Day 5

Good evening loves! I had a looooong day 5, so I am a little late on the blog action. Yesterday I had to get up early and go to the hospital to finish up my medical exam. Helen took me, and she dropped me off at school, asked me if I would be OK to teach for an hour, and like normal, she never came back. I taught 5 classes yesterday.

Before the first class, one of my Mon/wed/Friday kids came in. She said “Teacher, teacher! Do you like chocolate?” I said yes, and she ran out of the room. She came back with huge chocolate muffin, just for me! I think that was Sarah; I still don't have their names down. I should by the end of the week, or at least next lol. Nothing major happened during the day, taught the classes, I like my middle aged kids the best (2nd-4th). The younger kids are too active and don't listen, the older kids are too bored with everything and don't listen. I am going to try my hardest to find something that can keep them interested, but the young kids get too loud with games, the oldest are bored with any games I can think of. My Tuesdays and Thursdays might just be difficult, because those are the groups that are the most active or inactive. After class Tuesday, I met Kristine at the train station and we took a taxi to North Daejeon.

The taxi dropped us off at a restaurant near a large church (where we go for Korean lessons). We ate b-something-pop...cant remember all of the syllables, I just know pop means rice. It was the best food I have eaten in Korea so far (save the sushi I ate with Tarita, that was great ;-). We met up with a few of her friends; they go to dinner every Tuesday evening, and then to Korean lessons following dinner. The lesson was fun, I learned the Hangul alphabet, which are all of those symbols you see but cant read lol. It isn't actually that hard, 20 vowels, 20 consonants, and they are put together and make sounds. Each word has a Consonant Vowel Consonant...and is broken into syllables. I learned how to write my name, and once you learn the letter options, you can read Korean. We didn't get home until around 10, and I passed out after talking to some friends and family on the internet. My sleep is your morning, so I was beat.

I woke up and did the same thing, talked to loved ones until like 1 hour before work. I made it to work on my own...Helen didn't act like she might help out today lol. On Wednesday, we don't start teaching until 2:10, and it was good because I needed all of that time to do my lesson plans; I didn't even take lunch. One of my girls came in and brought me an orange plum. It was pretty tasty lol. I like the little gifts I get ;-) The lessons ran more smoothly today, tho, which was the goal...yesterday I was stuck with nothing to do; some of the kids finish their work very quickly. I need to figure out educational time wasters lol...so any suggestions are welcomed.

My first class was loud, they didn't listen, and they were testing me. I am still trying to figure out ways of discipline, or maybe I just have to praise the kids that do what they are supposed to. I'm not trying to bribe them, either, tho. Uh. Too much! Anyway, my middle aged classes were great, again. They had fun, and so did I. My last class of today is an advanced class and only has 3 boys; 2 6th graders and a 3rd grader. They are so smart; they knew all of their words before they got there. They have an exam in their regular school classes (ours is an after school program) tomorrow, so we just went over the material quickly, I made sure they understood each word, and they taught me how to play cards lol. They have dinosaurs and dragons on them, and it is like uno with suits.

To make the game relevant, they could only speak English, and we wrote out the suits on the board, along with words like skip, pass, switch, and draw (because they were saying them in Korean) I watched the first round, played the second. I almost won, then they hit me with a Joker, which is either draw 5 or draw 10. Ugh, little buggers. LOL. Got home like 40 minutes ago, had to run out to the market to make dinner. I have a mini fridge here, and on top of that, food doesn't store as well as home, which is a good thing. Went to the bakery to get new bread for my lunch sandwiches...White corn bread...MMM lol. That was the last 2 days in 3 nutshells lol. Hope all is well with everyone at home...Kisses!