It's Saturday morning a little chilly outside and I am really enjoying quiet time with my cup of instant coffee.
Coffee in South Korea is a bit different to New Zealand. Most of the instant coffee you find is in a one cup package that you tear the top off and pour into your mug and add hot water. In the package there is sugar and some kind of milk powder. I guess it is lucky that I like my coffee white with one sugar as all of them are like that. I really had been missing regular tea though. It seems as though there are dozens of other types of tea but not good old breakfast variety. Clare and I had been scouring the aisles of the larger supermarkets with no success. Clare's mum was nice enough to send us a package with 3 varieties of our favourite tea and a whoel bunch of other goodies.
Soon after that package arrived we discovered a supermarket very close to us that has Lipton tea! Murphy's Law.
The week at school was pretty good. I felt a lot more in control of my kindy kids. Either, they are getting used to the school environment or I have become more competent in getting them to behave. I say this when I still had 3 boys hide in the bathroom right before there was a school assembly! How embarrassing.
I can now get them to sit down quickly by counting down from 5 and threatening to rub their stars off the white board. I made one boy named Baron cry 3 days in a row over his behaviour stars.
The elementary classes are okay. I have a number of favourite classes and a couple that I loathe. It is hard to develop a relationship and/or mutual respect with the kids when you have such a limited band of conversation. "How are you today" " I am fine thank you."
Clare and I have quickly developed tools for maintaining order - putting kids in the corner on a chair to do their work. Splitting talkative kids up at the table.
I have tried putting kids out in the corridor on a chair but that lead to them standing on the chair to look over the frosted glass which made the whole class crazy.
The word crazy is a another thing that is special about Korea. Pabu - in Korean is crazy and if you say that some one is crazy that is a big insult. This Means I have to be a bit careful with what I say. I have taken to using the word 'Loco' instead. I have slipped a couple of times with telling the kids to "Shut up!" That is a big no-no. I know that when I was at school a teacher would never say that because it was basically swearing. But honestly some of the boys I teach must have mouths powered by eveready batteries. They make me lose it sometimes so it just slips out.
I have had some phone teaching this week. The phone teaching is a bit of an ass really. We are expected every month to call each child and spend 4 minutes going over stuff from class. It takes quite a bit of organisation with 70-80 kids to call. Wrong phone numbers - arranging times to call and having to do it outside of office hours so it cuts into your down time. If I was able to choose a contract - or if I choose a contract in the future I will make sure that there is no phone teaching. The phone teaching will end I hope by Wednesday next week.
We're going into Seoul this afternoon. I am going to use my Yongsan expertise and help Kelly negotiate buying a digital camera. I really like the electronics market so it will be quite fun. Clare will spend some time in the English bookstore, although she has been chewing her way merrily through the books that were left behind by the predecessor from my apartment
I decided not to go to soccer this week. I am excited at the prospect of playing but I couldn't contemplate a whole day in Seoul. I would have had to leave Uijongbu at about 9am and then have a 2 hour practice. I would have to spend the whole day there because we have arranged a dinner show tonight in Seoul. I hope that next week I will go and I might be able to drag one of the other foreign teachers (Rachel) with me.
The dinner show tonight should be quite fun. We will be eating a Bhuddist meal - so it will be a little different from the usual Korean food. The show is a traditional Korean dance. I'll make sure that I take the camer and take some shots for you.
Tomorrow, I have no plans in particular. I really need to ask someone about getting a calling card so I can call home. The calling rates from the home phone's here are awful. Clare made a call to her mum in the first week for 20 minutes and it cost her about NZ$1 per minute!
So look out for my Dinner Show blog. I am trying to encourage Clare to write on here cos I think that would be cool.
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