I'm still alive!

Wow, I'm not very good at maintaining a blog, am I?

In early November I had to go to the emergency room due to severe stomach pain! I had been taking some strong antibiotics for a lingering cold that wouldn't go away, and then the pain started! It was honestly the worst pain I have ever experienced. I ended up in the E.R. all night long, and the doctors really wanted to do a CT scan, so I had my first one, which wasn't that fun. They ended up telling me I just had gastrocolitis (inflammation of the stomach/colon), and was prescribed some medicine that worked.  Here I am in the E.R.:

Since then, nothing too crazy has happened! I am continuing my Taekwondo lessons, which I absolutely love. I will be eligible to become a green belt at the end of this month! Here are some photos from my Taekwondo class:

  

I have met some awesome people and had a lot of great times in the classes! 

Aside from Taekwondo, things have been pretty quiet.  I'm kind of a loner, so I tend to spend too much time alone on my computer! I am trying to change that though! I will leave you with some pictures of the better than average meals I have prepared for myself recently :D.

Kimbap is basically the Korean version of sushi! Inside, there is tuna, egg, pickled radish, and bracken. It's delicious!

This is a fairly standard and boring meal that has gotten me by many times!

It's relatively cheap to buy Salmon sashimi at the grocery store near my apartment, so sometimes I treat myself to a yummy sushi meal! I wrap the sushi myself with the Kim (seaweed squares)!

 

1.5 Months in Korea

Lack of updates, but I will try to make up for it now!

After living here for close to 2 months I can tell you that I am definitely lucky with my placement, I am within a 10 minute walk of: the school I teach at, the bank I set accounts up with, a huge medical center, and tons of great restaurants! And I'm a 3 minute walk from a major department/grocery store and the subway station.  Here is the building I live in, and what I see when I look out my apartment window:

Late August and early September marked the beginning of my year long teaching contract with Wonmuk Elementary school, seen here:

A narrow 5 floor building, there are quite a few students in the school, probably around 800 or more. I get to see around 500ish students, teaching 22 classes split almost evenly between 4th, 5th, and 6th grade.  I think they are amazing, and many of them seem to like me as well. There are about 30 or more 5th and 6th grade boys that have decided my name is "handsome," which they proudly announce to me as often as possible!  Here is the view out one of the 2nd floor windows of the school on a rainy day:

I taught for almost a month before receiving my first paycheck and flight reimbursement, which was also contingent on successfully receiving my national foreigner ID in Korea.  This precious item is referred to as an ARC, or Alien Registration Card.  Obtaining it involved dealing with a horribly busy immigration office, and then waiting for a couple weeks to pick it up, all the while praying that it wouldn't get misplaced or lost.  Without this card, a foreign teacher cannot be paid.  Here is the card in all of its glory, I was so relieved when I finally got it!

I got a really bad cold in the middle of September, and am still dealing with a lingering cough.  I feel really stupid for not just going to see a doctor, considering I am so close to an excellent medical center.  I have also heard that with the national insurance I have through my school, I would only pay around $5 to see a doctor and be given shots/medicine.  At this point, however, it is almost completely gone.  Considering the duration, I probably had bronchitis, but it looks like I fought it off naturally.

It's easy to feel isolated here due to the language barrier, but I am doing my best to stay positive. I am enrolled in a once a week Korean language course that meets for a couple of hours on Saturday, and I am starting Taekwondo classes this Friday.  The Taekwondo classes will meet on Mon/Weds/Fri at night, and I am incredibly excited for them!

My role as a GET (Guest English Teacher) has been shaped by my school, and truly there are many other foreign teachers in public schools with EPIK that have completely different work situations than I do.  I find myself in a situation where I have 3 co-teachers, all of which are very supportive and kind.  A typical day of work for me involves teaching around 3-5 classes, and then having around 3-5 hours of office time.  Office time consists of sitting at a computer in a cubicle and planning activities/lessons/etc for future classes.  Teaching varies between my classes, because each of my co-teachers has a different style.  In some classes I find myself taking more control, while in others I play more of a supportive role.  Overall, I think given all my classes during the week it balances out to me teaching about 50% of the time, which is how its supposed to be since I'm co-teaching.

I think I'm starting to really acclimate to all of these huge changes in my life, and I'm looking forward to improving my teaching skills and bonding more with my co-teachers as the months go on.  I will now leave you with a series of random pictures with brief explanations, and hopefully I can commit to making more frequent posts that aren't such large walls of text :).

The extent of my fridge decor at the moment, those two beautiful people are two of my best friends, Eric & Alexis, I miss them!

This is an example of "Konglish," and it is easy to find it on people's t-shirts, billboards, TV, and well... everywhere!  I actually find it quite endearing, and this is one of my favorite examples :).

I'm no electrician, but it feels like this arrangement of power lines and cables right by my school could have an improved design... what do you think?

I took this picture right outside the Samseong station while on my way to watch a profession Starcraft 2 match. (Starcraft 2 is a strategy game played on PC)

This is what the studio looks like for the GSL, the premier Starcraft 2 league in Korea.  I have always dreamed of visiting this in person, and have had the opportunity to do so 5 times already since I've been here. It is incredible!

Shopping is pretty popular in Korea, and they like to make the stores pretty impressive looking.  Here is a rather large department store next to a Seoul subway exit.

Here is a large Costco building being dwarfed by surrounding mega buildings.  I did shop there and it was basically a clone of the Costco's in America, but with higher relative prices (in my opinion).

I took this picture on the Seoul subway while crossing the Han river which runs through Seoul. 

Homeplus, the major department store right by my apartment, has a mall-type food court on the first floor.  This meal was about $6, and was completely delicious.  It came out sizzling!

This is called Yukhoe Naengmyeon, which translates to raw beef cold noodles.  I'll admit it wasn't the best thing I've had so far, but I didn't get sick from it either.  Also, the plate to the top left is dried whole anchovies coated with a sticky sweet sauce. They were pretty good, actually!

This was a tasty meal I had at a mandatory workshop which was held for all the native English teachers in the Dongbu district, which I am a part of.

In the same workshop, we got to paint lotus flowers on wooden circle blocks.  The design was already traced, and we had about 10 colors to choose from.  I wasn't too happy with mine, but it is at least one of the few decorations in my apartment.

I attended a fun cultural event where we made some food, and also tried on traditional Korean clothing, called Hanbok.

This is the National Museum of Korea, and is an incredibly large and impressive building!

I think this was my favorite exhibit in the museum, very stunning in person!

A view of how massive the inside of this museum is!

This is Seoul tower, I took it while taking a nice long walk after Korean class one Saturday evening.

This was taken in Itaewon, which is the area in Seoul with the highest population of non-Koreans.  This particular stretch of road is beautifully decorated with many flags above the street.

Here is one of my 5th grade students in an after school class.  Intimidating, right?

 

I introduced a reward system for students in my 4th grade classes where occasionally I will hand out a "film ticket" to a lucky student who wins an activity, and after class I will record them doing something and then edit it with special effects.  Here is the first round of videos I made, the students seemed to really enjoy watching the final result.

This is what internet is like in South Korea.  This costs me $30 a month.

 

Hope you enjoyed ^^, look forward to more updates in the future!

My Apartment in Seoul

I am very lucky to have a large apartment, which is due to the fact that I am living in the north-eastern outskirts of Seoul, where housing is less expensive.  I am still right next to a subway station, which is the ultra-efficient and cheap transportation choice for almost everyone in this city :).  Enjoy the short tour!

Orientation

I have been in South Korea for two weeks now, and they have been jam packed.  I can't decide if it feels as if I have been here for just a few days, or a few months, things have been intense.

Orientation was incredible and it made me thankful that I applied through EPIK to teach at a public school rather than being thrown into a Hagwon (private English school).  The orientation site was held at Daejin University, which is located in a beautiful area of the country, with picturesque mountains and lush vegetation surrounding the campus.  It even has a reconstructed temple site located in the same vicinity, which was incredible to explore.  I made many friends at orientation, and was able to share a dorm room with Alan, who I have developed a strong friendship with as well.

The orientation schedule was hectic at times, but was filled to the brim with high quality lectures, fun activities, and enormous amounts of useful information.  Everyone was given a thick couple hundred page orientation manual that correlated to class-style lectures, and it's a powerful reference guide that I am thankful to have.  For me, what truly stood out above everything else was the passionate leaders of the orientation.  I was fortunate to be chosen as a class leader for the sub-group I was a part of, and was chosen alongside one other girl to give a speech at the closing ceremony of the orientation.  I used the opportunity to retell my humorous story of getting lost, while attempting to parallel the inert kindness I received in that situation with the passionate work of those involved with the orientation.  Here is the speech, courtesy of my fellow teacher and friend, Alfred: 

Alan and I in our dorm

The men's dormitory

One of the many statues on campus

Campus at Daejin University

Temple located right next to campus

Inside the temple area

Stone waterfall area near large stone steps

There were about 300 teachers total, this is just a section of the guys.

Most of my core group from orientation!

Beauty in nature!

Field trip to Seoul

Field trip to Seoul

Field trip to Seoul

Field trip to Seoul

Museum in Seoul