Hello all! Since it took me so long to update about China, this one will be a bit short. Partially because I just updated on Tuesday, and partially because nothing really happened this week. Well. nothing can really compare to a trip to China, so back to reality we go.
School started on Wednesday, so I met some new coworkers and got to see who is in the subject office with me.
I knew almost everyone in the office except the newest teacher, who introduced herself as "I don't speak English." -_____-
I had to start teaching Thursday which really sucked since it already knocks all my classes off schedule, but we'll live. I was most excited to see my now 5th graders, since they were my angel baby 4th graders and So Jung has never had them. And they're so sweet and wonderful and cute and omg how am I going to leave these babies? It was nice to see my 6th and 4th graders too, and tomorrow and Tuesday I will meet the new 3rd graders. Woo!
So it was all rules and intro lessons so far. This year should be easier anyway since we already used the textbooks for a whole year. Since I plan so many parts of the lessons, I have activities made for most of the lessons, so planning should take me less time. Yay!
In other random news:
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| I got a present for a wedding I didn't attend. It's a cute towel! |
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| So Jung made really cute schedules for us. |
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| This was part of my lunch Friday. Apples, pineapples, raisins, and cereal in a like yogurty sauce...? |
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| The weather has been really nice and warm so I got to not wear a sweater for once. I was really feeling my outfit and I got lots of compliments. My self esteem is way higher in Korea haha. |
This week was a lot of good stuff but also reminded me why I want to go home. We had a staff dinner on Friday and a lot of the teachers only can talk to me in Korean, so they were all freaking out over how well I speak. But then they inevitably ask "Do you understand everything we're saying?" No, I don't. There are 30 of you talking around me in not my native language, and I've only been studying for a year and a half. I am always tempted to snap back "Do you understand everything in English?" You know, since a lot of them have studied it for years. But I always resist the impulse. It's rude and uncalled for, and they have no need to learn English if they stay in Korea and whatnot. I just get tired of not reeeeally knowing what's happening in a conversation. It's exhausting. But I like that I can communicate at all without relying on them to all use only English. I feel accomplished.
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| After eating a bunch of this I was informed it was jellyfish. So it was my first time having that! |
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| I don't exactly remember what was in this but it was good! |
After dinner ended fairly early, a bunch of they young teachers escaped to a coffee place and we talked about China, the new year and the students, EXO, grad school, and lots of other things. We were at the coffee place longer than the dinner. It's fun, but after a while my brain is fried from so much Korean. The night was so lovely and warm though, and the company was good. Sometimes it makes it hard to think about leaving when I like so many of my coworkers so much, but a lot of the dynamics of the system are really grating and I find them difficult to accept. There are pros and cons.
After a short week of work the weekend proved to be just what I needed to get back into the swing of things for the semester.
Saturday, Lauren, Tina, and I decided to check out a new Alabama-style BBQ place that opened in Omokyo called
McPherson’s BBQ Pub.
I'm so serious about it it had to be in a bigger, different font.
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| Our food crew. Always down for good food, no matter where in Seoul! |
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| Chickasaw fries: fries topped with pulled pork, cheddar cheese, onions, jalapenos, sour cream, and sweet Coca-Cola sauce. |
For the entree, we couldn't pick just one thing so we got all of it:
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| Pulled pork, smoked and fried chicken, coleslaw, mac & cheese, whiskey baked beans, and Brunswick stew |
For more about them, see here: http://mcphersonsbbqpub.com/
After, we went to Sulbing, the bingsu place we love, and got mango, strawberry chocolate, and blueberry bingsu. We sat and talked for a while before Lauren and Gaheyon had to split, since they live on the other side of town. The rest of us went to a pool room to play pool. Or pocketball, as they call it...
First we watched the boys plat a Korean version where you don't actually hit the balls into the pockets. In fact, there are no pockets.
On person is the white ball, and one is the yellow. You have to hit both the red balls in one shot without hitting the other person's ball. I'm not very good at it as I learned pocketball first so my stroke is more suited to that, apparently. Also I've literally never seen this game before, so.
After playing that for a bit, we switched over to pocketball. Through luck of the draw, Tina and I were on a team and Grace was on the other team with her brother and boyfriend. We were so convinced we would lose but since they played more of the other kind of pool before, or didn't play pool much before, or whatever, it was actually a more even match.
I used to spend a lot of time in grad school playing pool with the guys at the Hickey Tavern (pour one out for the nights I spent there... looks off into the distance) so I'm actually not terrible at pool. I'm barely passable and I don't do strategy very well, but I'm not bad at angles and whatnot.
Tina actually has pretty bad depth perception and didn't spend two years playing drunk pool on Thursday nights while avoiding her responsibilities, but she was really clutch. I was really proud of her.
She made a really hard shot, and in her excitement she thrust the cue into the ceiling, putting a hole in it.
Tina also got her fishing pole stuck in the ceiling when we went to that fishing cafe a while ago, so maybe it's her fate when we go out with Grace. Idk. But it's funny every time.
Deviously we revealed that Grace was secretly on our team the whole time, so she purposefully threw the game for her team. Haha not really. But Grace did scratch on the 8 ball, so Tina and I won. It was awesome!
As you can see from the picture, it was almost 1 AM, so we all headed home after a very fulfilling evening. I love hanging out with all the people in the group, so it was really really great.
Sunday, Tina and I watched our drama and tried to order food before dance class. We used Yogiyo, and app that lets you order from a bunch of different restaurants in range. We ordered from a different place than last time, and like 10 minutes later I got some calls from different numbers. Then someone texted me and said in Korean "Answer your phone please" and they didn't call again then another text that said "contact me." I don't answer numbers I don't know. so I was like what. I texted back in Korean "Who is this?" and when they didn't answer I said "Sorry I'm a foreigner so I can't speak Korean well."
No answer. No call.
After our food should have arrived, we called the number from the website. We were informed that my apartment is too far. We pressed further and they said "You didn't answer the phone." How you only gonna call one time? Why didn't they just text me it was too far? None of the numbers matched: the site, first call, and second call/text were all different numbers. ???????????
So we ordered from a place we had used before and got to eat our jajjangmyeon while getting ready for dance.
I decided to go back to dance class since I've been wearing my cast for a month and was resting my ankle previously. I wanted to feel out how it was, and while it's a little sore now I think it's fine. I'll keep monitoring it, but right now my muscles just feel a little tight from disuse.
I really really wanted to learn this week's dance: Girls' Generation's "Gee." It's pretty iconic in kpop. It was the song that basically made SNSD (the Korean name for them abbreviated, much shorter) super famous, and like every Korean knows this. When we went to noraebang like everyone could do the chorus of this dance. I really like the song and it's a Kpop classic.
It felt really good to be back at class. I missed it a lot! Our teacher ran up to me and hugged me and made me promise her like 4 times that my ankle was okay. I told her if it hurt I would stop, and she was just happy to have a larger class back I think. I missed her a lot too.
I managed to dance well despite being really out of practice. Also the song is hella fast. The moves aren't hard but there are so many so fast. @_@ Head spinning. I did keep messing up the chorus a lot, but got it by the end. Ahhh it was so fun! I really loved it a lot. And now I know an iconic dance!
First we watched the boys plat a Korean version where you don't actually hit the balls into the pockets. In fact, there are no pockets.
After playing that for a bit, we switched over to pocketball. Through luck of the draw, Tina and I were on a team and Grace was on the other team with her brother and boyfriend. We were so convinced we would lose but since they played more of the other kind of pool before, or didn't play pool much before, or whatever, it was actually a more even match.
I used to spend a lot of time in grad school playing pool with the guys at the Hickey Tavern (pour one out for the nights I spent there... looks off into the distance) so I'm actually not terrible at pool. I'm barely passable and I don't do strategy very well, but I'm not bad at angles and whatnot.
Tina actually has pretty bad depth perception and didn't spend two years playing drunk pool on Thursday nights while avoiding her responsibilities, but she was really clutch. I was really proud of her.
She made a really hard shot, and in her excitement she thrust the cue into the ceiling, putting a hole in it.
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| Post-excitement |
There are a ton of holes in the ceiling so obviously this happens a lot.
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| She could not stop laughing. None of us could. Thankfully Grace had the presence of mind to snap pics so we could always remember this. |
As you can see from the picture, it was almost 1 AM, so we all headed home after a very fulfilling evening. I love hanging out with all the people in the group, so it was really really great.
Sunday, Tina and I watched our drama and tried to order food before dance class. We used Yogiyo, and app that lets you order from a bunch of different restaurants in range. We ordered from a different place than last time, and like 10 minutes later I got some calls from different numbers. Then someone texted me and said in Korean "Answer your phone please" and they didn't call again then another text that said "contact me." I don't answer numbers I don't know. so I was like what. I texted back in Korean "Who is this?" and when they didn't answer I said "Sorry I'm a foreigner so I can't speak Korean well."
No answer. No call.
After our food should have arrived, we called the number from the website. We were informed that my apartment is too far. We pressed further and they said "You didn't answer the phone." How you only gonna call one time? Why didn't they just text me it was too far? None of the numbers matched: the site, first call, and second call/text were all different numbers. ???????????
So we ordered from a place we had used before and got to eat our jajjangmyeon while getting ready for dance.
I decided to go back to dance class since I've been wearing my cast for a month and was resting my ankle previously. I wanted to feel out how it was, and while it's a little sore now I think it's fine. I'll keep monitoring it, but right now my muscles just feel a little tight from disuse.
I really really wanted to learn this week's dance: Girls' Generation's "Gee." It's pretty iconic in kpop. It was the song that basically made SNSD (the Korean name for them abbreviated, much shorter) super famous, and like every Korean knows this. When we went to noraebang like everyone could do the chorus of this dance. I really like the song and it's a Kpop classic.
I managed to dance well despite being really out of practice. Also the song is hella fast. The moves aren't hard but there are so many so fast. @_@ Head spinning. I did keep messing up the chorus a lot, but got it by the end. Ahhh it was so fun! I really loved it a lot. And now I know an iconic dance!
My group!
Tina's group. They look like a real girl group haha. So cute!
As GG/SNSD had 9 members originally (sadly down to 8 now), it looks best in a whole group! Nice job ladies! It was really so much fun.
I'm glad I went. I hope I didn't hurt my ankle more, but it feels no more or less weird than it usually does, so whatever. I was going to learn this dance no matter what!
This week is the first full week of school and I meet my 3rd graders, so we'll see how it goes. I'm excited to have a routine again. I have 2 weeks to study for the TOPIK, so I am gonna be focusing on that when I don't have lessons to plan and or am at home. Most of my dramas are ending and I really don't want to have to take the test again to pass level 2, so I hope I can do it! Just gotta keep studying.
I'm off to do that, actually. Then to relax a bit and get ready for my week. Send good vibes so my ankle stops being dumb and so that my kids aren't too crazy.
Lots of loooooooooove~
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