Teacher Excursion

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Well, I just got back from a pretty interesting night...it was called teacher training, or teacher membership... I actually cant remember what it was called. But, by the name you can tell its going to be pretty exciting!

But first...my 1st week of teaching all by my lonesome was this last week. I think that it actually went pretty good. My favorite class so far is cooking! I love it! This week we made grilled cheese! All of the students loved it and most of them had never had them before!

My first class everyday is with the Apollo students (the ones I posted a picture of.) They are 6 years old and man, they are an interesting group of kids. Erica is a princess and sticks her nose in the air when she gets grumpy or doesnt want to do something. Adam...well Adam just doesnt do anything I ask him to do. Hes the trouble maker in the class. June, hes usually pretty good but very sensitive and moody. For example, we were playing freeze tag (yes, I know, very beneficial game when trying to teach english) anyways...I froze him and he got mad at me for doing it (even though I had froze everyone else) and he went and sat down at the table and didnt want to play anymore. Kevin is my favorite in the class. He is incredibly smart and usually does what hes suppose to. I have activities like song and dance, or show and tell or journal time with them in the morning. Its only 20 minutes, but these are the longest 20 minutes of the whole day! These kids dont talk at all in English and rarely do anything they are suppose to. Usually I just sit them down at the table and we write sentences or something. I know, what a fun teacher I am. Haha, I think I'm usually pretty fun, but this class just drives me crazy!

Anyways, most of my other classes are awesome. I have Zeus class everyday. They are the 7 years old. We do either math or science. There are 13 of them and for the most part its ok, but, especially with math, I find it hard to teach it properly. There is a very wide range of abilities in the class. I will teach something and we'll do a worksheet. Well some students get it right away and are finished in 5 minutes. Others have no idea whats going on so I am trying to help them but most of them dont even make an effort to learn and then I also have the other students that have already finished getting antsy and they start acting up and being loud. Plus, they dont have seperate desks and they all just sit at group tables. They are constantly bugging each other and talking. Sometimes my coworker will help and that makes a world of difference, but for the times shes not there I need to think of a strategy. I'm open for suggestions from anyone....

My classes that are 4 and 5 years old are soo cute! I just love them! They are never grumpy and dont have attitude or anything. They are just happy and cute and are excited to do anything! Whenever I am in a class and the students walk in they all scream "KIMBERLY TEACHER!!!" And then I am bombareded by students! I love it!

Ok, onto teacher training night or whatever it was called. We had to be at the school at 5:45 on Friday and then we were taking off to this place that I was told was 15 minutes away and we would be staying overnight. I was also told we would be going swimming, so I had my swimming gear in tow. Max, my American coworker didnt want to come b/c it was just a whole bunch of korean women. I convinced him to come though b/c I didnt want to be the only foreigner. The korean teachers are great but some of them dont really speak english so they mainly speak in korean. If I would have been there without Max I would have been sitting around having no idea what was going on. Anyways, he came along. He wasnt happy about it, but I guilted him into coming.

We get on our way and we really have no idea what we're doing or where we're going...they dont really tell us much, they just tell us to come. Lucy, a korean teacher who speaks amazing english asked if I had brought my swimsuit. Well, ya, I was told we were going swimming, so of course. And then she kind of looks at me and says "Well you dont need one..." I kind of get a dumbfounded look on my face...."Uhhh...what? We're going swimming naked?!" Huh, so now I have no idea whats going to go on this weekend!

I thought maybe we were going to a sauna then. Sauanas in Korea are everywhere! They have mens and womens seperated but, from what I had heard, you get naked, shower in a communal shower area and then walk to a pool and hot tub are where there are tons of naked people. Then you are suppose to sit in the hot tub, then go into the cold pool and keep doing this for as long as you like. This brought back memories of the change room back in Edmonton. There was this old asian lady we would seriously see every day we were in there....and she would always walk around buck naked. Sit down on the bench next to us and just do her thing. We always thought it was just kind of odd. But I guess everyone in Korea just walks around naked together.
After Lucy tells me this I kind of think about what this will be like.....

It will just be me and a whole bunch of my korean teachers and my boss...naked...in a pool ...and walking around. I like my korean coteachers, but them seeing me naked and me seeing them naked? I just dont know if I was ready for it. I had thoughts of us sitting there naked in a pool and them all talking away in Korean and me feeling incredibly awkward. I would have no idea what they are saying so I couldnt really join in the conversation, what would I do?! Hang out with other naked Koreans? I also thought that I would probably be getting a few extra stares from everybody else there just because I'm white...so that could even be a bit more uncomfortable. Then I was thinking that if it did get really awkward I could just leave and go do something else. But then I was thinking about how I would get out of the pool. There would be no towel or anything, I would just have to get out and walk away...naked...in front of everyone. Yes...I am emphasizing the fact that their would be a whole lot of nakedness and I just dont know if I could do it. I realize now that I was probably thinking way too much into this whole situation, but honestly...walking around with my coworkers and boss naked...I just didnt know if I was readyf or it. I'll do the whole sauna thing one day and it probably wont be nearly as bad as I make it out to be.

K...about 30 minutes into the bus ride we're still not anywhere and its pouring. We find out that they place we're going isnt a sauna (therefore I have no naked stories to tell you at this time) and its actually just a house we rented for the night in the middle of nowhere and there is a pool there.

We get to the house. Its pretty dark and pouring, but the place was actually really nice. It was a house....with a yard..and grass! Mostly everything in Korea is apartments and no one really has yards. Man, the guy who owns this must be pretty rich if he has a yard! Haha. They start cooking dinner and bringing out drinks! Ahhh..this is what teacher training is, drinking with my coworkers. Ok, I think I can do this. It actually turned out to be pretty fun! The food was great and the beer was as good as korean beer can be. Max and I decide that we need some soju though. We saw a little convenience store a while up the road so we decide to walk to it and get some soju since the rain stopped. One of the other teachers was drinking tons and she wanted to come with us. It was a pretty funny walk! She had been drinking quite a bit and she so she was just giggling the entire way. We found some old ladies walking on the road and so she asked where exactly the store was. They told us it was just up the road, but that it was probably closed. We decided to go check anyways since we had come all this way. We get there and knock on the door. No one is answering so my coworker just opens the window since its not locked and starts yelling in to see if there is anyone in there. Nope, there sure isnt anyone. Guess we're out of luck and we should probably start heading back. My coworker has another plan and just reaches in the window and unlocks the door! Haha...ok, I guess we'll just help ourselves. So we just walk in and get 5 bottle of soju from the cooler and some mix. Haha, it was great! We left some money and a note though, so we didnt just steal it all...

We then make our way back to the house. Good thing Max was with us b/c me and my coworker would have gotten completely lost and probably would have had to wait until morning to find out way back b/c we always wanted to go down a different road than what Max did. We make it back and start drinking soju and beer. The boss would fill up all out cups and then it was "All at once!" We had to drink it all and then she would fill it up again we'd do it all over again.

I eventually fell asleep on the couch and woke up not feeling too great. The rest of the morning we just had some breakfast and went swimming in the pool. I still had no idea what everyone was going to go swimming in. No one had brought a bathing suit and there were guys around so I didnt think they were planning on going naked. Nope, they just went in their clothes! There was even another couple swimming that werent with us and they were in their clothes as well! I didnt get it, why didnt they just wear their swimsuits instead of going in fully clothed? I asked Jackie another Korean teacher that exact question and she said it was b/c they were shy. Huh...refer back to where I was talking about koreans walking around naked with each other like its not a big deal....but they are too shy to wear a swim suit?! Ahhh....that just makes perfect sense to me.....?

Anyways, after that we just packed up and came back home. It's so far been a pretty good weekend and I'm going out again tonight. Wednesday is a holiday this week so I'm off to Japan to get my work Visa that day. Should be fun, I hear Japan is great!

Hope everyone is doing well!

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