My apartment in Cheongju

I just realized that I dont have a video of my apartment here in South Korea.  Here we go.  For anyone thinking of moving here, Check it out...

My Job at Cheongju English Center-- City Center

My class this week is pretty cool.  They are kind of loud and Rowdy but they are pretty awesome.  I took a video and some lovely pictures of them.

This week I teach city center and it just so happened that I had my camera on the day my homeroom class came in.  They were quite the crazy bunch.

In the city center I have students listen to my "About me" power point and then they get a chance to draw their own city center on the board (pictures below).  When they finish, I go over each picture and pretende to judge them, then I give everyone reward point stamps.  After that we go through the City center power point (city center is downtown) covering everything you may see downtown; stores, shops, restaurants, clothing stores, ect.  Then we have a role play where students get a chance to be bank tellers, travel agents, postal workers and customers.  Super easy job. 

Random things to know about teaching in Korea-- PORK

Disgusted??  You should be.

I know it’s been a minute since I've talked about Korea, so I am going to try to include about 8 or 9 more blogs about the essentials before I leave the country and forget.  And one of the most important things for a healthy Diva such as me to know before venturing into the land of Kimchi, is that PORK is number 1.

Being that my parents are somewhat Rastafarian, I didn’t eat pork for about 15 years (with the occasional sneaky bacon when I went out to breakfast) but once I got to college it was a little harder to keep up that lifestyle.  However, contrary to most, my swine intake was still very small and ultimately limited to bacon and the sometimes very lean cuts they would put on the salads at food services (gotta miss Berea College).  Once I graduated from college and cooked all of my own food, I hardly ever had it at all.  Needless to say, things changed rather rapidly once I came to Korea. 

Pork is cheap and easily accessible here so it finds itself on my plate more often than any other food around.  Determined to not be “Diva-esque” when I got here, I tried my damndest to keep my mouth shut about the continuous ingestion of the bullshit swine other white meat, but that was short lived.  Every time the bosses took us out (and it’s rude to say no in Korea) pork was on the menu.  Everywhere I tried to grab something quick, a nasty pork snout was staring me in the face.  *INSERT EXTREMELY DISGUSTED DIVA FACE HERE WITH THE CAPTION “WHAT THE F*CK IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTY*.
So I started protesting any dinner that included pork and letting my disgust be well known.  Nicely, yet firmly, putting my stiletto down and refusing to partake.  Pre-Madonna much?  I thought so too.  So when this last dinner came around, the Diva in me acquiesced to the higher ups and went out for pork galbi.  BIG MISTAKE.

Enter FOOD POISONING stage right.  I am way to fly to be stuck on, and/or bent over the toilet.  Not my style.  And on top of that, I was sick for the next week and had to go to the hospital again and have a HORRIBLE thing done!!!!  The Diva was and is STILL kicking my butt for not sticking to my principles.

·         I will NOT be eating anything that comes from smelly disgusting pigs (except bacon when I get to England… Hypocritical?  SO WHAT!) I am putting pork right up there with mayonnaise, cottage cheese, and celery.

·         I will NOT go against my better judgment and do something that I don’t want to do to appear nice and easy going—I am nice, but I like what I like and I want what I want.  I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

At the end of the day, I like Korea overall, but I def miss the food of yesteryear.  

(FYI----Pig's bodies contain many toxins, worms and latent diseases. Although some of these infestations are harbored in other animals, modern veterinarians say that pigs are far more predisposed to these illnesses than other animals. This could be because pigs like to scavenge and will eat any kind of food, including dead insects, worms, rotting carcasses, excreta (including their own), garbage, and other pigs.) KILL ALL THE PIGGIES!!!

What foods do you hate and refuse to eat??

My job at Cheongju English Center--- United Nations

 This session at CJEC I am all about the United Nations.  I start class by discussing all the different situations in which the UN can be helpful.  Droughts, floods, hurricanes, and war are all included in this discussion.  After we talk about that, I move into some key aspects of presenting a speech; posture, eye-contact, volume, ect.  This is all just working up to the big deal of the class-The Speech!

After we talk about some of the major countries involved in the UN they are given country cards with information and a speech outline.  They proceed to fill in that speech outline with the information and then comes the hard part.  The students have to memorize their speeches!!! How awesome/awful is that?  I walk around and help them with pronunciation and they get to ask me questions (basically trying to explain to me that they can't do it).  I just give them that O so needed comfort and at the end of the day they do a pretty good job.  They stand up at the podium and give a shaky performance but they seem satisfied with themselves afterward.  Can you imagine giving a speech in a foreign language?  I couldn't do it in Korean, and I make sure I explain to them how proud they should be of themselves.  Today was my last day in the UN.  Next week we have a "planning week" so we wont have any kids!!!  WHOOOOO.  Next up: Clinic.

Speech practice

Joking around

Helping them memorize their speech

And occasionally come nose picking

Dancing in Shinae (Downtown)

So Rob and I were out for a bit of shopping and while we were walking around Downtown Cheongju we ran into this show!!!  We were like WHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAA!  Enjoy!

This weeks job at Cheongju English Center--HOCKEY

 Last session at cheongju English Center, I taught Hockey.  It was sooooooooo much fun (as is evident from the pictures) especially since I didnt have a homeroom.  The first 15 minutes was spent talking about hockey (the extent of my knowledge was in the power point!) and learning the rules.  We then proceeded to practice our swings.  One of the biggest issues with Hockey is "High Stick" where people lift their stick up in the air way too high and run the risk of busting someones mouth (see my demonstration on the left)!  No fun.  After we ran through all of those things, it was game time!  I had a blast.  Im sure this will be my most exciting job while I'm here.  Sadly, most of the time in class was spent playing hockey so I have very little to report in this blog but you get the point.  Next session is UN... more to come on that!  Don't you wish you were me!

I love them!

Me hitting him because he was high sticking lol...Shaina whips ass in ANY country!

Busted!

Team Spirit

I stay in the game!

All day!