Saeseogwi Elementary School

Saeseogwi (Sa-So-Gee) Elementary School is the first school that I was assigned to work at here on Jeju. Last semester I worked here full time as did another Native English teacher named Ali. This semester I split my time between two schools. I am only at Saeseogwi 3 days a week.

The school is comparable to elementary schools in the US. There are 601 total students here. In fact there is a huge chalkboard in the teachers main work room that shows the break down of each grade and each class by gender. We have 317 males and 284 females.

Each grade at this school has three classes. For example: 1-1 means First Grade Class One, 1-2 is First Grade Class Two, and 1-3 is First Grade Class Three. The class sizes are larger. The largest grade is 3rd. It has 40 students in each class.

Third grade is my favorite. I am not sure if it is because I have them the most or because the students are just that great. It must be because I have them the most! Ha ha ha. In two of the sections I feel that I am zoo keeper more than a teacher. I am fortunate enough to have an amazing co-teacher, Mrs. Kim. She really is a great teacher who is excited and dedicated to learning English.

Ali is the other native English teacher at this school. He is now in his second year of teaching. Ali is from Canada. This semester he still works full time at Saeseogwi.

Saeseogwi Elementary has been chosen for the English Pilot program. In a way that makes it a special research school. For me it means more work and preparation at times. We have what are called "open" classes. This is where teachers from our school and other schools come and watch one of our classes. It is on no way a natural class however. My Korean co-teachers practice how the class will go over and over again with the students. It is almost as if it is scripted. I am not a fan of this method at all. It does not represent the struggles of having co-teachers and just teaching a foreign language in general. Plus the kids act like angels during these "open" classes and that is not how they really are either! Ha ha ha.

Next semester I might be moved to another school, but I don't think that I will. The school can keep me if they want and so far they have kept both Ali and I. Enjoy the pictures. The view of the playground, World Cup Stadium, and ocean is from my desk! AMAZING

Busan

I took a trip over the summer to Busan, South Korea. It is the second largest city in South Korea and also the southern most city on the mainland. The population is about 3.6 million. It a young city that is growing rapidly. After a few days there I could see why!

Busan was wonderful. I cannot wait to go back. The first thing I did when I got there was locate a Starbucks! Ha ha ha. My friend Josh (from my TEFL course in Prague)knows how much I love Starbucks so he made sure to point out the closest one to my hotel that I stayed at the first night. He now lives in Busan and teaches at a private institute.

The first night I stayed on Heaundae Beach. It is in the Guiness Book of World Records for the most umbrellas on one stretch of beach. I believe it! I was there on a Thursday and it was still pretty busy. I hear the weekends are really crazy! It really was a great beach with the city sitting right on the water. There was a Starbucks on the street that ran along the beach. No city mugs for Busan yet, but I still picked up a new mug to have at my new home in Jeju.

The second night I stayed in the Busan National University area. Not sure where the actual university was though. I wasn't able to find it. On this day I went to Beomosa Temple. It sits up high in the mountains. You can hike to it if you please but I didn’t have any real shoes to do any hiking in. Maybe another time. This temple has been around since 678 but has been burned down a few times. The last re-build was in 1613. There are lots of small buildings all over the grounds. The monks walk around freely and interact with visitors. I was shocked to see this because most of the time, the monks seem to be in hiding. My favorite part of the temple other that the gorgeous insides, were these three little Buddhist statues that were hear no evil, speak no evil, say no evil. They were wonderful. The view from that high up was also amazing. That night I had dinner with Josh. A traditional Korean meal called Galbi. It is like an indoor BBQ. Great fun with friends. We decided on pork and it was in fact the best Galbi place that I have been to yet and I eat this often.

The third day we went to Gwangalli Beach. This beach sits on a bay. It reminds me of something you would see in Southern California. It has a boardwalk and everything. Not to mention a three story Starbucks that sat right on the beach. We of course stopped in and had a coffee and watched the people on the beach below. There was a Farris Wheel and other carnival rides. We returned that night to the beach to hit the bars and nightlife. Lots and lots of foreigners were out and about. It was great because they close the streets on the beach at night and put out tables and chairs. You can just eat and drink and hangout with people. Also there are no laws telling you where and where you cannot drink. I was pretty surprised by this. But it seems that as long as you are not out of control or harming other people you are free to drink wherever your little heart desires. A lot of people drank on the beach. It was wonderful.

All in all Busan was a great place to visit. I am actually going to be there again October 3-5th for the International Film Festival. Lots of my friends from Jeju are going, so it should be a wonderful time!

3 Month Check-in

It seems like just the other day I was saying to goodbye to all my family and friends because I was moving to South Korea! I cannot tell you how many times I heard "Are you crazy?" or "What are you going there for?"

Well I am not crazy! I am just a free spirit in many ways. I figure that you only get one life here on earth and I want to make the most of it. Traveling has become a passion of mine. Those of you that know me very well also know that I am talker! That is putting it mild. Ha ha ha. So what a better way to travel the world and talk at the same time, than to become an English as a Foreign Language teacher?! I was able to find a way to do both. It just so happens that I landed in South Korea! The plus side about South Korea, is that I live on the beautiful island called Jeju and have met some amazing people that are my age and have seen so much of the world.

So here I am at the three month marker! YAY. I made it! From what I hear the hard part is over. Most people that have done what I am doing said that the first three months are pretty rough. You have to deal with the initial culture shock and the obvious language barriers, as I do not speak Korean (yet). My "honeymoon" phase as they call it has come to an official end. I know feel that I am part of this place. Part of the city that I live (Seogwipo) in and the schools that I teach at.

Do I still love it? Absolutely! Don't get me wrong I miss all of you back home in the United States, and other parts of the world, but I know that I will return. Everyday brings something new. I am learning new things about the Korean culture and people. My students teach me as much as I teach them, I think. In fact some of them have started giving me small Korean lessons during breaks. Ha ha ha. I guess they figure they can only benefit if I learn Hangul (Korean).

I still have 9 more months to go here in South Korea, then onto another continent! I have had an amazing summer and it is not over yet, as we tend to get the seasons later. I will try to post more blogs about my summer adventures, so keep your eyes peeled :)

Beach Beach Beach

Summer time has been here for a couple months. I have tried to make the most of it because I am not sure how long it will last. I am told that October and November are wonderful here and people were still swimming.

I went to the tourist center and asked for a good size map of the island. The kindly gave me one and also a book all about Jeju and another on my city (Seogwipo). I put the map on my wall at home so that I can start marking off all the places I have gone. mostly I want to get to all the beaches that I can before winter sets in. There are so many beaches and each one is different.

Udo Island is a great place. I have been twice now. The last trip we rented scooters and rode all around the island. There is a white sand beach, black sand beach, and a coral beach all on one tiny island. The coral beach is one of two natural coral beaches in Korea. It was a little rough on my feet the first time I went but the last trip I seemed to do better with it.

All of the beaches have had some decent snorkeling. Some were better than others. Hamdeok beach is probably my favorite so far (the picture with the really turquoise water and green oreum in the background). I have so many great beach pictures that it will be hard to get them all on here so I will just put a few of my favorites :)

American Beef, Gays, and T-Shirts

This post does not mean that if you eat beef and wear t-shirts that you are gay! Ha ha ha. These are merely three topics that I would like to blog about that I find interesting here in Korea especially.

American beef. For those of you that are not up to speed on the whole American Beef controversy that is going on right now in South Korea, well it would take me a while to get you up to speed on all the details. Basically, Koreans think that American beef is bad and that if you eat any American beef you will get Mad Cow Disease. To us Americans here in South Korea we find this statement highly amusing. We have been eating beef in the US for our entire life and well we are ok. There are huge riots and protests going on in the larger cities like Seoul. There have been pictures taken in newspapers where children have drawn pictures against American beef. It is sad because they only know what their parents tell them just like any child in the world. If you go into a restaurant and ask if they serve American beef they will look at you really funny and some places will tell you to leave! Before I came over to South Korea I had to have a series of medical checks done, including blood work. Well all of that was pointless because in the mean time, the rage was building over here with the beef issue. So when I arrived, I had to have the entire medical check all over again because they would not accept my records from the US and they wanted to know when the last time I had beef was! I was in shock and super upset because I hate having blood taken. Luckily heath care is super cheap here so everything cost me about $40.

Gays. Here in South Korea they turn their head when it comes to homosexuality. They simply believe that it does not exist and do not talk about it. They think that it is something that western cultures make up and do not see how it can even happen. It is not surprising though because the religion here is mostly Buddhist and the other small portion Christianity. However, there is so much affection shown between young people here of the same sex. It is not un common to walk down the street and see all the boys holding hands and the girls holding hands. Often times I will be waiting for the bus and there will be two boys waiting as well. The two boys will be petting each other and practically sitting on each other's laps! I am in shock that they act so loving and affectionate towards one another but do not believe that gay exists! I see this kind of thing everywhere. It is completely normal, so I hear.

T-Shirts are popular just like every where else in the world. The thing that makes Korean t-shirts so special are the sayings that are printed on them! Basically they take any English phrase that they know or partially know and print it on a t-shirt. I see boys wearing shirts that say "I Miss My Boy", "I went on vacation and came back on probation". My favorite ones are those that have misspelled words or grammatically incorrect phrases. One shirt I saw this past weekend said "I taken this look easy" it was supposed to say "I make this look easy". Ha ha ha. Oh and some shirts have extra "eee" on it. Koreans are notorious to add the long "e" sound to everything. It sounds like "I am an Englishee teacher" So funny! One last thing are the curse words. I am not sure that they even recognize that they are curse words. I bought a shirt the other day that says "1970 Up Against the Wall Mo**er F***er!" My friend Candice and I laughed so hard in the store and no one knew why we thought it was funny so we each bought one. Mine is light pink and hers is white. All the other English teachers look at me when I wear it and say "you must have bought that here". I laugh and say of course!

Well readers, it is time for me to end this. Hope everyone is well :)

Pictures of Weekend Camp

Weekend Camp

This past weekend I did a camp here at my elementary school. The camp was for students and their parents. We had about 150 students and parents. All the teachers in my school had to be here for the camp even if they were not teaching.

Saturday afternoon I taught 6 classes on how to make popcorn! For those of you that know me, know that I love popcorn so it was right up my alley. ha ha ha. The kids were a little scared at first about the popping. Most groups didn't wait for the popping to stop completely before taking the lid off so then the popcorn would continue to pop and all the kids would jump and scream when popcorn came flying out every where. It was pretty amusing. You will notice in the pictures that most of the kids wanted to stand on the chairs are look down on the popcorn while it was in the pan popping. I think they did this so that they could see but be far enough away in case something happened.

Sunday morning I was in charge of a quiz game. This game was played at the same time by everyone at the camp. So in a sense I was the host. We had some technical difficulty with the microphones. I assured the other teachers that would not be a problem since I used to be a cheerleader so I am sure that I could yell if I had to. I did have to yell a little and it hurt my voice, but oh well.

I have put some pictures of the students and then I will post again of just me and some of the students. All in all it was a great weekend camp. I am very tired today (Monday), but it is the last day of the semester and I start teaching summer school tomorrow!