G-Bra Tuesday

Just now one of my favourite students (B-C I'll call him) brought me his holiday homework essay to check. I taught him for a week during winter camp, and he's a lovely kid. When I first arrived I remember thinking maybe there was something a bit wrong with him. He acted pretty out of it, and when I had to ask the class questions, I was steered away from getting him to answer. I thought it was because everyone just thought he was hopelessly bad at English, or was a bit *special*. I thought 'well, he's not going to get any better at English if we ignore him', but obviously I didn't know any details, and wanted to be sensitive of the situation, so I left him well alone, but was just really friendly and encouraging whenever I got the chance to interact with him. I am so glad I was.

          His extremely well written essay told me about how his mother had recently died of diabetes and how he was struggling with his need to cry and his feelings of loneliness. Turns out he's actually very good with English. His mother must have died very close to when I arrived here. I am so, so glad that even though I didn't know or understand his situation that I was nice to him, and gentle and kind. He is so much that way himself. Poor kid. I really wish someone had told me. Well, maybe I don't. Perhaps if I had known before it would have made me awkward with the enormity of what he was going through. As it was I was able to treat him normally. He seems to respond to me really well - he always seems very pleased to see me, comes over and has a chat. From the outside and my very limited observation, he has a close set of friends helping him through. He is such a sweety. I hope he's in my after-school cases this year.

          However, I think it's a bit rough that no one gave me the heads up about this kid. If he'd struck me the wrong way, or I was a different kind of teacher I could have taken his behavior as insolence, unwillingness, or decided he 'just needed to work harder' and commenced pushing him, or picking him out, or something. Because I didn't know. No one gave me the chance to know or understand. I'm not sure of the reason, it could be anything, but I still think it was a delicate situation that I'm very lucky I handled correctly by chance. Good lesson here for me.

          As for B-C, he says things are starting to get better and that when he grows up he wants to go into sports massage. Awesome kid.

          In other, less weighty news, I made chocolate coated strawberries out of my big bowl of red deliciousness. I brought some to work to snack on. Helps make my day just a little bit brighter. Also, along with the return of the students comes … dun, dun, duuuuun….. *school lunches*! Oh yes! Every cloud does have a silver liningJ. Also, Taiwan on Saturday - hooray! And a small leaving party for Jen on Friday night (not so hooray about the leaving part, but I am adopting her cute as a button rabbit, Kyle). Also, after Taiwan, I have another week of work (possibly teaching some mysterious thing called "spring camp"?), and then a few days more holiday! I was going to try and cancel those last few days to use in summer, but I figure I'm having so much fun playing Star Wars, I'll just take some unpaid vacation in summer if I can and if I want/need to. I want to do a trip to Japan in summer.

          I swear I can almost feel spring around the corner. It's still cold. Google tells me it was actually -9 degrees again this morning, but I'm sure it was warmer. I can almost *smell* spring. Possibly just wishful thinking, but if the strength of my will can make the warmth come any sooner, I will use it. I am SO over huge jackets, scarves, hats, gloves. Dresses and shorts sound like heaven. When the heat does get here I am definitely going on another Forever 21 shopping trip. Just the thought of all the cute dresses and cardigans has me drooling.

          Dinner last night with the girls was great! Courtney's workmate Mike came too. He's a good guy, but my goodness he has a different way of doing things than me! I find some of his actions and conversation so strange. Like, he'll state something as fact, you know, like he knows about this thing for real. You'll discuss it a bit, and then he'll change his mind and state a different view as a fact. Where I'm from (ok, really just in my family and close friends) you use the words 'I think', or 'maybe', or 'In my opinion' to express something you don't actually *KNOW*. If you go around saying things as a fact, and either change the facts or I find out you are continuously and massively wrong, I'll just think you're an idiot. Not that I think Mike's an idiot, he's only reached the 'slightly ignorant' on the over-all scale so far. There's still chance for redemption J Mike, if you ever read this, I think you're an awesome bloke, but for goodness sake, stop stating your opinion as fact!

          Anything else? Well, I got my Jedi Sentinel to level 36 last night. I'm sad because by the time I get back from Taiwan both Mum and Dad will have advanced way beyond me, so I won't get to team up with them anymore. It was lots of fun while it lasted. But, I guess since the level cap if 50, I'll catch up eventually and there an chance of us being able to do end-game stuff together. It was such a neat way to feel connected to them J.

          Tonight I want to stop off at the glasses store on the way home to find out about getting some prescription sunglasses, and then have some dinner and do a flashpoint in SWTOR. Sadly, I'll have to do it with a pick-up group, so it'll be probably much messier than when I was with mum and dad L.

*         *             *

Haha, I got told I was teaching one class today. What I actually got to do was read a list of words to the students for 10 minutes at the end. Bummer! It's so hard to make that fun, for me or them. I just try to smile and sound happy while I do it. Kind of not why I want to be a teacher. I'm afraid that if/when things pick up where they left off before I got to do all my own teaching (which was ages ago now, what with my holidays, winter camp, and the two full weeks of Christmas lessons I got to teach before that) that I am going to start resenting my job, or even worse, losing respect for it. The loss of respect is already well on its way.

          The kids are neat though. I wore my new grey blazer to work today, and one of the girls in class goes "Teacher! Style…good!". Made my day a little bit, right there J. Another one of my favourite students, a girl this time wanted to tell me about her knitting. She was working on a scarf during winter camp, and said that now she's finished that and has also made some mittens for her mum. Nice J

          And on the way home I saw this. I'm pretty sure they mean Z-Bra, seeing as there's a zebra. Korean's can't really say 'Zee" though, it comes out a "Gee". This is pretty funny. Did no one even use a dictionary when designing this campaign? Fail. 

Also, I just got told I have no classes at all tomorrow. I may die at this desk.

Back to work Monday

Another long gap in posting. Doesn't really matter though, since pretty much the only person who reads this is my mum, and I've been able to talk to her lots J.

          So, my two weeks of holiday is sadly over and I'm back at work today. What did I do with my holiday time? I had a totally blast playing Star Wars! Bit bummed I have to go earn money and don't get to play all day, but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do :D. In the middle weekend of my two weeks off I went to the Taebaek snow festival, about 4 hours east of Seoul. I only went on the day trip version of the tour because I didn't want to ski the next day. I'm glad I did because the only people who did stay overnight made me super uncomfortable! Anyway, the day only group was a neat bunch of mainly Americans. The festival itself was not really worth the 8+ hours of bus trip involved in the trip, but the sculptures were pretty cool. And we had a nice lunch. Which we almost didn't get. Our trip leader wasn't very organized. We arrived at the festival (which was PACKED!) and all the restaurants were full up. There was a big area of outdoor food tents though. I said "why don't we eat there", and he was like "Oh no, you won't like that food". I said "What food won't I like", and he replied "weird food". Luckily the whole group was pretty gung-ho and so we got to go to the tents. And it wasn't 'weird food' at all. Not sure what the guy was on. I hate it how people assume what I will and won't eat based on the fact I'm white. Just 'cos the rest are picky eaters! Anywho, it was a good day out.

          What else? Not much. Just hanging out by myself and with the girls occasionally. We're going out for BBQ tonight, actually. I LOVE Korean BBQ! I asked if we could to try and counter the suck-y-ness of being back at work. All the students and teachers are back in today - doing what I have no idea, but I have nothing to do. I spent the morning making some after school class stuff, and then this afternoon researching things to do in Taipei. I'm excited about the Zoo and the food mostly. And that the temperature won't be below 0. Actually, I think I'm acclimatising. Any time the temperature is above freezing, I walk out the door and think "oh, it's warm today". And by 'warm' I mean like 3 degrees J. It's all relative. And I reckon winter is on its slow way out. Spring is keeping me going.

          For some reason there's a barrage of strawberries in Korea (or where I am anyway) at the moment. They a bit watery and not very strawberry-ish, but I'm enjoying my HUGE EXPENSIVE bowl of them. And have become a bit addicted to these strawberry tarts at Paris Baguette. Yum!

Attractive Friday

So I've spent the past week probably over 90% alone. When I do go out, no one looks my way. I've read stories of other people getting stared at by Koreans, or avoided, or no one sits next to the on the bus or whatever. Well, no one takes any notice of me. They don't stare, they don't talk about me (from the little Korean I can understand), and they certainly sit next to me like a normal person. What I'm saying is, I'm alone. What's interesting about this is: 

1) I'm not at all lonely yet. This might be because I can skype and have been playing an MMO with my parents all week, and had a lovely night out on Wednesday. Or maybe I'm just happy by myself.

2) I have never felt more attractive in my life. Seriously. I've never had 'body issues' like some women do, but I am more happy with what I see in the mirror now than I have ever been. There is actually not a thing I would change about my appearance. Nothing I'd slim, tone, colour, or modify. My hair is shiny and in a style I like. My weight is under control and I fit my clothes well. I look in the mirror and I love what I see. I feel great! Is this because the only person I have to please is me? Is 24.5 just my 'perfect body' age? Well, whatever it is, I hope I can make it last :)

Shopping Spree Thursday

I've had a wonderful last few days doing pretty much nothing but play StarWars. I've been having a great time, and occasionally even teaming up with mum and dad to do some stuff. It's really fun that we can connect like that and play together since I can't see them :)

However, I literally didn't leave the house at all for about two days, and started to feel a bit cooped up. Last night I went out and had a really lovely dinner and chat with Courtney.  It's not too often I come home from a time out feeling like not only did I enjoy the food and the company, but the conversation too. I very much enjoyed talking to Courtney... looking forward to more dinners in the future!

And today I went to Seoul specifically to go shopping for things I don't expressly need. I gave myself a rather large budget of $300, but didn't even get close to it :) I took the train from Osan into Myeongdong, one of the top shopping districts in Seoul. 

There was a store there I'd read about and wanted to visit. It's called 'Forever 21' and is a chain store from America, but I'd read the Seoul was one very large, well laid out, clean, and well priced. Well, OMG it was clothing heaven. Three floors of clothing, in many different styles (most of it a little wacky+feminine, which is sort of my thing anyway). I had a great time! I tried heaps of stuff on, and spent about two hours and $160 in there. I will definitely be going back if I feel the need to clothes shop. It truly was a great store, and everything ranged from $20-$40! Some stuff (plain, wardrobe 'staple' type things like singlets) was only a few dollars. I think I'm in love.

Here's what I bought (taking photos in the mirror doesn't give the best result):

New shirt and new pants.

New jacket - which I love the best.

Attempting to pull off the 'tucked in' look.

New t-shirt

New whatever you call this top. I got a new scarf too, black, dark aqua and silver sparkles. It's awesome.

And now: WARNING!!! Personal womanly medical stuff coming up! I'm writing this in case some poor soul tries googling it, comes across my page and needs some info :) So, I went to the doctor last Saturday for my cough. He gave me a bunch of pills, none of which I knew what they were. One of them must have been antibiotics, because what always happens when I take antibiotics? That's right: thrush.

I felt the signs earlier in the week and was like 'oh, come on body... don't do this to me. I'm living in Korea...COME ON!'. But no. So, I figured I'd better do something about it. I looked up the words for it in Korean, wrote them down and went to the pharmacy. I was hoping they could just give me something, and that I wouldn't have to go to the doctor again. It is cheap, but it's inconvenient. So, first pharmacy I tried, I gave the lady my bit of paper, and she refused to deal with me at all. Confused and disheartened, I went to the next pharmacy around the corner. Again, lady pharmacist - good sign right? They are nice, but confused and tell me to go to the hospital, I need a prescription. Well, bummer. I walk a few more shops and there's a bigger, more professional looking pharmacy. Ok, one more shot. Damn, male pharmacist... little embarrassed now, but I'm in the shop already. I give him my paper. "OK" he says and points to his foot questioningly. "No" I say, my face clearly indicating where it is. "Oh" he says, "OK". and proceeds to give me two types of medicine and detailed miming of how to use it :D Again, a little embarrassed, but now I've got my medicine, no doctor necessary. So, the moral of the story is: In Korea, if one person tells you 'no', it might just mean they don't want to deal with you, or don't know how, not that what you want isn't possible.

More StarWars Sunday

And that's about it!

StarWars Saturday

My StarWars game arrived yesterday evening!

Amazon emailed to say they had tried to deliver my package at 11am, but I was at work, so they couldn't. I ran home after work thinking I might just have time to grab the delivery note off my door and get to the post office before it closed at 6pm. However, Amazon used DHL to courier the box, and they left a note asking me to call them. So, at about 5.40pm, I did. I was bummed because I thought there was no way they'd get it to me quickly, and it was the end of the week AND a huge Korean public holiday weekend to boot. However, when I called they guy, who only just spoke English, knew who I was and told me that the package would be at my place at 6. I was a bit sceptical. 6? As in, in 20 minutes? Well, it was! Just after 6pm the courier delivered my game! I'm so impressed with the service :)

So, I've been playing StarWars all day. Here's a picture of my awesome Jedi Knight :)

Today I also went to the doctor about my cough. I asked online about a doctor in Osan, and one at Lotte Mart was recommended, so I went there. Yeah, the supermarket where I got my hair cut! So, groceries, hair salon, doctor, chemist, the also have glasses, clothes, and electronics. Anyway, the doctor was nice, spoke fantastic English (I feel so bad for not being able to communicate in Korean). Anyway, he gave me heaps of pills to try and clear up the cough, but said it wasn't pneumonia or bronchitis, which is great.

This is just three days worth of pills - All in morning, noon, and night sets. And all costing a total of $4.

Other than that, I am super pleased to be on holiday now. Two whole weeks of freedom! I have a feeling that a shopping spree in Seoul is immanent. I haven't really done any shopping since being in Korea, and my clothes need some serious updating. I wear the same, like, three outfits consistently.

As well as being sick of my clothes, I got very tired of teaching the same winter camp lessons late this week. It was the fourth time I'd done them, so I did something really different on Thursday. We built a dome. The kids really liked it, and I think they were quite pleased with themselves at the end. Again, the English learned was minimal, but I like to think that maybe they learned other stuff while they were at it - team work, follow diagrams, maybe even a little physics. My perceptions and understandings of my role as a teacher here and what the kids need is changing I think... but I'll write more about that another day. For now, here some picture of 'The Dome'.

Making the tubes.

Starting out.

First vertical bits.

Getting there...

Looking good...

Done!

No Chicken Wednesday

I didn't get my fried chicken! :'(

Courtney, her workmate Mike, and I were all ready and seated at the chicken restaurant, when Jen and Nyasha called to say that they'd decided they wanted ddeok-galbi instead, and that their workmates were going, so they were too. I was disappointed, and thought it was a little bit rude to sort of demand a change in plans like that. So, we went and had ddeok-galbi (kind of say it like 'dok-galbi) instead. It's the second time I've had it, and it's ok. It's pleasant enough, but I like fried chicken or Korean BBQ a lot more. It's chicken, vegies, and rice-cakes stir-fried with a red sauce in the middle of the table. It's nice, I just don't find it particularly thrilling. And I was hanging out for fried chicken all day! Maybe I'll/ we'll go get some tomorrow night instead :)

In other news, I've ordered StarWars: The Old Republic from Amazon, and it should be arriving in the next few days (though the fact that this weekend is lunar new year may slow it down). I had to enter my address here in English on Amazon, as they wouldn't accept hanguel (Korean script), so I hope the package will make it ok. I asked around last night and Jen said she'd had heaps of stuff sent to her and had never used her address in hanguel, so that's hopeful. Anyway, I hope it gets here soon, I'm excited to play!