Things I Should Be Doing vs. Things I Am Doing

Things I should be doing:
-Writing a proper blog post
-Writing my article for ESL101
-Writing something for my latest side project (to be discussed at a later date)
-Watching the children's TV series my coteacher says we're showing the kids during winter camp so I can know what vocabulary to teach.


Things I am doing:
-Defrosting mandu for dinner
-Dinking around on Facebook
-Everything pictured below

Precious Moments

Remember problem child, from a while back? Little second grader who is a handful in class?

Long story short, he's not a problem child anymore. At least, not to me. He's one of those kids who is extremely talented and too smart for his grade, so he gets really bored and acts out. He's also the biggest ham I've ever met.

Anyway, just a few minutes ago he peeked into my room and asked "teacher... phone?" I told him to come in and he used my desk phone to call his mom. I think she was late to pick him up. I heard him say he was in the English classroom. He hung up and said "teacher... stay?" I had him pull up a chair and help me make nametags for English camp. When we were done, I asked if he wanted to listen to Christmas music. He smiled. We were listening to Christmas music last week in after school class, and he'd repeatedly requested "All I Want For Christmas is You." I put it on and pulled up a page with the lyrics. We spent the next ten minutes learning the words and singing them. Boy, kiddo can SING! Future K-Pop star here. Calling it.

His mom showed up a few minutes later and he ran out without the song lyrics. Of course, I had to chase him down and give them to him. I'm hoping to get a youtube-worthy performance before the end of the year.

I was touched that he picked me to visit. His homeroom is two floors down. He's visited me before out of the blue. I get the feeling that he has a hard time getting along with the other kids, and that some of the teachers think of him the way I used to-- like a problem child. Without getting too much into a cultural critique, I get the impression that it's even harder to be a "different" kid here than it is at home. Korea is a culture of collectivism and conformity, and anyone who doesn't quite fit in faces a tough road.

Anyway, he's the sweetest little boy and I worry that he's going to have a hard time as he gets older.

My heart is all full of teacherly love.

Yay Korea! Dog Cafes

This is the third in a series I'm calling "Yay, Korea!" There are a lot of things here that are just so brilliant, you don't know how you ever lived without them.

I finally went to a dog cafe. It's a cafe where you can just play with all the dogs that live there. It was everything I'd dreamed of. I'm not going to explain it in depth because I think the pictures speak for themselves. I did talk about it in my article for esl101.com this week, so you can go here to read about it. 

Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy the puppy pics.

Winter is Here

Winter has officially come to Soongshin Elementary. The kiddos had a snowball fight at lunch today.

Speaking of lunch, Special Food Wednesdays continue to be the highlight of my week. Today I saved these bad boys to eat alone in my classroom so my happy awkward noises wouldn't disturb the other teachers. On my way to my classroom one of the sixth graders asked if he could have one. Back off, punk.

One final note: today Principal said something to me for the first time in months: "Stop coughing."

Breaking News

Guys. I ate all my kimchi at lunch today. This is huge.

Questionable English Photo of the Day

Winter is Coming

It's getting cold. Really cold.  Wear-long-underwear-every-day kind of cold.

You'd think I'd be used to this, having spent my entire life in exceptionally cold climes. In theory, Seoul and Boston have almost the exact same climate, and neither place gets as cold as my hometown of Bozeman, Montana. But for some reason, I cannot get warm here.

Maybe it's the fact that my classroom gets one hour of heat a day. My day revolves around the little jingle the heater sings when it turns on. No matter what we're doing, Coteacher and I will stop and do a little happy dance when we hear that sound. This includes times when it happens in the middle of class. Then, an hour later, when it makes the sad little "I'm turning off now" jingle, Coteacher and I will stop, look up, and sigh in unison, resigning ourselves to knowing that we will only get colder for the rest of the day. 

It doesn't even matter what I wear to school these days because I never take off my coat. I could wear the same thing every single day, and nobody would ever see it. I probably could get away with not wearing a bra. Just sayin. It may happen. 

One thing I do wear to school every day is long underwear. My collection of high tech long johns is quickly becoming extensive and varied. Koreans take their long johns very seriously. Every major department store has a giant section devoted to long underwear in every shape, style and color. In fact, later today I'm heading out to purchase some more.

Another thing that contributes to the unending cold is my bathroom. For some reason, it is an absolute ice box. All the time. I keep the door shut so it doesn't make the rest of my apartment cold.  I'm starting to think the real purpose of those ubiquitous shower shoes is really just so that Koreans don't have to stand on the frigid tile floor. Unfortunately, a frigid bathroom makes it almost impossible to have a nice, hot shower. Even if I turn up the hot water, I never stop being a little bit cold.

Thank God for my ondol, which does make my apartment quite toasty. But that takes a long time to heat up, and while I love my giant windows, they mean I have to have the ondol on pretty much all the time if I don't want the temperature to drop into the 60s.

I'm a bit nervous about what my hot water bill will be this month. Oh well.

I keep telling myself that it really isn't that bad, yet. It's only dipped below freezing in the last few days, and I know colder times are ahead.

As my friends and I have taken to saying in our best Ned Stark (from Game of Thrones) voice, winter is coming.