It's the end of the month

Today was my last open class, I had the first one of the month and the last one. The lesson itself went fine, and the kids were slightly more well-behaved than normal (though they're usually pretty good.) The parents seemed to enjoy it, though I didn't look at them, and my boss said they had no problems, which means they're happy. But now I have planning for next month for my afternoon classes due, evaluations for this month, lessons for the week for Cherry and Lemon, and I'm getting ready for Halloween this Friday.

I'm also doing a separate week-long lesson with one of my afternoon classes on how to write directions in English, and then I'm going to film them giving the directions on how to play a Korean game to send to their pen pals. The kids are really excited about it, and my boss really likes the idea, too (which is always nice).

And I was sent a link the other day to a rather interesting article about escaping student loans by leaving the country. Though I haven't come here to escape my loans, but rather pay them off, I am concerned about the change in exchange rates since I got here. When I arrived in Korea 5 months ago, the exchange rate was just about even - 1,000 won = $1.00 (meaning I could easily send home $1000 each month and still have plenty to live on here). However now, it's around 1,000won = $.695.

This makes it harder for me to send money home, as I'm still making the same amount per month, but I have to send more won home in order to keep the same amount in my American bank account to make my monthly payments. Though I would never consider changing my address to an international address just to avoid making payments, it does worry me that others in my position have been faced with that decision. It's amazing the things you start paying attention to (exchange rates, foreign policy, current political climate) when they affect you directly, and that in my case it only happened when I left America.

Video now included

Today is our last day of class before vacation. It was a half day for our morning kids, but we still have kids until 7pm tonight. Two weeks ago, we were told that today would be "Acting It Out Day". All of our classes would have to prepare a song and memorize lines to perform in front of the rest of the classes. This was partly rather simple, and partly rather annoying. All of my classes have songs and memorization built into the curriculum, apart from my last class, which is 6th/7th grade. The problem comes with having students memorize specific parts well enough to perform them in front of their peers in two weeks, while continuing on with the curriculum we'd planned, including tests, homework, etc.

My kindergarten classes did fine this morning, since I have them every day for 4 thirty-minute sessions. We had three kids absent today, and they still managed to re-learn all their lines, and remember a song we hadn't sung in about three weeks as well as the one we've been practicing that they choreographed themselves (the audio's pretty bad, but that's what you get with video from a camera):

My afternoon classes, however, I've been struggling with. I only see them for 45 minutes, and three of the classes are only three days a week instead of five. The stories have 5 characters in them, so it's hard to assign 'parts', and for me to remember them for all the classes. So I had to create a script for each class. Partly so they could take them home and memorize them, and partly so I could remember whose line was next to prompt them if necessary (this, by the way, is on top of the weekly lesson plans, monthly lesson plans, and monthly progress reports for 5 classes and 60 kids that were due today). My first two afternoon classes had their song and their parts down pat, but my other kids, well... to say they needed prompting is an understatement. Especially my oldest group. Anyone who works with middle school kids would understand the look of "you've got to be kidding" when I told them they would have to stand up in front of the other classes and recite their parts. From memory. And my severe displeasure with them when the two youngest in the class had memorized their parts, intonation and all, and the three oldest hadn't even tried.

Soo.... after lunch, Julie tells us that for the first class, we're not going to do the first class, and then second class watch a movie. Meaning no acting out. This is slightly annoying, as the lesson plan for all but one of my afternoon classes was to practice for acting it out. Then she decides since so many kids are absent (it is, after all, a Friday at 4pm before vacation), there will be no lessons, just the movie for both periods. For all the classes for the rest of the day. Now mind you, I spent a lot of time with all my classes getting them to practice, and reminding them they would be performing in front of their peers on Friday. With some of my classes, I'm relieved. I'm also annoyed that I spent so much of my time, and theirs, preparing for something that didn't happen.

The other problem is I had a unit test planned for my last class today. It was supposed to be their first big test since I've had them, and now not only do I not have a test grade to put on their evaluations for the month, but I'm going to have to spend Monday reviewing since they will have forgotten everything over the break, and have them take the test on Wednesday. This pushes my lessons for the month back by almost a week. Again, rather annoying.

(5 minutes later)

Julie just informed me that the 5:30 class is going to have class the first lesson and then watch the movie afterwards. This is partly because James was going to have his test, regardless of what the other classes were doing. At this point, all the Korean teachers have left. Normally they would have class from 6:15-7:00, but one of them had a plane to catch, one of them had a Bible study or something, and I don't know where the third one went. But they were all out of here by 4. So. Now I will still give my test, but Julie will administer the test to the two students that are absent later so I don't have to re-write my lessons. And I will leave at 6:15, whether my evaluations are done or not.

Aisha.

A trip to the hospital

I only had to teach three classes today, since I went to the hospital to get my physical so I can apply for my alien card. My first class, lemon, was from 9:45-10:30. They usually have snack then, so Julie Teacher took over for me while I went to the hospital (I'm Breanna Teacher to the kids, only they usually pronounce it teachah). Lee, Julie's husband, drove me there, and took care of all the paperwork. It was a lot of running around between floors 1, 3, 6, and 8. Some of the elevators only went to even floors and some went to odd floors and some went to all of them. Only some of them were labeled.

The first thing they did was the obligatory pee test, then 4 blood samples. There was a very long conversation between two nurses and Lee before they took my blood, and the only thing I caught was HIV, which they would be testing for. Lee couldn't translate any of it, partially because his English is basic at best, and I don't know that anyone but a fluent speaker in both languages could translate medical terminology. Then we went downstairs where I thought they would do a physical, but their version of it was asking me "Do you have health ok?". Then we went back upstairs, since apparently the first set of nurses had to go to lunch and didn't have time to do the rest of it while we were up there. We got another form, went back downstairs, where they checked my teeth (no cavities, no missing teeth). Then back upstairs they checked height, weight, blood pressure, hearing, sight (all of which are fine), and did an x-ray of my chest. And then we left.

By the time we got back, it was almost the end of lunch. So I had lunch in the kitchen with Lee and one of the kids. Everyday there's soup, kimchi, rice, and then two sides. I can't eat the kimchi - it's way too spicy. Lee told me there's something called pakimchi, which is similar only made without pepper, so it's milder. But most, if not all, restaurants only serve kimchi. I do, however, love dried seaweed and rice. It's my new favorite snack. I had some sort of little silver fish that had been cooked, had it's head and tail cut off, and covered/stuffed with some sort of vegetable sauce thing. It was a bit spicy, but pretty good. Lee also showed me how to correctly hold my chopsticks, which seemed to work for the first time. It still amazes me that the kids eat such spicy food, and not only don't mind it, but they love it (the teachers eat the same thing as the kids, just bigger portions).

Julie teacher even taught my class after lunch, so I only had my two apple classes to do, which are pretty easy because one class has three kids and one class has nine, and they all speak English fairly fluently. Even though my last class is over at 4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm not supposed to leave before 6pm (which isn't bad, considering my day starts at 9:45 and I get an hour break after lunch). So I spent the rest of the day working on my lesson plans for lemon and cherry for next week, and making sure I had all the materials I needed for the activities. They're pretty straight-forward, and everything is pretty much scripted for you from the teacher's book. They have songs that go along with storybooks, and activity books, and homework books, all relating to whatever story they're reading. I've learned such riveting songs as "Little Bear Lake", "Let's Go Camping", and "Hello, Ranger Joe". And tomorrow is Memorial Day, so Cherita, James and I are going out to downtown Uijeongbu (pronounced weejongboo) tonight since there's no school tomorrow. I did find out from Julie teacher that my birthday, which is the Korean Independance Day, is no longer a holiday off from school - apparently Korea has too many holidays and they changed it last year to a normal school day. :(

There's lots of little things here that I find facinating. Things like when you order pizza, they always tie it with a red ribbon to keep the box closed. Or how the cars have the right of way, not the pedestrians, and they can make a u-turn in the middle of the street, as long as there's no traffic going the other way. There doesn't seem to be any laws about where to park either, as people park in the street all the time with no permits. In their registers, they keep their money vertical, instead of laying down horizontal, and most bathrooms don't have toilet paper - you're supposed to bring your own.