A Georgian Breakfast.

While Jennika was away in India, I mostly kept busy with work. On the weekends, I socialized with my coworkers. For the Korean new year, Katelynn Bell, an English teacher at Bugil, invited a few of us over for brunch. There was hash-browns, bacon, omelettes, and a full spread of other tasty goodies. It is hard to get a nice western breakfast in Korea. After lunch, we continued to socialize and Katelynn shared some home made ice cream which was the bomb. Shortly after cleaning out the ice cream Robyn Horn found a 1000 piece puzzle. We whittled away at it all day. I've never completed a 1000 piece puzzle in one day. As the hours passed, we saw the end get closer and closer until 6pm was upon us. I saw the end in sight. I still haven't finished a 1000 piece puzzle in one day, my hunger took over and I left for some Indian cuisine at Mount Fishtail, but Robyn, Christopher Decou, and Katelynn polished it off.

So close to the end!

Bugil Baseball Game

Bugil High School is known for their baseball team. This famous team has won the high school championships in Korea a few times. Many of the players are recruited and go on to have major league careers in Korea. The President's Cup, the final tournament of the season, was held on August 26th and all the students at Bugil got the afternoon off to go watch the game and cheer on their team. JM and I decided to join them.

Sadly, we lost in a roaring upset in the 8th inning, but it was still a good game!

Go Bugil!!

Lining up for the school songs

Bugil students singing their school song

Swing batter, batter, batter, swing!

Score!!!

Back to Korea - New job!!

Well, now that I'm back in Korea it's time to make an announcement: I HAVE A NEW JOB!!! That's right folks, I will no longer be teaching at Bugil Academy. Over the summer, many disappointing actions from Bugil prompted my decision to leave. I applied for and was miraculously accepted to teach English at Dankook University in their General Education department. I have been given a 1 year contract and a lot more responsibility. This is a great step for my resume and confidence.

 Dankook is literally just down the road from Bugil. It is the closest university I could possibly have taught at and my commute to work in the morning is only a fraction longer than what it was to get to Bugil. Since I have a bicycle, it will only take 20 mins or so to get there.

Considering how stressed I was the last few months at Bugil, I am very happy for this change. JM is still teaching physics at Bugil with the Global Leader program and they are not associated with the department I was previously working in. The hardest part about leaving is that I did not get to say goodbye to my students and I have been struggling with this. I went to visit Bugil twice this week already, but it was really hard. I love those students wholeheartedly and I would do anything for them. Unfortunately, things did not work out at Bugil, so I'm really looking forward to a fresh start with my Dankook students!

Jennika

Given to me by the dean - my certificate of employment, in a blue velvet folder!

My 27th Birthday in Korea

Wow .. a whole year has passed since we started writing the blog! One of my first posts last year was about my birthday. And now here I am, living in Korea, celebrating 27.

All week I had been spoiled with cards coming in from my family. Getting mail from home, especially when anything that ever arrives in your mailbox is in Korean, is a welcome treat. Sarah even shipped me some Reece's Peanut Butter cups, which after the trip looked more like peanut butter pancakes.

The contents of Sarah's package - including pictures!

Mom's Card

Pancakes!

Everyone made the days surrounding my birthday feel special. I was treated to lunch by both Christine and Bre (my coworkers). One day I arrived at school to a gift on my desk from my closest Korean colleague, Grace. She gave me a traditional Korean jewellery box for my birthday. It's gorgeous!

The night before my actual birthday, JM and I joined our friend Nick and company for some NOREBANG! If you don't know what that is, well it's the Korean version of karaoke, but you are in a private room with just you and your friends! So you get to sing all the songs you want, and you don't have to listen to the random people in the bar who suck! It was our first time, and it was awesome.

Disco ball in our private norebang room

Nick being thoroughly annoyed by us singing Justin Beiber. Hatin' on the Beebs!

This year, my birthday fell on a Saturday. I was treated to breakfast in bed, but then JM had to work in the afternoon, giving some demo classes to potential students. I went with him to school because, even if JM wasn't around, I decided to make the best of it.

Yummy!

Bringing me breakfast!

JM being adorable

Home made card!

Funny Korean gift bags

A long time ago I had promised my after school class, Creative Expressions, that I would take them out to Korean BBQ for dinner. They eat cafeteria food every day - it gets boring. But admin had told me I could only do it on a weekend. This Saturday happened to be the first that I was in town (not traveling for frisbee), so I told my students to meet me at Bugil's front gate and we would head downtown. This is a class that I absolutely love. They are wonderful, funny, energetic, and all around pleasant students to teach. We went out for grilled meat and they surprised me with Ferrero Rocher chocolates for my birthday. It was so sweet.
 

Lunch with my students

Through Cheonan Ultimate Frisbee, I had organized a pick up game for later that afternoon, and we had the best turn out yet! Might have had something to do with the fact that I milked the birthday thing ... but who knows. ;)

Finally, on the Sunday JM and I went out for a really nice dinner. We hadn't been to any of the steakhouses in Cheonan yet, so we decided to try VIPS, where they also have an extensive salad bar (that has way more than just salad). It was delicious! I had a really lovely weekend and birthday. Thank you to everyone who made it special!

Jennika

Got dressed up to go to VIPS!

 

Inexplicable World of Korea #8 - Random gifts that get put on your desk

One day it's a vitamin C tablet, the next it's a tomato. I will never understand.

Sports Day at Bugil

One of my favourite days of the semester by far. Today all the students from the boys school and from the GLP competed in a sports day with their grade. Events included track, volleyball, basketball, soccer, tug of war, and ssireum, a traditional Korean wrestling sport. I loved watching my students compete - it was a great way to see their team spirit and also just them being teenagers! Not study robots. The best part? I got to play in a teacher vs. student soccer match! It's been ages since I've played any footie, but I put on my cleats and represented. I was the only foreigner and the only female playing! Really, I didn't do much. I think my students told me I touched the ball 3 times (it was only a 30 min game!). I've never been an aggressive soccer player; I'm much more keen to find myself in the right place at the right time. But the moment my students saw me run out, they started cheering and chanting my name. Made me feel loved! It was an all around awesome day.

The morning started out cloudy, but it cleared up fast!

Warming up is important kids!

Running to the stands

Ssireum - my students were good at it!

Photo Credits: Miz Bre - she took most of them. For some reason I spaced on taking pics!

Hiking Songnisan

My students had another field trip day after their midterms this week and we, native English teachers, got the choice of which trip to join. Since it's less likely that I will make my way to the Korean countryside on my own, I opted to take a trip to another national park to go hiking. This time we did Songnisan, which is in the next province. The hike was not easy. We did the Cheonwangbong course, which according to the website is a grade B (relatively severe slope) and 14.2km. Now, I'm still suffering from plantar fasciitis (see previous post) and when I asked about the hike I was told it was easy. I tend to forget that Koreans are mountain goats and 'easy' for them would be super hard for me. But I did it! My students were cheering me on and there were times I really didn't think I would get to the top. The view was beautiful and there were so many wild flowers along the way. It was a satisfying day! I just hope I don't pay for it tomorrow ...

The scene at the start of the trail

You can see how high you are climbing

Panoramic of the top of Cheonwangbong peak. What a view!

 

Cherry Blossom Festival at Bugil

The cherry blossom festival is a well known weekend in Cheonan. The whole town makes their way over to Bugil to see all the cherry blossoms, have picnics, enjoy the outdoors, and take lots of pictures. There are plenty of vendors selling food and other things at the entrance, and then on campus there is a plethora of beautiful flowering trees. On Saturday night, the school also puts on a very impressive fireworks show. There was a hanging circle and many ground posts where fireworks shot out of to the rhythm of the music! It was the best fireworks show that JM and I have ever seen. Mom and Papa Samson are here visiting and they also found the show to be excellent.

Here is a video of the show that a student caught on camera.

Because we were at the DMZ yesterday, we missed the daylight hours. So today we went back to campus to get some pictures with the flowers. It was a very pleasant afternoon.

My boyfriend, the model.

New Classes, New Office-mates!

Well the new school year has begun and there has been a lot of stress the first two weeks. Rather than just dividing the students by student number, we have decided to divide the classes based on level to give the lower level students more of a chance to participate and learn. This means interviewing all 700 students in 1st and 2nd grade and then placing them according to how they performed in the interview. It was extremely time consuming and exhausting. But we did it and now we have classes that are divided fairly. Hopefully this will mean a better year for the students and me alike!

The other changes included office changes. For reasons that don't all make sense to me, at the beginning of the year (or perhaps every semester) the Boys School teachers change desks and offices. So my previously calm, quiet office got a few new additions. We now have 12 instead of 8 desks. I am beside the window and near the sink. I like being able to look outside! We also had a dinner last week for the new office members. There were 5 of us who joined, one of whom isn't actually in my office but maybe he just like Italian food. It was my first office dinner where everyone spoke Korean. The teachers were all very excited to speak with me and they were quite courteous, translating when I didn't know what was going on, and speaking in English to accommodate me. These men are all so nice and I look forward to working along side them.

My office-mates! Mr. Hwang, (Mr. Shin), Mr. Park, and Mr. Ryu