Excitement!

Hi friends and family!

Today I bought myself a new laptop. It was on sale, score for me and all the programs were loaded in English! WIN! I got myself a cute HP mini and I'm pretty excited about having a computer that works!

In other news. Beijing is happening in 22 days!

Sad Day

My computer stopped working.... So, for now I won't be able to update unless I use a friend's computer or the school's.....


Also, I just got my bangs cut. The people didn't speak a word of English but did a great job! And it only cost me $1.50.... WIN! I knew I loved Korea for a reason.

Urban Dictionary

Most of you probably don't understand my most recent post and the frustration I went through. I think Urban Dictionary has the best example. It's completely true and spot on for every point.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Korea'd

So, the last part in italics is funny, about having to teach a book that isn't in English. My boss decided to start a new class for me to teach. It is a writing and grammar class. I can handle that, easy enough. Except... the book was made in Korea. Therefore, there are so many grammatical errors! I'm constantly scribbling out words here and there. Changing words to fit properly or whole sentences. The best part of the book, the translating part from Korean to English. Or even the explanations in Korean. So, I'll be teaching and have to skip several pages until it gets to English. And then when the kids are doing the translating part, they will be confused and ask me for help. They laugh at me when I zone out and they are trying to get help, but really? How much help can I be for this? None at all. They give me a few words and I make up a sentence and they never know. Honestly, its a brilliant idea for me to teach them a Korean book.

Tomorrow I am venturing out for my first hair cut. Stay tuned.

The week from hell.

I hate being a debbie downer in blog posts. It truly was the week from hell. Most people avoid writing these blog posts. The one about school and how it REALLY sucks a lot of the time. How no matter what you do its always WRONG. No matter how hard you try to make things fun your kids are still bored and then you get in trouble for it. Or the whole having to read your bosses mind on what they want and when you didn't properly read your mind they bitch about you in Korean IN FRONT of your students. Yeah, it was one of those weeks.

Thank God for fantastic co-workers that can help you brush things off and make you laugh in the worst times.

I was more than ready for the weekend to arrive. I went out Friday night to meet up with the usual crowd. As usual, we had a great time together and stayed out way too late like always. I had a very very lazy Saturday followed by a night out again. This time though, I was home early! Today I did a bit of shopping with Meg and Tanya, my new friend from Michigan who has been here for only 2 weeks.

I'm thankful for my friends here that can help me forget the bad weeks and remember why Korea is indeed an awesome place to live!

To end, here is a picture of the ladies and I about to get on the 3D roller coaster

Tanya, Meg, me and Danielle

Locked Up Abroad... Shanghai Edition

Last weekend I had a much needed vacation out of Korea. This vacation couldn't have come at a more perfect time. I needed to forget about the frustrations with school, the kids, the boss and just everything. I got the bus at 1 am to Incheon airport Saturday morning with my co worker Dan and his friend Ben. I'm glad I didn't have to travel there alone, even if we just slept on the bus the whole way. We got to the airport around 5 am and slept on a few benches until the airport opened and we could get our tickets. My plane was to leave at 8:55 am. I had a connection in Shanghai with a 2 hour layover there and then flew on to Hong Kong.

You might be curious as to why the heading is 'Locked Up Abroad, Shanghai Edition' I'm just going to give the shortened version, since it makes me look less stupid. To be fair though, it was totally not my fault, I was following directions! I had a connecting flight in Shanghai with a 2 hour layover. I wasn't sure where I was suppose to go and when I asked the Immigration Officer plus an airport lady told me to follow the hallway. I listened and walked down said hallway. Turns out, I was suppose to go through Immigration and get some stamps, go through customs and then re-enter the airport, go through immigration and security again and then find my gate. Since I was sent the wrong way, it caused several problems. Luckily, the Immigration Police Officer was incredibly friendly, thankfully! She whisked me around the airport, taking me through security, immigration and getting everything in order that I should have done before. She couldn't understand what happened that I didn't do it in the first place, until everything was figured out and then she remembered that she indeed did send me down the hallway instead of through the doorway. She could tell I was worried and she just kept reassuring me that everything was okay. In the end, I had to get another flight. This worried me as well because I had a friend waiting for me at the airport and I had no way of contacting her to say I would be 2 hours late. But through the entire ordeal all I could think about was the National Geographic show "Locked Up Abroad" I knew there was a reason I shouldn't watch it!

I finally arrived to Hong Kong 2.5 hours late and my friend had already left. Luckily I got a hold of her and she came back to get me. It ruined our intended dinner plans for the evening. Cristina and I had a lot of catching up to do. It has been a little over 2 year since we have seen each other. We also were meeting up with Ithzel, another friend from Lock Haven. She was in Hong Kong getting her visa renewed for Beijing where she goes to school and works.

the beautiful Lamma Island

Cristina and I in Stanley

We had a beautiful weekend together. The skies were clear, it was sunny and a little too humid for comfort. The main reason I chose Hong Kong was to see Cristina, so it didn't matter what kind of weather we had, I still would have been happy to have this reunion! It was just a plus that we could meet up with Ithzel as well. On Sunday we wandered around seeing parts of Hong Kong and deciding on what touristy things we wanted to do. We decided to take the tram up Victoria's Peak to see the whole city from the top of the Mountain. What a great decision and sight! We also went to a little place called Stanley where they have a market. It was a cool little place with a beach and rocks to take lots of pictures on. Which of course we did!

On Monday Cristina had to work, so Ithzel and I made some plans to meet up in the afternoon. We met downtown and went to find a bakery called Complete Deelites. I was told that this place had amazing cupcakes. We found the bakery easily and picked out our cupcakes and they were amazing! It was so great to have this delicious sweet cupcake. Korea needs some lessons on baked goods!! On we went to find the Star Ferry to go to Lamma Island off of Hong Kong. It was another beautiful day with clear skies. Lamma Island was a cute little place, there are no cars on this island which made it so much better. We hiked around and then hung out on the beach for a little. We ate a little restaurant where we got a salad and grilled salmon. It was delicious. I was told to get a Lime Soda on hot days and we tried one, once again a fantastic suggestion! We headed back to Times Square to meet up with the working girl Cristina.

Ithzel, me and Cristina - overlooking Hong Kong

the girls in Stanley

I may not have done or saw much in Hong Kong. But I still had such a relaxing and great trip. The best part by far was being with old friends, catching up on our lives, whats been going on the past few years, what we hope to be doing in the future. There really isn't anything much better than that. I'm truly lucky to have had the chance to visit Hong Kong. I may not be a fan of the place since I don't luck the hustle and bustle of big cities. But I do appreciate reconnecting with friends! I had a great time, saw the quiet parts of the city, saw the busy parts of the city, saw the beauty and tasted some great food. That right there makes the perfect vacation.

I had another layover in Shanghai, which I got through with no troubles at all. Luckily. I honestly could not wait to get back to Korea. I love my life here. I love how quiet my area is, but being just minutes from downtown where I can have fun. I even missed hearing Koreans talk! I missed the friendliness of the country and people. And I had only been gone for 4 days!

Friday night I decided to go out with Megan and Danielle. We met up with friends downtown and met a new teacher who is from Michigan. She is a really fun girl and we became dancing partners on Friday night. It's amazing how time flies in Korea one minute its 11 pm and the next its 4 am. ha. On Saturday I met up with Tanya, the new teacher in a nearby area, and we headed to visit Megan. We got some food, did some shopping at some donuts and then headed back home. We were all exhausted from our fun night out. We decided a quiet night in would be a good idea. That quickly changed when we realized we wanted to go dancing again. So of course, we were all out again Friday night, again home by 4 am. haha. Life is awesome. It's so fun to go out and meet up with friends old and new. There are many good times and good memories made on nights out!

Meg, Danielle, Tanya and I

And now, its Sunday night. I'm ready to tackle another week at Little America. We recently got 2 new boy students at our school. The one is so cute and I gave him the name of Trevor. I asked him if he liked it and he got this huge smile on his face and shook his head yes. I loved it!

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....