WE'VE BEEN HERE FOR A MONTH!!

Randy,Charlie, Tyler and Paul on graduation!





Me and my class for Graduation!




Antonio on Graduation, look what they made him wear! My dad would die if that was Eric hahah



The sign outside my classroom!!


My classroom!



Katelan and I tried some wigs on while shopping!..we look good right?? haha ;)


Karaoke on Game Night in Dongtan!



Street waffles!! Honey and whip cream...mmmm!!



The ice-cream cake we got Tanya for her Birthday!! So pretty! xoxo


"Never shall I forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours." **HAPPY 23rd Birthday Tanya!!** I love and miss you forever and always!



Graduation-February 2010

On the day of graduation, the last Wednesday in February, I was so anxious to see the kids recite the speeches that I have been helping them practice. All the speeches, stories and songs were so creative and to hear their little voices describe wishes, superhero powers etc was absolutely darling! The class I have been working with for the past few weeks (Daniel’s old classes) consisted of 4 boys, Charlie, Randy, Tyler and Paul. Charlie’s memorized story was my favorite. He read, ‘I’m going on a bear hunt’ which was one of my favorite books when I was little. It was so cute because he incorporated hand motions and totally acted the whole book out, you couldn’t help but ‘ooo’ and ‘aww’ while completely melting at his little charm! When we first arrived at work we had to go into a room to help the kids get into their graduation attire. The outfits were hilarious, little suits for the older kids and funny bright colored sequin outfits for the younger kids. I couldn’t help but laugh at how adorably funny they looked! When we walked our students out to the stage it was really neat seeing all of the parents there and how excited they were to see their child graduate to the next level of learning English. All of the parents were so proud, and they take schooling VERY seriously here. One of our Korean teachers, Lynn, was telling us that she had to go to a ‘cram’ school where she was literally there from 9am to like midnight and eventually her dad had to call the director to make sure that Lynn got breaks in the day because she was so incredibly stressed out and over worked! I couldn’t even imagine having to do that in the U.S!

After graduation I still had 2 special classes in the afternoon on Thursday and Friday. We had to use our morning breaks to prepare our OWN classrooms! I loved coming up with a theme and buying craft paper to decorate my class. I definitely felt like a real teacher since I got my own classroom (room 205!) My theme is ‘garden’ so I have bumblebees, butterflies and bright colors. On Friday we had to prepare our lesson plans and copy off a ton of worksheets. It was really stressful because we were going to start class on the following Tuesday and we only had Friday and Monday to prepare our Monthly plan…needless to say we pulled some VERY long and unhappy hours. LCI is so new to us so we all were really confused about how to prepare we felt like guinea pigs just being thrown into action. I tried to stay positive but it was hard when we were all so exhausted and stressed about what next week would be like.


We spent the weekend in Peyongtaek where Katelan, Chase and Chris live. They are all friends from WSU (which I have mentioned). It’s really weird that we all are hanging out in KOREA I forget sometimes that we are all the way across the world from WA! We got Monday off of work because it was a holiday, ‘Kids day’ but I went into work anyway with Ta-leah to finish up my lesson plans to make sure I felt more prepared about starting my classes on Tuesday morning.


First Week in March!!!:

Tuesday was really stressful, I felt like a chicken running around with its head cut off!! I have my morning Kindergarten class from 9:20am to 1:40pm with a 40min lunch break at 12:20pm. My Kindergardener’s are so adorable but sometimes I get frustrated because its their first year learning English so half the time they have no idea what I’m saying. I’m basically just focusing the ABC’S, numbers, feelings, weather and days of the week so far with them. I’m actually pleasantly surprised at how much they learned from Tuesday to Friday though which gives me hope that when the year is over I will have really impacted their progress and getting to see them recite speeches at graduation a year from now will be really rewarding to me. Their age is ‘6’ in school but one of them is 4 and I think 2 of them are 5yrs old. They’re names are, Faith (a boy!), Peach, Vicky, Mickael, Jinny and Jennifer! Then at 2:00pm I go across the street to teach 2 classes of 11 7yr olds for 40minutes each. I love these classes and I feel like once it’s 2pm the day flies by! I got to name about 20 kids!! Some of them are: Tanya (for Tanya, Steph (for my mom), Billy (for my dad), Eric (for my brother), Krissy (for my sister), Rose (for my Grandma), Sean and Matt (for my cousins) and then Addy, Britt, Kara, Logan, Evan (for friends back at home!!) It makes it easier to remember their names and its funny seeing their personalities with the names I gave them! Funny story about ‘Addy’: I was given a list of my students with their Korean names so I didn’t see them before I named them and I told my helper teacher to name one Addy so I went to class the next day and had the kids sit in a circle to practice their English names and I hear a little voice go, ‘hello my name is Addy’ annnnnd it was a darling little BOY!!! I couldn’t hold in my laughter, it was too funny and I felt so bad because he had no idea that it was a girls name…so I went back to my helper teacher later that day to have it changed to ‘Eddie’ haha! After my special classes I have a class at 3:40pm til 5:00pm called EC5 which I enjoy because the kids are 8 and 9 and have studied English before so it makes teaching them easier since they can more so understand what I’m saying. LONG DAY RIGHT!? Atleast the kids are cute…

We got paid on Friday and went to Indian food for dinner with our Dongtan girls. I’ve never had Indian food before, and I liked it! But it definitely makes your tummy gurgle :/
After dinner Tia and I did a little shopping with some of the girls and it was really fun going into the boutiques. Things are really cheap. Also, most of the clothes are one size fits all…which is a lie because Asians are so much tinier than me so I got kind of annoyed because some of the really cute things would never fit me, bummer! But I got a few things and they had a lot of really cheap accessories for like 1,000 won which is less than an American dollar! I’M A MILLIONARE…IN WON! Haha!

On Saturday we went to our Friend Alia and Michelle’s apartment for a game night with a bunch of people. We played sherades and other games then headed to a Karaoke bar which was a blast! Us girls sang ‘My heart will go on’ it was pretty funny! I also got to chatting with a whole table of Koreans which was pretty entertaining! Also it was our ONE MONTH anniversary! I cant believe we have been here for a month already, time is flying by! It’s crazy to think that we have 12months to go!

On Sunday, Katelan, Bri, Tia, Chase and I all celebrated Tanya’s 23rd birthday! We went to Baskin Robins and bought the cutest ice cream cake with candles that said, ‘I love you’ and ‘23’. We also bought party hats and wore them around town! We had a chill Sunday and basically just talked about memories of Tanya and honored her life.

Today, Monday March 8, 2010 classes flew by and I’m glad to finally get the hang out it! After school Lynn, one of the Korean teachers, drove us to a gym where we are going to buy a 3 month membership for 60,000 won which is a little less then $60 American dollars, good deal!! I’m excited to work out!!!! :)

Miss everyone/but I love it here!!! <3 Katie Teacher