MORE FROM LAST WEEK

Last Sunday I was low on ideas for to occupy my time -- no computer, guitar, tv etc. -- so I played another round of 'pick a direction' and started walking down one of the bigger roads going south. After an hour here's what I had found:

First up, just down the street was the Seoul National Science Museum! Which was closed. Which I wouldn't have gone into by myself even if it was open. But it was there so g'times.

Below is a side entrance to a MASSIVE palace that I knew was close, but not 15 minutes walk close! That entrance is out of commission but the facade was still gorgeous and akin to the other entrances. I walked along its walls for another 25 minutes probably. 

HIATUS CEASED

Computer is back on my lap! Skewed the budget a bit but glad to be back at full technological capacity in apartment 301.

Been taking a lot of pic that I'll add soon but first....

Here are some pics from today. We had a faculty game/exercise day today where thus guy above came and brought these two KIN-BALLS for us to play games with, as a team building thing of sorts. Was pretty fun!

PROS AND CONS

Ah, my laptop crashed. The fan pooped out this time and overheated the hard drive. So it goes! Should get it back from the shop next week. Thus I can't really import too many pictures right now that I have to share so I'll hit everyone with a list:

PROS & CONS: OR, TOP REASONS WHY MY JOB IS AWESOME 

(in no order, and in comparison to my previous job and the jobs of those in my same public school situation):

PROS:

1. I live thirty seconds from school. Quick commutes are priceless.

2. Both my co teachers are both nice, hard working and pleasant to be around in general. That's not always the case, some Native English Teachers have Korean co-teachers who sit in the back the first day and then never show up to class again. 

3. I am pretty much 30 minutes door to door from almost everything that's fun in Seoul. This isn't as big a deal because there was still lots to do around the last neighborhood, but I was looking at an 1h-1h20m minutes to get into the city and a equally increased cab ride home if it was past 11:30pm. 

4. I have 22 classes (40 minute) a week. Amazing, and it's the same schedule all the time. Previously -- 36, 40 minute classes a week and two months a year at 41 classes, and each month I would have a different schedule.

5. I teach the same age group. Students between the ages of 10-12. I can then plan my lessons, and energy level accordingly. Comparatively last year the age range was 5-14. 

6. I have my own computer AND I share a room with only one other teacher. My down time is then sort of my own time. Also when my home computer dies, or I don't have internet for the first month I have a good alternative to keep me in the loop!

7. The way my class structure is set up, I really only have to plan for four different lessons a week (at four or five classes per lesson). Some of my peers in public school have to lesson plan seven or eight different lessons for several age groups, others have to plan only two or three classes but they have to teach those lessons 12 or 13 times! That would get so old. 

8. I work from 8:40 a 4:40 everyday. Last year, true I wouldn't start until 11:00 sometimes, but I would often be leaving the office between 6:30 and 8 pm. After cooking dinner and checking my email I'd turn around it'd be 9 or 10:00! Day's done. 

Which leaves me more time for my hobbies. Like this: Rice paper spring rolls

CONS:

1. I have about 300 students, and very few have taken English names (my ear can't even pick up their three-syllable names when they tell me) so I don't know any of their names, or much about them. I really did enjoy the more one-on-one setting of the private academy. 

2. I can't leave school during the work hours. Not a big deal at all, especially because I have online banking now (the banks here ALL close at FOUR P.M, for some unknown reason) but last year it wasn't half bad to go grab a mid-day coffee.

3. The stairs at my school a really uneven. Each flight is a different height, and sometimes even within the flight there are stairs that are higher or lower. Super annoying. And because I have to wear indoor slippers at all times that are too small for me I'm already an awkward walker to begin with, and I end up tripping a lot. Bummer right!?

FRIDAY

Weather took a turn for the better today, still windy and cold, but after lunch I came out of the lunch room to a gorgeous day:

Staying on tonight after a long week, had the above for dinner. These are trucks that you usually see around more populated area but this guy posts up pretty close to my house on a side street. They sell these little rotisserie chickens at $5 a piece.

IT'S SNOWING. LIKE HERE AND NOW.

I took the umbrella pictures below this morning to talk about that culture here in Seoul. Everyone has an umbrella at all times. If you don't have one people give you dirty looks, my co teacher made me take one from the lost and found at school for my arduous three minute walk home. At the bar last weekend us high and mighty foreigners started talking about how we are not wimps and we can walk a few hundred yards in the rain with out an umbrella per day no big deal. Then I found out yesterday that the Koreans believe that there is radiation in the rain from the Japanese earthquake last year and THAT'S why they do it. Ahhhhh so today I brought my umbrella no questions asked.

THEN today starting about 10:00 it SNOWED! And it kept going for three hours! The first time that it's snowed in Seoul in the last 19 (or, one Tony Gwynn) years. Also, I found out that taking a picture of sparsely falling snow is not easy to do, so sorry if the two pictures above don't accurately capture that it was, in fact, snowing today.

LIVE BLOG UPDATE: I was in the middle of typing this post at work (I have four straight hours off Tuesday and Thursdays to 'lesson plan' which I finish on Fridays and Mondays so don't judge me) and some students dropped by with a gift!

You might recognize Rachel on the far left from a previous post, and those are a few of her classmates from class 6-2. Today I had asked them in the morning what the rest of their class schedule was like today and they told me that they had a class called "Productive Class" which I think means something along the lines of home-ec. Maybe they saw my eyes light up when they said that they would be making sandwiches, maybe they just like me, either way they dropped by to deliver me this present!

THE DMZ

Another teaser title, not the actual DMZ. Sorry to say that post might never come, not big into venturing close to that place sorry guys! But this DMZ is a divide that's gone on way longer than the confict between the two Koreas.

This is a picture from the after-school class of only about 14 6th grade studetns my co teacher has on Thursdays. I was at my desk when I heard the students schuffling in and when I looked up not only had the divided themselves by gender, but they also a put an entire desk between the groups. My co-teacher was quick to point out the they had created their very own DMZ in between them. I laughed pretty hard but the students just got super quite like if they said anything to acknowledge this my co-teacher might force the to integrate, horrific as that would be.

Here are some pictures of a project we did in class where the students had to bring in pictures of a well known person and write a brief summary.