Katie Lang

HeartandSeoul

Katie Lang

I'm a 2009 Pitt grad who lived in Daegu, South Korea and taught English with ChungDahm April at the BeoMeo Campus. My students were between the Korean ages of 6/7 and 12/13 , and I was responsible for the reading and speaking portions of class.

Follow the adventures of my year-long stay in South Korea. I hope that my pre-departure and arrival entries help out anyone else who is considering taking a teaching position abroad! I hope that my in-Korea entries might help answer any questions those of you arriving may have. OR perhaps if you're already in Korea or planning to visit, maybe some of my entries will highlight things you'd like to see while here. 😊

I love making friends. If you have any questions about SoKo, please comment, message, or even e-mail me. You can reach me at KatieRLang@gmail.com. I'm also totally game for "requests;" if you want to know anything I've yet to cover, shoot me a message and I'll do my best to blog about it!

Check out some of my friends' blogs! They trained with me, and work at different branches. 😊

Kate, teaches high school students
Mike, teaches kindergarten kids

Sorry!

North America » United States » New Jersey » Middletown June 10th 2011

HeartandSeoul

It's been a long time since my last entry-- and I did so many things since my last post! I suppose since most of my followers were on facebook, I neglected to update my travel blog! Not only did I not mention the various cities and rural areas I saw, I never mentioned my trip to Tokyo! C'est la vie. Perhaps I'll backdate a few entries for the sake of completeness. Anyway, I am back from a marvelous time in South Korea. It's been 7 full months since my plane touched down at JFK airport. Currently, I am spending time as a Starbucks barista and taking classes at community college. I am hoping to get into an accelerated nursing program either here in NJ or elsewhere in the country; if anyone knows of any 12- or ... read more

Becoming Fluent in Konglish

Asia » South Korea » Daegu » Suseong-gu July 26th 2010

HeartandSeoul

This is a filler entry. I actually wrote it a few days ago, and didn't get the chance to finish uploading it until now. At the moment, I'm on my week-long vacation, so I'm not even in Daegu. I thought I'd post it from a PC방 while on the road to let you know I haven't forgotten about you. I've been teaching these little kiddies for 8 months, now, and I've learned a thing of two about understanding things that would make absolutely no sense to people outside of the "English teacher" community here in SoKo. * The first thing I guess I'll address is the most popular and most talked-about, erm, thing in the typical Korean elementary student's vocabulary. Fondly referred to as "D-D-O-N-G," ddong (똥) is Korean for, you guessed it, human excrement. No ... read more

Egads, I've Been Lazy

Asia » South Korea » Seoul » Gangnam » Nonhyon-dong June 23rd 2010

Rainbow

HeartandSeoul

Apologies for my mysterious disappearance. Honestly, I hadn't had much going on until this past weekend other than my KAPS volunteer work (I'll get into that in a few minutes). With warm weather and a steady income, I also have somehow stumbled onto some sort of regular social life. Go figure! ;) Anyway, this weekend, I holed up with Kate in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. I was in desperate need to get out of Daegu (not that I didn't just get out last month, I know). I booked a late-night KTX on Friday night and got into Seoul around 12:30. We spent Friday night in Gangnam, hitting up the Rainbow room, and just hanging out. Then, we decided to go to bed early for our adventure the following day: Yongsan Market. Yongsan Market is a majestic place. Just ... read more

The best laid plans, the worst laid plans

Asia » South Korea » Gyeongsangbuk-do » Pohang » Homigot May 23rd 2010

Photo 2

HeartandSeoul

Hilarity ensues. Sorry if you guys got that last e-mail. For some reason, it published while I started writing it. Oh well. Anyway, this entry is dedicated to Buddha, who made this entire trip possible. Thanks, Buddha, for having a birthday that allowed us to have a three-day weekend. Our trip started off on Friday morning. Originally, we were all to meet up at the bus station at 10:30. However, as our entire weekend extravaganza was actually Ally's birthday weekend extravaganza, a few people were a bit hungover. Ally couldn't find our friend Katie, so we pushed our meeting time to 11. Katie was located, but then Adam was running late. We got into the bus station after noon. We bought our bus tickets, most of us together, and then they hand us one ticket. "One ... read more

Mounds of Mounds

Asia » South Korea » Daegu » Dong-gu » Bullo-dong April 26th 2010

Sunset over Daegu

HeartandSeoul

Gotta love the English language. This weekend was pretty awesome. My friend Kate (from training--her blog is linked on my profile page) came down from Seoul this weekend to hang in Daegu with me. As we're both pretty big dorks, that means tons of tourist-y things. :) It was a little chaotic meeting-up. Half because a chunk of the later KTX trains were booked up that Friday, so she had to come early. Half because I'm kind of high-strung sometimes. Regardless, we met up (and she bought me a little house flower!) without too many problems on my dinner break (7-8). We grabbed our kimbap/etc. and headed back to April. She got to see my classroom, and I let her watch some of the day's "Acting," listen to some of the funniest speaking homework I get ... read more

Cherry Blossoms & KAPS

Asia » South Korea » Daegu » Dalseo-Gu April 14th 2010

Ziggy

HeartandSeoul

It is officially spring in Korea. Welcome to Cherry Blossom Season. These beautiful flowers are bursting open everywhere. This weekend, I spent all of Saturday walking through Duryu Park in Daegu just taking in the scenery. This weekend, I hope to head northwards and see if I can catch a bit more of the spectacle. I won't lie. This entry is mostly for photowhoring purposes. Enjoy these beautiful flowers. In the meantime, on Sunday, I made my first visit to the very awesome Daegu animal shelter run by KAPS. KAPS, which stands for Korean Animal Protection Society, is a not-for-profit charity which has three actual establishments: a dog shelter, a cat shelter , and a dog sanctuary . They are constantly looking for volunteers, sponsors, and donations to help i... read more

FAQ (for English Teachers to be)

Asia » South Korea » Daegu » Jung-gu April 14th 2010

Gotta Love the Students

HeartandSeoul

I've received a good number of e-mails, facebook messages, tweets, etc. over the past few months with people asking a lot of the same questions. SO I figured it might be helpful if I posted some of my replies in this blog for those of you who are considering teaching in Korea. Sorry I can't think of a more organized way to really put this forth, but this ONSLAUGHT of information should probably help you out. Also, check out my first two or three entries here. They chronicle the process of me coming over. Hope this helps! Correspondence No. 1 Hey! I'm sorry it's taken a while to get back to you, but it's a combination of work and me being kind of lazy. haha First, I should thank you! I'm glad I amuse you-- I ... read more

My New Celebrity Status

Asia » South Korea » Gyeongsangbuk-do » Cheongdo March 26th 2010

Cheongdo

HeartandSeoul

You might not know this, but in Korea, I'm kind of a big deal. Actually, in Pittsburgh, I'm also kind of a big deal judging by the fact that some of my most awesome friends made a life-sized rasterbation of me. They take it to their birthday parties, and then take pictures with "me." That's kind of ridiculously awesome. I love being in two places at once ;). Regardless, Koreans love me. I guess one of the main reasons would be because I'm Western. Most Koreans love staring unabashedly at Westerners. I can be doing something as mundane as standing on the subway or buying toilet paper at the local E-Mart, and all eyes will be on me. I even do my best to blend in: dark denim, dark coats, dark shoes, dark tops. Doesn't seem ... read more

The Skinny on Korean Stereotypes

Asia » South Korea » Daegu » Jung-gu March 13th 2010

Students.

HeartandSeoul

Hello world, I am back again. Instead of summarizing my life, I figured it's about time to tackle some Korean stereotypes. Hope this clears things up for you, or reaffirms what you know, or maybe even makes you chuckle. 1.) Height Yes, Korea is an Asian country. Yes, Asian people are notorious for being of short stature. HOWEVER things are a changin'. Korea is known for having the highest average height in all of Asia (at 1.739 m across 19-year-olds in 2006). For those of you who don't understand that, in the United States, the average height for 20-29 year old is 1.776 m (5 ft 10 in). What this means pretty much is that I am frequently dwarved by the my Korean peers, and that a shit-ton of Korean guys make my friend Andy (6'6") ... read more

Changes - Turn and Face the Strange

Asia » South Korea » Daegu » Jung-gu March 1st 2010

Daegu at Dusk

HeartandSeoul

Okay. So as usual, I meant to update sooner. Really, I did! But there have been so many things going on in the past week, and there will be a ton of things coming up in this week; Either way, I had to write eventually! Let's start with last week. Last week was the end of the Winter Term. With all of the miscellaneous holidays we've had, our MWR classes were nearly a week ahead of the TF classes. Clearly, there needed to be some way that the Tuesday Friday kids could play catch-up. So while the MWR classes wrapped up with their last class on Monday, TF kids had to come both to their Tuesday and Friday classes-- to complete lessons 10, 11, and 12. As the Monday-Wednesday-Thursday kids only had to be in on ... read more

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