Day 337

Thursday November 19

Weather: cold..currently 33 degrees at 10:28 PM.....it was in the low 40's around 2pm and overnight its usually in the high 20's...

I always end up getting my room too hot. I turn on my ondol (the heat comes from the floor) for a few hours and let it get toasty and then I turn it off. Most of the time it gets so hot that I have to turn the AC on to cool it down enough where I can go to sleep. I don't even need anything running overnight. The ondol is a really efficent way to heat the room and it doesn't take long to warm up.

Exchange Rate: 1166 krw = $1 USD

I was all dressed up today. They asked me to look nice since they were having parent meeting. I wore a red velvety dress and I wore my hair down.

I didn't actually see any of the parents. I guess I was dressed up in case they happened to see me. I was in class all day. Thursdays are busy. 5 classes.

My first class was pretty good. One student who has been absent for 2 1/2 weeks finally came back. She didn't bring her book so I had to make her a copy. They liked to interrupt me today with unimportant things. We were in the middle of the lesson and they tell me that I look like a cherry and I look like a character from a game called Maple Story. The character is a cute chubby cat. haha. These kids are funny. Then when I asked them to read and repeat after me they were sticking their tongues out as they read and you couldn't understand what they were saying. I accidentally called one girl by her old name. Her name now is Olivia but last semester she was Jessica.haha. Today we talked about how to paragraphs and main idea.

My 2nd class was good. We went over homophones, thank you letters, and using shape, color and size words. After we finished they were asking for free time, but I spent the time reviewing for the test on Tuesday. They did good on the review. I expect them to do well on the writing test.

The lab class was okay. One of the students left right as class began. He said his mom told him to come home. So then I had 3 girls in the class. They were doing their work and when I sat down and turned my back they started trying to go to different websites so I had to start watching them again. You try to give them your trust but they don't earn it. Soon as you arent looking they are doing what they know they shouldn't be doing.

My class on Thursday is the worst conversation class. I basically talk for the sake of hearing myself talk I think. Only 1 or 2 people actually pay attention. One of my brightest students is in that class and he was so good last semester but when you put him with his friends he wants to goof off. I have 4 unruly boys who don't pay attention. They are constantly playing with their cell phones. Today they were playing games and taking photos and videos. I constanly tell them to put away their phones but they wont. They recorded me talking on their phone and they were replaying in it class. They think its funny when I tell them to pay attention and be quiet. They mock me all the time. Then one of the girls is always reading a comic book under her desk. Most of the class practiced their conversation with a partner. the boys rushed through it. The only one that I know did it exactly right was my partner. I have to be someone's partner because the numbers are uneven. I have to suffer through one more class!

I only had one student in my last class. The boy was absent because he's sick. We actually got a lot done today. When there is only one student I can get a lot accomplished. We covered 11 pages. I'm never able to cover that much in my other classes just because you have to wait for those who don't understand and explain it more. This student actually did pretty good understanding everything.

I finally found out why there are dates missing from my lesson plans. I have to give some sort of foreign test next week. Maybe its a level test. I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing. Maybe they'll tell me in advance. I doubt it. I'll probably learn what I'm actually doing on the day of. Whatever.

Tomorrow will be an easy day. I have 2 classes in the lab and my spelling class.