Daewangam Songnim (The Pine Forest) is one of the 12 most scenic areas of Ulsan.  It is a forest with nearly 15,000 pine trees and the blue ocean in Donghae.

I finally had an opportunity to work with students this week.   I was actually in 3 very different settings and played 3 different roles...

Role #1: Classroom teacher for an afterschool enrichment program.   The kids were divided into 4 groups (based on English abilities) and rotated between the teachers.  With the exception of teaching the wrong lesson to one class :-/ everything went pretty well.  I was given a workbook to teach from.  Not exactly my cup of tea (or should I say "bowl of Kimchi"), but I managed.  Oh, and it helps that the class size is EXTREMELY small...12 kids max!  This enrichment program will continue for 2 more weeks, then I will start an enrichment class for teachers.

Role #2: Judge for group presentations.  This was the first time I had an opportunity to see the kids who will be in my gifted classes that start next week.  They were to put together a presentation on the topic of their choice and present it to a panel of 4 judges.  Some of the presentations were excellent, other were...let's say interesting.  I did write down a couple of my favorite lines from a presentation about America:  "American's bake their steak 3 different ways; rare, middle and well done".  "Harvard was the first University to have a female woman".  "American schools are different from Korean schools.  After the kids go to a couple classes in America school, they have tea time then play with their friends.  I know this because I lived in Australia".  Alrighty then...I guess I have a lot to learn.  LOL!!

Role #3: Teacher for the U Can Do It talking program.  This is a Saturday enrichment program that parents sign their kids up for.  It's actually a pretty ingenious idea.  The kids meet in the downtown area where they are given 10 missions to complete.  At each mission, they are required to communicate in English with native English teachers in order to receive a stamp and move on to the next mission.  I was assigned to a mission where students had to call me on the phone and pretend to make a reservation for a hotel.  In English, the kids had to request a room, tell me their check-in date, check-out date, number of guests, number of beds and any other services they were interested in.  After completing the phone call, they had to walk over to my location and answer a couple more questions to earn their stamp.  This is just 1 of 3 Saturday enrichment programs that are offered...there is also a science activity/planetarium program as well as a wood craft/park scavenger hunt program.  Since these are offered on Saturdays and are outside the scope of my contract, I am paid for working them and my participation is optional.

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend a birthday party for the daughter of one of my co-workers.  Now, this wasn't just any party, we were celebrating the birthday girls first birthday...known as Tol in Korean.   In the past, due to a lack of medical information and many childhood related diseases, the death rate for children was extremely high in Korea. Many children died before their first birthday. After the age of one year, the survival rate steeply increased, making this milestone a very happy one for the child's parents.  Although this is not the case anymore, the tradition continues.

Tol is celebrated with lots of friends, family and food.  We had Korean BBQ where duck was served with a variety of side dishes...kimchi, salad, egg souffle(!), radishes, soup, etc.  After dinner, there was a traditional Korean ceremony called Toljabee.  During this part of the event, a blanket was placed on the floor with 3 items on top: a roll of thread, some money and a pencil.  The birthday girl was set at the edge of the blanket and she was to select an item.  This item is supposed to predict her future: thread=long life, money=wealth, pencil=scholarly.  Today the birthday girl selected the thread.

After the toljabee, happy birthday was sung in English and in Korean then dessert was served.  Oh, and did I mention that my co-worker is American?  This meant that we ended the party with a slice of home...Costco cake! :-) 

This was a holiday weekend in Korea.  Chuseok is basically like a Korean Thanksgiving... where everyone goes home to visit their families.  Schools and businesses were closed on Monday and Tuesday, so I enjoyed the long weekend.

On Saturday, I went with several friends to Busan.  We took the slow train, so the ride was about 45 minutes to Haeundae Beach.  It was raining when we arrived so we headed indoors to to have lunch at a "Mexican" restaurant then headed to the mall.  The food at the restaurant wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't Mexican food as I know it.  The best part was when my vegetarian friend discovered that the potato in her burrito was actually tater tots.  LOL!!  As for the mall, it was huge...I believe it was 9 stories tall and it had everything you could possibly need.  In the afternoon, the rain stopped so we had a chance to walk along the beach and take a couple of pictures.

On Sunday, I joined a couple of the gals at the local foreigner bar to watch a Rugby match between South Africa and Wales.  We have a couple of die-hard fans here.  Until this day, I have never really watched a rugby game before...I must say that it was much more entertaining than football or baseball.  After the game, we walked around the old downtown area and grabbed dinner.

Monday was Chuseok day.  We were invited over to a Korean gals home for dinner.  Five of us went and enjoyed the afternoon/evening.  Our host, Heidi, is a sculptor and lives in an artist colony.  Her workshop, with kiln, is across the street from her home so we were able to take a tour.  Everyone in the neighborhood is artistic.  One of her neighbors works with metal, the other works with stone and metal.  I took several pictures of dinner, the neighborhood and Heidi's work.  It was a very enjoyable evening.

I'm nearing the end of my second week of work here in Korea.  It's definitely different than the style of work that I am accustomed to.  Per the contract, I should be working 40 hours a week but only teach class 3-4 hours a day.  That leaves about 20 hours each week where I am "desk warming".  During the desk warming time, I can basically do anything I want as long as I am at my desk and available if needed.  This has lead to lots of facebook chats, reading, scrabble, pandora radio, and browsing the web.  It has also made it very clear that a desk job is not in my future.
 
As far as the teaching goes, I will have several 2 to 3 week enrichment classes...one after another.  Some will be for students, others will be for teachers.  My first class will begin on September 19.  It is a 3 week Elementary School Student English Conversation Class.  I will be given a book for this class and it sounds as though I basically have to teach one lesson after another from the book.  I'm hoping the lessons will not be boring as the kids will be here after school from 3:30-6:00pm.  At this point I'm not sure if I can stray from the book or not.
 
In addition to the short courses, I will have 2 ongoing gifted classes from 7:00-10:00pm on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  These will start on September 28.  The Wednesday class focuses on writing and is primarily made up of upper elemetary kids (I think).  The Thursday class focuses on speaking and is made up of middle school kids (I think).  What's most interesting about these classes is that I (and 4 other English teachers) have to write the textbook for the course.  We were basically told that anything goes as long as it focuses on writing and speaking.  Each teacher must develop 6 lessons for each course and each lesson must be 3 pages long.  I feel like I'm writing a workbook...so not my style of teaching.  The writing textbook was easier for me, but coming up with 3 pages of textbook per lesson when the topic is speaking just seems silly.  Fortunately for me, I have an amazing colleague at home (Jennie you rock!) who wants to do a collaborative blog project and I've managed to fold this into the speaking class.  What's also intersting about this textbook-writing-thingy is that they pay me 30,000W (~$28.00) for each 3 page lesson that I type up.  When do I do all this typing?  ...during the desk warming time that I'm already being paid for of course.  This is not a complaint...it just seems so crazy to me.
 
Anyways, I walked around my building and took some pictures.  The building is new as it just opened in February of this year.  It is attached to a science museum where students come on field trips.  If I understand correctly, I might be able to do some Saturday programs there for some additional pay, but I'm not totally sure how it works.  The Foreign Language Institute is housed on the 3rd and 4th floors of the facility.  I work in a room with 5 other Native English Teachers (as we are referred to here).  We each have a cubical to work at and a chair to warm.  Our assigned classrooms are down the hall.  Only classes are taught in there, all prep work is done in the native teacher room.  There is a computer lab that is available for use, a drama room, and a foreign language library that has lots of books in English...a fabulous bonus for those days that I need something to do. 
 
I'm looking forward to the teaching.  I'm curious to see what level the kids are at, how they behave in class, and how they compare to the students at home.  I also heard that the parents of the gifted students can be "difficult"...we'll see.