2011 School Year: Week One

Thursday and Friday were my first few days of classes this year. I've been basically just doing name tags with them and playing some games. I figured I would start off my first full week of teaching (this week) with rules and all of that boring stuff!

A few observations, thoughts, and rants:
- I sometimes forget how incredibly creative, funny, and intelligent my students are... even the lower level English students. Given the opportunity, kids will shine :)
- I was a little nervous to be teaching after over 2 months out of the classroom. It was almost as if I was teaching again for the first time. Seeing those cute, familiar faces looking back at me made all of that go away. (And they still yell out "SANTA BAR-BA-RAAAA" and "CAL-I-FORNEYA" every chance they get, from my first introduction back in October)

- I thought I missed cafeteria lunches, but turns out... I don't.
- Trying to get ANY information out of the school is a big hassle. (Ex: class schedule given to me less than a day before I started teaching; finding out that I had a day off of work through my friends and not my school) Communication lines get blurred because of the language barrier and I end up being the one left out in the rain.
- This is less of an observation, more just something that happened. Principal called me into the office to talk to me. At the end he said, "Learn the Korean alphabet. You will need to know Korean to talk to the students. But, teach them English hard!" Ok? And, "Maybe you have a boyfriend because you are getting prettier and prettier." Thanks. haha
- The school bell now rings about 5 minutes before the time it is supposed to. This means getting out of my house 5 minutes earlier. If you know me at all, you know this is a large problem.
- The old man (used to be principal) in my office hums old school Korean tunes really loud to himself all day. I can hear the music turned up too loudly in your headphones:) *I heard ABBA today. Oh how the Koreans love ABBA.
- I am attempting to finish my lesson plans for classes at least  a week ahead of time so my weekends are worry free. The normal person does this but for the extreme procrastinator, this is a big step.