Happy Birthday Gram!

I really don't update the blog too much on life at school. I guess mainly because I don't want my entire blog to be a negative thing. Life at school definitely isn't a walk in the park. A day at school for me is filled with frustration, annoyance, and anger.

It has a lot to do with the fact that the kids at my school are downright rude and they don't care about learning English. The sit in class speaking in Korean and no matter how many times I yell at them to be quiet, they don't listen. I feel like I'm not teaching them anything and that they aren't learning anything. Which really sucks, I want to know that I've taught them something. I guess I do have some progress in classes.....

Here's a story about one of my classes:

I was having a really hard time teaching my one older class. They are at the "I'm so cool and I don't have to listen" stage. They will be heading to middle school next year, where I'm sure they will lose the attitude. There are 3 boys and 3 girls in the class. Of course, they sit in their separate groups chatting in Korean the whole time. Completely ignoring everything I have to say. The girls are extra bitchy to me, sometimes the boys listen, other times they don't. The one boy was just mean to me. Doing things just to irritate me more and disturb class. I sent him to the hall the one day, of course, I couldn't push him out the door alone, luckily Dan saw my attempt and grabbed him and yelled/scared him for me. I dread the end of the day teaching them. I mean, even the Korean teachers hate teaching these 6 kids!

Cue summer camp.. the 3 boys ended up coming to camp. They were put in my group, which they were not thrilled about and neither was I. Sunday at camp was spent riding the water slides and the one boy joined Dan, Danielle and I most of the day. Occasionally we would run into the other 2 boys and talk to them. Since camp, the 3 boys have been really nice to me. While they still talk a lot in class, they are actually respectful and the worst boy and I get along now. Which is really awesome. The past 2 weeks he has been the only one answering my questions and finishing the work FIRST and then playing games. Today everyone else was either talking or playing games on their phones. He was the only one who would answer me. I gave him gum for it, which no one noticed since they were too busy doing other things.

More frustration and anger comes from the boss/language barrier/craziness/can't make up her mind issue. The whole not communicating with the foreign teachers on pay or vacation days definitely adds to the stress level. My boss didn't really like me. But since camp was such a success she has started to like me more. And now is friendly to me and will sometimes talk to me (though I'm not her favorite like Dan, which I'm okay with...)

Yeah teaching in Korea is REALLY frustrating. Especially at a hagwon. I think I would come home more stressed if I didn't have a long 30 minute walk home from school. I walk with my coworker and we talk, vent, laugh, and joke. It definitely helps to destress. It doesn't completely go away, but it helps. It also helps to remember that I'm in this great country, exploring, making new friends, discovering new things, experiencing a new life... so really, 30 hours of a stress a week is kind of worth it, right?

Vacation

I have 6 hours of teaching standing in the way of VACATION! I am so excited. It was kind of a bummer that I didn't have vacation the same time as my friends, but I guess its kind of nice too. This way I get more ME time. Which, we all know is definitely good. I am headed to Hong Kong for my 4 days of vacation (would have been 5 had the 5th day not been kept a secret!) My friend Cristina who I met at Lock Haven is currently working in Hong Kong. I am staying with her and we get to catch up on the past 2 years of our lives while seeing Hong Kong. I know it will be a fantastic trip and it will be nice to spend time with an old friend.

Life is good, no matter how stressful and annoying things can get!

And last, to Gram. Happy Birthday!! I miss you. I miss living with you. I miss you making fun of EVERYTHING I do. I miss you laughing at me for reasons I don't know. I miss hearing you complain about things. I miss you coming out of your room just to watch me chop up onions only to tell me I'm stinking up the whole house. I love you :)

Water park "Resort"

This past weekend was Little America's Summer Camp. The kids were all really excited last week for it. Danielle, Dan and I on the other hand, were not as excited. We got on the bus on Saturday around 2 ish. Off we went to the water park that was about an hour away. We pulled up and the place looked gorgeous. It was this big hotel with a water park on a river with beautiful mountains in the background. Under other circumstances it would have been the most perfect and relaxing weekend. In our case, it was not.

The mayhem began with room assignments. 2 days before Camp started I was given a list of kids to look after and what not. Of course, they were all boys, 9 boys to be exact. Dan was given 12 of the "bad" kids (which is funny, because ALL of our kids are bad, compared to Danielle's kids). So we lined our kids up and headed to the rooms. Dan and I were lead to a room and all of our children filed in... I was told I would be sleeping in this room too. Brilliant idea right? Did I mention there were 85 Korean children in all and 6 rooms.... So, then my boss picks out several younger annoying boys and tells me to come along. We were lead to another room, that was smaller. And then a bunch of girls walked in. At this point there were 20 boys and girls in a VERY small room. The boys decided to take the room and the girls got the "living room" area. Since there were no beds only mats and blankets, I swiped my pillow, blanket and mat and claimed my spot. My boss walked in and said "Megan, okay?" NO I was not okay with what was happening. Did I have a choice? No. Thankfully several girls were moved to a different room. Which left me with 17 kids and luckily only 1 pooped themselves. It was nice that the older girls helped get the boys situated and put to bed, I surely wasn't handling that.

The 3 of us lead several games and the kids had a lot of fun, which was good for me cause now my boss is happy with my game ideas. The explanation of games went really well too. Mainly because of Danielle's great co teacher Rosemary! (Seriously, Danielle has it REALLY great at her school). The meals at this resort were not very good, rice, kimchi (for breakfast, lunch and dinner) and some other things. We again, were not very excited for that.

Bed time was about 10 pm. Danielle, Dan and I hung out in the hall while the kids got situated and then ended up taking a walk and hanging out together outside talking and getting our "down time" We probably heading back in after midnight, none of us got any sleep though. The floor was very uncomfortable and by 5 am all of the younger kids were awake and very loud!

We headed to the pool around 10ish. We hit up some slides and the not so lazy river that had a wave pool thing and waterfalls. It was so much fun! The one water slide was called the tornado, it was a lot of fun to ride. We took Dan's favorite student on the slides with us. A lot of the younger kids would ask us to play with them, but we were limited on the pools we could go in. We wanted to play in the wave pool, but that required you to wear a cap and we weren't going to buy one of them! So we stuck to the places were a cap was not needed. We took a few different kids on slides with us and then escaped to a place in the pool area for a nap. It was a really long day and we were ready to go home after 2 hours of being there.

Monday was hard to go back to teaching. Everyone who went to summer camp was extremely exhausted. I still felt tired today!

In other news, I got my multiple entry sticker today. So now I can leave Korea and come back without problems... 11 days until Hong Kong!

a few of the girls in my room, plus one of the boys... and our not so sweet beds on the floor

one of the water slides and the pretty mountains

great view from the room!

The tornado... an awesome ride!

some of the boys in my room....

Filled with the fragrance of Nature...

What's filled with the fragrance of nature, you ask? Well, Damyang Bamboo Forest of course! On Saturday I headed to U Square bright and early to meet up with the girls (and by bright and early, I mean 9:30). We planned on heading to Damyang to check out the Bamboo Forest. We bought our bus ticket, which cost us a whole $2, awesome! We were headed about 40 mins outside of Gwangju. Once we got off the bus we weren't exactly sure of where to go next, we were hoping it wasn't another experience like we had in Gamami (a deserted bus stop).... Danielle and I asked a shopkeeper for assistance and a friendly bus driver took us to the taxi stand and told the driver where we wanted to go. Turns out it was less than 2 minutes away, also another cheap ride. We bought our tickets into the forest, another $2. First we took pictures of the very tacky panda statues they had at the beginning. I don't understand Koreans though process, but I'll just let it go.

being scholarly...

more awesome trees

me in the forest

Bamboo forest... love it.

Bamboo trees are lovely.

We headed into the beautiful forest for a few hours. The bamboo trees were so cool and it was a perfect day to spend in nature! It wasn't incredibly hot and humid, it was the best weather. On the walk through the forest they had soft music playing. Again, I don't understand why. I would much rather listen to the sounds of nature.... Either way, I had a great time with Kelsey, Bess and Danielle in the forest. Eventually, we made our way in the Culture experience village. A couple was in a pagoda making fans, which was pretty cool. Danielle bought a plain fan, you may be asking whats so special about that... Well, there was a man who painted the fan for you, if you wanted. So, we headed up to his little house. It was really awkward at first, we don't speak Korean and we didn't want to just walk into his "house" and throw a fan at him. He noticed Danielle and invited her in and then told the rest of us to join them. It was a traditional little place, complete with a stereo and tv. He was an awesome guy. Turns out he knew a little bit of English. He told us interesting things, like how the paintings in his place were from 1929. He also showed us his pen and said it was from when he was in the armed forces. He began painting and it was one of the coolest experiences/things to watch! After the painting ended, he told us to sit in front of the old paintings, grabbed his camera and snapped a picture of us. Off we went, to do more exploring of the bamboo forest. We were all getting very hungry and decided we spent a sufficient amount of time in the forest.

writing on the fan

almost complete

We walked across the road from the forest and decided we should rent bikes. There were some fun bikes with baskets on them, pink, green, blues. When in Korea, do as the Koreans do! So, we crossed the rock bridge to the other side of "river" and rented the 4 person bike. It was an enjoyable bike ride we had, playing "chicken" with the Koreans, laughing and talking.

After our bike ride together we jumped on the bus back to Gwangju. We decided we should get lunch/dinner and chose VIPS which is an all you can eat buffet. It was a bit pricey, but the had salads with olives (which I've been craving), plus soups, delicious fruits and much more. We spent a good 2 hours there and I think the waiters were getting a bit annoyed. But hey, we had fun!

friends on a bike ride!

I headed home, exhausted from our day of fun in the sun/woods! I wasn't in the mood for a night out, so instead I watched a movie and read. It was a great night!

On Sunday I awoke to the sounds of rain falling outside my window. It was a great thing to wake up to and also meant that I should stay in bed extra long and read :) Rainy days are wonderful (unless of course, you get stuck walking to school without an umbrella, happened today). I read most of Sunday before heading to Danielle's. Bess and Kelsey made their way over too. Kelsey made chili for dinner and then we baked cupcakes and made a whipped topping for them. We ate while watching Spaceballs together. Again, another fabulous time and a great way to end out the weekend.

So began the start of a VERY long next 2 weeks. The week so far hasn't been too bad at all. Not sure what's going on right now, but boss lady is being kind of nice to me. Shocking I know. This weekend is our school's summer camp. We are headed to a water park. I don't really know much details at all. Saturday we have to lead games for the kids (Danielle will be there with her school as well). Dan and I were given the option to come home Saturday evening and have Sunday off. Instead we chose to stay at the resort, the downfall is that we have to sleep in the room with the children. But, Sunday we get to enjoy the waterpark!! I'm really excited to hang out on the lazy river, play in the wave pool and check out the water slides. I miss being in a pool!!

I'm sure I'll be super exhausted after the weekend and then I'll have another long week with the kids. I don't know what the plan is yet for Danielle's birthday weekend, but the following weekend I'm off to Hong Kong! I have a busy couple of weeks and I'm really excited.

rock bridge

the artist

in the nice Korean man's place

our attempt at jumping pictures. Fail

jump picture, win!

Life is good :)

Vacation Plans and 4th of July, Korean style

My summer vacation is coming up at the end of July. It's been hard to figure out where I should visit. I only have 4 days and my friend have off a different time than me. So, planning a vacation with friends here was out of the question. I thought about Beijing, of course there are pros to going there like seeing Rika (a friend from Lock Haven who lives there) and cons, like the uber expensive visa for American citizens ($200 comparing to $90 for every other country). The other option was Hong Kong, no visa requirement and I get to see Cristina (another friend from Lock Haven, who is from Spain). It was a tough choice, but I ended up choosing Hong Kong. Danielle said she would like to go there as well, so I figured we could try going in the Spring, when we have more money saved up for the visa and such. I wasn't doing very much planning for this mini vacation and I knew July was slowly creeping up on me. I sent several messages back and forth to my friend Cristina who is currently working in Hong Kong. She was really excited to hear I was looking at flights to come visit. Finally, I found some cheap flights that would allow me to spend a sufficient amount of time in Hong Kong... and I booked the flight. July 31st until August 3rd I will be visiting the city and Cristina. It will be so nice to see her again, it's been about 2 years! I'm really excited for the trip to come up and it's helping me to get through these long weeks.

The other thing that is helping me get through the weeks, which I've previously mentioned...is the shark diving excursion! We are hoping to do that the weekend before I head off to Hong Kong! woohoo.

Last week was a normal one at school. I think we (as in my coworkers and I) would be much happier if our boss backed off a lot more. It's really hard to describe the woman, other than she clearly hates my co teacher and I for no particular reason, other than we are females? She LOVES my coworker Dan. Today she was saying how she didn't like the one classes test last month, on and on until Dan said, oh yeah sorry I made that. She immediately stopped bashing it. Last week I went out for dinner with Dan and our Korean co teacher Rose, twice. Dan bought us pizza the one evening and then I treated them to some Korean meal on Thursday. It's nice to have dinner with them :)

Finally, Friday rolled around. Unfortunately for me, it was a frustrating day. Really, it gets bad by the end of the day. My last class is 12 and 13 year olds. They are incredibly rude and bitchy kids. They don't listen, they don't care, they flick me off, they refuse to do their work. The list goes on. I basically am teaching myself English. It was uber frustrating, which is why I got a beer home and drank it on the walk home. Don't judge, it was necessary.

Friday nights are usually relaxing nights in for me. I like to unwind from the week and just hang out by myself. Yeah, it would be nice to hang out with friends some nights. But I save so much money just staying in and avoiding 2 nights out with taxi fees. Plus, I enjoy waking up on Saturday with energy to do things. Saturday afternoon-ish I headed to Danielle's place to get ready for our 4th of July partay. We picked up a few things, blew up balloons so people knew where her place was (which kids promptly popped), and hung out talking. We had a small group over earlier for dinner. I made galbi meat and then cooked up some of Danielle's peppers. Kelsey and her friends brought some pizza. We had a nice little arrangement of food. It was delicious and great to hang out with new friends! Some people slowly started arriving after 9 pm. We couldn't wait to set off our firework purchases. I had bought heart shaped sparklers and Danielle bought a bunch of other things. It was nothing like the fireworks we've seen at home. But it was still our own fun in Korea with friends, that's all we've got anyway. After getting eaten alive for a few hours, we headed inside to watch the Germany vs Argentina match! So exciting!

On Sunday, I headed back to Danielle's around 11 ish. She unfortunately got bit by a mosquito on her eye. So I went over to share some benadryl with her. Kelsey, Bess and friends headed over to meet up with us so we could go for brunch together. We went to this cute place called Blank. Everyone had delicious looking meals. I ordered the spanish omelet and I wasn't really happy with the choice after I saw what everyone else got. haha. I really wanted the stuffed french toast, but it had fruit on it and since I'm allergic to certain fruits, I avoided that choice. I was excited for the chocolate pudding they had advertised on the window, which of course was shot down when the guy said no they didn't have it. boo!

Tonight I bought myself peanut butter. It was time for me to have that back in my life. I put off buying it because I'm very picky when it comes to peanut butter. Choosy moms choose JIF, you know. I saw Skippy on the shelf tonight and couldn't pass it up again. It'll do for the year.

Kristin and I playing with sparklers!

our Red, White and Blue spirit!

Galbi and peppers, delicious!

they may not have been that spectacular, but we still had fun.

Kristin, Emily, Kelsey and me... good times!