Winter Camp is on!!!

Here we are. I'm a week and a half into winter camp and I love it. I get the best kids in the school. I love it, absolutley love it. It's still the same thing, no co-teacher, in the room by myself with the kids but these kids speak English and want to learn. They want to learn!!!! Just today I let my class out on time at 3:20, then I sit down and start to do my post class work. Roll, teaching diary, cleaning up my desk, 3 girls just hung out and talked to me a really good 6th grader, a really good 5th grader and an obviously amazing 3rd grader. Now, just because they are in the highest class doesn't mean that they are perfectly fluent. The 5th & 6th graders can understand me and answer usually in a bit of a stilted sentence but they are making sentences. The 3rd grader is just so cute, the vocab she hasn't learned because she's still in 3rd grade is huge but she obviously understands quite a bit. The kids had to take a placement test and about 37-40 kids got to be in the top class. There was some vocab and sentence structure stuff she nailed it. Only 3rd grader in either of my classes. When we were all talking she would mostly speak in Korean and the 6th grader would translate, talked about their home life, after school life are they enjoying my classes and most important I found out they are in fact learning. Mission Accomplished!!

These Days....

These days are crippling. I don't know if it was from partying this weekend or just what was going on for me but I feel like a train wreck when I'm not doing something. Anything really. It could very easily have been seeing old friends or just anything but the silence is killing me. Not being in North Carolina is killing me I don't know what's going on or how just about anyone is. I'm going to make an effort to call home more but I don't know how that'll effect me. Will talking to Mom for 30 minutes be a good thing or bad thing. I've come so far and feel like this is going to be probably the hardest stretch so far because I get off of work at 3:30 so now there is more time. More time to fill sitting in my apartment doing nothing sitting around. Staring at facebook for hours on end. That may be what does it the most I see how everyone is doing back home and wonder how come I couldn't have that there? Laziness? Probably, for now though I think it will be back to rather early bedtimes for me as for whatever reason I'm just really feeling heavy today.

A message about the Korean Language

Hello,

Today I come to educate. The Korean Language has been a cruel and elusive mistress to me, almost as cruel as English itself. But today with the help of some creative explenations and away from all those "Learning Korean" websites I want to help you learn some Korean. At least how to read, because once you can read the whole world is your book. At least Korea anyway. Let's start(oh and did I mention that I can't type Korean on my computer)

Today I will try to explain sounds that look like English letters ( I seriously almost called them "American letters" wtf). If you see what you think is a "F" but it's facing the other way then it's Korean and it makes a "K" sound. If you see an "E" upper case then don't think "mEE" try "Tea" cause "E"s get the "T" sound. If you see a box and that box is closed then thats an "M" like you'd find in "geM". If the side of the box aren't on the edges of the and are also not touching the top line then that's a "P" sound. This takes more out of me than I thought also I'm hungry more later this week.

Surprise!!!

I got to go on my first Korean Field Trip or Picnic as they called it in English this past Friday. I don't have any pictures because I didn't take my camera because I thought I wasn't going to go as soon as 30 minutes before they left and I was walking to school. But as I got to the school there they were, 4 buses to take the 4 sixth grade classes to Yong-in, and the Korean Folk Village. That's it's name. Seriously, wikipedia that it's there. I didn't believe it but it is what it is The Korean Folk Village. I got tot ride on the second bus with class 2 and at the beginning I was worried cause my Co-teacher, the one who you know teaches English with me at this school wasn't going on the trip. So I get on this bus with the class and they may not have been the best English speaking class but they probably had the best English speaking 6th grade teacher. Funny thing about talking to Korean and probably anyone else in a second language (self included) is that you're never really sure how much of what you've just said they've understood. I mean sometimes I'm at a store or trying to figure out something and I'll ask a Korean and they start speaking in Korean and not using gestures and I just decide to shut it down and shake my head "Yes".

Anyway she seemed to be able to keep up and explain things to me correctly, I know cause I was reading the English on the signs before she could translate the Korean, and it was fun talking in English to a Korean and having it not be just about school. Just about everyone commutes to town to work and she was no exception as she said she drives 40 minutes from Daejeon to get to school, she studies English and one day wants to take over as the Korean English Teacher at a school. It kind of makes you wonder what the difference in pay rate is for regular homeroom teacher and specialty English teacher is since they are so big on learning the language. But she was talking about how on the ride to work she listens to English Education Radio in the car and tries to learn more and then as soon as she steps out of the car she forgets it. Normal for everyone I guess.

We were walking down the "Yellow Road" and a group of 11 girls caught up to up and we ended up walking with them for the rest of the trip around the village. We went into a Haunted House and that was fun because who doesn't like 11 thirteen year-old girls pushing them into a dark hallway to lead the way. That was especially memorable because as we got to the exit they all come piling out behind me except for one girl and the teacher. We had to wait for like 5 minutes for them to come out and listining to their screams was hilarious. I tried to ask why they were so far behind but I don't think she understood. We crossed a narrow footbridge and she almost peed her pants she looked so scared. Good times had by all. Anyway at the end at (one of) the gift shop(s) I bought a fan which is what I do now. I don't just want fans though I want them to have awesome stuff on them. Also I want them to be huge, I could have gotten a huge one but it was like 35000won and for that kind of coin I would have like it to be bigger. Oh well lesson learned, "Always bring your camera."

Okcheon on the rise

When I got here I thought it was nice. Not clean. Not new. But it's very nice and I like Okcheon. The Geum is the 3rd longest river in South Korea it runs through Okcheon. I mean I thought it was a pretty important waterway when I got here even though it's rather shallow. I attribute that to the inflated sense of worth that I attach to everything around me cause I'm an egomaniac. But then I saw a sign that is literally across the street from Samyang, my main school. It's the Geum River and it's sort of a big deal.

So after I got here and after some walking around I thought that this river split the town up and created an island that housed the main section, like Samyang Elementary. Well one of the teachers who got here in March told me a bit later that they basically built the left section of the river in the time since they arrived. This is the view towards where the two side meet from the side they just built over the last ohh, 7 months or so.



Now I had no clue that this was just built. I kinda figured that as I said before this was a natural formation. This next picture is looking up the old leg of the river. This was back when I first got here.



Now they are adding even more. These dolphins, I can't even explain it. If real dolphins tried to get to Okcheon the would die so fast it's not even funny. Ok maybe a little funny. Point is this is a shallow river, really shallow like, a dolphin wouldn't need to worry about coming up for air as much as they would have to worry about getting down for food. But they are bronze, they have hoses and I assume that sometime in Spring or even later this winter if they are crazy, these babies will be spouting water into the are at a regular interval.



This is a pedestrian bridge that was built in about a month, it spans the new section of the stream.


Hopefully I'll see tremendous progress in all this and be able to document it here

Winter Camp is coming

We have Winter Camp starting December 21st. That is more info to try and pound that into my head. December 21st. December 21st. 12/21. Most people have to do some Camp when school is not normally in session. But for some unknow reason to me Samyang Elementary does it big. 4 weeks long. Yesterday my co-teacher told me I get to teach the highest level of students *fist pump*. Also the kids will take a level test *double fist pump*. I will have the most awesomest kids in my school. Of course now that means we have to do some orienteering or however you would say it. We have orientation Saturday, damnit! I was planning to go and see people in Incheon which is next to Seoul, so it could have ended up being a night or 2 in Seoul. But now it might be an evening at a friends place in a small town a couple hours away via bus. Not really sure but I am excited about doing my Advanced class lesson. It's on Russia. I know nothing about the Motherland other than what I learned from HS social studies. I looked at the wikipedia page but that was no help. Too much info, history I couldn't do it justice to a bunch of 12 and 13 year old girls that don't really understand what I'm saying. So instead I'm showing a bunch of pictures of Red Square, some marching St. Basil's Cathedral, and some dancing Russian military. Should be fun. Also after 5 days of thinking I finally came up with/found one on the internet. Also one last note, I am going to put my Korean skills to use by translating the kids coming to the camps names. I am going to apoligize to the kids in advance for forever screwing them in the future on their romanized names. My bad kiddies