beach day!

Today was my first day of Chuseok vacation! Chuseok is a Korean holiday similar to Thanksgiving in the United States, and because of it there is no school for a week. For day one of my break, I headed to a beach in Daechan, a little over an hour away by bus. My friend Em who lives in Yesan (20 minutes by bus from me), found the beach and coordinated the trip. We met up in Hongseong and headed off to the coast, arriving and meeting up with Katie, another ETA near where I live. The beach was beautiful, and not too crowded.

Now, it is September. And while it has been warm out, I was suspicious that the water might be too cold for swimming. But the day was gorgeous and I got into my bathing suit to at least get my feet wet. The water was wonderful and Em and were soon delightfully drenched. There were not crashing waves, so we swam out over our heads and had a great time. I would like to report that the Yellow Sea off the coast of South Korea is much saltier than the Pacific Ocean at Newport Beach.

Following our dip, we walked a couple of kilometers along the coast and then headed into town for lunch. Eating street food, I experienced a corn dog that I have never seen in the states. It was as though someone took a regular corn dog and then added an additional layer of french fries. It was interesting, at least. Dessert consisted of papingsu, a Korean dessert of shaved ice, fruit, and a sweet red bean sauce. Yummy.

Our final mini-adventure in Daechan was a journey onto the rocks on the south end of the beach. We climbed around a little and took some more pictures. On the way back to the bus stop, we saw three guys riding horses on the beach. When I come back.... The day was spectacular with great friends, lots of sun and plenty of water. I plan to visit this beach multiple times during the course of the year. Although, I might get the seafood next time I come.

Look at the Beach!!

glamor shot

three chingues (Katie, Joelle, Em)

the coast

playing on the rocks

beautiful water

a butterfly

A taste of homesickness. For family.For friends. For familiarity. Feeling lost. Too much to do. I can't effectively communicate. No one knows who I really am. I tear up over The Lord of the Rings just because watching it feels "normal" and my emotions are so close to the surface. Always lesson planning, prepping for the next class, the next day, the next week. Printing worksheets, searching for activities, working but not gaining traction. Rescheduling because of "surprise" events. Always a smile, always willing to try something new. The mask gets heavy sometimes. Why am I here? Will I really make a difference? Are the kids learning anything? Why is this a struggle? Why doesn't this always come naturally? I don't have the time to do everything, to make it perfect. Can I really do this? Should I be here?

Stop. Wait. Breathe.

Look, some markers. An extra worksheet from my afterschool club class. A color-by-letter. I don't have time. Too much to do. This isn't productive. But I pick up the markers anyway. I should be working on my next lesson. I start to color. The kids will be here in an hour. Something simple. Something relaxing. Through a different activity I can let my thoughts settle, my mind clear and my anxieties lessen. Keeping the color in the lines lets me bring my misgivings back into check. A butterfly. A new perspective. I cut it out and it flutters off in the hands of one of my second graders.

One day at a time, I can make it through the year. I am here to love my students and teach them to the best of my ability. I can do that.

the weekend!!

The work week is over and I get to put my feet up, relax, and recover from this irritating sore throat, right? Well, not quite, but I did have a great weekend. On Friday, one of my host sisters came home from high school for the weekend, so it was exciting to see her again. Then on Saturday, after talking to my family for a little bit (okay, mostly typing because the audio was on the fritz), I was whisked away to a traditional Korean lunch followed by a tour of the Sudeok Buddhist Temple. We saw the artwork of a famous calligrapher, looked at the temple buildings, and went on a "fifteen minute" (shall we say 45?) hike in flip flops straight up the mountain to another temple area that was closed. Despite the mosquito bites and bridges closed compliments of the typhoon, the hike was lovely and it was a great time spent with my host family. Upon returning to Hongseong, Jisu (the host sister in high school) and I opted for an evening in town involving a 6,000 won photo shoot and Baskin Robbins. Sunday began with a train ride to Cheonan to visit a church (lots of fun), included a meal with my host family of duck cooked five different ways, and ended in a delightful bubble bath. As usual, I awoke Monday morning looking forward to the next weekend.

silent teaching

Last week was a long stretch for me. I almost completely lost my voice and had to deal with more behavior issues than I was expecting. I guess the "honeymoon period" is over with these students. But through these difficulties, I have learned a few teaching tidbits. The first is that I over-rely on verbal commands and that I do not actually need them to maintain classroom order. While my voice was rapidly disappearing, I quickly went through a series of silent classroom management experiments. Clapping a rhythm for the students to repeat....did not work. Standing quietly in the front of the classroom and waiting for the class to settle down really did not work. And as much as I tried to explain the "quiet coyote," it also failed. My most successful technique (for the older grades) was to stand in front of the classroom with my hand in the air and silently count down my fingers from five to zero. If I reached zero and there was not absolute silence, I would erase one of the class points (each class begins with four and is trying to reach a certain number for a prize). My fifth grade class learned this method the fastest, and they now tell each other to be quiet as soon as I put my hand up so that the class is usually quiet by the time I reach three. Yay for small successes.

Another prevalent behavior issue has been tardiness. Yesterday, in my sixth grade class, only six student (out of twenty-four) arrived at the proper time. I wrote down their names and at the end of the class I let them leave on time. All the other students had to write "I will not be late to class" ten times before they left the classroom. They were not enthusiastic about this supplemental writing, so I hope I will be able to start on time with a full class tomorrow. I implemented the same technique with the sixth graders.

Being sick while teaching is not very fun, but I did discover that I can go and take a nap in the nurse's office during my prep periods if I am not feeling well. I felt very strange lying in a bed in the school, but I felt much better after the rest.

Every Thursday, several of the teachers (as well as the principal and vice principal) get together for a couple of games of volleyball. Sore throat and all, I decided to join in the competition. Apparently, my principal was the captain of his volleyball team in college and loves to direct people around the court. I figured that if we cannot speak the same language, we can at least communicate through a game. However, some of the rules are slightly different on the other side of the Pacific. For example, kicking is perfectly valid, as long as the ball does not touch the floor. Also, we did not rotate through the positions, so I played center net for three games and missed a lot of balls. Even though my team lost, we had a great time playing!

Well, that's all for now from the teaching end of things. Tomorrow is day 15 of teaching, the start of my fourth week. Yikes!

now...what you've all been waiting for.....[cue drum roll]

Pictures!!

It is amazing what kids will do when you point a camera at them. I took my camera to school today and we had a great time!

 Here is my very colorful classroom!

 This is my second grade class.

 First grade.

 Third grade.

 Fourth grade.

 Sixth grade.

 At the drinking fountain.

 On the swings!

 Funny faces.

 The jungle gym.

 More swings.

 A casualty of the typhoon.

 A lunchtime game of baseball. They let my bat (with a little hesitation) and were very impressed that I hit a decent ball and made it to third. I did not inform them that I was just as surprised as they were!

 This rugrat is always getting into trouble...but very cute :)

 A game of "Touch the Color Twister" in my afterschool 3/4 class. 

Teaching is going well. I am losing my voice and wading through the "how-best-to-effectively-manage-a-class-when-I-don't-speak-the-language" waters, but I love my students and feel that I am making progress (most days). This will be a good year.

cute times

My host father drove me to school today, which gave me an extra thirty minutes in the morning! As I was getting out of the car, three kindergarten girls ran out of the school saying, "Miss Joelle! Miss Joelle! Miss Joelle!" and giving me a hug. It was a beautiful way to start the day. Later, after I ate lunch, I came to my classroom and started working on the computer. I heard this funny noise in my "empty" classroom and found two girls hiding behind the toy counters. They came out sheepishly and we all laughed. I love kids.

meeting up with friends!

This past weekend was wonderful. On Saturday I joined two of my Fulbright friends in the lovely town of Kongju. I traveled from Hongsong, and Em traveled from Yesan. We met up with Sam and spent the morning talking at a coffee shop. It was relieving to be able to speak English to a native speaker and to swap teaching stories and advice. The coffee was pretty good too :). Mid-morning, Sam had to leave for an English competition with her school, so Em and I went out for a walk. We strolled along a river (which I later found out from my host family that it is called the "silk" river because it is pretty) and had a great conversation in this covered seating area. The weather was hot and humid, but it was still nice to be outside. In the afternoon we went out in search of lunch. As we were just wandering around, we were having trouble finding any quaint restaurants. However, just as we were about to turn back to the bus station, we discovered the Mary Poppins Cafe. Serving Pizza, Italian Food, and Espresso (as the sign said), it was perfect. The inside decor made the place suitable for a Jane Austin-esque tea party with frilly tablecloths and cozy booths. I definitely want to check the place out again. The ride back to Hongseong was uneventful and I was spent after such a great day.

On Sunday, my host family headed to Yesan, where my host father has family. I opted to stay at the apartment for some R & R. After a slightly lazy morning, I packed my school supplies and headed to my favourite coffee shop, "Latte". I love this place. It is on the second floor if its building and has tables overlooking a street with a lot of foot traffic. Ordering an iced cafe latte (no sugar, please), I proceeded to listen to a sermon by Dan Betzer on my ipod. Talking about encountering the presence of God and focusing on Exodus 40, it was just what I needed this week. I then spent the next couple of hours lesson planning and reading The Three Musketeers. As I was headed back to my apartment, my host family called and said they were picking me up for dinner in Yesan. While this change in plans was unexpected, it ended up being a great trip. We went to two restaurants, but they were both closed. At the third restaurant, my host father dropped us off and headed off to find food that he likes better (apparently he does not like this style of food). I had spaghetti and a fried chicken breast. The combination was a little different than normal, but yummy. After dinner we went to my host father's brother's house. They live way out in the country in a two story wood house. At first I was anxious about getting back to finish my planning for Monday morning. But then I just relaxed and focused on the family time instead worrying about teaching. I learned how to play Omok, a game where one player has black pieces and the other has white pieces. Each turn, the player lays his piece on a grid, attempting to make a line of five. I played against my host sister and her two younger brother cousins. I am definitely hooked!

All and all, the weekend was great.

so much to write, so little time!

Hello world! I promise that I am alive and well--I have simply been detained by an inordinate amount of paperwork issued by the Lesson Plan Monster. I am conquering these tasks, though, so hopefully life will begin to settle down some.

First off, I would like to announce that I am officially a teacher!! I have completed my first week of being in charge of my own classroom (from the writing to the execution of lesson plans) and while there have been several ups and downs, I have great students and awesome co-teachers.

After a couple of days of settling in to my new apartment, host family, and hometown I went with my host mom and Ho Jin to visit Galsan Elementary School. To get to school every day, I walk about fifteen minutes to the bus stop and then take a twenty minute ride to Galsan. From there, it is a two minute walk to the school. The commute is a little longer than I would have wanted, but I do not mind the extra time to read my Kindle. After arriving at school that first day, I immediately set to work cleaning my classroom. It had been used over the summer to teach math because there was construction in the other rooms and took the full day to straighten up. My first official day at school was on Wednesday, August 25th. While I did not teach, I got to give a small speech the students and meet the rest of the staff. The kids are adorable and I love saying "hi" to them in the halls.

My first day of actual teaching was on Thursday. I met the first and second grade classes. In Korea, English training is not officially required to start until third grade. But because Galsan is so small, I am able to teach all seven grades (K-6). There is no textbook for K-2, so I am currently working on phonics with them as well as introducing other simple topics. I am slightly concerned regarding coming up with enough topics to fill the year.

During the course of the week, I teach twenty different classes, each requiring its own lesson plan. This has been rather overwhelming, especially this first week, and yesterday I was not sure if I would be able to handle the workload. I want to teach high quality lessons, but if I were to devote two hours to the planning of each lesson, I would have at a minimum a sixty-hour work week. In addition, I am finding it difficult to effectively control a class when I cannot adequately express myself in Korean. Today, after a noisy group of first graders, I had a little heart-to-heart with God regarding my stress level and feelings of being overwhelmed. I was reminded of something:

This is my first time teaching on a full-time basis. I do not yet have the experience to automatically know what to do in each situation (if that ever comes). There will be mistakes and that is okay. The important thing is not to do this perfectly and spend every waking moment planning for the classroom. That is called burnout-in-a-month. The important thing is to take the time to figure out what works with this classroom, love my students, plan and prepare as much as is reasonable, and remember when a lesson does not go as well as anticipated that tomorrow is a new day.

After that, I took a new approach to writing lessons (writing all the lessons for a unit in one go) and was able to crank out eleven lesson plans in one afternoon. (Do I get a Klondike bar for that?) I feel as though the situation is more in control and that I will eventually find some sanity in my teaching.

Beyond teaching, here is some other news of what I have been up to:

I have sampled three of the coffeeshops in town and plan to become the local coffee connoisseur. I like two of them, both in coffee flavour and atmosphere.

I have not had a face-to-face conversation with a native English speaker in two weeks.

I just experienced my first typhoon (the worst typhoon in Korea in a decade) and as a result spent this morning without any electricity in my classroom.

I have been playing my host sister Jisu's flute and loving every minute of it.

Funny Teaching Moment #1: My awesome taekwondo skills came in handy when I was hanging out with some of my first and second graders. They were practicing kicks and so I decided to join them. I amazed them with my high kick. We then moved from martial arts to arm wrestling where I defeated half a dozen seven-year olds.

I went to Seoul with my host family for my first Korean wedding. It was fascinating to compare and contrast the differences of weddings in Korea v America.

There is a Baskin Robbins and a Dunkin Donuts in Hongseong, but I have only sampled the former.

I like octopus.

Well, that is all for the present. I will work harder at updating my blog more frequently!!