Another day, another class

Well, we started good, with a great lecture on speaking. It was really on games, but the teacher gave us some great websites for getting more materials. The game lecture was very good as well, with some great info on the school system, and the co-teaching lecture was good too. Then we had the materials lecture. I’m a bit worried the guy might have had something wrong with him. It went way to fast, over my head, and we didn’t actually learn anything about materials. Dinner was tasty  and after we went to a question and answer session. Almost everyone cared about pay and vacation, but that was OK.

Tomorrow more lectures.

Oh and bonus good news, I’ll be teaching secondary school. Either middle school or high school.

I can’t wait to find out where.

Finally another post

I’m very busy right now, plus there are only a few computers for 100 people. Although many have their own laptops. Our women’s dorm lounge is the computer central hangout at night.

Yesterday we went on a field trip. It felt a little like summer camp, in a good way. We went to Jeong-ju, a city that has a traditional village. It is about 3 hours from Seoul by bus.  I quite liked my bus mate so that made the trip more pleasurable, but one woman had to be the expert on all things Japanese and Korean (even though she was only in Japan for 2 weeks and in Korea for 2 days) – I tuned her out after awhile.

When we arrived, we got to watch a traditional Korean wedding ceremony with this awesome old man who explained a lot of the symbols. The man brings a duck to the house of his intended, because ducks mate for life (even if one dies they don’t find another, so in Korea if one spouse dies, the survivor doesn’t re-marry) they have two plants, a pine and a bamboo on the table, because both plant leaves don’t change color, so both people won’t change their love.  They share a drink to show that they will share their lives together and then they bow very low to show that they will respect each other. It was really interesting.

After the wedding, we got to make music. My class went to a room with a bunch of drums and we got to learn some traditional rhythms and play some traditional music. Some of my co-EPIK  people have serious rhythm.

That was very cool, but what made it fun like camp was when we made traditional paper fans. We glued the colored paper onto a sheet of cardboardish material, then cut it out from a mold, and finished it up. We were even able to bring it home.

After all that we had a traditional dinner and went to have coffee while walking around the traditional town, and then a long long long bus ride home.  All in all a very traditonal day.

Monday (today) was not so exciting. However it was very interesting. We had classes in classroom management, and classes in games in the classroom and classes in tasked based learning.  I enjoyed all the lectures, and I’m really enjoying the people I am in EPIK with.  And that is interesting

First Day

Well, apparently maybe there is an outbreak of the swine flu.  Many people are all masked up.

The first day so far except for the swine flu quarantine of a few of the women on the women’s floor, has been pretty good. After getting fluids extracted we could have coffee.  I found the cutest little coffee shop. It was a flower cafe, and they had little jeans with plants and flowers and I sat and enjoyed watching the people go by.  Lunch was cool, then we all went to the welcome orientation with a very cool kick ass elementary school taekwondo demonstration.  One of the little girls was so cute– and I felt sorry for one, she tried to break the board three times, but then she did this way cool climbing kick and broke all the boards so she won over everyone in the end.   After another teacher from EPIK talked we had a welcome dinner (mostly bulgoi- but some western food too) and then had a very interesting first Korean class. ( I actually learned something and thought it was fun)

So far so good. Tomorrow is another day.

Getting started

Just got the medical check. Had to wake up at 7, nothing to drink or eat, no coffee, no water!  They got us all in a group, and then we all filled out forms, went to the hospital, got blood and other bodily fluids extracted and got an x-ray.  It only took an hour and half, so I guess it wasn’t too bad.   EPIK is doing a lot for us so far, holding our hands and making sure we get everything we need.  It should be good.

I’m off

I’m off to orientation with
EPIK/SMOE– soon I will find out just what they are going to do for 9 days – I hope they fill the time with something interesting, and I hope I learn something new.  It is always good to learn something new.  I’m feeling very optimistic right at the moment.

Hello world!

hello, I’m just starting this, mostly to keep in touch with everyone and let family and friends know about my stay working in Korea and hopefully the rest of the world