Some Weekend Fun

After an insanely busy couple of weeks, I felt like I needed a fun, slow weekend, and that's exactly what I did. Yesterday I met my friends Kay and Jo for lunch in Myeongdong, the crowded fashion district in Seoul. After lunch, we walked past the Seoul Animation Museum and took the bus up to the top of Namsan ("South Mountain") and walked around. It was a little hazy but not bad compared to most days in Seoul, so we had a good view of the sprawling city below. The weather was perfect--cool but not cold. I was a little too warm in my heavy winter coat. Kay had to leave early, but Jo and I walked down the mountain and back to Myeongdong and had a very Harry Met Sally conversation. These are the crazy statues in front of the Seoul Animation Museum. We ended up missing not one but two buses because we were having too much fun taking pictures.At Namsan, they had these fun sculptures suspended from wires around the park. I tried to make it look like Kay is holding it up. She was a little confused by my directions and felt silly standing with her hands in the air, so I only took the one picture. I'm not sure the illusion worked, but it was worth a try.I said goodbye to Jo and met up with Catherine in the early evening for a trip to my favorite jjimjilbang. She had never been to this particular bathhouse, and she was impressed. It has hot outdoor pools which are just perfect in the cool weather. We stayed for about four hours and then returned to our town.

Today was another beautiful day, but I appreciated it from my apartment. I didn't even get dressed today, just did some long overdue housecleaning, took a nap, updated my journal, and studied my Korean vocabulary. Grace is giving me a test tomorrow morning, and I'm supposed to have a Korean lesson with Y-i tomorrow night, but since we ended up canceling all three of our scheduled lessons last week, I'm not so sure it's really going to happen. That's the plan anyway.

My two goals for the new school year are to go back to the gym (been there once so far this month, that's progress) and study Korean more seriously. The other night I wrote down every word in my Korean notebook and gave a copy to Grace. I told her she can give me pop quizzes any time. I need that kind of pressure to study well. As I've demonstrated time and again in the past, independent studying with no one checking up on me just doesn't work.

Party On: First Week of School

It's been an insanely busy first week of the new school year. Since I'm no longer teaching at the preschool in the mornings, I've taken on extra classes at the language school. I'm teaching 1st through 6th grade classes now. I'm teaching about the same number of hours as before, but my classes start and end later in the day. My mornings are free, but because my new classes require a lot more preparation than my preschool and kindergarten classes, I go to school early, and right now, it feels like a lot more work. I'm adjusting. Elementary school classes are a lot more managable than preschool and kindergarten. I don't need as much help from the Korean teachers to explain things or calm everyone down.

I'm teaching several of the same students as I have in the past. I'm really enjoying my 2nd grade classes because I taught them when they were in kindergarten but not in 1st grade this past year. They've grown and learned a lot since the last time they were in my classroom, and it's so much easier to communicate with them now. Most of my first graders were in my kindergarten classes last year, so it's nice to continue teaching them, and I still have the same 4th, 5th, and 6th grade bilingual classes. I also have some students who are new to the school and some who are just new to me. I'm enjoying getting to know them, but I'm also a little overwhelmed by the new schedule.