Blissfully caffeinated,
Carly
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
"The city...it moves on despite me"
First, I want to give some people (you know who you are) a gift from yousendit that expires in 7 days. Imagine that. ♥
"The City" by Carina Round
I have obviously been slacking when it comes to keeping my blog updated. :(
I have an additional kindergarten class now and they are great, aside from James who steals various things from the other students. We went on a field trip to The Toy Museum last week. Here is Julie drawing a picture. She rarely focuses on a project for more than 15 seconds, so I had to get a photo of this momentous occasion.
Meredith has a boy named Huey in her kindergarten class and he's hilarious...but her impression of him is even more hilarious. Anyway, he has a huge head, his hair is cut way too short in front so his bangs stick straight up, and he has silver caps on some of his teeth. When he gets bored he does ballerina spins around the room. He jabbers a lot and we thought he was speaking Korean but the Korean teachers can't understand any of his "Korean." So Huey has his very own language, I guess. Every time he sees me in the hallway he screams, "What is your name?!" even though I've told him at least 15 times. And we are constantly reminding him to wait until he gets IN the bathroom to start taking his pants off. During the field trip Meredith's only responsibility was to make sure Huey didn't run away or break something.
We have a birthday party at the end of every month. Here is Dana after a lot of birthday cake and soda. She's soooo cute.
I know I wrote about Sam in another blog entry, but here is a picture of him.
As Meredith likes to say, "That kid is CRACKED." Here is a recent conversation I had with Sam.
Sam: "Carly Teacher, I'm not going to be here next Tuesday."
Me: "Why are you going to be absent?"
Sam: "I am going on a trip with my family."
Me: "That sounds fun! Where are you going?"
Sam: (who draws a map to where he's going) "We are going to stay in a hotel and I'm going swimming."
Here is our conversation on Tuesday:
Me: "Sam, I thought you were going to be gone today!"
Sam: "What?"
Me: "You told me you were going on a trip with your family."
Sam: "What?"
Me: "You drew me a map and you said you were staying in a hotel and you were going swimming."
Sam: "What's a hotel?!"
Me: "Forget it. It's good to see you."
Other reasons why Sam makes my life more amusing:
--Pete had Sam in class one day and Sam was pretty vocal about how much he disliked drawing and coloring. Trevor said, "Sam, yes you do like coloring. I like coloring." Sam got a very serious look on his face and said, "Trevor, YOU are not ME."
--We were reading a story about making snowmen and snow angels and Sam yelled, "Chicken nuggets!" at the top of his lungs for no apparent reason.
--He removes posters from other classrooms and tries to put them up in random places throughout the hallway, which is hard to notice because they end up being at my knee-level.
--He hides my white-board erasers on a regular basis.
--Practically every time I turn around I catch him with my bottle of water or tea, mid-sip.
--He walks to the corner of the classroom and does all the different swimming strokes. I usually join him because it's good exercise. Here is the butterfly stroke:
This is what I look like when Sam grabs my camera away from me and I'm not sure if he's going to take a picture, stomp on it, or throw it out of the 3rd floor window.
Ok, that's enough about school. I feel like I live there.
I went to HomEver quite awhile ago to buy my bicycle and stumbled upon this lovely pagoda in the park by the World Cup Stadium.
I found a kick-ass English bookstore called What the Book? in Itaewon. And I bought a bookshelf last weekend, which makes me feel more at home. :)
It was sweltering here and then one day last week it abruptly became Fall. I love it.
I'll try to do a better job with these updates. Thankfully, I was feeling anti-social today and just wanted to sit and reflect on the past few weeks since they flew by.
♥
Carly
"The City" by Carina Round
I have obviously been slacking when it comes to keeping my blog updated. :(
I have an additional kindergarten class now and they are great, aside from James who steals various things from the other students. We went on a field trip to The Toy Museum last week. Here is Julie drawing a picture. She rarely focuses on a project for more than 15 seconds, so I had to get a photo of this momentous occasion.
Meredith has a boy named Huey in her kindergarten class and he's hilarious...but her impression of him is even more hilarious. Anyway, he has a huge head, his hair is cut way too short in front so his bangs stick straight up, and he has silver caps on some of his teeth. When he gets bored he does ballerina spins around the room. He jabbers a lot and we thought he was speaking Korean but the Korean teachers can't understand any of his "Korean." So Huey has his very own language, I guess. Every time he sees me in the hallway he screams, "What is your name?!" even though I've told him at least 15 times. And we are constantly reminding him to wait until he gets IN the bathroom to start taking his pants off. During the field trip Meredith's only responsibility was to make sure Huey didn't run away or break something.
We have a birthday party at the end of every month. Here is Dana after a lot of birthday cake and soda. She's soooo cute.
I know I wrote about Sam in another blog entry, but here is a picture of him.
As Meredith likes to say, "That kid is CRACKED." Here is a recent conversation I had with Sam.
Sam: "Carly Teacher, I'm not going to be here next Tuesday."
Me: "Why are you going to be absent?"
Sam: "I am going on a trip with my family."
Me: "That sounds fun! Where are you going?"
Sam: (who draws a map to where he's going) "We are going to stay in a hotel and I'm going swimming."
Here is our conversation on Tuesday:
Me: "Sam, I thought you were going to be gone today!"
Sam: "What?"
Me: "You told me you were going on a trip with your family."
Sam: "What?"
Me: "You drew me a map and you said you were staying in a hotel and you were going swimming."
Sam: "What's a hotel?!"
Me: "Forget it. It's good to see you."
Other reasons why Sam makes my life more amusing:
--Pete had Sam in class one day and Sam was pretty vocal about how much he disliked drawing and coloring. Trevor said, "Sam, yes you do like coloring. I like coloring." Sam got a very serious look on his face and said, "Trevor, YOU are not ME."
--We were reading a story about making snowmen and snow angels and Sam yelled, "Chicken nuggets!" at the top of his lungs for no apparent reason.
--He removes posters from other classrooms and tries to put them up in random places throughout the hallway, which is hard to notice because they end up being at my knee-level.
--He hides my white-board erasers on a regular basis.
--Practically every time I turn around I catch him with my bottle of water or tea, mid-sip.
--He walks to the corner of the classroom and does all the different swimming strokes. I usually join him because it's good exercise. Here is the butterfly stroke:
This is what I look like when Sam grabs my camera away from me and I'm not sure if he's going to take a picture, stomp on it, or throw it out of the 3rd floor window.
Ok, that's enough about school. I feel like I live there.
I went to HomEver quite awhile ago to buy my bicycle and stumbled upon this lovely pagoda in the park by the World Cup Stadium.
I found a kick-ass English bookstore called What the Book? in Itaewon. And I bought a bookshelf last weekend, which makes me feel more at home. :)
It was sweltering here and then one day last week it abruptly became Fall. I love it.
I'll try to do a better job with these updates. Thankfully, I was feeling anti-social today and just wanted to sit and reflect on the past few weeks since they flew by.
♥
Carly
Saturday, September 6, 2008
"You never knew why you felt so good in the strangest of places"
I haven't posted anything in awhile so I don't even know where to start...so this is going to be disorganized and disjointed and you're going to like it, ok? :)
A few weekends ago I had to get a medical exam for my alien registration card. They herd you like cattle through vision tests, hearing tests, chest x-rays, etc. I bombed the vision test. Surprise, surprise. They have you look at the eye chart with your left eye covered, then your right eye covered. How about letting me use both eyes to read the chart just one time? That would be helpful, jerks. So then I was trying to explain that I was born with cataracts and do just fine with contacts in, but it was like I was speaking a foreign language--because I was speaking a foreign language. It all worked out in the end. I had to talk to a doctor before I left and she wrote down the most recent vision results I got at my Minneapolis eye doctor and I was on my way. Anyway, my test results came in a huge envelope and this is why:
Um, weird and random. I opened the envelope at school and felt very exposed and vulnerable.
On a whole different note: I was wandering around a couple weeks ago and stumbled upon this journal and had to buy it. Duh.
.JPG)
In John Irving's book, Until I Find You, one of the characters has tattoos all over his body with lyrics and bars of music from his favorite songs. I was considering doing that but decided to just get the journal instead. I fully intend to fill it with entries about what songs move me at what time and for what reason.
Will (from Chicago) and Pete (from London) had their last day at SLP on Monday. Maria (from California) and Meredith (from Ohio) got here a little less than two weeks ago to replace Will and Pete. They're both incredibly nice and I feel like I can be myself around them. I DON'T feel like that when I spend time with Darcie and Meredith (the other Meredith--we have two Merediths now).
Note: Ha! The Right Moves by Josh Ritter is playing right now at the coffee shop!
A couple weeks ago we had a birthday party for Will on the rooftop of our apartment. All of us have tried taking pictures at night from there but they never turn out, so I took some good ones during the day.
Here is the birthday boy in his Hugh Hefner robe that he wore all night.
And apparently the red plastic drinking cup is universal. Someone politely handed me one filled with water and I thought to myself, "I could have fun with this." This is my "relapse on the rooftop" picture.
Things at school are going much better. I finally feel like I hit my stride this past week. I think my confidence was boosted now that I'm the "veteran" afternoon foreign teacher since Maria and Meredith just started teaching on Tuesday. The first week of the month was really busy since I had to make homework sheets, lesson plans, and spelling test lists for all of my classes. I have a class of six boys who are trying my patience but other than that my classes are going smoothly. I have Sam in Hi, Kids 1 who is a riot and I WILL get a picture of him this Tuesday. He is incredibly bright yet his actions rarely have logic behind them...like walking to the corner of the classroom and miming all the different swimming strokes. The butterly stroke was by far the most entertaining. And he tries to smuggle random classroom posters out of the school on a weekly basis.
I bought a bicycle last weekend but have only had time to go on one bike ride so far. I plan on going on one this afternoon so I'll take pictures of the river for you!
I'm going to go start researching where I'm going to travel to during Christmas vacation! I'm so excited!
PS: Mary, how on earth do I resize my pictures so they're not larger than life when you click on them?
♥
A few weekends ago I had to get a medical exam for my alien registration card. They herd you like cattle through vision tests, hearing tests, chest x-rays, etc. I bombed the vision test. Surprise, surprise. They have you look at the eye chart with your left eye covered, then your right eye covered. How about letting me use both eyes to read the chart just one time? That would be helpful, jerks. So then I was trying to explain that I was born with cataracts and do just fine with contacts in, but it was like I was speaking a foreign language--because I was speaking a foreign language. It all worked out in the end. I had to talk to a doctor before I left and she wrote down the most recent vision results I got at my Minneapolis eye doctor and I was on my way. Anyway, my test results came in a huge envelope and this is why:
Um, weird and random. I opened the envelope at school and felt very exposed and vulnerable.
On a whole different note: I was wandering around a couple weeks ago and stumbled upon this journal and had to buy it. Duh.
.JPG)
In John Irving's book, Until I Find You, one of the characters has tattoos all over his body with lyrics and bars of music from his favorite songs. I was considering doing that but decided to just get the journal instead. I fully intend to fill it with entries about what songs move me at what time and for what reason.
Will (from Chicago) and Pete (from London) had their last day at SLP on Monday. Maria (from California) and Meredith (from Ohio) got here a little less than two weeks ago to replace Will and Pete. They're both incredibly nice and I feel like I can be myself around them. I DON'T feel like that when I spend time with Darcie and Meredith (the other Meredith--we have two Merediths now).
Note: Ha! The Right Moves by Josh Ritter is playing right now at the coffee shop!
A couple weeks ago we had a birthday party for Will on the rooftop of our apartment. All of us have tried taking pictures at night from there but they never turn out, so I took some good ones during the day.
Here is the birthday boy in his Hugh Hefner robe that he wore all night.
And apparently the red plastic drinking cup is universal. Someone politely handed me one filled with water and I thought to myself, "I could have fun with this." This is my "relapse on the rooftop" picture.
Things at school are going much better. I finally feel like I hit my stride this past week. I think my confidence was boosted now that I'm the "veteran" afternoon foreign teacher since Maria and Meredith just started teaching on Tuesday. The first week of the month was really busy since I had to make homework sheets, lesson plans, and spelling test lists for all of my classes. I have a class of six boys who are trying my patience but other than that my classes are going smoothly. I have Sam in Hi, Kids 1 who is a riot and I WILL get a picture of him this Tuesday. He is incredibly bright yet his actions rarely have logic behind them...like walking to the corner of the classroom and miming all the different swimming strokes. The butterly stroke was by far the most entertaining. And he tries to smuggle random classroom posters out of the school on a weekly basis.
I bought a bicycle last weekend but have only had time to go on one bike ride so far. I plan on going on one this afternoon so I'll take pictures of the river for you!
I'm going to go start researching where I'm going to travel to during Christmas vacation! I'm so excited!
PS: Mary, how on earth do I resize my pictures so they're not larger than life when you click on them?
♥
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Contact Info
Hi, everyone!
I'm sorry I haven't written anything in awhile. It was a busy week with a few more mornings of teacher training and then teaching in the afternoon. Oh, and also showing the two new teachers around--you know, because I've been here forever and know Seoul like the back of my hand. ;)
I just wanted to do a quick post to let you know I put my contact info on my sidebar for whenever you need it.
I'll do a post (with pictures!) either tonight or tomorrow.
♥
I'm sorry I haven't written anything in awhile. It was a busy week with a few more mornings of teacher training and then teaching in the afternoon. Oh, and also showing the two new teachers around--you know, because I've been here forever and know Seoul like the back of my hand. ;)
I just wanted to do a quick post to let you know I put my contact info on my sidebar for whenever you need it.
I'll do a post (with pictures!) either tonight or tomorrow.
♥
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Getting Better
It's Korea's Independence Day today so I have the day off! :)
Work went pretty smoothly this week. I actually felt like I had time to breathe, unlike last week.
I have a medical examination tomorrow morning so I can get my Alien Registration Card. I need to bring my passport and one photo. I thought I brought my extra passport photos with me to Korea, but I must have thrown them away before I moved. So I'm thinking about using this as my ARC photo. It was drawn by Jenny who is in my Hi Kids 4 class. :)
But I'll probably go with this one. I took it myself today and now I just need to find a place to actually print it out.
Here's Sophie (in back) and Hera (in front) who are in my Reading Comprehension class. Hera sobbed for 5 minutes in class yesterday after she got one wrong on her spelling test. I wanted to give her a huge hug and buy her an ice cream cone or something to make her feel better.
Here is Sarah who is also in Reading Comprehension. Layla (her best friend in the class) wanted nothing to do with this picture.
I had to cut a student's hair in class on Wednesday. Regina had a metal heart charm hanging off the end of her pencil and it got completely tangled in her hair. We tried for a couple minutes to unwind her hair from it but I ended up just cutting off a chunk of her hair. The kids thought it was hilarious.
Every classroom at SLP is named after an animal. I'm usually in Owl Classroom. The air conditioning works well everywhere except in Owl Classroom so I have to deal with kids whining about how hot it is and then they become lethargic because it IS really hot in there. I (and some of my fellow teachers) complain about it on a regular basis but I think it will take awhile to actually get fixed.
Work went pretty smoothly this week. I actually felt like I had time to breathe, unlike last week.
I have a medical examination tomorrow morning so I can get my Alien Registration Card. I need to bring my passport and one photo. I thought I brought my extra passport photos with me to Korea, but I must have thrown them away before I moved. So I'm thinking about using this as my ARC photo. It was drawn by Jenny who is in my Hi Kids 4 class. :)
But I'll probably go with this one. I took it myself today and now I just need to find a place to actually print it out.
Here's Sophie (in back) and Hera (in front) who are in my Reading Comprehension class. Hera sobbed for 5 minutes in class yesterday after she got one wrong on her spelling test. I wanted to give her a huge hug and buy her an ice cream cone or something to make her feel better.
Here is Sarah who is also in Reading Comprehension. Layla (her best friend in the class) wanted nothing to do with this picture.
I had to cut a student's hair in class on Wednesday. Regina had a metal heart charm hanging off the end of her pencil and it got completely tangled in her hair. We tried for a couple minutes to unwind her hair from it but I ended up just cutting off a chunk of her hair. The kids thought it was hilarious.
Every classroom at SLP is named after an animal. I'm usually in Owl Classroom. The air conditioning works well everywhere except in Owl Classroom so I have to deal with kids whining about how hot it is and then they become lethargic because it IS really hot in there. I (and some of my fellow teachers) complain about it on a regular basis but I think it will take awhile to actually get fixed.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
"And you'll show up for work with a smile"
Well, my first official week of teaching has been over for a couple days now. And it's back to SLP tomorrow. I have mixed feelings. Monday was horrendous and I was at my breaking point. I was so close to telling Sarah (the director of teachers) that I couldn't do this. Kim, the teacher who I replaced, emailed me the homework sheets for the month of August, but I couldn't open some of them. The classes are pretty structured, so the students (and some of the parents) were freaked out that they didn't get a homework sheet on Monday even though I told them they would get one the next day. I was just really stressed out with the lack of homework sheets and spelling test words. I knew Darcie was in the same boat so that made me feel a little better. I feel like I spent all my time worrying about paperwork so I didn't have any time to come up with supplementary worksheets to spice things up a bit. Things got better as the week progressed, though.
My first two classes are summer school classes. I have a phonics class and then a reading comprehension class. My phonics class is a nightmare so I need to spend a couple hours today figuring out ways to get them excited again. Hajun, one of the boys in my phonics class, is raising hell and hitting another little boy, Andrew, who is adorable, polite, and quiet. Oh, and Hajun keeps breaking the points off of kids' pencils. It's just really too much. Andrew's mom called the other day to see if he could be put into a different class, but there is no other phonics class, unfortunately. Andrew loses sleep at night because he's afraid to go to school. I keep an eye on them when they're in class, but they have two 5-minute breaks in the morning and that's when the fighting happens. And then there is Tess and Christina--two girls who are a little older and act like they're bored to death no matter what we're doing. That class is over on August 22nd...and I am counting down the days at this point.
My other morning class is reading comprehension. They're great for the most part. They always do their homework and they always study for spelling tests, etc. On Friday I was talking to them while they were lined up getting ready to leave for the day. One of them noticed how long my toes are, and I heard a chorus of "Wow." And then they each had to measure one of my toes with their fingers. It was pretty funny. :)
My kindergarten class is fun. I NEED that class in the middle of the day to keep me sane. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are language arts days. Wednesday is science and Friday is art. The only problem I ever have with that class is Sarah who is extremely bossy with the other kids. They all think my ear piercings are craaaaazy.
Then I have the higher-level kids in the afternoon: Hi Kids 1, 2, and 4. A boy in my HK 1 class gave me my first gift. He handed me a cooked cob of corn. It wasn't wrapped up in anything and it was still hot. Here is my corn in the midst of my school books. I appreciate the randomness of it.
Most of my Hi Kids classes are really small and that makes it kind of difficult. It's hard to come up with games for one or two students and sometimes I'm stuck with one student and I feel bad making him or her reading an entire story and answer every single question.
Anyway, I'm sure this week will be better...because it HAS to. I'll keep you posted. I'll be in better contact with everyone once I have an internet connection in my apartment. Apparently I can't get it until I receive my alien registration card which should be this week or next week.
I haven't had any cool Seoul experiences this week. I'm at work from 9 am to 7:30 pm. I'm barely functioning when I get home. I'm looking forward to summer school being done and then I'll just have the kindergarten and Hi Kids classes in the afternoons. There is a river right by my apartment building and I'm going to buy a cheap bicycle with my first paycheck and go for bike rides whenever I have time.
Ok, I don't have anything else to write! I love and miss you all!
My first two classes are summer school classes. I have a phonics class and then a reading comprehension class. My phonics class is a nightmare so I need to spend a couple hours today figuring out ways to get them excited again. Hajun, one of the boys in my phonics class, is raising hell and hitting another little boy, Andrew, who is adorable, polite, and quiet. Oh, and Hajun keeps breaking the points off of kids' pencils. It's just really too much. Andrew's mom called the other day to see if he could be put into a different class, but there is no other phonics class, unfortunately. Andrew loses sleep at night because he's afraid to go to school. I keep an eye on them when they're in class, but they have two 5-minute breaks in the morning and that's when the fighting happens. And then there is Tess and Christina--two girls who are a little older and act like they're bored to death no matter what we're doing. That class is over on August 22nd...and I am counting down the days at this point.
My other morning class is reading comprehension. They're great for the most part. They always do their homework and they always study for spelling tests, etc. On Friday I was talking to them while they were lined up getting ready to leave for the day. One of them noticed how long my toes are, and I heard a chorus of "Wow." And then they each had to measure one of my toes with their fingers. It was pretty funny. :)
My kindergarten class is fun. I NEED that class in the middle of the day to keep me sane. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are language arts days. Wednesday is science and Friday is art. The only problem I ever have with that class is Sarah who is extremely bossy with the other kids. They all think my ear piercings are craaaaazy.
Then I have the higher-level kids in the afternoon: Hi Kids 1, 2, and 4. A boy in my HK 1 class gave me my first gift. He handed me a cooked cob of corn. It wasn't wrapped up in anything and it was still hot. Here is my corn in the midst of my school books. I appreciate the randomness of it.
Most of my Hi Kids classes are really small and that makes it kind of difficult. It's hard to come up with games for one or two students and sometimes I'm stuck with one student and I feel bad making him or her reading an entire story and answer every single question.
Anyway, I'm sure this week will be better...because it HAS to. I'll keep you posted. I'll be in better contact with everyone once I have an internet connection in my apartment. Apparently I can't get it until I receive my alien registration card which should be this week or next week.
I haven't had any cool Seoul experiences this week. I'm at work from 9 am to 7:30 pm. I'm barely functioning when I get home. I'm looking forward to summer school being done and then I'll just have the kindergarten and Hi Kids classes in the afternoons. There is a river right by my apartment building and I'm going to buy a cheap bicycle with my first paycheck and go for bike rides whenever I have time.
Ok, I don't have anything else to write! I love and miss you all!
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