I'm feeling even better today than yesterday, though I still have a dry, wheezy cough, which is more annoying than anything. I was back to teaching all my classes, for the first time in a week. I'm so glad not to be sitting around the apartment anymore!

The kids were especially disruptive (err . . . excited) today. One kid threw a temper tantrum: threw his books and crayons on the floor, put his chin on the desk, and pouted. When I told him to pick his things up, he shouted "No, Teacher!" at me. I picked him out of his seat and pointed at his things. He lay down, beat his fists on the floor, and yelled. I called for one of the Korean staff members who promptly entered carrying a big stick. They didn't hit him, just scared him into picking everything up, and then called his mom. From the way kids respond to threats of calling their moms (note: they never threaten to call dads), I surmise that Korean moms are way scarier than big sticks.

In one of our workbooks today, there was a cartoon drawing of a very ugly man. One little boy pointed to him and said, "Teacher, bonehead!"

"WHAT?" I asked, not believing I had heard him correctly.

"Bonehead, teacher! Bonehead." Then he pointed to the man. "Very stupid. Bonehead!"

I don't think I've ever heard anyone else but Dad say "bonehead" before. I'm always amazed at the words the kids come up with. Of course, they have all picked up on a few less than polite phrases--from TV, I hope, and not from the teachers! I always watch my words carefully, though, because they repeat EVERYTHING.

I'm just checking my email on my lunch break and thought I'd give you today's update a little early. I teach a kindergarten class and a preschool class every morning. I begin each class with all the kids sitting on the floor. I sit in a chair facing them. As we said our prayer this morning, two little boys kept goofing around, touching my slippers and giggling. I just ignored them. Later, I looked down at my feet to notice big boogers on my toes. During the prayer, the boys had been picking their noses and wiping their fingers on my feet! Later, in my preschool class, I had four kids cry and one wet her pants. If this morning is any indication, today is going to be an interesting day. Five classes to go. Who knows what else will happen?!

I'm finally starting to feel a little better. After sleeping for the past four days, it was nice to be back in the classroom today. I had the blessing (curse?) to try to teach a class of 8- and 9-year-olds the ins and outs of this ridiculously complicated language. One little girl wanted to know why "I-G-H" makes a long "I" sound. Why? I have no idea why it does. It just does! But she wouldn't just take my word for it.

"Ellen Teacher," she shouted. "No! I-G-H, I. No! I-G-H, ig-huh. Yes! I, no! Ig-huh, yes!"

"No," I said. "I. Long I. Not ig-huh. I."

"Why?"

"Look," I said and wrote "night" on the chalkboard. "N-I-G-H-T. N-igh-t. Night."

"No, Teacher! N-I-G-H-T. Nig-hut. Nig-hut."

I could tell I was getting nowhere. The argument continued for another couple minutes, using other examples of words in which "-igh-" is pronounced as a long "I" and not as "ig-huh" as she insisted: right, high, light, bright . . .

Finally she sat down, put her chin on the desk, and looked right at me. "English very difficult."

Well, she was right about that at least!

I'm feeling a little better today. Not quite as congested. I'm still real achy and totally wiped. The director is teaching for me again today. I have hardly been out of the apartment in four days.

After what the director said to me yesterday, I've come to the really sad decision to leave Sapkyo at the end of this term in mid-May. I've actually been contemplating it since my first week here but decided to try to stick it out in hopes that some of the problems would resolve themselves. I have requested that the mission board give me some options for what else I can do with the church in Korea (my first choice since I'm already here and really like Korea) or Asia (my second choice since I'm already here and really like what I've seen so far) or elsewhere, but it seems that there aren't any other options for me through the mission program at this time.

I'm going to give the school 1-month notice, as stipulated in my contract, so I'll turn in my resignation on April 10th. I've already emailed the mission board to let them know of my decision. I've applied to a couple other schools here in Korea. I'm just trying to decide if that's really what I want to do since what I love is church work. If all else fails, I'll go back to Illinois, but that's really not what I want to do. I was really excited about having an international experience and serving the church, and I really like Korea. I could even see staying in Korea for longer than a year. It's a nice, clean, safe country. Friendly people. Very low cost of living. Lots to see and do. In fact, the only thing I don't like is this director who has literally made my life unbearable.

I guess that's all to report since I haven't done anything but sit around for four days. I'm down to two more days of Dr. Kim's mystery pills, and my butt still hurts from his shot, though the laugh I got out of the whole experience was worth it. I really, really like Dr. Kim and his wife. They've good people, and they do a lot for us. It's people like them that make it hard to leave here.

I spent the weekend curled up in a chair with my bedspread. (We don't have a couch or afghan, so that's the best I could do.) I'm not yet noticing a difference from the shot Dr. Kim gave me. I feel really weak, achy, cold all the time.

Today the director said she'd teach for me so I could just go home. While I was showing her where the kids are in the books and letting her know the general lesson plan, she proceeded to tell me that I'm not doing a good job at the school, that all the other teachers are better than I am, and that her own children were much smarter than I am when they were learning a foreign language. (She actually said that!)

I really don't see how I can continue working with her. I emailed the mission board and asked if there are other possibilities for me to work as a missionary here in Korea. I also looked into other teaching positions here in Korea--there are literally thousands--and emailed my resume to a few places this afternoon. We'll see what happens. Of course, I know I could always go back to Illinois, but I like Korea and would like to stay. I would also like to continue doing mission work this year, but this setting seems highly toxic.

I'm still sick. After the church service this morning, Dr. Kim said, "Ellen, you are still UNDER THE WEATHER. You come with me to my office, and I give you a shot."

"What kind of shot?"

"I don't know." (It turns out it was an antibiotic. I think he isn't used to their patients asking a lot of questions about what he's doing and what kind of medication he's giving, and I ask lots of questions.)

So I went with Dr. Kim and his wife (I still don't know her name) and Kathy as my chaperone to Dr. Kim's clinic.

He prepared the shot. Kathy and Dr. Kim's wife stood around. I contemplated whether I'd have to take my shirt off or just roll up my sleeve. Enter Dr. Kim with a syringe.

"Undo your pants and lie down here," said Dr. Kim.

Suddenly there was no need to worry about rolling up sleeves.

"I'm sorry for touching your butt," said Dr. Kim as he prepared my rear for the shot, which made me laugh, with Kathy and Dr. Kim's wife as the audience.

After he gave me the shot, he asked "Did that hurt?"

"Nope."

"Want another?"

The whole thing made me laugh, despite feeling "under the weather" for the eleventh day straight.

As I left, Dr. Kim asked, "What is the expression, 'my butt is on fire'?"

I have to admit. I don't know that one, but I did take the time to explain "pain in the butt," which delighted him to no end.

I went home and spent the rest of the day curled up in a chair watching bad American movies with Korean subtitles. During the commercial break, there was an advertisement for bidets that attach to toilet seats and spray a jet of water on your rear end. The demonstrations were pretty impressive.

Here are some photos from the mountain trail just outside my town.
The first picture is a cemetery. I've been told they don't bury people in caskets, which is why they make tall mounds on the graves. I didn't totally understand the explanation. The second picture is of the low mountains that are in the distance any direction you look from town. The third picture is the trail with the mountains in the distance. I took these pictures on a very cold day a few weeks ago.

I've been sick today, so I stayed home and pretty much did nothing at all. Dr. Kim brought some medicine over for me. I have no idea what it is. You know how you get prescriptions with labels on them and a little information sheet in the States? Not so here. They put all the pills you take at one time in a little envelope, no labels. So I have seven little envelopes, each with five pills, and a bottle of red syrup. I wonder what exactly I'm taking.

Dr. Kim is one of our volunteer interpreters for the worship services. He and his wife take the five missionary teachers out for lunch every other Sunday after church. Dr. Kim's English is pretty good, and the man loves idioms, proverbs, and other figures of speech. He uses them every chance he gets. Sometimes I think he throws them into the sermon interpretation just for the fun of it, not because that's what the pastor was actually trying to communicate.

When I called him this morning to tell him I am still sick, he said, "Oh, poor Ellen. Are you feeling UNDER THE WEATHER?" I could just picture his eyes lighting up when he realized he could use an idiom with me. I felt miserable, but I had to laugh.

"Yes, Dr. Kim, I'm feeling under the weather."

"Have you CAUGHT A COLD?" Short pause. "Is that right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"The COMMON COLD!"

He was very pleased with himself. I could tell. A short time later, he showed up at my door with his little envelopes of mystery medicine.

"You stay inside all day," he said. "Tomorrow, you PLAY IT BY EAR."

I'm staying home sick again this morning. My voice comes and goes, and one of the teachers offered to teach my preschool and kindergarten classes again today since he doesn't have any morning classes.

The pastor has arranged for the teachers to go to Cheonan by one of the school's vans tomorrow to visit Independence Hall so we "can learn how terrible the Japanese are." Someone asked him if he meant how terrible the Japanese WERE, but he maintained that they're still terrible. Interesting to hear, coming from a pastor! Do not suggest loving one's enemies around here when the enemy is Japanese. When I give my kids writing assignments like "Tell me how you and your friend are similar," they'll write "We both hate Japan." Or "Where would you like to go on your vacation?" They'll write "I'd like to go to another country but not Japan." I've had more than a few comments from people when they've heard that I visited Japan briefly BEFORE I came to Korea. They think I should have gone to Korea first. And then when they hear that I LIKED Japan . . . oh my. I've learned not to bring it up unless someone asks.

This is the town I live in, as seen from a hill at the edge of town. There is a nice trail that goes around the hill (a.k.a. "The Mountain") and up to the top. I try to walk it a few times a week. It's very hazy here these days. You can see it in the picture. The haze is caused in part by yellow dust in the air which is blown in from the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia. It's a huge health and environmental problem in Korea this time of year. The brown fields in the picture are some of the many rice fields around here. You can see the steeple of the Methodist Church almost right in the center of the photo, with Wesley Mission School next to it. You can't see my apartment building in the photo, but my roommate and I live directly across the street from the church. The other two teachers and the director live in the tall apartment building.

The kids were pretty excited today to discover that I had completely lost my voice. Not a good thing for a language teacher. About a week ago I came down with a cold which has turned into an awful upper respiratory tract infection. So far it's staying clear of my lungs, so I'm thankful. I have asthma that has been very severe in the past when it has been aggravated. On Tuesday, Dr. Kim gave me some medicine for it. I took it Tuesday night and it kept me up all night and made me jittery on Wednesday, so he told me only to take it once a day, rather than twice as he originally said. I woke up this morning and had no voice whatsoever. One of the other teachers taught my morning preschool and kindergarten classes for me. Another did the talking for me in my first elementary class this afternoon since she didn't have a class at that time, but for four of my classes, I was on my own, whispering, sometimes in vain, to a classroom full of talkative children. I had a pretty sore throat by the time my last class was finished.

The pastor and the director are still in the Philippines. It's been my best week since I got here, despite the fact that I'm sick. It makes such a difference to know that I can go to school and not face constant criticism from the director.

I had 7 kids cry today and one wet her pants--a new record. This is not exactly the effect I'm aiming for.

I have a cold or sinus infection or something and am losing my voice, so I can't yell. Dr. Kim gave me some medicine, but I have no idea what it is. When the noise levels get high in the classroom or the kids start acting up, I just stand there completely quiet and start writing on the attendance chart. The kids all think I'm writing about them and get quiet fast, because if there is a note about them on the attendance chart, their parents will be called, and if they're really bad, Brother Lee might paddle them. He's been walking around with a big stick lately.

Lunch today was tofu, fried mushrooms, tiny dried anchovies, seaweed, and of course kimchi and rice. It was actually pretty good, considering that dinner one night was spicy raw squid, hard boiled quail eggs, raw fish eggs, and pickled silk worms (with kimchi and rice, of course). I actually ate two pickled silk worms. I didn't really want to, but I didn't want to be rude either. I was only going to eat one, but I accidentally got two in my chopsticks, and there wasn't a graceful way to put one down, so I ate them both. Korean meals are served in communal dishes, so it's bad form to pick something out of the dish with your chop sticks and then put it back down. You touch it, you eat it. I thought the silk worms were pretty gross. I don't ever need to have another one.

Korea has the best strawberries, and they're in season right now. They build greenhouses right over the strawberry beds to create a good climate for them even in winter. We buy a box of strawberries at the public market, which is every fourth day.

It's starting to get warmer here, which is really nice. That's all the news for now.

Not much to report today. I only had two kids cry today. A big improvement over Friday when I had five cry. Some of my troublemakers are settling down a little because Brother Lee, the youth pastor, paddled a kid for misbehaving on Friday, and word has gotten around. My classroom has a door into Brother Lee's office, and he keeps the door open all the time. When he hears it get noisy in my room, he pokes his head in, and the kids get real quiet real fast. I'm always glad for that, because they just laugh at me whenever I try to get them to be quiet or behave. They think it's funny to be scolded in English, and they repeat whatever I say to them--perfect accent and intonation and everything.

The director has gone to the Philippines with the pastor for a week, and I'm looking forward to the break. I just try to fly under her radar most of the time, but it's nice to know that I won't have to worry about it this week.

I went to Seoul this weekend with another teacher. We left Friday evening and stayed overnight at the bathhouse. The other teacher teaches until 7:00, and we had tickets for the 7:25 train. We have to clean our classrooms after school on Fridays, and we're not allowed to do it before the last class is over. I teach until 6:00, so I cleaned my classroom, went home, packed a dinner, went back to the school, helped the other teacher clean his classroom, and then we ran to the train station. We made it by 7:20, and then the train was 15 minutes late. We went straight to the bathhouse when we got to Seoul.

The other two teachers met us on Saturday morning. We went to the fashion district, where I sent all three of them on a hunt for silk scarves for my mom. We came up with a few. From the fashion district, we stopped briefly at Itaewon before heading to a huge bookstore that has a pretty good English language section, but it was really expensive and REALLY crowded. From there we headed back to the train station and then back to Sapkyo.

Here's a picture from my trip to Seoul. I'm standing in front of the Dongdae-mun gate. It was originally built in 1397 but was reconstructed in 1869 and again following the Korean War. Seoul is such a modern city that it's really exciting to find bits and pieces of the old city, even in reconstructed versions.Church was fine this morning. Dr. Kim took us to a Chinese restaurant in the next town over for lunch today. After lunch, he took us to this beautiful lake, and we went for a short walk. The weather was beautiful, and the lake, surrounded by low mountains, was a great view. I was happy to walk all day, but the others weren’t, so we stayed for about 30 minutes and went back to Sapkyo. I had a few hours at home before going back to church for the evening service.

My little boys were a little better today. They only pointed at my butt once, but they got quiet when I threatened to stick them in the corner again. My other classes were pretty wild. I had a nasty headache all afternoon, and my classes were really loud. They completely ignored me when I told them to be quiet. I had to move kids around so they weren't sitting with their friends. I made one kid sit on the floor in the front of the class. Finally, I called a Korean staff member in to help. By the end of the day, my head hurt so bad that any noise at all made me feel like I was going to puke. Even though I didn't want to, I had no other option but to call the director in to teach for a few minutes so I could run across the street and get some Tylenol.

I'm going back to Seoul this weekend. One of the teachers and I are going Friday night, and the other two are coming Saturday morning. We're all going home together Saturday night. We're going to the textile market, so I'll keep my eyes open for silk scarves for my mom. We're also going to a bookstore and maybe to the national museum. That's a lot to do in one day!

I made one of my preschoolers cry today. It wasn't my intention, but I'm hoping it has a good effect. For the past few days, this little boy and his buddy were getting up in the middle of class, standing behind me, pointing at my rear end, saying something in Korean, and laughing. The first time, I ignored it. The second time, I told them "No!" The third time, I scolded them. Today when it happened yet again, I scolded them, and they looked right at me and repeated me! They had the intonation and accent perfect, but they completely ignored me and kept getting up, pointing at my rear end, and laughing. Finally, I took the two boys by the hand and sat them down in opposite corners of the room, away from the other kids. At that moment, one of the boys burst into tears--real tears, not just pity tears. We'll see if it makes any difference tomorrow. After class was over, I took the first available opportunity to inspect my backside very carefully in a mirror to see if there was indeed any just cause for their laughter. As far as I could tell, there was nothing that made my rear end any more amusing than that of anyone else.
This is a picture of one of my beginning elementary classes. The kids are really sweet but more than a little wild most of the time. Can you pick out the troublemakers? They're a fun, challenging group!

Life around here continues to be interesting everyday, and that's an understatement. We started a new term here last week. My first week of teaching all my classes by myself went pretty well, though I have one class that is really a problem. I think they called some parents after their misbehavior last week! In the mornings I teach a preschool class and a class that is kind of between preschool and kindergarten. In the afternoons, I have two beginning elementary classes, two intermediate elementary classes, and one intermediate middle school class. I have also been helping one of the other teachers with a beginning class since the kids are really wild for her, and for whatever reason, they're scared enough of me to be good! I wish that other problem class would catch a little of that! The kids are very sweet for the most part and study so hard. Everyday I see them and know I never would have lasted as a kid in Korea, so keeping that in mind gives me some patience for my really wild class.

I'm still having a lot of trouble with the director. She keeps talking about returning to the States sometime in the next few months, but I don't know if she's serious. I've had a real lesson in prayer from working with her. She doesn't know this, but I'm willing to bet she has never been prayed for so much in her life. Every time I see her or know I will see her, I pray for her and for the wisdom to relate to her peacefully. It's not easy!

36 days down and I still like kimchi, but who's counting anyway?

Dr. Kim took us all out for lunch this afternoon. They feed us very well, and Korean food is excellent! (30 days down and I still like kimchi!) After lunch, we went to the dedication of a new youth center that the church is opening here in town, complete with not one but six ping-pong tables! Then I came home and slept until the evening church service. They had a Korean Air Force chaplain as a guest speaker at the evening service and an outstanding choir from the air force. Apparently there is a Korean air base close to here because they fly big military planes very, very low over town every now and then. The first time I saw them, it scared me. It looked for all the world like the plane was going to fly right into the apartment building across the street from the school. The windows rattle and the floors shake when the planes fly over. They do all kinds of fancy loops and turns, which is neat, but I can't quite get used to how low they fly right over town!

That's really all the news from here. I start on my own in my classes tomorrow. Wish me luck!!

Independence Movement Day

We had the day off yesterday for a holiday (Independence Movement Day), so I took a train Wednesday morning to Cheonan (pop. 450,000), a city about an hour away by train. Cheonan has a movie theater that shows foreign films. I ate an early lunch and then went to the movie theater. I didn't really have choice of which movie to see since the only English-language movie during the day was "Wedding Crashers." The movie itself was pretty bad, but it was something to do. Then I ate an early dinner and had to catch the train back to Sapkyo for the Wesneday evening church service. It was a really nice time--so good to get out of town for a while. It gets a little overwhelming for this introvert to do so much with the group. The five of us missionary teachers are together Monday through Friday at school and then Sunday for church (which is all day except for a few hours in the afternoon), and we frequently get invited places as a group. It was just so nice to get away from it all for several hours.