They call me "Melina Teacher"

“Teacher, what’s your name?” If one of my students had asked that question today I would not have been surprised, after all, this is only week 2 of our term. However, a girl asked me that a couple weeks ago… in week 13 of last term. Back in the States, students referred to me as ‘Miss Lawson’. Here, I am officially ‘Melina Teacher’, however some call me ‘Melina’ and one calls me ‘Melly Jelly’, but to most I am simply ‘Teacher’. And so it came to pass that after 13 weeks in which I memorized approximately 70 names, this darling girl still didn’t know the name of her teacher. *Sigh*

I'm bringing this one home with me in my suitcase.

This job has its ups and downs like any job, but I do love my students (even the ones who forget my name). Sometimes they drive me crazy, but they also make me laugh a lot and I enjoy working with them.

Would you just look at those hard workers?

Here are some things I think are funny: Whenever a student asks where I’m from and respond, “America,” they seem surprised. I’m not quite sure what they were expecting me to say… They love to abbreviate words, but it doesn’t always turn out quite right – It took me forever to figure out that “Aypuh” is short for “A+”, and I cringe whenever they call the “Thinking Project” “Think Puh” (Half the time it sounds like they’re saying “Think Poo”) I get asked almost weekly if I’m married or have a boyfriend (they obviously don’t listen to the answer to someone else’s question) and when I answer “no” I am repeatedly told to “Marry a Korean and stay forever” – I guess that means they like me?

Good team work.

Working at an academy can be difficult for several reasons, one of them being that a lot of what I do is teaching test taking skills rather than English, but it can also be very rewarding. I love letting them be creative during story prediction and the Thinking Project. Some of them give very normal answers, but others get really excited when they realize there’s no wrong answer and they can say whatever they want.

Got to love his octopus flying machine.

I also love watching students who have to repeat a level start to take leadership as they now find themselves a little ahead of most of the other students. They are familiar with classroom protocol and the methods used in class so they feel more confident volunteering answers.

The first picture was all straight-faced, so I told them I'd give them F's if they didn't smile... don't they look happy? ;)

Presenting their "flying machine" sandals.

I had to be quick to get even this good of a shot of his face! It might be the only photo of him in existence!

One of my favorite things is getting the quiet students to talk. I had a boy last term named Jetal. He was the kind of kid that, as one teacher said, when you asked him what he did last weekend you expected him to say, “Teacher, I killed someone.” He was very quiet, frowny, and just seemed generally unhappy and unengaged. So, in week 1 I decided that my goal for each class with him was to get him to laugh. I spent the next 12 weeks trying different tactics. At first, I counted it a victory when I caught a grin involuntarily flit across his face, but by the end of the term he was actually laughing and joking with me and other students. Success.

Birthday

I’m a 5 kind of girl. I’m 5 feet tall and was born on 5/15/85. This year I turned 25 and here are the 5 things I did on my birthday weekend:

1. Saturday began with brunch at Butterfinger Pancakes. I was joined by Muang, Lizze, June, and Natalie, making it a party of 5. I had delicious pancakes, French toast, eggs, potatoes, hash browns, bacon, and sausage and washed it all down with a banana milkshake. ^_^ They had to roll me out of the place, but it was worth it.

June, Me, and Muang.

Lizze and Natalie

2. Next, Muang, Lizze, and I met up with Pajai and went to the Seoul Museum of Art for the August Rodin exhibit where we saw 113 of his sculptures, including The Hand of God, The Thinker, and The Kiss. It was amazing. Lizze and I had fun making up our own interpretations of the works as well as listening to the audio guide.

(This is obviously NOT Rodin, but while pictures weren't aloud inside, there were some fun things outside.)

3. Getting home from the museum was an adventure in and of itself complete with getting separated, wrong turns, and dying cell phones. Once back in Bundang Muang and one of her friends, Lizze, and I watched movies until about 3am.

4. Sunday I went with Muang, Virginia, and a few of their friends to the Lantern Festival in celebration of Buddha’s birthday. There were booths for face painting, crafts, and to show how Buddhism looks in different Asian countries. I enjoyed seeing variations in culture and how each people group has taken the same ideas and made them distinctly their own, but despite the festive atmosphere I found myself saddened as I looked around and saw crowds of people embracing a false hope. I know for many the festival was about as ‘religious’ as Santa is on Christmas, but for many others, Buddhism is a stumbling block keeping them caught in a life of trying to earn what has been freely given.

Muang getting in touch with her roots.

At the Cambodia booth (In honor of Sudea).

These boys sang and danced then tumbled off the stage waving and smiling for all the cameras.

5. In the evening Muang and I met up with Lizze and Steven to watch the Lantern Parade (technically this is part of the festival, but I’m counting it as a separate event because it was so different from the rest of the day and because it just wouldn’t be as cool if I only had 4 events). The parade was beautiful and though the crowd was enormous, I think there were even more participants than spectators. I took lots of pictures, but most didn’t turn out very well. Though I love my little camera, night shots of moving objects are not her specialty. I also took a few videos which turned out better. At one point, a man from the parade came over and handed me his large yellow lantern illumined by a small candle. Birthday present?

All in all it was a great weekend with great friends, and, as Steven would say, it was “5-tastic”!

Pictures:http://www.flickr.com/photos/scribbledjourneys/

Videos:http://www.youtube.com/user/scribbledjourneys

Butterflies and Paper

When I got back from the Butterfly Festival I had every intention of blogging about it right away. I had a good start since I had scribbled down several details of the weekend while I was still down there and the day after I got home I faithfully uploaded all of my pictures … but that’s where it stopped. *Sigh* I am a procrastinator to the core – even with things I want to do! So, without even further ado, here’s what I did 2 weeks ago:

Friday April 30^th I packed my bag in the morning and took it to work with me. I was logged out of the system and my computer was turned off at 9:55. I had my last class lined up and ready to walk out the door the moment the bell rang. As soon as they left I grabbed my stuff and raced down to the taxi that my friend June had waiting. Why? I get off of work at 10pm and we had to get to the bus station for our bus leaving at 10:30. We made it in perfect time and soon we were loaded on along with June’s friend (my soon to be friend), Natalie.

We arrived in Gwangju at 1:30am and after a little searching found a decently priced “love motel” with a bed just big enough for the three of us to squeeze into providing no one moved too much. We were all pretty hungry so we ventured out and soon found a happening sushi restaurant. Nothing like a little raw fish at 3am!

Saturday we slept in and caught a 2pm bus to Hampyeong, the home of the world’s only butterfly festival. The bus was, of course, oversold so Natalie and I sat on the floor of the aisle and I thanked the Lord I was wearing leggings under my dress! We got there around 3 and across the street from the Expo Park there were several vendors where we left our heavy overnight bags with a nice man selling silkworm larva, snails, and corn on a stick. On our way in I had two Jehovah’s Witness ladies try to convert me while Natalie and June were taking pictures with the Bull. Then there was a booth where some police officers asked us to sign something saying we wouldn’t drink and drive. We tried to explain that we came by bus, but it wasn’t worth it, so we just signed.

This big guy is right outside the Butterfly Expo Park. Why? I have no idea, but pictures were required.

I think this might be my favorite from the whole weekend!

Butterfly Festival - Every little girl's dream come true.

These boys were fishing... yes, fishing. They waded around and caught them with their chubby little hands and dropped them in jars of murky water. Yum?

You might not be able to tell, but this is painted on cardboard.

We finally made it into the park and had a fun afternoon of face paint, strange statues, interesting exhibits, a cute gift shop, and … NO BUTTERFLIES!!! The sun was going down and we were leaving a little disappointed when we ran into some foreigners we had met on the bus who pointed us in the right direction. When we got there the butterflies were all sleeping on the flowers, but we figured we had better see them. Unfortunately, we got there about closing time and were shooed out. We took pictures as quickly as we could joking that we would just snap pictures of everything and look at it later.

Aren't we sweet?

We then caught the 8:10 bus up to Jeonju where we stayed the night at a wonderful “love motel” with two, count them – two beds! Sunday we slept in again then had lunch at the Hanok Village where we discovered there was a Hanji (traditional Korean paper) festival. (If you aren’t aware of this yet, Korea is ALL about festivals) Jeondong Catholic Cathedral was nearby and had some booths up to participate in the festival. We bought some crafts from a Nun to support earthquake victims in Chile and she kindly let us leave our bags at her booth.

The inscription on the book says that this is a holy place because it is where the first Korean Christians were martyred in 1791.

This was not at the church, but was nearby.

A paper festival may not sound very interesting, but really was amazing. There was jewelry made with paper, a parade of clothes made from paper, even usable furniture made from paper! And of course there was lots of just plain paper.

We ended the day with some delicious bibimbap and caught a late bus home. When I crawled into my own bed at 3am my feet were swollen and tired from so much walking but it was worth it for a wonderful weekend.

(I took 350 pictures, so if you'd like to see more of the trip you can check them out here http://www.flickr.com/photos/scribbledjourneys/.)

Settling

I changed the time-zone on my computer last week. Until then it had still been on Oregon time, but at almost 4 months it seemed like the time to make the switch. This was just the first sign that the settling process was beginning. One year is an awkward amount of time. Just how settled should one get?

Saturday I bought two orchids. They brighten up my little white box of an apartment and make me very happy. It’s nice to make it look a little more like a home.

Then today I completely surprised myself. With a little pressure from my dear friend June I took the plunge and became the proud momma of two adorable hamsters! It was love at first sight and even though the cage was full of the little critters I knew exactly which two I wanted. The dark one was laying sprawled out on top of a wooden house, his cheeks stuffed full of food. He was such a chub! The light one was sleeping along the edge with a bunch of others, but he was turned completely upside down with all four legs up in the air. The man said that if I bought the cage, bedding, and food he would give me the two hamsters for free. *Sigh* okay….. So he set up the cage, checked to make sure the two I wanted were both boys, and plopped them in.

They have a nice loft apartment with an upstairs gym and it didn’t take the dark one long to find his way up to the running ball. He’s all tuckered out now from running so much. Aren’t they so cute sleeping? ^_^

I do have one problem though – they need names. While ‘dark one’ and ‘light one’ are quite descriptive I think we can do better. I’ve been reading The Princess Bride so my first thought was to name the dark one Fezzik, and the light one Inigo, but I thought it would be fun to hear some of your suggestions. So, what do you think?