Teacher, are you married?

I got up at 6am today to do my workout!! Oh, my abs were soooo sore!! In a good way though. Nevertheless, I skipped my crunchies for the day. For breakfast we had ham and hard boiled egg sandwiches with a light mustard. Yum!!

Today at school I taught first graders (aka HS soph) instead of 2nd graders. There is a noticeable difference in average abilities...their listening comprehension and vocab are much lower. I still plan to use the same lesson topics, but will probably have to have separate worksheets for them that are much more structured (ie: fill in the blank), but there are some higher ability students in the first grade class as well, so I will have to also teach them. Oh, the multi-leveled classroom. Teaching would just be too easy without you!

Today for lunch we had duck meat in the cafeteria. I eat in the school's cafeteria with the other students and teachers. Whenever I walk in many of the boys turn there heads to take a look and some say hi and wave. I guess the money for lunch is deducted from my paycheck, but I hear it is cheap.

I finished class at 3, at which time I am free to go even though normal classes run until 5 (and supplementary class until 6, and then sometimes night class until 10!). However, I stayed until 4:15 doing some prep work. My co-teacher could not believe I stayed so long...anyway. I was making my grade book in Excel! 17 classes x 33-38 students will be a lot to keep track of! Thank God Excel has a built in Sum function! ^^ I also was preparing an article about the Korean educational system that many of you may have seen in the NY Times a week or so ago for the English teachers workshop this week. We will discuss the article on Wednesday, so I emailed it out to them with hard words italicized (in my opinion, maybe they know the vocab though, I don't have a good grasp of their level yet) and some discussion questions. I was also prepping a "Self Intro" dialogue/vocab sheet for the General Teachers workshop I have tomorrow.

When I finally left school at 4:15 I met some boys who were probably ditching class (it happens much more often here) near the bus stop and they asked if I was married. I said no, I'm too young! They were surprised. Then they asked for my phone number, and I went ahead and gave it to them. I had already decided to give it out to whoever has the confidence to ask me face to face, but I won't write it on the blackboard. Anyway, when the one boy asked, all of them (10 or so) got out their phones to punch in my number. I said, you have to text me in English!! ^^ I rode the bus home all by myself this time!! Woo woo! I got it right after having only been shown once, which is good since I walk, take 2 buses, and walk. Today it only took 1 hr 5 minutes. I need to figure out where I can recharge the bus card Brian left for me.

I was disappointed with the F office today. Last week I had sent them an email making them aware of my transportation situation for getting home from school (Stay until 6pm to get a ride from my co-teacher, or take a 1 hr 20 min bus ride home). I told them I was working it out and would let them know if I needed their help/support. Well, I guess they over-reacted, bc they emailed me today letting me know they had called the school and asked them to find me a closer homestay so I could save time on my travels to school. Now, my homestay is my favorite part about Korea so far, so there is no way I'm changing!! I emailed them and told them that, as well as told Mrs. Song, my co-teacher. The bus-ride is definitely worth it. I'm disappointed they jumped the gun and started making arrangements without consulting me. I appreciate the help, but I think they definitely overreacted. They told us to let them know early of upcoming problems, so I thought I was being proactive. I guess I won't let them know of upcoming problems until they are already a big problem in the future? Who knows...

My host father is out drinking tonight... ^^ Tomorrow night I am going out to dinner with the teachers because 2 teachers are retiring I guess. I'm sure there will be lots of drinking -- I hope I remember the drinking manners I learned at orientation! They are very precise.

Ike's first day of school was today. Sounds like he'll be observing classes for the first 1-2 weeks. He got to record a public service announcement about earthquakes that will be broadcast to the whole town during an alarm test!! Heehee!!!! ^^ I hope he can get a recording of it.

Korean words of the day:
미숫가루 ("mi-suit-ka-loo")= Milky grain tea.... delicious! My favorite tea I've tried here in Korea. The stuff we have at home was made in the traditional way by my host mom's mom.
축하해요 ("chuk-ha-he-yo")=Congratulations!! ^^