Wednesday, October 28, 2009

back in the swing...

...the old routine! see new pictures here!

it was nice to have a "week off" for midterms, meaning a week off of teaching, but of course i still had to make tests and do various other things (mostly help my students study!). its also nice to be teaching again! i was so proud of my students though...their test grades went way up on the midterm! i even had them write essay questions in english, but they worked really hard and did really well. woohoooooo!!!

this week in geography we are talking about language and culture - or what I see as an opportunity to teach them the finer things in life, like Sigur Rós, among other things :). i also showed a video about a click language and multilanguage Disney music videos...



american government provided me the opportunity to show a schoolhouse rock video about the declaration of independence...



i have to show the videos from my laptop, but its better than nothing and boy! i have never seen my students so quiet and concentrated...!

so classes have been good, although the students are having a hard time adjusting after last week. the midterm schedule was such that they had two tests a day, first and third period, and then self-study for the other four classes a day...you can imagine what chaos ensued during that time. but they're great and a blessing every single day...not to mention surprising!

friday night was refreshing. we went out to a buffet to celebrate two birthdays with a group of 8 or so people. they were the "younger" teacher crowd for the most part, including some teachers from last year. its hard to explain, but that time was really edifying for me, being in fellowship and getting to know some really fantastic people, talking about anything and everything. i needed it. i made a new friend (female and close to my age!) that i got along with really well, even after just a few hours. sunny's mom (in pink) also came and although she doesn't speak much english, she was generous enough to pay for our whole meal because she enjoyed being a part of our joyful evening. altogether, i was blown away by these people (see below). i love being around people who give me an even greater desire to know Jesus and that is exactly what this night was like for me. hallelujah, indeed.




saturday, sunday, and monday before school and between classes, i graded midterms. i finished with two minutes to spare and every student got their midterm back (after having taken it on friday) yessssssssssss. now i have to input grades and make midterm report card comments! its weird to be on the "other side" of this process!

oh and by the way, this is my modeling career, beginning and end (also seen in life-size at the expo last week). oh boy. why??? (notice the "walt disney" font!)

oh boy! it is wednesday. i should sleep.

i miss you all. thanks for your continual prayer for the students here, their families, and the other teachers. its a long road ahead!

Friday, October 23, 2009

it is well...

i give midterms to four of my classes today! three classes of geography and american government. good luck to all my young friends!! seriously, they're not that hard.

i was at the school until after midnight last night helping students study and also putting up the class photo up that i took in my homeroom - i got some photos printed and they look awesome.

i came to the school at six am to print out my tests which took more than an hour because the printer wasn't working from my computer so i tried almost every other teacher's computers until i finally found one that didn't need a password, had office 2007, and worked with the printer. God provides, but He sure made me nervous :)

there was a Christian Expo this week and there was a KICS booth there...apparently, the picture they took for the brochure also became a LIFESIZE banner at the expo. wtf.

i am incredibly awake this morning and i hope that i will last this whole day. luckily, after i give my tests, i don't have much to do, so here goes...

that's all i have time for (chapel in ten minutes - teacher's meeting now!) but i wanted to get that little update out. keep me updated on YOU! i'm having so much fun with the students and teachers, but i still think about and pray for each one of you that reads this.

peace, like a river.

(one of my favorites...)

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

the only thing more beautiful than vesper light...

i thought my next post would come sooner than it did, but it has turned out to be one of those weeks yet again! wonderful, yet full. this is the first day this week i got off work early - home at 8:30! and guess what?


SO MANY NEW PICTURES of about one hundred or so of my favorite people in korea!!!

this last week and weekend have been nothing short of exciting.

best lesson in geography class so far:
i got to teach my students the word "precious" (as in precious gems, precious metals from our discussion of the mining industry). how else? i used Gollum from LOTR.

i also really enjoyed (as did my students) talking about conservation and being a good steward of the earth. i had heard about the work of Seattle-native Chris Jordan before, art made to show how much we consume. check out the link - it was a great way to get their attention and produced a strong reaction.

friday, i took my camera to school. i want to cover my homeroom walls with pictures of my students, so i took a few that you can see on my facebook photo link. here's my beautiful 9-3 homeroom:


from left to right -

back row:
hanuel, gahee, sarah, noah, levi, james, andrew, joshua

front row:
jessie, runa, johnny, simon, miriam, david, seonghak, eileen, faith






yeah, best homeroom in the school. obviously.

friday night, the students and a few teachers and staff headed to Goesan, to the Cheung Cheon campus of KICS in the mountains. its a much smaller school of only fifty students, but their school challenged us "city slickers" to a soccer match.

number one highlight: the bus ride from bucheon to goesan. i had very little sleep nearing the end of that week, so i was expecting a dozey bus ride. instead, i was surrounded by a sea of joy...
all the students on the packed KICS bus sang loudly and passionately almost the whole way. after seeing them mumble the english hymn lyrics every morning, i was indescribably at peace the whole ride. CCM, Korean hymns (both of which are not allowed in chapel) - i sang along in English when i knew the tune. ah! so much joy in that bus! a slice of heaven, worshiping with your brothers and sisters in one soul and heart in every tongue - freedom and genuine community. this was also the moment i decided to start working harder on learning korean - to better understand the heart of each student which they express better in korean. there was an undeniable presence of the Spirit during those three hours.

saturday at Cheung Cheon was a day for fun and games with both campuses together which culminated in a soccer duel between the two campuses, which of course was won by Bucheon - five to one. slaughter. i spent the entire day taking photos of the students, having a blast, and running back and forth under the beautifully warm and sunny sky to change the angle i shot from. after the students played, we also had a teacher-student team vs student team. the teacher team won. i, of course, was the only girl on the field.


this week so far:

monday: we had a discussion in 9-3 about the meaning of "what the...". apparently, they pick up american slang better than their geography terms. it ended in a nonsensical exclamation by simon - "what the my wife!" which left half of the class laughing (including me) and the other half watching in bewilderment.
the dynamic in every class is so different, but one thing all classes have in common is the vast gap between the level of english among the students.

blessing point #2: i was exhausted and somewhat discouraged after a late night and a long discussion about the problems with our 11th grade class. back at the dorm, three students and i spent an hour in my room talking about life. i've missed that :) i love hearing their stories and their hearts, hearing about their families, their dreams, their gifts, and then sharing mine.

tuesday: i was unwillingly volunteered as a model for a KICS brochure. they made me brush my hair.

tuesday night: lightning storm. so good.

today (wednesday): during my attendance, some of the students were talking quietly and then out of nowhere levi (in 9-3) started singing "you...are...so beautiful, to me". i never know what to expect with that kid. in 9-1, sarah started singing "it's raining men" and as i walked to the front of class i sang "hallelujah!". my kids never know what to expect with me either.

blessing point #3,4,5,6: yesterday morning i woke up freezing, so i was pleasantly surprised to feel the heat as soon as i stepped out of my bed this morning (heated floors, yesssssssssssss). first time they've had eggplant at lunch (ahh!). perfectly warm with a perfect little chill at 3:25 pm outside on the roof of KICS before chapel (lovely). and the vesper light...

please pray for renewed strength (my eyes were so heavy today! half of the teachers passed out at about 2 today at their desks...), for the students' endurance as they prepare for midterms next week, and for the leadership of KICS. i love you all!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

just a note...

...or what i entitled in my journal as "october the fifth, two thousand nine: a short treatise on the day in which I worked fifteen hours, started and ended my career as a professional "recording artist", and became someone's adopted daughter"...

[yes, i know this is from last monday, but as you'll find out in my next, i haven't had much time for blogging. so this is a little catch up...]

Teacher's Day number two, on a sunny and calm October day after a major holiday weekend.

It began like any other day, clocking in exactly six minutes before I was required to arrive at the school building (okay, this isn't true at all. most days, more like half an hour before). As per unusual, I got right to work planning my lessons for the following week. I spent the hours from 9-5 making said plans, creating fun and interesting ! activities for my geography class, trading in World Studies (hallelujah! no more ESL-B class - don't get me wrong, i love the kids, but i can't teach them well) for a Pre-Calculus class (gulp, is it worth it? i haven't taken any math since high school...), and yawning through American Government, peaking my interest in a side road through dictatorships.

Sigur Rós, John van Deusen, and assorted electronic and instrumental muezicks were the predominant aural pleasures of the afternoon and the isolation of my noise-reducing headphones was enough to keep out distractions, yet let in useful information, although I seemed to have missed the part where our lovely VP volunteered me for a recording task...

Later that afternoon, besides getting a bank card at "Human & Nature" (hippie?!?) Bank, I worked upstairs in my homeroom, braving the chemical smell from the concurrent floor waxing in nearby rooms, in order to mount my delicately created wall posters for my lovely class (okay, my FAVORITE class!).

I worked through dinner, sustaining on two lovely rolls of 1,000 won kimbap (that's right, a two-dolla dinnah), that Dustin generously delivered to me, along with the giant Asian pear sitting on my desk.

<------- cheap dinner. but delicious.

I told Sunny Ko (our VP) I had a lot to do (true story - I still hadn't read the Pre-Calc book at midnight), and I almost got off the hook for recording, until 8 pm rolled around. Dustin had already been "volunteered" as well, being the two youngest staff members, and Pastor Kim wanted my voice (which Mrs. Ko called "attractive" - now that's one I have never heard before...)

and that is how i became a recording artist.

dustin and i each read and recorded the 900 sentences of the "KICS Basic English Sentences".
the idea behind this book is for these native Koreans to better learn conversational English, so they have this book with sentences they have to memorize. 900 Basic English Sentences.

Such As:
"I already have a phonograph, but I do not have a radio yet."
"I was born on November first, nineteen thirty five."

So, obviously, important things to know how to say in English.

two hours.

no breaks.

around 300 sentences, the recording started becoming more and more ridiculous. the intonation in our voices became more dramatic and we also spent most of our time trying to make the one reading laugh by acting out the sentence. we definitely broke into laughter more than once and NOT ONCE did Pastor Lee or Sunny stop the recording or make us redo it. this tape is supposed to help kids learn the pronunciations.

I was able to maintain composure for most of it. My downfall: "Let me give you some fatherly advice."

later in the office, probably around 11 pm, Mr. Park (the Mr. Park in the hula hoop picture), Sunny Ko's husband, was talking to me and mentioned that he always wanted a daughter. Somewhere in that conversation (by the way, he speaks English, but not very well), he said I could be his adopted daughter. Then he played "Yesterday", yes, by the Beatles, on his pan flute.

8:54-midnight. longest workday yet. well, until thursday night. which went from 7:30 am -11:30 pm.

never a dull moment.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

to make a wretch his treasure...


[photos from this weekend...take a look! i got a new editing program and it keeps the photos at much higher quality (although facebook still doesn't do them justice...)]

such a fast week! only three days, and four of my classes had tests. right now, my hardest struggle is teaching the subject without knowing how much english each individual student can comprehend. the most difficult part is that, when asked to participate, the students who speak up in class are the ones who are understanding. the ones who don't won't get any better without practicing speaking, but they are afraid to be embarrassed. it's a never-ending cycle. after looking at the test results, however, we need to do a lot of work with vocabulary! even though many students understood during the review, they had a hard time with test questions that i thought would be fairly easy...it's all part of the adventure and the learning process.

i asked my geography kids to give class evaluations, in order to learn how to make the class better. a good indication of how that went was when someone asked me what "dislike" meant, when i had them write what they disliked about the class. apparently, most students enjoy the class, but the language barrier makes the material hard for them to learn and memorize.

today is chuseok! i hope all my students are enjoying their holiday! i made sure of that by not giving any homework.

thursday was teacher's day...foreign teachers were at school with no children. it was nice because i got to wear PANTS (have i mentioned that i am required to wear a skirt six days of the week??) and it was a good chance to get to know a lot of my co-workers, for better or for worse, all crowded into that room for a whole day. i didn't get a lot of school stuff done because we had to decorate our homeroom classes, which i haven't finished either. but we have another teacher's day monday!

thursday night! we went to Wolmido, a part of Incheon. it was a perfectly lovely night, warm and clear, but most importantly clean. my lungs were very grateful. being on the water, there was a nice boardwalk complete with seafood restaurants and fish in tanks everywhere and arcades, games, and fireworks. it felt a bit like summer vacation on that first day of october! we ate at a chinese restaurant (although it was korean-style chinese food) and then wandered around, playing games and even riding some amusement park rides (see my photo link above - there is plenty of visual information!).

the most fascinating thing for me was this crazy disco ride that spins in a circle, bumps, plays music, and has a commentator sitting above them making comments about the people on the ride, while a huge crowd sits, stands and watches, laughing for hours at the people on this ride.

on this particular occasion, there was a guy standing in the middle, doing flips whenever the ride gave him a bump. it was insane.


needless to say, the bright lights and interesting people and events of the evening kept me quite busy with my camera. it was a fun night to spend with some fellow teachers. i have to admit though that i really miss hanging out with college students, people my own age. i really respect my teachers and i do have fun with them, but there are definite generation gaps at times that leave me wishing for some good friends to fellowship with, where i can be completely myself.

friday morning we took a long subway ride into seoul to the korean folk village. it was fun to see traditional houses and crafts, and it was a beautiful, sunny day downtown. we ate cold and hot noodles and mandu, a sort of dumpling was quite reminiscent of chinese jiaozi and baozi, but in a slightly different shape. we then hit up a "traditional" market at insa-dong, which was more appropriately termed a tourist market by mary smith; there were more white people there (in the two hours we explored) then i've seen in all of korea thusfar. a lot of expensive, similar looking items.


at the insa-dong market - a man making rice cakes ---------------->




another favorite food that we've discovered is a waffle fish - waffle batter filled with red bean in the shape of a fish. i have no idea what they're called, but they're incredibly cheap and deliciously filling.

still on the topic of food, it is 1 pm and i'm really hungry. i will shortly emerge on this chuseok day and see how deserted (or not) bucheon is!

happy chuseok, everybody!