Holiday Post

I thought I'd left the college mindset, but I was very wrong.

You see, we have a massive amount of paperwork due tomorrow (evaluations for all of our classes). Have I done it yet? Soooorta...

What have I done instead? Not facebook. Lots of people procrastinate with facebook, but the allure of that has long since gone for me. There's also Youtube, which is often good for several hours of wasted time.

In the past two days when I should have done this paperwork, I watched, A Christmas Story, The Year without a Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and The Santa Clause, 1, 2, and 3. Did you know there was a The Santa Claus 3? Me neither.

I guess it's just the fact that this week is holiday week. No one wants to work when they've got a vacation come Thursday. By this time next week, I'll be in Beijing with... MY PARENTS! I'm pretty psyched about it, as you may have guessed. Though I think I've seen more of them since I left the country (Skype has given me weekly viewings of their faces, though not always sound), it'll be really cool to see them over the holidays.

For those of you who don't know, we're meeting in Beijing on the Monday after Christmas. We'll go to the Great Wall (with all the benefits of my experiences...), the Forbidden City, Tienanmen square, and the terracotta army in Xi-an. Basically it'll be a brief "best of" tour. Maybe I can convince them to eat chicken feet.

Probably not. We know where those feet have been. Although apparently the majority of the chicken feet in China are shipped from the states. I can't remember if it's Wisconsin or maybe Michigan.

Over Christmas itself, I'll be in Shanghai. I'll be meeting a friend there and taking in the sights for a few days, then I'll take the train to Beijing. Considering I came here with no real idea of who I'd be spending Christmas with, or what I might be doing, I'm really happy with the way things have turned out.

So I guess I'll talk to you guys later! Happy Holidays!

Sweet?

I don’t know when I’ll stop getting surprised by things I eat in Korea. Probably never. But it got me thinking about the differences between what Americans consider “sweet” food, versus Korea’s “sweet” food.

In some things, the differences are kind of drastic. Koreans like to fill pastries and the like with a sweet red bean paste. It looks a little like chocolate, so it can surprise you. One of the first things I ate in Korea was a croissant with red bean paste inside. It took me a while to figure it out. Though I don’t really mind it, I find most of the bean paste fillings sweet but plain. Give me chocolate any day.

I was told that Koreans think of tomatoes as fruit. Before you email me to say “They are fruit,” I know. We learned that in fifth grade. Regardless, Americans don’t treat tomatoes like fruits. In our minds, the fruit thing is a technicality based on seed placement rather than flavor. However, when kids have a birthday at our school, most parents give them oranges and cherry tomatoes. We also get cakes from Paris Baguette, and if you buy a vanilla cake, they put fruit on top. Cherry tomatoes are included. I couldn’t help but wonder how Koreans feel about pizza or pasta. Do they find the tomato sauce really unappetizing and weird? That might explain why so many pizzas I’ve eaten are lower on sauce.

Those are two relatively big differences, but I also found that Koreans have pretty intense sweet teeth (that doesn’t sound right). The cakes I mentioned always have sugary frosting. I can’t eat them at all. You know the frosting on pre-made cakes that seems like it’s just made of sugar and food dye? It looks a little like toothpaste and gives people headaches? Korean frosting has more. It’s similar in consistency to a cream frosting, but somehow the people who made it managed to add more sugar.

Also, sweets abound everywhere. I know most of my impressions are influenced by the fact that I’m teaching small children, but there’s a whole lot of candy out there. Most of said candy tends toward the fruit flavors and hard candies rather than chocolate or caramel. Heck, I’ve even found the fruit juices really sugary. Granted, I used to drink cranberry juice, so maybe I’m not the best judge…

You also find sugar on or in surprising things. One of my first weeks here, I bought garlic chips (like in Gardettos). I was wholly unprepared for the sugar on top. Not having much of a sweet tooth (particularly when mixed with garlic), I swore I’d never buy chips again. About a week ago, I made the same mistake. Sure, after tasting the sugary garlic chips, I remembered my earlier experience, but what does that matter? For some reason, chips and crackers sometimes have sugar. I’m not wild about chips in the first place, so I’ve been avoiding them (not to be unadventurous but I’m not a fan of the seafood flavored chips, anyway). Apparently the result of that is a bad memory for what is sweet and what is not.

Okay, I’d better stop. I’m getting hungry, and pretty soon I’ll work up some enthusiasm for the garlic chips. I don’t want to make that mistake thrice.

Brown Class :)

Today was my first day back to teaching morning classes. I’d forgotten how quickly the days go by when you have morning kindergarten. Not to mention I spent most of the day feeling like a moron. I’ve been teaching for five months, but the second anything changes, I feel like I’m back to square one.

Case in point:
We have a Theme book that we do in morning class. I taught the book in an afternoon class, but I never had flashcards. So naturally I screwed up the flashcards and felt like a complete prat. Even though I've taught a morning class (we didn't have Theme book in baby class), it's still nowhere near natural for me.

I’d really like it if I stopped feeling like a prat sometime soon. I know growing experiences are good for people and all, but it’s damn uncomfortable.

This morning class is really sweet. While I may have made a few (okay, several) mistakes, it’s a lot better than baby class was. I’m afraid that I’ll end up eating my words (fifty-fifty odds), but I really like them. They’re all really sweet. In my previous class, a couple of the kids were kind of nasty to each other (hitting or lying). But Brown class kids aren’t like that. I’m told the largest kid isn’t always gentle, but for the most part the children are good. I just hope I don’t screw them up or ruin the dynamics somehow. Another thing that’s nice about taking an older class (they’re six years old) is that they’re less likely to cry or pee their pants. Also, they can put on their shoes on their own, take things out of their cubbies without me watching, and go to the bathroom alone. All of those things are remarkable to me.

I’ll miss the relaxation of working silently at my desk in the mornings, but my days are going to go so much faster! I lucked out on how great the kids are (please don’t let me eat my words too much), and how willing my partner teacher is to help me. We'll see if I've still got the same attitude at the end of the week.

Rubber Seoul

So there was this benefit called “Rubber Seoul” here in, well, Seoul. Basically, people went to Hongdae and paid ten dollars to get into a bar (and thus get into all the Hongdae bars). Earlier I mentioned that I thought the tiny black dolls were a little hinky. Someone posted about how I was an ignorant ass in saying so (actually, he was nicer about it, but that's the gist), and I suppose that is true. I was being flippant about an AIDS cause, which is not cool.

(The pin I was flippant about)
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I appreciate him commenting on my posting, because I cringed a little when I reread it (not my finest hour). Looking over the benefit site in more detail (I scanned the facebook group but didn't sit down and read yesterday), it makes more sense that it did at three in the morning last night. For those of you who are curious, here's a the organization's website: http://www.littletravellers.net

This was to benefit a specific AIDS organization based in South Africa. "Little Travellers" are made by women in South Africa who are affected by AIDS, hence the black pins. However, if you miss the slide show beforehand (which I'm guessing more than my crowd did) the reasoning behind the pins isn't immediately transparent. I may have been hasty in my comments, but I don't think they're without ANY merit. After all, if I hadn't blogged about the event (and gotten a well worded, entirely justified response), I wouldn't have learned much about the organization, and all I'd know is that there was an AIDS fundraiser handing out little black dolls and condoms. An oversimplification, but I'm not going to credit myself with an abundance of critical thinking when it comes to a late night out at Hongdae. Not everyone who happens upon a fundraiser researches the meaning behind it, especially if it takes place in bars. Of course, most of those people probably don't post their impressions for all to see after said fundraiser, so that's my mistake.

This is a good lesson for me, because I learned I shouldn't write a post at three in the morning on a Saturday night. I also learned that not just my parents can see this (I'm not sure how he happened upon my blog, but I didn't really think anyone other than people from home would take time to read it). I guess I should make sure to write when I'm clear-headed, or I may anger total strangers rather than just elicit eye rolls from the people who know me.

While we were at "Rubber Seoul" we met some people that frequent our local bar. It was kind of funny to meet them outside of our neighborhood. Either way, I ended up talking to this guy named Songbae about how cool Jeju island is. Apparently, it's the most beautiful part of Korea and I should visit during the winter. Other people may disagree, Sunbae. (Sunbae is a term of respect for a guy who's older than you while you're in school. It's too close to his name to ignore, and we just call him Sunbae. I'm sure he loves it as much as I'd love being called Janet.)

The big news, however, is that our school just got a new girl. Her name is Laura, and here’s the weird thing: she’s from South Dakota! She’s from Yankton, and she went to McCalister. Isn’t that strange? Not only was it weird that she’s from the same area as me, but she also went to Minnesota for school. I’m pretty psyched about it.

And this crow I'm eating? A little stringy.

Tuesday

Okay, time for my attempt at updating a couple times a week. How is everyone doing? That’s great. I’m doing fine, as well. Next week, I’m going to be taking over a morning class. One of my coworkers is leaving (his contract ended and he’s not going to renew it), and I get his class of seven year olds. They’ve got an unfortunate name: Brown Class. It’s a step down from Lemon Class, name-wise, but a big step up work-wise. I’m kind of looking forward to having children who I only have to worry a little about eating their pencils and peeing their pants. It still happens in seven year olds (that’s five and six year olds to those of you who don’t know Korean ages), but it’s not an everyday occurrence. And let’s face it, I’m not really the nursery age type of teacher.

Plus, my favorite kid in the school is in this class. Justin is his name, and I’m not sure why he’s my favorite. He’s actually kind of a pain. But lucky for him, he’s adorable. In a school of very cute children, he kind of reminds me of my old neighbor. Anyway, Justin’s in Brown class, as is a little boy named Jayden. When I first came to this school, I really disliked Jayden (he’s slow in class and doesn’t pay a lot of attention). However, he’s grown on me. Other than those two, I haven’t had any of the other kids before, but I’m still kind of excited about it.

Still, it’s a change. I’ll no longer be sitting silently in front of my laptop in the mornings. As all of you know (unless you’re a stranger, in which case hello!), I’m the anti-morning person. So it was really great to be able to scowl at my paperwork. In fact, the morning scowl probably made people think I was working really hard. However, they’re not as fond of us scowling at the kids. But Adam, who I’m replacing, isn’t much of a morning person, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.

We’ll be getting a new girl on Saturday, as well. Then, it’ll be official that H and I (as in me, not the letter) are no longer the new people. So I guess it’s fair to say that this weekend will bring some serious changes to my life.

There. How’s that for an update? It may have lacked the pizzazz of getting lost or sick, but it’s all you’re getting for now. Unless something drastic happens, or something.