Life Updates
The weather has been getting really chilly lately. Gumi got its first snow yesterday, and the wind was like a monster. I was scared last night because the wind was howling all night and things were whipping around outside. I left my TV on for a long length of time because I was freaked out.
Lately my coworkers have been commenting that it seems like I’ve been dieting, because it looks like I lost a lot of weight. I don’t think I lost much, but I never eat breakfast. I eat lunch at school but when I come home, for some reason, sometimes I have no appetite and occasionally skip dinner too.
Recently I’ve been trying to change my bad eating habits. I eat a lot of processed foods because I want to eat quickly and easily, but I’ve been cooking regular meals lately. I made chicken cutlets with boiled broccoli and stuffing the other day, quesadillas yesterday, and home fries with eggs for dinner tonight. I have to say, I paid a pretty penny for that cheddar cheese ($7), but I guess certain luxuries are worth it. I was pleased to find that they sell tortilla wraps at the grocery store near my house…those are hard to find in Korea.
Thanksgiving
So, because of finals, I did a late Thanksgiving lesson. I taught the lesson to my 5th graders yesterday, and taught it again to my 6th graders today. It went pretty well with my 5th graders yesterday, but surprisingly, the lesson went a lot better with my 6th graders today. My worst/least favorite class, 6-3, was strangely well behaved and enthusiastic today. The cote even left the classroom for a good chunk of time, and I had almost no issues controlling them. I felt a huge wave of relief today, like I had tamed a beast (but just for one day). Since finals are over, class management is definitely going to be an issue from now on, I’m sure of it.
So for my lesson I showed the students a PPT on Thanksgiving culture in the USA, and showed them what my family Thanksgiving is like. For some reason they were the most impressed with the pictures of my house, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade came in 2nd (they loved the Spiderman balloon). After that I had my students make turkey feathers by tracing their hands and writing what they are grateful for on the hands. They don’t really eat turkey or have turkeys here, so most of my kids were amused by the giant turkey cut out I made. I labored over that bulletin board…it took me at least 2 hours to make. For some reason Korea doesn’t sell pre-cut borders for bulletin boards, so I had to make everything from scratch. After they finished I had them paste their feathers to the bulletin board. My male cote from 6-1 was really impressed. He asked if I made the turkey, and he said I’m really good at art. I told him it took me a long time to make and we laughed together.
Lastly, after class, I made the kids do a Scavenger Hunt. During class time I had them make teams and gave a handout. I had taped up 10 pictures of the Thanksgiving vocab I taught them during class time around the school. The idea was great, but the execution…not so much. The biggest problem was that despite telling them not to take the pictures I put up, and despite explaining this in Korean (by some of my cotes and writing it on the PPT), some mischievous kids decided to pull them down (I guess to stop other teams from finding them).
This kept happening on both days and I had to keep reprinting and re-posting the pictures, because other students told me they saw the tape and the pictures were missing. Today a lot of 6th graders handed in the worksheet, but yesterday a lot of students didn’t hand theirs in. I guess it’s because the pictures were missing? Either way, I went a little crazy. I wrote “손대지마요” all over them “Don’t touch” but they did it anyway.
The cute thing is that I bonded with some younger students, I think they were 3rd graders. I don’t teach younger students, so this was a rare chance. They noticed me searching for the pictures, and they quickly told me they saw the pictures and showed me. They wanted to play the game too and were having a lot of fun. They were two cute little boys, and one of them kept following me around. They couldn’t speak any English, and one boy asked if I really knew how to speak English. I laughed as he told me to demonstrate. I asked why, and he seemed disappointed. I said “Hi how are you doing?” And he shouted excitedly in Korean that I speak English really well haha.
He followed me back to my classroom and kept asking what I’m doing, and then asked for candy when he saw it in my classroom. I gave him a piece of chocolate and he left. When he came back he said to himself that he didn’t know that the chocolate I gave him was so delicious, because he’s never tried it before. He asked for more. I gave him some candy and sent him away, but he came back two more times, bringing more 3rd graders with him. I gave them small pieces of candy, and sent them away again. It was adorable…but I can’t help but think I was being a pushover haha.
I guess the highlight of my week is that I continue to talk more and more with these two students I like in my 6-1 class, Gichang and Wooyeong, the two boys that are really good at English. Honestly, all of the boys in 6-1 are so well behaved. They are smart, kind, and polite. I really love the boys in 6-1’s class, and some of the girls are really good too. I guess it’s the elementary school phase…? But a lot of them tend to be quite catty and cliquey. So surprisingly, I’ve formed stronger bonds with more of my boy students than girl students.
The girls cause more problems sometimes. While I do have a handful of girls I’m close too, I’m closer to more of the boy students. I really love the girls in my 6-3 class though, they are both very sweet and one of them happens to be the smartest girl in the school. I guess I relate the most to her because she has a passion for reading, and she likes art too. She’s so nice, and her English is really good. Those are all my updates for now~
