Maybe I'll actually make this a thing!

Hey there! It's been awhile. I had a hard time trying to blog last semester, since I was having a pretty awful time at my school and didn't want to be the constant complain-y foreigner. Also, my laptop was broken.

Now I have a bright, shiny new laptop, and my vacation to Vietnam helped recharge some of my usual annoying optimism, so I'm ready to make a fresh, new go of it. So here are some tidbits:

New semester means new students. I'll be teaching second grade instead of third grade (Korean middle school; think 8th grade and freshmen in high school, respectively)... the first graders are a constant in my life that brings equal parts joy, frustration, and sore throats from trying to get 20-35 chatty 13 year olds to listen. Fun!

After the stress and general feeling of "why am I here again?" of last semester, I made an unofficial resolution to spend more time with my family... and September is the perfect time! We have Chuseok (pronounced kind of like chew-sock; basically Korean Thanksgiving) in about 2 weeks, and the pre-Chuseok tradition, which involves maintaining ancestral grave sites. Aside from that, I got to see two of my cousins a week ago. It was just completely awesome... like every reason I wanted to come to this country summarized by a day spent with 2 people I don't know all that well... yet.


Random little blurbs from school:

Found an excuse to play a clip from BBC Sherlock for my students (I was teaching the phrase, "please talk more slowly." Also, Benedict Cumberbatch), and one of my second grade classes begged me to play it again because, "Teacher, he has a VERY NICE voice!" The fangirl in me was pleased.

One of my co-teachers (I didn't see him much, and I still don't I guess) told me he wasn't going to be an English teacher next year and started laughing maniacally, the kind of laugh that isn't really all that happy-sounding but contains a lot of triumph nonetheless. Apparently teaching English is much more stressful that teaching other subjects in Korea. Not 100% sure why.

My school is holding an English Festival in October... Still not entirely sure how I'm supposed to be helping them prepare for it, because the meeting where we discussed it was entirely in Korean too rapid for me to follow. But, I do know that I'm supposed to help somehow, and that's a start!


So, there's an update on some of my life... Sometimes I feel like I'm losing some of my English ability, because at my school I speak and write at a much different level for my students, and outside most of my communication is in broken Korean. So, sorry if the style and grammar of this is a little off; hopefully it'll get better as I write more.