"The Sunny Side of a Day's Play"

30
May

Finished my after evening run… Started around 5ish and now it’s 6:30.. :D (Taken with instagram)

25
May

TGIF!!

Whoohoo…TGIF! But I just got complimented and insulted within 10seconds from 2 different girls in my last class. The 1st girl said, “Teacher you’re not fat!” 10seconds later as I walk past her the 2nd girl said, “Teacher, I don’t like your style…you need to learn.” what say whatttt? the perfect complinsult! Korea in one word…complinsult..aha….

oh and apparently the little girl in my 1st grade class, who used to come in the office and scare me in the morning/afternoon and said she didn’t like me yesterday, just told me that she loved me. @0@ confused…but yay. she’s a little cutie. Tuesday should be fun….I’m going to Woobang Tower Land with my little 1st graders and that’s a nice hour trip to Daegu. However in 2.5hours my 4 day weekend shall commence and we will get this party started! :D This is how my traveling will be for the next 5 days.

Friday - Angang->Gyeongju->Daegu
Saturday - Daegu
Sunday - Daegu->Busan
Monday - Busan->Gyeongju->Angang
Tuesday - Angang->Daegu->Angang.

I will be tuckered out by Wednesday but let’s thank goodness the 2nd graders will be gone and I will be doing review games/papers with the other students. yay for a 3rd update! FIGHTING!!!!!!!!!! I will overcome the laziness that is this not updating thing.

23
May

A SAD FACT…

My French listening skills are going down the DRAIN…and the FACT that my KOREAN skills aren’t picking up quite as fast as I’d like is annoying…soon..I’ll only be able to speak ENGLISH and READ French =3= boohoo.

ON a brighter note….I went to homeplus yesterday and my Korean speaking friend went away from me to get some washing detergent. This is when a helper/worker at home plus asked me if I was looking for anything (I assume she asked that…because why else would they talk to me…) so I said “aegi pow-dah” and boom she knew what I wanted. huzzah. SUCCESS :] go konglish. haha.

Anyways, anyone know how I can keep myself from becoming bi-lingual….I need to practice my French while I’m in KOREA but I also need to LEARN KOREAN or I won’t survive when I travel on my own…I’d like to be independent without having to drag my friend everywhere. =3=

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22
May

omg…I uploaded a youtube video…for the first time in 2 months…and I’m making a tumblr update…holy frijoles man. XD Sorry I’ve been lagging…I really will try to do better…because I know I’ll regret not doing so later on.. :\

(Source: youtube.com)

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11
Apr

On my way to Korea….March 18-21, 2012

Sorry this is late…ya know I kind of got distracted with orientation and other stuff… :D

Blog 1 - Trip to Seoul

Sunday & Monday, March 18-19, 2012
Woke up at 5am and scrambled to get everything finalzed and packed in my backpack. Arrived at my Uncle’s to ride with my parents to DFW and finish stuff EVERY single possible thing I could into it. :] Arrived at the airport and at GATE E20 where I was “supposed” check in. We walk in with my luggage and find that we needed to be at GATE E18. Great ok…but DFW doesn’t have a walk through to that terminal side of E so we have to get back in the car with my luggage and go like I swear 50feet to E18. I go to check in and get my boarding pass with Virgin America and the “desk worker” named Mindy was helping me get that boring stuff done. Put my first suitcase up on the scale and saw what it weighed. “HOLY CRAP!” I thought. It weird 54lbs! UGH the sad part. That was the “light” luggage so I knew my second piece of luggage to check in was definitely more than 50lbs. However, Mindy was VERY nice and she said well, I’ll just pretend that I my scale was off a few pounds. So I was like ok, at least I won’t have to pay the overcharging fees of “HEAVY” luggage. Well we throw the second one on the scale and what do you know it is 55lbs. So I’m like GREAT…5lbs over..and I can’t get rid of anything because we used those vacuum sealed bags. Well somehow we get to chatting and she asks me where I’m going. So I say I am going to South Korea and getting on another flight there. Mindy asks who I am flying with and I said “Singapore Airlines” Well Mindy does her magic and (because I think VA and SA are affiliated with each other) my 2 overweight luggage pieces will be taken off the VA plane and automatically sent to the SA airplane without me having to go to baggage claim and showing the SA people that my luggage is overweight and WAIT I have a 3rd piece to add to that because they only allow 1! COUNT THAT 1! Carry on. lame. Anyways Mindy was my hero for the day. She said that most likely they will not catch the overweight charge on the way there to Seoul but on my way back home I will probably be charged. Whoot. You know I hope when I come back from South Korea I don’t have this problem although I guess money won’t be a problem then. Anywhos, I went through security and bam it was already 7:07am and my plane was scheduled to board at 7:25am so I make sure I go to the bathroom before getting on the plane cuz…I don’t trust domestic bathrooms and I’m used to long drives and holding off using the bathroom. GO BLADDER! haha. The VA plane was very nice and had a little tv screen that I used for music. I even started typing part of this blog post during this flight because 1. they had an outlet for my charger (macbook was at 27% when I opened it to TEFL which by the way I finished the 1st of my final 4modules. so 3 left! whoot.) I had an aisle seat and air con so this flight was pleasant. Except there is a funny smell coming from somewhere, it’s like a mixture of bacon and ….spices. Needless to say my nose was not happy. but powered through like a trooper because food is always going to be better than B.O. HURL. It’s 10am in TX and I’m currently flying over Utah/Nevada. So like an hour

I have another hero to add to my list today. SOUL Cha who works with Singapore Airlines. He saved me a $110 charge for my other carry-on. I mean technically I didn’t find out that there was a charge for more than 1 carry-on till the day BEFORE my flight so we were all UGHHH why am I bringing so much stuff…but in the end he saved me my money. He was really nice and helpful and I felt bad because he had a little cold but he was a trooper. He gave me a survey after I was done and of course I gave him the best rating I could. :] HEROES ROCK!

On the plane to Seoul and 8 hours left. I feel awful. I shouldn’t have eaten. I think I have a fever…dang you guy sitting next to me on the Virgin America flight. He kept blowing his nose. T-T I’m super tired so I know when I land I will want to go straight to bed. I’m gonna have to try and pull myself together Tuesday morning so I can TEFL. I have 3 full modules left and 1 written assignment to do. PLUS after that I have to finish the pre-orientation training for EPIK. Needless to say I won’t be going out after orientation is over at 6pm I’ll be going back to my room to TEFL. ugh. oh well. That’s what I get for being lazy. The only thing I wish now is that I had a power outlet for this laptop. I have “2” hours left of charge and I can’t bring myself to focus on TEFLing. but I can’t sleep either . ugh.

——Added from my memory

I landed and had to wait forever to get my luggage, I swear I was the LAST person ahha. Then to my surprise…there was NO “customs” wait. You know how in America you have to wait FOREVER. I simply handed them a form and went through…HOW EASY! AMERICA do the same! haha. Anyways, I was in the main area for the ICN airport and I went to an information desk and asked them to call my hotel for me. She handed me the phone I told them I was ready to be picked up and 10min later BOOM a man in a van arrives and I get in and we are off to my hotel. whoot! After what feels MUCH longer than “10minutes” we arrive at the hotel I sign in and a worker helps me to my room. Of COURSE he takes the heaviest one and makes some grunts and says something in Korean which I can only imagine was “holy s**t what is in here?!” hahah. Anyways, I get into the hotel room and decide to stay up till 11PM so I can get used to the time change faster. I chitty chat with my sister for a while and pass out. *Sorry I never took pics of the hotel room because I basically let my luggage EXPLODE in the room*

TUESDAY March 20, 2012

I woke up around 8am, turned on the TV and started TEFL. At 2pm I decide to be brave and go get some food at a convenience store. I had fried chicken, milk, and chips. Yum. Then I keep TEFLing until around…6/7? I then meet my new friend Adam for dinner. *Yes, met through FB but hey it’s useful when you are in a foreign country ALL alone right? :P* anyways for dinner we go to Dunkin Donuts and chit chat for an hour and then we go back to the hotel. He goes to pass out and I go back to TEFLing…can you see a pattern here? TEFL TEFL TEFL! Anyways, had to sleep so I could make the morning bus back to the airport to meet other EPIKers! whoot!

WEDNESDAY March 21, 2012

woke up at 8am packed up the rest of my stuff and chilled in my hotel room till 10:45am then I went downstairs and met some other EPIKers who were also in the hotel. We made the drive back to the airport and met others but kind of kept to ourselves. That’s all for now…because orientation kept me very busy. I’ll try to recollect all my ideas, memories, etc from orientation… haha. :]

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3
Apr

SORRY!!!

Sorry it’s been so long since a blog post…or even a mini text update….I’ve been without internet for a week…gross…but now I’m back with civilization! Expect photos and maybe a video soon?….well not TOO soon haha. I had dinner with some local teachers in Angang tonight! They all seem pretty cool and chill and are REALLY helpful. AHHH! I’m happy I’m here. :] They even treated me to dinner since 1. I haven’t been paid yet and won’t be till April 25th! UGH and 2. I’m the noob. :] Happy happy days. I have internet, I have a phone, and I have people I can hang out with during the weekdays!….kind of! yay!! good times to be had! <3 Will do a more formal update once I figure out where my blog posts went…starting from the plane ride over…sorry it will be out of order. :X but you know…that’s what happens in life. :D nothing can go as we planned and we have to make the best of it. :] will post later! (oh right…we had Korean BBQ tonight. uh…yum face. XO so good) haha. bye bye for now!

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25
Mar

FINALLY….

ok so I have a blog post formally for the first day arrival but I’m too tired to open it right now. BUT Finally…I’m done with my TEFL (useless TEFL!) and I finally went out to hang out with people in the orientation. I had so much fun and I’m so happy. Met/talked to lots of people whoot! Now I’m tired…so tired I don’t even want to blow dry my hair…maybe I’ll wake up in the morning to do it. night world. <3

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20
Mar

My first video in KOREA! :D

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3
Mar

korealife asked: I'm going through GEPIK, the Gyeonggi-do EPIK I believe hehe. I will be at a tiny little school in Paju. They said it was a hagwon, but I am not sure anymore! I want to see what it is like trying to communicate. They said I will be the only English teacher in my school so my fingers are crossed that my Korean will improve quickly X3 Post often! I love reading blogs about the experience! 화이팅! ^_^

awesome! if you applied through GEPIK wouldn’t it also be a government sponsored school? :O I almost applied through GEPIK but I decided to apply for EPIK instead since I wasn’t exactly sure how I applied to GEPIK directly anyways. :] Maybe another time if I want to teach solely up in the Gyeonggi-do province! I’ll make sure to ask you! haha. Good luck!

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2
Mar

korealife asked: I'm going to Korea this month too ^_^ Are you going to be teaching in Seoul? I'll be in the boonies of Seoul haha! Good luck with TEFL :) I did a little dance when I finished mine XD Such a relief!

ahah no. I will be placed somewhere in the Gyeongbuk Province. :D I’m not sad about it though…I think I’m even more excited to see what it’s like without as many English speakers around. Did you apply through EPIK or are you going to a private school/hagwon/public school? Good luck and THANKS…I NEED IT… @0@#