I am SO brave!

It has been raining pretty heavily for the past two days. I hate it. Everyone does. And the more it rains, the higher the humidity levels get. It's pretty terrible. What makes me hate the rain even more is the fact that I walk to school every day. The walk is probably one of the best walks anyone could ask for in a Korean city. It is a walking trail with trees, street vendors, and preschools. Unfortunately (when it rains), my beautiful 35 minute walk to school and then again back from school is torture. The path is paved but it is not even so there are often giant puddles. And it rains so much here that even a golf umbrella starts to leak after about 20 minutes. So, I get soaked. Which leads me to how I was so brave today. Today I rode in a taxi twice by myself! Yesterday I did not even know what to say to a taxi driver, but today I sucessfully got to and from school with no problems. I am so proud of myself. When it is barely raining, or nice out, I will still walk. But it is a relief to know that I know have the option to ride in a taxi if I need to. This might come in handy in the winter, and it will definitely come in handy during the next monsoon season.

On another note, my students gave me a Korean name today. It is Jung So-Ra. They thought it would be nice if I got to have two names too. I cannot write it in Korean with my computer, but here is what it looks like. Most of my students have English names in addition to their Korean names. What is nice is that the students can change their English names. They are so fluid. I think for now I will be Jung So-Ra and maybe later something else. A few of my students only have Korean names. They do not seem interested in having English names. I feel really bad because I can never pronounce their names correctly. Korean names, when written in English, are not pronounced the way they are written. I have tried writing the names phonetically, but I still suck. Eventually I will get their names, if they don't all leave the school before I do.

I have two really nice coworkers. One is a boy four years older than me. He helps me with everything! And he orders me dinner every time I don't bring something. Here is the soup I had for dinner yesterday. It was great, except I didn't have a very good handle on the noodles. If I tried to eat them with chopsticks, they were very sloppy and slippery. Eventually I just sort of cut the noodles with my spoon and ate them that way. The soup had noodles, half an egg, mussels, octopus, shrimp, crab, and some weird bread/fat like stuff that was fried. It was very good! The girls I work with have some idea that we will date, but I just started an office rumor that I am going on dates with someone else. I would rather them think that then get it in their heads I want to date my office helper. My other nice coworker is the girl whose house I stayed at. She gave me a ride home yesterday in the first downpour. I was so thankful! And we will be designing a speaking class that I will be teaching together. I am really excited about this speaking class. It should be a lot of fun because it is the highest level elementary students. I cannot wait (minus the extra work)!

On a final note for the evening, I thought I would tell you a bit about my classes. I currently have 8 classes, and have between 50-60 students total. My classes range from students who can read/write/comprehend/speak a little to students who are reading about evolution vs. creationism. My smallest classes have 4 students and the largest class has 14. All of the kids are a lot of fun, although a few of them drive me crazy! I will be taking pictures of them soon and maybe I will post a couple pictures here. My students have to write very strange essays sometimes for the book series that we follow. Here is the original version of my favorite essay so far (topic was - What animal is most misunderstood?):

Class: M302
"There are many misunderstand animals in the world. Wolves, snacks or human and etc. I think misunderstand animal is human. Other country people think korean people eat everything But. I think this it misunderstand.

First, the human never eat everyting. Human eat just pigs, cows, chickens and dogs. Not more eat. I think human eat everything is misunderstood. So, I don't think this is not true. And people almost don't eat dogs, too.!!

Second, the human don't like eat dogs. Ofcourse, human think eat dogs is health for we. But human don't like eat cute dogs. Don't you think so?? I think like that.

So, I think human is really misunderstood animal. I would tell another people human is not eat everything and not like eat everything. I hope another people known this truth."

This is my life folks! I love trying to decipher things like "So, I don't think this is not true." The students all work really hard, for the most part, and I think they do a great job. As long as I can figure out how to teach them, it will be a great year!

A time for firsts......

As mentioned in my previous post, my coworker and her mother encouraged me (cannot say no here) to do a whitening face mask... I was pretty terrified I would look like a chubby pale leopard when I pealed the mask off. Can't you see the fear?

On a less dramatic note, I have moved into my apartment! It is so nice and spacious..... but before I tell you about that, let me tell you about all of the firsts I had this weekend. Saturday was move-in day. My coworker, her boyfriend, and I all came over to the apartment with cleaning supplies in hand. The former tenants left and we cleaned fairly quickly. Then we went back and got all of my bags. It was nice to officially be in my apartment, although I miss my coworker's mom and really appreciated how well she took care of me. I spent several hours unpacking my belongings before venturing out onto the streets alone in search of food. I managed to get some and headed back to my less confusing and intimidating apartment. A couple hours later the former tenants returned and took me out to La Festa (the large shopping/nightlife area outside my apartment) for drinks and to meet other foreigners. It was a lot of fun just talking and drinking and not wondering what people were saying! I left to go home around 3 am and much to my dismay it was POURING rain. I didn't bring my purse so of course I did not have an umbrella. Within 5 minutes I was soaked from head to toe. That was fine except that I am already pretty tired of the humidity, so my clothes sticking to me when they were wet made it even worse. Regardless, Saturday was very fun and I was glad to meet some fellow foreigners. It might sound bad, but I think they will keep me sane here. Sunday I was woken up by the phone. I nearly died creeping down the steep stares. The former English teacher and her fiance invited me to Sinchon with them for the day. I was all excited until I found out that I had to get the bus by myself. My knowledge of the Korean language is essentially non-existant so this was a very intimidating exercise. Luckily I was given great directions and managed to meet up with everyone in the right place. We had delicious Chinese lamb and lots of beer and soju for supper and then headed off to a theme bar for hours. We left Sinchon around midnight and took a cab back to Ilsan. It was nice to not think about where we were going. Everyone agreed that "hangover soup" was necessary at that point, so we went to a 24 hour soup restaurant across the street from my apartment and ate the bone soup. It was pretty good and I didn't have a headache when I woke up, but I don't know how well it cures hangovers.

So over the weekend here were my firsts:
- saw my apartment for the FIRST time
- got food by myself for the FIRST time
- rode in a bus alone for the FIRST time
- rode in a taxi in south korea for the FIRST time
- hung out with BUNCHES of Canadian and British people and of course a kiwi and a few Americans and Koreans ...... for the FIRST time

Today was the biggest first of all (or so I thought). I was to become Angela Teacher today. The students were going to be taught English by yours truly. It was so exciting I could barely stand it. Once I got to school though, they asked me to write 10 essay questions about Toy Story 3. They decided that the students deserved a day off and I needed a day or two to get my affairs in order. I was a little disappointed I did not get to teach really today and won't get to tomorrow either, but at least now when I do get to teach I will not look like a fool. I did have a nice and sweaty walk to and from school between huge apartments. It was pretty calming even though sweat was dripping in my eyes every now and again. So I recently have had several big firsts. The last first I will show you is the video I took of my apartment. It is a beautiful apartment and I am terrible at taking vido. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the insight. The link is below for you to enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZ46G-aOVw