360-view of my room

A view of my somewhat messy desk. The fan on the top is one I made while in Gyeongju. Well, actually, I glued the flowers on. More about Gyeongju later. . .

View of entrance, shoe closet, fridge, table and chair. Bathroom is to the right, as you come in.

Bed and night stand. My new lamp I purchased in Gyeongju, made with Korean rice paper. Wall decoration is also Korean paper. I plan to mount the fan in the center.




Korean "closet" and evening view of patio. View is actually quite nice. Lots of trees on a small hill, with two "burial mounds" just below my window. I'm on the 4th floor.



The burial mounds are quite common in this area. Supposedly the college, when they built this village, had to agree not to disturb any of them. You can walk through the surrounding woods and find many. Usually they have an accompanying stone or marker of some sort--some with Korean writing on them, many with Japanese. A reminder of the many times this country was invaded by their neighbors. I'll have to get a picture of one to show you. They're usually just a mound of grassy dirt, about 2-3 feet high. The higher the mound, the more important the person was who was buried there. In Gyeongju, we saw mounds that were 20 feet high!

A Day in the life. . .

Okay, my apologies, it's been way too long since I've updated this blog. I will lose all my followers. . .

Did go to another Jjimjilbong the next weekend--a different one, this one close to the shuttle stop and equally nice. Had some really hard-pressure jets that were good for massage in the right places (tho they looked like they might just kill you if you got under them!)

This week we had a very light schedule--only three adult groups on campus (i.e. NO children!). I had to teach one 90-minute class on Monday afternoon, then two on Tuesday morning--then I was done for the week. Not a bad deal, huh? I absolutely LOVED teaching the adults, and hope to be able to do more of that whenever we get them on campus.

Some of you have asked questions regarding my day, so let me give you a typical day in the life of Connie in Korea. . .

Breakfast is from 8:00 - 9:00, so I usually get up pretty early, meditate, then either walk "the hill" (a 45-55 minute, sweat-inducing task) or go to the gym to pump some iron and walk the treadmill (in air-conditioned comfort, where I still manage to sweat!). A shower, sometimes a quick call from Anna to catch up on her day, breakfast, then I'm ready to teach my first class. If my schedule is full I teach from 9:00 to 10:30, 10:45 to 12:15, lunch, then two more classes, 2:00-3:30, and 3:45-5:15. Dinner starts at 5:30.

The Village has a variety of programs. In the summer when the kids are out of regular school, we get kids for "Intensives", which means they stay for a minimum of 2 weeks, some for 3 weeks, and some for a total of 4 weeks. The teachers who are teaching "intensives" plan to teach the same groups of kids for about (6) 90-minute lessons, over the course of the four weeks. Otherwise we only see the kids for a 90 minute period and they're on to other classes, never to be seen by the same teacher twice.

When I got here, they were just starting the intensives, so I was not put on the rotation for those. Which meant that I got to teach the other groups that were coming and going. They have a 5-day/4-night program, a 4-day/3-night program, a 3-day/2-night program, a 2-day/1-night program, and even a one-day "field trip" program. I know, confusing, huh? At one point at the height of the intensives, we probably had 200 kids on campus at one time. And in addition, we were teaching a group of local elementary school teachers as well, which added another 50 people or so to the pool. It was hectic! So this week is a nice reprieve.

Mostly I've been teaching what they call the "situationals"--classes like "grocery store", "airport", "video", "police", "hospital", "pet store", "gift shop", the list goes on and on. Most of these are held in separate rooms that have been constructed to resemble the actual "situation". For example, the grocery store has real food (non-perishables, and some not-so-non), paper products, plastic fruit, eggs, vegetables and meat/fish/chicken. The kids can pretend they are going shopping and have all the "realia" they could ever want. It can be fun, but occasionally the kids get a little wild with the stuff.

So, my first assignment was in the grocery store. I prepared my lesson and then, when I realized that some of the kids would have higher levels of English and some would have very low levels of English, I prepared again--and again. But after a few days of teaching the lesson, I felt prepared for any situation, and after a few more, it started to feel pretty routine--and boring. So I asked our "lead coordinator" if I could possibly do something else. I didn't want to be too pushy, so I told him it didn't matter what he gave me, just something different. Well, I guess in hindsight, I should have been more specific. I got "fast-food". Ugh! Now, I AM complaining. I try my best to stick to the curriculum, but end up talking about "healthy" foods most of the time. I had one group that was so "low-level" in their English skills, I really had to punt. At one point, I wrote the word "cat" on the board and asked the students to read it. They couldn't, so I drew a picture of a cat. They finally got it, so I tried writing the word "hat" (thinking to keep it simple). The class responded in unison: "dog"!! I actually had trouble convincing them that it was NOT dog. I knew I was in trouble with this group. . .

As I said, I LOVED teaching the adults. But now I'm done with that and next week we'll probably have about 100 kids here again. May God grant me patience. . .

With each group that comes in, there's an opening and closing ceremony. Usually in the gym, where the kids sit on the floor, lined up with the other 10-15 kids in their group. At the opening ceremony (which teachers are requested to attend) someone usually speaks (usually the lead coordinator, but sometimes there is more than one ceremony going on at the same time) and introduces the teachers and the "village guides". Then they are given the rules, take an oath to follow them, have their cell phones confiscated, and then the fun begins. They proceed to go thru the simulated "airport", where they have their "passports" (which actually look like real passports) stamped a million times as they pass through "customs", security, baggage claim, board a "real" plane, pick up their supplies/books, "check-in" to their "hotel", etc. Teachers are expected to "man" these stations. It's quite fun, actually. And the kids enjoy it. I'll try to get some pictures of the "airport"--it's quite realistic. At closing ceremony, the kids gather in the gym again, each of the teachers bid them farewell, they get their cellphones back, a group picture and certificate of completion is given to each one, then they board the buses to go back home.
So that's it for a typical day. If you would like to see a slide show of the campus and the kids, go to my facebook page and click on "Links". I'm actually in one of the slides, toward the end.
The cafeteria food is tolerable--usually enough variety that you can always find something to eat. And they try really hard to please us. Usually there will be Korean dishes and American dishes. Sometimes their attempts at American dishes are laughable at best (like the BLT's with sliced banana and sweet pickle), and inedible at worst. But the Korean dishes are pretty good, except for some of the dried fish. They have gardens out back and so some of the produce is grown right on the property. They are trying to provide us with more fresh fruit, at our request.
Okay, enough for now. I'll try to post some pictures. Coming next--a 4-day trip to Gyeongju.

Friday Night jjimjilbang

Jjimjilbang is the Korean word for "bath house". What a treat! We've decided to make it a Friday night tradition. I and three other women (Jen, Jazmin, and Catherine) took the shuttle into Chilgok (the closest medium-sized city, and first stop on the DGEV shuttle) then a short taxi ride to the jjimjilbang. It was on the sixth floor in a busy shopping area of town. You pay 8,000 wan (about $6.50) to enter and stay as long as you wish (most jjimjilbang are open 24/7). You can opt to pay an additional 17,000 wan (about $14) and get a "scrub". Cat and I chose not to get one (still waiting for our first paycheck). Anyway, once you enter you remove your shoes and place them in a locker. Then you get another locker and two small hand-sized towels and a quaint pair of orange (think prison garb) cotton shorts and top (think scrub top). The clothes are for phase two. The first phase is the pools. But before you can enter any of the pools, you begin by showering thoroughly from head to toe--using soap, shampoo, the works. You must be clean to enter the pools. Everything is in one VERY LARGE room, high ceilings. Lots of women (and children) walking around naked--but very comfortably, no one felt out of place.

There were a variety of pools--some very HOT, some extremely COLD; some contained mineral water, ginseng, or salt. Along the side walls were sauna rooms, one was very hot, with some type of aroma (smelled like chamomille to me) that was almost impossible to breathe; another had bowls of coarse salt which you rubbed all over, then sat under some intense heat lamps and sweated like a pig! After this one, you could come out and stand under an intense quick very COLD shower to rinse off. I tried just about everything--and enjoyed every experience!

I ended up having a small companion for most of my visit--a young Korean girl about 6 years old with two front teeth missing. I would try to get her to practice her English with me, then she started trying to teach me some Korean! It was a hoot! Most parents encourage their children to come up to us (Americans) so they can get some experience speaking with a native English-speaker. It's quite fun actually.
After soaking until we were prunes, we showered again, this time being offered shampoo and cream rinse by the woman who did Jazmin and Jenn's "scrub". We towelled dry, then two of us got into our "jammies" (the orange things) and headed upstairs for phase two. Upstairs, which was co-ed (hence the clothes) there were again multiple rooms, most of them "hot" (and dry), some with TV's, one for sleeping, and (my personal favorite) a COLD room, with ice-covered pipes lining the walls. I spent a few minutes in each room, enjoying the "soap opera" on one of the TV's. Then we headed downstairs to join our other two and get ready to catch the shuttle back to the Village.
But the highlight of MY evening happened in the elevator on the way down. I was the last to get dressed and was feeling a bit warm and sweaty. So I grabbed my sweater, wearing just a tank top and headed out, thinking I'd put on my sweater in the elevator. It would just be us girls, right? Well, the men's jjimjilbang is up on the eighth floor--and yes, you guessed it, when the doors opened we were greeted by about 5 or 6 men, who of course insisted that we pile on in for the ride down. As I tried to cover my chest as best I could, one of the men in the back looks at me and says "beautiful". There was no smirk on his face, no learing look in his eyes--just a very sweet, simple complement. It's been tooo long since someone appreciated me in that way. Needless to say, I smiled all the way home. (And no, I did not ask him to come home with me--but maybe I should have. . .)
Many Koreans make jjimjilbang a weekly thing. Kiri, you would LOVE these!! I will definitely plan to go back. We intend to try some of the others in town. They're all just a bit different.
And sorry guys, no pictures from jjimjilbang night!
Namaste,
Connie

Two Weeks in South Korea

Greetings from Daegu Gyeonbuk English Village (DGEV)!

Hard to believe that I've been here for two weeks. The time is flying by. No computer the first week, then once I got the computer I was starting to teach! Meeting some wonderful teachers (pictured here: Jim, Jennifer (a couple), Michael, and Jana, my flight-mate from Montana), and trying to exlore as much as I can. Started teaching on Saturday--four classes, each 90 minutes long, with usually 10-15 students in a class. Sunday I taught a unit on Healthcare for a class of about 35 that lasted about 2 1/2 hours. It went much better than I was expecting. And to boot, I had one of the most rowdy, disruptive groups (the infamous Group 6!). With that many students, I just let Group 6 do what they wanted--sometimes they participated, sometimes they didn't--but at least they allowed the others in the group to learn. One has to be thankful for the little things. . .
The facility here is absolutely amazing. Very ostentatious, lots of marble everywhere. This week we probably have about 250 children on campus, plus about 50 elementary school teachers who are learning how to improve their English language skills and learning how to use English in their classrooms. There are about 30-35 full-time ESL teachers, a Korean staff of about 10 in the administration office, and who knows how many kitchen staff and cleaning crew.
Several staff from the UCCS have been here for the last two weeks, just making sure we new teachers have been given all the tools and materials we need to begin teaching.
All in all, I am thoroughly enjoying my time here so far. The weather is hot and humid with occasional rain. The campus is a bit outside of town, which I enjoy. We drive through a lot of agricultural areas then start the 10% grade climb to get here. The road is lined with hundreds of fruit trees, so I can't wait till next spring. I think the fall foliage will be spectacular too.
I promise to write more soon. I have a story about my adventures into town yesterday. . .
Love to all,
Connie in Korea