Flurries

It's 1°C outside, or 34°F. The weather forecast on my phone changed to a picture of a cloud with grey circles falling from it. The caption says, "Flurries." The wind shook my windows, and I almost had a heart attack. Everyone says that tomorrow is supposed to snow. Dun dun dun.

My computer is finally fixed! The Dell technician came back for the 3rd time today. He replaced the hard drive, the mother board, the graphic card system, and the Operating System. Dell kept my old hard drive, which contained ALL of my unrecoverable documents and pictures. Luckily, I backed up those files on my external hard drive up until late October. Now all I need is a copy of Microsoft Office.

I found out today that if I DON'T go on the 2-day trip to Seoul with the teachers, then they will subtract 2 of my 14 vacation days. By contract, I am supposed to teach on the 22nd/23rd, but going on the trip will make up for those 6 hours (and the 15 hours that they are giving me off during the last week of December). It's really confusing how I am supposed to clock 60 hours per month, but some of those 60 hours conflict with annual holidays ... and yet we still have to fulfill the terms of the contract. Who cares? My incentive for not using the 2 vacations days would be for if I could tack them onto a later vacation period and go to Japan. Man this trip is going to be so boring, awkward, and cold. No. One. Speaks. Fluent. English. I'll probably just import 2 days worth of music onto my phone and tune everyone out.

I may have offended the principal today. No big deal. Here is our conversation from lunch:

Principal: When....visit.....you?

My face: *confused*
My thoughts: He wants to visit my apartment?
Me: What?

Principal: When....visit....you....home?

My face: *confused*
My thoughts: Maybe he wants to know if I am going home for the holidays....
Me: Huh?

Vice Principal: Principal want visit you home.....when?

Me: For what?

-Principal & Vice Principal don't understand what I just said-

Me: Why?

-They look at each other-

Principal: Home, no welcome?

Me: But there's nothing at my apartment ... Why?

Vice Principal: No welcome?

Me: My apartment is boring .... there is nothing to do ....

Principal: Welcome, no?

Me: ... But why?

I think we have an awkward understanding that I don't want visitors. But really. My apartment is cold. My television is sitting on the floor. There's nothing to do here. We obviously can't communicate. It's not happening. I got up to leave, but they made me stay until the principal finished eating for the first time ever. One teacher told me that the principal thinks of me like a daughter. Good luck with that.

Dell Technician Coming Today

Today I received a call from the Dell Service Center in Korea.

Guy: Dell Service Center 입니다 (This is the Dell Service Center)
Me: Dell Service Center?
Guy: Ye.
Me: Hello.
Guy: *KoreanKoreanKorean*
Me: 한국말 안되요 (hanguk mal an daeyo: "Korean language not working" -- yeah, my Korean isn't that great)
Guy: *KoreanKorean* address *Korean*
Me: Oh, uhhh, Dae-Myeong Officetel 2....
Guy: Sang-dong....
Me: Ne...Jeollanam-do, Mokpo
Guy: *KoreanKorean* Fix computer 11 o'clock
Me: Uhhh... 11 o'clock 옵서여 (not here)
Guy: Ohh....
Me: Uhhh...
Guy: Ummm...
Me: Errr....
Me: After 5:30pm? 5:30 in the evening?
Guy: 5:30?
Me: Ne.
Guy: *KoreanKoreanKoreanKoreanKorean*
Me: I don't know what you just said.
Guy: *KoreanKoreanKoreanKoreanKorean*
Me: Can I call you back?
Guy: *KoreanKoreanKoreanKoreanKorean*
Me: Uhhhh....
Guy: I call back.
Me: Ok.
Guy: Ne.

Someone else who spoke English called back, and we arranged for the technician to come at 6pm today. Once I get all the parts, all I will need are the Windows Vista and Microsoft Office installation disks to have a fully functioning computer.

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During lunch, I was told to go to the teachers' room at 12:30pm. I went in at 12:23pm right after lunch, and an administrator spoke to me about Open Classes. (Every semester we are required to hold one Open Class for teachers, parents, staff, etc to come in and observe.) Then I went up to my class to prepare for Kindergarten. At 12:34pm, I got a call telling me to go into the teachers' room. I guess that conversation I had with the administrator wasn't why I was called in there. The Vice Principal was hosting a meeting with 5-6 other teachers. It was all in Korean. I sat there for 10 minutes, then showed another teacher the time on my phone to indicate that I had class at 12:45pm. She said, "Open class....you understand?" and I said, "Ne, I understand." Yeah, I understand that I have open class, but I don't understand why I had to sit through that meeting if it was all in Korean!

The kindergarten kids were already seated in my English class when I arrived. Some of the kids were absent. The remaining half of them were coughing in every direction. Some of them looked like they were dying. One girl looked like she was either on her last breath or she was quickly falling into a coma. The boy next to her was slapping her in the forehead. I was like, "oh no! You're all sick!" I made a coughing gesture at the girls in the front row, and they nodded their heads in mid-cough. I decided that we would NOT be holding hands during the sing-a-long. Hells to the no.

I sang these songs half a dozen times today:

VIDEO: If You're Happy and You Know It

VIDEO: Rain Rain Go Away

Teaching Tactics

Teaching English is getting easier with each lesson. I am falling into the routine of reviewing what I taught in the previous class and introducing a new, yet related topic, drilling the vocabulary / key expressions, implementing a game / activity, and wrapping up with a brief conclusion. Powerpoints are also getting easier to make. I just copy slides and images from previous presentations, then tack on more slides with different colors and pictures to keep the kids engaged.

More often than not, my classes fail to go as I intend. I'll start with my review and suddenly be on my activity twenty minutes before I want to. Or my lesson will segue into another topic, and I will teach the students about something that I didn't even think of until that moment.

Today I attempted to teach the alphabet.

First of all, I might have showed up 15 minutes late to my own class. I am scheduled to teach kindergarten from 12:45pm-1:15pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I came up to my class at 12:35pm only to find my entire class and my translator there. I was confused because everyone was 10 minutes early, so I gestured at the teacher if class was still at 12:45pm by pointing at the clock and holding up four fingers, then five. She nodded yes. [Disclaimer: Even though she is the school's English teacher, she doesn't speak a lick of English. Anything she communicates to me -- whether it be a nod or a gesture -- cannot be taken seriously.] So I am sitting there at 12:40pm, and everyone else is just sitting there waiting. Awkward. I gesture at her whether I should just start the class, and I think she was confused because she didn't really respond, but I took a slight nod as a 'yes' so I began. I stretched the class out to 1:15pm, then looked at my time table to see that my next class was scheduled for 1:00pm-1:40pm. (Oh yeah, Wednesdays are shorter days, so all of my regular classes are 40 minutes earlier. Kindergarten is an irregular class.) Long story short, I was confused and later brought up the issue to my mentor teacher, who was also confused....then later he told me that Wednesday's kindergarten class would have to be moved to another day. I picked Tuesday.

So as I was saying, today I attempted to teach the alphabet. Teaching kindergarten sucks because the kids don't know what I am talking about and neither does my translator half of the time. 2nd grade was a little easier, but I can tell that they still get lost in translation.

--Example Dialogue--
Me: Hello!
Class: Hello!
Me: Good afternoon!
*cricket cricket*
Co-teacher (not the other translator I was talking about): *translates to them in Korean*
Class: Good afternoon!
Me: How are you?
Class: How are you?

Fail.

My 4th grade class is my favorite. They actually understand me enough to get really excited about the activities and are very eager to repeat the vocabulary / dialogue that I teach them. At times, they can be really rowdy, but my co-teacher (Hannee) does a great job at raising her voice and keeping them under control. She also understands me enough to translate effectively, so no one is lost in translation.

My 6th grade class had four students on the first day and only two students for the past two days. Both boys are pretty well-behaved as boys go and pick up the dialogue at a reasonable pace. They are also friends, so the class is easy-going and fun. Today, I segued from the alphabet to an improvised lesson about the difference between the "L" sound and the "R" sound. In the Korean alphabet, one of the characters is between the "L" and "R" sound, which is why native Korean speakers struggle with those letters in the English language. I drilled them with familiar vocabulary that contained both consonants, which greatly improved their pronunciation by the end of the class. I am changing "Engrishee" to "English" one student at a time.

I now carpool home with two of the staff. On the ride home, they teach me at least 5 new words everyday. My vocabulary is slowly expanding with the cultural immersion. Many of the staff also want me to teach them English, but I think it will be a bit difficult because I do not know the key expressions in Korean to be able to translate it to them in English. I'll have to figure that out later.

Greetings from Mokpo!

Disclaimer: This blog entry is way overdue.

Finally moved into my apartment in Mokpo!

Tuesday (August 30) was a very long day for the TaLK Scholars in Jeonnam. Woke up super early so that we could finish packing our bags and be physically ready to leave at 8:45am (even though we weren't scheduled to leave until after lunch). The conference room was full of formally clad scholars and heaps of suitcases. We were told to say our 'good-byes' before the closing ceremony began because as soon as we lined up, we were instructed to act professionally and stay close to the representatives from our elementary schools. Everyone looked sharp, but a little hesitant to go our separate ways for the long run. It's going to be a while until we are all in the same place at the same time again.

During the closing ceremony, we filed into 2 rows on the stage. Our schools were announced in geographical order, and each scholar stepped up to the podium to say a brief introduction about themselves. Then we walked off the stage to our school representatives in the audience.

I was greeted by the vice principal of my school and a teacher, who has been the official driver during my transition into Mokpo / Yeongam. We ate lunch together in the cafeteria. They don't speak English very well, so we didn't talk much.

After lunch, we departed for Mokpo, a 1.5 hour drive during which I (accidentally) fell asleep. We arrived at my new apartment, and I was confused because I thought we were going to Daebul Elementary School instead. [Language barrier issues.] At first sight, the room was small. There was no furniture: no bed, no television, no fridge, nothing ... and the floor was sort of dirty. A guy was there cleaning my apartment, and I thought, "Hell no, I can't live here." They asked me if this room was okay and offered to find me another apartment if I did not like it. So I asked / gestured in broken English if another place would be bigger and have a bed. They said that they would have to keep looking and proceeded to talk among themselves in Korean for a long time -- one of many long, foreign conversations that I've had to sit/stand through with deaf ears. My vice principal kept gestruing at me when she spoke. She looked concerned. In my mind, she was vouching for me: "No way. This girl is a TaLK Scholar. She cannot live here!" but after a while the teacher/driver told me that they decided that this would be my apartment. Who knows what she was actually saying. They drove me to the Immigration Office to apply for my Alien Registration Card. I need this to apply for a contract mobile phone and to return to Korea if I ever decide to travel outside of the country. I also finally cashed my travelers cheques at a KEP Bank. (I was running short on money and struggling to find a bank in Jochiwon.) Then we spent over an hour at E-Mart, which is similar to a small K-Mart or Walmart. I dropped $200 on supplies to furnish my new apartment, such as bedding, kitchen utensils, pans, a rice cooker, plates, toilet paper, the essentials of life. The school is supposed to reimburse me come payday.

I didn't have Internet access for about a day. I found myself channeling WiFi on my phone down the street...in the middle of the night...behind a dodgy van...and getting bitten by heaps of mosquitoes. Luckily I only had to do that for a day.

I visited Daebul Elementary School for the first time on Wednesday, August 31st. The teacher came to pick me up, and we drove for about 20 minutes out of Mokpo, over the Young San River, through an industrial area of Yeongam, and up to the school. Daebul is in the middle of a field, in the middle of no where. The area is windy and hot, but my co-teacher (Hannee) tells me that it will be windy, cold, and snowing (yes, snowing) later in the year.

I met Hannee on Thursday, September 1st. She goes to Daebul University and is studying English Education. Her English is not very strong, but she is really nice and will be in charge of translating / controlling the kids on Tuesdays & Thursdays.

I ate lunch with the staff and faculty. The food was delicious as usual, and I was lost in translation as usual. I briefly introduced myself, and my mentor teacher (Dae Ho) translated for me.

Dae Ho is another teacher at Daebul. I think he is only 25 years old, but he is already married and has a daughter. We had dinner together on Tuesday, the day I arrived. (We were supposed to eat dinner with the principal, but I think that shopping took too long that day, so it got postponed.) Conversation was a bit scarce because of the language barrier, but I think we will get along fine. He has been very helpful about answering my questions / miscellaneous demands about my Internet problems and broken camera issues. (Yeah, my camera stopped working in Gwangju. I am in the process of possibly getting it fixed, but that is another story.)

On Friday (September 2nd), I went to Daebul to work on my lesson plans and eat lunch -- their food is delicious -- better than any Korean food I've eaten in the States. Instead of lesson planning, I cleaned 95% of the surface area because it was really dusty, reorganized the supplies, watered the plants, and took an inventory of the resources in my classroom. It was a productive day!

I spent the weekend trying to hash out a monthly plan with my friends Joanne & Nari. It's harder than it sounds. More on that later.

I am cooking for myself these days. I is a grown up. I cooked rice like half a dozen times this weekend because I was bored, and I did it for every meal because I had all the time in the world. I recently learned to cook a lot at once and then save it in my fridge for later. Silly me. I also know how to make fried tofu, different kinds of eggs...I bought some Korean side dishes to go with my rice. Yummy.

Today I accidentally bought 13 bananas. Back in America, I usually pick the number of bananas that I want and stick them into a plastic bag. I noticed that the bundles of bananas had a price sticker stuck onto one banana in the bunch, but I disregarded it and plucked the bananas off. I brought my bananas to the register with the rest of my groceries and confused the cashier because she didn't know how much the bananas cost. She walked off with my bananas and consulted another sales clerk. The other clerk came over to me in the line and started speaking in Korean and gesturing if I plucked the bananas. I replied 'ne' (yes), and she shook her head / finger, indicating that I should not have done that. I said 'mian-hamnida' (I'm sorry). She left and brought me the rest of the bananas. So I ended up buying the whole bundle, all 13 bananas, for about $3.50. Maybe I can fry them and make plantains? I will probably try that tonight.

Alright, I am all blogged out. More next time. Peace out.