Whoosh!

Time is flying by already! I can't believe another week is gone. If anything, the weeks actually seem to pass quicker this year, which I think is due to the longer hours, but I think it's great cause I'm not sitting around all morning and afternoon doing nothing. I actually kind of feel like I need to schedule myself to fit everything in because I don't have all that time to kill in the morning this year.

Not sure what is on board for this weekend. I'm heading over to the old neighborhood in a few minutes to do some socializing and what not. I'm still not drinking, which I'm rather enjoying, and as long as the people I'm with are lively enough, I still manage to stay up just as late as I normally would.

The weather has made a turn for the better around here, I have managed to sleep the last two nights without my air conditioner on, and although there are flood warnings for South Korea I think that is way better than the sweltering humidity that we had been dealing with before.

My parents day went fine yesterday. I think it's all pretty ridiculous really, I can't imagine wanting to go in and watch my kid's class, in a language I couldn't understand, but I guess maybe that just shows my lack of maternal instincts. Then again, my mom never even bothered to go to parent/teacher interviews, so maybe it's hereditary. The only part I didn't like about the parents day was that afterwards all the moms went into another room with a manager and myself and I had to go around and talk about each kid's strengths and weaknesses and the mothers seemed to take it so hard when I would say that one wasn't paying attention or another was writing their Ss backwards and I just wanted to scream at them, "YOUR KID IS 4, the reason he/she is not paying attention is because he/she is 4...asking a kid to sit at a desk for four hours each morning and expecting him/her to have a full attention span is ridiculous!" But what do I know... Then they were also asking me my opinion on what they could do to help their child learn faster and the urge to say, "I don't know, I'm not a real teacher; I'm just doing this cause I couldn't find a real job at home," was almost too much, but I resisted and instead said that I could make their kids extra work sheets for home practice and that seemed to please them.

Anyhow I'm off for now...ta ta!

Hmmmm...

Sometimes people know me way too well!

In a bitchy email to Matt this morning over why Paypal had frozen my account thus stopping me from being able to pay for some "nice" sheets (giving him no more details other than that they were nice)that I had ordered. This is how he responded:

isn't there a paypal korea that you can do all of your fraudulent activity through? you'd think that there would be. the things you do for 1000 threadcount egyptian sheets that are sewn together by migrant workers in the phillipines that get paid $1.50 a day (in their local currency no doubt, which is probably about 3 cents canadian) to slave in a sweathouse next to cattle and scorpions all for YOU. you do know that you'd be providing them with a better life if you imported them into the country, doubled their wage to 6 cents a day and went into business for yourself selling said egyptian cotton sheets, right?

Other than being off on the thread count by 200 I would say he's pretty damn good at reading my mind...(or maybe pillaging through my email account, which would also explain why Paypal suspected fraudulent activities???). Meh, either way I have 1200TC sheets on order... I'm gonna sleep like a princess!

A Small Addiction...

No I didn't drink this weekend, but I'm sure that's what you thought by the title. Asses.

What I'm talking about is Facebook, and yes Facebook in itself is addicting enough but everyone at work has been talking about the Travel IQ application, which I hadn't paid any attention to because I suck at geography. But the craze was taking off so I figured I would pry myself away from Facebook poker and check it out.

Travel IQ is crazy! You get a picture of the world map and as random places and cities come up you have to find the place on the map. You can only progress to the next level if you score a certain number of points, and I don't mean to put anybody down but ALL my past geography teachers must have been awful teachers cause I don't know a thing... I couldn't even find Seoul the first time! You can choose specific areas if you don't want to deal with the whole world. I figured I would have an edge on the map of Canada but apparently I must live in a bubble inside of Ontario cause I don't know squat about the rest of the country.

So what I'm trying to say, if you want a really fun, addicting, learning game you should definetly check it out, and don't worry you won't come in last place cause I've got that spot in the bag.

Friday Friday Friday!

Have a I mentioned that I love Fridays? Or to be more accurate, Friday night at 7:25 when I am free for the weekend?!

My first week of teaching went pretty smoothly; no broken or lost children. All in all I am pretty happy with my new school. I was a little worried about such long hours at first but we get 10 minute breaks between each 40 minute class in the morning, a 40 minute lunch break, an hour and a half go home and sleep break, and then a few more hours of teaching. So it's not like I am surrounded by children the entire day.

Next Thursday is my open kinder class, which means the parents are going to come and criticize observe my class and teaching skills. I am pretty much dreading it. Its not that I think I am doing an awful job, but I could have their children reciting Shakespeare and the parents are still going to complain that: "She called on that kid way more than on my kid," "She looked at that kid's work for 10 seconds and my kid's for only 7." And other ridiculous things like that. It will be forty minutes of awfulness, followed by another forty minutes of listening to what the parents have to say (which will be translated into English for me).

But enough about that, I have all of next week to dread it. For now it is the weekend and I am just excited about relaxing. I have downloaded the first two seasons of Prison Break and I love it so far, so that is what I plan on doing tonight. Then tomorrow I want to walk around and try and recoup some of the tan that I have lost, and tomorrow night is Marta's going away party.

In other news I have finally figured out how to get blogger back into English which makes my life much easier, and the bigger (more questionable) news is that I have decided not to drink for a month. I am kind of over the whole "lets go out and get hammered" stage of Korea, it's gotten kind of boring. Plus I had anticipated not drinking much while I had been home, but I forgot what a big bunch of lushes you all are so I just feel I need to give my body a break from it and have a nice low key month. My resolution started last Saturday, which has evolved from "I'm never drinking again," to "Lets give it a rest for a month." I'll still go out, of course, but I will stick to Coke Zero or water.

Other than that, not much to say, I have some kid pictures to post this weekend, as well as some from while I was at home, and maybe I'll tinker around with my layout a little more. So until then, have a good weekend! :)

Kindergartens....Meh...

For someone who said she never wanted kids I'm a little confused as to how I've ended up with twelve little rugrats all under the age of five to contend with each day. (I must have been a very bad person in a past life)...

Today is my second day of real teaching, as opposed to watching other teachers. The hours are quite a bit longer than last year, which means I'm up at a reasonable hour and too exhausted at the end of each day to contemplate staying out unti an unreasonable hour.

The kids are actually quite cute and pretty smart, there doesn't seem to be the language barrier that there was last year. My kinder kids seem to love me so far and have taken to calling me princess and shouting out, "Diana teacher, I love you." (to which I respond, thank you). They also make the heart motion over their heads with their hands which is pretty cute so I can't complain, other than that I find them a little bit exhausting.

In the afternoons I teach older kids and the school is so structured that I find I am not really teaching but clicking buttons on a computer and reviewing their homework with them. Might get a bit boring after awhile but it cuts down my prep time. The one thing I will find a little bit difficult from last year is that last year I was working with very little material so I was constantly trying to draw out lessons in an effort to waste time, whereas this year it seems that there is a ton to cover in forty minutes and will end up blazing by some of the important grammar issues.

All in all I think it is going pretty well, I got out for a run last night after work which gave me more energy for the rest of the night and got me out of the apartment for a bit. Poker is on tonight and I am contemplating going although I think I should put it off a bit until I'm more used to the long days and have also acquired my first pay check.

Anyhow I'm just on a lunch break so going to eat some noodles and drink some coffee and prepare for round two!

I'm Back!

So I've been back in Korea for a week now. I just finally got Internet connection at my place which makes me a very happy girl; however, blogger has detected I am in Korea and has transformed all my posting details into Korean for me which is not so handy. You think the would at least give you the option if you want Korean or English...

As for the layout, I was playing around with it before I left, it probably won't stay this way but I figured a new year deserved a bit of a change.

I could probably write a novel or two about everything I didn't post while at home and all the new happenings around here but I am far too hungover to do that right now.

So to sum up the past few months here are a few of the headlines you might have read had I been posting:

Canada
~ Mustang Convertibles Rock!
~ Lisa Shields and Matt Dryden get married...Matt required to take Lisa's last name after being horribly defeated at bowling
~ Diana gets a puppy: mom and dad graciously decide to take care of it, train it, and pay his expenses but will hand him over once I am back in the country
~ The Keg...still delicious
~ Donna Ratz fakes bad back in attempt not to take Diana to the airport... still faking it after a week of immobility and bed rest (just teasing mom...hope those percocets haven't numbed your humour!)

I'm sure there were a few more newsworthy events but the time at home went by so fast that I can't seem to think of any. It was so good to be home and see everybody, and recharge for the upcoming year.

My new school seems pretty terrific, as do my coworkers so I'm looking forward to starting over again here. My hopes for this year are to do more travelling, party less, and get more sleep, but we will see how that pans out, there is always something going on around here and it is easy to get caught up in the fun.

Anyhow I will write more later but right now I need to rest up for tonight!