You Handsome!

So much has gone on over the past 3 days that I don't know where to begin.

From the moment I walked onto campus at Buil Girls Middle School I have been treated like a rockstar! Girls run out of their way to get a glimpse of my presence. They scream my name! Then giggle as they run away. Whenever I say 'Hi' back to them they scream and runaway. They mob me in the hallway! Before and after class they treat me like a spectacle. The fill the doorways and look in through the windows. A few stand next to me to measure themselves up. A couple measure their feet next to mine. Others come up to my desk just to hear me say goodbye. The most popular question of the week...... DO YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND??? I always reply that 'I will not tell' because I can't imagine what they would do if I told them I didn't have a girlfriend. Some of them tell me I am their boyfriend anyhow. (If I write no comment they just ask if she is American or Korean)

Alas, Not everything is gold. From what they told us at the orientation I expected to be observing my co-teachers for the first week. That is not the case. From day one they expected me to be the lead teacher. Thanks to the wild success of their previous native English teacher, Anne, they had very high expectations for me. When the other English teachers saw me teach for the first time, they were greatly disappointed. I quickly dashed those high hopes within the first 2 hours of my first day. On top of the high expectations they wanted me to have my lesson plans for the next 2 weeks ready on Wednesday, my second day of work. Without knowing any of the text books or previous class material that wasn't going to happen. Fortunately for me, the wild rockstar status has bought me time to get my feet under me. I am using this time to create new lesson plans until Honeymoon week is over. Maybe I can make the honeymoon last 2 weeks.

Since breaking all 5 of my co-teachers' hopes and dreams I have been gaining back their faith in me. Every day I am getting better and better. They can see that I am. It doesn't hurt that one of my nicknames is 'The Salt and the Light.' Apparently, the students can't live without me. My co-teachers enjoy all this attention that the English department is receiving. Even if most of it comes in the form of love letters to me. (I received 3 today. Two of them implore 'I LOVE YOU' over 20 times. The other is pretty well written and notifies me that I am 'VERY HANDSOME' I have a picture of that one and I do apologize that my internet is too slow for me to upload the photos to my blog.) With all the in-school publicity that the 'English Only Zone' (my classroom) is getting, the co-teachers hope it will continue. And I quote, 'I hope more students will care about English around here.' Good luck with that. We are talking about teenagers here.

With all this pressure to become their ideal teacher, I have been racking my brain like crazy for lesson plans. And I found that these lessons don't have to be difficult. They just need to be easy enough for them to do but interesting enough to keep their attention. These are 7th, 8th, and 9th graders I'm teaching. So, you can expect me to invoke a lot of cooking (HOW TO MAKE A PIZZA! WEEK 2!), shopping, and lots of Angenlina Jolie and Brad Pitt. (Although they know Tom Cruise better than Brad Pitt. Obviously, They don't know squat about acting.)



Notes:

Most native teachers have 1 maybe 2 co-teachers that they work with. I have 5.


Singing is huge for these girls. Naori ban/Karaoke is big here. They keep asking me to sing. But I only sing if they sing first. After I sing they think I have a good voice. I think it's because I'm the only one who can put together enough English words in a row to make a vocal melody.
Would you believe I have already sang Billie Jean more than once to my students? Yeah, that's right I have sung a song about infidelity and alimony lawsuits to my children already. Michael Jackson is the only artist they know whose songs I know and who isn't completely mainstream jargon. Britney Spears, Tons of K-POP i.e. 2 PM, 2 NE 1, Big Bang. But Rain is tight. Check him out on the Colbert show dance off on youtube.



A couple kids knew the Beatles. I love those children already.

LET IT BE! LET IT BE!!! There will be an answer! LET IT BE!

Prophetic. I hope.


For Kevin: The USD translates well but not great. 10000 won = approx. 8.17 USD or 1 USD = 1226 won. For example beer is expensive (22000 won for 6 54 oz (or 27 beers) coors light style beers at the store) when compared to SOJU (one pint is 1000 won!). I could get drunk off soju for 2 dollars. But Soju, a strong rice liquor 20 to 45%, is a beast when it comes to hangovers. I'll talk about this more in a future post sometime.

I can find a good meal for about 8 bucks. Since I live next to popeye's I go there and grab a two piece meal for about 5500 won or close to 3.50 usd. And today for 4200 won I found little Bulgogi slider style burgers (4 in total) at the LOTTE Mart (There version of Wal Mart). They are money. That is my new happy hour-after school dinner.

I'll go over all this in later posts when things settle down and I have time to clear my thoughts.