I had a really great day at work today. I finally feel like I'm understanding what's going on in each of my classes without forgetting things or doing the wrong pages. After a bad past few days I was glad to have today go as smoothly as it did. I had a class today in the afternoon that would probably 3rd or 4th graders at home and they're doing a lesson on attractions around the world like Big Ben in the UK, the Eiffel Tower in France, the Sydney Opera House in Australia etc. I had some extra time at the end of the class so after arguing with them about the correct pronunciation of "opera", I finally gave up and switched topics by telling them my sister is an opera singer. I pulled out my phone and played a video for them and they were BLOWN AWAY. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that singing is not of huge value in Korean culture. Students spend most of their time in school or in some sort of tutoring so maybe musical instruments are popular but not singing so much. They were really amazed with how Karen sounded on my phone.
Then tonight I only had 1 kid in one of my classes. The way evening classes work is that there's 2 classes a night but you teach one of them twice. So my first class only had one 12 year old kid, then I had a class of 5, and then I went back and taught another lesson to my class with only 1 kid in it. In the last class, we got finished with our work insanely early so I asked him what he wanted to talk about. We just sat there and talked about my life back home. He was asking if I lived in a house or apartment and how many floors my house had. I showed him some pictures on my phone of the many outfits I've dressed Hickory up in, some pictures of how big my room is at home (while mentioning its the size of my apartment now), and a video of the students at Holy Trinity doing the Gangnam Style dance. While I was putting my phone away, I noticed my passport was in there and I asked him if he wanted to see an American passport. He thought the pictures on every page were really cool and asked me what countries my different stamps were from. When he saw the one from Martinique he asked where it was and I told him it was from when I studied abroad in the Caribbean. Then he started asking me if I know anything about the Bermuda Triangle and if I believed it was true lol. I love that that's what he thinks of when he hears about the Caribbean. I gave him some candy that was in my purse and some American coins I still had. He smiled and was very appreciative. He's a great kid and is probably one of my favorites.
So I have a 4 day weekend this weekend because its the Lunar New Year on Sunday. This holiday is referred to as Soellal and all of the kids are really excited about it because they get a lot of money from their grandparents. I think what happens is that you go to your grandparents house, pig out on things like rice soup and some sort of rice drink, and then bow in front of your grandparents and they give you money. That's what I've figured out from my conversations with my kids this week lol. One of my classes of young kids today asked me was I going home to America for the New Year holiday and when I explained that Americans don't celebrate this holiday and its just a regular day for me, they looked like they felt so sorry for me lol. It would be like if someone told us they didn't do anything for Thanksgiving or Christmas. These kids looked like I just told them the saddest news they'd ever heard.
All of the teachers had to give W20,000 (~$18) to our boss to give to the owner of our school as a Soellal gift. This holiday is so bizarre to me lol. But we got gifts also. We got a box of what looks like rice candies/cakes/I really don't know what they are but I'm excited to eat my Korean gift.
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| These were the first ones I tried. My coworkers don't like any of these very much but this one wasn't bad. Its basically rice that looks like cotton candy rolled in crushed up popcorn. Random & good. |
So since I have Monday and Tuesday off, I'm super excited to spend an entire day of my weekend officially getting my apartment how I want it. I don't want to put my clothes away until I get a hamper to put dirty clothes in so that is high on my priority list. I also want an area rug and a full length mirror but those can wait. Justin said he'd take me shopping one day so that will be exciting. My other coworkers are going to Japan for the weekend which is awesome for them but depressing for me because I won't be in Japan. But I'll be in Korea so I guess that's OK lol.
It will be nice to have a break from the stress of work. I really have an easy job and its only stressful because its all so new to me but once I figure everything out, I'm going to have no problems. I'm excited to get away for a little while and come back on Wednesday for a 3 day week.
I hope everyone at home has a super exciting Lunar New Year and I would like to ask that you all control yourselves and don't go too crazy.
