Apologies

It's been a while. A long while. Sorry. I definitely had more time and inclination to blog when I studied at Edae. Now that I'm actually working here my time and energy is sucked up too much for my liking. I'm going to try to post something every weekend or so.
A lot has happened. My job situation has improved drastically. Not only has my school stepped up its game by hiring more assistants and teachers (which it seriously needed), but now that I've gotten past the first few months I've learned enough to become a halfway decent teacher.

So since it's been a million years since I last wrote anything, I'll just give a little bit of storytime about what's been recently goin' on o'er here.
Had a good weekend. Been tired of partying and traveling to Seoul (it's exhausting now that I have to take a 40 min bus ride instead of just living there). Took a weekend for myself, just to stay home and recharge. Exercised, watched some movies, studied some Korean, went for a walk along the stream... nice stuff. While I was on my walk I even ended up having a conversation with someone. There was a woman who started talking to me in English and we ended up having a good conversation about the education system here, and differences between Suji and Seoul, and I learned that the river here actually ends up back at the Han river in Seoul-- I can rent a bike and be in the city in 4 hours. Seems like a good plan for some future weekend!

Well, I'm tired. And I should sleep soon cos I have to get up early- the repair man is coming to fix my air conditioner (not that I need it anymore, the nights are cool these days). The AC started spewing black mildew and I'm prettyyyyyy sure it gave me a cough soooo no AC the past week or so.
Oky doky I'mma post some pics of stuff recently and write some captions up for them later.

Something tells me this song isn't kid-appropriate

The first new update

The cherry blossoms bloomed literally overnight. It was dreary and blah one day and then we had a rainy night and we had cherry blossoms haha! 

Anyway this is my first post since I've arrived in Korea for the second time.  The first time I was here I was a student at Ewha Universiry, and that's what the past posts are about. This time I'm an English teacher in a city called Suji, near Yongin south of Seoul. 

Teaching is stressful in a far different way than learning as a student ever was. Even though I'm only teaching small children, it's a big load on my mind and body. Especially because it's such a new territory for me. 

In the mornings I teach 30 min lessons to classes of either 4-5 year olds on Tuesday/Thursday or 6-7 year olds on mon/wed/fri. Then after those classes are done at 2pm, I go with some of the students to a hakwon, or private acadh for after school lessons. Then I continue teaching kindergarteners from a book until about 4, then have various classes for elementary students. 

It's been pretty tough adjusting to this new schedule. It feels like such a long day. It's surprisingly hard to find easy and attention grabbing material suitable for students who are just past learning how to speak in their own language, let alone english. Also contrary to what my interview and contract led me to believe, there's not a lot of guidance as to what they expect from me and the kids. They've basically put me in front of a class, give me a book and said "go". Not even telling me where they last left off or what they've learned already. But it's worked out so far. And while the other teachers seem a bit oblivious to my plight they're kind and helpful when I ask. Well I won't be teaching forever, even if I do have no idea how I'm going to finish a whole year of this and stay sane haha. 

Anyway the main reason I'm teaching is to give me a good income and stable base while I explore other job options abroad. I've done some searching already and I'd like to go to some places like museums and universities to talk to people there. I'm also continuing korean lessons and I'm in the process of getting classes set up. Becoming fluent in korean will help. Even becoming a translator or proofreader would be a good job. 

Well I guess this post was mostly complaining but I can go over positives in another post. Here's the photos I took from the time I left the usa until now. 

I needed this after last week ughhh 

typical lunch at the school (yummyyyy)

Visited Ewha area last weekend :)

Ewha music performers came out and played on the street!

Taro smoothie is delicoussss and pastel purple <3

my indoor slippers for the school

sweet potato and cheese tonkatsu (pork cutlet) pan fried at home~ It's delicous

red bean filled bun

lunch last weekend- red bean bun and strawberry smootie

This is where I live! Im the lower left apartment :) So convenient to live above a bakery

Stream right outside the apartment

Fresca Pizza~ Basically salad on pita bread haha you just fold it and eat it and its amazing

sculpture at Narita Airport 

Narita Nikko Hotel lobby

view of restaurant at Nikko Hotel in Japan

More garden at Nikko Hotel Japan

Rock garden (while I waited for my room after the flight delay)

Ummmm

Hi I'm back. Just updating layout and trying to fix videos and stuff. 

Life updates: Graduated. Yay finally.

Planning to teach english back in South Korea (preferably in Seoul or Busan) probably starting Summer or Fall 2015. I'd prefer to go sooner but I don't think anything would be prepared in time. Sadly. I miss it. Of course I'll miss being here too (a little). Mostly everywhere you go there's gonna be pros and cons. At least I'll be making money once I'm back though. I don't wanna be an English teacher forever. I'd like to use it as a base to get started living and working abroad, and look for other cross-cultural and language jobs abroad while I'm there. 

Yeah. Perhaps I'll update a bit the closer I get to being prepared to go. Yanno, like my experiences getting visas, checking out school contracts, etc. 

ok love you bye

trying not to be bored

This has been a tough semester. It's finally over though. Thank God.
I never know if I should make posts when its so late and i'm so tired...but whatever.  I'm impatient to get off this campus. It's so small and restrictive and I can't take it any more. But it's only one semester. I'll be fine. I need to spend some more time growing before I trust myself with the Real World yet... If that makes sense?

I wish that the people I think are fun and interesting would think of me the same way. But it always seems that there is already enough people in their lives and thus my efforts of friendship are not developed in a way that I had hoped. UGH i'm not being coherent cos i'm too tired and don't feel like going into detail screw this

gooood night and god help me be patient

Long Time, No See...

Hey guys, in case you couldn't tell, i haven't updated my blog since before i left Korea.
I Still need to upload some pics and stuff, possibly to facebook, but I need to get them off my old computer first ㅠㅠ
Yeah my old laptop died and they said the hard-drive is still intact, but I just gotta get a way to get my stuff off of it :/
Uhhh anyway I'm back at Beloit now, and it's killing meeee I'm so busy and stressed I don't like it one bit. I'm definitely ready to be done. I know I'll miss learning and school life eventually...but right now, I've had about all I can handle. There's just a lot on my plate that I'm ready to be done with, and I want to go learn and do stuff in a different setting than school. My first priority is to become fluent, or just more fluent, in Korean and Japanese, and then move on to teaching or doing some other kind of work in one or both of those countries. Buuuut I guess that has to wait until after graduation... grr

I think I might still update here with just random life updates, and rambles, and stuff going on in my head that I wanna get off my chest, and so on and so forth. So don't expect much, but there might be something.

See yaaaaaa

P.S. looking back on all these posts of Korea makes me really sad and nostalgic and I just wanna go back, it was so much fun and even the not-so-fun parts were still good in their own way.

Korean Classmates and Cat Cafe

Pizza with Korean Class ^_^

Then Noraebang together! Cool floor right?

 I filmed that creepy bowing thing cos it's creepy

coconuts! 

Japchae hoddeok! aka vermicelli noodles and veggies

Kristen getting lemonade

eating samgyeopsal with friendsss

Haha yeah i took pictures with Raenna while she was trying to sleep.... ahemm..

so much cabbage...whyy...

Tonkatsu at MilleFeuille

one last time at WaraWara

Me n' Nahomi

Then me and Joanna finally went to a Cat Cafe!!!!

And cup chicken in the park, with GongCha oreo smoothie to finish up the day!

These are my last days in Korea....for now! I already know I'm gonna miss it so much!