Long weekend Friday

The kids have a half day today because f the long weekend. Well, they get off school early, but they had to start school early to get in the same amount of classes, and have a shorter lunch time. So, they had the same amount of work, but finish school about half an hour earlier, for whatever reason. I don't think the teachers get to go early, but maybe by a little bit. Maybe. Haha, or maybe everyone else will, but I'll have to stay. In saying that, though, Mr B told me to go home at 4.30 yesterday, After all the bother of me wanting to leave at 4 on Wednesday to go to the bank, and offering to come in early, and him saying I strictly had to work 9-5, he came up to me yesterday, tells me after school class is cancelled (which he already told me on Tuesday), and says I can go. At 4.30. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I hot legged it outta there! But I do not understand how anything in this school works. But, only 7 work days left to go.

Nothing very exciting yesterday evening or today so far. Yesterday I went with Andy to buy some presents for his bosses at work for Chuseok. He was such a boy about the whole thing - totally disorganised, and had no clue how to make a present special or look nice. So, I helped him :) The super special gift over here is SUPER huge SPAM sets. I kid you not - spam. Andy decided on a classier option of NZ Airborn Manuka honey - which I totally approved of :) It's over $40 a jar here.

Today's five things:

1) I've spent lots of time setting this up and preparing the material for it (Though I'll be changing the picture on the front page once I have a suitable one of me with students or something). I have no idea why, or what I'm going to use it for, but it might come in handy, if I can keep it up to date, when I'm looking for better jobs where they actually care about teacher quality.

2) I have a can of emergency tuna in my handbag. School lunches have been so bad lately that I actually can't bring myself to eat much. The best stuff we only ever get a tiny bit of, so I've started bringing emergency rations to school. I'll probably eat the tuna if I'm still here by 4pm.

3) On Tuesday, Andy has work and I have the day off. I think I'll go shopping in Seoul. I want to buy one piece of clothing that is something I'd never normally buy. You know, kinda spice things up a bit - a new colour, or animal print, or something. All my clothes look so much the same sometimes. It's pretty fun to be young, debt free, earning my own money, and be able to do whatever I want with it. Haha, I mostly do nothing except buy food, though!

4) Crap - it's raining and I didn't bring an umbrella. Why is that a good thing for today? For some reason I find getting rained on really fun and funny. Dunno.

5) I got a cake tin last night. Operation: Pumpkin Cheesecake will commence this evening. Woohoo!

More publishing Thursday

Things here at work are.... blegh! I only have just over eight days of work left, thank goodness. Things aren't bad exactly, but the environment is getting more and more negative. For example, on Tuesday all the teachers were given a big box of chestnuts for Chuseok (Big Korean harvest holiday - reason for my upcoming 5 day weekend). I was given one too, which was nice. But then when I went to get it off my desk at home time, it was gone! I'm pretty sure they took it to give to someone else. Then, today all the teachers were given HUGE gift sets of stuff by the VP. Except me, who got nothing. Mr B told me the other day that the principal had talked to him because he noticed I had come late to work, and now everyone is watching me like a hawk. And it's not even true! I am never, ever late for work. When Mr B. told me, I was like "What!? When? What day was I late, do you know?", and he just hummed and harred and said it was 'some day last week' - totally not true! I've been late for work once in the past year, and that was when the bus got stuck in the three hour snow-traffic jam and everyone was late. So, I've be accused of lateness when I wasn't, not given any presents, and now, Mr. is even checking my photocopying (I have no idea why - all I'm printing is the tests for the open class today). So weird, and pretty crappy.

Yeah, so what with no lessons for me this week, none next week, and the first three days of the following week being exam days, I only have two other days left at school! But, this afternoon I have an open class. Mr B. just made the students clean the classroom all special, and went to the trouble of telling me that the Korean teacher and the VP would be coming to watch. I was kinda like "...and I should care why?". My job ends in eight working days... it's not like this lesson is going to benefit me any (nor have they ever). Of course I'll do my best, but jeez guys, don't expect me to respect you.

Ok, now that I've got all that out, some good news :) I got another article published online, and another one in with a different magazine that they say 'looks very interesting' and I'm waiting for a reply on it. Yay! Time to do some more writing. And I'm in the process of setting up a website for myself to act as a kind of online resume with links to my articles and stuff. I'm not totally sure why, but it looks cool, and I wanted to. That's a good enough reason. I've been so busy working on it, I haven't been on pinterest all day - shocking!

Thursday's five things:

1) I got another article published online.

2) I have left over steak for breakfast. Not much beats steak for breakfast.

3) I'm making a pumpkin cheesecake for the Korean thanksgiving holiday (from Pinterest).

4) I did yoga this morning and it kicked my butt, in a good way.

5) I'm about to eat a banana. It is a wonderful thing.

Tuesday's Five things

Now it's time for five things on a Tuesday!

1) It is a beautiful day today! Warm, but cool, sunny, blue sky. Gorgeous!

2) It's disgusting behaviour, I know... but I ate whipped cream with chocolate in it for breakfast. I'm not sorry.

3) I've been pinning like a crazy lady on Pinterest. It's kind of my job now. I have so many new meals and crafts to try.

4) I've bought the stuff to make one of my pins. I'm making it as a present for Andy. I'll put up photos in a few days. I'm happy about it.

5) This makes me laugh EVERY time!!

Hurt myself hiking Tuesday

Sorry! It's been a few days. I've been busy!

On Friday Andy came over and went out for dinner. We had this really nice rice and fish egg thing that comes in a hot stone pot - it was yum!

Saturday was hiking! Andy and I woke up at 5am to get into Seoul in time to meet up with the group. We made it just fine, met everyone, and took the private bus a couple of hours to Seoraksan National Park. The group was pretty big - about 40 people in all - mostly Americans, but some Korean, and a few people from Europe too. We started hiking at about 10.30 and for about an hour it was pretty hard going. Very steep up, a lit of steps and rocks and stuff. I found it really difficult to appreciate the scenery because I was concentrating so hard on climbing and not falling over. At about 12 we reached the peak of our trail (the super easy trail). Andy went an extra 25 minutes up to the peak of the peak, but I wasn't having any of that! He got some nice photos, anyway. Then, we started the down part of the trek, which was much longer, but much easier. There were lots of rivers, caves, and waterfalls, and it was really beautiful. We stopped for lunch and saw some really tame chipmunks - very cute! More hiking, and we stopped at a spot in the river. Andy went swimming! Which I would have bet money against him doing - take off his shirt and swim in water that might have bugs, and dirt, and stuff in it? I'd have said no way, but there you go - in he went. I love that he surprises me like that.

Anyway, we got back to the bus at about 5pm, then went to a nearby restaurant for some dinner. Both Andy and I had bibimbap, which was mediocre. Then, back on the bus for the trip back to Seoul. Weirdly, after about 15 minutes on the bus, so maybe 2 hours after we finished hiking, my ankle got a bit achy.  Then it got really achy. Then it got swollen and really really achy. It was very painful. Andy took care of me though, and after I convinced him I didn't need to go to the hospital, he took me to his sisters house, which was very close to where the hiking bus dropped us off, and I put some ice on my ankle. His sister and brother-in-law weren't home, but his nephew was, so we played cards for about an hour while I iced my ankle. Then Andy's brother-in-law came home and offered to drive us back to Osan since he was going out that way anyway. At 11pm. I dunno. Anyway, got home with a minimum of fuss.

Sunday was spent sleeping, resting my ankle, and eating. Now my ankle is pretty much fine. I have a bandage on it for a bit of added support, but I don't think I'll need it by tomorrow. A bit weird, and very painful, but I'm glad it was so short lived. Andy was really wonderful and helpful, so I cooked him a special dinner of home made hamburgers followed by home made chocolate mousse. He seemed appropriately impressed :)

Now it's Tuesday and I have two weeks of no teaching to deal with, as mid-term tests are coming up. I only have just under three weeks of work to go, all up. AND! I just found out that this weekend is a 5 day weekend! I knew it was long, but Tuesday is not an official public holiday (Monday and Wednesday are), so I figured I'd have to come to work. I just asked about it this morning and there's no school that day - so 5 day weekend! Woohoo! What am I going to do? I need a project or something. No point in trying to go anywhere... the whole rest of Korea will be in all the good holiday spots. Plus, it's too late to book now. Hmm, shopping in Seoul, finally go to the garden of the morning calm? Do some art, craft, and cooking? Sounds pretty good.

And again Thursday

On top of yesterday's awesome news about my article being selected, I got a different article published online today. It's not as much of a big deal as getting in a magazine people have to pay money to read, but it's still pretty awesome, as it's a heavily-trafficked website, and I use it a lot. You can check out my article here :) I'm pretty happy with it, and it was a much simpler (not to mention lightning fast) than getting the magazine one. So, I might try for a few more online ones over the next couple of weeks. They seem to favour things with numbers, you know "ten ways to...", "seven steps to better..." and so on. I'm thinking of doing something on ways to build mutual respect between teachers and students.

In other new - my brains are fried today. Oh, and I got busted yesterday coming into work early and leaving at 4. Mr B asked me to type some stuff up for him yesterday because I'm faster at typing in English than he is. I got it all done, emailed him, and left at 4pm, just like I always do. He called me at 4.20 in a total panic asking where I was and why had I left school. I explained that I'd come to school at 8am, so my finish time was 4pm. He was like "but there's no class between 8 and 9am". Yeah, there's no class between 4 and 5pm either - weird comment. I was like "I came in early to finish writing the listening tests" (which was actually true). He was like laughing at me, all frustrated and flustered, and then suddenly goes "Oh! Did you email your work to me?", and I said "Yes, of course" (Um, like I ALWAYS do), and then he gets all happy and is like "Oh, ok great. See you tomorrow then!" all happy and fine. He thought I'd left school an hour early and not finished the important work he'd asked me to do. Has he learned nothing from working the past year with me? It would seem not.

Buuut, only three-ish weeks to go! And I'm optimistic that one of those weeks will be mostly, or at least partially, taken up by mid-terms :)

I did have a few things I wanted to write about today, but they've been buried under the brain fug! So, onwards with today's five things:

1) Getting an article publish by a 'proper' website :)

2) I posted the copyright form for the magazine article today. It had to go to England, and I went to the post office at lunch. It was really easy, and air mail to England cost me about 60c - including the envelope! I thought they told me $6 at first, and they were like 'no, no, no!'. I couldn't believe how cheap it was! So, that's all set - now I just have to wait (probably months and months and months) to find out when it will actually be published.

3) One of the kids gave me a lollipop today. She said "Sam teacher - here! Because you?... me?... teach good!" Haha, obviously not that good, but it was sweet :)

4) I'm going hiking on the weekend - on a mountain no less! Expect photos.

5) There was meat in today's lunch, and I got lots of it. It was yummy boiled pork!

I'm getting published Wednesday

Well, my email yesterday must have worked because I got a reply last night saying they are going to publish my article! I am so thrilled! This is really huge for me. Like, really huge.

I feel like this is the first thing I've ever really achieved by myself, for myself. Yes, I've achieved lots of things in the past, but other people had a big effect on that. For example:

- Highschool scholarship to Uni - uni was giving at least two to all the schools and I was the only on to apply from my school. I didn't suck, so they gave it to me.

- Good grades at uni - always had assignment guidelines, so not hard.

- Honours and MA - always had my supervisor editing my work and helping me make it better.

- MA scholarship - I always felt like my supervisor got this for me because of her skills as a referee, not because I was the best.

- Jobs - again, I feel they had more to do with my wonderful referees' skills than mine

But this? This I did alone. I thought about it myself, researched it myself with no guidelines, wrote it, edited it, proofed it, and submitted it all on my own. The magazine doesn't know anything about me, or have references to look at, so my writing made it for it's own value, not the value someone else says it has. Other than getting an 'A' on my CELTA, this may be one of my proudest things. So, I'm super happy-dance happy.

The magazine editor asked me to submit a 40 word bio about myself to print along with my article. I didn't know what sort of thing to write, so I checked out the sample edition of the magazine online. Oh my. I am so glad I didn't read the author bios until after I submitted my work, otherwise I might have been too intimidated to send mine in. They are all like:

- Freelance writer, lecturer, and teacher. Involved in teaching English for over 15 years. Has specialties. Has a DELTA, a BA in Education and an MA in learning disabilities.

- Has publish widely, including article and whole books. Author of the British Council's Learn English website.

- Associate professor at a University.

- Owns his own English school. Teaching for 20 years. Has published several articles.

- Series editor for major ESL publication, taught for over 40 years in 9 countries. Published over 30 books.

- Teaching for eight years; teaching since 1993; teaching for 15 years; 20 years; University teacher for seven years; 18 years; six years...

Seriously - they are all so much more... everything than me. On the one hand, I'm sort of like 'Well, I'm going to look lame next to that!', and the other part of me is like 'Woohoo, I have so much less training and experience and I'm getting published in the same magazine!'.

So, yes. I am pretty happy right now.

As to WHEN the article will be published - I don't know yet. Not for a few months, at least. But, I'm happy to wait :)

Smells like waffles Tuesday

Another fantastic weekend!

Andy took me to Everland on Saturday and I had such an awesome time! The lines for some of the rides were really long, but I didn't mind so much because I had him to hang out with and talk to. Turns out that beneath that sometimes very serious exterior is someone who loves theme parks and Disney movies. And likes to sing Brittany Spears songs... really badly and much to my horror :D

Haha, anyway. At Everland we went on a chairlift (boring), and safari bus (cool, but the animals were not in big enough enclosures and it was a bit sad), a river rapids ride (awesome! Andy got wet and screamed like a girl and it was hilarious), a horror maze (where you walk through in a group and people chase you - It was pretty scary, but I found it more fun than scary), a log flume (fun!), and a random 'around the world' boat ride (weird, but ok). Also, I got a giant candy floss on a stick. On a steeeeeeeeeck. Only mum will get that. It was a really fun day!

Then on Sunday it was Andy's grandma's birthday, so he went off for some family time and I stayed home and did some craft and what not. I also made a yummy curry! After dinner Andy came over and we watched a movie. It was very nice.

Now, yesterday (Monday) there was another typhoon. Yet again, the kids got to go home at 2pm so they'd be safe from the storm, and all the teachers had to stay at school. I didn't really care, but the logic defies me. It's too dangerous for the kids to stay at school, but fine for the adults? Anyway, Andy got the whole day off work because it was too dangerous to even open the air force base (but I'm still at school all day!!), so he came and picked me up. We hung out for a while, had some dinner, and then he went home to study. I watched some TV and got an early night. Oh, and Amy left Korea to go back to America. Another friend gone!

Today is Tuesday and I don't have any teaching today except after school class. That's ok though. I've gotten heaps of work done. I finished writing the mid-term exams listening section, and just finished the final draft of my second article. This one I'm going to try for online publication. I also emailed the journal about my last article as they still haven't gotten back to me and it's been over three months. I told them (nicely) that if they couldn't get it together, I needed to withdraw the article for submission elsewhere.

Also, today's school lunch sucked! They used to be so good, but they have REALLY taken a downturn lately. There's almost never any meat, and if there is, it's tiny specks of it, bony fish is becoming more frequent, and it's all ew. Today's menu? Deep-fried battered tofu (which I was excited about because I thought it was a big chunk of fish), fern frond salad, kimchi, purple rice, and egg sack soup (gross sacks covered in veins with fish eggs spilling out all in a water red soup with more kimchi and bony fish floating in it). I just can't eat tofu - not only do I think it's disgusting, I've read it's from really genetically engineered soy beans and has the potential to be very bad for you. I'm trying to REALLY minimise processed foods, and tofu is disgusting, G.E., and super processed. Haha, so I ate the batter. The teacher next to me was like 'WTF?'. :)

And now, today's five:

1) An old lady sat next to me on the bus this morning and she smelled like waffles covered in syrup. She really did!

2) I'm now part way through my 4th to last week of this crappy job. I find I really want to give kindy teaching a go. I so hope everything works out and I can live near Andy and have a great job. When I told him I was staying in the area for him he was like "No, you're staying for us", which I thought was sweet.

3) To make up for the truly awful lunch, I bought my favourite chocolate bar from the shop down the road. I'm saving it for before after school class. Oooh, and my leftover curry is for dinner tonight.

4) I'm so excited by my trip home!

5) I downloaded the 'Princess Bride' movie to watch with Andy - I think he'll enjoy it. Maybe.

When is a billion not a billion Friday

So, I'm trying to explain to Mr B that numbers like 'billion' and 'trillion' can have a different amount of zeros depending on whether you're talking British of American billions and trillions. Wikipedia tells me that the British have mostly changed to the American system now, but that much of Europe is still different. For example:

1 billion = 

1,000,000,000

or

1,000,000,000,000 (that's three more zeros).

I really should not have bothered. Despite me telling him over and over that I was talking about 'the number of zeros', he just kept looking up the pronunciation and telling me they were the same. Seriously, I was like "No, not the sounds the actual number is different. It's a different number". He learnt nothing.

Also, he seems to be collecting paper cups in the English room. There are currently eight dirty paper cups stacked up. I counted. We have clean mugs available all the time for teachers, but he keeps bringing paper cups (little ones, not coffee shop ones) to class. He then, invariably knocks them over. I'm serious. The pointers, TV remotes, front of the computer, spots on the floor, and some of the shelving by the teacher's desk is covered in sticky goo from his hot drinks being spilled. No kidding - not only is he not being environmentally conscious (and kind of weird) by using a new paper cup all the time, he just spills stuff and doesn't clean it up. It's gross.

Also: He lost the video camera. And the flashcards. And all my respect.

But, enough about that. Did you know that the girls here wear their school uniform skirts so short that some of them carry around blankets to put on their laps when they sit down to protect their modesty. They did this even in the middle of summer. Not all of them have short skirts, but many. Make of that what you will.

And today for lunch? Bugs. Bugs and anchovies. Even some of the teachers picked the bugs out, so I didn't feel unusual in not really wanting to eat them. Good thing I had a big breakfast. Which reminds me - I made mu nut muffins last night. They taste pretty good, but are too wet. I think there was too much banana in them, and maybe too much oil. Microwave them and add some ice cream, though, and I think they'll be just fine. I had two for breakfast and they were filling, tasty, and flour free.

Now, only three hours of work left (and I'm in the classroom that whole time) and then it's the weekend! I think I'll go to Songtan tonight for some yummy Mexican food.

Today's five things:

1) One of the 2nd grade boys wanted to show me his magic trick. He made a coin disappear! He did it really well - I was impressed.

2) My zebra stripe umbrella makes me feel happy on rainy days. No worries if it's a dreary, chilly, rainy day - I've got a zebra umbrella!

3) Only one student showed up for class yesterday afternoon, so we got to leave an hour early. She was actually a great student! Plus getting the extra hour meant I had time to do my baking.

4) Yummy muffins/pudding muffins (that's what I'm going to call them. They did set, but are too too moist).

5) It's Friday! yay!

Six-sex Thursday

I got more teaching because Mr B had meetings. Yeah, meeting scheduled during class time. Weird system. Anyway, one of the classes was fine because we still had lots of 'my' part of the book to do, but the first grade class was a bit different. We'd done all my part, and I can't do the grammar bit because it's all written in Korea. Mr B was nowhere to be found (but I didn't actually look), so I QUICKLY put together a lesson loosely based on what we did yesterday and downloaded a last minute powerpoint game. We just spent the whole lesson reviewing numbers and then learning how to say prices in dollars and cents, then played 'the price is right' at the end. Thank goodness for the internet! Stupid Mr B just tells me to teach alone and has no idea we've finished the materials. The best part of the lesson was when all the kids kept cracking up over the words 'six' and 'sixty six'. I was like "what? What's funny?". They were laughing so hard they couldn't get it out, but I caught on. I wrote 'SIX' and 'SEX' on the board in big letters and they just about wet themselves. I was like 'THIS one!' pointing to the 'six'. 

I've probably got after school class today. No one turned up the last two times, so no telling really. I can't do my scavenger hunt lesson because it's raining, so we'll do food instead. Maybe the sun will come back next week.

Also, huge disappointment: Mr B seems to have aborted his moustache. It had such potential.

Today's five:

1) I ground a whole lots of almonds and cashews this morning - I'm going to try baking with homemade nut flour this afternoon!

2) "Teecha - fashion today? Fashion today blue and pink. Fashion today beautiful!" - She liked my outfit :)

3) Cute dog photos on Pinterest.

4) Andy invited me to go to Everland on Saturday! I hope it's not raining - it'll be so much fun!

5) We had my favourite chicken soup at lunch today. And the lunch lady gave me double squid rings because I sat there eating my lunch for so long :)

Whoa! A lot of teaching Wednesday

Wow. So, Mr. B told me this morning that I'd be teaching alone and what he wanted me to teach. I was like, "yup, sure thing", but then when we got to class, he taught to and we taught something entirely different from what he told me in the morning. Ok, fine - but I got lots of class time. Then, last period, he managed to loose some super-secret piece of paper and had to spend the whole period panicking and looking for it, so I got to teach the first grade class entirely alone! It was awesome! Apart from one kid managed to get a bloody nose. Not too sure how he did that, but he went and fixed himself up and came back ok. Not sure if Mr B and his budding moustache found the confidential paper or not. What a durr-brain.

I booked my flight home yesterday! I'm headed home for over two weeks in about 5 weeks time. I am so excited!!! I am going to do so much baking and candy making and then eat all of it. Well, I'll share it with mum and dad, I suppose - seeing as they let me live in their house and drive their car for free :D

No other news for today - and nothing for yesterday either. It's been quite quite and relatively normal. Well apart from the moustaches, bloody noses, missing confidential papers, and whatnot. 

Today's five:

1) Lots of fun teaching today. A whole five hours!

2) My flights home are all booked. I also booked a time to go into the immigration office to get my visa changed. I'm hoping it just goes smoothly. If not, I'm screwed.

3) I bought these delicious yoghurt-berry desserts from the supermarket. Yummy!

4) I was thinking of going away this weekend, but I changed my mind. Instead I'm going to stay home and work on some craft projects and then go to an ice hockey game on Sunday. Might just go alone if Andy doesn't want to come. I've heard rumours of a Taco Bell having opened in the area - might have to check it out.

5) Wednesday is almost done - over half way to the weekend!! Only 30 days of work to go. If we take out the weekends and public holidays, it's only 20 days.

Moustache Monday

So, I'm having a pretty good day. No particular reason, but it was just made about 100 times better when I realised that Mr B seems to be growing a moustache. This is a thing of true brilliance, and I really hope he is, and I really hope it has grown in well before I leave because Korean men grown the most epically hilarious moustaches ever. Moustaches are already very funny to me, but check this out:

(there were supposed to be some awesome pictures of moustaches here - but I can't find any)

Yet another wonderful weekend. On Saturday I stayed home all morning and read my book (sorry Jenni - I thought I was going to be out, but we could have skyped after all), and then in the afternoon I lead the meetup to the ice hockey. Heaps of people (around 20!) showed up and I got us all to the rink, got tickets, and watched the game. It was a good game, and my team won! Also a couple of guys from the last meetup I went to were there, plus a couple of others I knew, and Nathan came too, so it was a good mix of new and old people. After the game some people left in their own groups, but a smaller group of my friends went to CoEx for dinner. We ended up at TGIFs, and I spent much of the evening laughing so hard I cried. It was a really good meetup. Andy didn't come to the hockey as he had to go to the doctor in Seoul, so I saw him after I got home from dinner.

I ended up telling him about how I was feeling about the way he's been acting and after a bit of talking (and me telling him that if he was going to continuing being 'this Andy' rather than the Andy he was when we started dating, I didn't want any part of it), I think he understood and is going to be a bit more considerate. It's been two days and so far so good.

On Sunday we went for a late breakfast before I left to back into Seoul to meet with Amy in Gangnam. She and I went and had some delicious hamburgers for lunch and the went to a jimjillbang for the afternoon. We went in the sauna, soaked in the hot pools, and got a full body scrub from the old ladies who work there. Such a super relaxing afternoon. I'm sad she's leaving, she's really good fun to hang out with. Plus, once you've spent the whole afternoon hanging naked with someone, you know they're a friend :D

I was pretty bummed this morning that it was Monday, but it's turned out to be a very pleasant day, so far. It's warm, but not hot, I've been involved with (but not taught) three classes, and have got a little work done. I'm seriously looking forward to skyping with mum this afternoon. Andy's also said he'd like to have dinner together tonight, so that'll be nice. I think I want to go to Busan this weekend, too - so lots to look forward to.

Today's five things:

1) Moustaches

2) Feeling totally fine about hanging out with friends, naked, for hours.

3) Katy Perry's 'Teenage Dreams" CD which is currently on repeat on my MP3 player. It's my trashy-guilty pleasure.

4) Boys who are interested in dating you, even if you don't want to date them. It's flattering.

5) Feminism (in it's 'true' form, not it's misconstrued man-hating form) rocks my socks.

Friday again?

I'm really not sure where the time is going! But I think that means I'm not bored :)

Ok, last night I had a fantastic chat to Jetts. She had heaps of good stories to tell and some super wise wisdom about boys, life, and teaching small children to share. It was just like we'd gotten together for real, only I didn't have to leave my apartment. Thank goodness for Skype! It was seriously good to talk to her. 

Today has been busy because Mr B has had tests to mark so I've taught all of the four classes. Well, apart from most of one because he got on a real snit about something and told them off for about half an hour (intermittently). I actually couldn't tell that they'd done anything wrong. He tells them off for things I can't understand and then just lets the kids who show up to class without books or pens completely off. I dunno.

Um, not much to report today. Lunch was good - Pork thing that's kind of like spicy goulash. A fair amount of teaching, and a couple of periods free. I haven't done much with my free time today. It's Friday and I just felt like surfing the net, so that's what I've done. I am going out to dinner tonight with the Osan group - we're going for galbi, so yum! I think I'll have to eat something before then though - I'm starving!

As for Andy, yep he's still missing in action. Didn't hear from him much at all yesterday and despite the fact that we ALWAYS hang out on Thursdays, he never showed up or told me he wasn't going to show up. Luckily, I had a hunch he'd ditch me, so I had stuff for dinner. Why don't I just ask him what his plans are, I hear you ask? Because he gives me answers like "I'm not sure", or "I have no idea" instead of a yes or no. I'm getting kind of sick of it. I'm kind of thinking you should know if you want to come over for dinner in a couple of hours or not, right? And if you've spent every Thursday hanging out with a girl for the past three months, it's polite to let her know you're busy this Thursday, right? So, I'm currently implementing 'Plan: Make my own plans' where I do whatever the heck I want and don't bother to invite him because he's shown no consideration for my time or planning, so I'd better show some respect for myself.

I'm back cutting down on the refined cabs and junk food and I feel great. I all but leaped out of bed this morning! Mood is pretty buoyant, and I'm feeling quite energetic. Go paleo!

Ok, today's five things:

1) Putting coconut oil on salad makes it feel totally luxurious. And it's yum!

2) Skype with Jetts was awesome.

3) I did re-watch The Holiday and I still loved it.

4) It's the weekend! Got good stuff this weekend :) Friends, dinners, ice hockey, naked spa time - It's got it all. Well, maybe no romance... but it has everything else!

5) I secretly really want to buy a tablet (you know, like an iPad but I'm probably too anti-apple, so I'd buy a different brand), so I've made myself a deal. It's kind of a pointless buy, maybe, but I'm young and have savings and I NEVER buy awesome fun stuff. So, I've said that when I can do 5 regular push ups I can buy a tablet. That doesn't sound like much, but I can not even come close to this (I can't even do half of one) right now - and they're a fantastic exercise. So. That is my goal. I'm currently working on building my strength doing knee push-ups before I move on to toe-incline ones. I'll gradually lower the incline until I'm doing 5 good form, regular style push-ups. I'll be one teaspoon more awesome then.

Gorgeous day Thursday

It is an absolutely gorgeous day today. Perfect sun, totally blue skies, cool breeze - fantastic. At first I was a little bummed, I have to work until 6pm tonight. The day will be gone by then. Then I though 'I bet the kids want to be outside too', so I've planned a lesson we can have outside. We're going to learn some describing words, do a scavenger hunt, describe some stuff outside, and then write some autumn haiku poems. Nice :)

So, dinner last night with Nathan was great. Sadly (as is so often the case here in Korea) the Peruvian restaurant had closed, but Nathan knew of an excellent Mexican restaurant nearby, so we went there instead. I'm not very familiar with Mexican food, but American people seem sort of besotted with it. I had soft tacos (and apparently no true Mexican eats crunchy tacos - they're an American creation) with beef and corriander. They tasted so good! And I can definitely remember where the restaurant was so I can go again. 

Nathan was good company (though he seems to not like about 95% of life in Korea, so I'm not totally sure why he's here), and we discussed some ideas for running future meetups. He seems quite keen to volunteer lead. I'm sort of keen, on an intermittent basis. It's so much work, and people can be so dumb and demanding, and don't seem to register the fact that you're a volunteer and are getting NOTHING for leading the group around. Well, I've got my ice hockey meetup on Saturday and Nathan said he'd probably be there, so that'll be nice. He also said he knows an amazing hamburger place in Seoul for the group to go to afterwards, which could be awesome.

And today's been pretty uneventful, so far. Oh! I went for a lovely walk by the river yesterday afternoon after work. The weather was so nice and there were a million dragon flies. I sat and watched them, and the way the sun caught their wings and they all flew in this kind of swarm made them look like a ball of magic or something. It was quite beautiful.

Today' five things:

1) Fantastic weather - has made me feel happy all day.

2) This song is the most stupid thing I've ever hear and I keep listening to it because it makes me laugh every time. I usually listen to songs with such serious/meaningful lyrics that I keep trying to figure out what she's singing about beyond the obvious inference. I'm kind of hoping that the 'peacock' means the guy's amazing, yet hidden, personality that she wants to see :D

3)  I'm going to watch 'The Holiday' again tonight. It's one of my favourite movies.

4) I moved on to doing a more difficult type of push up this morning. They are harder! But the others had become... too easy!

5) Uuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmm...................? I know! Cold water when you're thirsty is awesome. Done!

Got an extra banana Wednesday

No teaching for me today. Once again I'm in the English room with my laptop while Mr B speaks in Korean. I've been working on some new research and writing about using needs analyses with young ESL learners. I want to submit it to an ESL teaching website and see if they'll publish it online. I've got the draft maybe just over half done. I was so engrossed in my writing that at one point Mr B was asking me a question during class and I didn't hear him until about the third time. Turns out he wanted to know if I knew of the song 'My Heart Will Go On'. I was like, 'yes', and that was it. That was all he wanted. Then one other time he wanted me to do something, he said "Sam teacher, can you do step 3 please?". I said "Sure, what would you like me to do?" (It was some sort of writing exercise, they'd already done it and I wasn't sure if he wanted me to check everyone's answers or what). Anyway, he just looked at me like I'm the dumbest person ever and goes "Ok, I'll do it", and swings away before I can reply and does it all in Korean. He didn't act angry or annoyed or anything afterwards, but it's so frustrating. I'm more than happy to help, but sometimes I need to know what he actually wants. I believe the problem actually is that his English isn't strong enough, or he is not confident enough, to explain to me further, so he does it himself to save face. I will be extremely happy when I don't have to work with him any more.

Dragging myself through the job everyday sure is wearing thin. I'll make it to then end, but man, it drags! I'm trying to organise lots of fun things to do each day so I have something to look forward to. And things that don't involve Andy because I'm just not convinced my happiness is one of his central concerns. It's not his fault, but I have been spending most of my time looking forward to the time I get to spend with him. This makes the time when I see him kind of special and a really nice part of an otherwise shitty day or week. But when he shows me he doesn't value out time together the same way, it makes me sad. Like last night I had spent all of Monday and Tuesday looking forward to spending the evening with him. We usually have dinner together and then hang out at the coffee shop, or walk, or whatever. Last night though he went home right after dinner - I'd only seen him for about an hour and half and it was only about twenty past eight at night. I felt bad that he obviously wasn't enjoying my company enough to stay any longer, and it was obvious (REALLY obvious, like he knew) that I was sad about him going, but he just left any way. He's done that before, left when I'm upset, and it's not very nice. Makes me think he's perhaps not very supportive? But then he called me later and asked if I'd like to go away with him for the weekend in a few weeks, so I don't know.

Anyway, long story short, it's not good to rely on another person to make you happy, so here I go finding other fun things to look forward to. For example: Tonight I'm having dinner with Nathan to plan some future evens for the Lost in Seoul Meetup group, on Thursday I have a possible Skype date with Jetts (and if not I have a bunch of chick flicks with my name on them!), on Friday there's an Osan teachers' dinner, on Saturday I'm leading a meetup group to the Ice Hockey, and on Sunday I'm Skyping mum and then going into Seoul to go to a Jimjillbang (Korean Bath house) with TMI Amy. Phew - that lot should keep me quiet!

Ok, new topic. After school class yesterday went pretty well. I had three 2nd grade girls, which is a pain in the butt number of students because it's hard to play team games, but at least they're easy to control :) We had a good chat about Justin Beiber. I've got a whole lesson on Justin Beiber that I think we'll do next week, they should like that :)

And now for today's five:

1) The super-cute kid who always says 'hello' gave me his banana after lunch today. We have been given fruit at lunch maybe twice since I've been here, and today we got surprise bananas! I guess he didn't want his because he came into the teachers room and gave it to me. It was really sweet. And they're really nice bananas!

2) I'm so looking forward to the jimjilbang on the weekend. I want sauna and spa, and a scrub, and a massage. Oh, so relaxing!

3) It's sunny today. I'm wearing one of my favourite dresses - the black and white polka-dot one.

4) I'm going out to dinner tonight - probably to a Peruvian restaurant. I have no idea what kind of food that is, but it should be a nice night.

5) There's a cute, cute dog that lives on the same street as my building. I see him most mornings and he ignores me, but he is so adorable. He looks a bit like Benji. Along with him and the Mortal Kombat/Rocky theme song arcade games, my morning is a win :)

Like this only all beige.

Raining cats and dogs Tuesday

That's one of Andy's favourite sayings. I think he likes it when it's raining cats and dogs :) Also, he told me to tell you (the Internet) that in Korea everyone takes a worming pill every 6-12 months because they believe that eating some kinds of meat will give you worms. The whole family has to take a pill or it won't be effective. He tells me pretty much everyone in Korea does this regardless of any symptoms. He decided on Saturday that it was time to get de-wormed, and included me in this... endeavour. He then said "Sam, you should write about this on your blog", so here you go Andy :) I wasn't happy about taking a pill meant to kill something I was pretty sure I didn't have (what else does it kill, huh?), but he insisted that it was safe and a good thing to do. So, I guess I don't have worms now. Which is a good thing :)

I got a call yesterday evening from a lady from a Kindy in Dongtan. She wants me to go in and check out the school and have an interview. She hadn't read my resume, so kind of wasted my time by asking me questions she could have read the answer to, but ok. He biggest selling point for the job seemed to be that the accommodation has "a big window. It's perfect accommodation because of the window. All the foreigners say 'Wow, it's such a nice window'". Haha, ok - why don't you and the window get married, lady? Anyway, she has yet to email me the details like she said she would and the school is only open while I am at work, so I'm not sure anything is going to happen there.

I really just want to go home and go to bed (though I always feel like that at work when I'm not teaching - when I actually do get home I don't go to bed), but I have to work until 6pm. But, with any luck my afterschool class will go well and the kids will be interested. I want to take some photos of their work to submit with my latest article. I started drawing the draft of the comic strip to go with it last night :) Most annoyingly, I brought a home made nut bar to work today as a snack. I have to bring one on days when I work until 6, as it's a long time between lunchtime and hometime on those days. Only, this morning Mr B told me afterschool clases were cancelled, so I ate my nut bar for morning tea. Then, after lunch he said they'd been un-cancelled, so now I have no snack and it's pouring with rain so I can't really walk down to the shops. I will be hungry by the time I get home!

And now, today's five things:

1) I forgot to mention the other day, so it can go on today, that Andy sometimes brings me fresh vegetables from his family's garden. On the weekend he brought me a bag of home grown onions, including some red ones! Which deserves that exclamation mark because I haven't seen red onions for sale here.

2) I wrote a big information sheet for the teacher who comes after me. It includes stuff like buses, paying bills, getting mail, and all that good business. I am such a nice person.

3) Because it's very rainy, there are a lot of puddles everywhere. Puddles are awesome. I enjoy stepping in them and I like it when the bus drives through big ones that spray everywhere.

4) There was a ... peal? roll? clap? something of thunder this afternoon that lasted for at least 30 seconds. It just kept on rolling and booming for ages. I was so impressed!

5) The P.E teacher who sits next to me in the teachers' room has just finished watching TV shows on his laptop and it now taking a nice nap complete with snoring. Haha, and the other day when I went to find the VP to get my *^#%@ book signed, Mr B informed me I couldn't because the VP was probably taking a nap. Oh! The PE teacher just woke up. Now he is using some toner on his face or something. He smokes, so gotta keep that skin fresh somehow, I suppose. Yeah, a smoking PE teacher who naps and snores at his desk. Good times.

~ I swear, I couldn't make this stuff up.

I've done so much work Monday

Another great weekend! Andy came over after the gym on Friday and we had dinner at the nice BBQ restaurant. Then on Saturday I took the subway to Anyang to meet up with Amy. We had a delicious lunch of Gorgonzola+garlic pizza, which you dip in honey. I was totally sceptical, but it was so nice! I bet it would be totally amazing if you made it in NZ using real cheese.

Speaking of NZ, I have now officially been away from home for exactly one whole year! But more on that later. So, Saturday evening Andy came over and I cooked him chicken satay, which he praised mightily (and it was pretty good). Then we went for a big walk and it was a lovely evening. On Sunday I lay in bed thinking over the last year that I've been away from home. Woah, have I done a lot! It's amazing. I certainly had a lot of fabulous things to remember :) Then Andy took me out to a nice restaurant in Dongtan for brunch, and it was delicious. It was buffet, but super good food (well, super good food for a Korean Western-style buffet). I enjoyed it a lot. Then, because I was celebrating my 1 year travel-versary, I bought the ingredients to make banana cake. I haven't baked since NZ, and haven't had banana cake either, so I thought it was a nice idea. It turned out pretty good. Andy had NEVER made a cake before and had NEVER eaten banana cake. I didn't feel he was as impressed with the whole thing as I thought he should be :D haha, so I ate his share when he wasn't looking!

And now it's Monday and Mr B has been doing all the teaching today (but for some reason told me to bring my laptop to the English room instead of just staying at my desk, but whatever). So, I got the whole new open class lesson planned and made, which is good. It took me a lot longer than I expected! But I enjoy lesson planning, so the time went really quickly. I also just finished writing the first draft of a new article/lesson plan I'm going to submit to try and get published (I STILL don't have an answer from the first one!). All I have left to do for the draft is draw up some worksheets and trial the lesson in my own class and take some photos of it (I think original materials and classroom photos will make it more likely to get published).

I've also been researching the D10 'looking for work' visa. I woke up this morning and was like "Ergh, MONDAY I HATE YOU". And then I was like "I wanna go home!", closely followed by "Nah, not really, but it'd be nice for about a minute", and theeeeen I was like "I could do that!". So, new plan is (because my current school will pay my airfair back to NZ!) - finish my job here, transfer to a D10 visa (which sounds (touch wood) like it'll be a piece of cake), take a 2 week trip back home, come back to Korea early November and get a job (and bum around have an extended holiday while I look). This plan is a win all around! I'll probably be just in time to help mum and dad move - payment for staying with them for a couple of weeks? Mum? Yeah? Nothing is for sure yet, but I've found no indication of why this plan wouldn't be totally awesome. Only thing I have yet to work out is whether I can apply for the D10 2 weeks before the end of my contract, or when my contract finishes. I've seen reports of both. This problem should be easily solved by calling immigration though. Hooray!

The only problem is that I did ALL my work today and now have nothing to do tomorrow. More research and more writing? Make a list of all the stuff I'm going eat when I go home on holiday? Make a list of all the Korean stuff I still want to do? Write a thing for the new teacher giving details about buses, how to use the washing machine, and all that stuff? Yup, that all sounds like it'll keep me busy for at least a few hours.

So, with only half an hour left to my work day (and leftover chicken satay for dinner - yum!), here's today's five things:

1) I feel so proud of myself for the past year! It hasn't been really tough, but I'm so much more confident in my ability to deal with things and wait out my own emotions. I know I can stick with a less than great situation as long as I need to, and learned that a job with no work is actually not my idea of fun. I learned that I have a huge tolerance for being alone for massive amounts of time, and that friends and love come from places you don't even look. I also learned that the Great Wall of China is the most amazing thing in the world and that everyone should experience it's awesomeness.

2) I made banana cake and it didn't suck.

3) I patted (petted?) the cute beagle on the way to work today.

4) I wrote an article about improving student responses to "How are you?". That sounds lame, but if you've asked that question to a bunch of Korean kids you'd know their answers leave a lot to be desired!

5) Exciting plans for a break from work and possible trip home!