(our last week night outing before school started again. it’s much harder to stay out all night on a week day when you actually have to teach the next day…although i guess it is likely to happen again anyways)

School is back in session!

The pros:

• I’m not so bored just sitting around all day
• I’ll probably be better at blogging because my time is more structured
• All the teachers are back so I have more friends at school
• I feel like a celebrity again
• These kids are hilarious
• My new classroom is awwwesome

The cons:

• I forgot how much energy teaching requires sometimes
• My patience level decreased from lack of usage and therefore I am more irritable.
• 4 back to back classes every morning, every day. And then daycare in the afternoon.

Clearly the pros outweigh the cons, so I’d say it’s been a pretty successful first week. I did almost have a freak out in one class (4th period, 4th grade.. bad combination) so I just need to remind myself to not take myself and the class so seriously. Sometimes kids are loud, sometimes they don’t listen, sometimes they will pull each other’s hair out. Deal with it, it’s not the end of the world. So with that mantra in mind, maybe next week will be a little smoother. It’s also exciting because some of my daycare kids are in 3rd grade now, so I get to teach them in class anddd daycare. It’s fun to see them in a real English class setting and see that they’re a little bit further ahead on the English front than most of their classmates. Makes me feel like my daycare classes aren’t a complete waste of time.

Tonight I’m off to another teacher’s dinner—which we seem to have a plethora of lately. Last Friday was a farewell dinner for the teachers who transferred to different schools, and this week is a welcome dinner for the teachers who are new to our school. That combined with a whole lot of eating lunch out with everyone (for various random occasions) has equaled a whole lot of free, delicious Korean food for me. If every week goes by as fast and smooth as this one, I think it’s going to be a successful year.

#1. My bus driver is probably the funniest Korean I know. Besides his funniness, he is also genuinely awesome. Usually he is the driver for my 8am and 5pm busses going to/ from school. He has this cute little smirk, and he is the only bus driver that always makes eye contact with me and says ‘Anyong haseyo’ every time I board. Once he sees I’m about to get on, he always smirks and does a little bow, and then says hi. Also, he never starts driving until I am to my seat, which most drivers are never courteous enough to do. Whenever I get off, we make eye contact as he looks up from his mirror, I say ‘kamsameeda’, he bows a little and smirks, and then I get off.

Welllll the other day, he totally slammed somebody in the bus door! He pushed the “close” button too early, and it caught this lady in the door and she couldn’t move for a few seconds. After he reopened it and she broke free and walked alongside the bus towards the front and I was suuure there was going to be a chew out session. Instead she just laughed a little and waved, and then I looked up at the driver and he was laughing SOOOO hard. He thought he was the funniest person ever.

I thought it would be kind of a wake up call for him to be more aware of people exiting the bus, but since then he has done it 2 more times!! Each time laughing harder and harder. The 2nd time I thought was maybe an accident, but by the 3rd time I realized that he totally does it on purpose! I mean, he probably gets pretty bored just sitting there taking the same route each day, so it’s like he’s developed this little game for himself. He closes it just late enough to catch a piece of clothing or a leg, never like square on the shoulders or something. And the second they get caught, he gets this HUGGGE smile and starts cracking up. My love for him just keeps growing. What a funny dude.

#2. There is this old guy that wanders around the school all day, and honestly I have no idea what he does. He must be some sort of maintenance guy, because I know he is not a teacher, and sometimes I see him carrying random objects around. Well I have NEVER heard him speak a word, and he is also a bit creepy looking. He kind of hunches over when he walks around and looks accusingly at all the little kids when they run by. I’m not scared of him, but I’ve just been really confused because he never talks to me and usually looks away as soon as I enter the room. I kind of just assumed he hated me or was annoyed that I was a foreigner invading his school.

Well today he came into my classroom, and out of the blue just started talking to me in English. WHAT?!? I thought he was mute, let alone had the ability to communicate in ENGLISH with me. He said, “Yesterday you left the window open” and I was so shocked I could barely respond. I apologized, smiled, and then kind of assumed he would leave after that. Instead he just stood there for a minute looking around my classroom, and then started to talk (in broken English) about how he wished he was better at English and he learned it in middle school but now he’s over 60 years old so he’s not as good at it and that it’s hard but he’s going to try and hopefully I can help him a little. What a precious old guy!!! Totally made my day and I got all teary when he left. Moments like that just make me fall deeper and deeper in love with this place. 

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Well sorry this post is long and wordy and I don’t have pictures of these awesome dudes to entertain your eyes, but I will work on it. I’m sure I can get a secret shot of them somehow… I just had to share my love for these guys to the world. This Korean adventure is full of big fun events that are easy to explain, but it’s the cute little interactions with friends, teachers, and students that I’m learning to appreciate the most.

I ran a 5k last weekend!!! The weather has finally started warming up and running outside is actually bearable so I decided to sign up for my first race of 2010. Our little group of friends in Dongducheon is part of a larger group of friends from all over Seoul called TEAM DIRT. Its purpose is to raise money and awareness about an eye disease called Choroideremia.. sooo by running together and playing, we’re also supporting a good cause. Everybody in the group is lots of fun and it’s nice to get to know people from other areas too.

After the race we hung out at the stadium for a few extra hours waiting for the people who ran the longer stretches (like half marathon and FULL marathon!) to finish and then went out for dinner and then for a long night out in Ilsan. The picture of Clint, me, Jono, and Jon with all the Koreans is to document our winning of the red vests and volunteer badges. For some reason we decided it’d be cool to fake we were race officials, so we found random kids on the train who had been volunteers and rock-paper-scissored them for the vests and badges. I lost to my guy twice (the one about to bite the water bottle…) but he still gave me a 3rd chance to beat him-which I did. I figured it made me look more official so I had an excuse to look gross during the rest of our Seoul adventures that day.

Anyways, it was a fun race and it inspired me to get back into shape now that its spring and perhaps become a true runner. My official goal is to run a half marathon by the end of 2010… This is HUGE considering I’ve never run more than 6 miles at a time in my life. Soooo I better kick it into gear—this year is already going by fast!