A Little Korean Pick-Me-Up

This week flew by!  I can't believe it's already Sunday . . . and that I've only been here for 17 days.  Part of me feels like I've been here for much longer.  I think living in LA was a good preparation for what life is like here: fast paced, tons of people, crazy driving, lots of shopping - just to name a few.

This was my first week of teaching completely on my own and it went great!  My classes are all very unique.  My first class has a ton of energy, so much so that I think I'm going to make them run the stairs before we start class.  They are adorable, but they have so much energy it's a little frightening.  They sit two feet away from each other but shout to each other as if they are talking over four lanes of traffic!  I constantly have to tell them to use inside voices, which lasts for about ten seconds before they're shouting again.  My second class has five kids and they are the teacher's pet, people-pleaser type kids.  They are very smart, listen, and always participate.  My third class is my new beginner-level class.  They are very focused and I have a few girls who are total perfectionists.  They totally freaked out before their first quiz, even though the lowest score was a B, and the ones who were freaking out the most got A's or A+'s.  My fourth class is more challenging.  There are only three kids and it seems like they don't really want to be there.  They are at that middle school age where it's too cool to participate in class, so if I didn't make them answer questions about what we're reading I don't think I would even know what their voices sounded like.  My last class, my highest level students, are so fun.  Because their English is so good, we get to read more challenging books and we have real conversations that are completely unrelated to school.  I should probably be more of a stickler about doing more schoolwork but it's way more fun to hear about their lives, about Korea, and talk about sports and celebrities!  I did start bringing my own dinners, so I had an entire week that was 100% free of bibimbop!!

Yesterday we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving.  Obviously I'm not Canadian but a lot of people from the program are that I've become friends with, so we all got together to celebrate.  As I was walking to the subway station, I was feeling a little lonely thinking about all the holidays that are coming up and was missing my friends and family.  I got about halfway out of my complex when this nice lady said hello to me.  I could tell she wanted to keep talking, so I stopped and tried to speak with her.  I totally overestimated her English abilities, but we were still able to communicate a little, mostly due to the use of constant repetition on my part, lots of pointing, hand movements, and probably the best game of charades I've ever seen played.  I did learn that her name was Mrs. Kim (go figure - one of the three most common names in the country, but atleast that means it won't be hard for me to remember), she lives just two buildings down from me, I told her I wasn't married, and she touched my hair and said I was a very beautiful girl.  I hope to see Mrs. Kim again, she was very sweet.  I was feeling a little better and my loneliness was starting to disappear.  I got about twenty more feet when low and behold a whole class walked out of a school that's in the middle of my apartment complex.  Towards the back were about fifteen 15-year old boys.  The second they saw me they shouted, "Hi," "Hello," "Beautiful," "Sexy," and "Great body."  I didn't know how to respond except to laugh.  I thought it was totally hilarious.  No one in the States would ever be that bold to shout those things out at you on the streets unless intoxicated . . . and even then it's pretty uncommon.  So needless to say, my mood was definitely lifted after those two experiences.  I was chuckling the entire walk to the subway.  Anyways, back to Canadian Thanksgiving.  We played an awesome game of touch football, Americans v. Canadians, and obviously the U.S. prevailed!  I do have to say that I played pretty well and even scored a couple touchdowns, thank you very much.  It was a perfect day for football, too.  Sunny, mid-70's, a few clouds - a perfect fall day.  During our game, though, a lot of little Korean kids kept running onto the field.  Luckily no one got hurt, but there were a few close calls.  It was quite the chore trying to get them off the field with the language barrier, so we tried to huddle them together like sheep and chase them off the field.  Most of the time they just scattered so it always ended up taking a few minutes.  After the game we went out for galbi, which is Korean bar-b-que, and then bowled for a few hours.  I was the highest scorer out of the group, scoring 145 my first game, which I think is my highest bowling score ever.  And no Thanksgiving would be complete without pumpkin and apple pie with vanilla ice cream, so of course someone had gone to Costco earlier in the day and picked up a couple pies for us to share.

Today I went to Myeongdong, one of the southern towns of Seoul.  I went to an English Mass at the Myeongdong Cathedral.  It is one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen.  It has a very old, antique-y feeling to it with a ton of stained glass windows.  The Irish priest was a little dry but oh well.  After Mass, Greg and Kelly met me in Myeongdong for some shopping.  There are tons of stores, both American and Korean, all within about 1 mile of each other.  There's also an underground shopping area that I went into.  I don't know how all these stores stay in business - there are about 20 different Bath and Body Work-like shops right next to each other, plus all the shoe vendors sell basically the exact same things.  They do have an H&M, Forever 21, Adidas, Nike, and other American stores, too.

It was definitely a fun week.  Next weeked I'm going hiking at Seoraksan National Park, which I'm so excited for and I think over Halloween weekend I'm going up to Taebaek, a town way up in the mountains, for a Halloween party.  Hope all is well in the States!  Lots of love.

Sweet potatoes are my fall obsession, so I probably have one everyday.  Plus, it's one of the things I can make without an oven, making it an easy go-to.  However, today, I realized that my last 3 sweet potatoes had mold on them.  I was so bummed about throwing them away and had an intense craving so I was hoping this little lady that sells produce just outside my apartment complex would be there, even though it was a Sunday.  Strike one, she was MIA when I needed her most.  So then I thought I'd walk down just a ways to another small little mart, praying that they would have some.  So I walked as fast as I could (because I was starving, really wanted to be home after my long day at Myeongdong, and was seriously embarrassed about wearing my pajamas out of the house - short cotton shorts and a white shirt that was an 80's workout-throwback shirt that kept falling off my shoulders - I was probably showing way more skin anyone else in the country, but in my defense I didn't think I was going to be walking so far), and when I got there, no sweet potatoes.  At this point I was only another 2 minute walk from Lotte Mart, the place where I had bought my first batch of sweet potatoes that had gone moldy so quickly.  So I hustled over there, spent about ten minutes looking for the best bag of sweet potatoes, WITHOUT mold, and booked it back home.  I now sit happily eating my lovely sweet potato, and it was totally worth the effort.