This  is going to be just pictures this time around.   

   this is christmas.  shana curling her hair on the subway before dinner.  The wall of Santa is for mom.  and that is me by the weird lady statue. there are more photos but i have to wait for people to put them on facebook.com. 

This is the winter festival down by the river.  they do one for each season.  

 

This is Shana and her friend Shaun.  

He visited for about 2 weeks. This is Shaun tying my shoes cause my skirt is too short to do it myself.  this is the Korean way men do everything women just look cute!

   This is Hyun Su, isn't he cute? I think he is he is very kind. 

Snowing in Seoul.

Here are some Waygooks.  shana and i are sooooo Korean.  They give the Peace sign but they put it off their eyes.

   This is Hyun Su's friend.  We all had lunch one day.

 this is a video of the winter festival.  its one of the light shows. This one is over the river.  the lasers are going through a generated mist.  

Seoul is very safe. It is bigger than NYC, size and population. It has 10% of the crime. That still means don't be stupid but I feel very safe. I am getting around the city well. I take the subway almost every where I need to go. If I can't take the subway I will take a cab or the occasional bus. I am glad I don't have a car here they are crazy drivers. Their drivers are crazier than Uncle Gary. If I were to drive I would get a moped or motorcycle. Then I could ride on the sidewalks with the rest of the bikers. Yes that is right, walkers beware!

Not only do I have a nice group of Way-gook (American) and other foreigner friends, we also have a very cool group of Korans that hangout with us. Shana, I would say is my best friend here. Her and I met at orientation and are different enough that we complement each other well. Then there is Tony, Lavonne, Annie and Jordan, Stacey, Kenneth, Christie and several others. It's a very nice network we have. We use Facebook.com to communicate and network through. You can put in my name to find me.

Shana, Tony, and I have our coffee shop, 17번가(17th st.). However I would like to point out that it was I that found the shop. There we have met several Koreans. they are not only helpful but a great group of people. They are all learning English and love that we frequent the shop. Young Suk is the owner of the shop.

The first day we showed up, ten days after they opened, I almost gave him a heart attack. Let me tell you he is healthy and in shape. He is a black belt in Teakwondo. He called his girlfriend Kyoung Rok, she is studding English but is not fluent, especially not on the phone. She is great and we will miss her greatly. She will be moving to Victoria, Canada in February. Hyon Su opened the shop with Young Suk and calls himself the CEO. He is also a private computer consultant. We are dating if you can call it that. He works all the time, that is the Korean way. I sit at the shop and we talk. He is not fluent in English but he is learning. He has picked up so much just by talking with us.

I am teaching middle school. they are 14, 15, and 16 years old in Korean age. they would be 13, 14, and 15 years old in America. They are well, it depends on the day. It is getting closer and closer to Winter break. So they are getting less and less focused. I have 23 classes a week. I have three days of five classes and two days of four classes. they are 45 minute classes.

Yes, Korean has a thanks giving. It is called 추석 (Chu-sak). It is way earlier. Chusak for Korea is in September.

Dude, I am eating Korean food. Also, I eat Indian, Mexican, Italian, and tonight I had an American hamburger.

So that is just a quick update. Sorry if you see this before I can get pictures up. I have pictures of most of the people I mentioned. Unless you have forgotten what I look like you can figure out who is Shana in the photo.

So it's been a long time

Ok, sorry I have been busy. Yes I have been busy but i also just don't do the blog thing real well.  So I am going to try to make more of an effort.  also, you are on Facebook.com look me up.  there are a crap ton pics up.  

Anyways, let see what is going on. I work at Nokcheon Middle school in Wolgea.  I have 23 classes with approximately 36 students each.  It is getting cold outside, a winter coat is needed. It actually snowed two Thursdays ago. The schools class rooms are warm. However, if you are walking anywhere in the school put on your coat. the windows are open and it is as cold in the halls as it is outside. Something about exchanging the air.  I don't get it but oh well.  

Since I have been here I have gone to a school festival.  It is a talent show type deal. the students and some of the teachers participated.  If I had any notice I would have done something.  Maybe I could have sang a song.  very fun.  We also had a sports and field day.  That was the first really cold day and I was not prepared for the crap weather and being outside all day.  The teachers and the parents played tug of war, we won twice.  

For winter brake I teaching a three week English camp. It will be an more intense course. About 12 students for four hours a day.  I am really excited and looking forward to having a smaller class and being able to do more experimental things I can't do with 4o students.

Some of my friends and I are thinking about traveling around Asia for two weeks.  I won't be coming home for Christmas but many of us won't be and I think it will be cool to see Christmas in a different country.  So I think that is it.  but send me questions if you have any.  I am really going to try to do like a weekly thing.  Who knows maybe not.  Miss you all.  By the way if anyone wants to come see Seoul you have a place to stay.  

Oh, real quick Lavonne's mom was just here and had a blast.  Shana's good friend Shawn is coming this next week.  Plus my friend Heather will be joining me in Seoul in January.  I am ubber excited.

One month and still going strong. (per Jenns request)

I have been here almost a month. tomorrow I get my first paycheck.  Everything is going well. I have been teaching three weeks.  I am picking up the language slowly. I can almost read their alphabet (Hanguel). reading isn't the hard part. I still can't understand it.  

The people here are very different. They are always in a rush. Rush here rush there. Don't take it personally when they rush right into you. They need to be somewhere and you are only in their way. The weird thing is they will not say a thing when they run you over. However, they will walk out of their way to get you where you are going when you are lost. I think that they must be the most considerate people I have ever met. Other than the whole rushing thing.

  

Its funny the People in South Korea have been studying English since the forties.  They don't speak English but most people know it.  At least written English.  If I can't understand one of my students I have them write down what they are saying.  If I don't think they can understand me I write it down. My students are very smart. Or should I say they memerize things very well. They are a very prideful people and think it is shameful to be corrected.  There for they don't speak the language. Korean sounds are very different from English. That makes it very hard for them to speak clearly with confidence.  

Grocery shopping can be very difficult. They add sugar to everything and eat way more meat then I would have imagined.  They eat tons of pork. I do not.  It is in everything and I am getting good at asking for chicken. Kind of. I mostly buy my fruits and vegetables at the street vendors. 

There are over 70 teachers in my district of the city.  There are plenty of foreigners around me.  We get together on a regular basis. We share ideas so it is pretty cool.  It is good to have that support system.  Teaching middle school kids is hard anywhere in the world.  Teaching them when you don't know their language makes it that much harder.  My students are nuts in my class but in the hall ways they are very respectful.  In the classroom too but it seems sometimes they are more willing to talk English in between classes. 

if anyone has questions e-mail me.  I don't have that much time to blog but i want to keep you all updated. 

Nowon adventure with my new friends.

    Starting from the left.  That is Shana, she is from Al, Crazy green statue guy, Josey, Tony, he is from Minneapolis, he's not as crazy as he looks.

  Dinner in Nowon. Soju, gross. its like Soki just not hot.  taste like Vodka to me not a big fan but you have to when you first get here

   Shana, and her whisky. they didn't know how to bring it so they gave her two classes.  Shana and Josey in the foreigner bar that had no foreigners in it.  That was our quest and it took all night but we found it.  
Nowon is only a stop away on the train and a pretty happening place.  

Training :(blasss and some:)yeahs

Ok, so the training had a lot of good info.  It did get rather repetitive. that drove me crazy cause we were on lock down.  we could not leave the facility because of the group or groups before us got ways to stupidly out of control.  

Good part is i met a ton of people in my area!!!! this pic was the last night. and that is not everybody by any means there were about 200 of us.  the crazy thing is there were 200 the week before.  that's a little over 400 in total and there were over 1,000 applicants. cool huh.

my first night out. one day before i left for training.

  I got a hold of Robyn.  Jess's sister.  she was having a going away party for a bunch of her friends.  so we went.  
we went to Hung Da, a foriners area in Seoul.  we were hopping around till the early morn.  I ended up sharing a cab at 4:30am cause i didn't want to wait for the subway to open at 6am.