June 29 Monday
It was hot today!! Around 3pm it was 84 degrees but felt like 88.(according to The Weather Channel)
I don't know what coward called me at 9:30am. I didn't answer. I don't know who it was because they disabled their info so I couldn't see the number.
It was just an ordinary day. Mondays are usually good. I only have 3 classes.
In my first class we took a test and then we went over 3 pages of material.
In my 2nd class I was giving 3 different tests. There was a makeup test for one student. Then 2 students took a test that covered material from the last class. Its really hard to make tests when students are absent. I can't make them take a test when they missed the material. Then I had a seperate test for my child that missed 2 classes in a row. I also showed him what pages to study in the book so he can take the test that the rest of the class took. I gave him an old test from when he was in another level-I couldnt test him on something he hadn't learned. My 10 year old in that class is so adorable. He's the troublemaker, but he's fun to joke around with. Today he changed his name again. He changes it every class. He told me he wanted to be Koala today. He picks random animals from a poster in the class. Today my students had a lot of energy. They found out that I had colored chalk and they all wanted to write on the board. Later they kept moving around the room-changing desks. We didn't really accomplish anything today in class because of having to give so many tests.
Tonight I had dinner with Johnny Depp. We went to McDonalds. We talk to each other a lot. The other teachers say he talks to me too much. He likes to practice his English. Its good to have someone who does want to talk to me during my breaks when Im bored to death and trying to look at every possible website I can think of. I don't want my readers to get the wrong impression--I don't "like" Johnny Depp. (If you haven't been reading-the real johnny depp does not live in Seoul. A Korean guy picked this name as his English name) If you've been reading for some time you know that I've got my eye on one particular guy although I'm too shy to ask him to hangout. It's complicated.
Its very different here where everyone wants to talk to the foreign person. It's like everyone wants to know everything about me. In the USA I was used to being ignored and now I get tons of attention.
It is so funny when the middle school girls talk to me at school.All they ever say is "hello" and "goodbye" and they giggle a lot.
I can tell that my highest level class don't do their CD rom activities. I gave them a test on what we learned on Wednesday.They both got a 4 out of a possible 10 points. Today we did a writing unit in class. They also got to practice their speaking.There is a part at the end of every lesson where they have to interview their classmate and write a paragraph.
The gym was packed tonight. When I got there at 10pm there was only 1 treadmill open. I got on it for 30 minutes-burned 200 calories. I wanted to cycle also but all the machines were full so I just decided to go home. As I was leaving Lesley was looking for me. She was talking to the PT and looking around. (The PT was wearing shorts tonight-he's got nice legs. ha. am I bad for saying that? He also has nice arms. He's a small guy but he's muscular)She got on the wrong bus and got there later than usual. The PT said I should stay and workout again. I went home.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
day 192/193
June 27/28 Saturday/Sunday
It was another lazy weekend. Part of me wants to get out and do things and the other part of me just wants to relax. The relaxing part usually wins.
I did get out and go to the gym on Saturday. I woke up at 2pm and got dressed and headed to the gym. I was standing at the crosswalk and someone started to talk to me. It was the fitness counselor from the gym (the handsome guy at the front desk). He asked me how I was doing and wanted to know where I was going. (I was on my way to the gym). He said he was going to the gym also. He asked if I had eaten lunch yet.(he always likes to ask if I've eaten--which is a normal thing they do in their culture-but it has a very different meaning to them-to them its used as a greeting, but I always answer in the literal sense. He's asking in the literal sense also because when I say yes he will ask "what did you eat?"). I told him I hadn't and he wanted to know why. I told him I just hadn't eaten yet. What I didn't tell him was that I had just woke up 45 minutes ago. I'm not too quick on my feet when trying to think of what to say.After crossing the road he went somewhere before heading to the gym. At the gym I just walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes while watching various things on tv.
At night I went out to celebrate Lesley's birthday-She turned 24 on the 28th. We were meeting in Itaewon to watch a rugby game with her boyfriend and coworker. We were at a pub called 'Dinkins Lounge.' Everyone in our group was drinking Cass. I find it interesting that everyone thinks I'm so weird because I don't drink. I've tried stuff but there isn't anything I like. Plus I just don't see the point of drinking and doing crazy things. People do stupid stuff when they are drunk! I don't want to have a moment where I'm so drunk that I can't even remember what I did the next day. I'd rather stay sober and remember my night. I'll just stick to my soda. The British and Irish Lions were playing South Africa. Lesley is from South Africa and follows the rugby team. She told me South Africa's colors were gold and green. Her and her boyfriend were wearing south africa shirts. I wore a Saint Patricks day shirt since its the only green thing I had! Which was actually funny since its an Irish holiday(and the other team was Irish although their color was red). Anyway I was a neutral spectator. I didn't care who won or lost. I didn't even know what rugby was. There were a lot of people there cheering for the british/irish team. I'd never seen a rugby game so she explained a few things. Its sorta like American football, but there are differences. I stayed for half of the game then left at 11pm so I could catch the subway. I left at halftime. When I left South Africa was losing.
Sunday was a lazy day. I went to bed at 6:30am and got up at 5pm.
The only place I went was GS25 to buy garbage bags and to E-mart to eat at McDonalds and buy some food.
I'm finally caught up with 'The Bachelorette.' I'm really not liking Wes. The show is created to make drama and they edit it to make certian people look bad. He's just looking really bad! I think he was there to promote his music career. She shouldn't have let Jake go.She should have let Michael or Wes go and kept Jake. But her problem with Jake was that he was 'too perfect'.When he was gone he was talking about how nice guys finish last. He just needs to find a girl who appreciates nice guys. My favorites are Kiptyn and Reid. She thinks Reid is neurotic.haha. It seems like some big things are going to be happening soon. Jake is coming back to tell that Wes has a girlfriend. Then somebody is coming back at the end before she is ready to pick her final person. I'm ready to see the hometown dates.
It rained today. First official rain of the monsoon season. It was just a light rain.
I'm considering staying at home for vacation. I really want to go somewhere, but all the expenses are really adding up. I have estimated that I'll spend around 600,000 (@500 usd). I don't want to spend that much. I don't really want to spend 160,000 won(@125usd) for a one hour plane ride. I think I'd rather stay at home and do things that are inexpensive thn i dont have to pay for a plane or a hotel. I could spend a week doing touristy things in Seoul. I could go to the zoo, palaces, and other things and probably end up spending less than 50,000 won.
I've got to stop spending so much money. One of my goals was to save up for a new car (I wanted a Hyundai Genesis Coupe, but I think I need to be more realistic and get a 2009 corolla). I've been here 6 months and I haven't really saved anything. I've just been living like I have a lot of money and spending on frivilous things like fast food nearly everyday. I like not having to worry about money. I live on very little but I spend too much on things i shouldn't be buying. The bulk of my money that I will be saving will be coming at the end of my contract. I'll have my last month's salary and a months salary for severance. Almost a months salary for pension and I'll get my security deposit back.
Billy Mays died..He was 50..he was the person who did the Oxiclean commercials.
I'm starting to slowly teach myself some Korean. I know most of the alphabet and I can write a little. They have 24 letters in their alphabet-10 vowels and 14 consonants. I just need to spend a little more time, but really it might be a waste of time since I am definatly leaving in 8 months. When I get to America knowing Korean isn't going to mean anything. I don't know anyone who speaks Korean and its not something you need for a job. North and South Carolina don't have a huge Korean population. I'd never even met a Korean before actually coming to Korea. I need to concentrate on my Spanish. That's something that would actually be useful. There is a huge latino population in my area in SC. (I should open a Spanish/English hagwon in SC--I could teach English and knowing Spanish would also help me..haha)
It was another lazy weekend. Part of me wants to get out and do things and the other part of me just wants to relax. The relaxing part usually wins.
I did get out and go to the gym on Saturday. I woke up at 2pm and got dressed and headed to the gym. I was standing at the crosswalk and someone started to talk to me. It was the fitness counselor from the gym (the handsome guy at the front desk). He asked me how I was doing and wanted to know where I was going. (I was on my way to the gym). He said he was going to the gym also. He asked if I had eaten lunch yet.(he always likes to ask if I've eaten--which is a normal thing they do in their culture-but it has a very different meaning to them-to them its used as a greeting, but I always answer in the literal sense. He's asking in the literal sense also because when I say yes he will ask "what did you eat?"). I told him I hadn't and he wanted to know why. I told him I just hadn't eaten yet. What I didn't tell him was that I had just woke up 45 minutes ago. I'm not too quick on my feet when trying to think of what to say.After crossing the road he went somewhere before heading to the gym. At the gym I just walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes while watching various things on tv.
At night I went out to celebrate Lesley's birthday-She turned 24 on the 28th. We were meeting in Itaewon to watch a rugby game with her boyfriend and coworker. We were at a pub called 'Dinkins Lounge.' Everyone in our group was drinking Cass. I find it interesting that everyone thinks I'm so weird because I don't drink. I've tried stuff but there isn't anything I like. Plus I just don't see the point of drinking and doing crazy things. People do stupid stuff when they are drunk! I don't want to have a moment where I'm so drunk that I can't even remember what I did the next day. I'd rather stay sober and remember my night. I'll just stick to my soda. The British and Irish Lions were playing South Africa. Lesley is from South Africa and follows the rugby team. She told me South Africa's colors were gold and green. Her and her boyfriend were wearing south africa shirts. I wore a Saint Patricks day shirt since its the only green thing I had! Which was actually funny since its an Irish holiday(and the other team was Irish although their color was red). Anyway I was a neutral spectator. I didn't care who won or lost. I didn't even know what rugby was. There were a lot of people there cheering for the british/irish team. I'd never seen a rugby game so she explained a few things. Its sorta like American football, but there are differences. I stayed for half of the game then left at 11pm so I could catch the subway. I left at halftime. When I left South Africa was losing.
Sunday was a lazy day. I went to bed at 6:30am and got up at 5pm.
The only place I went was GS25 to buy garbage bags and to E-mart to eat at McDonalds and buy some food.
I'm finally caught up with 'The Bachelorette.' I'm really not liking Wes. The show is created to make drama and they edit it to make certian people look bad. He's just looking really bad! I think he was there to promote his music career. She shouldn't have let Jake go.She should have let Michael or Wes go and kept Jake. But her problem with Jake was that he was 'too perfect'.When he was gone he was talking about how nice guys finish last. He just needs to find a girl who appreciates nice guys. My favorites are Kiptyn and Reid. She thinks Reid is neurotic.haha. It seems like some big things are going to be happening soon. Jake is coming back to tell that Wes has a girlfriend. Then somebody is coming back at the end before she is ready to pick her final person. I'm ready to see the hometown dates.
It rained today. First official rain of the monsoon season. It was just a light rain.
I'm considering staying at home for vacation. I really want to go somewhere, but all the expenses are really adding up. I have estimated that I'll spend around 600,000 (@500 usd). I don't want to spend that much. I don't really want to spend 160,000 won(@125usd) for a one hour plane ride. I think I'd rather stay at home and do things that are inexpensive thn i dont have to pay for a plane or a hotel. I could spend a week doing touristy things in Seoul. I could go to the zoo, palaces, and other things and probably end up spending less than 50,000 won.
I've got to stop spending so much money. One of my goals was to save up for a new car (I wanted a Hyundai Genesis Coupe, but I think I need to be more realistic and get a 2009 corolla). I've been here 6 months and I haven't really saved anything. I've just been living like I have a lot of money and spending on frivilous things like fast food nearly everyday. I like not having to worry about money. I live on very little but I spend too much on things i shouldn't be buying. The bulk of my money that I will be saving will be coming at the end of my contract. I'll have my last month's salary and a months salary for severance. Almost a months salary for pension and I'll get my security deposit back.
Billy Mays died..He was 50..he was the person who did the Oxiclean commercials.
I'm starting to slowly teach myself some Korean. I know most of the alphabet and I can write a little. They have 24 letters in their alphabet-10 vowels and 14 consonants. I just need to spend a little more time, but really it might be a waste of time since I am definatly leaving in 8 months. When I get to America knowing Korean isn't going to mean anything. I don't know anyone who speaks Korean and its not something you need for a job. North and South Carolina don't have a huge Korean population. I'd never even met a Korean before actually coming to Korea. I need to concentrate on my Spanish. That's something that would actually be useful. There is a huge latino population in my area in SC. (I should open a Spanish/English hagwon in SC--I could teach English and knowing Spanish would also help me..haha)
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Day 191....Michael Jackson is dead...
June 26 Friday
I walked in to work today and I was greeted with "did you hear the news?". And Im thinking what are they talking about? and then they tell me "Michael Jackson died. wow.
3 celebs have died this week: Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.
Classes were good today.
We didn't have time to cover any new material in my first class. We just took 2 tests. They all did pretty good on both tests.
In my 2nd class we took one test then we covered a few pages of material. They got to draw and color today in class.Its my lowest level. Our words were things like shirt, pants, jacket, shoes. They had to listen to the cd. They would say "my shirt is blue" so they had to write blue in the blank and then color it. I was laughing at the cd. The kids didn't think it was funny but it was funny to me. One of the characters said "Im a cowboy. My jacket is brown. My pants are blue. etc" I was laughing because of the accent. It sounded like a southern cowboy.ha. After we studied I let them play a game. The same game that levels 2 and 3 love using the last letter of the previous word. Its great for building vocabulary.
My 3rd class was good. We had 2 tests, went over homework, and then we did 2 pages of a writing unit. I think the 3 girls in the back of the class do thier tests together. They all missed the same questions. "Columbus was a famous inventor" "Bell was a famous explorer" "Henry was a famous queen" haha.(those are their answers)
I finally found episodes of "The Bachelorette" online-I watched one at work tonight. Wow. Men can be just as catty as women. Its crazy. I like most of the guys. I can't stand David-I don't know why she keeps him around. He seems like a real jerk. I think Juan is really cute but all the guys hate him. They also hate Wes-they think he's there for his music career and that he has a girlfriend. I think Tanner is funny with his whole feet obsession. So far I'm up to episode 4. I'm only 2 episodes behind I think so I don't know who is currently still in the running and I'd prefer to keep it that way.
While I was waiting on the train these 3 middle school boys started talking to me. They said hello and wanted to know where I was from. They said I was cute. They asked me if I thought they were handsome. I said yes. Then they said "choose". They assigned numbers to themselves and asked me to choose but I didn't want to choose although I did think number 3 was the most handsome. haha.
I went to the gym alone tonight. I just walked 45 mins on the treadmill. I was searching through the channels and I finally found the channel I was looking for. There's an English movie every Friday night. Tonight I was watching "Pride and Prejudice". I liked it. I only saw 40 mins of it.
Afterwards I went to hangout with 2 of the Korean teachers. I took a taxi to where they were. One of the teachers talked to the taxi driver on the phone and told him where to go. We probably hung out for about an hour. We had chicken and I drank coke and they drank beer. One of the teacher's husband came to pick up his wife and they took me to my officetel. One thing I love about Seoul is how there are tons of places that are open late even a lot that stay open 24 hours. All of the convienent stores are open 24 hours. Its the city that never sleeps. We were at the restaurant till about 12:50am.
I don't have much on the agenda for the weekend. I may go check out a palace on Sunday. Tomorrow I'm going to hangout for Lesley's birthday. We are meeting at a bar and watching a rugby game. I've never seen a rugby game before. I don't even really know what rugby is, but I will find out. The South African team is playing the british and irish lions. (Lesley is from South Africa)
I walked in to work today and I was greeted with "did you hear the news?". And Im thinking what are they talking about? and then they tell me "Michael Jackson died. wow.
3 celebs have died this week: Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.
Classes were good today.
We didn't have time to cover any new material in my first class. We just took 2 tests. They all did pretty good on both tests.
In my 2nd class we took one test then we covered a few pages of material. They got to draw and color today in class.Its my lowest level. Our words were things like shirt, pants, jacket, shoes. They had to listen to the cd. They would say "my shirt is blue" so they had to write blue in the blank and then color it. I was laughing at the cd. The kids didn't think it was funny but it was funny to me. One of the characters said "Im a cowboy. My jacket is brown. My pants are blue. etc" I was laughing because of the accent. It sounded like a southern cowboy.ha. After we studied I let them play a game. The same game that levels 2 and 3 love using the last letter of the previous word. Its great for building vocabulary.
My 3rd class was good. We had 2 tests, went over homework, and then we did 2 pages of a writing unit. I think the 3 girls in the back of the class do thier tests together. They all missed the same questions. "Columbus was a famous inventor" "Bell was a famous explorer" "Henry was a famous queen" haha.(those are their answers)
I finally found episodes of "The Bachelorette" online-I watched one at work tonight. Wow. Men can be just as catty as women. Its crazy. I like most of the guys. I can't stand David-I don't know why she keeps him around. He seems like a real jerk. I think Juan is really cute but all the guys hate him. They also hate Wes-they think he's there for his music career and that he has a girlfriend. I think Tanner is funny with his whole feet obsession. So far I'm up to episode 4. I'm only 2 episodes behind I think so I don't know who is currently still in the running and I'd prefer to keep it that way.
While I was waiting on the train these 3 middle school boys started talking to me. They said hello and wanted to know where I was from. They said I was cute. They asked me if I thought they were handsome. I said yes. Then they said "choose". They assigned numbers to themselves and asked me to choose but I didn't want to choose although I did think number 3 was the most handsome. haha.
I went to the gym alone tonight. I just walked 45 mins on the treadmill. I was searching through the channels and I finally found the channel I was looking for. There's an English movie every Friday night. Tonight I was watching "Pride and Prejudice". I liked it. I only saw 40 mins of it.
Afterwards I went to hangout with 2 of the Korean teachers. I took a taxi to where they were. One of the teachers talked to the taxi driver on the phone and told him where to go. We probably hung out for about an hour. We had chicken and I drank coke and they drank beer. One of the teacher's husband came to pick up his wife and they took me to my officetel. One thing I love about Seoul is how there are tons of places that are open late even a lot that stay open 24 hours. All of the convienent stores are open 24 hours. Its the city that never sleeps. We were at the restaurant till about 12:50am.
I don't have much on the agenda for the weekend. I may go check out a palace on Sunday. Tomorrow I'm going to hangout for Lesley's birthday. We are meeting at a bar and watching a rugby game. I've never seen a rugby game before. I don't even really know what rugby is, but I will find out. The South African team is playing the british and irish lions. (Lesley is from South Africa)
Friday, June 26, 2009
Day 190...my favorite animal is a unicorn
June 25 Thursday
Well today was much better than Tuesday!
I just hate that I'll have to give some many makeup tests. I gave 2 tests today. In my first class one student was absent. In my second class 1 student was absent. I don't even know how to test him because he has missed 4 classes and hasn't learned any of the material in the new book. There was one student in my 3rd class who was late and there wasn't enough time to give him the test. Another student in that class was absent. So I have to give 4 makeup tests on Tuesday. yuck.
In my first class all of the students lost their essay papers. So I gave them another one. Hopefully they turn it in. I gave them 2 tests today. They did well on both tests. They were also well behaved (as always). We only had enough time to do one activity in the book. I assigned the cdrom exercises for the next unit so they would have a head start on what we will be doing next class. I hate having to give so many tests. On days when I have to give tests there isn't much time to cover other material.
In my 2nd class we took 2 tests. After the tests there wasn't much time left so I let them play a game while I graded tests. They all did pretty good on both tests.
During my break I was sitting at my computer talking to Johnny Depp. haha. I showed him my homepage on facebook and he showed me his homepage on cyworld. I saw some pics of him when he was younger-baby pics, high school pics, pics from when he was in the military(military service is required here), and college pics. We were talking about music and other things. He likes all kinds of music. he was telling me how much he likes electronic, techno, house, heavy metal. He also told me he was good at firing guns. We talked for a long time. Its hard at times because of the language barrier. Sometimes we can't understand each other and I have to talk really slow most of the time so he can understand.
The Korean teacher talked to my 3rd class before class started. They were the class I had the most problems with on Tuesday. She talked to them in Korean so I don't know what she said. Whatever she told them it worked. It was like night and day. I think she slipped some magic tranquilizers or something.haha. They were very well behaved. They didn't talk during the tests. I didn't have to tell them to be quiet at all. We finished the unit and reviewed then I let them play a game for 10 minutes. They all did okay on the tests except for one student who made a 35 on the writing test.
My 4th class always gives me problems. They aren't being really bad, but they like to talk to each other and do their work really slowly and talk in between. So whatever they don't finish I just make them do it for homework. I gave them 3 pages for homework. All of the students did pretty good on the writing tests. I could definatly tell they haven't done the activities on their cdrom yet.They all did very poorly on the material that we learned on Tuesday. The highest score was a 4 out of a possible 10 points. One of the students was trying to cheat. He was trying to look at his book in his bookbag. I took his bookbag away and put it on the desk behind him. One of the girls looked at him and told me "he's cunning". I actually understand-Its Konglish for 'cheating'.
My 5th class was good. They took their writing test and we finished up a unit in our writing book. Then they had a little free time. I wasn't planning on giving them a test on Tuesday but they asked for one. I told them to study unit 1 of their book.
I think about half of my students turned in their essays. One of them was particularly funny.
Level 4 had to write about their favorite animal. The student didn't write in complete sentences but it was funny reading his answers.
What is your favorite animal: unicorn
What does it look like: parents
What does it eat: meats
Where does it live: Gusan (in Seoul)
Well today was much better than Tuesday!
I just hate that I'll have to give some many makeup tests. I gave 2 tests today. In my first class one student was absent. In my second class 1 student was absent. I don't even know how to test him because he has missed 4 classes and hasn't learned any of the material in the new book. There was one student in my 3rd class who was late and there wasn't enough time to give him the test. Another student in that class was absent. So I have to give 4 makeup tests on Tuesday. yuck.
In my first class all of the students lost their essay papers. So I gave them another one. Hopefully they turn it in. I gave them 2 tests today. They did well on both tests. They were also well behaved (as always). We only had enough time to do one activity in the book. I assigned the cdrom exercises for the next unit so they would have a head start on what we will be doing next class. I hate having to give so many tests. On days when I have to give tests there isn't much time to cover other material.
In my 2nd class we took 2 tests. After the tests there wasn't much time left so I let them play a game while I graded tests. They all did pretty good on both tests.
During my break I was sitting at my computer talking to Johnny Depp. haha. I showed him my homepage on facebook and he showed me his homepage on cyworld. I saw some pics of him when he was younger-baby pics, high school pics, pics from when he was in the military(military service is required here), and college pics. We were talking about music and other things. He likes all kinds of music. he was telling me how much he likes electronic, techno, house, heavy metal. He also told me he was good at firing guns. We talked for a long time. Its hard at times because of the language barrier. Sometimes we can't understand each other and I have to talk really slow most of the time so he can understand.
The Korean teacher talked to my 3rd class before class started. They were the class I had the most problems with on Tuesday. She talked to them in Korean so I don't know what she said. Whatever she told them it worked. It was like night and day. I think she slipped some magic tranquilizers or something.haha. They were very well behaved. They didn't talk during the tests. I didn't have to tell them to be quiet at all. We finished the unit and reviewed then I let them play a game for 10 minutes. They all did okay on the tests except for one student who made a 35 on the writing test.
My 4th class always gives me problems. They aren't being really bad, but they like to talk to each other and do their work really slowly and talk in between. So whatever they don't finish I just make them do it for homework. I gave them 3 pages for homework. All of the students did pretty good on the writing tests. I could definatly tell they haven't done the activities on their cdrom yet.They all did very poorly on the material that we learned on Tuesday. The highest score was a 4 out of a possible 10 points. One of the students was trying to cheat. He was trying to look at his book in his bookbag. I took his bookbag away and put it on the desk behind him. One of the girls looked at him and told me "he's cunning". I actually understand-Its Konglish for 'cheating'.
My 5th class was good. They took their writing test and we finished up a unit in our writing book. Then they had a little free time. I wasn't planning on giving them a test on Tuesday but they asked for one. I told them to study unit 1 of their book.
I think about half of my students turned in their essays. One of them was particularly funny.
Level 4 had to write about their favorite animal. The student didn't write in complete sentences but it was funny reading his answers.
What is your favorite animal: unicorn
What does it look like: parents
What does it eat: meats
Where does it live: Gusan (in Seoul)
N Korea warned of a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090625/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear_118
the paper blasted a recent U.S. pledge to defend South Korea with its nuclear weapons, saying that amounted to "asking for the calamitous situation of having a fire shower of nuclear retaliation all over South Korea."
the paper blasted a recent U.S. pledge to defend South Korea with its nuclear weapons, saying that amounted to "asking for the calamitous situation of having a fire shower of nuclear retaliation all over South Korea."
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Day 189 emotional rollercoaster
June 24 Wednesday
These days I'm on an emotional rollercoaster. I went up the hill on Monday. Tuesday I went down the hill. Today I was going up a hill. Who knows what tomorrow will hold?
Tomorrow is officially the start of Monsoon season in South Korea. So basically its time to take the umbrella with me everywhere I go. I checked the forecast--its suppose to rain with thunderstorms Monday-Friday of next week. This weekend actually looks pretty nice. sunny and anywhere from 86-90 degrees. Maybe I should get out and enjoy the weather while I can before it starts raining! Maybe I'll go to a palace. I might even consider going to the zoo.
My M/W/F classes are actually good. Tues/Thurs likes to give me problems. I told the Korean teacher that 2 of the classes gave me problems yesterday. She's going to talk to them before my classes on Thursday.
I went to the bank today to pay my internet bill. After I paid it there was this middle aged Korean lady who wanted me to show her how to use the machine. After I got through she was looking at me like 'show me' so I showed her. She said 'thank you' in Korean after I helped her.
Afterwards something funny happened. I was running to the bus because it was stopped behind another bus and right before I got to the bus I fell on the ground. I think I fell off the curb or something. haha. Then I got on the bus.
So today was actually a good day.
My first class was good. 3 of my students didn't bring their books so I had to make copies of the lesson for them. The students were very well behaved. They actually were begging to participate. We were writing an email to a email friend using an example in our book. "Hi! I'm Valerie. I'm American and I'm from the USA. I'm short and fat. I have light hair and green eyes. My favorite color is blue." After they wrote the information I got them to read to the class. I picked someone to go first then the students would say "me next, then me, then me". I feel like they enjoyed the lesson today.
In my 2nd class we took 2 tests and then I let them have free time to play a game. They did good on their speaking test. I took material from the book and took some white out and they had to fill in the blanks for a conversation. Then they had a writing test. The student that was absent last time didn't have to take the test but I showed him what pages to study so he can take it on Monday. I don't know how I'm going to test the student who has missed 2 classes. After the tests, there wasn't really enough time to cover much material. We played the same game we usually play. It was them against me. No one won or lost so we did rock/paper/scissors to determine who would buy the snacks.haha. I lost R/P/S so I gave the 2 children 500 won to buy a snack. The other child didn't want anything.
During my breaks I was talking to the new guy(he's korean). He thinks its boring working at our school. He's not a teacher. He's like an office assistant. Him and this other guy help out around the office making copies and other tasks. He kept sitting down at the Korean teacher's desk and had to keep getting up because she came to sit down.He told me his English name was Johnny Depp. Haha. His English is okay but there are a lot of times we don't understand each other.
My 3rd class was having a bit of trouble. I had to keep explaining to them how to do the speaking activities. They are in the highest level and don't usually need a lot of guidance. I think the concept of chores and using 'always, usually, sometimes and never' confused them. Hopefully they will do their CD ROM exercises so they can get a grasp on the material.
I asked most of my students if they had done the activities on the CD ROM and most of them said they hadn't.
My 4th class was good. We had a productive class. Everyone participated and they all had good behavior. I actually got 5 essays from this class!(there were 9 students present). I don't have my new books yet for this class. They just ordered them today. I asked them when were my new books coming and they said they haven't ordered them yet because they thought I wasn't finished with the other book yet. Well I wasn't finished with the other book but I would have liked to have my new books. I won't be able to finish the new book by the end of August. oh well. We'll get as much done as we can. Excuses, excuses. They knew I needed that book.
Yesterday the personal trainer at the gym asked me and Lesley if we could bring him an English newspaper. He wants to work on his English. I brought him one today. I also gave him 2 of my student newspapers that I got when I worked at Avalon. They are geared toward students but they will still be beneficial for someone who wants to practice English.
These days I'm on an emotional rollercoaster. I went up the hill on Monday. Tuesday I went down the hill. Today I was going up a hill. Who knows what tomorrow will hold?
Tomorrow is officially the start of Monsoon season in South Korea. So basically its time to take the umbrella with me everywhere I go. I checked the forecast--its suppose to rain with thunderstorms Monday-Friday of next week. This weekend actually looks pretty nice. sunny and anywhere from 86-90 degrees. Maybe I should get out and enjoy the weather while I can before it starts raining! Maybe I'll go to a palace. I might even consider going to the zoo.
My M/W/F classes are actually good. Tues/Thurs likes to give me problems. I told the Korean teacher that 2 of the classes gave me problems yesterday. She's going to talk to them before my classes on Thursday.
I went to the bank today to pay my internet bill. After I paid it there was this middle aged Korean lady who wanted me to show her how to use the machine. After I got through she was looking at me like 'show me' so I showed her. She said 'thank you' in Korean after I helped her.
Afterwards something funny happened. I was running to the bus because it was stopped behind another bus and right before I got to the bus I fell on the ground. I think I fell off the curb or something. haha. Then I got on the bus.
So today was actually a good day.
My first class was good. 3 of my students didn't bring their books so I had to make copies of the lesson for them. The students were very well behaved. They actually were begging to participate. We were writing an email to a email friend using an example in our book. "Hi! I'm Valerie. I'm American and I'm from the USA. I'm short and fat. I have light hair and green eyes. My favorite color is blue." After they wrote the information I got them to read to the class. I picked someone to go first then the students would say "me next, then me, then me". I feel like they enjoyed the lesson today.
In my 2nd class we took 2 tests and then I let them have free time to play a game. They did good on their speaking test. I took material from the book and took some white out and they had to fill in the blanks for a conversation. Then they had a writing test. The student that was absent last time didn't have to take the test but I showed him what pages to study so he can take it on Monday. I don't know how I'm going to test the student who has missed 2 classes. After the tests, there wasn't really enough time to cover much material. We played the same game we usually play. It was them against me. No one won or lost so we did rock/paper/scissors to determine who would buy the snacks.haha. I lost R/P/S so I gave the 2 children 500 won to buy a snack. The other child didn't want anything.
During my breaks I was talking to the new guy(he's korean). He thinks its boring working at our school. He's not a teacher. He's like an office assistant. Him and this other guy help out around the office making copies and other tasks. He kept sitting down at the Korean teacher's desk and had to keep getting up because she came to sit down.He told me his English name was Johnny Depp. Haha. His English is okay but there are a lot of times we don't understand each other.
My 3rd class was having a bit of trouble. I had to keep explaining to them how to do the speaking activities. They are in the highest level and don't usually need a lot of guidance. I think the concept of chores and using 'always, usually, sometimes and never' confused them. Hopefully they will do their CD ROM exercises so they can get a grasp on the material.
I asked most of my students if they had done the activities on the CD ROM and most of them said they hadn't.
My 4th class was good. We had a productive class. Everyone participated and they all had good behavior. I actually got 5 essays from this class!(there were 9 students present). I don't have my new books yet for this class. They just ordered them today. I asked them when were my new books coming and they said they haven't ordered them yet because they thought I wasn't finished with the other book yet. Well I wasn't finished with the other book but I would have liked to have my new books. I won't be able to finish the new book by the end of August. oh well. We'll get as much done as we can. Excuses, excuses. They knew I needed that book.
Yesterday the personal trainer at the gym asked me and Lesley if we could bring him an English newspaper. He wants to work on his English. I brought him one today. I also gave him 2 of my student newspapers that I got when I worked at Avalon. They are geared toward students but they will still be beneficial for someone who wants to practice English.
N Korea threatens to wipe the USA off the map...
N Korea is now threatening the USA...I don't think they have the capability to wipe the USA off the map though...anyway now instead of constantly wanting to fight with S Korea they want to go after the USA...
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all,"
Here's a link to the article (copy and paste it into your browser):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_koreas_nuclear
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all,"
Here's a link to the article (copy and paste it into your browser):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_koreas_nuclear
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Day 188
June 23 Tuesday
I am so stressed out. I don't want to feel this way!
So I have collected essays in 7 of my classes classes so far and I have a total of 6 essays. I think I have around 50 kids in all. I'm giving them one extra day then I'm giving up and calling their parents. well I wont be calling but having someone do it for me. I have to assign it but they won't turn it in. One of the students in my class told me I didn't give one to her. I know I did. I gave her another copy. Then when I ask for it some of the kids just pull out the piece of paper where they haven't written anything.
My first class was good. We had lots of speaking time in class. They all participated. The lesson went well I think. Only one of the 3 students did their exercises on their cdrom. No one brought their essay.
We didn't get anything accomplished in my 2nd class. 1 person brought their essay. 2 students were absent and my student who missed 3 classes is finally back. I gave them a test and it took up most of the class time. Then I just let them have free time.
My 3rd class is horrible! I have to keep telling them to be quiet. Some one came and knocked on our door and asked me to make them be quiet. I'm trying. I yell at them constantly. They won't quit talking in Korean. Then I have this one kid who is always late so I'm waiting on him to finish the test so I can start class and he is just chatting away with the boy next to him. I had to tell him to finish his test. Today we only got one page of material done. I'm going to tell the Korean teacher that they wouldn't behave in my class. I'll let her deal with them.
My 4th class was good except for the students rushing the lesson. Both students had their essays today. I guess today's lesson was just too easy because they were doing it fast. They also like to read the material fast-They always want class to be over fast so they can have free time. At least they comprehend the material. I guess thats all that matters-that they understand.
My 5th class was being bad. Last speaking class I brought in my laptop to show them the lesson. Today one of the students was begging for me to bring it again. I wouldn't. Its too much trouble to have to carry my laptop to class although it would be helpful for the lesson. The students wouldnt do the activities correctly. I asked them to read together as a class. They read each sentence one by one. 4 students. so I would say "I do the dishes everyday". Then they should read it together as a class but instead they read it one by one. frustrating. I told them to read together but they didn't listen. Then I actually gave them speaking time and they wouldn't do it correctly. If any of the parents complain again about not speaking enough I'll tell them that I give them opportunities but they refuse to do it. I wonder if they will actually do the activities on the cdrom. If they don't then they are only hurting themselves because whats on the cd will be on the test. I'm going to tell the Korean teacher that the students wouldn't behave in my class and let her deal with them.
I think I need a stick like the Korean teachers.I don't think having a stick would be a good idea for me. I might hit them too hard. Then its child abuse. I'd love to just beat the mess out of them. I'm not a violent person. really. I wish there was something I could do to make these kids behave. Their parents need to teach them some respect! They are driving me crazy! I still have 7 1/2 months of this crap!! How will I ever survive?
After Thursday I'm throwing a whole lot of work at the Korean teachers. I know most of my students wont turn in their essay so the Korean teacher is going to have a long list of people to call.
I have to start making writing tests tomorrow. yuck! I hate writing tests. They take up all of the class time because even though the test is always the same format they still don't understand.
I think I need to start making the tests ridiculously hard. Then everyone will wonder why they are getting bad grades. If they don't turn in their essay after the teacher calls their parents then I'm just going to give them an "F" for their assignment grade. I'm tired of being nice. Then maybe their parents will notice that they aren't doing their work and they will knock some sense into them.
I am so stressed out. I don't want to feel this way!
So I have collected essays in 7 of my classes classes so far and I have a total of 6 essays. I think I have around 50 kids in all. I'm giving them one extra day then I'm giving up and calling their parents. well I wont be calling but having someone do it for me. I have to assign it but they won't turn it in. One of the students in my class told me I didn't give one to her. I know I did. I gave her another copy. Then when I ask for it some of the kids just pull out the piece of paper where they haven't written anything.
My first class was good. We had lots of speaking time in class. They all participated. The lesson went well I think. Only one of the 3 students did their exercises on their cdrom. No one brought their essay.
We didn't get anything accomplished in my 2nd class. 1 person brought their essay. 2 students were absent and my student who missed 3 classes is finally back. I gave them a test and it took up most of the class time. Then I just let them have free time.
My 3rd class is horrible! I have to keep telling them to be quiet. Some one came and knocked on our door and asked me to make them be quiet. I'm trying. I yell at them constantly. They won't quit talking in Korean. Then I have this one kid who is always late so I'm waiting on him to finish the test so I can start class and he is just chatting away with the boy next to him. I had to tell him to finish his test. Today we only got one page of material done. I'm going to tell the Korean teacher that they wouldn't behave in my class. I'll let her deal with them.
My 4th class was good except for the students rushing the lesson. Both students had their essays today. I guess today's lesson was just too easy because they were doing it fast. They also like to read the material fast-They always want class to be over fast so they can have free time. At least they comprehend the material. I guess thats all that matters-that they understand.
My 5th class was being bad. Last speaking class I brought in my laptop to show them the lesson. Today one of the students was begging for me to bring it again. I wouldn't. Its too much trouble to have to carry my laptop to class although it would be helpful for the lesson. The students wouldnt do the activities correctly. I asked them to read together as a class. They read each sentence one by one. 4 students. so I would say "I do the dishes everyday". Then they should read it together as a class but instead they read it one by one. frustrating. I told them to read together but they didn't listen. Then I actually gave them speaking time and they wouldn't do it correctly. If any of the parents complain again about not speaking enough I'll tell them that I give them opportunities but they refuse to do it. I wonder if they will actually do the activities on the cdrom. If they don't then they are only hurting themselves because whats on the cd will be on the test. I'm going to tell the Korean teacher that the students wouldn't behave in my class and let her deal with them.
I think I need a stick like the Korean teachers.I don't think having a stick would be a good idea for me. I might hit them too hard. Then its child abuse. I'd love to just beat the mess out of them. I'm not a violent person. really. I wish there was something I could do to make these kids behave. Their parents need to teach them some respect! They are driving me crazy! I still have 7 1/2 months of this crap!! How will I ever survive?
After Thursday I'm throwing a whole lot of work at the Korean teachers. I know most of my students wont turn in their essay so the Korean teacher is going to have a long list of people to call.
I have to start making writing tests tomorrow. yuck! I hate writing tests. They take up all of the class time because even though the test is always the same format they still don't understand.
I think I need to start making the tests ridiculously hard. Then everyone will wonder why they are getting bad grades. If they don't turn in their essay after the teacher calls their parents then I'm just going to give them an "F" for their assignment grade. I'm tired of being nice. Then maybe their parents will notice that they aren't doing their work and they will knock some sense into them.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Day 187
June 22 Monday
Today is actually going to be a good day. I need one!
My first class was good. We started a new unit. I let them draw and color for one of the activities in the book. The activity asked for them to draw a hat. One drew a cowboy hat and the other drew a police officer hat. (we were learning words like cowboy, firefighter,police officer, etc.) Then I let them play a game. They did good with the english game. I didn't give them any help. Its the same game that a lot of my lower level students like to play. You use a word with the last letter of the last word. Egg-giraffe-excellent, etc.
When I got out of class there was a capri sun and some kind of snack on my desk. I wonder who gave it to us. A lot of people in the office had one so I think its from someone in the office. I was curious about the snack so I tried one. OMG it was nasty!
My 2nd class was good. They didn't bring their essays. They lost the papers. I gave them a new copy and told them to bring it on Wednesday. We started a new book today. They were good and participated but they kept interruping class to ask various off topic questions like "do you like big bang?" Where are you from? They wanted me to show them on the map in the classroom. Then they point to Mexico and say "pig virus." We had a productive class. I hope they do the CD ROM because its really helpful and reinforces what they learned in class. And if they didn't then I'll know because I'm using activities from the CD ROM for the test. If they did it then they will get a good score. If not, then too bad. I let them play a game 30 minutes into class. We played the same game that they played in the first class. The loser of the game had to buy a snack for the class (there were only 2 students today). I lost-i repeated a word that had already been used. When we were going down the stairs 2 students heard that we were going to get food and they wanted some too so I got some for them. I told them they better be good in my class on Wednesday! haha. I didn't mind getting it for 2 extra students-it was only 1,000 won (about $1).
I had a decent workout at the gym. Almost all of the machines at the gym were full so I cycled for 40 minutes. I cycled 19.6 km (12 miles). I actually tried a higher level-I was cyling on level 6 and 7. I almost burned 200 calories.
I saw the Korean celebrity again. He was at the gym. (Mr. Lee). Lee Hun 이 훈 . He smiled and nodded at me when he caught me glancing over at him while he was working out.haha.
Go to www.naver.com and copy/paste this: 이 훈 a lot of pictures will come up once you click on his picture.
Today is actually going to be a good day. I need one!
My first class was good. We started a new unit. I let them draw and color for one of the activities in the book. The activity asked for them to draw a hat. One drew a cowboy hat and the other drew a police officer hat. (we were learning words like cowboy, firefighter,police officer, etc.) Then I let them play a game. They did good with the english game. I didn't give them any help. Its the same game that a lot of my lower level students like to play. You use a word with the last letter of the last word. Egg-giraffe-excellent, etc.
When I got out of class there was a capri sun and some kind of snack on my desk. I wonder who gave it to us. A lot of people in the office had one so I think its from someone in the office. I was curious about the snack so I tried one. OMG it was nasty!
My 2nd class was good. They didn't bring their essays. They lost the papers. I gave them a new copy and told them to bring it on Wednesday. We started a new book today. They were good and participated but they kept interruping class to ask various off topic questions like "do you like big bang?" Where are you from? They wanted me to show them on the map in the classroom. Then they point to Mexico and say "pig virus." We had a productive class. I hope they do the CD ROM because its really helpful and reinforces what they learned in class. And if they didn't then I'll know because I'm using activities from the CD ROM for the test. If they did it then they will get a good score. If not, then too bad. I let them play a game 30 minutes into class. We played the same game that they played in the first class. The loser of the game had to buy a snack for the class (there were only 2 students today). I lost-i repeated a word that had already been used. When we were going down the stairs 2 students heard that we were going to get food and they wanted some too so I got some for them. I told them they better be good in my class on Wednesday! haha. I didn't mind getting it for 2 extra students-it was only 1,000 won (about $1).
I had a decent workout at the gym. Almost all of the machines at the gym were full so I cycled for 40 minutes. I cycled 19.6 km (12 miles). I actually tried a higher level-I was cyling on level 6 and 7. I almost burned 200 calories.
I saw the Korean celebrity again. He was at the gym. (Mr. Lee). Lee Hun 이 훈 . He smiled and nodded at me when he caught me glancing over at him while he was working out.haha.
Go to www.naver.com and copy/paste this: 이 훈 a lot of pictures will come up once you click on his picture.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Day 186
June 21 Sunday
I think I slept 12 hours today. I remember turning off the lights around 3:30am. Then I tossed and turned for a little bit. I eventually woke up at 5pm. Yes 5pm. I slept half of the day away, but it felt good.
I havent done much. I watched the cd roms for my classes. I'm going to prepare for my classes soon. Pick information off of the cd rom to use in class. I really like the 'welcome to america' series we started at my school. I wish all the classes could use it-its better than the 'twist and shout' that half of my classes are using. I like it because it comes with the cd rom. I'll cover the info in class then assign the cd rom as homework so they will get to hear the material again. It also provides a lot of speaking activities for the children to do. I just wish I could have all the extra materials that go along with the program-class cds, teacher's guide, workbook, and flashcards (I would purchase it on my own but it would be well over 100,000 for the 3 levels I teach.I shouldn't have to use my own money for teaching materials). I know the school won't purchase those things for me. All I have is the student book. I'm teaching out of the student book. There are questions in the book where you have to listen to the cd and circle the correct answer. I guess I'll have to make something up for those parts because i dont even have the cds. There are other parts where they are suppose to sing the song, but I dont have cds. The song is on their cd rom so they will have to listen at home. And I won't really know who is listening at home and who is just forging the signature or just asking their parent to sign without listening.
I have essays due this week. Monday, Tues, and Wed. If they don't turn it in I'm going to get the Korean teacher to call their parents. I've already had one student who didn't turn theirs in but I'll cut him some slack this time since he is a brand new student.
I ended up not going to the soccer game. I really wanted to go, but I didn't want to go in the rain. There will still be other games I can go to between now and November when soccer season ends.
I wanted to get out and go somewhere today, but I decided to stay in and sleep. I'll probably be spending the next month at home. I don't like going places in the rain. I like to take pictures and I'm not going to risk messing up my camera by getting it wet.
I think I slept 12 hours today. I remember turning off the lights around 3:30am. Then I tossed and turned for a little bit. I eventually woke up at 5pm. Yes 5pm. I slept half of the day away, but it felt good.
I havent done much. I watched the cd roms for my classes. I'm going to prepare for my classes soon. Pick information off of the cd rom to use in class. I really like the 'welcome to america' series we started at my school. I wish all the classes could use it-its better than the 'twist and shout' that half of my classes are using. I like it because it comes with the cd rom. I'll cover the info in class then assign the cd rom as homework so they will get to hear the material again. It also provides a lot of speaking activities for the children to do. I just wish I could have all the extra materials that go along with the program-class cds, teacher's guide, workbook, and flashcards (I would purchase it on my own but it would be well over 100,000 for the 3 levels I teach.I shouldn't have to use my own money for teaching materials). I know the school won't purchase those things for me. All I have is the student book. I'm teaching out of the student book. There are questions in the book where you have to listen to the cd and circle the correct answer. I guess I'll have to make something up for those parts because i dont even have the cds. There are other parts where they are suppose to sing the song, but I dont have cds. The song is on their cd rom so they will have to listen at home. And I won't really know who is listening at home and who is just forging the signature or just asking their parent to sign without listening.
I have essays due this week. Monday, Tues, and Wed. If they don't turn it in I'm going to get the Korean teacher to call their parents. I've already had one student who didn't turn theirs in but I'll cut him some slack this time since he is a brand new student.
I ended up not going to the soccer game. I really wanted to go, but I didn't want to go in the rain. There will still be other games I can go to between now and November when soccer season ends.
I wanted to get out and go somewhere today, but I decided to stay in and sleep. I'll probably be spending the next month at home. I don't like going places in the rain. I like to take pictures and I'm not going to risk messing up my camera by getting it wet.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Day 185....rainy day
June 20 Saturday
Its been raining all day long. A light but steady rain.
I actually got out of the bed at a decent time. noon. I went to the gym at 2pm.
Walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes while watching "America's Next Top Model" on OnStyle.
I went to Emart to pick up some things today. I know Monsoon season starts on June 25th so I got a bigger umbrella. I've heard the rain gets pretty hard in monsoon season so I needed a tougher and bigger umbrella than the small one I had. It was 11,900 won. I also got a poncho (to wear to the soccer game-I tried it on at home-its too small-i cant get it to button. oh well!). I finally found a decent can opener. I also bought a wallet and a small pocketbook. I also got a fan. A wooden fan that you fold out and fan with.
I'm contemplating going to the soccer game in the rain.
Its been raining all day long. A light but steady rain.
I actually got out of the bed at a decent time. noon. I went to the gym at 2pm.
Walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes while watching "America's Next Top Model" on OnStyle.
I went to Emart to pick up some things today. I know Monsoon season starts on June 25th so I got a bigger umbrella. I've heard the rain gets pretty hard in monsoon season so I needed a tougher and bigger umbrella than the small one I had. It was 11,900 won. I also got a poncho (to wear to the soccer game-I tried it on at home-its too small-i cant get it to button. oh well!). I finally found a decent can opener. I also bought a wallet and a small pocketbook. I also got a fan. A wooden fan that you fold out and fan with.
I'm contemplating going to the soccer game in the rain.
Day 184
June 19 Friday
So I ordered something from Ebay-mineral makeup. When I came home Wednesday there was a note on my door that the package had been dropped off at the post office. I don't know why they didnt leave it with the guard. The package was actually small enough to fit in my mailbox.So I decided I was going to pick it up on Friday. I went to the post office and it took forever! They couldnt find my package.After 30 minutes of searching they finally found it. They need a better organization system so they don't make people wait around for their packages.
I went there at 1:15 pm so I had plenty of time. I thought I'd just walk in and grab my package and be home in a few minutes and then be on time for school. Well I was still in the post office till around 1:50 or so. I didn't get back to my house till 2pm. I sent a text to one of the teachers to let her know I'd be late so she wouldn't call wanting to know where I was.
I got to school at 2:40-40 minutes late. I was the first person there! I don't know why everyone is showing up later and later these days. On monday, wed, and friday the korean teachers didn't come to work till 3pm.
My 1st class was pretty good. I like the new book. It provides a lot of activites for them to practice their speaking. I gave them 2 opportunities to speak with their partner. The cd with the book will be very beneficial if they actually do the work on it. Its an interactive cd rom where they can listen to the story, answer questions and even play a game. I assign it for homework. I won't know if they actually did it or not. I told them to get their parent to sign if they did it but they can just tell their parent to sign without even looking at the cd. I wish I had a DVD version and a way to play it in class but they arent that high tech. I don't even have cds to play the stories. I'm going to use material off of the cd for tests so i'll be able to tell who is actually doing the cd bc they will know the answers.
I hate teaching the lowest level. The material is easy and boring. We just learned things like sit, stand, open, close and the abcs. we just finished unit one. My new student doesn't know how to spell his name in English(he can write it in Korean). He won't even say his name for me. He doesn't want an English name.We had a part in the book where our activity was to ask your partner how to spell their name. Well we couldn't do that section. He doesnt know how to spell his name. After class I asked the Korean teacher to spell how his name because I dont know what to call him in class. She spelled out his Korean name.
My 3rd class was good. We were doing a writing unit. They were all doing their work and not acting up. I'm surprised. This is my biggest class--11 students. They are in one of the upper levels--level 8 out of 10. Sometimes they like to act up-3 boys and 2 girls in particular but today they were really good.
Its so hot!! Its only in the 70s or 80s but the humidity makes it feel so bad. I think its going to be too hot to wear makeup this summer..it will be covered in sweat by the time I walk from my apt to the subway station!
I went to the gym alone. Lesley didn't want to come tonight plus she said she was really tired. I walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes while watching "The Breakup" on OnStyle in English with Korean subtitles. I think they show a movie every Friday night. Last week I watched 45 minutes of "Just My Luck". So every Friday I need to do the treadmill.
So I ordered something from Ebay-mineral makeup. When I came home Wednesday there was a note on my door that the package had been dropped off at the post office. I don't know why they didnt leave it with the guard. The package was actually small enough to fit in my mailbox.So I decided I was going to pick it up on Friday. I went to the post office and it took forever! They couldnt find my package.After 30 minutes of searching they finally found it. They need a better organization system so they don't make people wait around for their packages.
I went there at 1:15 pm so I had plenty of time. I thought I'd just walk in and grab my package and be home in a few minutes and then be on time for school. Well I was still in the post office till around 1:50 or so. I didn't get back to my house till 2pm. I sent a text to one of the teachers to let her know I'd be late so she wouldn't call wanting to know where I was.
I got to school at 2:40-40 minutes late. I was the first person there! I don't know why everyone is showing up later and later these days. On monday, wed, and friday the korean teachers didn't come to work till 3pm.
My 1st class was pretty good. I like the new book. It provides a lot of activites for them to practice their speaking. I gave them 2 opportunities to speak with their partner. The cd with the book will be very beneficial if they actually do the work on it. Its an interactive cd rom where they can listen to the story, answer questions and even play a game. I assign it for homework. I won't know if they actually did it or not. I told them to get their parent to sign if they did it but they can just tell their parent to sign without even looking at the cd. I wish I had a DVD version and a way to play it in class but they arent that high tech. I don't even have cds to play the stories. I'm going to use material off of the cd for tests so i'll be able to tell who is actually doing the cd bc they will know the answers.
I hate teaching the lowest level. The material is easy and boring. We just learned things like sit, stand, open, close and the abcs. we just finished unit one. My new student doesn't know how to spell his name in English(he can write it in Korean). He won't even say his name for me. He doesn't want an English name.We had a part in the book where our activity was to ask your partner how to spell their name. Well we couldn't do that section. He doesnt know how to spell his name. After class I asked the Korean teacher to spell how his name because I dont know what to call him in class. She spelled out his Korean name.
My 3rd class was good. We were doing a writing unit. They were all doing their work and not acting up. I'm surprised. This is my biggest class--11 students. They are in one of the upper levels--level 8 out of 10. Sometimes they like to act up-3 boys and 2 girls in particular but today they were really good.
Its so hot!! Its only in the 70s or 80s but the humidity makes it feel so bad. I think its going to be too hot to wear makeup this summer..it will be covered in sweat by the time I walk from my apt to the subway station!
I went to the gym alone. Lesley didn't want to come tonight plus she said she was really tired. I walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes while watching "The Breakup" on OnStyle in English with Korean subtitles. I think they show a movie every Friday night. Last week I watched 45 minutes of "Just My Luck". So every Friday I need to do the treadmill.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Day 183 "teacher I hate you"
June 18 Thursday
I'm having trouble booking my flight. The site is in Korean so I have to get someone to help me. We couldn't get my info to go through. We put in my Korean check card and he wasn't working. Then we tried my American card and it wouldn't go through. I don't know what the problem is. We are going to try again tomorrow. I may just end up giving her the money and letting her put it on her card.
I was telling the Korean teacher that I was taking the whole last week of July off for vacation. She said our vacation was July 30-31st. I told her I was taking the whole week. She said "we have class on Mon-Wed." I told her that Sunny said I could take the whole week. (the Koreans only get the 30-31st). She wanted to know why my vacation was longer. I think Native speakers get better 'benefits' than the Korean teachers. We get more vacation time.
My first class was good...There were 3 students..We started a new book today.They all did their work and participated. They actually did the activities without much instruction which was nice. I gave them 2 chances in class to speak to their partner. It was an odd amount of people so I was one student's partner.
My 2nd class didn't follow directions. I gave them speaking time to talk about a section in the book. They had to look at the picture and tell if that person liked or didn't like the specific food. They were talking about other things during class speaking time.One of the students was complaining about having to do work in class. She said we studied hard on Tuesday and that we needed a game today. I told her we have to study hard everyday. She told me she hated me. She said "teacher I hate you" She didn't say it in a hateful way. She just doesn't like that I make her do work in class.
My 3rd class was terrible! I gave them a test on the months of the year. I forgot that the months were listed on the wall. So the students were cheating. oh well. I gave them some new rules to follow but they didn't listen! I told them no talking during the test but they were talking. I also told them to only speak in English. They didn't like that and well they spoke in Korean anyway. I yelled at them a lot. I had to keep telling them to be quiet because they were really loud. Plus I kept yelling "ENGLISH". They say "I don't want to speak English". When I gave them speaking time they weren't doing it correctly. 2 of the boys were loud and the 2 girls also. the new student is always quiet. One of my students always shows up late. Today when he came in we were already on the last page of the lesson. He missed 2 pages of work. All during class they were begging for a game. I got frustrated and I told them that they weren't getting a game because they wouldn't behave. So we had class up until the last second of class. We were talking about holidays today. They don't even know what Mothers day and Fathers day are. They don't celebrate those here. The students thought it meant their mother and father's birthdays. I had to tell them that we have holidays called mothers day and fathers day.(They have a Parents Day in May)
My 4th class starts at 7:40. The Korean teacher was still in the classroom at 7:43. (I never go over my class time. The Korean teachers go to class late sometimes and stay in class past break time) Then the students took their break during my class time so I lost about 10 minutes of my class time. I just made the students do a lot of homework because we couldn't finish the lesson in class-I gave them a lot of homework-an essay and 3 pages of work in their writing book, but I didn't give homework on Tuesday so...
My last class was good. We were talking about simple past in our writing activities. I think they really grasped the material. I had to help them figure out a few things. I covered half of the unit and then let them have free time.
I assigned essays in all of my classes this week. I wonder if they will turn them in on time-3 people turned them in early. 4 of my students were absent when I assigned the essays so now I have to keep up with who I need to get it from at a later date. If the students don't turn them in then I will just get the Korean teachers to call their parents to let them know that they aren't doing their work.
I saw on Yahoo news today that North Korea might shoot a missile towards Hawaii. North Korea has been in the news a lot lately because they have started up their nuclear program and the other countries don't like it. North Korea vows to retaliate if they are provoked. I personally don't think they will do anything. I think they just want everyone to think they will or they will do a surprise attack because no one believes they will really do it. hmm.
I'm having trouble booking my flight. The site is in Korean so I have to get someone to help me. We couldn't get my info to go through. We put in my Korean check card and he wasn't working. Then we tried my American card and it wouldn't go through. I don't know what the problem is. We are going to try again tomorrow. I may just end up giving her the money and letting her put it on her card.
I was telling the Korean teacher that I was taking the whole last week of July off for vacation. She said our vacation was July 30-31st. I told her I was taking the whole week. She said "we have class on Mon-Wed." I told her that Sunny said I could take the whole week. (the Koreans only get the 30-31st). She wanted to know why my vacation was longer. I think Native speakers get better 'benefits' than the Korean teachers. We get more vacation time.
My first class was good...There were 3 students..We started a new book today.They all did their work and participated. They actually did the activities without much instruction which was nice. I gave them 2 chances in class to speak to their partner. It was an odd amount of people so I was one student's partner.
My 2nd class didn't follow directions. I gave them speaking time to talk about a section in the book. They had to look at the picture and tell if that person liked or didn't like the specific food. They were talking about other things during class speaking time.One of the students was complaining about having to do work in class. She said we studied hard on Tuesday and that we needed a game today. I told her we have to study hard everyday. She told me she hated me. She said "teacher I hate you" She didn't say it in a hateful way. She just doesn't like that I make her do work in class.
My 3rd class was terrible! I gave them a test on the months of the year. I forgot that the months were listed on the wall. So the students were cheating. oh well. I gave them some new rules to follow but they didn't listen! I told them no talking during the test but they were talking. I also told them to only speak in English. They didn't like that and well they spoke in Korean anyway. I yelled at them a lot. I had to keep telling them to be quiet because they were really loud. Plus I kept yelling "ENGLISH". They say "I don't want to speak English". When I gave them speaking time they weren't doing it correctly. 2 of the boys were loud and the 2 girls also. the new student is always quiet. One of my students always shows up late. Today when he came in we were already on the last page of the lesson. He missed 2 pages of work. All during class they were begging for a game. I got frustrated and I told them that they weren't getting a game because they wouldn't behave. So we had class up until the last second of class. We were talking about holidays today. They don't even know what Mothers day and Fathers day are. They don't celebrate those here. The students thought it meant their mother and father's birthdays. I had to tell them that we have holidays called mothers day and fathers day.(They have a Parents Day in May)
My 4th class starts at 7:40. The Korean teacher was still in the classroom at 7:43. (I never go over my class time. The Korean teachers go to class late sometimes and stay in class past break time) Then the students took their break during my class time so I lost about 10 minutes of my class time. I just made the students do a lot of homework because we couldn't finish the lesson in class-I gave them a lot of homework-an essay and 3 pages of work in their writing book, but I didn't give homework on Tuesday so...
My last class was good. We were talking about simple past in our writing activities. I think they really grasped the material. I had to help them figure out a few things. I covered half of the unit and then let them have free time.
I assigned essays in all of my classes this week. I wonder if they will turn them in on time-3 people turned them in early. 4 of my students were absent when I assigned the essays so now I have to keep up with who I need to get it from at a later date. If the students don't turn them in then I will just get the Korean teachers to call their parents to let them know that they aren't doing their work.
I saw on Yahoo news today that North Korea might shoot a missile towards Hawaii. North Korea has been in the news a lot lately because they have started up their nuclear program and the other countries don't like it. North Korea vows to retaliate if they are provoked. I personally don't think they will do anything. I think they just want everyone to think they will or they will do a surprise attack because no one believes they will really do it. hmm.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Day 182....better videos this time...
June 17 Wednesday
So I'm being videotaped again today.
My first class was better than last time. We started a new book today. I didn't have much time to prepare since I got the book about 30 minutes before class. I made copies for all the kids. I could have used the actual book, but no one bothered to say 'hey we have books for the kids now'. I taught out of a student book. Why don't I get a teacher's book? Anyway the kids were better behaved. I told them to only speak in English but I still heard some Korean. I gave them plenty of time to talk to each other. They asked questions in pairs. I have an odd number of students so there will always have to be a group of 3. The kids like the guy who is taping the class. he's new at our school. They try to talk to him during class. I assigned them an essay today. 2 of them actually turned it in early.
My 2nd class was okay. One of the kids was sick and wasn't really paying attention. Why would you send a kid to school if he is sick? He didn't look good. You could tell he didn't feel good, but I couldnt just let him sit there and not participate. I'm being videotaped. I had to keep telling him to look at his book and pay attention. I had to keep telling the kids 'speak in English'.The kids wouldn't all read together as a class. Sometimes 1 was reading later 2 were reading but they didnt all wasnt to read at the same time. Then I gave them time to talk to each other and they wouldnt do it right. All they had to say was "how do you spell your name?". They would ask in Korean or not ask the right question or point to their name on the attendance sheet. IM TRYING TO GET YOU TO PRACTICE SPEAKING!!! See what I have to work with? Parents want me to make the kids talk, but when I make them talk they dont want to do the right thing. They wouldn't sing along with the cd. One of the kids changes his name every class. He always wants to be animals. Today he was goat then cow 2. While I was writing homework on the board and trying to explain they really werent paying attention. Some of them said "bye teacher." Class wasn't over. They were being rude by not listening. Okay-if they dont turn it in I'm going to tell the korean teacher. After class the guy that was video taping said that I did a good job teaching. He said I had a 'shiny smile'. What ever that means. haha.
all the kids love the camera guy. They all came by to talk to him after class. During my first class one kid asked if the camera guy could be his speaking partner. i said no.
During break I was sitting here preparing for class and making copies and the Korean teacher told me that I didnt need to copy. They already had the books. Well why didn't they tell me???? I asked about a teacher's guide. She said to use the student book. But I dont have the cds that Im suppose to play in class and I dont know the answers to what goes in the blank because its on the cd. I have no way to play the listening part for the kids. Instead of "i'll get a teacher's guide" they said "I'll ask Sunny". (She's the person in charge of teachers) JUST GIVE ME A STINKIN TEACHERS GUIDE!! man, I'm the teacher I need the correct materials.
This school makes me mad. It gets worse everyday. I actually think this school is worse than my old school. I just can't find a good school!! I definatly don't reccommend this experience, but hey if you are looking for a (bad) adventure then go for it. If anyone ever wants to ask me about the school (someone researching the school) after I'm gone-I'll say "no comment. Its that bad. If I say what I really want to say then they won't ever get a new teacher to replace me when I'm gone.
My third class only had one student so there was no video. We just went over our lesson as usual. We started a new book and we were able to cover the whole prep unit.
My 4th class was perfect. They were well behaved. They did all their work and we had a lot of speaking time. That will be the best video.
I am so glad the videos are done!! They can't say the videos were bad this time. They were actually good.
I need a new laptop soon. I'll still keep my laptop because all my stuff is saved on it. I think I might get a netbook or full size laptop-Im not sure. My laptop is 2 years old. The keys are starting to fall off! my F3 key fell off a while ago. Today the letter "C" fell off. It still works-there just isnt a cover on the key.
I missed the gym tonight. Okay I was at the subway waiting for the train then this man started talking to me. He was a Korean but spoke really good English. We were getting off at the same stop so he continued to talk to me. At first I thought maybe he was just trying to convince me to stay another year and teach in public school. (which he was at first-telling me the benefits of teaching at a public school and how its better than a hagwon)(He is a retired professor and taught English for over 20 years in high school, middle school and he was a professor in a college)(His English was good-I actually understood everything he said). Well after we got off the train he continued to talk and talk and talk and talk. I wanted to go to the gym, but I didn't want to turn away someone who wanted to speak to me. He wants to give me tips on how to teach effectively. He said next time we meet he will bring me copies from a book about how to teach English as a foreign language. I agreed to meet him sometime. He was so excited to talk to me. I was actually surprised to meet someone with good English skills. (you dont meet many of those in Korea). He thanked me for listening to him and for giving him the time to speak to me. We may meet on Sunday. He said if I wanted to go some where in Seoul he could go with me. It would be nice to have my own tour guide and someone who can give me tips on how to better teach. I'l admit that I'm not that great of a teacher. He's taught English for over 20 years (one of his majors was English teaching). He was also giving me tips about walking out at night. He said to be careful and wear a hat so no one can tell you are a foreigner. I've never felt unsafe at night. I've been walking around late and no one has ever tried to bother me. After we finished talking I looked at my watch. It was 11:05pm! (we got off the train around 9:45 pm. He talked to me for over an hour!) I decided not to go to the gym since it closes at midnight.
So I'm being videotaped again today.
My first class was better than last time. We started a new book today. I didn't have much time to prepare since I got the book about 30 minutes before class. I made copies for all the kids. I could have used the actual book, but no one bothered to say 'hey we have books for the kids now'. I taught out of a student book. Why don't I get a teacher's book? Anyway the kids were better behaved. I told them to only speak in English but I still heard some Korean. I gave them plenty of time to talk to each other. They asked questions in pairs. I have an odd number of students so there will always have to be a group of 3. The kids like the guy who is taping the class. he's new at our school. They try to talk to him during class. I assigned them an essay today. 2 of them actually turned it in early.
My 2nd class was okay. One of the kids was sick and wasn't really paying attention. Why would you send a kid to school if he is sick? He didn't look good. You could tell he didn't feel good, but I couldnt just let him sit there and not participate. I'm being videotaped. I had to keep telling him to look at his book and pay attention. I had to keep telling the kids 'speak in English'.The kids wouldn't all read together as a class. Sometimes 1 was reading later 2 were reading but they didnt all wasnt to read at the same time. Then I gave them time to talk to each other and they wouldnt do it right. All they had to say was "how do you spell your name?". They would ask in Korean or not ask the right question or point to their name on the attendance sheet. IM TRYING TO GET YOU TO PRACTICE SPEAKING!!! See what I have to work with? Parents want me to make the kids talk, but when I make them talk they dont want to do the right thing. They wouldn't sing along with the cd. One of the kids changes his name every class. He always wants to be animals. Today he was goat then cow 2. While I was writing homework on the board and trying to explain they really werent paying attention. Some of them said "bye teacher." Class wasn't over. They were being rude by not listening. Okay-if they dont turn it in I'm going to tell the korean teacher. After class the guy that was video taping said that I did a good job teaching. He said I had a 'shiny smile'. What ever that means. haha.
all the kids love the camera guy. They all came by to talk to him after class. During my first class one kid asked if the camera guy could be his speaking partner. i said no.
During break I was sitting here preparing for class and making copies and the Korean teacher told me that I didnt need to copy. They already had the books. Well why didn't they tell me???? I asked about a teacher's guide. She said to use the student book. But I dont have the cds that Im suppose to play in class and I dont know the answers to what goes in the blank because its on the cd. I have no way to play the listening part for the kids. Instead of "i'll get a teacher's guide" they said "I'll ask Sunny". (She's the person in charge of teachers) JUST GIVE ME A STINKIN TEACHERS GUIDE!! man, I'm the teacher I need the correct materials.
This school makes me mad. It gets worse everyday. I actually think this school is worse than my old school. I just can't find a good school!! I definatly don't reccommend this experience, but hey if you are looking for a (bad) adventure then go for it. If anyone ever wants to ask me about the school (someone researching the school) after I'm gone-I'll say "no comment. Its that bad. If I say what I really want to say then they won't ever get a new teacher to replace me when I'm gone.
My third class only had one student so there was no video. We just went over our lesson as usual. We started a new book and we were able to cover the whole prep unit.
My 4th class was perfect. They were well behaved. They did all their work and we had a lot of speaking time. That will be the best video.
I am so glad the videos are done!! They can't say the videos were bad this time. They were actually good.
I need a new laptop soon. I'll still keep my laptop because all my stuff is saved on it. I think I might get a netbook or full size laptop-Im not sure. My laptop is 2 years old. The keys are starting to fall off! my F3 key fell off a while ago. Today the letter "C" fell off. It still works-there just isnt a cover on the key.
I missed the gym tonight. Okay I was at the subway waiting for the train then this man started talking to me. He was a Korean but spoke really good English. We were getting off at the same stop so he continued to talk to me. At first I thought maybe he was just trying to convince me to stay another year and teach in public school. (which he was at first-telling me the benefits of teaching at a public school and how its better than a hagwon)(He is a retired professor and taught English for over 20 years in high school, middle school and he was a professor in a college)(His English was good-I actually understood everything he said). Well after we got off the train he continued to talk and talk and talk and talk. I wanted to go to the gym, but I didn't want to turn away someone who wanted to speak to me. He wants to give me tips on how to teach effectively. He said next time we meet he will bring me copies from a book about how to teach English as a foreign language. I agreed to meet him sometime. He was so excited to talk to me. I was actually surprised to meet someone with good English skills. (you dont meet many of those in Korea). He thanked me for listening to him and for giving him the time to speak to me. We may meet on Sunday. He said if I wanted to go some where in Seoul he could go with me. It would be nice to have my own tour guide and someone who can give me tips on how to better teach. I'l admit that I'm not that great of a teacher. He's taught English for over 20 years (one of his majors was English teaching). He was also giving me tips about walking out at night. He said to be careful and wear a hat so no one can tell you are a foreigner. I've never felt unsafe at night. I've been walking around late and no one has ever tried to bother me. After we finished talking I looked at my watch. It was 11:05pm! (we got off the train around 9:45 pm. He talked to me for over an hour!) I decided not to go to the gym since it closes at midnight.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Day 181...i hate my job and I met a Korean celeb
June 16 Tuesday
8 more months of this crap! Will I survive without having a nervous breakdown? I might be tramatized in 8 months and need to be put into a psychiatric ward when I get home! I'm definatly taking a few weeks off to destress and take a vacation to NYC with my mom when I get home before I start diving into the job hunt.
I found out today that I have to be recorded AGAIN because my video on Friday was bad. Its going to be the same students as the last one. They said I didn't have enought speaking in my WRITING class. I told them it was a writing class. Then they said "do speaking this time." I will be doing speaking on Wednesday because thats what day we do it. WHY DO I HAVE TO DO THIS? Lesley, another foreign teacher, said she didn't have to do it. WHY ME? IM THE WORST TEACHER. SERIOUSLY. DO YOU REALLY WANT ME TO REPRESENT THE SCHOOL? maybe the other campuses aren't advertising for their school. yuck. Why should I care about their advertising? I don't see an extra cent no matter how many students they get.
1st class went good today. The students participated and did well. We didn't have our new books so I had to teach them out of another book which I will be using for another class. I let them play hangman at the end of class. They mostly used words from the book so they were reinforcing what they learned.
What is up with this? I can't go to class unprepared but they can be unprepared by not even giving me books on time?
In one of my classes right now I'm using the student book and it only comes with an interactive cdrom so I'm going to take my computer to class and play the cd. If they don't like it then too bad. I can't teach if you don't give me the right materials.
I had my book for my 2nd class. We went over 4 pages of material. We had a productive class. I gave them a lot of speaking time to ask each other if they liked certian foods that we learned, but some of them didn't do what I told them to. OKAY I GAVE THEM SPEAKING TIME AND I HAD TO BEG THEM TO SPEAK TO EACH OTHER! THATS SO FRUSTRATING!! They wanted to know what an avocado was. I didn't know how to describe it. Maybe I'll bring one to class on Thursday so they can see. I gave them a listening exercise to do at home. There's a cd with their book. Hopefully they will do it.
I had a new student in my 3rd class. So I have 2 twin girls, 3 loud boys and 1 quiet boy. Today they were loud. I had to constanly tell them to be quiet. They weren't really paying attention. I let them play a game in the last 10 minutes of class. Its funny. Its sorta like hide and seek. One student is "it" and they put a book bag over their head and the students are running around the room and the 'blindfolded' person is trying to find them. quite entertaining.
I actually had a good 4th class. There are 2 girls in the class. They always participate and do their homework. They really liked the song in the book. We listened to it twice. One of the students was up dancing to it and trying to get me to dance. Then they wanted to listen to the cd with the funny song from last class. I didn't have that cd with me because it was from a different book. I let a student get it from my desk and we listened to it.
My last class enjoyed the interactive part of class. I didn't have a cd to listen to. Just an interactive cd rom so I took my laptop to class. We could have had a better class if I would have had the right materials, but they are crazy and didnt order my books on time. There was a part in the book where I didn't know what went in the blank so I just made something up and made the students write it. I wish there was a way to incorporate the interactive aspect because they really liked it. They liked trying to drag the words to the correct blank and try out the games on the cd. When we get the actual books I'm going to assign the cd rom activities as homework. I think they will be beneficial if the students actually do them. My school isnt high tech enough to actually have a projector screen-if they had one it would be great. When I told them they didn't have any homework they were excited.
When I was at the gym I came out of the locker room and this man was very friendly and said 'hello'. He was working out in the gym. The Korean men never say hello to me (except the personal trainers). I found out later that he was "Mr Lee". He's a Korean celeb, but I dont know what he's famous for. I would have just went on with my life not even knowing that I talked to a celeb.haha.Lesley actually got a picture with him. She saw someone taking a photo with him and she decided she wanted a photo too (because she thought he was cute). I was on the treadmill and she asked me "who is he?. He's hot". I said "I don't know. He said hey to me earlier." Then I told her to ask someone. She asked a girl at the desk and she said he was "Mr Lee"--the gym is called "Mr Lee Energy gym". (its named after him). He was going around talking to people. He didn't speak to us really. Maybe he doesn't speak English because when he saw me he said hello in Korean. Tonight at the gym I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes and rode the bicyle for 25 minutes (10 km). I burned about 260 calories.
I'm prepared for my classes tomorrow. If the kids will be good then my videos should be good. I've thought about how to get the students to speak a lot in my last 2 higher level classes. There is a lot of good material in my 2 higher classes. Not so much in my 2 lower classes. I have to start assigning essays tomorrow. oh joy. I'm actually threatening to call their parents if they don't turn it in. Maybe that will put a fire under them. I'm also going to give out class rules. I didn't make rules at the beginning and my classes were fine for the most part, but now all of a sudden they want to be bad-3 classes in particular-all lower level classes.
I think Im even going to come up with a bribery system..i mean reward system to try to get them to behave and do homework. Starting in July, if they do their homework and behave I will give them a sticker. If they get stickers for every class in the month then they will get a small prize. I need to take some time this weekend to go to the store and pick out little things I think they would like. inexpensive prizes-to have a prize box to let them choose what they like.
8 more months of this crap! Will I survive without having a nervous breakdown? I might be tramatized in 8 months and need to be put into a psychiatric ward when I get home! I'm definatly taking a few weeks off to destress and take a vacation to NYC with my mom when I get home before I start diving into the job hunt.
I found out today that I have to be recorded AGAIN because my video on Friday was bad. Its going to be the same students as the last one. They said I didn't have enought speaking in my WRITING class. I told them it was a writing class. Then they said "do speaking this time." I will be doing speaking on Wednesday because thats what day we do it. WHY DO I HAVE TO DO THIS? Lesley, another foreign teacher, said she didn't have to do it. WHY ME? IM THE WORST TEACHER. SERIOUSLY. DO YOU REALLY WANT ME TO REPRESENT THE SCHOOL? maybe the other campuses aren't advertising for their school. yuck. Why should I care about their advertising? I don't see an extra cent no matter how many students they get.
1st class went good today. The students participated and did well. We didn't have our new books so I had to teach them out of another book which I will be using for another class. I let them play hangman at the end of class. They mostly used words from the book so they were reinforcing what they learned.
What is up with this? I can't go to class unprepared but they can be unprepared by not even giving me books on time?
In one of my classes right now I'm using the student book and it only comes with an interactive cdrom so I'm going to take my computer to class and play the cd. If they don't like it then too bad. I can't teach if you don't give me the right materials.
I had my book for my 2nd class. We went over 4 pages of material. We had a productive class. I gave them a lot of speaking time to ask each other if they liked certian foods that we learned, but some of them didn't do what I told them to. OKAY I GAVE THEM SPEAKING TIME AND I HAD TO BEG THEM TO SPEAK TO EACH OTHER! THATS SO FRUSTRATING!! They wanted to know what an avocado was. I didn't know how to describe it. Maybe I'll bring one to class on Thursday so they can see. I gave them a listening exercise to do at home. There's a cd with their book. Hopefully they will do it.
I had a new student in my 3rd class. So I have 2 twin girls, 3 loud boys and 1 quiet boy. Today they were loud. I had to constanly tell them to be quiet. They weren't really paying attention. I let them play a game in the last 10 minutes of class. Its funny. Its sorta like hide and seek. One student is "it" and they put a book bag over their head and the students are running around the room and the 'blindfolded' person is trying to find them. quite entertaining.
I actually had a good 4th class. There are 2 girls in the class. They always participate and do their homework. They really liked the song in the book. We listened to it twice. One of the students was up dancing to it and trying to get me to dance. Then they wanted to listen to the cd with the funny song from last class. I didn't have that cd with me because it was from a different book. I let a student get it from my desk and we listened to it.
My last class enjoyed the interactive part of class. I didn't have a cd to listen to. Just an interactive cd rom so I took my laptop to class. We could have had a better class if I would have had the right materials, but they are crazy and didnt order my books on time. There was a part in the book where I didn't know what went in the blank so I just made something up and made the students write it. I wish there was a way to incorporate the interactive aspect because they really liked it. They liked trying to drag the words to the correct blank and try out the games on the cd. When we get the actual books I'm going to assign the cd rom activities as homework. I think they will be beneficial if the students actually do them. My school isnt high tech enough to actually have a projector screen-if they had one it would be great. When I told them they didn't have any homework they were excited.
When I was at the gym I came out of the locker room and this man was very friendly and said 'hello'. He was working out in the gym. The Korean men never say hello to me (except the personal trainers). I found out later that he was "Mr Lee". He's a Korean celeb, but I dont know what he's famous for. I would have just went on with my life not even knowing that I talked to a celeb.haha.Lesley actually got a picture with him. She saw someone taking a photo with him and she decided she wanted a photo too (because she thought he was cute). I was on the treadmill and she asked me "who is he?. He's hot". I said "I don't know. He said hey to me earlier." Then I told her to ask someone. She asked a girl at the desk and she said he was "Mr Lee"--the gym is called "Mr Lee Energy gym". (its named after him). He was going around talking to people. He didn't speak to us really. Maybe he doesn't speak English because when he saw me he said hello in Korean. Tonight at the gym I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes and rode the bicyle for 25 minutes (10 km). I burned about 260 calories.
I'm prepared for my classes tomorrow. If the kids will be good then my videos should be good. I've thought about how to get the students to speak a lot in my last 2 higher level classes. There is a lot of good material in my 2 higher classes. Not so much in my 2 lower classes. I have to start assigning essays tomorrow. oh joy. I'm actually threatening to call their parents if they don't turn it in. Maybe that will put a fire under them. I'm also going to give out class rules. I didn't make rules at the beginning and my classes were fine for the most part, but now all of a sudden they want to be bad-3 classes in particular-all lower level classes.
I think Im even going to come up with a bribery system..i mean reward system to try to get them to behave and do homework. Starting in July, if they do their homework and behave I will give them a sticker. If they get stickers for every class in the month then they will get a small prize. I need to take some time this weekend to go to the store and pick out little things I think they would like. inexpensive prizes-to have a prize box to let them choose what they like.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Day 180.....new books? what new books?
June 15 Monday
I went to the bank today and paid my gas bill and transferred $772 home to my wachovia account.
I got to school today at 2pm and I was the first person here. The elementary teachers didn't show up till after 3pm. I don't know why. I was wondering how I was going to prepare for my classes today since we are getting new books. I asked the Korean teacher about the new books and she didn't have a clue. Why is the communication so bad around here? I'm using the same books in some of my classes. I mean same book that I used in another class-I'm just using it for a new level. So I've already taught the material before. I won't have to do much prep in those 4 books. Plus I kept most of my tests so I can reuse them. They don't even have some of my books. They have to order them. If you are going to be starting new books shouldn't you have the books before the start date? no one here even knew we were getting new books!! crazy!! I have 11 weeks to finish the books. Now I know how I can pace myself since I know how long I have to finish the books. Some of the books have 9 units so I can do a unit a week and use some time for other activities.
I had one new student in my lowest level. He doesn't have an English name. Maybe I'll show him a list of names and let him pick one on Friday. We were learning about things like 'sit down, stand up, open your books, close your books, look at the board, etc. I had them read each thing twice and I gave examples and left blanks so they could fill in the blank. I also made them listen to each thing 2 or 3 times. I assigned an essay about their favorite animal. The youngest kid turned hers in but she didn't write in sentences. Her favorite animal is a 'square'. She means 'squirrel'. For homework I told them to listen to the cd tracks 2-5 3 times each and get their parents to sign their book. The listening will prepare them for the test on Friday.
We don't have the book for my second class so I had to just teach them out of a book that the first class used. I taught the same lesson twice. The boys in the class like to cut up erasers and throw the pieces at each other. I got hit in the forehead by a very small eraser. It was funny. The boy apologized. I tell them not to throw things in class but they don't listen. They weren't even paying attention to the lesson today. I'd ask them questions and they didn't know the answer. I let them play a game at the end of class. They really like the game where you start a new word with the last letter of the previous word. game-eraser-rat. They like to give the youngest boy words that start with E because he always has a hard time. Its funny. He couldnt think of a word twice. They covered up words on a poster that started with E so he couldnt see. If they want to keep playing games they better have good behavior.
I'm just going to book a plane to Jeju. I was thinking about going on the ferry but if I wanted to leave on Friday that wouldnt be possible since the ferry leaves at 7pm and I work till 9:30. I can't leave school early because my last class isn't over til 8pm. I'm just going to take a plane on Monday and stay thru Thursday. I've already booked the guesthouse. I sent my deposit through paypal yesterday. Lesley told me about a site where I can get cheaper tickets than the major airlines. Its not much cheaper but every little bit helps. The total price will be around 160,000 I think which is better than the 196,000 with Korean air. I think the only things I'm going to do on the Island are 2 day tours and maybe the submarine tour. I'll also probably spend some time on the beach. I wonder how the weather will be. Its right at the end of monsoon season.
Speaking of monsoon season, its coming soon! I'm not looking forward to it. I've heard it rains everyday for a month. I wonder if we will have an typhoons. (its like a hurricane) oh my. My hair will be in a constant state of disarray. Now I wish it were long enough for a ponytail! I'll put the straightening iron away during monsoon season because the rain makes my hair do funky stuff. I think I'm going to get a "magic straight perm" in Seoul. I've heard its really good and lasts a long time. Its a perm that makes your hair really straight.
In my 3rd class one of my students has forgotten his writing book 2 wekes in a row so I have to make copies for him.
The Korean teacher said that the parents have been complaining about me. They said I don't give their students enough time to talk in class. I don't know how to give them more talking time. I guess I'll have to start coming up with activities where they can interact with each other. (I wonder what students made that claim cause no parents have even seen my class!)
Well if all the parents are going to start making demands then I need to start making demands that they teach their kids how to behave and how to actually do their work and pay attention. huh. How you like them apples?
I had a decent workout tonight. I was on the eliptical for 30 minutes and the bike for 20 minutes. While I was walking to burger king I met a Korean who spoke really good English. He was from Canada. I talked to him for a little while while I was walking. I told him I was going to burger king. He said "burger king after a workout?".I just laughed and said yeah. I know I have problems. Fast food is my vice. At least I ended up getting a chicken sandwich. I did good the rest of the day though. I had pasta for lunch with jolly pong in milk (Jolly Pong is a snack that looks and tastes just like "Honey Smacks" in the US) I tried some today in cereal and it was good. For supper I also had pasta.
I went to the bank today and paid my gas bill and transferred $772 home to my wachovia account.
I got to school today at 2pm and I was the first person here. The elementary teachers didn't show up till after 3pm. I don't know why. I was wondering how I was going to prepare for my classes today since we are getting new books. I asked the Korean teacher about the new books and she didn't have a clue. Why is the communication so bad around here? I'm using the same books in some of my classes. I mean same book that I used in another class-I'm just using it for a new level. So I've already taught the material before. I won't have to do much prep in those 4 books. Plus I kept most of my tests so I can reuse them. They don't even have some of my books. They have to order them. If you are going to be starting new books shouldn't you have the books before the start date? no one here even knew we were getting new books!! crazy!! I have 11 weeks to finish the books. Now I know how I can pace myself since I know how long I have to finish the books. Some of the books have 9 units so I can do a unit a week and use some time for other activities.
I had one new student in my lowest level. He doesn't have an English name. Maybe I'll show him a list of names and let him pick one on Friday. We were learning about things like 'sit down, stand up, open your books, close your books, look at the board, etc. I had them read each thing twice and I gave examples and left blanks so they could fill in the blank. I also made them listen to each thing 2 or 3 times. I assigned an essay about their favorite animal. The youngest kid turned hers in but she didn't write in sentences. Her favorite animal is a 'square'. She means 'squirrel'. For homework I told them to listen to the cd tracks 2-5 3 times each and get their parents to sign their book. The listening will prepare them for the test on Friday.
We don't have the book for my second class so I had to just teach them out of a book that the first class used. I taught the same lesson twice. The boys in the class like to cut up erasers and throw the pieces at each other. I got hit in the forehead by a very small eraser. It was funny. The boy apologized. I tell them not to throw things in class but they don't listen. They weren't even paying attention to the lesson today. I'd ask them questions and they didn't know the answer. I let them play a game at the end of class. They really like the game where you start a new word with the last letter of the previous word. game-eraser-rat. They like to give the youngest boy words that start with E because he always has a hard time. Its funny. He couldnt think of a word twice. They covered up words on a poster that started with E so he couldnt see. If they want to keep playing games they better have good behavior.
I'm just going to book a plane to Jeju. I was thinking about going on the ferry but if I wanted to leave on Friday that wouldnt be possible since the ferry leaves at 7pm and I work till 9:30. I can't leave school early because my last class isn't over til 8pm. I'm just going to take a plane on Monday and stay thru Thursday. I've already booked the guesthouse. I sent my deposit through paypal yesterday. Lesley told me about a site where I can get cheaper tickets than the major airlines. Its not much cheaper but every little bit helps. The total price will be around 160,000 I think which is better than the 196,000 with Korean air. I think the only things I'm going to do on the Island are 2 day tours and maybe the submarine tour. I'll also probably spend some time on the beach. I wonder how the weather will be. Its right at the end of monsoon season.
Speaking of monsoon season, its coming soon! I'm not looking forward to it. I've heard it rains everyday for a month. I wonder if we will have an typhoons. (its like a hurricane) oh my. My hair will be in a constant state of disarray. Now I wish it were long enough for a ponytail! I'll put the straightening iron away during monsoon season because the rain makes my hair do funky stuff. I think I'm going to get a "magic straight perm" in Seoul. I've heard its really good and lasts a long time. Its a perm that makes your hair really straight.
In my 3rd class one of my students has forgotten his writing book 2 wekes in a row so I have to make copies for him.
The Korean teacher said that the parents have been complaining about me. They said I don't give their students enough time to talk in class. I don't know how to give them more talking time. I guess I'll have to start coming up with activities where they can interact with each other. (I wonder what students made that claim cause no parents have even seen my class!)
Well if all the parents are going to start making demands then I need to start making demands that they teach their kids how to behave and how to actually do their work and pay attention. huh. How you like them apples?
I had a decent workout tonight. I was on the eliptical for 30 minutes and the bike for 20 minutes. While I was walking to burger king I met a Korean who spoke really good English. He was from Canada. I talked to him for a little while while I was walking. I told him I was going to burger king. He said "burger king after a workout?".I just laughed and said yeah. I know I have problems. Fast food is my vice. At least I ended up getting a chicken sandwich. I did good the rest of the day though. I had pasta for lunch with jolly pong in milk (Jolly Pong is a snack that looks and tastes just like "Honey Smacks" in the US) I tried some today in cereal and it was good. For supper I also had pasta.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Day 179
June 14 Sunday
I didn't have enough motivation to go to the gym today.
I just sat around the house. I went to bed after 6am. I set my alarm for 2:30 pm but I didnt want to get up so I stayed in bed till 5:00pm.haha.
I finally cleaned up my kitchen area. It was messy. And there's no telling how long those dishes had been in the sink. I hate washing dishes! I've had a dishwasher in the last 3 places I lived (in the us) since 2005 and now I dont have one! I have to wash it the old fashioned way!
I tried to plan my vacation today. I sent a deposit for 3 nights at the guesthouse in Jeju. I havent planned my transportation yet. The transportation is ridiculous! The cheapest plane ticket I could find was around 180,000 won ($143). I don't want to pay that much for a 1 hour flight! I'm trying to keep my costs down.
My hotel room is going to be 150,000 won for 3 nights. I could have gotten it cheaper-30,000 a night to share a room with someone, but I'm afraid of sharing a room. You never know who you can trust these days. I have a lock that I can put on my lugguage, but hey they could take my whole suitcase while I'm not in the room.
I may end up taking the ferry-Its about 100,000 cheaper than the plane. I booked my accomadations for Mon-Thurs. The Ferry leaves on Monday,Wed, Friday. If I left on Monday I wouldnt get there till Tuesday. I think I may leave on a Friday and arrive on Saturday morn. Then take a chance on finding a love motel on Saturday and Sunday night. Shouldnt be that hard-they are a lot of them and they are pretty cheap. Then I could leave on the ferry on Thurs and arrive home on Friday.
The ferry is 70,000 for a 2nd class room. My hotel room is 150,000. I'll have to find a love motel for 2 nights which Im thinking will probably be 40,000 a night so another 80,000. I'm going on 2 tours which cost 48,000 each. All of this comes up to 396,000 won. Then if I spend around 100,000 won for food and transportation over a 5 night/6 day trip then I can stay under my 500,000 ($399) vacation budget. Hopefully I can do this. I'll spend 600,000 ($479) if I have to.
I didn't have enough motivation to go to the gym today.
I just sat around the house. I went to bed after 6am. I set my alarm for 2:30 pm but I didnt want to get up so I stayed in bed till 5:00pm.haha.
I finally cleaned up my kitchen area. It was messy. And there's no telling how long those dishes had been in the sink. I hate washing dishes! I've had a dishwasher in the last 3 places I lived (in the us) since 2005 and now I dont have one! I have to wash it the old fashioned way!
I tried to plan my vacation today. I sent a deposit for 3 nights at the guesthouse in Jeju. I havent planned my transportation yet. The transportation is ridiculous! The cheapest plane ticket I could find was around 180,000 won ($143). I don't want to pay that much for a 1 hour flight! I'm trying to keep my costs down.
My hotel room is going to be 150,000 won for 3 nights. I could have gotten it cheaper-30,000 a night to share a room with someone, but I'm afraid of sharing a room. You never know who you can trust these days. I have a lock that I can put on my lugguage, but hey they could take my whole suitcase while I'm not in the room.
I may end up taking the ferry-Its about 100,000 cheaper than the plane. I booked my accomadations for Mon-Thurs. The Ferry leaves on Monday,Wed, Friday. If I left on Monday I wouldnt get there till Tuesday. I think I may leave on a Friday and arrive on Saturday morn. Then take a chance on finding a love motel on Saturday and Sunday night. Shouldnt be that hard-they are a lot of them and they are pretty cheap. Then I could leave on the ferry on Thurs and arrive home on Friday.
The ferry is 70,000 for a 2nd class room. My hotel room is 150,000. I'll have to find a love motel for 2 nights which Im thinking will probably be 40,000 a night so another 80,000. I'm going on 2 tours which cost 48,000 each. All of this comes up to 396,000 won. Then if I spend around 100,000 won for food and transportation over a 5 night/6 day trip then I can stay under my 500,000 ($399) vacation budget. Hopefully I can do this. I'll spend 600,000 ($479) if I have to.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Day 178
June 13 Saturday
178 days...in a few days it will be exactly 6 months that I've been here..wow...and I still have @260 days to go...I'm not even halfway done yet!
I made it through 15 weeks teaching so far at my new school.35 weeks of teaching left. oh my! Hopefully it will fly by!
Well it was just a lazy day around the house. Nothing that you'd want to read about unless you love to be bored.
I started looking at websites to plan my vacation. I signed up for Korean Air rewards program. I wont accrue any milage with the small amount of traveling I do but I'll get a discount on my flight. I think I might just book a flight to Jeju since I found flights for 78,000 won. Its an hour flight. While I'm there I'm going to take a 2 different day tours of tourist sites-both cost 48,000won. Each tour stops at about 7 or 8 tourist sites. I might also take a submarine tour. The only submarine tour in the world--it would be awesome to take pictures underwater from a submarine. It costs 39,000 won. I might book a room at a guesthouse for 30,000 a night if they have rooms available. If not the next cheapest hotel would be about 55,000 a night. Once I get a confirmed hotel room I'm going to go ahead with booking the flight and the tours. I'm going to stay there 4 days and 3 nights. I'm hoping my whole vacation will cost under 600,000 won (around $500).
Maybe I'll get enough motivation to go to the gym tomorrow.
178 days...in a few days it will be exactly 6 months that I've been here..wow...and I still have @260 days to go...I'm not even halfway done yet!
I made it through 15 weeks teaching so far at my new school.35 weeks of teaching left. oh my! Hopefully it will fly by!
Well it was just a lazy day around the house. Nothing that you'd want to read about unless you love to be bored.
I started looking at websites to plan my vacation. I signed up for Korean Air rewards program. I wont accrue any milage with the small amount of traveling I do but I'll get a discount on my flight. I think I might just book a flight to Jeju since I found flights for 78,000 won. Its an hour flight. While I'm there I'm going to take a 2 different day tours of tourist sites-both cost 48,000won. Each tour stops at about 7 or 8 tourist sites. I might also take a submarine tour. The only submarine tour in the world--it would be awesome to take pictures underwater from a submarine. It costs 39,000 won. I might book a room at a guesthouse for 30,000 a night if they have rooms available. If not the next cheapest hotel would be about 55,000 a night. Once I get a confirmed hotel room I'm going to go ahead with booking the flight and the tours. I'm going to stay there 4 days and 3 nights. I'm hoping my whole vacation will cost under 600,000 won (around $500).
Maybe I'll get enough motivation to go to the gym tomorrow.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Day 177...kids drove me crazy...on videotape!
June 12 Friday
Today is the day I'll be videotaped. I asked what the video was for. Its for an advertisement for the school. Oh my. Its going to be a terrible advertisement!! She told me they would tape me for about 10 minutes. wrong. They taped the whole class! The first two classes will be a complete loss unless they can do some really good editing! The last class actually has usable material. So why do I have to be the advertisement for the school? are the other teachers going to be video taped? (do I even have a choice to say 'no i dont want to be videotaped?'. Seeing me on a video tape isn't going to draw people into the school. 'oh my god-I want her to teach my kids!'
The kids are driving me crazy!
So I decided to give them a break from all the textbook stuff and do a fun activity. The activities are way harder for ESL students though. They don't know what adjectives or verbs are. Even when I spend my time explaining it. I read it and get them to read it with me and I even gave a lot of examples. I took my time to prepare extra material. Then a student asks "whats an adjective?" so I had to explain it again! Then they wouldnt quit talking to each other during class. They were talking while other people were reading their story. I had to tell them a lot of times to be quiet but they didn't listen. They were all talking at one time. I had to beg the last student to read and to be quiet when others were reading. Then when he read he wouldnt read where we could understand. One of the students answered her phone during class. I told her not to. It was her mom. Then her mom came to the school to give her a book during my class. Then another student got up out of his seat with his cell phone and was going to go out the door to answer the phone. I told him no. And all of this was on videotape. great.
My schedule was changed today. I usually teach level 2 on Friday, but they wanted me to teach level 3 for the video. I took the same activity for level 3 except I picked out a mad lib that was more simple. When I went into the class I asked the students to be good for me since they were making a video. They were okay during the actual writing part of the activity. I didn't even bother going into detail on adjectives and verbs for this class. I just told them to 'pick a word from this list'. Then when they got finished writing I told them it was time to read their stories. I picked a student to read first. 'no I dont want to go first'. Then the next student said the same thing. Then the next and the last. I told them "everyone has to read their stories". I begged and begged. I probably begged for 10 minutes or so. They would tell me what they wanted to be. "I want to be second", "I want to be third". Except no one would go first. They were speaking in Korean too much so I told them "Speak in English". The smallest boy said "I dont want to speak in English". I said this is "english class". After all that, I finally just got fustrated and made them do work from the book. The smallest boy is funny. (he's 10) He was in class and he said "I have red pee." Then he lifted up his leg and there was a scraped place on his leg that had blood on it. I didn't worry about it since it wasn't flowing down his leg. It was just a scraped part. This same boy has a black eye and is wearing a band aid on his face.
So those 2 classes make me look bad. It just feels like someone said "be on your worst behavior so we can see that valerie is a bad teacher." I think the kids might have been acting up because there was a camera. I dont know. The 2 classes that acted up usually don't have the best behavior anyway. I work well under pressure. I didn't lose my temper or do anything crazy. I wish I could just yell at the top of my lungs "BE QUIET! SIT DOWN! SPEAK IN ENGLISH! READ IT NOW!" These students just won't behave. The other teachers take their sticks to class every single day. Sometimes I see them leave their sticks at their desk and they come back out and get it.
My 3rd class was perfect. Well except for 2 students coming in late and out of 10 students only 4 actually did their homework. The class was quiet and well behaved and everyone participated. They could actually get some good stuff from that video.It was a writing class.
Wonder if I will get to see the end product? And if it totally sucks then I'll have no say over whether or not it gets used. I probably won't even get to see it anyway. I wonder who will watch it and edit it. They will think that I have no control over the kids. I don't know what to do for discipline and should I discipline them when the cameras are rolling? I wish they had a detention. If they did-I'd be sending tons of kids to detention!
I had a decent light workout tonight at the gym. I just walked on the treadmill for 45 minutes at varying speeds. The highest was 4.2 km per hour which isn't very fast. In comparison--3.5 mph is 5.6 km/h. I burned about 250 calories, but it doesn't really matter since I had fast food today.
I get new books for my students on Monday. I just hate that I won't have much time to prepare for my monday classes because I will have just gotten the books.
Its time to assign more essays. OH NO! I think I'll make something really easy for the bottom 4 levels...maybe just a paragraph about something easy. Then the next levels can write a little more, but I have to come up with a topic. yuck. I HATE ESSAYS!! (THEY ARE TERRIBLE AT WRITING!)
Today is the day I'll be videotaped. I asked what the video was for. Its for an advertisement for the school. Oh my. Its going to be a terrible advertisement!! She told me they would tape me for about 10 minutes. wrong. They taped the whole class! The first two classes will be a complete loss unless they can do some really good editing! The last class actually has usable material. So why do I have to be the advertisement for the school? are the other teachers going to be video taped? (do I even have a choice to say 'no i dont want to be videotaped?'. Seeing me on a video tape isn't going to draw people into the school. 'oh my god-I want her to teach my kids!'
The kids are driving me crazy!
So I decided to give them a break from all the textbook stuff and do a fun activity. The activities are way harder for ESL students though. They don't know what adjectives or verbs are. Even when I spend my time explaining it. I read it and get them to read it with me and I even gave a lot of examples. I took my time to prepare extra material. Then a student asks "whats an adjective?" so I had to explain it again! Then they wouldnt quit talking to each other during class. They were talking while other people were reading their story. I had to tell them a lot of times to be quiet but they didn't listen. They were all talking at one time. I had to beg the last student to read and to be quiet when others were reading. Then when he read he wouldnt read where we could understand. One of the students answered her phone during class. I told her not to. It was her mom. Then her mom came to the school to give her a book during my class. Then another student got up out of his seat with his cell phone and was going to go out the door to answer the phone. I told him no. And all of this was on videotape. great.
My schedule was changed today. I usually teach level 2 on Friday, but they wanted me to teach level 3 for the video. I took the same activity for level 3 except I picked out a mad lib that was more simple. When I went into the class I asked the students to be good for me since they were making a video. They were okay during the actual writing part of the activity. I didn't even bother going into detail on adjectives and verbs for this class. I just told them to 'pick a word from this list'. Then when they got finished writing I told them it was time to read their stories. I picked a student to read first. 'no I dont want to go first'. Then the next student said the same thing. Then the next and the last. I told them "everyone has to read their stories". I begged and begged. I probably begged for 10 minutes or so. They would tell me what they wanted to be. "I want to be second", "I want to be third". Except no one would go first. They were speaking in Korean too much so I told them "Speak in English". The smallest boy said "I dont want to speak in English". I said this is "english class". After all that, I finally just got fustrated and made them do work from the book. The smallest boy is funny. (he's 10) He was in class and he said "I have red pee." Then he lifted up his leg and there was a scraped place on his leg that had blood on it. I didn't worry about it since it wasn't flowing down his leg. It was just a scraped part. This same boy has a black eye and is wearing a band aid on his face.
So those 2 classes make me look bad. It just feels like someone said "be on your worst behavior so we can see that valerie is a bad teacher." I think the kids might have been acting up because there was a camera. I dont know. The 2 classes that acted up usually don't have the best behavior anyway. I work well under pressure. I didn't lose my temper or do anything crazy. I wish I could just yell at the top of my lungs "BE QUIET! SIT DOWN! SPEAK IN ENGLISH! READ IT NOW!" These students just won't behave. The other teachers take their sticks to class every single day. Sometimes I see them leave their sticks at their desk and they come back out and get it.
My 3rd class was perfect. Well except for 2 students coming in late and out of 10 students only 4 actually did their homework. The class was quiet and well behaved and everyone participated. They could actually get some good stuff from that video.It was a writing class.
Wonder if I will get to see the end product? And if it totally sucks then I'll have no say over whether or not it gets used. I probably won't even get to see it anyway. I wonder who will watch it and edit it. They will think that I have no control over the kids. I don't know what to do for discipline and should I discipline them when the cameras are rolling? I wish they had a detention. If they did-I'd be sending tons of kids to detention!
I had a decent light workout tonight at the gym. I just walked on the treadmill for 45 minutes at varying speeds. The highest was 4.2 km per hour which isn't very fast. In comparison--3.5 mph is 5.6 km/h. I burned about 250 calories, but it doesn't really matter since I had fast food today.
I get new books for my students on Monday. I just hate that I won't have much time to prepare for my monday classes because I will have just gotten the books.
Its time to assign more essays. OH NO! I think I'll make something really easy for the bottom 4 levels...maybe just a paragraph about something easy. Then the next levels can write a little more, but I have to come up with a topic. yuck. I HATE ESSAYS!! (THEY ARE TERRIBLE AT WRITING!)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Day 176
June 11 Thursday
I decided that I was going to give 3 of my classes mad libs today as a fun activity.
I can't believe its so hard! They don't know what adjectives or verbs are. The Korean teachers are suppose be teaching them grammar. How can you teach grammer without starting with the basics like adjectives and verbs?
My first class did okay. I think they liked the mad lib. They laughed while they were reading it. We only had time to do the activity and go over homework and read a short story in the book. They were well behaved so that was good.
My 2nd class was troublesome. They can't follow simple directions. I gave them a sheet and told them to write one word beside each blank. I gave them examples of different adjectives and verbs since they don't understand. They wrote more than one word beside each blank. Then when I was getting them to read them out loud the other students were being disrespectful. After they read theirs they just got up and started playing a game while people are still reading theirs. I thought it would be a neat activity but I dont think this class really understood.
My 3rd class did okay with the mad lib. After we were done I let them play a game.
In my 4th class we did a writing unit.
We did a writing unit in my 5th class too. And she attempted to teach me some more Korean.
The Swine flu has officially become a Pandemic. WHO moved the level rating up to a level 6-the highest level. Man will it ever go away??
I skipped the gym tonight.
I decided that I was going to give 3 of my classes mad libs today as a fun activity.
I can't believe its so hard! They don't know what adjectives or verbs are. The Korean teachers are suppose be teaching them grammar. How can you teach grammer without starting with the basics like adjectives and verbs?
My first class did okay. I think they liked the mad lib. They laughed while they were reading it. We only had time to do the activity and go over homework and read a short story in the book. They were well behaved so that was good.
My 2nd class was troublesome. They can't follow simple directions. I gave them a sheet and told them to write one word beside each blank. I gave them examples of different adjectives and verbs since they don't understand. They wrote more than one word beside each blank. Then when I was getting them to read them out loud the other students were being disrespectful. After they read theirs they just got up and started playing a game while people are still reading theirs. I thought it would be a neat activity but I dont think this class really understood.
My 3rd class did okay with the mad lib. After we were done I let them play a game.
In my 4th class we did a writing unit.
We did a writing unit in my 5th class too. And she attempted to teach me some more Korean.
The Swine flu has officially become a Pandemic. WHO moved the level rating up to a level 6-the highest level. Man will it ever go away??
I skipped the gym tonight.
Day 175
June 10 Wednesday
Today one of the Korean teachers asked me if I had paid my gas bill. I told her I just got it today. She said "are you going to pay it today?". No. Are you going to pay it tomorrow. maybe. (Actually I'm going to pay it on Friday! Its not due till the 20th!!) She was telling me that when I give them the receipts that the school will give the money back to me. What? Do we get the money back for all the bills we paid? Thats what she told me. If so then I'll gladly give the receipts! Wonder when I'll get the money back. At the end of my contract? If she's wrong then I'm going to be disappointed!
The korean teacher told me that I'm going to be videotaped for about 10 minutes in all of my classes on Friday. oh my! At least I only have 3 classes. Its going to be weird. I wonder if they will be videotaped too. I asked her who was going to watch the video and she didn't understand. She told me "maybe a man will videotape you". huh? She told me to prepare something fun for the kids and dress nicely. I think I'm going to take a mad lib to class as a fun warm up activity. It will be funny to see what they all come up with. I'm going to give them the paper where they write down their words first. Then hand them the story to fill in the blanks and let them read it to the class. I think it will also be good for getting them to recognize what adjectives and verbs are. I hate that I'll be videotaped teaching one student in my lowest level class. ugh. Maybe they will record at the beginning of class and my mad lib will take up all the time.
In my first class was loud today but they were still decently behaved. 2 of my students want to change their names. One wants to be Christian Bale.haha. One of my students wants to change his name to desksksksksksk.(I dont know if he's really serious). here's the story on that one. He was in another level and one of our vocab words was desk. The cd skipped on desk so it sounded like desksksksksk so he likes to say it all the time. That same student asked me "are you a Christian?" I said "yes" and he said "I'm a Christian". He was excited. Its good to see children who are professing their faith esp in a country where Buddhism plays a huge part.
My 2nd class was full of energy and I dont think they stayed in their seat for more than 10 minutes. They were constantly getting up and not paying attention. Its one of the lower levels and I have a 10 year old and 2 11 year olds. One of the boys took my chalk and they kept passing it around to each other and I had to beg them to give it to me. They begged for a game then when I let them play a game they didn't really play anything. I didn't really accomplish anything in this class today. At least it was easy material that they already know--the months of the year. One of the students changed his name last time to "boy". This class he wanted to change his name again. He looked at the animal poster on the wall and decided that he wanted to be "gorilla."
In my 3rd class I only had one student-one was absent. We went over about 5 pages of material.
My last class didn't want to be quiet. There were 3 boys who were sitting together who were constantly talking and I had to beg them to do their work. Near the end of class one of the boys made another one of the boys cry. I don't know what he did to make him cry. It was just all of a sudden. I was going over answers and he starts crying right before class ended. There were also 2 girls who were constantly talking to each other. I had to walk around the room the whole class and make sure they were all doing their work.
I had a good workout tonight. I was on the eliptical for 25 minutes. Then I cycled for 20km (12 miles!) in 38 minutes. Lesley always wonders how I get so far ahead of her. We are both cycling at about the same speed but my distance is always ahead of hers. Wonder if it has anything to do with the program I use. I use the 'random hill' function. She asked me if it felt like I was going up hills, but it doesnt seem to be going up hills. maybe I'm just used to it by now. I'm beginning to like the recumbent bike.
Lesley was excited about her new toy she bought at the toy shop. She showed it to me. In Korea its called "magic screen". She said when she went to the store to get it she asked for a "sandbox". Its a smaller version of the 'etch a sketch'. I told her that in America its called an 'etch a sketch'and I had one when I was a kid. She showed it to the personal trainer. He'd never seen it before. it was funny watching him trying to figure out how to use it.
Today one of the Korean teachers asked me if I had paid my gas bill. I told her I just got it today. She said "are you going to pay it today?". No. Are you going to pay it tomorrow. maybe. (Actually I'm going to pay it on Friday! Its not due till the 20th!!) She was telling me that when I give them the receipts that the school will give the money back to me. What? Do we get the money back for all the bills we paid? Thats what she told me. If so then I'll gladly give the receipts! Wonder when I'll get the money back. At the end of my contract? If she's wrong then I'm going to be disappointed!
The korean teacher told me that I'm going to be videotaped for about 10 minutes in all of my classes on Friday. oh my! At least I only have 3 classes. Its going to be weird. I wonder if they will be videotaped too. I asked her who was going to watch the video and she didn't understand. She told me "maybe a man will videotape you". huh? She told me to prepare something fun for the kids and dress nicely. I think I'm going to take a mad lib to class as a fun warm up activity. It will be funny to see what they all come up with. I'm going to give them the paper where they write down their words first. Then hand them the story to fill in the blanks and let them read it to the class. I think it will also be good for getting them to recognize what adjectives and verbs are. I hate that I'll be videotaped teaching one student in my lowest level class. ugh. Maybe they will record at the beginning of class and my mad lib will take up all the time.
In my first class was loud today but they were still decently behaved. 2 of my students want to change their names. One wants to be Christian Bale.haha. One of my students wants to change his name to desksksksksksk.(I dont know if he's really serious). here's the story on that one. He was in another level and one of our vocab words was desk. The cd skipped on desk so it sounded like desksksksksk so he likes to say it all the time. That same student asked me "are you a Christian?" I said "yes" and he said "I'm a Christian". He was excited. Its good to see children who are professing their faith esp in a country where Buddhism plays a huge part.
My 2nd class was full of energy and I dont think they stayed in their seat for more than 10 minutes. They were constantly getting up and not paying attention. Its one of the lower levels and I have a 10 year old and 2 11 year olds. One of the boys took my chalk and they kept passing it around to each other and I had to beg them to give it to me. They begged for a game then when I let them play a game they didn't really play anything. I didn't really accomplish anything in this class today. At least it was easy material that they already know--the months of the year. One of the students changed his name last time to "boy". This class he wanted to change his name again. He looked at the animal poster on the wall and decided that he wanted to be "gorilla."
In my 3rd class I only had one student-one was absent. We went over about 5 pages of material.
My last class didn't want to be quiet. There were 3 boys who were sitting together who were constantly talking and I had to beg them to do their work. Near the end of class one of the boys made another one of the boys cry. I don't know what he did to make him cry. It was just all of a sudden. I was going over answers and he starts crying right before class ended. There were also 2 girls who were constantly talking to each other. I had to walk around the room the whole class and make sure they were all doing their work.
I had a good workout tonight. I was on the eliptical for 25 minutes. Then I cycled for 20km (12 miles!) in 38 minutes. Lesley always wonders how I get so far ahead of her. We are both cycling at about the same speed but my distance is always ahead of hers. Wonder if it has anything to do with the program I use. I use the 'random hill' function. She asked me if it felt like I was going up hills, but it doesnt seem to be going up hills. maybe I'm just used to it by now. I'm beginning to like the recumbent bike.
Lesley was excited about her new toy she bought at the toy shop. She showed it to me. In Korea its called "magic screen". She said when she went to the store to get it she asked for a "sandbox". Its a smaller version of the 'etch a sketch'. I told her that in America its called an 'etch a sketch'and I had one when I was a kid. She showed it to the personal trainer. He'd never seen it before. it was funny watching him trying to figure out how to use it.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Day 174...14 peoples
June 9 Tuesday
I ordered some books from a guy on ESL cafe. They arrived today. I got "Korean for Foreigners 1 and 2" with cds, "Lonely planet Korea"(1997 edition), "Yes you can learn Korean sentence structure in 40 minutes". I paid 26,000 won for all 4 books(including a 4,000 shipping charge). I won't be fluent but at least I'm attempting to learn a new language. I think its going to be hard to use the books though. They are all in Korean and not romanized. There is an English translation but no way to know how to pronounce the words (i was thinking it would have romanized words instead of hangul). The tape doesn't even pronounce the words in a slow manner. They speak at regular speed. Its definatly not for people starting from scratch!
I got a call at 1pm. I had to go at 2pm to sign for my paycheck at Nokbeon. A little more notice would have been nice but I should be use to the last minute notices by now. Then when I get there they tell me that I need to pay my phone bill with cash. Good thing I actually had cash on me. Why couldnt they just deduct it from my paycheck? crazy! My phone bill was 5,200 won and I don't even use it. Currently I don't even have it plugged into the wall. I unplugged it on the weekend so there wouldnt be a chance of anyone disturbing me. I don't feel a need to plug it back in. If someone needs me they can just call my cell phone. Its always with me.
Oh my goodness. They are always on my case about bills. Do you have a receipt? I PAY ALL MY BILLS! I've already given them all the receipts for the bills I've paid so far. What is the deal with having to have a receipt for everything? They bug Lesley about her bills too.
I take the elevator everyday at the subway. walking up 60 stairs really kills me-I know I need to get into better shape. I'm working on it. Plus I have the extra weight of a bookbag and gym bag. We had a full elevator today! I saw a lot of people waiting at the elevator and I was thinking "there ain't no way we will all fit", but we did! Once we all got on we were cramped. I guessed there must have been about 15 people in there. Then this one guy who could speak some English looked at me and said "14 peoples".haha.
Tomorrow is payday. I have extra money this month because I'm not paying that stupid security deposit! I'm going to the bank on Thurs or Friday to transfer some money home. I'm going to keep 500,000 won to live off of, save 300,000 to put away for vacation and I'm sending the rest home.
My first class was good today. There are 4 students. They all participated and interacted with each other during the part where I asked them to ask a list of questions to each other. I feel like today was a productive class.
In my second class we are finished with the book. They begged to play a game so I let them play games for the whole class.
My fourth class wanted me to rush through the lesson. They keep saying "go fast". Ha. They loved the song from the book. It was hilarious. After we covered 3 pages of material I let them have free time. They were writing on the board and trying to teach me Korean. They would write some words and get me to repeat them.
I had a good workout tonight. I was on the eliptical for 25 minutes. Then I cycled on the recumbent bike for 20 minutes. I rode 10km on the bike again in half the time as yesterday. Yesterday I biked 10km in 37 minutes. Today I biked 10km in 20 minutes. I must have went at a steadier pace. Then I went to Burger King and got a whopper. All that workout for nothing! At least maybe I burned off a tuna sandwich from supper or lunch. This is not good.
I ordered some books from a guy on ESL cafe. They arrived today. I got "Korean for Foreigners 1 and 2" with cds, "Lonely planet Korea"(1997 edition), "Yes you can learn Korean sentence structure in 40 minutes". I paid 26,000 won for all 4 books(including a 4,000 shipping charge). I won't be fluent but at least I'm attempting to learn a new language. I think its going to be hard to use the books though. They are all in Korean and not romanized. There is an English translation but no way to know how to pronounce the words (i was thinking it would have romanized words instead of hangul). The tape doesn't even pronounce the words in a slow manner. They speak at regular speed. Its definatly not for people starting from scratch!
I got a call at 1pm. I had to go at 2pm to sign for my paycheck at Nokbeon. A little more notice would have been nice but I should be use to the last minute notices by now. Then when I get there they tell me that I need to pay my phone bill with cash. Good thing I actually had cash on me. Why couldnt they just deduct it from my paycheck? crazy! My phone bill was 5,200 won and I don't even use it. Currently I don't even have it plugged into the wall. I unplugged it on the weekend so there wouldnt be a chance of anyone disturbing me. I don't feel a need to plug it back in. If someone needs me they can just call my cell phone. Its always with me.
Oh my goodness. They are always on my case about bills. Do you have a receipt? I PAY ALL MY BILLS! I've already given them all the receipts for the bills I've paid so far. What is the deal with having to have a receipt for everything? They bug Lesley about her bills too.
I take the elevator everyday at the subway. walking up 60 stairs really kills me-I know I need to get into better shape. I'm working on it. Plus I have the extra weight of a bookbag and gym bag. We had a full elevator today! I saw a lot of people waiting at the elevator and I was thinking "there ain't no way we will all fit", but we did! Once we all got on we were cramped. I guessed there must have been about 15 people in there. Then this one guy who could speak some English looked at me and said "14 peoples".haha.
Tomorrow is payday. I have extra money this month because I'm not paying that stupid security deposit! I'm going to the bank on Thurs or Friday to transfer some money home. I'm going to keep 500,000 won to live off of, save 300,000 to put away for vacation and I'm sending the rest home.
My first class was good today. There are 4 students. They all participated and interacted with each other during the part where I asked them to ask a list of questions to each other. I feel like today was a productive class.
In my second class we are finished with the book. They begged to play a game so I let them play games for the whole class.
My fourth class wanted me to rush through the lesson. They keep saying "go fast". Ha. They loved the song from the book. It was hilarious. After we covered 3 pages of material I let them have free time. They were writing on the board and trying to teach me Korean. They would write some words and get me to repeat them.
I had a good workout tonight. I was on the eliptical for 25 minutes. Then I cycled on the recumbent bike for 20 minutes. I rode 10km on the bike again in half the time as yesterday. Yesterday I biked 10km in 37 minutes. Today I biked 10km in 20 minutes. I must have went at a steadier pace. Then I went to Burger King and got a whopper. All that workout for nothing! At least maybe I burned off a tuna sandwich from supper or lunch. This is not good.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Day 172/173
June 7-8 Sunday/Monday
Well Sunday was another lazy day around the house. I only left so I could go to Pizza School for supper.
My first class is boring. I have one student in my lowest level class. I don't know how to make it interesting or how to make the material last where she isn't repeating the same words over and over. Today we were talking about colors and things like pencil, backpack, erasor, crayon. I had her repeat everything 2 or 3 times. One more class and we will have completed the book.
My 2nd class was begging me to give them a test! wow! I didn't have a test prepared nor did I give them one but they were practically begging for one. I've never had that happen before. I had one of the students make up his writing tests. The other 2 students were telling him the answers and he still made a 60. Then they begged me to play a game. I told them we'd play a game at 5:30. Then when the time came around for a game they didn't want to play anything. they just wanted to mess around and write on the board. The student in the next classroom kept knocking on the wall. They heard it and they all ran out of the classroom and into the other classroom. Then they came back and kept knocking on the wall. They weren't really paying attention in class. They were full of energy and didn't want to stay in their seat. Well one student sat in his seat but the 10 year old and the 11 year old just kept getting up.
I'll be glad when we start new books. This will give me a fresh start to make some changes and try harder. I'm going to try to implement the tips I was given. Bringing in pictures, explaining the vocab in more detail. I'm going to make a sheet with the definitions and use each word in a sentence. Review vocab everyday then give a matching test-match the vocab word with the definition. I think it would be neat to teach them some harder words just for fun-not to be tested. I might teach some SAT vocab to my upper level students just to expand their vocab.
I had a good workout tonight at the gym. I burned about 240 calories in an hour. I am beginning to love to go to the gym. Its my escape. A great stress reliever. I wanted to walk on the treadmill or get on the eliptical but they were all full. So me and Lesley decided to get on the stationary recumbent bikes. I didn't like it last time I tried it but I think I do like it now. Once I started biking fast my legs didnt want to slow down! Me and Lesley were racing each other.haha. I was ahead of her in distance and she biked really fast to pass me in distance.We biked for about 37 minutes--10 km.(about 6 miles) Then I got on the treadmill for 20 minutes for about 1.5 km which is about a mile. We went to talk to the personal trainer after our workout. He is on my case about "eat your vegetables."(I hate vegetables!)(why can't they make a lowfat big mac?!) When I told him that I biked 10km he said "where's your sweat?". crazy! I told him I wiped it off with the towel. I found out his age. He's 27 Korean age which would be 25 if he lived in America. We are all in 2 year increments...Lesley is 25, he is 27 and Im 29(korean age). While we were at the gym Lesley met 2 other foreign guys. She talked to them before I showed up at the gym so I didnt talk to them. They live in my building. They told her that a girl from SC lived in their building. I asked her "how did they know that?" When she told me one of their names I remembered meeting him. I met him in March in the elevator at my building. So there is at least 5 white people at our gym.haha. Me and Lesley are the only girls and usually the only foreigners there after 10pm.
Well Sunday was another lazy day around the house. I only left so I could go to Pizza School for supper.
My first class is boring. I have one student in my lowest level class. I don't know how to make it interesting or how to make the material last where she isn't repeating the same words over and over. Today we were talking about colors and things like pencil, backpack, erasor, crayon. I had her repeat everything 2 or 3 times. One more class and we will have completed the book.
My 2nd class was begging me to give them a test! wow! I didn't have a test prepared nor did I give them one but they were practically begging for one. I've never had that happen before. I had one of the students make up his writing tests. The other 2 students were telling him the answers and he still made a 60. Then they begged me to play a game. I told them we'd play a game at 5:30. Then when the time came around for a game they didn't want to play anything. they just wanted to mess around and write on the board. The student in the next classroom kept knocking on the wall. They heard it and they all ran out of the classroom and into the other classroom. Then they came back and kept knocking on the wall. They weren't really paying attention in class. They were full of energy and didn't want to stay in their seat. Well one student sat in his seat but the 10 year old and the 11 year old just kept getting up.
I'll be glad when we start new books. This will give me a fresh start to make some changes and try harder. I'm going to try to implement the tips I was given. Bringing in pictures, explaining the vocab in more detail. I'm going to make a sheet with the definitions and use each word in a sentence. Review vocab everyday then give a matching test-match the vocab word with the definition. I think it would be neat to teach them some harder words just for fun-not to be tested. I might teach some SAT vocab to my upper level students just to expand their vocab.
I had a good workout tonight at the gym. I burned about 240 calories in an hour. I am beginning to love to go to the gym. Its my escape. A great stress reliever. I wanted to walk on the treadmill or get on the eliptical but they were all full. So me and Lesley decided to get on the stationary recumbent bikes. I didn't like it last time I tried it but I think I do like it now. Once I started biking fast my legs didnt want to slow down! Me and Lesley were racing each other.haha. I was ahead of her in distance and she biked really fast to pass me in distance.We biked for about 37 minutes--10 km.(about 6 miles) Then I got on the treadmill for 20 minutes for about 1.5 km which is about a mile. We went to talk to the personal trainer after our workout. He is on my case about "eat your vegetables."(I hate vegetables!)(why can't they make a lowfat big mac?!) When I told him that I biked 10km he said "where's your sweat?". crazy! I told him I wiped it off with the towel. I found out his age. He's 27 Korean age which would be 25 if he lived in America. We are all in 2 year increments...Lesley is 25, he is 27 and Im 29(korean age). While we were at the gym Lesley met 2 other foreign guys. She talked to them before I showed up at the gym so I didnt talk to them. They live in my building. They told her that a girl from SC lived in their building. I asked her "how did they know that?" When she told me one of their names I remembered meeting him. I met him in March in the elevator at my building. So there is at least 5 white people at our gym.haha. Me and Lesley are the only girls and usually the only foreigners there after 10pm.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Day 171--Memorial Day
June 6 Saturday
In South Korea, Memorial Day is held every June 6 to remember the men and women who died while in military service, especially during the Korean War.
On this day, a memorial ceremony is held in National Cemetery in Seoul. Also, the South Korean flag is flown at half-staff.
In South Korea, Memorial Day is held every June 6 to remember the men and women who died while in military service, especially during the Korean War.
On this day, a memorial ceremony is held in National Cemetery in Seoul. Also, the South Korean flag is flown at half-staff.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Day 170
June 5 Friday
My first class was good. They all participated and they wanted me to call on them to answer. I just had to tell them to be quiet a few times but overall they are a good class. They think that one of the kid's names is scary. His name is Kill. haha. The same boy asks me to show my arm muscles in every class. I did it for him this time. THen they all laugh and one kid said I was a body builder. haha. Its a small muscle but to them its big. Little kids don't have muscles.haha.
My 2nd class bores me to death. I only have one kid and its my lowest level class-my youngest student-age 9. We are finished with the book so we are starting over at 1 (which we skipped at the beginning) Its stuff she already knows like "Hi", "whats your name?", "how old are you?" and numbers 1-10. I was bored and she probably was too. With only one student there's no class interaction and we were able to finish the whole unit. It will be beneficial to her when we get the new book. She'll get one on one attention and really have the ability to grasp the information. I just need to bring it extra materials so I'm not boring her or finishing the book too early.
3rd class was just a normal writing class.
My workout tonight was a total waste. I didn't get anything accomplished. I had been there for about 5 minutes and the power went off. I stayed about 20 minutes later and worked out on the eliptical(in the dark). I think around that point they started telling everyone they had to go home so I got my stuff and left. I dont know what happened. So I left and went to get a whopper. yes. thats very bad.
I'm not going to work out this weekend. I'm just going to take it easy and relax.
June 6th is a holiday in Korea--its memorial day.
MK called again tonight. I told him I was busy this weekend. (but im not really).ha. I just don't want to see him.
My first class was good. They all participated and they wanted me to call on them to answer. I just had to tell them to be quiet a few times but overall they are a good class. They think that one of the kid's names is scary. His name is Kill. haha. The same boy asks me to show my arm muscles in every class. I did it for him this time. THen they all laugh and one kid said I was a body builder. haha. Its a small muscle but to them its big. Little kids don't have muscles.haha.
My 2nd class bores me to death. I only have one kid and its my lowest level class-my youngest student-age 9. We are finished with the book so we are starting over at 1 (which we skipped at the beginning) Its stuff she already knows like "Hi", "whats your name?", "how old are you?" and numbers 1-10. I was bored and she probably was too. With only one student there's no class interaction and we were able to finish the whole unit. It will be beneficial to her when we get the new book. She'll get one on one attention and really have the ability to grasp the information. I just need to bring it extra materials so I'm not boring her or finishing the book too early.
3rd class was just a normal writing class.
My workout tonight was a total waste. I didn't get anything accomplished. I had been there for about 5 minutes and the power went off. I stayed about 20 minutes later and worked out on the eliptical(in the dark). I think around that point they started telling everyone they had to go home so I got my stuff and left. I dont know what happened. So I left and went to get a whopper. yes. thats very bad.
I'm not going to work out this weekend. I'm just going to take it easy and relax.
June 6th is a holiday in Korea--its memorial day.
MK called again tonight. I told him I was busy this weekend. (but im not really).ha. I just don't want to see him.
Day 169
June 4 Thursday
My package finally arrived!! I have new workout clohtes and some other goodies from home.
Just a normal day at school.
I got my weight checked and my information checked on this machine at the gym. I haven't lost any weight! Its only been 2 weeks though. Still I cant believe I havent lost anything. I've been at the gym almost everyday!! Im exactly the same weight. except I did gain .8 kg of fat. yuck. The personal trainer said he is worried about me. Yeah I would be too. I've got problems. I'm always so stressed and I eat the wrong kinds of foods. I'm constantly snacking. He was telling me what I should eat. he says I need lettuce, eggs, sweet potato, etc. (that stuff is bland and not appetizing!) He asked me what I had been eating. I only mentioned from yesterday and today. I didn't want to tell him that I had 2 whoppers and a big mac this week. (I didnt tell). I told him that today I ate a tuna sandwich. He says I shouldn't eat tuna. I said "tuna is good for you." He says he eats tuna when he wants to gain weight. How can tuna not be good? It only has 50 calories per serving and 0.5 g of fat. I don't understand. Maybe he's talking about the tuna in korea with all the wierd stuff in it. Maybe I should just become an anorexic.
I wonder why the PT wears cologne in the gym. You can smell it when you are standing beside him. It smells nice but still its odd. The gym isn't the place to be wearing cologne.
The cute guy from the front desk came to talk to me while I was talking to the PT. He always says hello. He likes to ask me, "Have you eaten dinner?". If I say yes then he says "What did you eat?". If I say no he says "Why?".haha. We had all my info on the screen when he came up. He was looking at it.I should have covered it up and told him not to look. oh well. It is what it is. I'm fat. There's no denying it.
At the gym I burned 99 calories on the eliptical. Then I walked for 20 minutes on the treadmill and burned about 130 calories. Then I came home and ate bad stuff. The cycle never ends.
MK has been bugging me lately. He wants to hangout. I don't really want to. He sent me an email on Monday. I didn't reply. He sent a text message today. I didn't reply. I answered when he called on my way to the gym. He was asking me if I was free on the weekend. I said "I dont know". He says he will call again on Friday. ugh. I'm going to tell him I'm busy.
My package finally arrived!! I have new workout clohtes and some other goodies from home.
Just a normal day at school.
I got my weight checked and my information checked on this machine at the gym. I haven't lost any weight! Its only been 2 weeks though. Still I cant believe I havent lost anything. I've been at the gym almost everyday!! Im exactly the same weight. except I did gain .8 kg of fat. yuck. The personal trainer said he is worried about me. Yeah I would be too. I've got problems. I'm always so stressed and I eat the wrong kinds of foods. I'm constantly snacking. He was telling me what I should eat. he says I need lettuce, eggs, sweet potato, etc. (that stuff is bland and not appetizing!) He asked me what I had been eating. I only mentioned from yesterday and today. I didn't want to tell him that I had 2 whoppers and a big mac this week. (I didnt tell). I told him that today I ate a tuna sandwich. He says I shouldn't eat tuna. I said "tuna is good for you." He says he eats tuna when he wants to gain weight. How can tuna not be good? It only has 50 calories per serving and 0.5 g of fat. I don't understand. Maybe he's talking about the tuna in korea with all the wierd stuff in it. Maybe I should just become an anorexic.
I wonder why the PT wears cologne in the gym. You can smell it when you are standing beside him. It smells nice but still its odd. The gym isn't the place to be wearing cologne.
The cute guy from the front desk came to talk to me while I was talking to the PT. He always says hello. He likes to ask me, "Have you eaten dinner?". If I say yes then he says "What did you eat?". If I say no he says "Why?".haha. We had all my info on the screen when he came up. He was looking at it.I should have covered it up and told him not to look. oh well. It is what it is. I'm fat. There's no denying it.
At the gym I burned 99 calories on the eliptical. Then I walked for 20 minutes on the treadmill and burned about 130 calories. Then I came home and ate bad stuff. The cycle never ends.
MK has been bugging me lately. He wants to hangout. I don't really want to. He sent me an email on Monday. I didn't reply. He sent a text message today. I didn't reply. I answered when he called on my way to the gym. He was asking me if I was free on the weekend. I said "I dont know". He says he will call again on Friday. ugh. I'm going to tell him I'm busy.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Day 168..word of the day: "ejaculate"
June 3 Wednesday
24 weeks.
I'm actually had a good day. I think the moving of students really helps. All my classes are balanced and the troublemakers were moved to a class where they wouldnt be part of the problem. Its great how it worked out.
My first class was productive. I used to only have 2 students. Now there are 7. I have one new student. One student that moved up 2 levels and one student who moved up 1 level to be in that class. The other students just moved from one section to another. My level 5 class is the only class that is split. I have 2 sections of level 5. Today we went over 1 page of material and I felt they really grasped what we went over today. Then I let them play a game for the last 15 minutes of class. They played hangman. The students wanted me to give them words that no one could guess. The hardest one was definatly "extracurricular".haha.
In my 2nd class I had 2 students. one was absent. the girl asked if we could study for 30 mins and then play a game. I agreed. we went over 2 pages of material. Then we played the english game. They did a good job playing the game. Its always hard to come up with words that begin with E though. I had a very funny moment in the class. A word ended in E so the next student had to spell a new word with "E" so she looked up a random word on her phone dictionary. The word she wrote was "ejaculate". I just laughed. They don't even know what the word means.thankfully they didn't even ask what it meant. I'm not going to be the sex ed teacher to a 10 year old boy and 11 year old girl.haha. Out of all the words that started with E she used that one. hilarious.
Today was actually a day when I didn't hate my job. I adore the kids even if they are little devils 20% of the time.
My 3rd class was normal. We just did a few pages of work. We didn't play any games. Some classes never ask to play games. Plus in the class there are 2 quiet boys who only speak when spoken to.
One of the korean teachers went way over her time. I was going to class and the other Korean teacher was still outside the classroom when it was time for class to start. She told me "she's not out yet" so I waited and she finally ended her class at 8:10 which was 10 minutes into my class. So then I went into class. I gave the students a few minutes to have some free time while I got my things organized. The boys in the class kept laughing during class. They love to draw in their books. If there is a person in the book they will do all kinds of things like make blood come out of their eyes or write all sorts of funny things beside it. Then they compare their pictures with everyone else and they laugh at each other's drawings. They were laughing really hard at what one of the girls drew. I don't know what it was but they were interested in it.
Before school started the personal trainer from the gym called me. He kept telling me who he was and I was having a hard time hearing him (he was calling from the gym and I could hear the music in the background so it was hard to hear him). He said "dont forget me." and "do you remember me?"haha.(why would I forget him. I talk to him all the time) It was also funny that he wouldn't hang up first. We said bye to each other then I was waiting for him to hang up and he told me to hang up first.haha. Anyway he wants me to meet him at the gym tomorrow at 10pm. I'm finally doing the dreaded weigh in. hopefully I've lost some weight.
I had a light workout tonight. I was on the eliptical at a moderate pace for 30 minutes and the treadmill for 15 minutes at a slow pace.
I still haven't received my package. I looked in the guard's office and there weren't any packages. I'm getting worried. I think tomorrow will be 2 weeks. Since I moved to Seoul my packages haven't taken more than 7 days to arrive. I really hope its not lost. That stuff was expensive ($140 for items and shipping). And some of it was irreplaceable. I don't want to lose my Winthrop shirt!! And I need new workout clothes!! Maybe it just got held up somewhere. I hope it arrives soon!
24 weeks.
I'm actually had a good day. I think the moving of students really helps. All my classes are balanced and the troublemakers were moved to a class where they wouldnt be part of the problem. Its great how it worked out.
My first class was productive. I used to only have 2 students. Now there are 7. I have one new student. One student that moved up 2 levels and one student who moved up 1 level to be in that class. The other students just moved from one section to another. My level 5 class is the only class that is split. I have 2 sections of level 5. Today we went over 1 page of material and I felt they really grasped what we went over today. Then I let them play a game for the last 15 minutes of class. They played hangman. The students wanted me to give them words that no one could guess. The hardest one was definatly "extracurricular".haha.
In my 2nd class I had 2 students. one was absent. the girl asked if we could study for 30 mins and then play a game. I agreed. we went over 2 pages of material. Then we played the english game. They did a good job playing the game. Its always hard to come up with words that begin with E though. I had a very funny moment in the class. A word ended in E so the next student had to spell a new word with "E" so she looked up a random word on her phone dictionary. The word she wrote was "ejaculate". I just laughed. They don't even know what the word means.thankfully they didn't even ask what it meant. I'm not going to be the sex ed teacher to a 10 year old boy and 11 year old girl.haha. Out of all the words that started with E she used that one. hilarious.
Today was actually a day when I didn't hate my job. I adore the kids even if they are little devils 20% of the time.
My 3rd class was normal. We just did a few pages of work. We didn't play any games. Some classes never ask to play games. Plus in the class there are 2 quiet boys who only speak when spoken to.
One of the korean teachers went way over her time. I was going to class and the other Korean teacher was still outside the classroom when it was time for class to start. She told me "she's not out yet" so I waited and she finally ended her class at 8:10 which was 10 minutes into my class. So then I went into class. I gave the students a few minutes to have some free time while I got my things organized. The boys in the class kept laughing during class. They love to draw in their books. If there is a person in the book they will do all kinds of things like make blood come out of their eyes or write all sorts of funny things beside it. Then they compare their pictures with everyone else and they laugh at each other's drawings. They were laughing really hard at what one of the girls drew. I don't know what it was but they were interested in it.
Before school started the personal trainer from the gym called me. He kept telling me who he was and I was having a hard time hearing him (he was calling from the gym and I could hear the music in the background so it was hard to hear him). He said "dont forget me." and "do you remember me?"haha.(why would I forget him. I talk to him all the time) It was also funny that he wouldn't hang up first. We said bye to each other then I was waiting for him to hang up and he told me to hang up first.haha. Anyway he wants me to meet him at the gym tomorrow at 10pm. I'm finally doing the dreaded weigh in. hopefully I've lost some weight.
I had a light workout tonight. I was on the eliptical at a moderate pace for 30 minutes and the treadmill for 15 minutes at a slow pace.
I still haven't received my package. I looked in the guard's office and there weren't any packages. I'm getting worried. I think tomorrow will be 2 weeks. Since I moved to Seoul my packages haven't taken more than 7 days to arrive. I really hope its not lost. That stuff was expensive ($140 for items and shipping). And some of it was irreplaceable. I don't want to lose my Winthrop shirt!! And I need new workout clothes!! Maybe it just got held up somewhere. I hope it arrives soon!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Day 167
June 2 Tuesday
Oh my goodness. My job is driving me crazy!
So class starts at 5:50. Its 6:00pm and the korean teacher is still sitting at her desk preparing things for class. Then she goes to class and comes out to make copies. I am always in class for the full amount.
In my first class I had a new student. There were 3 students who moved from another level who were absent from my class. We had a productive class today. There were 4 students and they were all good. The person who usually caused trouble in that class moved to the next level.
I was looking over my rolls today. I actually have one student who moved down a level. I have another student who moved up 2 levels. I have one student who I guess isn't at the school anymore. He wasn't on any of my lists. One of my classes is going to be big. In my level 8 class I have 12 people on the roll. There was 9 in that class before, but 3 from level 7 moved up to 8. Only one person from 8 moved up to level 9.
My 2nd class is boring. I'm finished with the book so today we just reviewed. There were 2 students from level 5 who moved up. Today we just went over a unit that level 6 just finished. The others students who had been in that class were telling me "we've already done this." I said we were reviewing. I hate it! Why did I have such small amount of material to teach in such a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time??!! This is one reason I hate my job!! After we reviewed I let them play a game for the rest of class. I tried to get one of my students to make up her writing test. She didn't do it during class. I asked her to bring it to me later. She was absent when I gave the test and I have to give everyone a writing grade. If she doesnt turn it in I'll just give her a zero.
In level 4 I have two girls who are twins and two boys. Today we reviewed unit 9. They were having fun in class today. The girls wanted to come to the front of the classroom and sing the song from the book. So I let them. They sang while the boys laughed hysterically. It was quite funny. They sang it 3 times with the cd. One of the guys was laughing so hard he could have busted out into tears. Then I let them play a game. Some of the students were running their fingernails down the chalkboard. It was making this one guy cringe. He would put his hands over his ears everytime they did it.I don't like that sound either.
In level 7 I had 2 girls. One girl from level 6 moved to level 7. The other was from level 5 and she moved up to 7. At the beginning of class they were asking for candy. I had some chocolate in my desk so I gave it to them. They enjoyed that. After class they were eating chocolate and some of the other students from another class came over and saw it. They wanted some but I didn't have anymore. We went over 2 pages of new material. We were talking about different countries and what you were if you came from that country. For example, I'm from the United States. I'm American. When we got to Mexico they were telling me how a lot of people had the pig virus there. They were teaching me some korean. I dont remember any of it. then I let them have free time. they were drawing pictures of me on the board. When I gave them only a small amount of homework they were telling me how much they love me.
I had a short workout tonight at the gym. I didn't want to do a long workout. I just did 30 minutes on the treadmill.
I hope my package comes soon! My mom sent a package with new workout clothes on the 21st of May. It hasn't arrived yet. I really want my new clothes!! I'm tired of washing my workout clothes every day. I only have one pair of clothes to wear to the gym.
Oh my goodness. My job is driving me crazy!
So class starts at 5:50. Its 6:00pm and the korean teacher is still sitting at her desk preparing things for class. Then she goes to class and comes out to make copies. I am always in class for the full amount.
In my first class I had a new student. There were 3 students who moved from another level who were absent from my class. We had a productive class today. There were 4 students and they were all good. The person who usually caused trouble in that class moved to the next level.
I was looking over my rolls today. I actually have one student who moved down a level. I have another student who moved up 2 levels. I have one student who I guess isn't at the school anymore. He wasn't on any of my lists. One of my classes is going to be big. In my level 8 class I have 12 people on the roll. There was 9 in that class before, but 3 from level 7 moved up to 8. Only one person from 8 moved up to level 9.
My 2nd class is boring. I'm finished with the book so today we just reviewed. There were 2 students from level 5 who moved up. Today we just went over a unit that level 6 just finished. The others students who had been in that class were telling me "we've already done this." I said we were reviewing. I hate it! Why did I have such small amount of material to teach in such a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time??!! This is one reason I hate my job!! After we reviewed I let them play a game for the rest of class. I tried to get one of my students to make up her writing test. She didn't do it during class. I asked her to bring it to me later. She was absent when I gave the test and I have to give everyone a writing grade. If she doesnt turn it in I'll just give her a zero.
In level 4 I have two girls who are twins and two boys. Today we reviewed unit 9. They were having fun in class today. The girls wanted to come to the front of the classroom and sing the song from the book. So I let them. They sang while the boys laughed hysterically. It was quite funny. They sang it 3 times with the cd. One of the guys was laughing so hard he could have busted out into tears. Then I let them play a game. Some of the students were running their fingernails down the chalkboard. It was making this one guy cringe. He would put his hands over his ears everytime they did it.I don't like that sound either.
In level 7 I had 2 girls. One girl from level 6 moved to level 7. The other was from level 5 and she moved up to 7. At the beginning of class they were asking for candy. I had some chocolate in my desk so I gave it to them. They enjoyed that. After class they were eating chocolate and some of the other students from another class came over and saw it. They wanted some but I didn't have anymore. We went over 2 pages of new material. We were talking about different countries and what you were if you came from that country. For example, I'm from the United States. I'm American. When we got to Mexico they were telling me how a lot of people had the pig virus there. They were teaching me some korean. I dont remember any of it. then I let them have free time. they were drawing pictures of me on the board. When I gave them only a small amount of homework they were telling me how much they love me.
I had a short workout tonight at the gym. I didn't want to do a long workout. I just did 30 minutes on the treadmill.
I hope my package comes soon! My mom sent a package with new workout clothes on the 21st of May. It hasn't arrived yet. I really want my new clothes!! I'm tired of washing my workout clothes every day. I only have one pair of clothes to wear to the gym.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Day 166
June 1 Monday
I saw my neighbor (the football coach) as I was leaving today. He said "Nice to meet you". He shook my hand and then said "see you again." He's using his basic phrases that he memorized in high school. I think thats about all the English he can speak. Its really limited. I remember the first night I met him. We "talked" for probably about 45 minutes, but most of that time was spent trying to understand each other. He can't understand me and I can't understand him. I would offer to help him as a friendly gesture, but I know his opinion on English. He says "F**k English-I'm Korean". Its a lost cause.
My classes are changing. I have students moving to different levels.
I only had one student in my 1st class. 2 of the students moved up to level 3. So my youngest student (2nd grade) got a one on one lesson today. I covered 3 pages of material and let her play a game. There are 2 other students who were either absent or no longer there. They didn't move to the next level.
In my 2nd class there were 3 students. Its my level 3 class. One student from level 3 is still in the same level. One student moved to level 4 and the other to level 5. 2 students from level 2 moved to this class. 2 of the boys were passing notes to each other during class. They weren't sitting beside each other. They were getting out of their seat and walking to the other person's seat. I made them stop and pay attention. One of the boys kept taking off his shoe and holding it in the other boy's face. These kids are silly. We covered one page of material and then I let them play a game. They said who ever got out in the game had to buy ice cream for the class (3 students). A girl went to the store and bought ice cream for me, herself and the other student. One student didn't want any ice cream.
I caught up on 2 episodes of "House" at work. 3 more and I'm caught up for the summer. I hate summer breaks. I'm caught up on everything except for "the bachelorette" which I can't even watch because I cant find a copy of it!
In my 3rd class I had one student who moved up from level 9 to level 10. Now there are 2 students in the class. We just went over a writing unit. Its crazy. The "new" student just started the writing book 3 weeks ago. He's only completed 3 units. And now all of a sudden he is on unit 14.
I wonder how many of my students from tues/thurs moved up to new levels. I know all of my level 7 students moved up. So in that class it doesn't matter where I start in the book because they haven't been in my class. I might just do half of 9 on tues. writing on thurs (half of unit 1). The other half of unit 9 next week. One of my students from level 5 moved all the way up to level 7. One of my level 3 students moved up to 5. If they can move up 2 levels then their comprehension is good.
I know tomorrow in my level 4 class I have the twins. Last week I accidentally called one by the other one's name. I usually keep them apart because they are in different classes but now they are in the same class.
All the students moving up at the end of a cycle really confuses me on how to test them. I can't test new students on material they don't know. I wont be able to teach enough material in one class to be able to test them on it. Maybe I'll just give 2 tests this month on the new material that we start on June 15.But if they only have 2 tests then they don't have any other grades to factor in if they get a bad grade on one test. Why do they have to make this so complicated?? And now I have to make a few students make up their writing test since they were absent on Thursday/Friday. Thats going to be a pain. I guess they will just have to make it up while I'm teaching the lesson. I can't just stop class and wait for them to finish.
I went to the gym alone tonight. Lesley was sick. I was on the eliptical for 30 mins at a moderate pace and I was on the treadmill for 15 minutes. One of the female Personal Trainers came to talk to me while I was on the treadmill. She guessed that I was 22 years old.haha. She's 25 in Korean age.
I saw my neighbor (the football coach) as I was leaving today. He said "Nice to meet you". He shook my hand and then said "see you again." He's using his basic phrases that he memorized in high school. I think thats about all the English he can speak. Its really limited. I remember the first night I met him. We "talked" for probably about 45 minutes, but most of that time was spent trying to understand each other. He can't understand me and I can't understand him. I would offer to help him as a friendly gesture, but I know his opinion on English. He says "F**k English-I'm Korean". Its a lost cause.
My classes are changing. I have students moving to different levels.
I only had one student in my 1st class. 2 of the students moved up to level 3. So my youngest student (2nd grade) got a one on one lesson today. I covered 3 pages of material and let her play a game. There are 2 other students who were either absent or no longer there. They didn't move to the next level.
In my 2nd class there were 3 students. Its my level 3 class. One student from level 3 is still in the same level. One student moved to level 4 and the other to level 5. 2 students from level 2 moved to this class. 2 of the boys were passing notes to each other during class. They weren't sitting beside each other. They were getting out of their seat and walking to the other person's seat. I made them stop and pay attention. One of the boys kept taking off his shoe and holding it in the other boy's face. These kids are silly. We covered one page of material and then I let them play a game. They said who ever got out in the game had to buy ice cream for the class (3 students). A girl went to the store and bought ice cream for me, herself and the other student. One student didn't want any ice cream.
I caught up on 2 episodes of "House" at work. 3 more and I'm caught up for the summer. I hate summer breaks. I'm caught up on everything except for "the bachelorette" which I can't even watch because I cant find a copy of it!
In my 3rd class I had one student who moved up from level 9 to level 10. Now there are 2 students in the class. We just went over a writing unit. Its crazy. The "new" student just started the writing book 3 weeks ago. He's only completed 3 units. And now all of a sudden he is on unit 14.
I wonder how many of my students from tues/thurs moved up to new levels. I know all of my level 7 students moved up. So in that class it doesn't matter where I start in the book because they haven't been in my class. I might just do half of 9 on tues. writing on thurs (half of unit 1). The other half of unit 9 next week. One of my students from level 5 moved all the way up to level 7. One of my level 3 students moved up to 5. If they can move up 2 levels then their comprehension is good.
I know tomorrow in my level 4 class I have the twins. Last week I accidentally called one by the other one's name. I usually keep them apart because they are in different classes but now they are in the same class.
All the students moving up at the end of a cycle really confuses me on how to test them. I can't test new students on material they don't know. I wont be able to teach enough material in one class to be able to test them on it. Maybe I'll just give 2 tests this month on the new material that we start on June 15.But if they only have 2 tests then they don't have any other grades to factor in if they get a bad grade on one test. Why do they have to make this so complicated?? And now I have to make a few students make up their writing test since they were absent on Thursday/Friday. Thats going to be a pain. I guess they will just have to make it up while I'm teaching the lesson. I can't just stop class and wait for them to finish.
I went to the gym alone tonight. Lesley was sick. I was on the eliptical for 30 mins at a moderate pace and I was on the treadmill for 15 minutes. One of the female Personal Trainers came to talk to me while I was on the treadmill. She guessed that I was 22 years old.haha. She's 25 in Korean age.
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