Teaching Mute

An alternative title for today's post could be "Something I Never Want to do EVER AGAIN." Whew! Teaching without talking takes A LOT of energy and patience.

I mentioned in one of my last posts that I was instructed by the doctor not to talk for a week because of vocal nodules (for the SECOND TIME since I've been in Korea). Last time this happened, I took the week off from work. This time I decided that I really didn't want to give my students to subs for the last week of class, especially since we had our big project presentations this week! So, instead, I volunteered to teach my elementary classes mute. I got subs for my middle school reading classes. I'm crazy, not stupid.

I don't know what possessed me to do that.

In preparation for this endeavor, I made a bunch of cue cards to hold up for my kids. At the end of the week, I made 45 total cue cards to teach. Along with signs telling the kids what part of the lesson we were doing, I also made signs that said, "English Only!" "Eyes up front!" and, the kids' favorite, "BREAK!"

The class I see on Monday and Wednesday was awesome. Absolutely great. I was so proud of them (and maybe a little impressed at how my classroom management skills have developed so much that I had ANY class that I could teach mute with no mishaps). We worked quickly since it is rather difficult to make cue cards for all the leading questions I usually ask in order to get students through the discussions that take up most of our time. So we ended up spending a lot of time playing their favorite game, "Mafia!" Usually I host and entertain the kids with funny stories about how the mafia made other students disappear (no one is killed at Chung Dahm... but kids disappear all the time). However, since I can't talk, I let the kids host. It was a daunting task for them because they had to host IN ENGLISH, but they really enjoyed it and I think they got pretty good at creatively making people disappear.

Here is one of our hosts, May, picking some people who will become our "mafia."



Here they are working on their projects for the last day. They had to each pick a famous person for a role model and then solve a world problem. They got some pretty awesome ideas. I loved watching them come up with these amazing ideas. I liked it so much that I got them a few extra things for them to play with for their presentations. Just a pack of colored paper for each class and some glue/scissors from home, but it really got their creative juices flowing. Amazing what providing craft paper will do for a kid's creativity.





Oh, and Sally gave me a homemade donut. How cool is that?



On Wednesday, we had our "Critical Learning Costume Party." Because of scheduling, our class was the only one to go to the "party" on Wednesday, so we performed in our own classroom. The presentations were top notch and I only wish that we had been able to show off to the other classes.

As it was, I got prizes to pass out to the top three groups and since there were only three groups everyone got a prize! Yay! I spent maybe 1500 won peer kid (which is around $1). Little notebooks or pencil cases, a hilighter, an eraser, and a handful of neon colored rubber bands for each kid. I thought it was funny how much the kids liked the rubber bands. I got them as an afterthought to fill up the bags...

Eric (holding the apple) was Sir Isaac Newton. Kevin (Bill Gates) was giving him devil horns. :) I probably should have stopped Newton as he turned around to sock Gates in the arm... but it was too funny, and they were both laughing. :)



Five more minutes, Ladies!! Get ready! Julia, stop walking around the class in your ice skates, please... Yes, I know the blades are covered, but you look like you are going to fall over and break open your little head. Too bad I couldn't say all that...



They were really excited for the presentations...



At the end of class, I demanded that they all gather at the front of the room for a class photo. They thought it was stupid (and probably more than a little annoyed that we weren't playing Mafia yet), but I got some cute pictures of my favorite group of kids.

From left to right, the back row has Soo Ho, Kevin, Cherry, Julia, Sally, Lily, and Jenny. The from row has Jason, JuYong, Eric, Jessy, and Luna.



Then there was the class I teach on Tuesday and Thursday. Oh, dear. You cute little trouble makers. Most of them were okay, but I have a few in there (all right, I have 3 little insane-o boys that sit in the back) that seem to have made it their life missions to drive me nuts. You can just see them in the back of this picture. Roy (blue shirt), Jason (touching his shoulder) and Jimin (striped shirt that's half in half out of the photo next to Jason). Whooo boy. They are the three musketeers. That is if the three musketeers constantly dropped things from their desks, had an affinity for corn chips, and insisted on driving me crazy.



I kind of wished I had made a sign that said, "ROY! Stop dropping your crap on the floor!" or "JIMIN! What are you doing writing on the board while I'm trying to start class!?" and "Because I said so, Jason." *sigh* It's not so bad when I can keep them participating by calling on them during class, but I had to kind of rely on volunteers with my signs...

The projects in this class were really great, as well. I was really impressed with their ideas and the different props they all made for their presentations. These girls were posing as Girls Generation (a K-Pop band) and were solving global warming
.


Sophia... why are you on Teacher's computer?



On Thursday, all the Tera level classes got together to show off their presentations. Here is Sasha telling them to be quiet so we can start. She is so sweet... I'd love to see her inner dialogue right now. It's probably something like, "Why won't you all SHUT UP!?"



These are some of my girls doing their presentation. You should have seen the look on poor Emily's face when they got the prize for most creative rather than best overall... if looks could kill, us teachers at the front of the room would have shriveled up.



After presentations, I got them all lined up to take a picture. Heck YES! Man, that was like herding cats...

From left to right, hiding in the back you can see Danny, kind of a Bill, Jimin, Roy, and Jason's heads. Then in the front we have Janice, Emily, Sophia Lee, Sarah, Catherine, Judy (now Liz), and Sophia Kim.



Man, these kids drive me nuts. But I still love them so much! And, you know what, I would not be sad if I got them all back again next term. Why are kids like that? They just SUCK YOU IN!

1000 Awesome Things

I was a little weepy yesterday (trying to figure out what the heck to do about my voice). But I HATE wallowing. I try to remain positive (not that I don't enjoy a good complaining session as much as the next gossipy girl) and wallowing is NOT a positive activity.

In an attempt to stay happy and peppy for this week, I looked up in my Google search bar "awesome things." I didn't really think anything would come of it, I was just messing around, really. But I ended up finding the coolest pick me up website EVER! Even better than Don't Shoot the Puppy.

Feeling down? Check out 1000 Awesome Things. It made my day.

Here are a few examples of things on their lists of awesome things:

-Locking people out of the car and pretending to drive away
-Kids who dress themselves
-Finding money you didn't even know you'd lost
-Real bearded Santas
-Strategic trick-or-treating
-Building a stack of pancakes that looks just like the front of the box.
-The first shower you take after not showering in a long time
-When little kids hit the age where they just say hi to everyone
-Terrible businesses run by children
-Wearing pajamas outside of the house

I love this site. It makes me happy right now. I'd like to add to that list:

The first good conversation you have after not being able to talk for a week. No pantomiming or scribbled notes needed. Nice.

I'm excited for that one. :)

Back on the silent train...

These last few weeks have been, for the most part, pretty uneventful. I spoke in church about obedience, taught at school, came home... same old same old.

However, there was one bit of "excitement." I went back to the hospital again this week with the same problem as I did around Thanksgiving. That's right, folks. I am once again taking a vow of silence. *sigh*

I noticed it a little last week that my voice was getting a little strained but it really hit me this week.

I expected that I would, once again, have to get a laryngoscopy (look at me! fancy words!). What I DIDN'T expect was the new camera thing. Last time it was a metal stick (about the size of a straw) that they stuck down my throat. This time the lady brought over a thing that had, like, a black plastic... string a little bigger than a spaghetti noodle. I thought, "Nice. They camera is thinner this time. Maybe it won't hurt as much." Then he said something about my nose while I was distracted watching the lady plug in the cool looking new camera.

Wait... what about my nose?

Oh, you want to stick the CAMERA up my NOSE so it can go into my throat. Greeeeaaaat. Cuz having a sore throat and allergies doesn't suck enough, you gotta muck around with my NOSE now, too. Thank you.

Here's a nice picture of what they did to my head.


(photo from link)

I like how the kids is just sitting there with this calm look on his face. I'm pretty sure I was making some a less than attractive faces while that thing was in my nose.

It was awkward, but, on reflection, much less gaggy/painful than the stick camera. Word to the wise, though: don't try to swallow. It isn't as gaggy, but it makes things move in your nose and your throat and is just altogether CREEPY FEELING.

I had decided to go to the hospital before it got so bad that I can't talk (like at Thanksgiving). Didn't quite work out that way. He still told me to rest my voice. I tried to get him to define "rest" more. I asked him about teaching and he said, "Teaching no rest voice. Rest voice." Then he sent me off to the pharmacy to get some more meds in individually wrapped packets.



How nice. The pharmacist even gave me a free vitamin C drink. Oh, yay! I still haven't tried it yet...



I was really, really pissed that this happened again. I don't even KNOW what I can do differently! I FOCUSED to make sure to speak in a normal register (not to high, not too low), practiced breathing exercises from my brief stint in voice lessons, either didn't sing or sang alto when I was at church, and drank lots, and LOTS of water. What else am I supposed to do? I kind of tried to ask the doctor about it... but I think I was lucky enough to figure out what he wanted me to do let alone have a conversations about how to prevent this.

I asked about an English speaking ears, nose, throat doctor on the discussion board for Relief Society (the women at church) and I'm hoping someone will be able to tell me someplace I can go to talk to someone about what I should do about this. It should not keep coming back like this.

From what I can tell based on my quick internet "research," it is a combination of speaking, air pollution, and quite possibly just the bodily shock of being in a different country that are causing this crappy situation.

I'll keep you posted if I find out anything more. I am just grateful that, even though I am having communication issues with my doctor, I have been blessed to find a doctor who is good with the laryngoscope and able to get me helpful meds.

The weekend wasn't a complete bust, in spite of the vow of silence. After the hospital and "talking" with the Mom about my situation, I met up with Kendra at the mall to see "Tangled" or, as it is called here, 라푼젤 (Rapunzel).

While we waited for Tara to show up, we decided to check out the game room. That's where I saw THE coolest stuffed animal EVER.



That's right, people. It's a smiling piece of toast. How much COOLER could that GET!? I personally have no idea. After searching our bags for change, we tried it out a few times. Took, I think, three tries for us to figure out exactly what we were supposed to do in order to get the toy. We went back after the movie (which was AWESOME, by the way) to try again. Kendra was better at it, so I let her play, but I wanted the toast.

Kendra drew quite the crowd. At first it was this one couple. We thought they wanted to play, but when we stepped out of the way to let them play, they left. Then they came back when we started up again.



Kendra was getting SO VERY CLOSE!! You had to move the arm to the side just right so the string would go between the little hand, then bring it forward just enough so it went inside the hand but not too far back or the little razors won't cut the string. We got an even bigger crowd of middle school girls who watched the crazy Migooksaram (American) while she tried to win the toast.



We spent about 8,000 won before I told her that we should stop. I still want to find that toast, though, and BUY IT. TOAST PILLOW!!!

We consoled ourselves in delicious Cold Stone Ice Cream. Yum. I had the Apple Pie.



Tara also showed us this giant bookstore we hadn't seen before. It was pretty cool. We checked out the foreign books (YES) and looked at the "Mistery Fiction." Haha... "mistery..."



They also had some interesting choices for the Junior section. Our favorite was "Don Quijote de la Mancha." Not exactly a "junior" book.



Tara loved "Tangled" a lot. She even posed in front of the poster for us.



And that, folks, was my weekend. Hopefully I find an ENT who speaks English and figure all this stuff out. In the mean time, I plan on still having a little fun.

Seolnal Part 2: Myung Dong!

After leaving the Creepy Shoe Guy with his family, we figured out that Namdaemun is, like, super close to Myung Dong, another shopping district in Seoul and, like, one of our favorite places to go.

On our way over to Myung Dong we got a pretty good (if foggy) view of Seoul Tower. This is one place that I want to go to before I leave, preferably at night when, I've heard, the view is supposed to be amazingly pretty.



We also saw this pretty sweet Western looking fountain.



Once in Myung Dong, we found a really cute looking makeup store. We were immediately attacked with good service. I literally mean ATTACKED! This lady (who spoke great English) was going on about the best colors of these eye shadows and just, without even asking, started putting it on our eyes. It was like, "Hey! You'll be pretty whether you like it or not, dammit!!" After the initial attack, she kind of backed off and let us ask questions about the things we were interested in and while Tara was asking about some blush I escaped the lady to look at some eyeliner where I was promptly attached to another English speaking lady who, luckily, was a little less pushy than the one that attacked us with the eye shadow.

I don't feel too bad giving into her sales pitches because they were things I asked for and she just directed me to them. They weren't even the most expensive things in the store. She actually told me about an eyeliner that would look better on me that was half the price of the one that I was looking at. Granted, half the price just made it dirt cheap as opposed to Walmart cheap.

I ended up getting a bunch of makeup and some face cream stuff that no one cares about (even if it smells GREAT and is all awesome) but spent only a fraction of what I would pay in the States for all of this.

That's not even the best part.

They also gave with the purchase a whole ton of free stuff: a butt load of samples, two face masks, a nice hand mirror, nail clippers that look like a cat paw, a feather pen, oil control paper, and a big ol' tote to put it all in.

Man, I love Korea.

Especially shopping here. What am I going to do when I go back to America and I can't get dirt cheap cosmetics and awesome service with tons of free crap with my purchase!? There is no where like that in the States is the answer.

Thus, right now my favorite place to shop for cosmetics is Holika Holika. Here is the store that took my money.



Here is Tara standing in front of the store that took our money. You can't really tell in the picture, but the lady had put a ton of blush, pink sparkly lip gloss, and some green eye shadow on her and all together it kind of made her look like a doll. It was pretty adorable.



Speaking of free crap, we were also accosted in front of other stores with free stuff just to go in and look around. So we did! I got a free purple Christmas tree pen and a box of cotton pads out of the deal.

Here's a picture of the ladies that kept trying to force free stuff onto us.


Right now is the "Korea Grand Sale!" which means there are banners and stuff telling us it's the "Korea Grand Sale!" Supposedly a lot of stores are having awesome sales, but it's pretty hard to tell sometimes. One might think that this might be why got so much free stuff with our purchases, but I don't see much of a change from before the beginning of the "Korea Grand Sale!" (the exclamation point is important).

Tired out from all that hard work shopping (whew!) we sat down to some much deserved food. We went back to a restaurant we had been to before for some Chicken Bulgogi. Yum!

Here's me excited for food!



Tara loves food, too!



They start you out with some sides: cabbage with some kind of dressing on it, radishes, kimchi, and some kind of soup.



Then they bring out a pot, put it in front of you, and start cooking. Mmmm... mushrooms, mushrooms, carrots, more mushrooms, green onions, and a slice of potato.



Then they add the marinated chicken. Soooo good!!



It cooks in about five minutes which, nearing the end, they add the glass noodles and it becomes delicious!!



Also, Tera loves Kesha (spelling?) and the guy at the front counter of the restaurant was playing a record of her so Tara took a picture with it.



And that was all Friday! Friday was a busy, busy day with many good adventures (and a few that just make good stories).

Saturday we tried more delicious Korean food for dinner (no shopping on Saturday! Spent all our spending money on Friday), this time closer to home. On the way, we stopped by the pet store and admired the cute, cute puppies in the window. Cuteness!



The food was great, if a little bit spicy (burning lips!), but the best part was their high tech take out boxes. We didn't finish all their food and since Tara doesn't have a microwave (poor gal) she didn't want to take it home so I got it all. Sweet! Two dinners in one! When I got the bag of left overs home, I opened it to see their amazingly high tech take out containers: plastic vegetable bags!



Heck YES! That is amazing. Mom was a little grossed out when I told her. She thought that was just dirty, but I don't think they are used. They probably just have a roll in the back that they rip off of and send you home with it. Made me to laugh.

And THAT, my friends, was an awesome four day weekend. Now, why does it have to end? Why, oh WHY do I have to go back to work tomorrow? That's just silly. It's not too bad, actually. Kids will be going off the walls though, just coming back from break, starting a new school year (apparently?) and not caring because it's the last three weeks of the term. But, hey! I got awesome videos planned to keep my middle schoolers entertained and some fun academy projects for the elementary kids.

Aja! Aja! Fighting!

Seolnal: Two adventures in one day!

Happy New Year, everybody! This weekend was Korean New Year, known as Seolnal, and it is a pretty big deal around here. Bigger than Christmas and solar new year, at least. We got two days off from work so I had a four day weekend (which is now almost over... very sad). I have had a great time with my weekend. The weather wasn't too frigid, either, so it was perfect for a little shopping excursion with my good buddy Tara.

Wednesday, my school moved classes to earlier in the day so people could do their New Year's Eve celebrations at home that evening. It was really cool to be done with classes at 2pm and get to have the whole day to ourselves. Kendra and I spent the day going to Costco and E-Mart to get some much needed groceries and other assorted items (she really needed an external hard-drive for her overflowing laptop). We were ridiculously tired after hiking all over the place for that and headed home to feast upon the fruits of our labors (for me that meant a Caesar salad... yummm) and get settled in for the rest of our four day weekend.

On New Year's day proper (Thursday, that is), Tara called asking to come over saying that if she didn't get out of the apartment soon she was going to go crazy. Everything besides the 7-11 were closed so outing options were limited.

Instead, we talked boys (we came to the conclusion that the majority of them are stupid... sorry, but facts are not in your favor, Male Readers) and looked through some tour magazines I picked up to plan some adventures for our weekend.

Now, something you need to know about Tara and me is that when when we get together we become super girly. I don't know what it is. Our favorite activity is shopping together. We can waste tons of time walking around a mall and we don't even have to spend money (though, admittedly, we usually do). So it came as no surprise that we made plans to go to Namdaemun Market, which Tara had not visited yet.

Friday turned out to be the perfect day to go to Namdaemun. There was, like, no one there! Usually when I go there are crowds of people all over the place. There was still a good amount of people but it was still pretty easy to maneuver our way through to all the open shops.

The first thing that caught our attention outside the subway station wasn't a shop, but a big ol' fat pigeon. It was sitting all fluffed up by this giant pile of garbage. It was so dirty and ugly that I kind of think it's cute.



Speaking of gross things, there was one guy selling some really nasty looking fish that looked about a week old. I'm ok with fish markets but these were NOT fresh fish. Eeew...



After taking the picture of the icky fishies, I turned around and saw the CUTEST LITTLE BABY COATS! My friends who have married in these last few years should make announcements that they are having baby girls so I can have an excuse to buy some of these cute baby coats. :)





Another thing that you see a lot of in Namdaemun is ginseng. Apparently, Namdaemun is famous for it. It looks like little aliens in a jar all over the place. Kind of creepy. But in an awesome way.



We also went underground to a shopping center and there was this one store that had a crap load of records! I don't collect or use records at all, but it was a pretty cool site.



Tara was also amazed by the sheer number of records at this guy's store.



We also got some delicious pancake things. It was pretty awesome watching the lady cool these. The would press them flat with the little smasher thing and then use her BARE HAND to flip them over! I mean, this is a hot griddle covered in oil and she just reaches in, grabs the pancake, flips it over, and rubs a little more oil on the flat of the pancake for good measure! She has super human hands of steel. That, or she's been doing this for years and the nerves in her fingertips are shot.



Then came the Scary Bathroom Adventure. Tara needed a bathroom and on our way to find a public building with posibilities of a bathroom, we happened upon a sign that definitely pointed to bathrooms. After walking up a few flights of increasingly grimy stairs, we got to the top of a the building and it looked pretty much like an abandoned warehouse with a ton of boxes piled up.



Some old dude (probably a janitor of some kind) asked us if we were looking for the bathroom (at least we think so... he asked about the "hwajangshil") and he pointed us down this hallway of what we think were little houses. It seriously looked like people lived in some of these.



Then we went down another hallway between some sketchy buildings and we were pretty certain we weren't going to find the bathroom.



I was beginning to question if I had remembered the word for "bathroom" correct or if maybe he had asked us if we were looking for homeless people shelters when, tada! we found the bathroom. And this is the sight that greeted us.



Yep. The first thing you see is an unobstructed view of the urinals! Lucky for us there was no one there at the time.

One thing that held true for these bathrooms that is in most public bathrooms in Korea is the potty bucket. They don't flush toilet paper here, but instead put it in a bucket. I will never get used to that. I frequently forget to put my used paper in the bucket. I'm a stupid American. I have gotten better, though, about putting my paper in the bucket.



Before I sat down to do my business, Tara discovered there was no toilet paper in her stall. So I checked my stall, the other two stalls, as well as the stall in the mens' restroom before we began searching our purses for some kind of replacement. The whole time we were doing this, I was silently cursing myself for leaving my travel toilet paper in my other purse at home.

There was a supply cabinet that we thought might possibly have a secret hidden stash of toilet paper in it. However the cabinet was locked. We still wanted to know what was in it so I held my camera over the door and took a picture.



No toilet paper. Just a bunch of cleaning supplies and junk. Oh well.

One good thing about the Scary Bathroom Adventure was the view from the top of the building. You could see all of Namdaemun from that place. It was pretty awesome.



After we checked the Scary Bathroom Adventure off our lists of things we probably should never do again (rape whistle, anyone?), we headed back into the streets of Namdaemun. Tara had been on the lookout for a pair of boots and one shoe store in particular looked promising.

Second adventure of the day: Creepy Shoe Guy!

One of the shop worker at the shoe store spoke English. From what we could tell, this old guy (the English speaking dude's dad) owned the shop and he and his sister worked there. Tara was asking about shoes and he was asking about her. Haha!

You get this all the time from guys in shops here as they try to flirt up the American girls that come into their shops. "Oh, you so pretty ladies!" "America! U! S! A! I loooove U.S.A.!" And it's funny and cute. This guy took it a little further with comments like, "Oh, I love you," and "You are just my type." That last one killed us. We were laughing so hard. And his comments came with hugs. Oh, dear. It was so awkward and funny. I kept one hand on my purse during these nice little hugs and watched Tara's, too. I've seen too many shows about those "Free Hugs" where people are just stealing wallets to trust hugs from strangers (not to mention CREEPY STRANGER HUGGING ME!).

He took advantage of our willingness to accept his hugs. His last hug was the most awkward and I actually pushed him away after he KISSED ME ON THE CHEEK! After that I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him away saying, "Ok, we're done, now." After Tara paid he pointed to his cheek and asked her for a "po-po" or "little kiss" and she laughed and was like, "No! I'm not KISSING you! You're crazy! Ahjushi," she turned to his dad, "Your son is CRAZY!" And the old guy just laughed an old dude laugh while the daughter/sister smiled awkwardly and looked really uncomfortable.

I still think this guy had a little soju with his lunch (Korean alcohol). Tara even asked him and he was like, "NO! No! Oh, my GAWD, NO! Never! No soju!" with some added Korean in there that was probably something about crazy American girls.

Tara made sure we got a picture with this guy because it was so strange. I don't have a copy yet, but she said she'd email me copies of her pictures from Namdaemun, so as soon as I have a picture, I'll post it right here so you can see the Creepy Shoe Guy.

Next up: Myung Dong!