wanted to have lunch, I said yes, and then we got in her car and she just started driving, with no mention of where we were going, what we were eating, or how far away this place was. lol I don't bother asking anymore. If I ask what we're eating, I rarely understand the translation. If I ask where we're going, I rarely understand the explanation. So, we just get in the car and drive. It's kind of nice ... read more

Exams at my school mean I get to have lunch at school, and then leave early! I love exam days, though I know my students aren't fond of them. I asked my students, "How are you?" Their responses were, "So-so" across the board! When I ask why, the answer is the same, too. "Exams." I remember that feeling... Well, I was supposed to have Saturday class tomorrow, but tomorrow is Children's Day in Korea, so they're giving the kids a break from my class. Parents' Day is three days after that. Anyway, the kids get to stay home and open gifts from their parents, and I get to sleep in before my trip to GyeongJu. Win-win :) I am planning to take a million pictures in GyeongJu. There are so many awesome things there to see, ... read more

More fun in Yeongcheon today. There were no classes, since the children were taking exams until noon, and then leaving school early. At noon, I ate lunch with the middle school grade three teachers. We had fried mandoo (fried dumplings with pork and veggies inside - delicious) and seafood in spicy sauce. I picked out all the shrimp and left the tentacles for the other teachers :D Around 2 pm, they told me I could go home. I did a little happy dance! I needed to do some stuff at the bank and post ofice before they closed, anyway. I got my bank stuff done, then did some shopping. I found these hilarious stationery sets and decided to get them. They have the cutest pictures with poorly written English sentences all over them. I'm not trying ... read more

The past week or so of my life had been pretty ho-hum until today. Every weekday, I go to school at 8:20 am. I teach classes, eat strange school lunches, and make lesson plans for the next week's classes. Then, I leave school at 4:30 pm. I go home and eat dinner/nap/Facebook until 6:30 pm, when I walk to my exercise classes at M Pilates. At 7 pm, I have dance class until 8 pm, and then I have Pilates class from 8 pm to 9 pm. After Pilates, I walk home and then have a Skype date with Edward until about 10 pm. After that, I get ready for bed/Facebook/watch tv. I try to go to bed at 11 pm, though I sometimes stay up until midnight. Repeat five days a week. lol The most ... read more

I wanted to list some pros and cons of living here, in case anyone was thinking about joining me :D Pros: 1. if you're a teacher, your students here will be adorable and sweet and want to know everything about you 2. awesome Korean friends who treat you to dinner when you're sick 3. two words: cherry blossoms 4. noraebangs! You and your friends can rent a room with karaoke equipment for pretty cheap, and these karaoke rooms are everywhere 5. Kpop! The Wonder Girls, BigBang, Girls Generation... all awesome, and there are many more! 6. low income tax rate, about 3-5% 7. fashion - high fashion. very high! A lot of young women wear heels and cute leggings even in the rain 8. health care costs - low. very low 9. high tech! Korea is ... read more

There will be lots of pictures on this blog! This weekend, I decided to go to Seoul with some friends I met in EPIK orientation. We left after school on Friday, around 7 pm (so everyone would have time to get to their train stations), and we arrived there around 11 pm. However, there were only a few subways left, because it was late, and we had to get to Incheon, which is about an hour away. Somehow, we caught one of the last subways. Awesome, right? Nope. We were supposed to transfer at some point and didn't, so we were on a subway in Seoul going fast in the wrong direction. The Seoul subway system can be just a little confusing... Anyway, so we got off and tried to catch a bus. We asked numerous ... read more

So, apparently, because I'm the youngest person in my apartment building, I have to wake up early and sweep the hallways >.... read more