An-nyeong! This morning my Kinders did pretty well. They seem more tame than they did before Chusok. They like to scream when they count numbers or say the alphabet, and it’s annoying, but at least they’re doing it. When I was helping a student, I had another one come up at my side and grab my chest. I moved his hand away and told him, “No,” but that just made it a game. Since it’s Thursday, we had singing time with the other classes in the common room. I think I sang, “Here we go Loo-by Loo” about 500 times. I [View Full Entry]

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Like every day, I had the Kinders this morning. They were pretty tame today. Maybe it was because we were missing two of the rambunctious ones. They wrote, “Shoot a star,” twice and many of them had very good tracing. We still need to work on our fine motor skills, and I guess gross motor skills as well because we trip over our own feet! It’s Thursday, so it was board game day. On these days, I pick out three or so board games from the common room and they make up their own games. Today, while I was out getting [View Full Entry]

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I heard the stock market took a dive yesterday in the States and it was having a ripple effect around the world. Here in Korea, we were having a holiday, so the markets weren’t open. We’ll have to see how it affects us here. So far, we’re stable and actually the dollar has become stronger dropping the Won from 90 cents per dollar to 86 cents per dollar. That’s a pretty good exchange rate! When that happens, I try to use either my VISA card or cash in some travelers’ cheques because I get more bang, I mean Won, for my [View Full Entry]

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Today, Monday, I had the day off because of Chusok, the Korean Thanksgiving. I got up around 9 o'clock to talk to Mom and Dad from about 9:15 to 9:45. They gave me updates on Hurricane Ike and what’s going on in the States. I’ve noticed that foreigners who have been here a long time didn’t hear of some events back home and when I mentioned them, they didn’t know what I was talking about. So, I’m doing the best that I can to keep up on things. I try to read the headlines daily, but I want to know local [View Full Entry]

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An-nyeong! I was able to sleep in today. Mom and Dad decided to set up a T.V. at home by the web cam so I could watch Saturday Night Live with Michael Phelps. It was fun to get to see English T.V. for once. I have a T.V. here, but I haven’t set it up since Tom says it really doesn’t work and it’s all in Korean anyway. I usually watch YouTube episodes of shows - Scooby-Doo, Flintstones, Golden Girls, etc. I tried to watch my Arrested Development DVDs, but it won’t let me because I’m out of the country. For [View Full Entry]

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Today I got up around 10am and talked to Mom and Dad back home. They said they were still getting rain from the hurricanes and more was to come. Luckily for me, it hasn’t rained here yet. I’ve had gorgeous days and today wasn’t going to be any different. At 12:20, I met Pauline outside her apartment and we walked to one of the corner stores and picked up some juice for the party. Then we hit up Dunkin’ Doughnuts to get some doughnut holes for dessert. I bought the doughnut holes since I didn’t have anything to bring, and that [View Full Entry]

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Today was a most exciting day for all of us at the Hogwan. This morning we went to the Korean cultural center and Hanok Village. Most all of the children wore their traditional Korean Hanboks. When we (the foreign teachers) arrived at the school, we went on a quest for our Hanboks because we were supposed to wear them as well, however they were nowhere to be found. Later, Mrs. Ahn said that they were in storage and old and moldy, but we think they probably forgot. It was okay though, because it was pretty hot to begin with without all [View Full Entry]

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When I got to school I mentioned my flood to Mrs. Ahn and she said she would get a repair man right away. She made a couple of calls and said he would be there at 6pm and I would just give my key to her and she would run over with him. I said that would be fantastic and I really appreciated it. I then went upstairs and got ready for class. Today was singing day for all of the elementary classes. My Kinders did their morning seat work and then for the last 40 minutes, we sang “The Ants [View Full Entry]

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Today I went to school and had a pretty normal day there. Outside of school was a different story. The Kinders didn’t do anything special. They just did their seat work and practiced writing. I also noticed that the elevator numbers were 1, 2, 3, F, 5, and I wondered about why they didn’t put 4, but instead put F. I found out that it’s like our number 13. The number 4 means death, so they put an F instead! Weird! I had previously mentioned to Mrs. Ahn that my apartment was dirty when I arrived and she said that she [View Full Entry]

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Today was my second day of school. At least when I woke up, I had a warm shower, unlike yesterday. I got ready for school and was ready for a day of meeting new students. I arrived and went to my Cookie classroom where kids were already there playing. All of the really young classrooms (K) are named after Sesame Street characters - Cookie and Oscar. The older classrooms (1-3) are named after Disney characters - Mickey, Minnie, and Donald. Today, my kids and Paula’s kids (Cookie and Oscar) went to Gymshule. So In-Suk led the way since she knew what [View Full Entry]

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