Sunday, April 24, 2011

Catch 22!

1) Very sad that we lost miserably at the scavenger hunt
2) Team..."Raiders of Gwangju"
3) Whyyyy are you at the zoo?
4) Field trip attire haha (Jenny, Mabel and Luigi)
5) PEEPS... American candy!





Catch 22… that's the world I live in here. Nothing is ever good enough, at work that is! If I actually told you every little, tiny thing I did every day, your jaw might just drop. I don't even mind it that much either because I've gotten so used to it. Yes, it changes every so often but I've learned to be very flexible. After every class you teach, you have to write a three sentences (at least) evaluation for each student. Not only that but you have to write in the homework for every subject you teach, check attitude, attention, participation, homework (turned in or not), quiz scores, book reports and of course, attendance. Keep in mind I have 5 to 10 minutes in between each class and 7 students in most classes. This is very tedious but often, I like giving parents and management the feedback. The crappy thing is that a good majority of parents don't even read these evaluations. For a while, management was not satisfied with our general comments. They wanted specific explanations and honesty (this is a bad evaluation… "______ did an excellent job on his phonics homework. He was on task and well behaved today." What they want to know is why he did good on phonics.. what exactly did he do?). Alright, I can do this. Of course… I was just waiting for some kind of complaint. I got verbally reprimanded this past week because I was too honest when giving feed back about one of my student's lack of attention and participation. "Emily has trouble staying focused, she often dazes off in class and does not participate. I am having trouble assessing her speaking skills because she does not speak unless she is called on." Emily's mom called and threatened to pull her out of TN English. The management sat in on three of my classes to see if I was being too harsh. Well… mom got her way! I started bullshitting on my evaluations and making it sound like Emily is just the best student in class. God, I hate doing this. Management told me that they can't afford to have a student drop so I should just lie and pass this student (any student) along with smiles and bullshit. I am starting to see why Asia is full of smart people (sorry to be so stereotypical)…. or so we think. It's all lies! Another example: every Monday we give a quiz to the after school program students to test them on material from the previous week. We want it to look like the students are really smart so management tells us to make the quizzes easy and to review it right before it is given…. ahhh. They even wanted us to send the short 5 questions quiz home on Friday so the kids could study. Are you kidding me… absurd! Between you and me, I don't make my quizzes easy. I want to test my student's knowledge… I want to see if my teaching is working. It is!! :) Ughh… I just have to keep telling myself, this isn't a school, it's a business.

Do I have anything good to say about my school… not really! I LOVEEEEE my kids and my English speaking co-workers.. that's about it! Sorry for my negative attitude… don't worry, I'm a smiley little southern bell at work.

Having a roommate has been fun. I forgot what it was like. Alicia is a fantastic cook. She is originally from Mexico and knows many, many delicious recipes. Her salsa is to die for! I am hoping to pick up a little Spanish as well. She speaks to her family via Skype everyday and is always speaking Spanish. Maybe I'll come home a trilingual. I spent the weekend with Skip… okay, okay… you finally got it out of me… that's his name. When I finally called home Sunday evening, Alicia was so worried. Living alone, I forgot what is was like to have someone worry about you. She's so sweet… I need to remember to be more considerate!

On Saturday, my friends and I spent the day downtown and participated in the first annual Gwangju Marks the Spot Scavenger Hunt. Our large group had to split up into two teams…The Gwangju Raiders (my team) and The Fiting (they were supposed to be "The Fighting" but since the organizers were Korean… the spelling got a little messed up). They try their best! We were given a long list of clues and two hours. Basically, we spent the day running around downtown taking pictures in front of random things. Sadly, we didn't even place but we had a great time. The weather was perfect and the company was even better!

Korean Facts/ Randomness:

- Alicia has a cocker spaniel named Taco. I love taking Taco for walks.. he's such a good dog. You would think I am walking around town with an alien on a leash with the ridiculous looks I get. It's as if they had never seen a dog. Maybe it's the combination… a white, blonde girl and a dog…… CHIN CHAYYYYY (REALLLLY, in Korean).
-People do have dogs here.. it's just not that common. This past Thursday we went to the zoo for a field trip. There was a whole section of dogs… huskies, even some random muts. It was so odd and very, very sad.
- Most of my readers are from North Carolina. I am thinking of you during these hard times. If you are unaware of the sad new… let me fill you in. Several tondos roared through the city of Raleigh and across the heart of NC Saturday afternoon (April 17th)… the tornadoes were part of a storm system that first struck Oklahoma Thursday night and then swept through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, killing at least 43 people before heading out to sea (22 of those people being from North Carolina). I know people are working hard to clean up the massive amounts of damage. You're in my thoughts and prayers!
-Happy Passover and Happy Easter… may your days be jolly!
(Easter is celebrated over here but you wouldn't think it… it's just not commercially advertised with eggs and rabbits like it is in America. I was SOOO excited to dye eggs this year. I started to ask my mom to send me an egg dying kit then I remembered… the eggs here are all brown. It won't work.. damn!
-Thanks mom… the spring box you sent was fabulous. I already finished all the Cadbury eggs. Ugh, they were incredible! My students were not so in love with the peeps but they did really enjoy the Chicks and Rabbits (also knows as Circus Peanuts… awful, chewy, marshmallow-like candy). I love sharing American candy with my kids… it's such a treat to see their reactions.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Move!

The cherry blossom trees are all in bloom.. they fill the city with so much beauty... Ahh... I love spring!!!



Four months left… gosh, the months are just flying by. Sometimes I wonder if my school is even going to make it that long. Yes, TN English has a lot of potential… excellent teachers, comfortable setting, fun activities, etc. but… the underlying issues are a bit shady at times. I don't understand why my managers are constantly trying to pull the wool over our eyes… the constant legal issues are absurd. After getting in trouble with the labor board for not giving pension and health insurance to a few people, you would think they would really watch themselves. No.. things were smooth for about a month but then things were back to chaos shortly after. Lately, they haven't been giving us our pay slips and I think it's because they are trying to screw us on pension again… they keep us busy with so many other things and hope we won't notice. It's so annoying that we all have to keep asking and asking and asking for our money, for our pension, for our health insurance. God good, I can't wait to be back in America where I know I won't have to fight for these things. Each month when I do get paid I say a little prayer in thanks because there are days when I think our school is just going to shut down and in that case, I'll never see any money I'm owed.

So, the school orders food from this big market that delivers monthly, sometimes weekly if need be. All this food is used for cooking class and of course, for lunch and snack everyday. The owner of the food company is friends with one of Korean assistants and because of this, the company lets the school order as much as they need and allows them to pay later. How nice of them right!? So, after several months of TN English not paying when asked, the food company had to cut them off. 8 million won in debt… that's about $7,300. To be quite honest, it's just down right embarrassing… I mean really, take care of your shit!

I'm currently in my new apartment, I've got two roommates now… my good friend Alicia (the lead teacher of TNE) and her adorable dog, Taco. It was so crazy trying to move in here. Since none of the teachers have a lease and since our apartments are paid for, the owner of the building (the big boss, Seth) can move us around just as much as he wants. I moved out of my one bedroom and Iian moved in. A Korean who works at the coffee shop on the first floor moved from what is now my two bedroom to Iian's two bedroom. Doesn't this all sound so silly. They make us move around like it's the easiest thing in the world and not only that but none of it makes sense. Iian didn't need to be apart of this move at all but they thought he should be. The Korean guy could have just moved in with Brian who has an empty room in his two bedroom…. but NO… that's just too simple. So no one could really go anywhere until Iian moved his stuff which he wouldn't until late last night. I don't blame him either… not only does he have a lot of things but this is his 5th time moving. AHHHH.. I know he's going crazy right now. The worst part of it all is that he has 40 days left on his contract. My guess is, they are trying to make him quit so they don't have to give him his pension and severance when he leaves. Who knows how they are going to treat me in my last month. On the plus side, I do like my new place. So my room is a lot smaller and my stuff is a little squished but I have great roommates, a big fridge, a huge flat screen TV, really comfortable furniture that Alicia brought, an extra comfy bed due to my new mattress and a great view of the mountains out my window. Once we get all settled in I'll take some pictures for you!

My parent teacher conferences went great this week. Since everything was translated I couldn't get a real feel for how the parents actually felt but apparently they are very pleased with me and my teaching. Their kids really enjoy my class and they love coming to school. This pleases me because I just adore my Kindergarteners. I am proud to say I got my students to read their first word this week.. 3 years old and reading a second language, now that's pretty good! The word was "run",(cvc- consonant, vowel, consonant are typically words that children learn to spell first…they are easy to tap/sound out) I say it so often, I figured I might as well see if we can sound it out together. Sure enough, Jason, my youngest was the first one to get it. Yay… proud Emilie Teacher!


Korean Facts/ Randomness:

-Koreans.. not just women, are obsessed with their appearance. One of the most popular lotions that is sold is a whitening lotion. No, not for teeth, for skin. I don't buy face lotion here because I found out that most of them have whitening in them (anything with the word "beauty" on it means it has whitening). Funny… we want to be tan and they are just the opposite. It's no wonder why tanning beds and outdoor pools don't exist here.
-When you're crossing the street there is usually a button that you can press that will alert the lights and eventually signal you to cross. Well, that button does exist but it's not for the same reason. It signals the police. My friend Katie found this out after pressing the button one day… after her Korean friend told her what it does, they ran!

Monday, April 11, 2011

SALT!

1) women walking from the field back to the village with salt and crops on their heads
2) ocean view from the Salt Resort
3) black barns where salt is kept for 5 years so it can dry out/age
4) the salt fields (we got in trouble for walking through them)
5) Paris, Katie, me, Erica and Annie at the salt factory.. holding our souvenir salt
6) healing salt cave
7) part of the village... the house next door to the one we were staying in








I think my managers said to themselves this past week… ya know, Emilie hasn't had any mishaps lately. "Why don't we go look in her classroom and see what we can bust her for. Ah yes, the soap that she brought in for the kids to wash their hands with is not really soap… it's probably some type of poison that she is using to get the children all sick. We must sit her down and explain to her that this is wrong, she's got to take her soap home!" Oh my GOD! Okay… it wasn't this dramatic but it was pretty ridiculous. I told you, I brought in my own soap because everyone is always sick and I think it's imperative that we wash our hands. I wouldn't need to do this if my school just provided soap… I mean come on! I brought in the soap that I've been using for the past 7 to 8 months. It's quite lovely.. I use it everyday. Not only does it make for germ free, soft hands but it smells just delicious. I wouldn't let the kids use something that I didn't think was okay! So why was this such a problem? Well, apparently this soap is for washing dishes… but since I don't read Korean, I did not know that. The management thinks that no soap is better than my soap. They sat me down on Friday after work with the soap in their hands and reprimanded me for my bad judgement. I am happy to report… there is hand soap in all the bathrooms, YAY! This was definitely the highlight to my Monday.

Thank god my only work drama was on Friday.. I didn't squirt the soap in their faces like I wanted to cause I knew the weekend was only moments away. I'm just kidding, I wouldn't do that… but really… there is a tiny part of me that has thought about it… muhhhahahah.

On Friday, I enjoyed a tasty dinner with the company of you know who… I'm trying not to talk about him too much, I don't want to jinx it…. I got up early Saturday morning and met up with my friend Katie. We got our coffee, (I can't believe how addicted to black coffee I am… I can not go a day without- does this mean I'm an adult now? Haha) found our Korean girl friends and headed off to the islands of Shinan. These tiny set of islands are about an hour and a half south west of Gwangju. The islands are known for harvesting salt. These chain of islands, especially the island we went to (Jeungdo) has the highest percentage of salt on land, in the world. Pretty incredible right!?

Our Korean friend, Erica rented a car… what a nice change! Before we got into Shinan, we stopped at a grocery store and stocked up on food for lunch, breakfast, dinner and snacks. The plan was… the Korean girls will cook a Korean-style dinner for Saturday night and the American girls will cook a Western-style breakfast Sunday morning (brunch). After getting all the cooking necessities we headed to the house in which we were going to be staying at. This was the house of Erica's friend's sister, something like that. The house had been vacant for quite some time so they let us use it, free of charge. This house was out in the middle of nowhere..really, the whole town was out in the middle of nowhere. I've seen little Korean villages like this but I have never stayed in any. It was all so interesting… it looked like something out of a movie. This is what I thought Korea was going to be like when I moved here… steep, narrow, country roads, old hunched over women walking through the fields with bags of salt and giant bunches of crops on their heads, run-down Korean style houses, fish drying on poles outside of houses… so quaint and yet, drab at the same time… it's very hard to explain. Okay… so, once we got settled in to this little home, (basically that meant turning on the floors so we could be warm later and, throwing our bags down) we set out into the town to learn about salt harvesting. We went to a several different museums, the beach… a salt factory, a healing salt cave (this was really incredible… the cave is an artificial salt cave made by solar salt produced in one of the near by salt farms. The temperature of the inside of the cave is kept at around 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit… you can actually breath the fine salt particles continuously. Apparently this is very effective for healing, beauty care and psychological stability. I was extremely relaxed when we left) and finally… the best part of all, the salt farms.

Erica's friend took us to the salt farms and educated us on everything while viewing it all at the same time. Apparently, the harvest season is in summer when it is hot. Water from ocean (obviously) is taken and put into these sectioned off areas where it sits on top of tile and a special black canvas-like material. In grass fields across the way, there are large solar powered plates that stick out of the ground (sorry I don't know actual terms), they attract the sun to the sectioned off areas which dry out a lot of the water, leaving salt. There is a special process in which farmers scrap the salt and gather it for storage. It goes into a giant, black barn (special black paint that helps to dry out the wood of the barn). The salt sits in the barns for 5 years drying out and aging. The salt needs to age for flavor… the taste of the salt before it is dried/aged is awful (we tried it right out of the salt fields). I had no idea that harvesting salt was such an in-depth process.. and my description didn't even fully explain what really happens.

Many countries in Asia get their salt from this island but right now it's a major problem. Japan has bought out most of the island's salt because of the earthquakes. Once Japan started buying out all the salt, Korea and China did as well. As I am sure you have read or heard on the news, the many earthquakes in Japan caused nuclear power plants to release radiation into the atmosphere. Korea has had radiation rain and now there is large amounts of radiation in the water. The island of Jeungdo will not harvest salt for the next five years because of this issue. This means that the entire town is going to be in quite a slump for a few years… it's very interesting to be here and see this depression in Korean and compare to the recession in America.

After a day full of learning, we went back to the house and had a delicious Korean meal cooked by wonderful Korean chefs (our friends)! We turned in somewhat early…sleeping was basically just a bunch of blankets thrown on the floor. The only piece of furniture in this home was the little table that we ate our meals on. This is typical for an old-style Korean home. You don't need furniture cause everyone sits/sleeps on the floor. Katie and I woke up early and began preparing our Wester-style brunch. We made my tasty spam style corn beef hash, scrambled eggs, chopped a bunch of fresh fruit, had cream filled buns and of course orange juice.. oh wow, I just realized I went without of my coffee (the day was still a success.. ok, thank God i'm not addicted). The girls LOVED our meal but for them it was not complete without kimchi and steamed white rice. The couldn't even go one meal without their kimchi and rice, I couldn't believe it haha.

We cleaned like maniacs and headed off to the Salt Resort for our scheduled sauna session. This was the gym experience I didn't have earlier in the week.. I finally got naked and not just around a few Korean women but around at least 50 of them. Ohhh man.. this sauna session was so drawn out but it was amazing. Once we got naked we stayed naked for two hours.. lord! We soaked in these hot salt baths that over looked the ocean.. we showered in these giant rooms- no privacy what so ever. All the Korean women were washing each other. Katie and I didn't take part in this washing ritual. Being naked around each other for a few hours was just enough. Katie and I were the only foreigners at this place. All the women stared us down.. mostly they were looking at our boobs and vaginas… judging, noticing the differences… hmmm.. I quickly got over the stares and just relaxed. After the long showers we put on these special brown outfits and were escorted into these little huts (steam rooms) that sat right on the edge of a cliff over looking the ocean. The four of us had our own private hut. Hot rocks were brought in and set into the ocean water that filled the center hole of our hut. After that water got steaming hot, jasmine and citron were added. All my senses were at ease… what an incredible experience… the sound of waves crashing right outside was also a nice touch. What a way to end the vacation!

Driving home was quite wonderful… every single cherry blossom tree in Gwangju and the little towns outside of it, were in full bloom. I have been waiting for these trees to bloom since I got to Korea. They were well worth the wait. They are so beautiful, they look fake. I have never seen a tree so incredibly full of flowers… not just any flowers, fluffy, white, with a hint of pink flowers. The flowers only stay on the trees for 10 days. I will be sure to get some pictures this week.

Korean Facts/ Randomness:

I think I've rambled on enough.. don't you!?
…. I've got parents teacher conferences with my Kindergarten parents this week… should be exciting. I'm moving in to my new two bedroom apartment this weekend… stay tuned! :)

Monday, April 4, 2011

You Scary White Girl!


1) Getting ready for Easter... painting eggs. Jason got carried away and painted his whole hand :)
2) My new Korean friends at the park
3) Paul and Suri (my after school Kindergarten class- cooking lesson)
4) My babies!!!! Jen, Jenny, Jason and Luigi.. Thursday's field trip to the flower show (nothing to write home about)



What a fun weekend… I was so sad to see it end! I spent the weekend in Deajeon which is a really neat town about 2 hours north west of Gwangju. This boy I've been seeing has some friends in the area so we went for his rugby practice and a night of fun! If you're wondering… it's not a Korean man. No offense to those boys but I'm just not attracted to them.


In America you rarely see kids walking around the city alone.. there's always some type of guardian near by. In Korea, it's a whole different story. Kids of all ages walk though the crowded, chaotic streets by themselves without a care in the world. Now, you certainly wouldn't expect an American child to walk up to a stranger and start asking questions and then proceed to hang out with the stranger. On Saturday.. I was perfectly content.. I had my book, my sketchbook/scrapbook and I was extremely comfortable just vegging out in the grass in the middle of a park watching a big group of very cute foreigners play rugby. On a typical day, you will often have kids that walk past you giggling… speaking any English they know and then running off, again giggling. On this cheery Saturday, there was several little kids that walked past me throughout the day.. all giggling and running off with smiles. There was these two in particular kids that wouldn't stop walking past and giggling… they wanted something more? They finally came right up to me and sat down and in very, very broken English they asked to color. I showed them my sketch book and they both just sat there, wide eyed in amazement.. it was so cute. I dumped out all my pencils, crayons and markers on the ground and opened up a fresh page in my sketchbook for them. They sat with me for at least an hour coloring, trying to speak any English they knew. After five pages of coloring, a couple photos, an exchange of phone numbers and an invite to dinner, (I felt terrible that I had to deny) we parted ways. I'm pretty sure we will never speak again but luckily I'll have these sweet 10 years' drawings in my scrapbook forever.

So, you either get smiles and ohhs and ahhs, or you get the other end of the spectrum… those little Korean children who are just terrified of you. I had quite an interesting shopping experience this week. This is silly but I'm sometimes a little hesitant to go out and about in the broad day light… only because, I'm always getting stares, rude looks, people running past me, pointing.. it's very interesting. I really just want to walk to the gym one day with a mask on; trust me.. the stares (the good ones even) get old really fast. Now of course, I'm always polite and smile but ehhhh, sometimes I just want to be a Korean. Anyway.. going shopping, I walked into two different stores on Thursday and kids that were with their moms took one look at me and their eyes immediately began to glaze over as their smiles turned into frowns. They hid behind their mom's legs like I was going to bite their heads off. DAMN.. do I really look that scary!? haha! My somber mood was uplifted when I went into a store in which the sales lady spoke perfect English… ahh, so refreshing! We chatted for a good 20 minutes and turns out she used to live in Raleigh (my hometown) and her kids went to one of my rival high schools… small, small, small world! So, while I'm being chatty Cathy with this nice Korean lady, the other Korean sales lady is pinching my but, feeling my hips, legs, speaking all kinds of Korean…she is just so taken back by the fact that I'm not the stereo-typical fat American that Koreans know of.

I still manage to make it to the gym at least 4 times a week.. maybe 5.. maybe 6 if I'm lucky and not dead after work. It's becoming a lot easier now that it's not SO icy cold out. Koreans all shower at the gym and they find it very strange that I don't shower before I leave. There are a few women who speak English at my gym and they always ask, "why don't you shower?".. I always give some bullshit excuse but really, I think I'm just a little shy. I think they are really curious what a white girl looks like naked.. without going into great detail, I'll tell ya that there are definitely some differences. I'm thinking I just should shower there and get it over with so they stop asking me. I mean really, who cares. It's not like I have three boobs or anything totally outrageous that would shock someone. I'll get up the courage to do it sooner or later and I'll let you know how it goes. Speaking of the gym, let me give you a little bit of advice: don't ever run on a treadmill while watching an action movie… it's inevitable, you will fall. Every treadmill in my gym has a private TV attached, it's great. One of the only English channels is the action movie channel which I love to watch. It can be a little risky… as if I don't get enough stares being the only white person at my gym. Oh well, such is life!

I almost thought about not mentioning work at all…. let me share with you a little bit of Korean bullshit. They are still trying to get away with not paying for people's health insurance. This is my reasoning behind it all… they don't have a lot of money, I mean hell, they can't even stock the bathrooms with toilet paper and soap (I bring my own for my students and myself… now that's just shameful). Anyway, I think that this is why they make it such a hassle to be sick… so that you won't ever make it to the doctor, thus not ever finding out that your health insurance is not covered. Makes perfect sense, right!? There is so much more I could share with you but we all got in trouble because we are supposed to keep our mouths shut- what happens at TNE stays at TNE. Ya know.. it was too good to be true, I got to live in a great one bedroom for 8 months. In about two weeks, I've got to move out of my single bedroom that I LOVE and into a double with a roommate. Luckily, my roommate will be my coworker Alicia who I love. Oh well… I knew this would happen at some point I'm just glad they gave me a two week warning and not a 24 hour warning like the did with all the guys at one point. Oh yea, I'm not on the shit list.. they just like change every other week! My friends that work at good schools in Korea just keep telling me.."this is your first and worst job… it can never be as bad as it is here!"… that which does not kill you, makes you stronger!


Korean Facts/ Randomness:

-I've noticed that this country does not sell thong underwear… not even boy-short underwear… it's even rare to see bikini bottom style. This is odd to me because they wear short, short shorts. The bras are just as sexy as can be and yet, showing cleavage might as well be a sin… don't you think this should be the other way around (thongs and conservative bras)???
-Not only do Koreans not cover their mouths when they're hacking up a lung but it's perfectly acceptable to chew with your mouth wide open. If you're at a restaurant and you take a minute to listen to the noises surrounding you, you can hear everyone's tongue and lips smacking together…. it's gross
-Elbows on the table is not considered rude, in fact, it's necessary to the Koreans. My students don't understand how we eat our soup without spilling when our elbows are off the table. Well, Damon… we eat a lot slower and we don't shovel the food into our mouths.
-My school costs a million won a month for Kindergarten (one thousand dollars). It's no wonder the parents force their children to go to school even when they are throwing up sick. The parents of TNE run our lives… whatever they say goes. What's it like to work in a private school back home?