Guro High School

I understand that this might be boring to some of you, but too bad! I'm not forcing you to read it, I'm just putting the info. out there!

A lot of people from home (and other English teachers) keep asking me what my school and classroom look like. To be honest, I haven't really seen much of the school - beside my office, my classroom, and the library (that has a total of 7 books in English). Not sure if this will paint too much of a picture, but I hope it helps!

As many of you may know, I teach first grade English (first grade meaning, the first grade in high school, 10th grade) at Guro High School.

I have right around 400 students; I teach 16 classes a week (so I only see each group of students, ranging from 35 -17 per class, for 50 minutes, once a week).

I am very lucky to have my own classroom (English Only Zone (1)). The ironic thing about the name of my room is that I am the only person that uses English in my class. I think some of my fellow coteachers are not too happy that I have my own room and they do not. I suspect the complete classroom make-over my room is supposed to get over summer vacation isn't going to help that...

We don't have janitors at our school, so the cleaning is left up to the kids! Needless to say, I spend a lot of time picking up trash, sweeping the floor, and pushing in chairs. Oh the joys of my students not understanding when I ask them to clean up after themselves!

Below are a few (bad) shots of my classroom.

Lately, I have been spending the majority of the day in my classroom and away from the teachers office. In Korea, all the teachers have a desk and computer in one of several teacher offices: this is where you can usually find them if they are not teaching or in the nap room. Yes, that's right, I said nap room! It's totally acceptable for teachers to take a snooze in this room, or right at their desk! I have yet to partake in this Korean 'tradition'...

The nicest part of my school is, no doubt, the garden. I know mom, you never thought you'd hear those words from me! There is a courtyard in between 3 of the buildings that has a little stream, benches, plants, and trees (including Japanese Maples, my favorite). Most of the kids hang out here between classes (10 minutes) and during lunch (an hour).

That reminds me! There is no student cafeteria at my school. The students report to their homeroom at lunchtime and the lunch ladies push steam tables around that have lunch at the ready.

First entry:

I have been in Korea for 3 months (almost to the day). Surprisingly, it has flown by! I have taken too many pictures to mention, most of which are posted on facebook, and try to go to as many places as possible.

The past week or so has been really eventful in the ROK (Republic of Korea): the swine flu made its way to Korea, the former president (of S.Korea) committed suicide, and North Korea is doing some crazy nuclear testing. None of which I knew about! Even though I am slowly learning Korean, I can't read the newspaper or understand the Korean news. So I have pretty much been in the dark about all of it! Oh well, it's probably better that way.

About my school:

I work at Guro High School with 4 different co-teachers; some of whom I like better than others, but considering this is on the world wide web, I think I will leave names out of this... I have about 16 groups of students (about 400 total) that I see once a week! Needless to say I don't really know their names - BAD TEACHER - of course there are students that I just adore and others I want to throw my shoes at! Their English ability ranges from advanced (where I can carry on a complete conversation with them) to beyond low (where its a struggle to get them to say "My name is..."). Not exactly sure how to deal with this, considering my 'area of expertise' is math!

Having a difficult time figuring out when my summer vacation is - and its driving me CRAZY!

Schedules and contracts are always up for negotiation in Korea; not that I've ever been much of a planner, but vacation is important!

What I've been up to:

Like I said, I have been taking tons of photos and visiting lots of historic places. It's kind of strange to go to a palace and just outside the palace wall is the 7th largest city in the world. Tall buildings as far as the eye can see - but just beyond all the buildings are mountains, a friendly reminder that you're not too far away from nature (because grass is not a thing I see that
often). All of these places that I go to are so cheap to get into and a lot of them are free! A lot of the visitors at these places are Korean (and they stare at me) - its amazing to see how proud the Korean people are of their country and all its history.

I have seen palaces and temples, climbed on fortresses, been to the ocean, rubbed Buddha bellies, gone to festivals, eaten bugs, taken bus, ferry, and subway rides to nowhere, gotten lost (a ton), visited museums, went to a soccer game, saw dog meat (and took a photo - I'll spare you), dressed up in traditional Korean clothing (hambok), and haven't even made a dent in the list of things to see and do!

I know most of you have already seen these photos, but here they are again!

<-- Me and SangJin at the Cherry Blossom Festival (April, 2009). We are getting ready to eat beondegi -a silkworm larvae snack that is usually only around at festivals. Slimy, yet satisfying (not really)!

(Below) Amanda and I with one of the bands that performed at the Lotus Lantern Festival (May, 2009) celebrating Buddha's birthday. Unfortunately, we didn't get to keep the hats...












<-- One of my new favorite things to do is to dress up in hambok (traditional Korean clothing). Guess I never grew out of playing dress up! Not sure if it was the combination of my clothes with the hambok over it or the weather warming up, but I thought I was going to melt! The hair piece was so heavy, I had to struggle to hold my head up!

I really want to try on some of the boy outfits too, but I am going to have to figure out how to ask first....

I know I didn't really say too much that most of you don't already know, but I had to get started somewhere. I will try my best to keep up on my blog and as always, will be putting all of my photos on facebook!