Last Day of Teaching!

Finished teaching for the semester! Been a busy month. In the 17 weeks of this semester, I've only taught one full 21-hour week of classes... (although I have to say it was pretty tiring anyway) Went to Homigot this weekend with a friend from Daejeon. (Hand sticking out of the sea.) It was so windy... Gave out Christmas/ end of the year presents to the principal, vice principal and other teachers at the beginning of the week. Had a teacher's outing on Wednesday. Off to Busan on Sunday, then Japan and Hong Kong and Seoul for the rest of winter break! I'm going to miss my students though, especially the sixth graders who are going off to middle school next year.

Christmas decorations downtown
(I was so happy to see this because when I was in Japan 2 years ago, there were NO Christmas decorations)

Homigot

some of my students trying to catch snowflakes on the first day it snowed

December

Up until the last week of November, the month went by really fast. Now, things are picking up again in December. Last week, the students have been having tests or end of the year assessments. Two of my classes were canceled randomly, and in another class, the teacher told me not to use the textbook and just do "free talking" because one third of the students were taking a computer test. This was right before the class started and I hadn't prepared anything. So I downloaded Skype and had the students do a Skype session with my mom. It was a little weird because there was no mic so my mom did most of the talking and I type what we wanted to say to her. But I think my students paid more attention in that class than they have n any of the actual lessons I've taught!

Last Friday, we had our first snow in Pohang! It doesn't snow much in Pohang and none of it stuck, but my kids got so excited! When I went into my first class, one of my students said, "Look Teacher! Snow!" I looked out the window, and after staring at the same spot for a while, you can just barely see snow against a dark background. Gradually, it started coming down more heavily (comparatively) and I let my classes out one minute early so they (and I) could go play in it. It was just one minute but they were so grateful for those 60 seconds. The last section of the review included "Let's go outside, Minsu" so I finished the class with "It's 9:39. Let's go outside! I'm letting you out of class one minute early." They stared at me shock for 5 seconds (it might also have been the English sinking in) and scream, "Thank you, Teacher!" as they ran to go outside. They are so cute. <3

Over the weekend, I went to Seoul for proctoring. That part was boring - it reminded me of when I worked at the bookstore, counting down hour by hour, then half hour by half hour, then minute by minute until time was up. But I stayed at a friend's friend's house, met her family and her Canadian friend. She taught me how to play Go-Stop (I wouldn't be able to explain if I tried - I can still barely play), had pizza for the first time in months... Her family was soo wonderful: her mom cooked a delicious breakfast and made me take vitamins, lol. Her dad even tried to give me money but the Chinese or American or whatever part of me just didn't feel right accepting so my friend suggested that we use the money to pay for the pizza that night and we could just say accepted it that way.

I realize how much I rely on the kindness of the people around me. The last two times I tried to get to the express bus terminal to go to Seoul, but I almost didn't make it. Two weeks ago, I waited for forever for the bus and it didn't come so I finally caught a taxi at 5:31pm. I had to catch the bus by 5:40. I asked the driver how long it took to get to the station and he said about 15 minutes. He got me there in 8 after I told him I needed to catch a bus. Unfortunately, I was still stuck on the other side of the road watching the cars and the minutes go by. I could see the bus I needed to take from where I was standing too. Finally, I ran across the street before the light changed, ran up to the bus and asked, "When do you leave?!" The bus driver was like, um... now... asked if he could wait and he pointed in the direction of the ticket booth, told me to buy my ticket and waited for me to get on the bus.

This week, I made sure I had enough time to catch the city bus to the bus terminal, so I left an hour and a half before the bus departure time. But I had never taken the city bus before, ended up going way past the express bus terminal, realized that I was not where I should be when we ended up at POSCO, the steel industry. There were many taxis around and it was rush hour. The bus driver let me off and told me to cross the street and take the 102. At the bus stop across the street, a woman helped me out and made sure I got on the right bus. I made it to the bus terminal 5 minutes before the bus was about to leave...

I'm also amazed at how much my school has lightened up on me since the beginning of the year. Without me even asking, my school offered to give me the Monday off before my contract is up for December. I asked one of the gym teachers if I could borrow a jumprope and she bought me one. I'm going to be sad when some of the teachers change schools next year.

I taught my some of my last 6th grade classes today. For one of the classes, I wrote a letter with individual notes to each of them. With over 35 students in the class, it took me forever to write... In one of the other classes, I had taught them a game a couple months ago. It involves moving chairs and desks around so it gets pretty crazy. It was hard for me to manage most of the other classes without letting it go to complete chaos, but this class picked it up really fast and we had a blast playing it. It made me feel good because at the end of today's last class, I said we could do whatever they wanted and they chose to play that game that I had taught them. :) *sigh* I'm really going to miss them...