You can see the full moon in the kids eyes!

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Hello All!

Well I haven't been up to much except for teaching. I think I am finally understanding my mothers entire existence! On my way home tonight I realized that the moon was almost full which would explain the kids this week. Even my angels have been little monsters and my monsters have been little devils. Every morning I walk into my kindergarten class to find them all under the table and naturally I play along for a minute "oh no where is my class...I guess they don't want to do science today" and instantly they jump into their chairs. The threat to science or playroom time generally gets them to do anything I want them to muahahaha, evil Megan Teacher! My kindergartens are pretty much the best part of my day though, they are eager and most are farther along than some of my afternoon classes which feature the older kids and by older I mean like 8 in Korean and 6 in Canadian! Today we talked about the science we did yesterday which was a plaster finger. Let me just say that whoever thought of it was not thinking about 5 year olds and powder but how cool the finger would look in the end. I have never been so covered in white powder before! Most of them worked but a couple didn't which was only because I told them to put their finger in the alignate and leave it there and a couple thought it would be fun to take it out and put it back in and repeat, their's resembled lumps and not so much fingers! The review question for these science experiments are banana's though I mean we made elastic propelled crabs last week and the one question for 5 YEAR OLD CHILDREN was "what propelled the crab diagonally across the surface area" now that is a question that I could see for a high school student but for 5 year olds...give me a break. I had to simplify it so much that I made the people who wrote the book look stupid! "what made the crab move?" Seriously what was so hard about that!
Needless to say I do rather enjoy the babies!

After the little darlings leave for the day to go where ever it is they go (I'm assuming to one lesson or another as when you are born in Korea you have about 6 months of childhood then you are thrown into 1900 activities to activate your brain in ways that most Canadian students don't know anything about until their final years of high school!). Anyway the older kids show up and they range from brand new English students to halfway decent English language specialists! For instance I had a new girl join my "lower intermediate" class last week and she walked right up to me and said "Hello Megan Teacher my name is Alley how are you today?" "I'm great Alley how are you?" "I am very well thank-you" I nearly fell down with glee! Although her writing is sub par which means that she talked a lot at her old school but didn't get much writing practice! I hate messiness as everyone knows. But she's only 7 so I'll let it slid I guess!

I have a couple classes that I can't wait to teach one is Alley's class and the other are my boys! I only have them on Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's though. Right now we are working on Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives and Prepositions. I think we'll been working on it for at least another week! On Monday they seemed to understand what the differences were so I told them to study because they would be having a test on Wednesday. Well today was the test and the highest mark was 12/16 and the lowest 5/16 and that was pretty much the average mark. I was soooo happy with the 12/16 because that was Chad and he always seems to take a little longer to catch on but when he does he really starts to get it and the only thing that changes his mind is what other people are saying but his first instinct is generally correct. I'm not going to lie he's my favourite in the class...although I don't let on! At first they seemed like they were going to be monsters but after I told them I liked baseball they seemed to warm up to me...it's like telling a Canadian kid that you like hockey!

The class that I actually despise has a bunch of little smartasses in it. They are brand new so we are currently working on the alphabet. Well there are 3 that immediately come to mind when I think about a stressful day. Oliver who has this bored attitude (Aurora said we may have to see about moving him up because he seems pretty smart and may just be really bored in the class *fingers crossed*), Sonya who unless she is in a dress is a little GAHHHH there are no words! She constantly speaks Korean and half the time when you ask her a question she looks at you like she doesn't understand when you know perfectly well that she does...very very frustrating. Then there is Derek who is just a little loud mouth that you want to stuff a sock in! The other kids are alright just very beginner so it's somewhat hard to teach them as English comes pretty easily to me and it's hard to understand why they aren't getting it! Jackson is a little slow on the uptake, like literally, he's delayed with everything including catching things in the games we play. Like "Jackson catch" *chip thrown* *chip hitting the floor* *Jackson raising his hands to catch it!* I do the wide eyes every time I think...good thing they don't get that! Than there is Sydney who is the newest of them all. She is my favourite in that class, she's beyond sweet but just doesn't understand how to make her point in English yet, which is understandable. I am constantly crossing my wrists and saying "no Korean" and she nodes and does this little nervous smile thing. I talked with her today and god only knows if she understood me...she nodded a lot so we'll see! She is really sweet though like I said and she always waves and smiles and draws me pictures and what not and her English is actually quite good when she does repeat, she catches on quickly which gives me hope! I have another class that is pretty beginner and once one gets out of line they all follow suite. That is the class that Brian is in and Brian...oh Brian...you know that kid in your class that never sat down, made stupid noises, wasn't all that bright, was a tad violent, spent a lot of time in the hall and generally was a little shit disturber, well that's Brian and today I told Natasha as we were coming out of our classrooms "holy did they all have a case of the Brian's today" because they all were like that minus the violence! Brian also isn't fazed by going to talk to Aurora, it's not a punishment for him like the other kids. I really wish he would just drop out. I have his older brother Max in my all boy class and I enjoy him quite a bit...if only they behaved alike!

One of the hardest things to get over here is having to spell everything with the American spellings. I just can't do it, I mean I have spent my entire upbringing converting everything into Canadian/British and now I have to reverse...no sir-ee Bob that's not going to happen!

Alright how about some non-school stuff...I am honestly incredibly comfortable here. I enjoy my coworkers and my job and my apartment and the city. Everything is just a walk or a subway ride away, as I am sure is the case in every major city, although for once I'm the anomaly here! I mean I don't want to stand out per say but it's nice to be unique! I enjoy the subway, well in Daegu anyway! It's very clean and well put together and it's so much nicer now that I have my quick use card. The air sucks though, I would change that if I could. I never take the escalator coming up to the street A) because it's always packed and B) walking up the 6 flights of stairs seems healthier! I only regret it at the top when I realize that the air in this country isn't the "fresh" stuff I'm used to back home. Not only are their 3.5 million people in this city all of whom seem to be driving cars but there is the Yellow Dust that comes in from China. So pollution + dust = a hard time breathing. Seriously when I think about all the talk of pollution in the Niagara area all I can think of now is well at least you can still see Toronto most days from the other side, here I can't even see the mountains some days and they are only a couple miles away.
Another annoying thing here are the Agima's (I am probably spelling that wrong!). Agima's are little old ladies that basically will take you out if you get in their way, they take respecting your elders to a new and obnoxious level! I mean it doesn't hurt to be polite does it! I nearly got trampled by a herd of them coming out of the subway, scariest thing on earth in my opinion is a herd of agima's on a mission coming at you!

I know it's too early to say it but I can see myself here for longer then a year. I mean I don't know what to do when I go home that's scarier to me then being in a country where I don't know anyone really and the language doesn't even resemble my own! Plus the opportunities to travel here are amazing! I do plan on taking the Transsiberian Railroad after this year is complete! I think that is the best way to kiss the year goodbye! Start in Beijing and train it all the way to Moscow, somewhere that I have been DYING to go! Before I travel anywhere substantial though I am going to invest in a really good camera. I figure where best to buy a good electronic then in the country where electronics reign supreme! I'm thinking I may get the digital version of my SLR Canon at home, both Claire and Mike and Natasha have one and they like them...although I want higher megapixels. That will come out of my first paycheck and Beijing out of my second as I don't plan on going there until May probably! This weekend I am going to Seoul with Aurora to see Kristina. I am very excited for that because it's her birthday as well as Easter! Then the next weekend I get to go for my medical stuff and I found out some of the questions on the psych eval. and most seem like pure BS. A couple of the tests also seem stupid, I have to get a hearing test and a COLOUR BLINDNESS TEST...the relevance of that is still out of my reach!

Anyway I am going to eat dinner, mark some journals then go to bed! 2 more days of craziness then Seoul!

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