Any weight I may have lost since arriving in Korea...

is instantly going to be gained back now that I have bread and cheese in my life again. Oh my god. Now when I come home my thoughts are no longer "what can I make that is palatable" but "what of the plethora of delicious options do I want to savour." Delicious. So delicious. Sandwiches have re-entered my life. Cheesey pasta. CHEESE EXPLOSIONS.

Moving on...

Today a few more kids brought in some Pepero presents. These gifts were even cuter because they were premeditated for me! Check it out:

From left to right they say

To: Anne
From: One of your student (This girl didn't have me today so when she say me outside of class she was so happy to be able to give it to me. Such a sweetheart. An older girl too, so not just like little kid giddy!)

To: (Student's name in Hangul) Seo Yeong Tik? Tik isn't a regular sounding name, but it's really hard for me to read handwritten hangul.
From: Ann

To: (English teacher written in Hangul)
From:  5 -5 Chui A Yeong

I LOVE THEM.

Cute interactions of today:

1. Student comes into class with an open box of pepero sticks. Comes up to me and says
"TEACHER. YOU EAT PEPERO! EAT PEPERO!"
I obviously complied.
He gave one to my coteacher and the other foreigner teacher who doesn't teach him.

2. At the end of the day another boy gave me a pepero from his open box, but I was wearing mittens (CAUSE IT'S SO COLD INSIDE) and I broke it. That wouldn't do, so he gave me another.

3.Student "Anne Teacher! What is your name!"
Anne: "Anne"
Student: "No, you're NAME!"
Anne: "Anne?"
Student: "Your REAL name!"
Anne: "Oooh, my full name?"
Student "Yesyesyesyes"
When I showed my full name, which I suppose I shouldn't put online on this public blog, the kids  had such a laugh. I even added my middle name for shock value. All the names here are the same length - one character for the last name (eg. Kim) and 2 for the first name (eg. Jong Il). A huge proportion of them have the same name. So my name was just ridiculously long to them.

They kept pronouncing my last name as Banana. I wrote it out for them in Hangul though and then they got  it.

Ok haha note how I wrote "last name" and "first name" but obviously I meant "family name" and "given name." Whoops! It's so confusing to me that it's reversed here.

Cute observation of today:

2 boys were staying in my English room after school was out. School ends for them at 2 30 and I stay till 4 30. Normally I get to hang out alone but occasionally kids will stay late. I had no idea what they were working on. They kept rough housing really intensely, like I swear one was strangling the other, but they were laughing and having fun. They kept calling each other "mango" and "frog"
"Teacher! His name is Mango!"
"Teacher! His name is Frog!"
Frog would then choke Mango for a while and when he released him ..
"Frog! Frog! You are frog!"

Haha anyways finally though they get back to business and what were these rambunctious crazy boys working on? Oh no big deal, only this BAD ASS ROBOT. These kids are in grade 6! I hope they were proud that I asked for a picture.

Our computer skills in grade 6 were playing Lemmings
and Boom! 

Student "diaries"

My grade 5 students are currently learning the past tense. The grade 5 English teacher had the excellent idea to make them write fictional diary entries. She gave them only ten minutes, and I think they're great! I had no idea the students could be this imaginative with the language! Anyways, she asked me to correct and comment on them, so I figured I'd show you guys a few of the funnier ones. I will transcribe the original texts for you in case it is difficult to read.


"Last Saturday I ate pizza with my friends. It was delicious and we ate fruits and ate desert. desert was chocolate cake, apple pie. And we played soccer. But I was tired. I don't want this soccer game."

"Today we went to the underground. We met devil and zombi. We fought devil Hong. We won and we ate devil hong. it was yummy. It was great day - The end - "

"Yesterday, I went space trip. I saw earth, moon and I saw many different stars. My friends was very excited and very fun. We ate rice cake made a famous rabbit. It was fantastic !!"

 What this one lacks in artwork it makes up for in hilarity.
"I went to the zoo. I saw elephants and rabbits. I was fighting with elephants. I won the fight but I broke my arms and lefs. It was very sick but it was fun."

 "I went to the moon. There are many angels in there. I was surprised. I ate angels apple. The angels said "You stole my apples" And I ran away, Rand after, but angel was catch me. I wake up. It was scared. I said "angel was bad" "
This story took such an unexpected turn!!

This next one was such a shock amongst all the other adorable ones haha. But hey - freedom of expression right? I'm going to guess they play too many video games!

"We went secreat door And we rode an airplane. We fight spider monster. We victory. But we are of bandit. Bandit was (Korean word A). (Korean word A) was shots gun. Then we ware die. (Korean word A) die. Becaus (Korean word B) was (Korean word A) kill."

Happy Pepero Day!

And Remembrance Day. Two holidays that really couldn't be more different!

I went to Ulsan this weekend to visit Adri but also to go to Cost Co. It was AMAZING. Just like back home. We all spent way too much money though. For dinner we made (ok Adri made.. the kitchens are too small for helpers) spaghetti  bolognese and it was one of the yummiest things I've ever eaten. 

This is my walk to school. Just
figured you might like a
visual.

Second block on way to school.
Note there are no sidewalks and
at rush hour I often think I
might be smushed.

School Friday morning.

 Fun story. Koreans like to open their windows. All the time. So while it is not very cold yet, it's been around 10-15C these days, I am FREEZING at school. Students and teachers all wear their coats indoors. Teachers have smuggled space heaters under their desks. It's brutal. When I asked why this was, a coteacher told me that students like it and they like seeing their hair blow around haha. I'm thikning something was lost in translation. Anyways, I've asked around to foreigners and apparently it is a habit from the days of gas heating when they didn't want to asphyxiate. The English room does get a lot of sun luckily so sometimes it manages to warm up. On the occasion that the room is regular indoor temperature, the students will complain that they are hot. I suggest that they remove their down winter parkas. They seem to find this a horrible inconvenience haha. Anyways, here is a picture from the textbook that I thought was funny because even the cartoon students wear their coats indoors!

Korean indoor coat wearing

The lunch ladies were on strike Friday so we ordered in.
Some teachers who don't normally sit with me got to
see the shocking fact that I am capable of using chopsticks.
I was literally the only person who ate veggies from that
veggie tray. They really love their protein, rice and
kimchi!

Pepero Day is awesome. Because it is today (Sunday)
students celebrated on Friday. All of this was given to me!!
The one at the top in the blue bag is HOME MADE!

Nude: Chocolate is contained tightly in the biscuit.

We switch to "indoor shoes" at school. I was curious about
this before coming so for anyone else who is curious
these are the standard female model. 

These are my awesome socks.

The gingkos are a gorgeous shade of yellow
these days.

Adorable grade 3 boy in his super pouffy
down jacket: "Teacher. Do you like Angry Birds?"
Anne: "Yes."
Adorable kid: "Here!"
It was too cute. I love it. 

How will I manage to follow this complex recipe without
an English translation!

Possible the most exciting moment of my life: finding
a packet of gruyere cheese at the Cost Co. It's the real deal.

Pretty boy

I don't remember if I have talked about 'pretty boy' here yet. He is a student in my grade 6 class. When I first started and was all petrified of the kids and all, the bigger ones scared me the most. I figured at least for the small kids, I would be physically intimidating. Plus bigger kids were likely going through puberty and that's just never a fun time. So anyways, this kid is quite a bit taller than me, and a little chubby so that he is in total quite a bit bigger than me. I pretty much instantly could tell those who were getting after school English lessons and he wasn't one of them. So I thought oh boy this big guy will hate English and me.

BUT I WAS SO WRONG.

He is the CUTEST THING EVER. He always tries, not matter what, even if the sounds coming from his mouth are not even close to English. For the first month whenever he saw me in the hall he would say "Teacher. Me. Pretty boy?" and when I would reply yes he would get SO excited and haul out his little friends so they could hear me confirm his beauty. He is always smiling and when he does his eyes disappear into his adorable chubby cheeks. Other teachers love him too, he is obviously a super sweet boy with a huge heart.

ANYWAYS - my coteacher once pointed out to me that his parents owned a rice cake shop down the street. I in turn told this to my friend. Because she hears me gushing about Pretty Boy all the time, she was able to recognize him the other day when she went into the shop. She told him she knew me. Apparently he looked incredibly shocked, but once she was able to express that she knew me and that I said he was a good boy, he beamed up at her proud as could be.

Today when I saw him, he skipped down the hall towards me a full speed. I hope you can imagine a husky 12 year old skipping at full speed. It's amazing. Anyways, here is our conversation.

"Teacher! (insert Korean sentences here). Your friend! Come see me! I so SCARED."
"Yes! She told me. Don't worry, she is not scary."
"She SO TALL. Pretty! OKBYE!"

And away he skipped.

PS  Pepero are cookies that  you may have heard by their Japanese name : "Pocky." Apparently Nov 11 is Pepero Day (feels almost wrong having a cookie day on Remembrance Day) and so tomorrow kiddies will be bringing me Peperos and asking for some in return. I am bringing my camera, maybe I'll get some hilarious shots!

Cuteness of today

• I played Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" for the comparative adjective lesson and kids asked me for the song title afterwards because it was so awesome. AKA I am so awesome.
• I forgot a CD in a gr. 5 classroom yesterday so at lunch I went to get it. I normally spend lunches on the grade 6 floor. It was probably the closest I will ever come to understand what fame is like. My students SWARMED ME like no other, just to say hi. I loved it.
• I told the adorable boy who wanted me to learn Korean my newest sentence which means "I am an English teacher." and then he replied "I am a student" in Korean. I felt so proud of myself.
• I told my coteacher about the mailbox idea and she loves it, so I'm going to make it this weekend. I'm sure many blog updates will be inspired by letters.
• For comparative adjective olympics, I had a "who is smarter at math" question. I wanted to see this famed math skill at work. First question was 335 / 67 = ? It took them less 5 seconds before 99% of the class had their hands raised. It. was. in. sane.

We filmed our first "Fun Fun English Broadcast." This is a 10 minute video where my coteacher and I host, showing clips and pictures and things. On the website she gave me of little clips I found a series that covers a whole bunch of nature topics, so obviously I am going to use them. The intro episode is about these two little ducks trying to figure out what kind of egg they found, so they look at all different kinds of animals laying eggs. SO I made the topic "Eggs." Here is another Egg video we used, for your viewing pleasure.

After this video I say "Cuuute" but in Korean. I think the kids will get a kick out of that. My coteacher kept laughing whenever I said it. NOT surprisingly, this video was actually originally made in Korean. I don' t know HOW I found it, but I did. My coteacher said it's because I'm a genius. I think I might have the world's biggest ego by the time I come back. I look forward to teaching all the kiddies about animals ! (PS for the record, I was among the many misinformed people who thought that evolution wasn't taught here. Turns out a few now disproved examples of evolution have been removed, such as archaeopteryx being an ancestor to modern day birds. So evolution is taught!) 

Fun fact

The "pig leg" that my coteachers have been sharing with me is, in fact, pig foot.

ew.

Waste not, right?

Still sick in Korea

Woke up feeling pretty sick again this morning. I really need to defeat Korean germs. I have a cold and a sore throat and am very tired. I did not rest nearly enough this weekend, and so I hope to spend the next one hiding in Ulsan with Adri. A bonus of knowing less people there means we can just hang out and do nothing. There's kind of a pressure I feel here that I always need to being doing something. It's quite exhausting!! Anyways, sorry for complaining. Sick Anne is cranky Anne.

On a happier note: On Friday walking to school I was greeted by one of my favourites and her friends (I finally found out her name. Su Min. Pronounced Soo Meen. Isn't that cute?). Here's our conversation as well as I remember:

SM: Teacher. [sun]Glasses.. Why?

Anne: Well it's sunny!

SM: No teacher. Cold.

Anne: Well it's sunny and cold!

SM: Today, in Seoul, SNOW.

Anne (legitimately shocked): NO! Really??

SM (surprised at my surprise): Teacher... you no watch news?

Anne: No.. it's in Korean...

SM(laughing): Teacher!!! Learn Korean!!!!

I had a chuckle. Today another group of kids told me I needed to learn Korean and that it was "very easy." They keep teaching me hello, but I know that one! I'm going to start greeting them with it just to throw them. 

Today as I was walking around the classroom, a girl picked a hair off of my blazer. She was so excited by this hair. "TeacheR!!" "yes?" "HAIR!" Yes that is a hair.. I told her she could keep it. I could see her bouncing it for the next 5 minutes. Even my body's refuse brings joy in Korea.

Another interaction today in class was a little boy looking at me with extreme urgency and asking "TEACHER. BATHROOM????" Being not-evil, I said yes but Bali Bali (hurry hurry!).
He was gone a while and I wondered if maybe he had faked the urgency and was off playing somewhere. However, when he returned, he tried in very broken English to explain his lateness.
"Teacher! My Poop. MY POOP. HOT. HARD. NO POOP."

Please imagine this with appropriate facial expressions, grunts, and body language hahha. It was hilarious and oh so odd. Thanks for the deets kiddo. 

Remember the country double D dong? Well it turns out
DDong means dung. So that explains the flag...

Went back to Gyeongju World this weekend. One time wasn't
enough! I love this mishmash of fairy tail happiness.

You think you are going to eat this food?

WELL YOU'RE NOT. IMMA SIT IN IT.