Chrissy Renae

It turns out that not teaching is actually quite time consuming, so it’s been hard to find space to blog. I mean, watching all this Gossip Girl is harddd work, not to mention trying to plan a trip to Thailand! I think we’re all struggling with the winter blues around here. It’s just too cold to go outside much or really venture to do anything. We’ve occupied ourselves with a few shopping trips to Uijeongbu and Myeong Dong, some late nights at Miller Time, and over the weekend we had a big breakfast at John’s, which turned into an all day chat session on the heated floors. Life is just so easy and care free here, it’s weird to watch everything occur so smoothly. Great friends, great city, great job, great food, and a really great trip just two days away!!! Everything’s easy, yet I still feel like I’m growing and learning and expanding. I guess trials aren’t always required to help push along that process. *knock on wood*, that  is nottt a request for things to get harder. Things are just lovely as-is.

Andrea was in town last weekend so I got to go to Seoul to meet her and Lette before they took off for their Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand adventure. Andrea’s been one of my best friends since 2nd grade (and she saved my life by entertaining me during the Spokane months this fall) so it was nice to have a familiar face in town. There are some people you just can’t help but want to be friends with forever and ever.

I think winter camp can best be summarized with this paragraph, taken from an email I sent to Ian earlier today in regards to the paper mache project…

“kids here are major perfectionists, so if one layer got screwed up they would tear off the whole thing and restart. they also don’t like getting messy, so dipping their hands and newspaper into flour water was reallly hard for them to handle. so they were making all these crazy faces and then ringing their hands and flipping paste all over the place, and then ripping wet newspaper off their balloons and then dropping the balloons on each other on accident and then trying to ask me questions about what to do next, which of course i couldnt decipher, and things were just getting so loud and CRAAZZZY and all of a sudden i started laughing and just couldn’t stop. i mean here we all were in this freeezing classroom (the heaters randomly stop working sometimes) and we all had newspaper and paste all over us and kids were crying cuz their fingers were too cold or mad cuz their balloons didn’t look perfect or giggling and throwing paste at each other and we were all totally unable to communicate with each other and it was just the funniest thing i’ve ever seen. i love imperfect moments like that to remind me that life isn’t really so serious.”

Most of english camp was full of times just like this, where it was much easier to laugh and appreciate the simplicity of life than bother getting frustrated with surprises, miscommunications, or language barriers. The kids are cute, we all had a fun time, they feel more confident in their English capabilities, and that’s all that really matters.

We just completed Day 3 of winter camp, and I am still alive! We’re making paper mache globes, watched the movie UP, and have been busy with plenty of role plays. Initially I thought I had to make up the role play topics and was quite concerned with filling up the whole time. However, when I arrived Monday morning Sophia showed me a lovely pile of tubs in the english classroom. Each tub has its own theme, and is full of tons of props and gadgets coinciding to it. Sooo there are different boxes full of wonderful items to role play scenes from the hospital, post office, bank, restaurants, etc. The kids love being able to dress up as the different characters and carry around fake money and have fake jobs. I’m not really sure how much English we’re learning…. but we’ve definitely been having fun!

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We also had a giant snowstorm on Monday, which took the record for most snowfall in one day (at least in the past 100 years or so). It was only about 8 inches… which by Utah/Washington standards is pretty average for a crazy storm, but for some reason everything seems worse here when it is cold and blizzards. Since it never snows that much at a time, it caught everybody off guard and caused all sorts of chaos. Despite some major bus delays, I was definitely grateful to hop on a bus instead of wrestling the storm in a car, and I realized how much I do nottt miss my old Utah commute to work on the frozen freeway. This was outside my classroom mid-morning… it kept dropping huggge snowflakes alll day long! At least it’s pretty I suppose.

I can’t believe 2009 is over and we’re on to a new year already. We went down to Seoul to celebrate and brought in the new year with about 5 million other people packed into one little neighborhood of the city. We were downtown to Jogna where they ring this big bell and have a bunch of performances– basically the Korean equivalent of Times Square in New York. It was suuuuper crowded, there were police everywhere (like the entire Korean police force) and it was about –30 degrees. At one point I truly thought we were going to get trampled and/or freeze to death… BUT, we survived and it was lots of fun and we lit a bunch of fireworks and had a midnight toast and screamed really loud and did all the other cliche new year’s things you’re supposed to do. I’ve never done the whole big-city thing for New Years, so it was fun to be outside with a bunch of other people and be part of a big ole celebration. Perfect chaotic intro to what is sure to be a very chaotic year…

Well so far the holidays have been great. Christmas was really fun, and although I missed the traditions of home, it was fun to try something new as well. We had a couple of sleepovers and watched a lot of movies and ate a lot of random foods and opened  a lot of fun presents. Freddy and Jono showed up in Santa and Elf costumes, so at least we had visitors from the North Pole. Beenish and I bought all the boys awesome giant goldfish.. but our inability to read Korean directions led to the deaths of all 3 within the next several days. It was fun while it lasted but now we are fish murderers.

This week I’ve been trying to cram plan for English Camp, which is next week. I will have about 20 students all week for 3 hours a day, and the goal is to have a fun time but also learn a lot of English. There is no curriculum and no money in the budget so I’ve been trying to get creative. It should be interesting, I just hope the kids aren’t bored.

Other random tidbits from the past week:

• Clubbing in Hongdae. Again.
• My pipes froze so I didn’t have water for a couple days. That was awwwesome.
• There are only a few other teachers here every day so we get more actual chat time. Also we order food instead of eating from the cafeteria. YAY.
• I hate the cold. So so much. And I complain about it here more than I ever did in Utah. We realized that’s because we don’t have cars here, and instead we have to stand outside in the cold and wait for taxis and subways and busses. Cheap and environmentally friendly, but they leave out the part about potentially freezing to death.
• Beenish and I booked our tickets to THAILAND and VIETNAM for the last 2 weeks of January. So awesome for so many reasons.
• My daycare kids are still cute. Are you surprised?
• We went to Myeong Dong again last night for another shopping explosion. We just needed “one  new dress for New Years”… We should have known better.
• Sex and the City Marathon. Speaks for itself.
• Tonight we’re going to Seoul for fireworks, clubbing, and other various New Year’s celebrations. I can’t believe 2009 is over. And don’t think you got off quite that easily… I’m sure there will be an Ode to 2009 coming soon. It was a fabulous year, the kind you can’t possibly just overlook.
• This font is weird. I will never use it again. Promise.

The kids are now on vacation, but the school daycare is open so I still teach them for an hour every day. This week we’ve been focusing a little less on English and a little more on crafts…

By the way, this new program I’m using allows me to upload videos now, so keep your eyes peeled for much more cinematic entertainment from this point out. The two in this post are from some songs we learned today…

Monday was the last day of school, followed by a TEACHER RETREAT with all the employees at my school. We took off for the mountains of Pocheon and spent the day going out to eat for various meals and drinks, and had a planning workshop for next year. Unfortunately I don’t speak Korean so the workshop was very long and boring, but luckily the teachers next to me were bored too, and taught me funny Korean games while we pretended to vigorously take notes. Hopefully the principal didn’t notice…  I stayed up until 3am with my principal and a bunch of the male teachers talking important things like sports and politics, and then crashed on a pad on the floor in dorm style rooms. Surprisingly comfy, although I can’t imagine teachers in America evvver being OK with sleeping on the floor on a school field trip. Too spoiled, I guess.

In the morning we went to breakfast all together and then to Uijeongbu cinemas and saw Ninja Assassins, an American movie that stars the Korean pop star “Rain”. Goriest/bloodiest movie I have EVER seen. It could be considered awkward since I was with a bunch of co-workers…. but they seemed unphased.

The coolest part of the retreat was that it gave me the chance to actually get to talk to a lot of the other teachers and make some more friends. At dinner all of  us younger teachers sat together and chatted all night, and I realized many of them speak more English than I thought. At school we don’t really get to talk except a quick “hi, bye” in passing as I take over their classes when it’s English time. So I think this was a good intro for next year, and I can hopefully have some real friends at school now (aside from Sophia, Mrs. Kim, and Mr Che.)

(I just downloaded Windows Live Writer and am giving it a test run, so hopefully my blogs will get cooler now. The kids are on vacation for the next 6 weeks, but I still have to come to my office every day… so it looks like I have an abundance of spare time ahead of me. )

Because clearly I can’t be the girl with shopping discoveries THIS beautiful.

This country is so dangerous.

Well now that the rant is over with, I can proceed to tell you a little about my actual week. Since you were patient with the novel style entry last time, I will be kind and entertain your eyes with mostly pictures.

Monday

English Cafe with other local teachers

Tuesday

New cell phone fiasco, followed by my HAIR CLEANING. I went back to the hair place and they deep conditioned my hair for free. Basically they played with my hair and put in a bunch of weird cremes and told me I was beautiful a  hundred times. Can’t complain about any of those things.

Wednesday

Woke up to THIS, which reminded me to appreciate the good things and stop stressing about the complications

Also, my first date with a legit Korean. It was really fun. That’s all I’m saying about it on a public forum such as a blog.

Thursday

COSTCO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s always one of my favorite places, but in Korea it just gets better. There are just some things I should just never have to go without (i.e. Fiber One bars, Kashi cereal, real cheese). Between the four of us (Jono, Freddy, Beenish, me) we spent almost $400 just on food. The reason I’m telling you that is so that you can try to imagine 4 foreigners carrying $400 worth of groceries through the streets of Seoul and then through a maze of a subway trek, and then trying to separate it all to our respective homes. Yeah, just imagine it. Didn’t cause a scene at all.

Friday

CHRISTMAS PARTY!!!!

Saturday

Sick morning (maybe I have the swine?? j/k. i’m fine.) Threw up off my balcony (embarassing). Slept most of the day.

Luckily I was better for the evening so I could hold up my plans with WOO-GIN. But first let me give you a brief recap on the story of the boy we like to call BEAUTIFUL KOREAN.

So one day Beenish and I were on the subway headed to a friend’s house, and we realized we were both staring at the same beautiful man sitting across from us.

Normally I am not so forward, but he was beautiful. I couldn’t help myself. Sooo I was like… uhhh can you speak english? AND HE CAN. And so we chatted and exchanged numbers and have been texting and finally got to hang out last night. I’m not like IN LOVE with the kid, because I think it’s weird to try to like someone you can barely communicate with. However, he sure is a pleasure for the eyes. He brought a friend too, so Beenish and I got to enjoy  a true Korean night on the town– kim bop, BBQ, norebong, and all.

Today

Christmas shopping in Uijeongbu. YAYYYY.

Ok that recap was exhausting, and it probably was for you too, so I’m never going to get that far behind again. Fin.

The bad news is that I’ve been really busy so haven’t updated in 6 days (how are you surviving??) but the good news is that I have internet in my house now!!! So it’s Sunday afternoon, and here I am sitting on my bedroom floor updating my blog. Dream come true.

From the beginning of this Korea decision, it seems like I’ve done evvverything the hard way. Most people got their placements within a matter of about two months and had relatively no hangups in getting here. My process took well over 6 months. It was all definitely a test of my patience, but I’m really glad it all worked out like it did, and I just kind of assumed it would all run smoothly once I got here. Except hellooooo it is ME and I can’t just do anything the easy way.

Last Saturday my cell phone (my beautiful, high tech, full of awesome gadgets cell phone) was stolen from a club in Hongdae. It was my fault for being so careless with it, but I was still frustrated that it just disappeared so quickly. On Tuesday Sophia took me back to the phone place to get a new one, and the whole experience was beyond frustrating. Clearly I can’t speak any Korean, so the guy was explaining everything to Sophia and gave me all these different options and different cost scenarios and then she would try to translate it to me and it was all just making NO sense and I was tired and I felt like my head was going to explode. It was by far the worst experience I’ve had since I got here. I was mad at myself for losing the phone, mad at the cell company for making it sooo complicated to replace a phone (do people just never lose their phones here? i don’t get it), and mad at the weather for being so freaking cold.

Luckily we got it all worked out and by the time I got home I was feeling much better… but of course the complications couldn’t stop there. Once we left they called and said there was a problem with my bank account so my phone couldn’t be activated yet. Soooo Wednesday I went to the bank to fix my account (they needed to add my alien registration card id number to the account so it would match the cell phone… or something. who knows. being a foreigner sucks.) and I did it all by myself! Sophia didn’t even come, yet I was able to find a clerk who spoke English and got me all set.

Friday the internet guy was scheduled to come in the afternoon, so I left school early and stopped by the atm on the way home to pull out the cash deposit I had to pay (another reason being a foreigner sucks). Buttttt of course– my atm card wouldn’t work. So I jumped into a taxi and raced across town backkk to the bank, and they had to reissue me a whole new atm card. AWESOME.

So the point of all of this whining and blabbing is to demonstrate that my tally now looks like this:

• 2nd month
• 3rd cell phone
• 2nd bank account
• 2nd atm card
• almost 2nd camera cuz i lost it for a day, but then found it in my friend’s fridge. weird…

Nope, can’t do ANYTHING the easy way. I’m hoping that this concludes the annoying “getting settled” part of moving to a foreign country, and that now I can just proceed as a normal person.

Honestly everything else about living here has been amazing and flawless and I love lovvvve it, but maybe I just needed this week to shake things up a little and remind me not to take the good days for granted. Because this could be an awful experience, I could be homesick, I could have no friends, I could have a bad school and bad students, I could question my decision to come here. All of those things would be muchhh worse than having to get a 2nd phone and 2nd bank account, but none of them are problems at all! So despite the fact that this week has been super frustrating and stressful, I’ve never once questioned my decision to be here, and to me- that feeling of content is priceless!