I am on a bit earlier than usual this evening. I
didn't sleep at all last night and had to work until
7:30 this evening. I should learn to just get some
sleep :)

On the way to the PC Room, though I didn't know I was
headed here, I went by these people selling some sort
of fried treat that just had to be bad for you. I
wasn't going to stop, but the guy stopped me and
complimented me on my hat. i started to go when I
noticed the food. As I hadn't eaten, I decided to go
ahead and get some it was only 1000 Won for four of
them. Oh, they were absolutely delicious!! They were
in the shape of fish and contained some sort of sweet
bean substance. Not only that, but the women gave me 5
instead of 4 I guess it pays to talk a little even if
no one can understand you. It also proves once again
that the hat can work wonders in any language (and not
only with the children).

Well, now that I got that story off my chest I will
continue with the stranger portions of my life. The
other day after returnig home from the PC Room, I
decided to take a shower (smoking is a common activity
of the men here, and two smokers had sat next to me,
so i was filled with the smell). After my shower
(remember drain in middle of floor, hand held shower
head that has a place to hang on the wall), I went to
comb my hair. Low and behold...no comb. I had just had
it, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Midnight on a
Sunday, wet hair, and no comb what was I too do?

So, I did what any other person of great ingenuity
would do: I consulted Walt Disney. I figured that if a
dinglehopper could work for Scuttle, then it could
work for me. And if you think a seagul looked
rediculous combing his hair with a fork.... I guess
one just has to do what they can. Of course right
after work the next day, I went and bought a comb for
300 Won.

Of course the stupidity doesn't end there. Just
yesterday I was cleaning my room, washing clothes, and
setting the fan up to help them in drying. Definitely
not a bad thing, but I went to move the fan so it was
at a better angle, and didn't bother to shut it off.
Apparently the bars on the protective covering aren't
as close together as the ones in the States, because
my thumb sliped through and I sliced the end of it.
Luckily it wasn't deep, but it hurts!!!

My students are driving me crazy! I have one that is
going to be gone for two weeks because she is having a
hard time adjusting to me as a new teacher. I put her
in the corner and that upset her, and the other
students were making fun of her because she froze on a
test it is a mess. I hope she decides to stay when
she comes back. She really is a good student.

The others are being noisy and generally obnoxious. I
am no longer sure just how to deal with it, but I am
doing the best I can. Of course, one class has a 7
year old that rights me a note that she loves me, and
one of the 7 y/o boys is constantly coming up and
giving me hugs. Not a bad thing except he does it when
I am trying to teach too.

In another class I have two 8 y/o girls that are
always laying on my shoulder, playing with my hair,
and just trying to make fun of me. It gets old rather
quickly.

Then in anther class, I have a 12 y/o who just stares
at me almost all the time. She makes no secret about
her thinking I am cute. Her and the other girl in the
class were talking quite openly about it in class
today. It became a little distracting for me, though
it didn't seem to even phase the other students. This
must be a common occurance in Korea or something. I am
thinking about dyeing my hair though maybe that would
solve some of their constant need to touch it :)

I went and almost found the Post Office yesterday. I
will take a cab Wednesday so I can be certain to get
there. Then I am going to go to E-Mart and get an
alarm clock. I haven't gotten one yet, and I really
need one. That is the reason I went on my little walk
that brought me here in the first place. But the
stores that have alarm clocks just have the ones with
the bells on them. I want a small digital one that I
can travel with. Maybe I am just too pickey.

Since my life has been pretty boring lately, I will
let you all get back to your regularly scheduled
lives. I will move on to the next instalment of "Guess
What? You are in Korea!!!" Take care.

Well, here I am again in the Land of the Morning Calm.
Things continue to be blissful in this job of constant
change. One never knows what is going to happen next.

Today the director took my picture to prepare for the
alien registration card I am going to need to get in
order to open a bank account when I finally get paid.
I must say getting paid once a month is going to be a
huge pain.

I ate at McDonald's today!! How is that for culture? I
came all the way to Korea to eat at McDonalds...kind
of funny if you ask me. Of course the funny part is I
was out with the head teacher learning where I am
going to be paying my bills at, and she bought a plant
for her classroom. I was nice enough to carry it for
her, and she bought me lunch. When we left, we forgot
the plant. We had to go back and ask the people at the
counter if they had it (of course the language barrier
made this interesting). We laughed over this.

This morning two of the five teachers were sick, so I
had to combine my class of kindergardeners with
another. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but when
the two classes are at different levels and are doing
different things, it becomes quite interesting. So,
there I am teaching two different lesson plans at the
same time to 12 6 & 7 year olds. It was an absolute
blast.

For play time we went to the just finished playroom.
It is like the play areas they have at some of the
fast food restaurants you go to: the pen with the
plastic balls, with the slide that goes into it, and a
little hammock under the stairs that lead to the
slide, all connected to a little fenced in trampaline
portion. Of course all of this on a floor that is
padded with what looks like yellow and red puzzle
pieces. It is not meant for 12 students, but they
managed to do alright with it.

During class, one of the students asked me why I had
green eyes. I am not sure if my eyes change color and
looked green, but that really isn't the point. How do
you explain genetics to a 6 year old? I told her that
my Dad's eyes were blue that seemed to satisfy her.

The afternoon was no picknick either. I was supposed
to take 4 students in my 4:30 class. Being game day I
didn't think this would be a problem boy was I
mistaken!! My class tends to be roudy, while the other
students were quite shy they didn't want any part of
my room. Eventually they ended up in the head
teacher's room playing together in their own group.

Then for my 6:00 class I had to take 6 students. Since
I only have 3 of my own at that time, it wasn't tooo
big of a deal. We played UNO with cards that seem to
be older than I am. After that we played Monopoly
which took a lot of explaining when it came to the
properties and the buying of houses. I was not having
the best of time playing, but I did it for the
children.

Now the UNO game was interesting. I though I knew how
to play, but they have some weird rules. Apparently
when you play a 7, everyone has to slap it. The last
one has to take 2 cards. When you play a 0, you can
change cards with any player. The word cards are
picture cards, and they will play the +2 and the +4 on
top of one another. It got pretty crazy: one time I
had to draw 16 cards!!!

I also found out today that one of my favorite
students may not be comming back. Where I teach is a
private school that is in addition to normal school,
and she is in high school now. She said the timing is
a little bad, so today MIGHT be her last day. She
didn't even know for sure.

Today was not game day for my 3:00 class. We retook a
test that they all did really bad on, and most did
really bad again. It wouldn't have upset me quite as
much, but we went over the test yesterday, and I gave
them the answers after telling them we were going to
take it again the following day. I guess you have to
learn that these things happen with 8 y/o.

Well, after I corrected their tests, I proceded to go
over it with them again. While I was doing this, they
tipped back in their chairs. As I am always telling
them to keep thier chairs on 4 legs, I made them
stand. One by one the whole class ended up standing.

So there I am, standing at the white board, marker in
hand, writing down the most commonly misspelled words
on the test. The whole class (6 students)is standing
at attention at the table. We start to recite the
spellings of the words and proceed into plurals (the
-s and are vs. is).

They decided I was a drill sargent and they started
saluting me. It worked, so I used it to my advantage.
When we all sat down we chanted the spelling words
again and again. I am going to be spelling 'chicken'
in my sleep for years to come.

I found lettuce at the store today!! I didn't get any,
but it is apparently not easy to find fresh looking
lettuce. I also had coconut jello. It wasn't too bad,
but not really what I was expecting. It had chuncks of
something in it, but I am not sure what it was: it
wasn't coconut.

I decided that the rule of not eating something that
has ingrediants you can't pronounce can not apply
here. When the ingrediants are listed (which seems
rare) it is in Korean, so I can't understand it
anyway. As of yet I haven't devoted the 2-3 hours to
learning the pronounciation of the Korean Alphabet, so
I can't even pronounce what is there.

Which reminds me, I went to the book store last night.
They have Korean alphabet magnets!!! I am so excited
(it really is the little things). I am going to get
some and put them on my refridgurator. Maybe they can
be a teaching tool for me as well. I guess we will
have to wait and see.

That is all I have to report from my somewhat boring
life :) How are things on that side of the world? All
the news I receive is welcome.

I have hot water!! This is a good thing I don't think I
could have made it with cold showers for the rest of
the year.

I am having a blast with my students, though they can
be quite a handful at times. I am currently going
through what my English teachers in college complained
about: getting the students to talk. At least that is
the problem in one of the classes. In the rest it is
just getting them to talk in English!!

This past weekend my coworkers and I went to Daegoo,
which is normally around a 2 hour trip. This time it
took us 3-3.5. We had bad timing. The day was hot, and
the trafic was bad. Apparently this past weekend was
when a bunch of colleges from around the world all
converged on Daegoo for the college games. I have no
idea what that is all about, but it sure made
transportation interesting.

Well, the reason we went was to go to an amusment park
called Wang Bang Tower Land Amusment Park. It was a
lot of fun, even though I am not too fond of amusement
parks. I went on maybe one or two rides, but the
people watching was fascinating. A lot of children and
young adults said hi to me just because I am not
Korean. They loved the fact that an English speaking
person would say hello, and when they found out I was
an American, it was even better. Whoever said Koreans
don't like Americans, obviously wasn't working with
the same reality I am. And they loved my hat as well.
I guess it is a good ice breaker on this side of the
world as well :)

After a full day of walking around and watching my
coworkers ride the rides, we went to leave. It was at
this point that they were doing a show that
chronicalled music from the 50's onward (in short
snipits of course). They had a Michael Jackson
impersonator that was absolutely fantastic!

Well, that was my weekend. On Thursday we had "Monster
Night" at school. The kindergardeners did a couple of
songs and spent the night at the hogwan (the private
learning center at which i teach). It was very
exciting for them, and very embarrasing for me. The
teachers had to do a song with only 5 minutes warning,
so we all danced to "Walk Like an Egyptian." The kids
loved it.

After the kids went to bed, all the teachers, there
are 5 of us, all went out to a local bar called the
"Western Rodeo Chicken Bar". The interier is dark and
the booths are all wood and some even have saloon type
doors on them it is a weird feel for sure. The others
shared a container (it looked like a giant keg) of
beer, while I had a cider (ie. Sprite)and munched on
the side dishes that apparently come whenever you
order.

Included in these was popcorn, a quesidilla type
thing, and none other than boiled silkworms. Don't
worry, they weren't moving and trying to get away.
They don't taste as bad as one would think, though I
am still not sure whether or not I like them. I guess
I will have to have them again to find out....

I guess that is all for now, so, until next time, keep
happy thoughts it could always be worse. You could be
stuck in a country where you don't speak the language
and have no idea what you are doing. But if nothing
else, remember that life is fun enjoy it!!!

First off, the trip was extremely long. I flew out of
Saginaw to Chicago. I went from Chicago to Seoul on
Korean Air and from Seaul to Pusan, which is in the
south east portion of Korea. About 30 min to the west
of Pusan is Changwon, the city in which I am currently
living/teaching.

I highly recommend flying Korean Airs international
flight. They serve very good restaurant style meals
and show a number of movies. It is quite the
experience. It is also a very comfortable airline. The
major problem I faced when I arrived was my luggage
being detained in Seoul. I was told to check it
through to Pusan and I wouldn't have to wory about it
anymore until then. Well, this was not the case. As it
turns out, and I should have known this, you have to
clear customs at your point of entry. So, even though
they do have customs at teh Pusan airport, and my bags
were checked through to there, I still was supposed to
claim them in Seoul, go through customs and recheck
them in. Of course they didn't tell me this until I
was getting ready to board for Pusan.Luckily they did
send them on to Pusan, where I went to pick them up
the following day and clear customs with them.

Since then I have met my coworkers: two Canadians, an
American, and a Brit. They are, unfortunately, too
into partying and getting drunk to have been much help
in showing me around or figuring things out. Maybe it
is just becuse I am new, I don't know.

The place I am working had just moved to the building
it is now in the Thursday before I got here. The
building is currenly unfinished they are just now
finishing the bathrooms and floors in my room I never
thought I would be so thankful for a bathroom in all
my life.

Speaking of bathrooms, mine will have a western
toilet, but most do not. The toilets here are
extremely low to the ground I guess they want to
build leg musscles. In the bathroom is the washer
(made by Daewoo), the toilet, a sink, and the shower
head that is connected to the sink. Showers, needless
to say, are a little different here too. It is nice
that they have a drain in the middle of the floor so
the water has a place to go. It seems that hot water
may be a luxury as well.

The shoe thing is going to drive me crazy to start
with. You need a pair of slippers for your appartment
(room), a different set for the bathroom (bathroom
sandles are cool), another set to change into when you
go to work, and a pair to wear outisde. Many people
wear sandals so they can easily slide them on and off
I have taken to not tying my hikers.

Many do have shoes with elastic laces, the kind that
keep the shoe tight enough so it won't fall off, but
they never need to be tied (big hit in the '80's). I
also saw a fascinating shoe that has a wheel in its
heal. Some of the kids at the store were wearing them.
You walk around and if you want to role, you just lift
the front of your foot, and off you go. Whoever
invented those was a genius.

Speaking of the store, there is a place around here
that is set up like a mall with escalator ramps (as
opposed to stairs). Of course you can go throughout
the whole thing without paying because instead of the
3 floors of shops being different companies it is the
same store throughout. It has everything you could
want, and some stuff you probably wouldn't. I am not
quite sure what it all is though.

Other than that I have been teaching without training
and before orientation. I have a class of
Kindergardeners, 8 y/o, 12 y/o, and 15 y/o. They are
fun for the most part. They keep making fun of me for
my "big" eyes and my baby hair. It is hillarious. OF
course everywhere I go, I become the topic of
conversations I don't understand.

I went to chuch last Sunday had my boss translate for
me, it was alright. But after the service, I was once
again the center of attention. Then I accompanied the
members of the church, where I was once again the
topic of great attention. Th food was good though I
was't fond of the anchovie-garlic side dish.