Aw, my little ones weren't horrible today...

My Super Elite Bratlings weren't as horrible as normal today. Of course, I didn't give them any opportunities for yelling, screaming, and carrying on cranky'(watched B5 last night). I spoke to a couple of them before class started to tell them to leave the Eagle class SE alone (that was the real problem on Wednesday) and they actually did. I suppose that's been my problem. I don't keep the class moving fast enough. We've been having trouble getting everything on the schedule done lately, but today, we actually finished early in both classes. Awesome. I found I didn't dislike the troublemakers nearly as much. :)

We also had a birthday party for Jaime. He's a sweet, if quiet little boy.



You know, it's odd. He hates PE, but to look at him, he seems a fit boy and he enjoys running around with the best of them, but he does not like PE, I had to push him into the gym this morning literally. Thankfully, his Mom was upstairs helping decorate the class. Oh, and he got chocolate cake that was delicious. all to often these kids get white cake. I mean, what's the fun in that. Chocolate is so much better. Another weird thing is that some of the kids didn't like that canned peaches. I mean those things are sweet and tasty.

Some pics from class:





Here's the kid who spent a month at home because she broke her collarbone. Poor thing sleeps a lot. She did it before her accident, so I don't think its related. I found out from Syvia that her Mom runs a restaurant. I think that maybe Amy stays up laten til her Mom gets home and that may be why she sleeps. Of course, the kids might benefit from a naptime, but the parents aren't paying for the kids to sleep. I wonder what we're going to tel Amy's Mom when she asks to see her daughter's workbooks since she rarely does it. We moved her to the front of the class and she's a distracted now as before.



Anyway, wish me a good weekend. So far, I've plans to go to a baseball game with some coworkers. The LG Twins are playing at 2 in Jamsil. I'm going to shop for a nice pair of sandals and some more fabric in Dongdaemun since I've finally finished my first project here in Korea. I'll post some pics after I finish handsewing the hem. Anyway, so good luck everybody and have a great weekend.

My Fav

Plans for the weekend include going to a baseball game and shopping for needles, thread, more fabric, and sandals at Dongdaemun. 2 days and counting :) I made myself nachos for dinner, helped along by the wonderful seasoning sent by my dear sweet parents and guacomole and sour cream and cheese from Costco. Nice.

Now the title of my post is my fav because I'm choosing to showcase my sweet Cheny today. Totally my favorite student. She sort of reminds me of me when I was a kid. Smart, but not overly smart but till giving the impression of smartness. Also she's quiet. Anyway, so here is a couple of random pics from the past few days.





So cute, but there are some disadvantages to being so biased in favor of a child. She knows how to get around me now and I let her get away with things that I wouldn't let the other kids do. Like when we went to the park on Wednesday and she didn't want to wear her coat, I made her bring it, but didn't make her put it on. She did put it on once we got outside and she felt how cold it was. She also complained that her stomach hurt a couple of times and I let her get away with not eating her snack during those time. I also sort of pick her up randomly whenever she walks by. Her new thing is to put her hands on either side of my face and move them to make me shake my head. It sends her into transports of laughter. lol, there are certainly a lot of times when I love my job.

Pics from the Field Trip

Well, we had a field trip a couple of weeks ago and I've been meaning to show off some photos. Here are my wonderful Orions.





My totally favorite kids, like of all of them.



A rare smile from my fav.



Alex the troublemaker...



Rachel's been absent a lot lately, she's a real sweetheart.

TGIF

Awww, Friday, a most wonderful day for me as a teacher. The only problem with it is that I have to deal with my M/W/F Superelite kids and they do rather put a damper on things. Some days everything goes great and I think that teaching is a wonderfully rewarding profession that I could see myself doing back in the states. Then come the days when I come home frustrated and counting the days I have left. (10 months and 2 weeks, 4 weeks of which are childless) So what happened today? Well, my 'wonderful' Super Elite are continuing their downward spiral into slovenly mediocrity and disrespectful idiocy.

Poor mites. About the only thing that shuts them up is saying I will call in Teacher May. These kids just will not do anything I tell them to do. I spend a good 15 minutes of classtime just getting started on MWF. I think part of the problem is that I've got 6 bad kids out of 7 versus 3-4 out of 7 or 8 for my T TH classes. When every kids is a bad kid, they feed off each other. I really wish we could restucture the classes to break up the groups, but the kids would still be horrible and would probably just form different groups, perhaps even worse ones advocating the burning of foreigners and instigation of kimchi parties.



Sigh. So I may have behaved inappropriately today. I called the kids useless brats and who were wasting space. Umm, should I admit this in a public blog? Sure since someone may read who is thinking about doing this and will have both good and bad impressions from me. Yep, I also told this kids I didn't like them. I was definitely ready to come home and every moment I spent with them is a moment gone and irrecoverable and I don't want to give these kids a moment of my time more then their parents have paid for.

At first I worried about what would happen when the kids tell their parents I called them brats and literally pulled them from the classroom, then I realized that I do a pretty good job with the little kids and this is just afterclub and they won't fire me because I can't control one class. The worst they might do is reassign the class(oh happy day) or if the Moms were upset and pulled out of PSA, they would probably open up a new club or find something for me to do. Wow, that would make me so happy. :Peacefully staring off into the distance:


Now I am deliberately not going into what made me become so frustated with the little brats, or dears, since it doesn't really matter and its really boring. Anyway, so I do hope you all wish me luck with the whipersnappers next week. Here's hoping they all quit PSA.





On a happier note, the wonderful, stupendous, marvelous parents of mine sent me a care package of many things intended to make my stay here in Korea just that much more enjoyable, and it sure will. Smile. I guess Priority Mail (ridiculously expensive) goes really fast. It took a week. I worried that it might have a problem with customs, but nope, sailed right on through. That package waiting for me seriously helped me get through the torturous Super Elite. I will NOT think about going in a Monday. NOT AT ALL.

Peaceful Evening

I went to church this morning to view General Conference with everyone. It was really nice. I was a bit late since I was counting on taking the bus in, but when I went to get on the bus after another girl, the busdriver closed the door in my face. He probably didn't notice me and pulled away from the curb as he was closing the door. I stood there for a couple of moments, a bit flommoxed, when I decided to just take the subway even though it takes 30 minutes more and I was already running late.

They do like their food in this ward. After the first session, we have lunch for about an hour, then came the afternoon session. Okay, confession time. I am lazy and have kinda not been to church for the past few weeks since at first my hay fever was bothering me and then the idea of the trip into Seoul exhausted me. I mean its 3 hours in total on a subway if I don't take the bus. But I siked myself up for it last night and am happy I did. I met several other ward members that are awesome. There are actually 2 other girls that live in Bundang and are very nice. One used to work in a library, shares a love of reading (recommended Twilight to mean) and love bellydancing. The other girl was less effulgent and fell asleep on the bus back (if I'd been on my own, I wouldn't have tried to buses again and stayed with the subway, but they convinced me to give Seoul busdrivers another chance. lol

I think I need to reevaluate my food plan. I was looking at my dinner tonight (I made steak, broccoli, and pasta) and realized I'm eating an unbalanced diet without enough fruit and veggies. I do okay during the week with school lunches and snacks, but I just don't eat enough veggies in the evenings or weekend. I reckon I'll pick up some random veggies tomorrow, and some oranges. I've been buying bananas, but they are expensive and go bad quickly and I can't exactly use the spoiled ones without an oven. Hmmm, maybe I should look for some recipes anyway.

So, to my peaceful evening. I heard today about the Central Park in Bundang. I thought it was farther away, but its right around the corner from me. You see, there's a fork in the river and I always take the bigger fork, but tonight took the smaller stream-like fork and it was wonderful. There were plenty of other people walking along, but it still felt pretty peaceful. I walked up to the lake which is wonderous at night. One odd thing about Korea, is that they've built this beautiful, historical park, and attach neon lights to all the bridges. It's cool, if a bit unexpected. I kept trying to find a comparison in my head, but something about the feel of the air, temperature, and surroundings, reminds me of Germany, and not just any time in Germany, but my last trip in June and July when I traveled to Heidleberg and an assortment of other West German cities. I've no idea why, but the idea persists. :sigh: A very nice evening.

My Day Off

Here's a pic from last Friday that I forgot to post.

Aw, the first blooms of Spring. At the time, this was the only tree I saw with blooms, but now most are blooming.

Here are some pics of my kids.



Michelle is cute, but on vacation right now.



Aw, my afternoon kids. They are essentially good, but have their wacked out moments.

Oh, and here's a pic of Lottemart. This is my grocery store. It's a bit pricy, but they same as the other grocery stores within walking distance. I went to Homever last night and its a bit cheaper and has more foreign food. More awesome store, but I have to take the subway to Yatap to go there (2 stops) and that's a bit much for a quick stop.



So what did I do on this, my wonderful day off? (Thank you Korean politics)

Well, I slept til 6 am and read a book until 10 whence I had breakfast and took Luna on a walk. The days a bit overcast, so I didn't bother taking any gloomy pictures of the day. Anyway, after we got back, I hooked up my mp3 player to charge since I was heading to Itaewon for linner and to see what the fuss was about. I didn't end up leaving until at 2, but that was fine, so I took the subway in (the subway website was down so I had to map out my own route, but it was fine) for over an hour with 3 transfers. Anyway, so Itaewon is nice. I wish I'd been there on a less rainy day and I forgot my umbrella so got a bit wet. So I went on my search for Taco Amigo which I'd heard about on Geek in Korea and Galbijim and I must say the food there is great. What's not great is trying to find the place based on directions from eiher site the depend on you knowing where some bar named Gecko's is and the directions on Galbijim are downright wrong. They had me looking at the Hamilton Hotel which is across the street from the place, a major street.

So my directions are to take the subway to Itaewon and go ahead and use Exit 4. After emerging, turn around because the place is not straight ahead, it is behind you on the street that runs ito the street you are standing at. To make it clearer, youo emerge from the exit at an intersection and the road behind you slopes downward and it is on that street that Taco Amigo is. Once you start down the street, look up and the sign is very large. I kept walking up and down the main drag because someone said straight ahead and another site said look for the Burger King. Anyway, the food was worth it. I got the chorizo/sausage burrito because that's all they had left. I don't think they were expecting it to be so busy on a holiday with everyone off work. Well, the burrito still tasted great. It had cilatro, was really big and spicy and I got sour cream and guacamole for 2000 won extra. With a bottled water, it all came up to 8500 won. A really good price when I think what it would cost here in Bundang and it tasted good. I'll definitely go back sometime soon to try out more on the menu and see more of Seoul. Nice.

I also did do a little shopping. I've been getting really sick of my normal Luna walk/jog-wear. I need more stuff to wear on her walks and more shirts for work. So I discovered one store with a sale rack outside of clothes in my size for $5-$10, nice for Seoul. I picked up 3 shirts and went in a bought a pair of exercise pants for $15. In total, I brought $50 to spend to day and spent nearly all of it. I still haven't bought any shoes, but I've tried some on. I've found that I can usually fit into a size 250, which is the biggest size most stores carry for women, although a 255 might be better. 250 is about a size 8 US. Here are some pics of my lovely purchases.

Red Baton Twirling Korean Soldiers

One of the oddest sights I've witnessed in Korea was this long line of Korean soldiers carrying these batons with red lights on them. This was last night and it still seems a bit odd. Therer were a lot of them too and they were walking along the Tanchon. Hmmm. No idea why.

Also, you can certainly tell its Spring now, some trees are blooming, we're growing a plant in class (totally unfair too since we get no direct sunlight, but I'm making the kids talk to the plant every day, so maybe that will help:-P), and there were a lot of people on the Tanchon this morning. Many playing soccer, basketball, and walking. The strange thing was that I didn't see many dogs, just a couple. Last week there were many more, but it was a bit on the warm side. Note for anyone thinking of moving to Korea, these electronic door locks are awesome, but if open to long, them alarm and to stop them, you just close the door and re-enter the code.

So yesterday, one of our Moms came in. Tayon's mom to be precise. He's the kid I think that I was warned about. Either him or Alex is raised by his nanny and acts out. Actually both act out, but after seeing Tayon with his Mom, I think he may be the one. His Mom mentioned that she doesn't get to see him much (she brought Baskin Robbins for the class and it was delicious) and I didn't know quite how to respond. Do you say anything? I figured no response was necessary and thankfully one of the other kids from class came out and was ready to brush his teeth (we were waiting outside of the cafeteria beside some sinks were all the kids brush their teeth after lunch) so I didn't need to respond and couldn't think of anything to say anyway. I guess I do understand Tayon better now.

We had our weekly foreign teacher meeting yesterday and I found out them my kids aren't the only ones who get injured. One kid got a bloody nose last week and his mom came to school all week because the kid was so freaked out by it. I guess mine haven't been so bad. We also talked about our Mom's Day program and will meet specifically to talk about it next week. Yay.