Cool kids, part 1

here's a fun, exciting, riveting explanation of our classes (as promised):

so basically there are two kindergarten programs in maple college (the private school where we teach): first, there's the regular kindergarten. it's taught almost completely in korean and by korean teachers but for 30 minutes every day, one of the english teachers comes in and sings a few songs, teaches a little vocab, and teaches the little kids the basics of english (brian teaches several of these classes...but i don't have one. bwahaha). there are several kindergarten classes which are split up by age; the smallest kids are about 2 years old (wayyy too young to be in school at all, in my opinion) and the oldest are 6.

then there's the maple kindergarten program. parents spend a lot more money to get their kids into this program because these kids get almost an hour and a half a day with english teachers. there are 2 classes of 5 year olds and 3 classes of 6 year olds. i teach three of these classes ( both 5 year old classes and one 6 year old class) for 40 minutes every day, while brian teaches one class of 6 year olds every day as well. each maple kindergarten class also has one science, one cooking, and one art class over a span of two weeks, which we teach as well. i think i speak for both of us when i say we both have a newfound respect for kindergarten teachers in the states...those kids can wear you out!

the kindergarten schedule starts at 10 am and goes to 3:20 pm. starting at 3:30 we have the maple elementary program, which is full of kids who have already attended their respective elementary schools during the day and get to spend another couple hours at our school. lucky! these kids range in age from 7-12 and are divided into classes depending on their age / english level. these classes tend to be a lot smaller than the kindergarten classes, which is a relief, but they are also a lot more drama-filled. i have a class full of 8 year old girls who get into fights almost every day (a couple times they tried to punch each other...i had to break them up). it's ridiculous!

aside from the elementary program, i also started teaching writing to a 16 year old boy who is moving to LA in august as an exchange student. his speaking is ok but his writing is terrrrible...i have to get his writing good enough for american high schools in just under 2 months. augh! no pressure there. it's a nice change of pace to have an older student after hours of pipsqueaks during the day, though, so i'm not complaining.

work hours: brian and i usually get to work around 9 or 9:30 and leave at either 5:30 or 6:30 depending on the day.

if any of that didn't make sense, i'm sorry. it's late and i'm tired, so i'm going to leave you with some pictures of our cute-but-crazy kids. enjoy!

laura - her front teeth grew in before she lost any of her other baby teeth. cuuuute!

me flipping the peace sign with jane, laura, mia, dennis, and richard (lurking in the background)


brian and gerard with laura, richard, dennis, and little mia



my 6 year old class, pretending to be calm. they're usually super rambunctious but they're still my favorites...

...here's why! paul, andy, and brian being silly...

...and the whole class getting in on it! from the left it's mike, tony, alice, paul, andy, brian, sally, ben, and fiona. not pictured: betty (better known as the crazy-eyes girl from my facebook picture)

tony, the boy on the left laying on the table has professed his love for me several times this year! he won't even acknowledge brian's presence :)

Brian's class of 6 year olds

From left to right: Ray, Eric, Max, Donna, Pablo, Alex, Jade, Kate, and Kelly. Not pictured: Ellen(Brian's favorite)

me instructing mia in the art of cooking. ha. if only she knew...

also pictured: selina and lucy from one of brian's classes

making hawaiian pizzas!

cooking class.

everyone take a minute to laugh at brian's super-girly pink apron :)

adam and simon, the twin 12 year olds i teach twice a week. they're also the best english speakers in our school (besides the teachers, of course).

Happy Children's Day to us!!

Saturday the 2nd and Sunday the 3rd of May, Katie and I didn't really go anywhere or do anything, so there are no pictures for that weekend. That Saturday we were hoping to see the triathlon because we thought it went right by our apartment, but the closest we came to seeing any of it was when we went up to the rooftop and saw a bunch of bikers going over the bridge and back several times. There was an ESPN MDC (Asian ESPN we guess) helicopter following them the whole time. On Sunday we went to church and just sort've hung around afterwards. Don't worry though. We made up for the lack of excitement of the weekend on Children's Day (Tuesday, May 5th) when we went to Yokjido with our friend Gerard. Yokjido, or Yokji Island, is by far the biggest island within Tonyeong's domain. We were a little afraid that when we got there we wouldn't know the best way to explore such a big island, but we eventually stumbled upon a place where you could rent go-karts and take a guided tour of the island. Between the three of us, we rented two go-karts for two hours for 80,000 won (roughly... $60 - or $10 per person per hour, not bad). Here are some pictures of our excursion:

A random view Katie was able to capture as we whizzed through the countryside

Our tour guide at the front with Gerard close behind. It was so much fun driving those go-karts!! We're actually going there again soon, except this time with several teachers from our school (hopefully).

Our go-karts parked on the side of the road. We stopped at a few locations to take in the scenery.



The three of us. If you look very closely just to the left of my head, you might be able to make out the peak of Dumido in the distance. There was a cloud hovering over it when we got to this turn-off and it looked really cool because you could only see the top of the mountain-island, making the distance to it impossible to judge: it could've been close and small or far away and huuuuuuge! We spent about a half hour here and by the time we were leaving the cloud had left and Dumido looked much less mysterious and much more mundane.

Just a cool picture that my words cannot describe properly.

Katie and me singing "Take Me Home, Country Roads." I was wearing Katie's glasses because our go-kart didn't have a windshield like the others and I was getting hit in the eyes with dust and bugs.

Driving along the oceanside road with another island off in the distance - so awesome

There were beautiful flowers and shrubs all over the island. Apparently rich Koreans own summer homes on Yokjido, similar to beach houses in America, we think. They're big on having nice lawns and gardens.

My hat flew off and my true identity was revealed

Katie with clusters of islands

After our guided tour ended, we found a Buddhist temple and decided to take a closer look. This is the last picture Katie took before our camera died. It's of a pagoda and a statue of Buddha in the background. The monks or priests that lived there were growing all sorts of vegetables around the temple... I wonder if they were completely self-sufficient, that would be cool.

We think we rented our go-karts for the perfect amount of time because one hour wouldn't have been enough time to explore the whole island (we probably would have gone to that first turn-off, spent a few minutes there and gone back) and three or more hours would have been too much time (our guide seemed to be running out of places to take us). At the end of the tour, our guide took us to a floating dock the we assume he owns. While we were walking around looking at the jellyfish floating close to the surface of the water, he was using this long pole to catch a sea urchin crawling along the ocean floor. He brought it over to us and we just watched it for a little bit while he went off again; it was cute walking on its spikes! He came back with a huge butcher knife and sliced it in half before we knew what was happening and promptly spooned out some of its insides for us to eat. The main thing I remember about it was that it tasted... salty. haha.

We had a great time on Yokjido and we're hoping the next visit with our Korean friends will be just as memorable!

Here is the mandatory GEPIK link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qobf1Dnom0M

A few notes from Brian

1. We have written several drafts and have scheduled them for publishing on Mondays and Thursdays at 11:30 AM ET (we think). This will only last as long as we have material to post that often... so probably only 2-3 weeks :( Enjoy it while it lasts!

2. I have created a makeshift countdown to the next blog post that I had to set manually, which means that it might not be accurate and I don't know what happens when it gets to zero. Also, it won't reset and it's possible I won't get on here often enough to make it worthwhile. We will just have to see...

3. The comment settings have been changed: you no longer need to be a registered user to comment on our blog! Also, you do not have to do the word verification thing. However... in order to keep spam and random people from posting offensive comments on our blog, your comments will not be posted until Katie and I have had a chance to clear them. Sorry for the inconvenience :\

4. I looked up the final score of the baseball game we went to a while back and was astonished. The Lotte Giants still lost, but they held the other team scoreless the rest of the game and made it a 10-9 final. It might have been worth it to stay, I'm not sure haha.

Our apartment!

It has been way way way too long since we last posted on here and we are sorry for that. Our USB ports weren't recognizing any of our external devices, so we hadn't been able to upload any pictures from our digital camera after our first trip to Busan. Three weekends have come and gone since our last update and I'm afraid a fourth will pass before we can really get this thing fully up to date. Here are some pictures we took of our apartment to tie you over until we can get the others on here:

The entrance. All Korean households and a few businesses and restaurants have a place for you to take off your shoes before entering.

The apartment is basically just one big room with a bathroom attached to it, but we like to think we have several areas that could be considered rooms. This is our "bedroom."

Our "living room"

Our "dining room"

A bookcase in between the entrance corridor and the kitchen

Our refrigerator, dressers and a second bookcase.

The kitchen; no Korean kitchen is complete without a washer (but no dryer!). Those of you with sharp eyes might notice the coolest pig ever hanging from the cupboard. His name is Pigbbong.

Half of the bathroom - it looks pretty standard so far...

And then there's the shower head attached to the sink with no shower stall. The water runs into a drain directly below the sink, which is nice for looks but it's a real pain when it needs to be unclogged.

It's not much but we call it home :D Here is another ridiculous ESL video for your viewing pleasure http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWVZht8fB6A&NR=1

Pay Day!!!

Today, Katie and I regained our millionaire statuses! We were both excited to receive our largest paychecks ever :D So excited that we went to the grocery store and spent 200,000 won, haha. We're preparing ourselves for a lazy weekend because we're so worn out from the last three (Yeonwhado, wedding/Bijindo, and Busan). We kind of have a long weekend because Tuesday is Children's Day, so there is no school that day, and we have a half day on Monday (we're guessing to give them some extra time to travel somewhere cool for the holiday... we just wish they would give everyone both days off for a sweet, 4-day weekend).



There is a triathlon in Tongyeong on Saturday and Sunday and we think that it might go by our apartment! We're going to sit up on the roof and see if we can watch some of it. Some of the streets are lined with flags from countries from all parts of the world and we think that those flags mark the course of the event. Our street has those flags so we are keeping our fingers crossed!!




This is a video of the dancing soju bottles we saw in Busan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJrPprLgk2I
The one on the far right that approaches the crowd towards the end of the song was pointing directly at our co-worker, Gerard. It was hilarious!




As promised, here is another video from the ESL program in the public school system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEbRVsWHgF0&feature=related
Enjoy!