student work and gifts of ham

Tomorrow I will have been in Korea for one month. Woohoo! I'll have been teaching for just over 3 weeks, but already it feels like much longer. I guess that's a good sign (?).

What's most surprising is that I still don't feel like I've experienced any culture shock. It's probably a combination of 1. having no expectations, 2. being able to get by not knowing any Korean (having Korean-speaking comrades helps), and 3. still being in the honeymoon phase (I assume).

Don't think this means everything has been dull and predictable, however. (Side note: I have to teach students how to identify transitions and verbal cues for them to understand how a passage is outlined since it helps with "academic reading," since the goal of most students would be to go to like an Ivy League school; so now whenever I use words like "however," "most of the time," or "because," I automatically think back to those lessons. It's a little annoying.) Last week we worked 6 days in a row (my Saturday was gone, as one of my students put it--but it actually wasn't that bad), and today our manager took us out to explore this interesting area of Seoul called Insadong, and it seemed to be where a lot of touristy shops were. I'm really regretting not having my camera because (gah, damn you, lessons!) it was purdy cool. It was also very generous on my manager's part: she treated us to a massive traditional "noblemen's" lunch (we counted like 60 dishes, of octopus and noodles and soups and fish--it was delicious) and really delicious tea we had in this great teahouse-cum-art museum in a tiny wooded area in the middle of everything. Surprise, thy name is Korea!

Anyways, my students have been really great and really sweet. At the end of every class they get into groups and have to do a project that somehow relates to that day's lessons, and my younger classes have been really going above and beyond with theirs. Here are some of the best (or most hilarious or most clever):

One of the projects was interviewing the victim of a rumor, and I love how the "victim" thinks about her "mother's happy face" when she is "cheating"!! So cute!

They had to pick a rumor and decide whether or not they would tell a white lie to their friend about it. (My students are so smart--these kids are barely 9!)
Student 1: I have a friend who is very fat and very ugly. But she is very kind!
Me: That's the most important thing.
Student 2: I have a friend who is very fat and very ugly and she is not kind!
Me: That doesn't sound like a friend!
Student 2: She is so ugly!

Ok, this one kills me. Harry Potter was the victim of a rumor in these boys' project, and he learned the bad words he was saying from his "superiors"! (Occasionally, despite trying really hard to describe a word, I have no idea what they're trying to ask me about, so they use their dictionaries, and it's really funny to see such big vocabulary words that result--they seem so out of place.)

Next post I want to show you guys my students' artwork--I have some very talented and imaginative artists in my class.

Also, Chuseok or "Korean Thanksgiving" (I have also heard it's very insulting to call it this, but alas, I cannot describe it another way), a huge holiday here, will be this week (hence my 2 days off; hence my making one day up on Saturday), and the owner of our hagwon got us some delicious gifts:

Pork! Loins 'n ribs wif sauce. I cooked half a loin with onions and carrots and sugar and mustard today after realizing I'd never cooked pig before, ever. It was tasty. I can't think of a better present than meat!