3.22- 3.29

school is moving forward. i feel like i’m making progress on some days, and completely moving backwards on other days. there was a flooding problem in my kindy classroom, so that’s added a bit of drama to the week, and a new kindy student makes things more interesting as well. how do i catch this kid up while continuing to move forward with the other students?

i almost feel like i have the hang of the elementary classes, which feels nice. but somehow that makes me think that i should be looking out for some wrench shaped objects.

my internet connection in my apartment is becoming a larger headache. it’s sort of amazing, without the ethernet connected the light on the modem remains completely steady, yet, once i plug in my computer, i lose the interwebs within minutes.

thursday was trivia night again. . . and i had to bring questions. i also brought some more co-workers who ended up both winning the quiz, and having a really good time as well. looks like there may be a few more brighton faces at trivia night for a few weeks at least.

friday after classes ended i stayed behind to get some photocopying done, and when i left only my korean teaching partner and i were left. she asked if i was hungry, and we met up with two other korean teachers for dinner. oddly enough, we went to the same chicken place that i had been to with natalie and camille. one of the five for six restaurants i’ve been to in ansan.


OMG. . . i completely forgot that we had our field trip this past week. honestly, sometimes the weeks feel so long, i was convinced that the field trip had been two weeks ago.

we went to the samsung children’s science museum. it was actually pretty great. i had been so scared that without a wrist rope leash i would lose the kids, but we stayed together pretty well. the only real ridiculousness came from trying to round them up for class pictures.

well, and then there was another ridiculousness. for speed, on the way to the museum, all the teachers had been put on buses with students as they had been picked up from school. so hazel, my teaching partner and i, were on a bus with some of our students and some students from other classes. we were quite ok with that. to be honest, we took a little schadenfreude in the fact that some of our students were with other teachers.

however, on the way back we were piled into buses with our own students, and no helper teachers.

deep breath, ok. . . we’ll be ok. all the kids will fall asleep right? wrong.

they took naps, in shifts. what could make this better? how about the bus getting lost. there were 5 other buses for this guy to follow, but somehow he missed a turn. hazel listened to the bus driver grumble under his breath. we decided not to scare the head teacher till we knew we would be late for our elementary classes, and late for the parents to pick up our kindy kids.

well, a half hour passed, then an hour. we started to make phone calls- or hazel started to make phone calls. then our first kid needed to pee- a lot apparently.

an hour and a half passed. more kids had to pee. hazel and i split the kids up boy girl on the side of the road.

hazel started to remember a bus route from seoul that she used to take to work. without her, we would’ve been so much later. the bus driver reluctantly took her advice, and we got home. while she directed the driver i entertained the kids.

i might regret teaching them ‘wheels on the bus.’

when we got in, two hours late, i had missed my first elementary class, and there were a lot of angry parents. the kids didn’t seem to know the difference. needless to say, there was soju to drink that night.