Another Long Weekend!

Well, whaddayaknow! The first weekend of October turned out to be another Korean National Holiday. We didn't know which one and didn't really care; all that mattered is that we had another day off.

The next five weeks... ish

NOTE:  For this blog entry, I will limit myself to the weekdays (work days) from the last five weeks.  (Sept 15 to October 21).  In my next entries, I will talk about our weekend excursions and post more pictures! So stay tuned for that coming up soon.


Monday, Sept 19 to Friday, Sept 23

My school (Jason)

Another shot of my school (Shinchon middle school)

This week would have been pretty uneventful had it not been for the student singing and reading competitions, which I like to call "Shinchon Idol" and the grade 3 speaking test.  The latter, of which I was made aware at the last minute, would consist of having students prepare a 1 minute presentation about a story they read.  My co-teachers would pretty much do all the leg work (although I made the assignment sheet and the rubric) and I would just come in each class and evaluate the actual presentation.  So basically, over the next 2 weeks, I administered 15 speaking tests in varying level.  This was actually a pretty easy task and quite funny.  After I was done marking the first class, my co-teacher looked at my scores and told me I had too many perfect scores (6 out of 30).  I needed to adjust that since she didn't want anymore than 4.  OK...  Other than that, it was kind of like a week off teaching the grade 3s.  I would walk in, students would go one after the other presenting their work and then I would leave.  Not bad, but got very dull and repetitive. It also seemed as though all the students read the same books.  

Bank account, cell phone and Internet!!! Finally!

So where to start.... right, we got back from the Chuseok holiday in rough shape.  A day of rest was in order before acquitting ourselves of the two day work week.  On Thursday (Sept 15), when I got to school, a man was waiting for me at the front doors and handed me an envelope.  The fact that I received an envelope didn't surprise me since I was waiting anxiously for my ARC but the fact that a man was waiting to hand it to me at the front door, when I got there... well that was a little weird.  But I'm not complaining since I was really anxious to get organized with a bank account, a cell phone, and most importantly INTERNET!!!

She loves me... she loves me not... SHE LOVES ME!

Jen's Top 5 Korean DISLIKES and Top 15 LIKES

Dislikes:

1. Korean food

In all honesty, this is the one thing I wish I could change about my experience. I don’t mean change the food, because I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in the entire country who hates it, but rather my opinion of it. Let’s see… I don’t like the seafood, I don’t like the spicy food, I don’t like the meat, I don’t like the kimchi. The smell of the Korean barbecues make me nauseous, and the noodles have a slimy, chewy texture that makes me gag. I can handle the rice in small portions. Thankfully I can easily find things on which to survive (or indulge, rather): bread, pasta, loads of fruit, vegetables, French fries, chocolate and ice cream. The only catch is that this stuff is not exactly budget friendly. Oh well!

Yeong-oh juseyo? English, please? (Oh dear God, please, PLEASE let them speak English!)

Learning a new language? Pfffft! It's a walk in the park! I grasped the basics of Spanish so quickly in University, I amazed myself at my awesomeness. Korean will be even easier, since I'll be immersed in the language every single day. All I really need to know is 'Hello' and 'Thank You', and the rest will come quickly, since I'm such a natural. Right?

Well, not quite.

Chuseok Part Deux - Seoul, Soju and Makgeolli

It's official... I win the award for procrastination!  I've never been one to prepare things in advance, preferring to wait until the last minute to get it done (I guess I work better under pressure), but this is getting absurd.  I love to blog, but for some reason, I always find something else to do and put it on the back burner.  Well, enough of that.  We need to catch up, so here goes part two of our Chuseok holiday trip...