Sharing is Caring: RRR [4]

While these next few nuggets aren't necessarily reflections, they certainly qualify as random and somewhat rambley. They are also quite amusing and/or exciting and I am in the mood for some sharing. SO, here are my latest "Random Rambles and Reflections."

Guess what I just did!

Yeah. That. And it was awesome. Jealous? The fact that it came out a few day earlier here almost makes up for the fact that I had to wait 3 months to see part 1. Not. Regardless. Amazing.

PYEONCHANG KOREA FIGHTING!!!
Last week 평창, South Korea (where I went snowboarding this winter) was named the official host of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Assaahhhh! Daehanminguk!!!! Perhaps I will come back....

Chi-cola-cup. 
It seems that recently I've been slipping just enough faux English into this here blog of an English teacher, to make people wonder how I ever got a job as an English teacher in the first place. What can I say? I must be charming; OR, I have a college degree and a somewhat firm command of the (conversational) English language. That whole degree in Education was just a bonus. Moving on, I will admit that Chi-cola isn't even acceptable English, Korean or Konglish in Korea, rather its the only term I could think of to describe what I was gifted this morning by one of my third grade classes. Have a look, maybe you can come up with a better term....

As I did not anticipate such a rad gift, my camera was nowhere to be found. Both of these images are credited to Snack to the Future.

Yeah, that's right. It's a soda. Its popcorn chicken. It's combined in a stroke of portability genius. And its delicious. What was even better was that, as a result of some craycray morning events, I had neglected to grab breakfast OR coffee before leaving the house. Third grade end of the semester pre-English class party to the rescue. Thanks Class 3-4 for satisfying my mid-morning battle with starvation and caffeine  addiction, and showing me that there are, in fact, some pretty creative people over here in the ROK.



Morning Events and Minor Heart Attacks
So, it's morning right? Let's say its about 8:10. I woke up at 8:00 and in order to be on time for school, I need to leave my apartment at 8:15. I am mostly dressed, the water for my coffee is boiling, and I have brushed my teeth. I am making pretty good time. I look at myself in the mirror and decide I have just enough time to run a flat iron through some major bedhead and perhaps apply some B.B. Cream to the circles under my eyes. This is when I start to hear someone pressing the numbers on a key pad (the doors in my building have electronic number pads rather than keys) for the apartment next door. Except... wait. Are they pressing my key pad!? It there someone trying to open my door!!??! Is that the chime telling me my door has just been unlocked!?? WHAM. My door is pushed open, slamming into the latch, which locks my door from the inside.  In the 30 seconds between hearing the first few beeps and a confused "Em!??!" called from the other side if the door, the following thoughts somehow crammed themselves into my brain. "SOMEONE IS TRYING TO BREAK INTO MY APARTMENT!!" "Oh No! There is some emergency and my co-teacher is coming to get me!" "Shit, the new building owner (who wants to use my apt as a home office, but has agreed to let me stay until the end my contract) thinks I am gone and is trying to get into the apartment!!"

Answer, none of the above. It was Alex. 

Alex works at the middle school next to my apartment and, on a miraculous day my first week in Korea, we crossed paths on the bridge to Wold-uh Ma-tuh. It was beautiful. She was the first non-Korea and English speaker I had seen since arriving in Korea and we've been friends ever since. Alex boyfriend is in the military and stationed in Pyeongtaek and, as such, they have both been living near the base in apts rented to soldiers. Long story slightly less rambley -- because Brandon's service ends this week, and Alex's contract does not end until the end of August she needs a place to live (or store her stuff while shes on vacation) for the next month and a half. Seeing as I have way more space than I need, spend way too much time talking to myself, and essentially live kiddie-corner to her school, I offered up my place. Woohooooo Roomies for life. She dropped of her stuff on Tuesday, I gave her the code, and we looked forward to the week and a half in August when we will be real roomies. Turns out she sent me a text this morning, when I was still somewhere between coma and fully alert (likely leaning more towards coma) letting me know she had a few more things to drop off. My B. In the end all was well because Brandon gave me a ride to school.

That's for now from the ROK. Hope its less monsoony wherever you are.

Anyeong[hikheseyo].
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Random Rambles and Reflections [3]

For your enjoyment, I bring you a brief series of updates and reflections on my life in 대한민국.

English-ee Crew-uh 2.0
The Banji English Army recently added one more to our ranks. Because fifth and sixth graders are now required to study English three, rather than two, times a week, a new Korean English teacher joined our party of 3 at the start of the new semester. This involved some office rearranging strikingly similar to my own arrival, although this time I was the one who knew what was going on. While I wont actually be co-teaching classes with Miss Kim, she has been an excellent addition to the office. Not only do I now have one CT with an English name, one whom I call her Korean name, and one whom I call Miss ____, they all seem to refer to each other by different names than what they have told me to call them. For example,  Julie will sometimes ask me what "Scarlet" said to do? It took me a good three months before I realized she was talking about Juha who, when in the U.S, went by the English name Scarlett. Miss Kim, on the other hand, calls Juha "Miss Shin." Additionally, Miss Kim gets confused when I talk about Julie instead of Nam Sang-un, Julie's Korean name. Needless to say,  some days there is a fair bit of confusion in the English Village. Welcome to Korea.

Since her arrival Miss Kim has also told me the the following: She cannot swim, it is too hard, she just sinks. I have never had jjimdak (my favorite Korean food) before coming here because in the US I only eat fried chicken and jjimdak is boiled.  She has never seen anyone adding milk to drip coffee before. Korean men are bad drivers; thus, when a man cut her off on her way to school she was mad and wanted to fight, so she drove in front of the car, cut him off, and slammed her breaks. She is envious of my ability to think of creative games and use Microsoft Powerpoint.  Her last native speaking co-teacher used to come to school drunk, and got pissed when she asked him about it. She doesn't know how to plan her lessons. She thinks I am a very good teacher, and has never seen a NET who works so hard.

I'll take it.

For the record, she used to teach middle school and I actually think she is a very good teacher.
Rock on Miss Kim, you make my life more interesting every day!

Hey kid, are those things painted on?
While in many ways Koreans look to, and adopt, aspects of American culture, in terms of fashion they align far more closely with our Western Euro counterparts, especially when it comes to choice of denim. Many of you maybe thinking, "Hey now, FTW, a good pair of Levi's is TOTALLY our thing. Maybe. Maybe not. All I am saying is this, I teach classes full of kids age 9-12 (and spend a good deal of time being gawked at by those age 6-8) and this week realized the following: At any given time, roughly 95% percent of my students (boys and girls alike) are wearing skinny jeans. Often, said jeans are acid wash, and have heart shaped back pockets (again, boys and girls). Sometimes, I suspect they are actually hybrid jeggings. The other 5% of students are likely wearing their gym uniform.
I wish I had a better photo... It's fricken adorable, there is no way around it. There is absolutely nothing like seeing an army of acid-wash, skinny-jean clad kindergarteners running down the street, to start your Monday off an a giggly note. 

꽃샘추위
Spring is upon us here in the ROK and yet, there is a saying in Korean, "꽃샘추위" which translates roughly to "sudden frost in spring" or "spring frost." Korean's will say "Winter is jealous of Spring," and thus even after its seems that the winter wonderland is on its way out, a few days of frost will sneak in before its is truly over. Alas, those Korean's are so smart (and could just as easily be describing the weather in the Midwest.) Just when I thought it was time to send home my boots and parka, last week we had a blizzard. It started off a perfectly clear morning, so much so that when one of my students told me, "Teacher! Today, it's snow!" I was all like, "You crazyyy boi!" and shrugged it off as a miscommunication. Little did I know that, 6 hours later, I would be trudging home, engulfed in big puffy white flakes whipping around in the wind. Silly silly me. While I remain optimistic and am signed up to go spring hiking in the South this weekend, I am going to hold on to those boots until I am quite sure Winter's jealousy has subsided.

Potluck
My friends are fabulous and, as it's usually me, myself, and three empty rooms, it was wonderful to fill my apartment with chingus on a Saturday night. About twelve of us ate some delicious food, enjoyed some vino and maekju, watched such fine cinematic works as Rebecca Black's "Friday." and "P-I-Z-Z-A slow down," and spent a few wonderful hours chatting, and singing, and playing games. Life is pretty good these days, and my friends are pretty rad for making the trek all the way down to my weird little Korean suburb.
감사합니다 친구!

For once, I left my camera on my desk and simply enjoyed the company of friends; so, these few photos must be credited to Mr. Brandon Baila, thanks friend! 

HGTV Love
Due to my weekend guests and my not wanting to appear like a total slob, Friday night (and again Sunday morning) I swept and scrubbed and lint-rolled and sorted and gave my apartment the good old fashioned Spring cleaning it deserved. I posted pictures of my humble abode ages ago, but as it has transformed from weird empty apartment to slightly less weird and empty home over the last few months, I figure it's time for an update. While I cannot bring myself to invest too much time, energy, and ca$h-moneyyy, in an apartment I will be vacating in (now) five months time (so weird..can't even talk about it) since my arrival I have been on an endless mission to make my little slice of Jangdang feel like a home, albeit a temporary one. Through a combination of Daiso (dollar store) purchases, school copier enterprising, Thailand love, and some good old fashioned dumpster diving,  my place has come to look a little something like this...

Reunited and it feels SO good

I finally got a new set of watercolors last week and have since spent many hours on my couch, with a cup of coffee and a pad of paper, totally and completely happy. Moral of the story? Watercolors are good for the soul. They are not, however, good for ones ability to accomplish anything else.

“Screaming is bad for the voice, but it’s good for the heart” — Conor Oberst

Anyeong[hikheseyo].
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