Honestly, now.

I don’t know how many people know the story of “How Anne Got Promoted to Head CSM,” but this story is very, very similar.

And if you don’t know the story, I’m just too tired to write it.

But the short of it is this: I got promoted today.  As of today, I’m head teacher.  My feelings are mixed.  I think I can do a good job.  However, I do have my concerns.  The relationship between the last head teacher with all the other teachers was……..well……we’ll just say there was some distance there.  My main concern is that I don’t wind up like that.  I’m paranoid enough already.

But other than that (okay, there’s a few other things too, but I know they’ll be okay), I’m pretty happy.  I have to give up a few classes (which is going to be pretty sad for me, I really enjoy those kids).

Hmmmm………I think I’ll go have supper.

So in the past month, I’ve been extremely busy.  (However, I’m still holding out on sending four people their Christmas packages.  Shipping is expensive and I wanted to eat this week.   But I promise they will soon be on their merry way. )

On December 16th, we had the Avalon Christmas party.  There was a talent show (we got third).  Most of the pictures I took didn’t turn out that well.  And I’m not terribly sure I’d post of them if I had any of me.  It was fun for a while, but the show ran long (really, really long).  Most of the skits were either dance numbers (which were fun to watch) or in Korean (so I didn’t really understand).  Probably the funniest part of the night was the fact that Justin had Sandy (new guy) running and fetching him beers.  He wasn’t even drinking them.  Well, it didn’t take long for Justin to have a nice stash of beer squirrelled under the table.  

Later that week, Eric and I went out for galbi.  It seems that every Sunday night, Eric and I end up eating dinner together.  (The first two times, it was just happenstance.  The third time, it was funny.)  Sometimes it’s Italian.  Sometimes it’s Korean, but either way it’s a nice way to unwind.   Even if he is Canadian. 

After that, the shopping for Christmas Eve dinner began.  I made a double batch of beef burgandy.  I was worried that it wouldn’t turn out that well, but it did.  Yeah!  In Korea, grocery shopping is a social activity (at least for the forigners).  So Chris, Sean, Matt and I all ended up at Homever.  (And thus Sean ends up posing in front of the wall of soju.)

The party went well.  It was held at Chris’s place (because I didn’t want to clean).  I made beef burgandy.  Sean made some wicked eggnog. (There was a lot of eggnog.  I thought there was way, way too much.  However, it was all gone by the end of the night.  It was really good.  However, it was also extremely strong.)   Rachel and Heather brought mashed potatoes and veggie curry.  It was nice to spend time with people during the holidays.

The next day, Sean made pancakes for brunch.  Ahh…….pancakes.  It’s been such a long time since I’ve had them.  We (Rachel, Chris, Sean and myself) ate breakfast and watched old Christmas cartoons.  (Horribly politically-incorrect cartoons.  One of the cartoons was about a bunch of children wanting to help Santa.  So, of course, the black child was shining Santa’s shoes while the Chinese kid was doing his laundry.)

Later that day, Chris, Rachel and I took a walk down by the river.  The weather was wonderful and it was good to get outside after eating so much.

I was concerned that Christmas would be a let down this year.  However, it turned out to be alright.

I didn’t even have the usual post-Christmas let down.  Partly because on the day that I got back from work, I had a Christmas package waiting from Kristin!  That made my day.

The next day, I found out that I got the vacation request I put it.  (Yeah!  If all works out well, qkslvrwolf is coming to visit.  Here’s hoping.)  Earlier that day, I tested for my yellow belt in TKD.  Granted, it’s still a really low belt, but progress is still nice.  I’m going to try and go more often, but I don’t know when I’ll find the time.  I’m not expecting to get my black belt any time soon, but I’d like to have my red belt before I leave Korea.)

Again, I’d like to warn everyone that I’ll be extremely busy during the month of January.  Usually, I teach about 17 classes a week (each class is 80 minutes).  However, during intensive, I’ll be teaching between 20-25 classes a week.  I’m trying to pick up some overtime.  I’ll probably be at the school all day (well, from noon until 10p.m.).  I don’t know how I’m going to fit in a lot of things (such as TKD).  However, I’ll try and post a few times next month.   Have a good one!

The new semester started this week.  Great!  New kids that I can corru…..er……teach.  So I started in and there was a knock at the door.  It was Wayne (my brand-new-shiny supervisor!).  He asked if it was okay if he sat in on the class and watched me observe.

I’ll admit, I was nervous.

But it turns out that I don’t suck!  I’m a pretty good teacher.   It’s not that I thought I was bad.  But it’s difficult to really judge how well you’re doing without much (if any) feedback.  Well, I’m doing okay.  Better than okay, in fact.

I like most of my new classes.  They’re pretty good kids.

Well, I’d better go.  I have Korean lesson tomorrow and I need to make copies for class.

Okay, catch-up time.  Here’s what’s been going on recently.

1. Mikey left Avalon.  His contract was up and he got a better job at a public school (more pay, less work).  I’m really going to miss him.  Didn’t matter how crap the day, Mikey could always ALWAYS make me laugh.  Most of that due the fact that a lot of the things I was thinking on the inside, Mikey was straight up saying.  You could tell him anything and he’d just reply with, “These aren’t the judging pants,” and then offer his advice.  Or offer to bitch-slap someone for you.  Yeah, he’ll only be a few subway stops away and he has a lot of friends here in Migeum, so he’ll be back all the time.  In fact, he showed up at school just the other day.  But still, Mikey…….you will be missed.  Alot.

2. Christmas is different in Korea (yeah, statement of the obvious, I know).  It’s a holiday that still commercialized (but not as bad as the states), but no one is really excited about it.  Most people go to church and then spend the day with friends.  I hit the markets for Christmas shopping.  It was a long day, but fun.  There’s a temple near the market.  So, I couldn’t resist the picture.

On the way home, I tried to take pictures of the Han River from the subway car.  It’s didn’t really turn out the way I wanted it to, but I still like the photo.  I love that part of the ride into Seoul.  Everytime I go over the river (and through the woods, I know, I know) I make a mental note to come back sometime just to take some shots of the it.  But I just can’t seem to find the time.  That, and I’d like to wait until summer.

I keep discovering new and fun features on my camera.  I guess I should really get around to reading the manual for it, but that require finding it first.

It’s quite a bit faster to take the bus, but the bus drivers drive like the cab drivers so I’m sticking to the subway most of the time.  There’s something rather safe and comforting about the subway……..I’m a chicken, I know.  (Heck, taking my garbage out still makes me nervous.)  However, there still certain amout of stress that I just don’t want to deal with and the bus system in one of them.  For now.  It’s rather limiting to my traveling desires, but I figure that I’ll get it down eventually.  I’m just not in a hurry about it.  At all.

And here’s a picture of home.  Ahhh………Migeum.   Of all the times I imagined myself abroad, I never really figured on it looking like this.

3.  Finally, a picture of one of my favorite classes.  These were the kids that would usually make my day better (they were my last class).

So one semester has almost ended.  Monday marks a new semester.  Things should be interesting around here.  They’ve opened up an Avalon campus is Yongin, which will take a lot of the kids away from Migeum.  That’s just fine with me.  Our campus is the largest one and we have a whole lot of students.

We had a meeting the other day.  It was all about how our classroom should run, how to deal with discipline issues, etc.  And aside from getting really annoyed at some of the teachers there (the loud, obnoxious ones in the back), I was pretty happy about the whole thing.  It’s great to have someone (finally!) tell me what to do in the class room.  I don’t think I was doing a bad job, but I still think I could do a whole lot better.

And first on my list of reolutions about next semester: become more organized.  This is going to be a difficult one for me.  I like to be organized, but my trouble is that I’m rather lazy about keeping it up.  I let things slide one day, then two, then everthing’s a mess and I’m overwhelmed.   I’ll start with my desk.  (It’s kinda bad at the moment.)  Next Monday (new semester), I’m going to come in early and plan for all my classes.  And I mean all.  I want to have each book tabbed with the lesson of that day.  (Each book being reading book and work book.  And I want to write out waaaaay in advance the work I want to do in the work book. )

Next, discipline starts with me.  I hate enforcing rules.  Usually I’m not too bad about doing it, but I’ve gotten sloppy in the past few weeks.  Everything is supposed to be fair and consistent and you can’t have one without the other.

I think I’ve learned a few things.  I know that I don’t really like snack parties.  (There’s no organization and that grates on me.)  I prefer cross words to word searches.  And a few other things that I can’t think of at the moment.

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately.  I’ve been pretty busy lately.  I have Tae Kwon Do three mornings a week and Korean exchange once a week.  And one morning to be lazy.  Then school in the afternoon/evenings and then home and bed.  And weekends are devoted to Christmas shopping and preparing for Christmas Eve dinner.  I’ll work on it this weekend.  Well, maybe.  There is the Avalon Christmas party on Saturday and then Sunday will be recovering form the Avalon Christmas party.

So maybe I’d better post some pictures tonight.  Cheers!

So the other day Rachel and I went to Chris’s apartment to decorate.  (His mom sent a box of stuff to make his place all Christmasy.)  It was a whole ton ‘o fun!  Christmas is a little more difficult that I had anticipated.  I just figured that, after eight years in retail, I would be ready for a break for all of the holiday spirit.  Turns out that I kinda miss it.  It’s strange here because while all of the retailers still try to capitalize off of it, nobody really does much for Christmas.  I’m going to miss oyster soup on Christmas Eve.  Sugar cookies.  The smell of cedar.  Dad falling asleep under the tree.  The anticipation of seeing all of my family at once (and the chaos that ensues).  I’ll miss watching Christopher rip into his gifts.  I’ll miss Hank (I won’t miss Elvis, but I will miss making fun of him.)  I’ll miss eating a huge meal and then wandering off to take a nap.

I’ll miss a whole lot.  But that’s okay, I’m lucky for it.

But I will still have my holiday.  So this year, Christmas began this week with Rachel and Chris,  a box full of decoration, a bottle of wine, and a whole bunch of Christmas music.

I must say, we had a great time.  After admitting that we were being dorks, we decorated the tree (and apartment), wore silly hats, danced around to Christmas music, talked about home, danced around some more and generally acted silly.  It was awesome.

I got to teach Rachel a bit of swing dance (6-count basic, Charleston, etc.).  I wanted to teach Chris, but he wasn’t so enthusiastic.  We took photos to send back home and post on our blogs.  (Chris was having issues keeping his eyes open for pictures.)  I’m glad these two live in my building.  (My building’s name is Arion.  Sean often calls it “The Dorm.”  He’s not wrong.  It’s not uncommon to see one of us in the elevator with a pillow.  We often have movie nights and most people don’t have enough chairs or bed space.  Combine that with the fact that it’s fairly easy to know all the Westerners in the building and it really does remind me of freshman year of college.)

The silly hats were a nice touch.

Oh, and thank you to Chris’s mom for sending him the goodies.  They were well appreciated by all.

Ah.  Good times.   The rest of this is mostly just photos.  I think I’m going to wander off to bed.  Take care of yourself.

This isn’t the most politically correct blog.  And while part of me feels bad and really insensitive about posting this, most of me is fairly certain that most of you will appreciate it.

I was teaching the other day (as I am wont to do) and one of the vocab words was “special.”  After reviewing the book definition and asking several kids to use it in a sentence, we moved on. But one student (John) kept yelling out, “TEACHER!  I’M SPECIAL!!!!”  He wouldn’t knock it off.  Now while I loath to give any student detention, that does not mean that I don’t control my classroom (most of the time).

So in the spirit of education for the real world (because most of these kids will end up in a University in the States at some point) and classroom management, I taught them what special was slang for.

Matt (John’s friend) was drinking water.   Water came out his nose.   The poor kid had to leave the room to wash his hands.

But order was restored, John quieted down, and the lesson continued.

This picture is brought to you by Daniel.  “Teacher” is supposed to be me.  I’m nice to my kids, I swear!

Another post of mostly photos.  I went into Seoul a few times this weekend to do some Christmas shopping.  And while I REALLY want to take pictures of what I bought and post them, that would ruin some surprises.   But near Damdaemun (I think I’m spelling that right.  I’m really just too lazy to get the Loney Planet and check) there’s a temple in the middle of an intersection.

It was a long weekend, but a good one.  It’s Monday and I’m feeling a bit guilty for skipping Tae Kwon Do, but I’ve slept for ten hours and I’m still exhausted.

So I decided that I would stay home and  be lazy instead.  Oh yeah, I figured out how to work my heater.   Wow,  radiant heat through the floor is wonderful.  I can see why people sleep on the floor.

I could get used to this.

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The weekend was cold.  (And you know it’s cold when the Canadians are complaining.)  But honestly, it wasn’t too bad.  It’s a dry cold so it doesn’t seem as bad.

At times, it was quite windy as well (and that wasn’t fun).  But it never fails.  Just when you think that you’d really like to own a parka, a Korean woman will walk by in a mini-skirt that I wouldn’t wear in the summer.

My friend Chris finds this aspect of the country rather endearing.  (But then again, he claims if he were ruler of the world, women would get government-issued mini-skirts.  Well, only the hot women and there would be a screening committee.)

But other than cold and windy, it was a great weekend.  Sarah, Kerri, and I ate a nice Italian place on Saturday.  They forgot my order, so we each got a free glass of wine.

Oh yeah, and I went to the book store and picked up a few books for my winter reading.

Last picture is a bit random.  These are my Tae Kwon Do instructors.  On the left is Master J.  and on the right is our junior instructor (affectionally called Chuck Norris).