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 :)