It's nearly time to say goodbye!

On Monday I'm giving some of the teachers I've worked closely with bottles of wine as a farewell. Instead of trying to wrap the wine bottles (let's face it - that never really works) I decided to use these adorable gift tags I got in a swap my friend Tille organised on her blog - She waits for whispers.

I think they look pretty cute - although I'm sure the female teachers will appreciate the cuteness more than the male teachers.

"Owl Babies" Summer Camp

This week was my second week of summer camp (which is an intensive English summer programme). Last week I taught my regular high level English class but this week I had to teach a week of low level English learners.

I won't lie, teaching low level learners is tough, especially when they are in their last couple of years of elementary school. They are too old for a lot of the activities that younger children like and they are often frustrated with English in general (it's not exactly and easy language to learn).

I decided to base my camp on the book "Owl Babies" - I thought it was a sweet story and I hoped it wasn't too young for my students.



As part as my owl themed summer camp I got the children to make owl masks - a pretty easy activity really - cut out the mask and decorate. They seemed to have a really great time though and perhaps a little too much fun with the glitter. I'm sure there will be glitter in that classroom for the next 12 months.

Fairy Bread!

It's summer vacation in Korean schools, I've had my holidays and as a native English teacher I'm now teaching two weeks of summer camp. Summer camp is basically an intensive English programme - which can be a little tiring for both me and the students as I am teaching the same students for four hours each day.

I've been trying to think of fun things to do in class and as the kids are always interesting in things from New Zealand I decided to make them from fairy bread.

I was a little worried they might like it, but it was gone in a flash and I was left with a class of smiling faces.

I can or I can't

Recently in my high level English class I asked the students to draw pictures of something they can do and something they can't do.

Here's some things my students can't do that bought a smile. My favourite is the first one.

I can't love kiss

I can't kill people (that's a relief!)

I can't die (maybe he's a vampire in disguise?)

Birthday Dress - fail!

So if you read my blog regularly will remember my post about this years birthday dress. Well the dress turned up a day or two ago but it was a total failure as they had sent me the completely wrong dress!

I'm leaving Korea on 1 September, which is around 6 weeks time (I can't believe how fast the year has gone!) so they isn't much time to replace it either.

However, in the Rock Collection's defence the did say they would reimburse me as soon as the dress is returned.

Which is a little sad, but it's all money I've saved I guess!

In other news, yesterday we picked up our Visa's for Vietnam and Hong Kong. It will be time to leave for our trip very soon - less than one week in fact. I can't wait to get away for a while.

We've pretty much nailed down what we want to do in Hong Kong, the main thing is of course catching up with my old school friend Lillian.

We're a bit more open with what we want to do in Hanoi - we want to got to Halong Bay, but have been told it's much easier to book tours in Hanoi once we get there.

Other than that I am going on a teachers trip with my school at 1:30. There has been much confusion with this trip. Originally I was told we were going "caving" which led me to ask a lot of questions. Yesterday at lunch I was told we were going to a temple and the mountains which is much more my style and sounded great.

But as of yesterday afternoon we are going to the beach and then to a museum - what we are doing at the beach is a little ambiguous still. But I have been told that I must wear my slippers (inside shoes) to the beach - which is a little bit weird for a Kiwi girl but as the saying goes "when in Rome".

I won't have access to a computer for a couple of days whilst I'm on the trip but I should be able to update on Friday to share details of the trip, the films I'm going to be Puchon International Film Festival this weekend and the contents of a rather exciting package of red goodies I received from my friend Jess for my birthday in the mail this week.

Happy Birthday to me!

I kind of celebrated my birthday last weekend, but I still had a pretty great "birthday week" this week.

First of all the remains of the cake my co-workers bought me - "We *heart* Teresa".

Here's some of my birthday stash - I told my parents I didn't want a birthday present but they still sent me a little package with a Dr Who DVD (with my favourite Doctor - Tom Baker!), a very patriotic passport cover and luggage tag and a kite (flax bag). The package also came with some chocolate from home. My youngest brother Jake also sent me an awesome package of chocolates.From Rich I recieved a little craft kit, a Kuromi hairclip and an Alice in Wonderland style necklace.Here's a close up of the necklace, it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland but my co-workers said "Oh! Romantic Style!".
From my friend Nilanka back home in New Zealand I recieved these really great cookie cutters - they are kind of hard to see in the picture but one is of New Zealand and one is of a kiwi. I really love them but we don't have an oven - however - I do have plans to make something with them later this week. Stay tuned to find out what.I also recieved some goodies from my friend Dani in Korea - some girly stuff from the Faceshop (I can get enough of these Korean body and beauty stores) and some headbands.
From the 3rd Grade English teacher at my school a box of "bows" and a lip gloss - she knows me so well! (actually I teach her twin sons and they told her that "Teresa Teacher likes hair bows"). I also got some foundation from co-teacher Jiyoun but I couldn't get a good photo of that.Finally, here's all my treats from my students! One of my students even bought me a bottle of Elizabeth Arden green tea perfume - well he actually admitted his mum choose it but still it's a very generous present.




After school on my birthday day Rich and I went out for dinner but it was so hot again we just ended up eating popping su again and having a look around the shops in Uijeongbu.

My Korean Birthday!

My co-teacher Jiyeon got a little confused and thought that today was my birthday and not tomorrow.

So she organised a cake and presents for me today. She used the excuse I had to go to the fifth grade teachers room for a "meeting" about classes and when I got there all the fifth grade teachers were there with cake.

But it actually worked out well - if today was actually my birthday I would have suspected she was up to something but as today is the day before my birthday I had no idea!

Mr Moon, our music teacher and technology lover took some video of my grand entrance into the teachers room! Here it is!

What a week!

This week has been a very long week, tomorrow I have what I sincerely hope will be my last open class in Korea. This time both Korean and Native English Speaking teachers are coming along. You would think that seen as this is my fifth open class I would be less nervous - but that's not the case at all.

My co-teachers and I made a seriously cheesy video to go along with the lesson too - if I can get a copy of the video I will post it here. I'm sure Rich and the other native teachers that are coming along will find it hilarous.

Because of the open class and all sorts of other work that has piled up on me (I still have to plan a 1 week summer camp for my extra class and I am not sure where I will find time to do that!) I am incredibly tired right now. The humid heat of the Korean summer isn't helping - although I would take the heat of this summer over a Wellington winter any day!

I also had some bad news in regard to our summer trip to China.

Any foriegner living and working in Korea you must apply for an Alien Resident Card (ARC) to show that you can legally work here and have the correct visa.

I have been in contact with a Korean travel agent over the past little while to book our trip, the agent asked me yesterday how much longer our ARC's were valid for as the Chinese Government is now refusing to grant visa's to foriegn workers from South Korea if their ARC is due to expire in less than six months.

Because our contract finish on 31 August our ARC's will expire on 1 September so we cannot get Chinese visa's and we cannot travel to China.

I feel so disappointed about this, I'm not sure why this decision has been made by Chinese customs either? I have had my heart set on going to China again since winter and I just feel so bummed out about it.

Rich and I have to replan our whole summer vacation which sucks a lot seen as we were hoping to book flights this week. I think now we will go from Vietnam to Hong Kong then back to Korea but I am really not sure - I will keep you all posted. One thing is certain - I will be going to Hong Kong!

However, this week hasn't been all bad, for one thing I got to be a judge an English Language Speech contest. I heard speeches about everything from deep sea creatures, the perils of having little sisters, The Korean War, how Korean can become a multicultural society and the joy of the jijilbang's.

It is incredible how well some of these kids can speak in English, especially the younger kids that are only 8 or 9 years old. I was seriously impressed.

Also, for those of you who don't know, Rich and I are planning on moving to Taiwan later this year. Our contract's will expire here in Korea on 31 August, after that we will go home for a week or two (or possibly longer depending on the new jobs). Then's it's off to live in Taiwan with all kinds of new challenges and adventures.This week, I had a really positive skype interview with a very large Taiwanese school and a couple of other recruiters are also very interested in me. So here's hoping I will have a new job soon!

Sadness

Football World Cup madness!

The whole world seems to be in the grips of world cup madness right now! I'm obviously not at home in New Zealand but I imagine Wellington would have been crazy a couple of nights ago when we drew 1-1 with Slovenia. Things were certainly a little crazy in our little studio apartment and it's only the two of us.

According to my American friends, this means New Zealand won, I'm willing to accept this logic. Especially seen as it was out first world cup goal - ever!

But I'm sure no matter how crazy New Zealand is with football fever it's no match for South Korea. It seems here that people really love their football - Rich and I watched the first South Korea world cup match in a park in Gyeonju last weekend, South Korea won 2-0 to Greece and the crowd went wild. Every goal was followed by wild chants of "Dae Han Min Guk" and dancing.My kids have all gone totally football mad too, well, I should say more football mad than usual. Most of the journal entries I recieve at the moment read like this one.
Finally, there are so many K-pop football themed songs out at the moment, like this one called Kara. K-pop is horrible at the best of times and the World Cup has not provided enough inspiration to create a decent song.
Finally is this little video, it's sponsored by SK Telecom and meant to inspire Korean's to "Dream Again" - I think it's pretty awesome.

This is what I do at work....

Here's a few photo's of me teaching, along with my lovely co-teacher Jiyoun, in my classroom during an open class (that's when other teachers or parents actually come and watch you teach - pressure!).

The pictures aren't perfect because they aren't posed or anything, they were just taking by another teacher clicking away on his camera furiously to record our class.

If you look at the second picture you can see a whole row of teachers standing in the back of the room watching us!

General Korean Cuteness

Cheong-Am Folk Museum

We had last Wednesday off school, due to the fact there was an election (having a day off for the election is a brilliant idea! I think we should do this in New Zealand!).

Because we weren't working on Wednesday, my co-teacher Jiyoun and another teacher friend Jo-ann (third grade English teacher) decided that we should have an evening out.

They decided to take me to the Cheong-Am Folk Museum, which reminded me a little of the Tawhiti Museum at home in Taranaki. There were a lot of display's about what life in Korea used to be like. Here's some photo's from our educational girls night out - it was actually pretty fun.

Is it too nerdy to find an educational night out fun?

Cute little carved figures.

Not sure what this rainbow cow has to do with traditional Korean culture, but I thought it was awesome.

With Jo-ann outside and old train carriage.

Yes - that guy in the back is using a traditional Korean toilet - Jiyoun thought this picture was hilarious!

With my co-teacher Jiyoun and some random Korean farmer.

Jiyoun told me in the late 70's and early 80's every pub and cafe in Korea had their own DJ. Apparently they were pretty "funky". Rock on.

Awaiting a shoe shine, maybe not.

With Jo-ann in the gardens of the museum.