Extracurricular Class

This year at my school I'm teaching 5th grade again, it took the school a while to actually confirm I was teaching 5th grade though but I thought it was always going to happen.

I am also teaching extracurricular English for six hours each week, this class consists of 20 high level 5th grade students - mostly boys so the class is a little bit rowdy.

I have to teach them writing, listening and speaking and also grammar! I hate grammar and I hate teaching grammar but they seem to love it - I guess maybe it adds a little bit of logic (if there is any at all) to the English language.

As part of my class the students have to write an English language diary and give this to me once a week for marking, I get some pretty random things in these diaries, but this week I got one that said something that made me really smile - "I like my English teacher very much. She is intelligent and open-minded. She always tries to give me help and I am thankful for her kindness." I though it was pretty sweet and her English was really good as well!

Thirst

Movie 17 of my new years resolution is a Korean movie loaned to us by Joseph - it's a love story and a vampire movie but no Twilight soppiness here. This movie is really incredible and there isn't really a dull moment from beginning to end, I especially like the end, it's incredible. You should find a copy of this movie and watch it as soon as possible.

Mail, mail and more mail

It's been another bad week health wise, my nasty bug still hasn't left (although the doctor thinks he has now found the cause and changed my antibiotics) but I did recieve lots of mail.

I recieved a get well package from my friend Dani with all sorts of cute things, I also recieved an awesome Easter package from my Mum with SO MANY Easter eggs. We won't be short on Easter Eggs this year! Mum also sent some milo, but the package kind of exploded in transit, but plenty of milo was salvagable. It just meant I had a package of milo coated items.

I also recieved a package from my friend Jess, as we arranged a while back to do a Valentine's Day/Easter swap. I feel a little bad though as I was suppose to send her an Easter package on 19 March but I have been sick for two weeks and haven't posted her package, but it will be in the post tommorrow as I am finally feeling better.

Jess sent me some cool things like the Easter Egg decorations above, I'm going to put them on my desk this coming week as I plan on teaching the children about Easter traditions.

I also recieved a very cute tiny cupcake from Jess, it looks good enough to eat but a piece of paper that was with the cupcake told me I shouldn't eat it - but it looks very tasty.
She also sent me this cute candy Easter Egg painting kit, it's for children but I don't care! I'm going to be painting my own Easter Eggs next weekend and I'm sure Rich will join me. However, not all of my packages made it to Korea from New Zealand unscathed - he's some Easter Chick and Easter Bunny carnage. Rich did make a heroic effort to revive the Easter Chicks but alias it was too late for them - poor souls.
Thanks to everyone for thinking of me and Happy Easter!

A Saturday Night View from our apartment window

Movie update - The Good, The Bad and the VERY Ugly

I haven't had a movie update in a while, mostly because I've been sick and haven't been on a computer much. However, I have made some progress with my New Years resolution for 2010 and I have seen movies 14, 15 and 16 which I refer to as the good, the bad and the ugly.

First of all is the GOOD.

The good is Alice in Wonderland in 3D. This is the first of this new style of 3D I have seen as it was amazing. I have always liked the story of Alice in Wonderland and I love Tim Burton's film making so I thought it was pretty incredible. I know it's had some bad review's but it's not a film that is trying to change the world - it's just a film of whimsy and I like that. Also it's my first 3D movie since the days of the red and blue glasses and I have to say it's so incredible. I really should have made more of an effort to go and see Avatar in 3D.

The BAD.
This is another film I watched on one of the film channel's we have, I remeber it when it came out when I was at University. The plot is pretty lame and the acting pretty average but it's an ok movie - although the ending wasn't as gory as I remeber? Either there were two endings - one less violent than the other or I am getting confused with another movie? Maybe it had a much more violent sequel?

The VERY UGLY
I knew this film would be bad and as you have guessed from my previous movie blogs I do like "B" Grade Horrors. Prior to this film I had never seen a movie with the word "zombie" in the title I didn't like. However, this is simply the worst movie I have even seen as that's up against some pretty strong competition. In this movie there are no zombies! Why the title feels that it can claim there are zombies I have no idea - it is truely truely terrible and should never be watched by anyone - ever.

I'm sorry Mr Snail

In South Korea in the public schools, for a small fee, teachers are able to eat the same cooked lunch as the children do and usually it's pretty good. We always have a soup or stew, rice and three side dishes. Sometimes we even have a dessert like rice cakes or fruit. I have always HATED making lunch for work so this arrangement works perfect for me, even though sometimes the food is a little spicy or unusual - it's edible and to be honest after teaching for four hours I am usually happy to eat ANYTHING!

Last week I was eating lunch with my co-teachers and one of the side dishes was a spicy vegetable salad in the Korean hot sauce. I've had this salad a million times before and I was eating away when one of my co-teachers asked if I liked it, to which I said I thought it was ok.

She asked if I knew what was in the salad, which I had to admit I didn't really know and dread began to fill me as I though of the small chewy bits in the salad. The she told me the salad contained "river snail" which is very good for our health but many foriegner's don't like it.

Just when I thought, maybe she is confusing river snail with another English word she said, it is just like Escargot in France. So no mistaking I was eating a poor little snail - river snail is apparently hugely popular and I have most likely eaten it before. I did notice the chewiness in the salad but I thought it was just my old "friend" octopus or squid - not a poor wee snail!

Now I know about the presence of the river snail in Korean cuisine I can't help but wonder how many snails I have ingested over the past six or seven months.

I know snails are not the most beloved of creatures (especially for gardener's) but I have gone from being someone who would go to great length's to aviod walking on snails when going for an early morning walk or run to a person who quite little eats snails for lunch.

Korea can do strange things to a girl - I'm truely sorry Mr Snail!

Hwagyesa

Last weekend, Rich and I decided to go and see a Buddhist temple just a few stops away from Uijeongbu that his co-teacher had told him about. We were both still kind of tired from our big week of adventures with Sue and Conor but didn't want to waste a Sunday inside so thought it was worth a visit.

The temple was really very cool and easy to get to by subway followed up by a short bus ride.

The temple, which is called Hwagyesa also seems to be very accessible to foreigners with weekly meditation's and discussion's in English which we want to go to sometime soon.

The area around the temple was also very quiet and calm - despite the people and the cars and the monks were very friendly. I'm looking forward to visiting again sometime soon.

Creepy Cute Craftster Swap

Recently I took part in the creepy cute craft swap on craftster and earlier this week I received a really cool creepy cute package from my swap partner. I really love what she made me - especially the hair bows, in fact I have been searching her online esty store just now and considering the purchase of more creepy hair bows....

Anyways back to my package - here's the things I received - firstly a very cute altered slip with a red and white poka dot skully.


I also received a big and beautiful poka dot bow to match the slip - it's very cool - I wore it to work on Friday and it made me feel a bit better about having to teach with a disappearing voice (more about that in another post!). Next up is a "Butcher Bow" it's very me but not school friendly! I will have to save it for the weekends I think. I also received a set of cherry hair clips which I plan on wearing with my cherry dress to the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival. I know Cherry blossoms and cherries are two quite different things but hey it will be kind of in the spirit right? I also received some vegan candy which I am saving at the moment, I'm sick and I want to eat it when I am better and enjoy it. I also received a cute "I heart tofu" tea towel but I forgot to take a photo, yeah, I''m sick and my brain isn't working the best.

One time....Conor & Sue came to our house....and it was awesome

Last week our old friends Conor and Sue came to visit us on their way to New Zealand and Australia, it was so good to see them after so long and show them around Uijeongbu and Seoul. Unfortunately because there are classes at the moment we couldn't get any time off school but that's fine as we still had plenty of time to hang out together.

Here's some of the stuff we did around Uijeongbu and Seoul.

1. Dinner with some of the good friends we have made in Korea - Joseph and Valerie.




2. Luxury Norebang in Uijeongbu




3. Then, despite me telling Conor the weather had been getting much warmer, it snowed again!


4. Buddhist Temple Food and Performance (with audience participation from Rich and Conor) at Sanchon in Insadong.




5. Drinks at Jongno Tower - with amazing views of Seoul



6. Drinks and dessert at the super girly Ann House Cafe in Uijeongbu



7. Traditional Palace Food at Korea House in Seoul




8. Norebang in Myeongdong



9. Posing with Pierce Brosnan in Myeongdong.
10. Making crazy stickers in Myeongdong


11. Time for Conor to catch up on his arcade car games.12. Visit to Samcheong-Dong13. Visiting the Ice Gallery in Samcheong Dong






14. Rice Cakes in Insadong




It was the most fun and tiring week I think I have had in Korea but it was so worth it! I hope we can visit Conor and Sue in London soon so they can show us the sites.