Busy Bee I am :)

I don't really mind this whole teaching gig when I'm actually doing something that will benefit the students, and doing something that keeps me busy all day. Friday I taught for four hours and then was suppose to head out with the school's credit card for winter camp shopping. However, Seunghui, the fifth grade English teacher, had asked me on Wednesday if I could help her with recording something. She didn't say much more, so I said "Sure. What do you need?" The description was vague, but we made a plan for Friday at 1pm. I would have rather done it when class was finished, but I wanted to give her time to eat lunch. Turns out she was 30minutes late, and took another 30minutes to set up the headsets for recording. Eventually, she said "Maybe we should do this later." That's a grand idea...but couldn't you tell me this two hours ago? So, I didn't leave school until 2pm.

I ran over to Morning Glory, a school supply store, hoping to only spend 15-20 minutes there. Instead, because the clerk doesn't speak English, and didn't wanna take the time to try and understand my konglish, she kept telling me to wait a minute while she served other costumers. So, I did a lot of frustrating waiting in that store. Finally, I ordered what I needed that wasn't there, and will have it delivered sometime next week. I bought 20 small bottles of glue (similar to Elmer's), 2 bags of small colored plush balls (for ornaments or other decorations of the kid's trees and/or cards), 12 small bottles of glitter (3 blue, 3 green, 3 red, 3 silver...incredibly expensive and very small!!..everyone will have to be frugal and share), 120 red & green card-size construction paper (Christmas card-making), 30 large green sheets of construction paper (Christmas tree-making), 3 large sheets of yellow construction paper (stars)...I think that's it. Totaled 130,000W.

Next I went to HomePlus. I bought 120 Choco pies (12 per box = 10 boxes), 240 paper plates (for mask-making and choco pie decorating), 120 wooden chopsticks (for holding masks), cups & spoons (for icing), toothpicks (for decorating)...I think that's it. And of course, this 40-something year old man, who was helpful, wanted to stop and talk with me in English and asked if he could meet with me as he was learning English. He gave me his card, and I will email him later.

I wasn't finished shopping, but this is all that would fit in my cart, so I checked out, went home, and came back. I needed groceries for myself.

Saturday I got up early to meet Sharmila and another South African friend Sarah at the Subway station by 8:10am. I was bundled up with stockings, leggings, a thick shirt, a sweater with an undershirt, boots, hat, gloves, scarf, and winter coat. We were going to meet some volunteers at University of Seoul St. Mary's Hospital near Express Bus Terminal station on line 3. After volunteering, they gave us a fantastic Christmas party with tons of great Korean food! I meet lots of people there too. I am hoping to volunteer with Yeoksan Global Village, the organization that puts on volunteer work, again soon. I spoke with the director of internal medicine at St. Mary's about maybe visiting with a dietitian there who speaks English and learning from her. He gave me his card, so I will email him soon. It takes about 2 hours to get to this hospital, but it will be worth if to speak with a Korean dietitian because Korean diets are so very different from Western ones.

I went from there to Oksu station, about a 10min subway ride, if that. I walked to a nearby foreign food store, about 20minutes. I bought some surprises for making and creating Christmas presents, about 50,000W, and some things for school, about 50,000W. There is a Philippine man who works there that recognized me (the same that was there the night Jen and I went to buy the turkey), so he gave me a ride back to the station, which was really nice. However, I debated over buying powdered sugar there and making my own icing for winter camp, or buying the pre-made Pillsbury icing sold there. I opted for the powdered sugar to later realize how stressful it will be to make royal icing for 40 students at a time. I don't have a glass or metal bowl to whip egg whites or a container to carry the finished icing, nor do I want it to harden before the kids can use it. So, I'll go back, taking the sugar back, and opting for the pre-made stuff. If it were just me, I wouldn't buy it pre-made...but for the kids, I'll go with easy.

Tomorrow the kids have their mid-term exam, so there is no English class. Luckily, my principal is letting me keep the school's credit card one more day, so I can go to Oksu station tomorrow. However, I have an after-school class, so I will have to be back at school by 1:50pm to give Min Chan the credit card back before my 2pm class. This means, I will leave town by 9am to ensure plenty of travel time. What I do for these kids! Seunghui asked me what has motivated me to make such detailed and fun lesson plans with many activities and games...well, I told her it was because I was doing them alone.

After lunch today, Seunghui and I recorded what she needed for the English listening component of the fifth grade mid-term exam. She would say instructions in Korean, and I would say questions and possible answers in English. This is the first time I did this, but Seunghui told me it was because last time the parents and students complained that the listening component wasn't clear do to accent and electronic equipment. Then we talked about my winter camp plans and her new marriage.

I still need to put the lesson plans that are in my head for winter camp down on paper after making the final English exam for the kids. I will be giving this exam on Wednesday and it will last one week, giving each class two periods to finish this one-on-one oral exam.