Chrysanthemum flower festival

Chrysanthemum flower festival. 

October 11th-26th 

Free. All ages. Bring money for the local vendors...yummy snacks and products 

One of the side events for OECD's World Science & Technology Forum.

http://www.daejeon-oecd2015.org/main.do

HAPPY BONES at 행복한정형외과

This is my third or fourth time coming to this place. I could come more often but the professional and sexy, silver fox makes me nervous. I have this things for graying doctors. Dr. Song is also an orthopedic surgeon. 

The office is on the fourth floor of a medical building that houses other offices such as a skin clinic. 

There are always people coming in and out--older, middle aged, and school aged athletes. 

Go to the front desk. The women are very nice and some 

Gardening.....Grrrrreat!

So I bought a farm! NO. I just bought land to use for a whole year!! I can finally garden! I am a renter. Haha. A share cropper?!

Last Friday, three teachers and had a nice walk along the river.

First night - Hotel sleep

I have been up for the past two hours.  Presently, it is 6am and I am in the bathroom with a headlamp sitting in an empty tub. This tub is huge! Why did I think they would have small tubs? Well, maybe, it is only in hotels.    I don't want to wake up my roommate.

It feels like any other day of checking email and texting friends but I'm a half day ahead and I'm in Korea.

I have to finish doing this pre-orientation online course.  I did it already but I didn't do it correctly.  So basically it is a couple hours of sitting in a tub.  Again, this tub is nice.  There is even a groove that makes a nice shelf for my phone!

Not the nicest hotel I've been in but not the worst - odd light options, two beds, big tube TV, a water cooler, sliding window, and complementary slippers.  Nice receptionists! I will check out

Another ---opps i forgot to post this from August 2012

Field trip Friday

Friday- Korean History and Cultural Experience ....opps a "i forgot to post this back from August 2012" post

Started awesomely with the most boring lecture I had experienced.  I bet he is quite intelligent and really enjoy talking about his subject but I wish I wasn't there to listen to it. This Dr. R was soooo boring it was almost sad, maybe even fun.   I thought he was being funny and was doing that as a NOT "what to do" as a teacher. I wrote notes and tried not to be rude. I was sooo not excited about all what he had to say.  Though I am interested in history and appreciate all research that continues to be unearth, he had the worse delivery of history I had ever experienced.
Please don't read off from your pamphlet

Bus trip

Pottery painting at Doja Art Village

This place was enveloped by the mountains, rice and vegetable fields, trees and low clouds.
I believe this village was created to reestablish the art of ceramics that once flurished around those mountains.  Creating this art required mud, water and heat- reddish clay, streams, and wood to burn.


Lunch

Gapsa Tour at the Park

Kuk-ak Music Performance

Gongju National Museum Tour and the tomb stuff

Shit Dinner

Sleep

Kids came back

Update March 10, 2015

I can't believe I am still here!
August 2012
I arrived to South Korea. Leaving home was a bit hard but now being hear for a couple years it feels like I have been here longer. It kinda feels like "home."
I had plans on doing a year and trying to figure out what my next plan would be. I thought it would be in the USA, in Virginia teaching Spanish or going back to school. I had plans about starting a food truck business or baking weed brownies or owning a furniture store.

Any who, I should be working on this thesis. A thesis with an unknown title. It has something to do with graphic novels and I just have to finish it. I just need to do this research and finish it. I have tons done but I don't even like reading what I wrote. I am afraid of reading and know my words will be in bound, words on a paper, with a cover, and three people will read it and then stuck on a shelf, never to be read again. So, what is the big deal?

My contract ends this August 2015 but I am thinking of extending it until Feb 2016. In that way, I would finish the school year with my co-teacher. She wouldn't have a new co-teacher and I will have some time to think about my next move. I know everyone is leaving for a new position and that is great. I am not afraid to be left here. I haven't been sitting still. I have enjoyed every moment.

My English classroom

For hours, I sit next to the door at my desk, lesson planning or reading.
The rest of the time I am walking around, checking, helping, and singing with the kids.
Other  I am at the large, interactive, touch screen TV heading the class.

The kids don't all have Samsung tablets or computers on their desks.  I haven't even been with my class to the computer lab to use them.  There are two computers and those are for the teachers. Wi-fi? Hmm, not for us and the students.

Not all the rooms nor all the English classrooms have these high-tech TVs.
They told us all the rooms would have them BUT we know what ends up happening.
Oh, you don't know?!
Well, sometimes, money allocated for the English department is moved around for something the principal and other teachers see better fit.   I have no proof, but I have a hunch.
Doesn't matter to me. I am just here to relax from the hours of 8:30-4:30, Monday to Friday.
It is the best job.
My only complaint is that they hired us not knowing Korean!  Sure, some people are fluent or become close to it.  How are we supposed to teach kids English without knowing their language!
Sure, we teach with another teacher that can communicate between the students and for me....but...sometimes that isn't possible or the teacher's (low) English level doesn't help.
This isn't my situation because my co-teacher's English is awesome.
Big difference from year one and year two. I try to use as much Korean when helping my students.  I speak as much English as possible during the lesson and presentation but when when they ask me something in Korean or we are defining the word, I know more of what they are saying.
I don't study enough Korean.  I am not saying I hate learning Korean but it hasn't been my favorite thing about Korea.  The alphabet is the coolest thing to learn and be able to read.  I just don't know what I am reading.

I think each school is designed the same way.  Almost like an "H."  There are windows on two sides of the classroom. They one set opens to the outside and the other to the hallway.  Most schools are usually two-five floors.  Winter and summer are the worse-sooo cold or tooo hot.  They try to save energy and don't turn on the AC or heat until people are icicles or passing out.  They have a playground and a soccer field. My school is super high class, as it has a turf grass and not sand! The playground also has this no-hurt-if-you-fall material. More about the school some other time. This post is titled "My English classroom."