Clowns

You wouldn't believe what I've been doing before class starts each period! I'm handing out awards from this past June's midterm English exam. It's about time! Each kid gets a pencil with an English phrase on it (courtesy of mom) with their award. Honestly, I had no idea whether or not the kids liked 'em. No happiness, no excitement, and when I was finished, they just went back to talking and carrying on as usual. I did get one thank you though. Later, I asked Min Chan if he though the kids liked them or not. He said yes, but I wouldn't have known. Koreans show emotion with their mind, which means you can't see it, while Americans show emotion with their face, voice, and actions. Apparently they were returning to their homeroom teachers and showing off their awards, which indicates to me, they must have like them. I had class 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, and 6-5 today. I will give the remainder of the awards over the next two days. The next exam is scheduled for December. I'm hoping that we can have a more speedy outcome.

Gyeonggi-do Education Office picked Songeun Elementary to participate in one of their experiments. So, one week prior, everyone was told they will have an open class on Thursday involving reading. So, English, Math, PE, and others had to somehow fit this into their curriculum...weird. Every class was taking place at 2pm as an "after-school" class, so that other teachers could come and observe. Min Chan actually took the reigns on this one, so I was pretty impressed. After we discussed ideas, we wrote up the lesson plan, and created the materials we needed.

Clowns. I was reading about clowns. On the right of the board was the "morning" (now afternoon) letter. On the far left were the lesson objectives, schedule, and what not for the visitors to read. In the middle of the board was the vocabulary taken from the story. Greeting, letter, rules, I read , read & repeat, students read, talk about vocabulary, play bingo. Each student had to listen to me describe each vocabulary word in order to fill in their card prior to playing the game. Example "They wear big, bright red noses and like to make people smile;" Answer is "Clowns." Only three people showed up at various times during the lesson. Shame..all that preparation (who'm I kidding?!) for nothing....

I gave a private English lesson to this guy I met in Emart the other day. In exchange for me tutoring him on Wednesdays from 8:40-9:40pm, he tutors me in Korean at that same time on Thursday nights. However, he has no idea that I don't speak Korean, so even if he buys me a Korean book for little children, it doesn't help. The book he bought uses past, present, and future, as well as compound sentences, when I don't even know the language. While I'm certain that this is appropriate for a Korean child, its not for me.

Saturday evening I met Chorong at Jeongwang station and walked back to my house where I had pasta prepared. Finally, someone to eat my food. Of course, I can barely cook for two in my tiny pot without water constantly boiling over even on low temp. But we had dinner together and talked...a lot...until late when I walked her back to the station. Interesting fact though. I found out why I pay a deposit on my apartment though. My deposit has nothing to do with the condition of the inside of my apartment like in the US. Instead, it is just insurance in the event I can no longer pay the increasing price of my current apartment. In that case, my manager will give the money back to me so that I can look for another place to live. I am so relieved!! I was kind of stressed because I didn't know what condition my apartment should be in when I leave, since it was really dirty, had stickers on the cabinets, stains on the carpet upstairs, and smoke on the walls when I came. Bless her heart, did Chorong have a time explaining that one. But I was really grateful for it...

I had every intention of going to this church in Iteawon on Sunday. However, I ended waking up thirty minutes after I should have been on the subway...shucks! I met Alida there for coffee later anyway. We caught up on things, and later went to the opera near City Hall. I had never been to the opera before, but it was Alida's major in South Africa, so I thought I would go with her. The most expensive seats were 200,000W and the cheapest were 20,000W....big difference, eh? So, we got non-english subtitle seats. Since it was sung in French, I had no idea what was happening, but the live music and theatrical entertainment was nice. We were kinda kicking ourselves for not buying the English seats. They do Broadway plays at the same place, however, many performances are in Korean and done by Koreans, even Grease and Fiddler on the Roof. I just need to live near New York City, so I can experience Broadway in English. Expensive yes, but worth it, I definitely think so.