Kimchi making day

First I would like to start this off by saying that I lost a very special person to me this week. Kellie Bryant was one of the funniest and strongest people I know. The last three years I got to spend with her were wonderful. I am very sad to have to say goodbye to her. I know she is not longer in any pain and is in a better place, but I can't help and feel selfish because I want her to still be with us. I love you Kellie and I know you will be watching over us!

So this weekend was very busy! Friday started off by me going to have coffee and eat dinner with my friend GaYeon (Summer). We ate Bibimbop and had americanos. After that we went to Lotte Cinema to watch Breaking Dawn....It was amazing. It was after the movie I got the news about Kellie. Friday night was kind of rough because I was really sad and angry. I had to finally go to sleep because I was catching a 6:55 train to Seoul with some friends. Seoul was a lot of fun. I went shopping at H &M and forever 21. It was really crowded in Seoul and I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of people there :-) After shopping for a LONG time (we couldnt exactly find the stores so we were wondering for a bit) we had a little lunch and then went to the street where they sold all the korean style souvenirs. I bought a few things including Kimchi chocolate for mom and dad! :-) After that we decide we are going to find a motel to stay at for the night. Well after wondering for about an hour and a half we decide to try a different area of seoul because we couldnt find anything cheap enough. After finally finding somewhere to stay we were unloading all of our stuff when I realized I lost my return train ticket. (the train was leaving at 6:10 because I had to be back for kimchi making day). That was 50,000 won down the drain. So after realizing that I decided I was going to try to go back to Changwon saturday night and that way I could sleep in later. This was around 9:20.  We looked up times for the train and the last train left at 9:55 and we were so far from the train station there wasnt enough time. So then I decide a bus is the best idea. So I gathered all my stuff and took the subway to the bus station and caught a bus back to Changwon at midnight. I arrived home around 430 and went to bed.

I woke up very late this morning and was very exhausted. What a long weekend it had been so far. But it wasn't over yet. Today was Kimchi making day. I was to arrive at my friends house at 12. I was told to dress comfortably. I wore my new grey sweat pants that I had bought the day before at H&M...this was a bad idea. There was about 200 halves of cabbage and a TUB full of kimchi sauce. HOLY COW....was there a lot of kimchi to make. We spent about 3 hours spreading sauce on cabbage leaves. I was COVERED in red sauce.  My new sweat pants were COVERED in Kimchi sauce...hahaha I even had it all over my feet. It was a lot of fun though and really awesome to experience. While making kimchi my friend's mom kept giving all of us "kids" pieces to eat. Now I like kimchi but today I ate more kimchi than I have the whole time I have been in Korea. Not to mention to fact the last piece of kimchi she let me try had a raw mussel in it. While chewing I almost threw up. It didnt taste bad but the texture was AWFUL! OMG! After that I was FULL of kimchi, but for dinner her mom prepared boiled pork and rice. Which we wrapped the pork in kimchi that we had made. This is a traditional meal when families make kimchi. I was also given a GIANT box of kimchi to take home. I am not exactly sure when I will be eating kimchi again after today but it was really nice of her mom! I really enjoyed being with a family today. It really felt nice!! Over all it was a nice day...I am exhausted tonight but I have exams this week so mon-wed I will not be teaching...just desk warming. :-) So it was the perfect weekend to do all of this stuff!

This is Jessi  Henson, signing off, with kimchi sauce in my hair.....HAHAHA  :-)

Happy Hump day!

So it is Wednesday afternoon and I am finished with my classes! Today was a relatively easy day with only 4 classes. I am not looking forward to tomorrow when I have to work with crazy....but I am going to make little presents for my students because they have exams next week. It will make me have a better day doing something positive for my students! Also, my 3rd graders are going to play pictionary and scattegories so that should be fun! Also, Friday is PAY DAY! YES! I am excited about that. I am going on a trip to Seoul in 2 weeks so I will be spending a little money at H and M! Exciting! I can't believe how cold it has been here. It is actually warm compared to Seoul and places further north but I still think it's cold! ha! I am a little sad I will not get to be eating Thanksgiving food tomorrow! I also miss the family time! On a different note....I am excited because I get to see Breaking Dawn on the 2nd of December....Which I am really looking forward too. A group of foreigners are going and YES it will be in English. Just sucks for the people who only speak Korean because they have to read the whole movie! Speaking of Korean....I had my 2nd Korean lesson the other night. It is going pretty well. In a few weeks I will be learning how to say actual phrases....right now I am just working on my pronunciation of each letter. It is pretty difficult. A lot of the sounds are a like and I have a hard time losing my Texas accent when I speak....hahaha!  There isn't much else going on right now. I just have a few more weeks of the middle school to teach and then after Christmas will be teaching my adult classes.  Which I think I will really enjoy! I can't believe I have been here for almost 3 months! Pretty crazy. I am starting to get the hang of life here.....I enjoy sleeping now :-) Last night I slept on the floor because in my apartment (like most Korean apartments) there is no air heater just a floor heater.  So I slept on the floor the first night after I sprained my ankle and it was actually really nice. So last night I did it again. I slept really well. It was warm and felt good on my back! HA! I have an hour left of school to just sit here.  My life is so rough! hahaha! I was thinking today how I wish I could have this life just live it closer to my family and friends. It would make it perfect. OK well I am going to read my book I think. I will write again soon!

nightmare

OK so I had this nightmare last night. It all started when I went to City 7 to go shopping. I was riding the escalator and I saw one of my students. This student was notorious for being bad and so I said hello to him. He stopped and turned around to flip me off. I said you shouldn't do that because it is not nice. He said "I don't care" and showed me the razor blade in his hand. (all students carry razor blades in their pencil cases instead of scissors) I said "please be careful." Then he made the motion like  he was going to slit his throat at me.  I got a little afraid. I started to walk away from him.  He then began to run towards me.  I luckily was faster than him and out ran him to the nearest store. This lasted all night. Him chasing me trying to kill me. All of the people around me were just walking past. Even when I tried to stop people they just kept walking and pretended not to see me. I woke up this morning feeling like I had run a marathon I was so tired from my dream. 

Anyway, now I am exhausted. Today is my long day with 6 classes. I have all 2nd grade boys classes. I have taught 4 and i have 2 of the worst classes in the school last today. I was going to go to Korean class tonight but I am so tired I am just going to go home and sleep. I need a good nights rest.  Tomorrow I have orientation in Masan. I am excited because I get to learn Ti Kwon Do and to make a Korean dish. It's like a field trip! :-) I have to get up very early tomorrow to catch the bus into Masan.  It will be wednesday and thursday (which means I dont have to see my crazy co teacher yet again!). Last week we didn't have school thursday because the high schools were taking their SATs.  I also took a mental health day last tuesdays because I needed to sleep!! I get 11 sick days here! SWEET! Good news...only 6 more weeks until winter vacation!! I am excited. I will be teaching for 4 weeks of it but thats ok because I will be teaching teachers. I also will make lots of $$$$$!!! :-)
I am currently taking a "felt art" class at my friend Gayeon's (English name: Summer) house.  We started our key chain project last night. We are making the character "Totoro."  It is really cute. I also purchased my own needles, felt and scissors so I can create more than one "Totoro" key chains to give to people at home! I know you want one!! :-) It is so fun even though I am not good at it. Hopefully I will get better!!
Oh and I am currently learning Korean. My friend Jeong is teaching me Korean. I have a Textbook and everything!! She said my pronounciation is very good! YES!! I will be speaking Korean in no time....hahaha!

What else is new....hmmmm......
Not really sure....But if I think of something I will write another entry! :-) Love from Korea

Two months down....ten to go.....

So I have been feeling rather homesick lately....My emotions have been all out of control and I am feeling a little down.  I am thinking maybe a lot of it is to do with the fact I am not sleeping well at night. I am going to have to go today to see if I can get my hands on some melatonin or some kind of natural sleep aid.  I had a crazy dream the other night that I was walking through the woods and I had accidentally walked into North Korea. Then when I tried to catch a bus back to South Korea I took the wrong bus...then to make matters worse they wouldn't let me leave North Korea. They stuck me in a room with other foreigners and told me I was never going home....Needless to say I was not in a very cheerful mood when I woke  up! Luckily I was able to skype with mom and dad as soon as I woke up.  They always make me feel better! As I am typing this I am starting to cry...for no reason...Uhhhh! This is so annoying....I hate feeling like this. I am actually not that unhappy about my life here and so I am not sure why it feels like I am. I have made a lot of good new friends and keep myself rather busy.  Oh well this will go away soon....I HOPE!!

On a different note, I am teaching classes over the winter break (going to be making some great extra money!) to Korean English teachers. I had a meeting on saturday about the courses I will be teaching. I get to teach a club activity...so I am going to teach how to cook breakfast burritos and home made salsa. Should be really fun! Also, I ordered a book yesterday and I will begin my Korean classes soon! I hope I can start to finally learn some Korea. I know a few words but I really want to be able to have a conversation.  Ok well it's time for me to teach now...Hopefully my next post wont be a depressing as this one is! haha!

Last Friday

OK! So the craziest thing happened last friday so I thought I would share it with all of you! Ha! Let me first say that all of my other co teachers are wonderful and super helpful! But I have one of the craziest people in Korea as one of my co-teachers!! Since the beginning my thursdays are a bit more difficult than any other day of the week. Usually the Korean teacher is really good about helping me translate the really important parts of the lesson (such as the instructions to the game or important questions) so that the students understand what they are saying not just pronouncing it correctly! Well Thursdays are unique because since the beginning my co teacher never says a word during the class...she is usually sleeping or doing something else. I was told not to discipline the students that the Korean teacher would take care of it....but in this class I finally decided I would take control since i was all alone. In one class of girls I was so frustrated because they would only speak in Korean and not listen to what I was saying so I finally said "Stand up....put your hands on your head and be quiet." First person to talk is going in the hall way. Ha you should have seen their faces.....Then I went around the room and moved their seats....they were not happy with me because this teacher had let them pick their seats and they were sitting by there friends.....Well that changed.....After I was finished changing their seats I told them they needed to listen to my lesson and that they were going to write sentences at the end of class because they were acting up. The whole time I was doing this....she was still asleep in the corner.  After the class I sat down with her and explained that I needed her help sometimes with the students because they were not understanding my directions and I needed her to translate some of the important things I was saying.  She told me she couldn't do everything for me and that it was impossible for us to both teach at the same time.  I said well that doesnt make sense because all of the other teachers I work with help me with important things and it seems to work out just fine! I thought maybe she was understanding what I was asking of her so I would ask my head co teacher about it later. Then we had another issue to tackle.....The open class...In the US we call these observations, here they call it an open class.  Next thursday will be an open class for my co teacher.  Like in the Texas the teacher can pick the class that they want to have as their observation.  So this teacher decided to pick a class on thursday which is kind of strange because that is the ONLY day that I teach with her.  When she told me that we were going to have this open class I thought it was for them to observe me.  Which I am totally fine with, I have done it before and I would pick my third grade girls class on thursday because they are the brightest class in the school and we have a lot of fun in there!! I had also made this awesome powerpoint about different cultures and a fun game to play after the lesson so I thought it would be perfect.  Well come to find out the open class is not for me it is for her. I found this out because I told her I wanted to pick the 3rd grade girls class and have that be my open class, she said no because she had picked the 2nd grade boys class ( I dont know why).  I said I thought I get to pick since its my open class. She said it's not yours its mine! I said ok, well what lesson are we going to do then? She said I want you to do that lesson I watched you do in the other class on lesson 8....(Now all of my thursday classes are 2 weeks behind my friday classes) she said I want to use that powerpoint. I said ok well I will do my power point.  I then was curious as to what exatly they were going to observe her doing....sleeping? So I asked what exactly are you going to be doing for them to observe? She said lesson 8. I said I understand that but I usually do the teaching on thursday so wouldnt another day be a better model of how you teach? She said no you have to do 60 percent and I do 40 percent because they want to see you teach too. I thought that was reasonable....it would be awkward because we had never taught together before but I could do 60 percent....especially because I had done the lesson before!! So I said ok I will make up a lesson plan for us to follow....she said no I have to do that part....I said well since I am doing 60 percent I would feel more comfortable making up the lesson plan.  She said no I have too......so I thought crap....so the next week comes and she has made a lesson plan broken down to time....her and i share 35 minutes...I asked her since my 2nd grade girls were on lesson 8 already if we could practice the open class on them so we were prepared for the open class when it came.  She said "ok thats a good idea" So she gets up there and literally mumbles through her part in 5 minutes....so then I do my presentation which is 10 minutes and did the book work.  Then I cut the book work a little short because I wanted to play this fun game I had just made about K pop....My 2nd grade girls are so good I wanted to give them a treat!! So instead of finishing the lesson I planned I played the game with them! They loved it! Afterwards she said Your presentation was only 20 minutes....I said I know because you and I share 35 minutes so I thought I would take 20 and you do 15. She looked surprised and said and you can't play that game because the vice principal will hate it its too loud.  I said I know I have a different game planned but since they were so good i thought we would play the Kpop game. I also gave candy to the winning team and she told me I cant ever give candy in her class again..Ha! I was like ok....sure whatever you want......so the next day comes and I sat down with my main co teacher and explained to her how I think maybe the communication between me and my thursday co teacher may not be that good.  I asked her to speak to her about what I meant by helping me because I wanted to make sure she knew I didn't want her to do it all!! So she went to talk to her and apparently the teacher got really mad....So I went on about my day and it wasnt until I was walking out the door did she ask me to talk to her in the hall way.  I was supposed to be sharing a cab with Summer in 3 minutes so I told her she had to make it quick.  She said to me If yo uhave a problem you need to talk to me about it. I said I did yesterday. Then she went a little crazy because she started screaming at me....in my face....like "You dont understand how tough my thursdays are." I said please calm down I do understand because I am the one teaching the thursday classes.  She said well yesterday you werent in the class on time. I said I know I told you I had left my jump drive in the teachers room and I ran down to get it before class started. It took one minute and I was back.  She was causing a huge scene in the hall way and i kept backing away from her! Ha! Luckily the other teachers came out and started to tell her to calm down and finally she went storming out! It was the craziest thing ever! Ha!! Luckily I had a great weekend after that but it still was an experience!! hahaha!! I am so glad that all my other co teachers are awesome!! :-)

Desk warming

This has been the best week starting with a holiday on monday! I went to Jinju to the latern festival! Which was really neat and pictures can be seen on my facebook!! I had a blast with Siana and her friends! THe bus ride home was an adventure though....it almost took 4 hours to get back when it should have only taken 1! There was so much traffic! The old man sitting next to me on the bus decided it would be ok to sleep with his legs all over me....so I was sitting half on the seat half in the asile! Awesome! Not to mention they turned the AC off and it began to get super hot on the bus! HA! I decided I would get off at the first stop and take a taxi all the way to my house no matter the cost! It turned out to be a good idea because taxi's in Korea are very fast and can get around cars better than a bus!! So I got home in time to make a quick dinner and get some sleep!

Desk warming is what foreign teachers do when they don't have to teach classes but are required to be at school! It is what it sounds like....I am warming my desk! HA! It is so awesome! I got a ton of lessons planned and even got to squeeze in a few Skype sessions while at school! :-) It has been a pretty awesome week so far!! Last night I went for a bike ride around Changwon with a friend and had lunch at City 7! It was fun! Tonight I am going to join a gym after school so I can start to get back in shape! haha! Running 5 times a week is not cutting it for me! Luckily I have the afternoon off again so I can go get all of that taken care of! Since I got my new computer I am able to bring it to school and connect to the wifi here! It is really nice! That is how I have been able to skype with people! Today also I got some awesome new ringtones for my phone....Halloween ones!! SWEET! I am getting excited about Halloween and I am trying to think of a good Halloween costume!

I know this is short but it is time for me to go home now and I want to get home so I can change for the gym!! :-)

YES!!!

I just found out that I have a 3 day weekend and next week I do not have to teach a class!! It is Midterm week so I will be doing some lovely desk warming!! I am going to bring my computer so I can make some power points and games for the following weeks!! Today is my busy day....I only get one break and I have mostly 2nd grade boys classes!! They make me so tired! Good news I brought some chocolate covered almonds to help me through!! HA! I went for a 4 mile run this morning....well I think it was 4 miles....close enough! I found a track about 1.5 m from my house! It is all uphill until I get to the track so it is a good workout!! there is also a long set of stairs so I run those as part of my workout! The weather is so wonderful! I love it in the mornings because it is kind of cool....perfect running weather. Yesterday I went for a bike ride and run in the morning and then another bike ride in the afternoon. Last night I purchased a new computer. It was very inexpensive and I get to pay monthly for it. Which is awesome! It is not a mac but I had to sacrifice for the price I was willing to pay! I am just happy that my ipad now works and I could download all my itunes last night!! :-) I finally got to watch Leverage!! :-) I also rented 2 movies I plan on watching tonight! I am going to go for a bike ride when I get home and try to buy a new sweatshirt and then go home and have some dinner and watch a movie!! Maybe even a little wine....even though I don't usually drink during the week...it seems like a wine night! I tried to get my wireless router to work last night but it wouldn't read on my computer because it is in English and the software is in Korean....I am going to try to get it to work tonight!! If not I may have to order another one. Oh well! Well now it's teaching time!! :-)