Another week has flown by. It’s insane to me how quickly time flies. I’ve been here for two months now but it feels like I arrived yesterday. I am so busy during the week, I guess it just makes the days go by much faster. This week we received our first set of bills, which means I have officially set my budget. I am paying off a lot of debt while I am here and hopefully saving up for my next new adventure, so money is tight and I have to be careful not to spend too much money out in Seoul or shopping. It’s going to be hard to resist the urge to shop since everything is so cute and cheap, but I think I’ll be able to handle it. We got paid today and FINALLY have a bank account as of yesterday! I already feel settled in here, but this made it a official. It feels good. Ooh and this week I finally finished my TEFL!!!! I’ve been working on it for the past 6 months and have spent endless hours working on it so it felt amazing to finish it. I love that feeling of accomplishment when you finish something you’ve worked so hard on! I have no idea if I will be teaching English again, but at least I have the option and will get paid more now if I do.
This week was my last week with Kevin :-( and I found out that they didn't like that my class was only going to have 3 students in it, so they decided to split my kids into new classes. I was really sad to lose Kevin, and now I am losing my entire class… makes me so sad! I felt connected with Jessica, Sarah, Sally and Kevin, and now I have to start all over again. These kids make going to work worth it- I am going to miss them so much! ! For my last day with them I wanted to do something special, so I asked my boss, Sue, if I could have a little party for them. She approved so I went to the store to pick up some balloons, a big chocolate cake, and a bunch of little presents. I gave them candy, pens, stickers, little notebooks that are really popular with all the little kids, and some other random nick-knacks. I invited my partner teacher to come and eat and play with us. It was a lot of fun, the kids were really excited! The only thing I forgot was my camera. I was so mad when I realized I forgot it at home cause I really wanted pictures with my student on my last day with them. All day the other teachers were asking me how I was doing because everyone knew how much I loved that class and how sad I was to be losing them. I was sure I was going to cry, but I never did.
Taleah’s contract is up in two weeks so I am going to take over her class. She has a class of eight 6-year-olds, which is going to be a lot to handle. They don't speak English like my class did so it’s going to be much more challenging to teach them. I’ve been observing Taleah’s class all week and taking notes on how she does everything so the kids wont have a hard transition. She is the best teacher at LCI, so I have some big shoes to fill. She is always extremely energetic and fun in class, I don't know how I will be able to muster up the energy to be that perky in the morning! Aggg, I’m not looking forward to this! The eight kids are super adorable, which is nice, but I don't think I’ll ever feel as close to them as I did with my original class. I'm really bummed about having to start all over again and change classrooms after the zillions of hours I put into decorating my classroom. The new boy who is coming in a few weeks will be so lucky to come and have his classroom all set up for him when he arrives! The only thing I am enjoying with all of this is that I get to just sit and chill all morning and not have to worry about putting together a lesson plan. Feels good to just relax in the morning rather than running around and being stressed out. Sometimes I’ll be sitting with the kids and feel like am living someone else’s life. I haven’t spent a lot of times with kids before I came here, it’s weird to think that this is my full-time job now. I used to be so uncomfortable around kids because I have never spent much time with them - Joe used to laugh and make fun of how nervous I would get to talk to his little brother or kids at Chucky Cheese’s. Now I am with them all day everyday and find myself missing them on the weekends. But yet again, I am sitting in Taleah’s class, nervous to be their teacher. For the third time in 2 months, I have another group of children to get used to. Hopefully we warm up to each other quickly- at least I know that these will be my students for the next 11 months. I have a feeling that this group is going to be much more challenging than my last. I assume they know things and talk to them like I would my other students, but these kids have a much smaller English vocabulary. For example, they had to identify simple patterns and they just sat there staring at me. I quickly realized that they were blankly staring at me because they didn't know the word “pattern”. I have a feeling I am going to have a lot more moments like this one!
Other than that, everything has been pretty great here. Tia, Katie and I have been getting a long really great and enjoying each other’s company. Amy has been hanging out a lot more, which is awesome. She is a really fun, laid-back girl so we all really like having her around. And of course, Andy is the man of the family. Andy is freakin’ hilarious! Always making me laugh and cracking the funniest jokes. He’s a bit obnoxious- but not in an annoying way. He’s always goofing off and saying ridiculous things. Everyone pretty much votes him the life of the party. I love having him around all of the time, not just because he is funny and so nice, but because he switches up the dynamic of the group. I'm with girls constantly, its really nice to have a boy in the group to smooth things out and ease the drama, cause girls can be really dramatic about the dumbest things sometimes. He always just says something witty to remind everyone to stop getting so upset about the small things that happen at work. It’s only been a month with the guy and I can already tell I'm going to be really sad when we have to say goodbye to him next year!
This weekend we decided to stay in on Friday night because we were so exhausted from the workweek and had plans to go shopping up in Insadong all day Saturday. It was our first time going up to Seoul to spend the day, but we didn't really see a whole lot. Someday I really want to go up there and stay all weekend to get to know the city. Tia, Katie, Katelan, Sean, Chris, Chase, and I went to Insadong to shop for traditional Korean items and souvenirs. Insadong is a big market full of little shops and stands of Korean artisans selling their handmade pottery, clothes and jewelry. This month is my best friends Ariel and Whitney’s birthday so I wanted to go to Insadong to buy them traditional Korean items. It was a lot of fun to walk through the crowds of people, seeing the beautiful things the artisans were selling and bartering with them. It was Katie’s first time bartering, so she was a little nervous, but it was fun to watch her learn how to effectively barter and the excitement she felt when she could get the item for the price she wanted. I ended up spending a lot more than I planned, but Ariel and Whitney are worth it ;-) I'm definitely going to come back here to buy things for my family before I go back to the U.S.
Yesterday was Easter, so a big group of us went to Pyongtaek to make brunch at Katelan and Chase’s apartment. All of us pitched in for a ton of food and Sean single handedly made eggs, French toast, and bacon for our whole group of about fifteen. Oooh and Kim had a friend who is in the military and lives on the base so she was able to get Doritos and Cheetos! So exciting! Yum. We all just hung out, talked, played games and some basketball outside. It was nice Easter Sunday, definitely continuing my streak of fun Easter’s for the past few years. Last year in Pullman with my WSU family and the year before that I was in Athens with Tanya, now Korea. Wonder where I’ll be for Easter next year?? Maybe visiting Cambodia, Japan or Europe??
Mmk, back to work. Another day, another Won
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