Day 252

Wednesday August 26

36 weeks...thats how long I've been here.

I've almost made it through a whole session (semester).whatever you want to call it. I'm basically 99% finished. 50% finished with my contract!!

Wednesday is my easy day. I had 3 classes. I started at 4:10 and was done at 7:05. Then I just sit around and surf the web and play games for nearly 2 hours.

My first class was good as usual. We covered a few pages of material. Today we were talking about our favorite foods, cakes, drinks, etc. One of the kids asked to have a cookie party on Friday. I guess I'm suppose to just bring in various kinds of cookies. The other kids might get jealous bc I didnt have a party in their class, but this class specifically asked for a party.

In my 2nd class I was going to make them take 2 tests and then study hard for the rest of class. Its the last day of the semester for that class so I let them take the tests and then they played for the rest of class. It was the last day and there wasn't going to be a lot of time to cover new material because of the 2 tests. They all did well on the speaking test, but not so well on the writing test. The kids all had snacks during class. They gave me some. One was interesting. It was like a cheesepuff but it was banana flavored. That was something I'd never tried before.

One of the kids from my 2nd class came over to my desk before class. he had the school advertisement in his hand. He said "who is this?" and pointed to me. Later when i was at the copier he was having a good time pressing the copy button for me.haha.

My 3rd class was good. We covered a few pages of material. They were very good today. We learned a lot of fun facts today. There was a fact about a woman with the longest fingernails in the world-7.5 meters. One of the kids pointed to it and asked if it was real. One of the students said she was crazy. I agree. Why would you let your fingernails grow that long? I never let mine grow! I bite them off constantly.

I guess the Korean teacher who is resigning is just taking it easy for her last few days. She had 2 45 minute classes back to back with the same level. She went into the first one for 10 mins and then came out. She left them all alone for the whole class. Then she went back about 10 minutes before it was time to leave and basically walked in and walked back out. So she "taught" them for 10 mins today. While she was suppose to be in class she was at her desk making phone calls to parents.

After work I went to the gym. I haven't seen Lesley this week at the gym. I asked the front desk guy how he was doing and he said "not bad." One of the girls at the desk was asking me if "so-so" and "not bad" meant the same thing. I told her no. (I think "so-so" is worse than "not bad"...if youre "not bad" then that means things are pretty good. If you are "so-so" then thats more of a negative connotation-at least in my opinion). Then the front desk guy came over and said "I hope you become good at Korean". Haha. I asked him to help me read a text that was sent from the gym. It wasn't important but he explained it to me. He didn't quite know how to tell me what the message meant. His English is good, but sometimes he has a hard time trying to explain something. It said the showers would be off from 10pm sat to 8am on Sunday (doesn't apply to me anyway). I walked on the treadmill for 42 minutes. I saw Mr. Lee at the gym tonight.

After the gym I went to Burger King. yeah not a good choice but oh well. While I was there I met another foreigner-He's from Canada. He started talking to me. He said he'd been in Bulgwang for 5 years and he'd never met another foreigner. The only one I know is Lesley. He sat down and talked to me for a while.He kept telling me how drunk he was and that he was going to meet his Korean friend to drink some more. He was asking me if I came all the way there just to go to burger king (its only 2 subway stops). I told him I was there for the gym. He wanted to know how much I paid for the gym-90,000 a month. He wanted to know what I do at the gym. Really all I do is walk on the treadmill. He thought that was ridiculous. He said I should just take a walk instead of paying 90,000 (about 90 dollars) to walk on the treadmill. I paid for a 6 month membership when I signed up. I know its expensive, but I really enjoy there. The staff is really nice and a lot of them can speak English and have taken the time to speak to me almost everytime I come in. I am constantly meeting someone new. This week i met the Yoga teacher and there is a new girl at the reception desk. He thought it was crazy that I went to the gym and then came to eat at Burger King. I know. I'll be the first to admit that I've got problems!! He was telling me what I need to do to lose weight...eat less, exercise..blah, blah, blah..Yes I know this!! So he probably thinks I'm crazy, but I don't care!!

Korea is full of adventure....and I've met some of the craziest people here!