My new love....

And so my camera kicked the bucket...no warning, no I will be deserting you soon...simply...GOODBYE! Leaving me to do nothing more than drive to GUMO World in Gwangju on Sunday and purchase the most beautiful little camera in the world....

It's the pretty pink one and I am madly in love with it!

Speaking of madly in love...Daniel and I have been laying a little low since our Thanksgiving extravaganza weekend consisting of partying a bit too hard, drinking a bit too much and doing nothing that was even remotely productive.

This weekend we stayed in, I purchased Entourage at the store and am slowly helping Daniel become addicted!

Over the past few days I have witnessed some pretty outrageous things...today on my break from school I ventured into the little country town beside it, to find, in the land where there is never a farm animal to be seen, a cow in a trailer chillin out in the middle of the town square. If I hadn't left my cute little ruby behind I would have snapped a photo!

Today I am out at my country school, 30 minutes outside of the city, in the middle of a mountain range, where the flies are rampant and the children are slightly insane. Today I was convinced we were bring attacked by North Korea or even America as fighter jets flew over head swerving in and out of the mountains. I had this horrified look on my face as my students stared and laughed!

This week will be another short one, Wednesday is another red day on the calender. You see, when the number on the calender is red I know that I don't have to go to school, and in all honesty, that is the ONLY way I know not to go to school. No one tells me, no one warns me that no one will be there that day and they surely don't tell me the reason behind having the day off.

And so...tomorrow, being like a Friday...I am joining the girls for some chaotic fun!

kamakazi

*** T-shirt of the day...on a sixth grader who hasn't any idea what the words mean when put together..."Join the Marines. Travel to exotic countries. Meet interesting, unique people and KILL THEM."

Taking a half a day yesterday with a cold that I could feel consuming my body, for some reason, when i Korea I get double as sick as I do in America. Waking up from my nap I found a pretty pink slip of paper on my car, in Korean of course, but figured it was a ticket of some sort. After picking up Alroy, Jin Shul his girlfriend kindly translated the contents for us

1.YOU DID NOT PAY YOUR AUTO TAX.
2. WE HAVE TAKEN YOUR FRONT LICENSE PLATE.
3. IN ORDER TO GET IT BACK YOU MUST COME AND PAY YOUR TAX WITH IN 24 HOURS.

And so, at lunch Daniel and I ventured to city hall, with a little help from a friend we paid the last 2 years worth of tax on our vehicle and reclaimed our plates!

And so, today I came in refreshed and ready for my day of no classes, "Test Day" as it read on my schedule. I had heard talk of an evaluation, but not knowing what it entailed, I just went about my day! As it turns out I WAS BEING EVALUATED in addition to the rest of the school....being curriculum, building, classrooms etc. At 11am I was told that I would be teaching a new lesson with a Korea teacher to demonstrate our abilities to work together and the teachers ability to speak English. The teacher turned up 10 minutes late, I think she was a bit more nervous then I was and everything went well.

My school is very different from the elementry school experience i had as a child.
1. Each morning the head teacher, a butt smoking...soju drinking man who cranks butts out the side door all day, gets on the speaker and says a long list of Korean things. There is however no silence in the classrooms, they talk and yell over him.
2. At 10am all of the students gather on the dirt pitch outside my window for morning excersies.
3. The baseball players, the only sport which I belive they offer here at school, wear their uniforms EVERY DAY! They sit in the back of class and are not expected to participate or have any knowledge at all. I have taken to calling each of them, there is one in each of my seven classes, "Mr. Baseball"...they think they are kings.
4. There are mirrors in each of the hallways, offices, bathrooms, libraries, corners...these people are VAIN!
5. They eat off of metal lunch trays with 5 round compartments:
kimchi, rice, meal of the day (i have seen pork, shrimp and onions ect.), dried fish and seaweed, fruit.
It has gotten increasingly more interesting.
6. Each of the classrooms at my school as well as my country school, (by country school I mean a school which is in the middle of no where with a small amount of students) has a large flat screen tv, a huge flatscreen!

Life is a little different over here!

Glacial Greed Pussy

It may confuse you as it did me, the words Glacial Greed Pussy being paired together, where would you see such a thing? On the tee shirt of a sixth grade girl in my class. Unfortunately, my mind was focused on trying to figure out what on earth this could mean and forgot to tell her teacher it really wasn't appropriate. But how would I even begin to explain this? How can I through charade's, in a non-offensive manner, tell this child's non-English speaking teacher how inappropriate her t-shirt is?

And so I have spent the better part of my day, sitting in front of this computer, being told to shut it down about every 15 minutes or so, then being moved somewhere across the room, desk and all, set up again, and moved again, set up again and moved again, I am hoping this time it will be the last.

The weather has changed drastically and the sun is shining, rain gone and beach days ahead. One more day of teaching, Thursday is a "test day" when I will come in and sit at my desk from 9-5...myspacing and facebooking until my eyes fall out of my head. It could be worse, I could be back at my old job right!!!

Stacy, Alycia and I at Julianna's our first weekend in the city!
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Soon to be....

***Highlight of the week....witnessing a father on his scooter with his son between his legs in front of him, his wife sitting behind him and in his arms...a new born baby....madness!

So 3 weeks or so in and I am almost fully adjusted. Still no phone, cable or internet but I am realizing I really dont need them...crosswords, soju, reading.... all that h with the amazing amount of spare time I seem to have in my days at school.

sitting, where I have sat since 9am, it's Monday and it is now 11:25... a single class is yet to show up!!! One of my co-teachers just came in and said, "oh, no second period". I said well first period did not come either. He looked perplexed, said ok, turned and left. Although having this time is nice, gives me time to catch up...I would have loved to sleep for a few more hours.

My weeks are easy, 3 schools, five days, 20 hours of teaching and 2 hours of volleyball and soju drinking on Wednesdays. Here they drink at school, the teachers that is, can you imagine the uproar if all of the teachers gathered in the NHS gym at 2pm for a game of volleyball, a few budlights, a few shots of jager and a pizza. It still amazes me the freedom their culture gives them to enjoy life in a different way then we do in the states. They are slowly catching on the ways of western life that create a more structured environment, suing people for mindless reasons, changing school programs, however, still their mindsets often revolve around being with friends and family and having fun.

I am teaching 6th grade in my school for the next 4 weeks, the same lesson, 7 times in a row, then on to the next one 7 times in a row again. It could be work for a robot, but, it can be fun if you are willign to put the time in and come up with good activities for the children.

This weekend Daniel and I headed to Yesou with some friends, such a beautiful beach! The weather went from rain rain rain (it rained consistently from 8/24-9/9...)to 90!!
While I was home the battery in our 1988 Hyandi also died. 75,000 won later it is runnign better than ever...minus a horn. The other day on our way back from the market the horn somehow got stuck on and remained so for 20 minutes. Needless to say, all pedestrians around us were annoyed and a kind gentleman came and disconnected it for us. Now....I am hornless...and have resorted to using my middle finger to show anger. Here in the land of few rules there are many ignorant, careless and eratic driverers, with no horn to tell them they are in the wrong, we now just scream out the window. They are often very suprised by this!

My apartment is much nicer this year, 3 good size rooms, a normal bathroom, galley kitchen and a nice veranda!!! The downside to living in Shidae- PAKAYBOOLAYS...COCKROACHS! I hate them! Each time I see one I instantaniously feel the urge to vomit. We have also learned that when you leave the dogs food out you get ants. Suppodsly ants and cockroaches dont coexsist in the same apartment, mine is the exception. And so, the race begns to keep an extra clean house!!!

Pictures coming soon....
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