February Air

It's Sunday night and I'm trying to prepare myself mentally for the week ahead. There are no students this week, but I'll be at the school office every day from 8:30-4:30 anyway, as my contract stipulates. I can't really complain because I get paid just for showing up.

The third grade students had their graduation a week ago. I got to watch the ceremony. It was really nice to see how many of the students' parents attended. They brought flowers and chocolates for the graduates. Afterwards, the students left with their parents, and the teachers had a celebratory feast in the cafeteria. There were even strawberries for dessert!

Graduation Ceremony

Now, most of the teachers are on vacation. The Vice Principal comes to school every day along with a handful of teachers who have prep work to do. I do a bit of lesson planning, but unfortunately I did a ton of prep during my office hours in January and now I don't have much to plan. I've created differentiated lesson plans for my high and low level classes in each grade and compiled a bunch of games from past camp experience and waygook.org. I may never get to use these lessons anyway. First, the textbook must be "covered". So I've done a bit of work here and there, but now I mostly watch TV shows on my laptop.

Some of my co-teachers and me in the school yearbook

I know I should be trying harder to learn Korean, but even with all this free time I can't focus on it for longer than about an hour a day before I start mixing stuff up and forgetting anything new I try to take in. (I guess I sort of know how my students feel when I present them with 45min. of non-stop immersion English)

The co-teachers in the office are always nice to me. They invite me to join them for lunch most days. Sometimes we order in, but usually we go to a local Korean restaurant where the school has a tab. I always order dubugook (soybean curd soup) because it's the least spicy thing on the menu. I feel badly that when we get back to the office, the other teachers all get to work, and I go back to watching How I Met Your Mother.

Yesterday, I went to the library to try and get a card so I could sign out books to read at school, but when I went to the information counter, the librarian shook his head and walked away. Later in the day, I read online about getting a library card in Korea and found out that most libraries do not issue cards to foreigners, though there are a few libraries in Seoul that will. Anyway, I stayed at the library and read for a few hours in the children's section (where there is a small section of English books). If anyone wants to send me books, newspapers, information pamphlets, pretty much any reading material in English, I will be more than happy to read it cover to cover! I also read articles and stuff online, but staring at a screen all day has started giving me headaches (which I never got before coming to Korea).

Corey spent the day at a jimjilbang which is a kind of Korean spa. I was a little nervous about going since I didn't really know the protocol and I just got over a cold, so I thought it'd be best if I wait before going into tight spaces with big crowds. Corey did some research though and bravely explored the four floors of the jimjilbang, which he tells me included a floor that had separate saunas for men and women, plus a co-ed sauna floor, a swimming pool, arcade area, eating area, and more. You pay an admission fee to go into the jimjilbang and then you get a bracelet that you can swipe to charge various items and activities to your tab. Maybe next time I'll be brave enough to go with him.

Not the actual jimjilbang Corey was at, but he says this sauna looks similar to the ones he went in

For now, I'm keeping a low profile and eating lots of chocolate. Corey's mom sent us a big Valentine's Day package and Corey got me an additional box of "KicKers" chocolate (kind of like a kitkat)

Valentine Treats from Corey's mom

KicKer!

The tone of this blog post is obviously less optimistic than my previous ones. I just can't seem to shake these February blues. I'm really looking forward to my students returning in March! Plus, they will be joined by the new grade 1 students who will be starting middle school!