On Tuesday I learned how to use Gmarket, Korea’s online shopping. This will likely be devastating to my bank account, but extremely useful for me. They sell literally anything I could need and deliver it to your door within days for little to no delivery fee. So far I’ve bought a table for my apartment, an Ethernet cord, a dress, a mattress pad, and a futon-type-thing. The futon ended up being out of stock and the mattress pad was actually a mattress pad cover but overall I think this website and I will get along just fine!
Wednesday was my day off and I got a chance to explore Mokpo a bit. Okay, so it was an inadvertent exploration, but exploration nonetheless. One of the first nights in Mokpo one of the 7th gen girls took a group of us to a store called Daiso. Basically it is the Korean version of Dollar General, which is extremely useful when trying to fill an empty apartment on a budget. Wednesday I decided that it was time I bought some cleaning supplies so I wandered knowing the direction I needed to go in and not much more. After walking for about an hour I found my bank, but no Daiso. I decided it was time to give up and hail a cab, luckily I did remember the street it was on! Turns out I was about a 2 minute cab ride from where I needed to be but I know I would have never found it on my own so I think the cab was a good decision. I am glad that I got to wander around Mokpo a bit though. I think I’ll do the same thing this Wednesday, I have a feeling that Wednesday’s are going to be my new favorite day of the week.
On Thursday I invited the younger teachers, who live in Gwangju, to an Irish pub downtown for St. Patrick’s Day. Since Korea doesn’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day I needed to explain the holiday to them. I then realized all I knew about it was wear green, drink green, and see leprechauns. Even after looking it up I’m not entirely sure who St. Patrick was so now I’ve probably just confused my teachers with this made up holiday!
Friday was slightly frustrating and by the end of the day I was definitely ready for the weekend. I found out that my class is being moved once again, this time to the homeroom classrooms. This decision came about because earlier in the week Principal had come into my class just as Rosemarie had gone downstairs to grab pencils for some of the students. I had 5th graders in my room at the time and they are probably the worst behaved class in the entire school, however at the time, they were actually behaving pretty well! At least they were all in their seats and mostly doing what I asked them to do, which was decorate/make nametags. Anyway, he was really unhappy that I was without my translator so he decided that now I will be in the homeroom classes so the students are better behaved. This means I basically have to kick the homeroom teachers out of their class for a period so I can use their computer for powerpoint, ect. It also means I don’t have a place to put any of my stuff so I have to carry everything from room to room. On the up side, it does mean I get smart boards (touch screen white boards), so I guess there’s a positive to everything.
Saturday I went to Gwangju and had the most amazing Italian dinner EVER. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been craving Italian or because it was just that good but either way I was thrilled. The meal included soup, salad, garlic bread, spaghetti with Bolognese sauce, a calzone, dessert, and a bottle of Merlot. It added up to $50 so split between 2 people we each paid about $25. For $25 it was DEFINITELY the best Italian meal I’ve ever had!! After dinner we went to an Irish pub called Speakeasy and met up with about 20 TaLK scholars! I love that Korea is so small that we can all get together even from different ends of the country!
This week I’m reviewing the English names I gave to each student last week and going over emotions so they can answer “How are you today?” when I see them in the halls!
Oh and I just got the best care package ever from my Mom with everything from a Dove Easter bunny to toothpaste. Literally, it had everything in between. See below:
Now, since I have tomorrow off, I’m going to take a break from lesson planning and catch up on some TV shows!!
xox
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