I Heart Seoul.

Hello, hello, hello!

What to say? Life in Seoul is lovely. I'm getting into a routine now that I've been here for over a month. My apartment already feels like home and I enjoy spending my evenings here, relaxing, listening to some music and reflecting on my experiences here in Seoul. Every day is a learning experience. I'm learning so much about teaching, I'm learning some Korean, I'm finding new museums and tourist attractions to explore.

(I'm also re-learning how to write topic sentences and supporting details. How did I do? I thought that was a pretty good topic sentence. My afternoon kids would be proud. Maybe I can bring in this blog post as an example. Or maybe not.)

School is going well. Every day I am humbled. Any time I think I've got something down and relax a little, something will happen to remind me that I'm still new at this. I mostly struggle with time management and handling my studens. My two preschool classes couldn't be more different in their learning styles. My second class whips through every new lesson and they all work at a similar pace. With my first class, the students' levels and learning styles are all over the place. I need to walk them through the day's lessons and if I move too quickly, it's bad news. Some students pick things up as quickly as my other studnts in M class, but I have one student that I'm struggling with. He is smart but I can tell he feels overwhelmed if we move too quickly. The other day, I made the mistake of telling my students to try a workbook page on their own. I figured they could handle it. The page had phonics words that we'd covered the week before and most of them breezed through the page. But Minhan saw a full page and probably noticed his classmates writing quickly and he just shut down. He stared at his page and when I walked by and told him to start writing, he said he didn't know the answer. So I sat with him and helped him on the first question. But he just regressed. He held his pencil at the very top and wrote the word so no one could tell what he wrote. I knew that he knew the answer and I could feel my frustration boiling up. But he's so sensitive. I knew that scolding him was not going to help in this situation. So I tried to encourage him. I told him I knew that he knew the answer and I knew he had good handwriting and to please write nicely. Eventually, we found an unhappy medium, with the answers filled in but with horrible handwriting and none of his other pages completed. Ugh. I know it's not going to be smooth and even six months from now I know there will be days where I'll under or over estimate the time we need for a lesson or misjudge how quickly students will understand a new concept. Just gotta roll with it, I guess. But the upside is...it's never a dull day at the office. :)

In other news, I'm excited to report that I'm learning some Korean! One of my coworkers set me up with this great English cafe and now I'm in a language exchange with a nice man named Seung Hoon. He teaches me Korean twice a week and, in exchange, I spend about an hour at the English cafe talking with people that want to work on their English. I've gone three times now and I love it! I've learned the Hangul alphabet and just this week I started to learn some basic nouns. I have to memorize them for next week and write out the characters. It's intimidating but so, so exciting. And since there are signs everywhere in this huge city, I am constantly practicing. So now I can read but at a snail's pace and of course I don't know what I'm reading. :)

And I'm meeting really nice people at the English cafe. Most of the people I sit and talk to are studying English because they plan to go to school in the US or Canada. Others are studying for work or just because. It has been so fun to learn about where they're from and most of our conversations have been pretty open. They've asked me about US politics and western views on Korea. And all of the younger people have consistently asked about the dating scene in the US and if westerners are attracted to Asians. What a question! I just laugh and tell them no. No westerners are attracted to Asians. Better luck next time. ;) It's fun to hear their views on westerners. And we have talked about North Korea and Japan and what they think of the history between South Korea and these countries. One younger man told me he has Japanese friends but when he thinks of Japan as a country, he hates it. I thought that was an interesting way to put it but I think I can kind of understand it with my limited knowledge of what has happened. It makes me want to read some more books on Korean history. I feel sort of silly living in a country and not knowing more about what's taken place here.

OH! And breaking news!! I, Kelly A. Sweeney, have officially committed to running in a 10k on May 2nd. Breaking news, people. Yes, I'm a sports lover but I don't love running. So this is huge. So as long as I can use my Ipod and as long as I have the option of running a 5k if I'm not feeling ready for a 10k, I'm in. Very exciting. I'm leaving in a bit for a run along the river today.

Hope all is well. And happy Easter.

Kelly




Got a Ms. Potato Head Easter egg from Claudia in M Class. Sam got Mr. Potato Head.


:)


Went to an Italian restaurant last night. This was our dessert.

So good.

Free hugs from a Panda. The Panda was so skinny, the hug was almost a little disappointing. Almost.

Stopped in at the Teddy Bear Museum. I love this picture. It looks like the guy is stashing a bear in his jacket. Caught in the act. Bam!

We went up to the N Seoul Tower which overlooks the city. It was a nice, clear night but I couldn't figure out my camera settings so this is the best picture I've got.

We went to dinner and the tower with my friend Jun. I met him in DC a few years ago when we both took a TESOL certification class. He was taking some grad school courses in the US. Now he's back in Korea and stationed at a military base about two hours outside of Seoul. It was nice to catch up and have a local show us around some new neighborhoods.

Global Glasses Push 2010. :) This is for Catherine! It's an inside joke. Back in DC, Catherine and I were on a ghost tour near the White House. Sounds spooky but it really wasn't. At all. Our guide gave some incorrect information on the history of the White House and Catherine said quietly, 'Well, actually..' and told me the correct information. Since then, we have corrected others and shared wise quips while pushing up our glasses (we are so wise). This year, we've decided to go global with our knowledge. Catherine sent me her GGP 2010 photos from Paris so now it's my turn. Here you go, Catherine! What's next? ;)