Vietnam!!

Hello, all! I'm in Vietnam right now with Dad and Jesi. So far we are having a great time, even though we haven't done much on our first day here.

Jesi and Dad had a long day yesterday. They left Portland, stopped in San Francisco, and then headed to Seoul where I met up with them. Here are a few pictures stolen from Jesi's camera for you to get a taste of their adventure.

Food on the flight.



Daddy looks tired...



So he slept.



I met up with them in the Incheon airport. Yay!! I finally got to see my Chicky!



We had a few hours at the airport so we went and walked around this little museum in the airport. Jesi made a rubbing of a picture and we did some stamping things.



Aaannd THIS is who I was so excited to see... *sigh*



Gratuitous "myspace" shot of the sisters.



Then we landed in Shanghai. They would only check our bags through to Shanghai so we had to go through immigration. My passport confused the heck out of them what with me traveling with two people who started in the U.S., an E2 visa for Korea and then a visitors visa for Vietnam. The guy was asking me questions looking all confused and then turning to the girl next to him and laughing and whispering questions in Chinese. We didn't have visas for China so they had to take us aside and make calls to get us approved to enter the country so we could get our bags and check in again.

While going through the Shanghai airport we saw a random Native American statue guy. What the heck?



On the airplane over to Shanghai, they gave us some good food. Some of it better than others...



We didn't care for the pickled radish stuff that tasted like puke (according to Jesi). The ham stuff looked questionable as well.



We finally made it to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam! Hooray! Jesi continued taking pictures all the way to the hotel. It was, like, 2am so no one was really out on the road.



The hotel lobby was a welcome sight.



Today we got up (more like Jesi jumped on the bed and woke me up) at 8:30 and went for the breakfast buffet at the hotel. This is what was for breakfast: assorted fruits, hash browns, breakfast rolls, half a dumpling of some sort, sausage, and a samosa! Yum!



Jesi is excited for yummy food. :)



After breakfast, we went and walked around town to see what there was. We got bored fast so we picked up snacks at the Circle K and headed back to the hotel.

Jesi swears by the M&M and Cheezit route. I tell her that is disgusting.



We also got a few things that looked just plain interesting. Okay... we got some chips that just looked interesting. The tomato ones tasted exactly like cream of tomato soup. It was good, but strange.



And this was Beijing Duck flavor.



Now we're just hanging out until Dad gets home. We'll go out to dinner, check out the mall, and grab some real groceries so we don't live off cheezits and chips all week. Jesi and I will probably venture out more tomorrow to do something more exciting than taking advantage of HBO. :)

Small Adventures

These past few weeks I haven't really been on any BIG adventures, just small ones. There are several reasons for this: I've been hanging out more with Tara because she is leaving soon *sniffle,* I've been subbing a lot for other teachers on vacation, and I've been getting ready for my own vacation next week.

Looking through my pictures from the last few weeks, I see that while I don't have a BIG adventure to tell you about, I can show you a bunch of pictures from my little adventures these past few weeks.

So this is a picture post! My favorite kind to read in other people's blogs so I hope you enjoy.

Adventure 1: Vietnam Embassy

I had to go to the Vietnam Embassy to get a traveler's visa for my upcoming trip with Jesi and my Dad. Every time I called, no one would pick up (I later discovered I was always calling during their two hour lunch break or after hours or on holidays) so I turned to the internet for directions on how to get there. Finding directions online to this place is very difficult. I finally found directions with a map that looked pretty straightforward. I was very excited... until I discovered that the stupid map led into an alley that contained only garbage and few things of interest. I was pretty upset.

I finally managed to get through on the phone and the woman gave me very explicit instructions on how to get there. It was in a completely different area from the map I found online.

Anyways, short story long, I made it and ended up getting me a visa to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (BAM!!). It was such a nice day that instead of trying to find a taxi back to the subway station, I decided to walk. I saw a bunch of really cool things along the way, too.

Here's a view of the hill. It was a very pretty day. A little warm on the warm side, but with my handy folding fan, I managed to stay cool.


I always see the strangest little statues walking around Seoul. This one had two crazy heads eating both ends of the bench. Om nom nom!!


There were several traditional looking houses along the way. Quite pretty.


For Mom, the Museum of Chicken Art!! Unfortunately, it was not open. Very sad. I would have liked to have an entire post devoted to pictures of chicken art for my mom. :)

Adventure 2: Itaewon

I realized once it started getting warm here that I have very few summer clothes! That's not good. It's very hot and muggy here and I did not fancy walking around in the same two or three outfits. I was recently lucky enough to find a very cute summer dress at H&M in Myung Dong (finding clothing in my size at H&M is usually a crap-shoot). However, my best bet for clothing my size is Itaewon. So I hit my favorite store, OKBT.

It's also one of the few stores that says "Plus Size" and not "Big Size." It might look small, but this is the best selection of cute clothes over size 12 that you will find in Itaewon.


The woman working there, Kelly, was super sweet and ended up finding me on Facebook! She said I was her most polite customer. Aw, how sweet. :) I ended up getting a nice summer shirt and a green dress that everyone at church loved. I felt super cute... though it kind of reminds me of something my mom might wear if it were in a different color! I still love it, though.

Then, because I've re-read at least 8 of the books I brought with me and I'm tired of begging around work for books I haven't read, I went to What the Book?! The wonderful foreign English new and used bookstore. I bought a used book for 3,000 won (about $3).


Adventure 3: Dongdaemun

I know I'm always going shopping, but what you MUST understand is that I usually do not spend that much money! Also, my bank account has, like, 3 times more money in it than it has EVER had at any one time. Granted, this money will all disappear once I get a car and start going to grad school... but STILL.

Anyways, my friend Tara and I wanted to go do something but it was late. The only thing we could think of that was opened late was Dongdaemun. Since I had only been once with Kendra and it had been totally closed at the time, we decided to go wander around the area.

Coming out of the subway, we saw the great Dongdaemun Gate. My picture really doesn't do it justice. It's really pretty.

We wandered a lot and saw some cute, cute clothes and shoes. We finally made our way into this building that had lots of stalls in it with clothes, luggage, wigs, etc. Very fun.


We stayed out pretty late and even when we left it was still pretty happening. I'm not used to that. I don't usually stay out that late and I was really surprised that so many people were still out and about! Looking at this picture, you might guess that it's, maybe, 9 or 10pm, right?

This is when we went home. At 2:30am.

Wow.



Adventure 4: Eating out. A LOT

I don't eat out a lot here. I have a strange schedule so I don't get to get together with friends to eat all that often. Eating at a restaurant alone is boring so when I do get opportunities to eat out with friends, I take them up on it.

I ate out at an Italian place on Saturday with Tara (spicy pane... delicious). Then on Monday, a teacher at work asked if I wanted to go out for dinner with her so we had barbecue which is always good. Then Tuesday I went and had lunch with Katelyn from church at this really great dumpling place in the mall. We discovered that we both have the same television obsessions (X-Men cartoons, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Firefly, Criminal Minds... were were geeking it up). Not to mention the delicious dumplings.

Then I went home and got ready to clean. This is how I felt about that idea.


Then I went out AGAIN for dinner with Tara! Soo much eating out! I will be sticking with stir fry and tuna for the rest of this week so I can spend money on shopping with my Chicky in Vietnam!

As part of an appetizer, they gave us these little multicolored corn balls. They tasted like Froot Loops on steroids.


Tara liked them.


And that's it! This weekend, Tara and I are going to try and hit Dongdaemun again for our last shopping hurrah since she leaves the day after I get back from Vietnam and I won't see her again until she meets up with us in Disneyland this October (she's from L.A.). We might try for Hongdae on Sunday after church; we'll see.

Then Monday I'm off to Vietnam!!

An illustrated version of why I'm still here

No matter where you are, what the subject, or who the student, teaching always has its challenges. Being in an unfamiliar country, far away from the support of friends and family, only adds to the stress of coercing unwilling pupils to learn and practice English.

Observe the transformation of a teacher after a particularly trying day.

Before Work. Love of children: High! Love of learning: High! Overall happiness: High! You might hear me say something like, "Let's get ready for fun and learning!"



After Work. Love of children: DANGEROUSLY LOW LEVELS! Love of Learning: DANGEROUSLY LOW LEVELS! Overall happiness: DANGEROUSLY LOW LEVELS! At this time, you might hear me mutter under my breath, "This school needs to hire an exorcist..."



I have to wonder: how am I able to forget how much I hated my job on the bad days and get back to a "before work" mentality? As much as I love sleeping (I need at least 8 hours of sleep to function normally), there is only so much slumber and caffeine can do to help.

So what is it?

Maybe it is my relaxation ritual involving face masks, comfort foods, and Harrison Ford movies...



... maybe the ridiculous amounts of trashy thrillers and juvenile literature I read...*



...maybe the joy of being able to tour a new place every week...



...or maybe...



Teaching is hard, no doubt about it. But there are always the golden moments when you can tell you are making a difference in a child's life.

And those moments are what make it worth all the bad days. <3



To see the comic version of this, go visit my gallery. :)

*Please note that I am not saying that "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is a trashy thriller. I used it here because I have reread that book at least 4 times since I have been here in Korea so I felt that it had to be included. It has been my favorite book ever since seventh grade so I suppose it could count as juvenile literature, though.

Seoul Zoo

Thanks to middle school exams (kind of like term finals for the middle school students... it's a big deal here), I didn't have to work this Saturday! I had an actual WEEKEND!! YAY! :D

To celebrate, Tara and I went out to the Seoul Zoo.



It was lots of fun and totally EMPTY!



That might have had something to do with the monsoon, but who knows. It was pretty much pouring buckets of rain most of the time we were there.



We got to the zoo before noon and first thing Tara did was buy a poncho since she didn't bring her umbrella. She later gave in and bought an ugly, overpriced umbrella because it was just raining too hard for a poncho. Even with umbrella and poncho, we still got totally soaked. But it is a really awesome zoo!

Most of the animals were hiding inside where we couldn't see them. Smart. The giraffes were curious and kept looking out at us though.



There were these ads for Nickolodeon all over the place, too. This brought up a good point. Does Dora teach Koreans to speak Spanish or English?



Tara posed with the flamingos. They're all matchy! :D



Then we stopped by the Ape Jungle.



Lots of monkeys. While we were watching the baboons, one of them got a little excited and jumped one of the girls. It was awkward.

Also, we were sharing a bag of trail mix and they kept STARING AT US. It was a little creepy. This little guy got angry that we weren't sharing and turned his back on us. Sad. :(



While we were looking at the monkeys this family came up and the kids started speaking English. At first we thought it was just to impress the foreigners, but it turned out that they were from Canada visiting their Korean grandparents. They were so cute. :)

While we were walking, we found this fun thing where you could put your feet in animal feet (real sized? I don't know) and look at yourself in the mirror to see yourself with animal feet. Rhino feet!!



Did I mention that it was raining? The whole time? POURING?!? I mean, I'm an Oregonian, but we also have really great drainage systems so when you walk down the road it's not PUDDLE! PUDDLE! RIVER!!! As you walk. I think this one is too large to be considered a puddle. A small pond maybe? I'm sure a family of ducks would be quite happy living here.



We did get to see some lions, which was cool. To do so, we had to peer through the thick curtains of rain. All the lions were under their little umbrella things.



There were several places that were not affected by the rain as far as viewing the animals went. One of those was the nursery where they had BABIES!! There was a monkey, a gorilla, otters, two lions (too CUTE!!!), and these little baby monkey things!! Look at them sleeping like adorable little angels!



I did feel bad at one point. These two little kids were screaming at the baby gorilla and tapping at the glass while their parents watched and laughed while the baby got angrier and angrier, throwing itself at the glass and showing its teeth. It was kind of sad and I wonder what the parents were thinking. Did they think the gorilla was playing and having fun?! It was throwing it's body against the glass! What part of that says, "Hey! Let's play!"? Jeez...

Anyways. There was another part of the zoo that was largely unaffected by the rain: the ocean animals!! The only ocean animals that weren't there were the penguins. Sad day.



We even got to see them feed the seals. They were passing out plastic gloves and letting you throw fish. Isn't that cool? I don't know why we didn't grab a glove and a fish... too busy taking pictures I guess.



In one of the seal enclosures was a new baby seal!! The big daddy was looking kind of angry, yelling and running around. But the baby was so wrinkley and cute looking.



Turns out they have a seal and dolphin show! Cool! We got us some tickets and sat down to watch. The little girl in front of us wasn't too sure about this at first and hid behind her parents.



She eventually came around and sat next to her dad. What a little cutey!



The show was fun. Tara was not amused by the cuteness of the dolphins because dolphins are the rapists of the sea. It is also It was still a very good show and the dolphins were able to keep it G rated. I think it should also be noted that the music for the dolphins' entrance was the theme from Star Wars. You have to wonder how many people there actually knew it was from Star Wars? My students don't know anything about Star Wars... Anyways! Here is a short video of part of the show for your enjoyment.



Along with cool animals, dolphin tricks, and rain (rain rain rain), there were some other cool things that we found while we were there.

First, these awesome toys. I have one popular toy: a stuffed animal on a stick. However, I think the rolling inflatable duck pet might be just as cool (if not cooler) than my octopus on a stick.



There were also some exercise bikes looking out over the lions. You know, just in case you want to pretend you are biking after the lions.




We went into a convenience store for a snack and there was this big shelf of foreign snack! There were even flags to tell you where the snacks were from!



And what's more American than fishy crackers that taste like cheese, right?



Last, but certainly not least, a fine example of Konglish. Konglish can be two things. 1) Speaking with poor grammar and thick accent (that's how my students describe it at least) or 2) Bad translations.

There is nothing really grammatically incorrect about this, but I don't think the instructions they wanted to give us were really "Just a moment please." Just saying.



We finished off the day with Korean barbecue. Then it was off to my baby apartment to peel off the rain soaked clothes and lay out my collection of damp ticket stubs to dry before I glue them in my scrapbook.

Coming up next week: a trip where I will actually (hopefully) FIND the Vietnamese Embassy instead of wandering around Namdaemun area (which, I have discovered, is not even close to where I needed to be... oh well).

Dear, Blog... why are you so boring?

So, I've been looking at my posts from the past few weeks thinking, "When did living in Korea become so boring?" Sorry, folks. It looks like I'm just a boring person. My schedule is totally messed right now. I have Tuesdays and Sundays off (yuck) so my desire to spend my days off running around Seoul instead of doing errands is becoming greatly diminished.

HOWEVER! There is hope!

Middle school exams are coming up which means I might actually get one or two Saturdays off! Why is having Saturday off so very important? Well, that's the day all my friends can go do things. This weekend, Tara and I are thinking of going to the zoo. THE ZOO! I <3 the zoo!

There is also my trip to Vietnam to look forward to in a few weeks. As well as the week with my baby sister, Jesi!! YAY!! :D

Really. I haven't done anything that exciting or picture worthy these last few weeks and I feel kind of bad for not posting any adventures in a while. Since I have no new pictures for you, I suppose I will post these old pictures of my baby sister from her 16th birthday (for which I made a rainbow fail cake).


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Obviously, she very much enjoyed it.

Things I like about my job

I got my first job when I was 16, the summer after my sophomore year of high school. In total, I have had seven jobs since then: Peddler's Pack (a local rubber stamp store), Michal's Arts and Crafts, Cosmoprof: professional beauty supply, BYU Catering (for 2 months... horrible), a janitor for a semester, window display designer for the BYU Bookstore (BEST. JOB. EVER!), and, now, a teacher for Chungdahm Institute (or CDI).

As with any job, there are good things and bad things about the job I have now. In this post, I'd like to focus on the things I like about the job.

• Pre-departure help: CDI was very helpful in getting us prepared for our trip to Korea. We had help getting tickets, visas, etc. It made getting ready for the move that much easier.
  
• Training: I have mixed feeling about their training policies, but I do like that we had a week to settle in and acquaint ourselves with the curriculum (well, it ended up we had two weeks) before we teach.
  
• The pay: Per hour, I get paid a pretty decent amount. I've heard that this is one of the higher paying hagwons in Korea. I'm pretty happy when I get my paycheck each month. :)
• The workbook: I have mixed feelings about how we use the workbook, but for the most part I love that we use one. It's good for the students because they know exactly what they will be expected to accomplish and they can study accordingly. I also like it because, well, it makes MY job ten times easier! All I have to do is prepare the answers in the text book and think of some supplementary material to go along with it.
• Same schedule every week: This is something that, when you get a normal job, you come to expect. However, I've worked enough retail where the schedule changes every week that a consistent schedule is a blessing.
• Half days: I had to cut back my hours because of my voice and, as such, there are several days a week where I only work 3 hours instead of six. This is rather nice because I can rest my voice more and it makes the day go by faster.
• The people: We have some very cool people at our branch. I can't believe that some have been here as long as they have. It's great to hear their stories about some of the students. Another thing I love about teachers in general is that they are usually more than willing to give advice and help.
• Students: Some of those kids are seriously adorable. There's a group of girls who come and find me and tell me how they are doing now that they are no longer in my class. They are an awesome group of kids.

All in all, my job is pretty good. Of course, there are some things I dislike about by hagwon. But I'll save that for another post. :)

My Job

I haven't really done anything that exciting these past few weeks so I am at a bit of a loss for what to write about. I could tell you about the training for the program changes for next term (boorring) or about how much fun I had shopping in Myeong Dong (again), but somehow I don't think that would be all that interesting to read about.

I think this is a good time to tell you a little bit more about what I actually DO here in Korea. Particularly about the "school" I work at.


That would be me looking like an idiot in front of the main level of my school (we actually take up 3 floors of a business building... it's kind of strange).

I say "school" because it is not actually a school. Yes, kids come here to learn, but it is actually a hagwon or after school academy. There are branches all over Korea and some in China, Japan, and the Phillipines. There is even an immersion school in Vancouver, Canada where students can go study for three months away from home! Sounds like a terror to me!



These are my class rules. Of course I caught a kid trying to cross out English with KOREAN. Don't you love that he was going to write KOREAN in English? It makes me laugh. :)

Students come to Chungdahm 3 hours at a time usually twice a week. A normal full 6 hour teaching day for me starts at 3pm when I come and print off all the handouts, tests, and other class papers for the lessons I prepped for the day. I might load a youtube video or find some supplementary pictures to go along with the day's topic as well.

Class starts at 4pm. I have anywhere from two to fifteen students in any given class. This is really nice after having thirty-five plus students in my student teaching classes.

I teach two different programs at Chungdahm, both for very different levels of English learners. Each level has a workbook in which we complete a lesson a day. In my Memory Giga (lower level English skills) we start off reviewing homework, a short review test (on the first class of the week; we meet twice a week in this class) and a preview of some of the vocabulary they will see that day. Then we do a few activities including word associations and using context clues to find the meanings of words before our break after the first hour.

Once the kids come back from their five minute break, we start reading a short story and answer comprehension questions. Because this is a lower level class, we focus on simple skills like looking for pronouns (these really throw the kids because Korean does not have words like he, she, or it to replace nouns) and transition words to help them comprehend what is going on in the story.

Then there is a short listening section where they pretty much listen to someone read the story and they fill in the missing words on a worksheet. I personally find this portion pretty pointless.

After some more reading skill practice and a second break, we have group project time. The students are given a task that they must complete with a group and then present at the end of the class.


I like to post some of the more artistic projects on my (nicely labeled) bulletin board. :)

The other program I teach is called the 2020 Project. I teach level 4 2020 which is mid-level English skills. Korea is really focused on the year 2020 as a goal year I've noticed. Many companies are saying that such and such will be improved by the year 2020. This class focuses on developing the essential traits of a global leader. Each term we read two books that Chungdahm has determined will be considered "classic" young adult novels by the year 2020. We focus less on reading skills (they are supposed to learn about those in their other English classes at Chungdahm) and focus more on getting them to talk critically about the ideas presented in the book. We don't actually do much reading in the class itself since they are supposed to do all the reading for homework at home (you can see part of the problem).

Like Memory, the last hour is spent in group work. However, rather than a task, in the 2020 program, students are given a problem that they need to provide a solution to and then present to the class.

And that's my daily schedule for the most part. On a full day, I will have two 3-hour classes back to back. One at 4pm to 7pm and one at 7pm to 10pm. 4pm is Elementary school classes and 7pm classes are mostly middle school.

To give you a more visual idea of where I work, here is a promotional video for Chungdahm. This is even of my branch: the Mokdong branch!! This was taken about a year before I came, so I'm not in it (sad) but a lot of the people in the video are people that I work with.



Of course, the school is not as perfect as they make it look in the video. I want to know what they did to make those classrooms in the video look like they don't have "Blow Up Chungdahm" buttons graffiti-ed all over the wall. They look practically clean! Gasp! I'll give you a better idea about some of the great things about the hagwon and some of the crappier things about the school in a later post. :)