Mostly because I am feeling cocky today and I want to brag about how awesome my life is.
That and I miss you?
So my typical day:
I wake up around 7 and leave the house at 7:30.
At 7:30 I walk about 30 minutes to the train station...where I am listening to my ipod to my "Overly dramatic life walking music" playlist. This is my 30 minutes of alone time where I wake up, and also think I am living in a 90s music video. If it's raining I take the bus...I'm not THAT dramatic.
At 8:13 I catch my 8 minute train to Samnangin. Usually I meet up with Mi Gyung, the Special Education teacher, who holds my hand and giggles as we spend the 8 minutes pointing to objects along the way and exchanging the vocabulary in English and in Korean.
At 8:21 I arrive at Samnangin and walk 2 minutes to my school. There I am greeted by the students ("Hello Annie Teacher!") and my buddy Yong..who I have since renamed Jimmy. Jimmy and I exchange pleasantries and I head into the school, where I change into flipflops (Koreans do not wear shoes inside buildings) and make my way up to "The English Zone."
First period I usually either A) Zone out on Facebook B) Send Emails C) Nurse my hangover or D) all of the above. Occassionally I will find the motivation to prepare something for my classes.
At 9:50 my 3rd graders come in. Their homeroom teachers, an older man who speaks NO english and wears suspenders, drop them off and hangs out in the hallway in case any of them get too far out of line. I then proceed to have them repeat phrases after me, play games, dance around, and do my bidding.
After 2nd period, students are made to walk around in circles outside for excersise. The fat students are encouraged to run. I am not kidding.
3rd period brings in my 4th graders, who are the most colorful group. I usually make them act out plays and choreograph dance routines.
5th graders may be my favorite. They are a very intelligent class, and they like to make jokes and laugh at the ridiculously awkward videos I am forced to show them.
Then...there is lunch. The great adventure of the day. Sometimes it is delicious. Sometimes you are pulling tentacles out of your teeth. Lunch is always followed by a school wide brushing of the teeth. It is BYOB of course (bring your own brush).
The 6th graders occassionally show up. Their homeroom teacher is almost fluent in English, so they sometimes don't need me to teach them anything. When they do show up, the class is very fun, though they usually make side handed comments regarding a potential relationship with me and their teacher, which is always sufficiently uncomfortable.
Then...the best part of the day...the kindergarteners. I usually walk into the kindergarten and find them all lying on the floor, sprawled out (I am unsure why as both kindergarten teachers speak no english). They look at me with their little round faces and light up as if I am Buddha's gift of creation. "Annie Teacher you are so beautiful!!!" They cheer, as I fight back the tears of cute overload. I tell them they are beautiful and they giggle. Then I make them point to things and say what it is. "BLUE TABLE" "ORANGE CLOCK" YELLOW SOCK" "ANGRY BIRD". Then I sit them down and show them shapes and they repeat after me as the squirm around on the floor like little bugs. Finally, I put on music and they dance around me like I am some Korean Pied Piper. Then I high five them and tell them I will see them next time. Later in the day I find them hidden in various locations throughout the school: on the slide, in a cubbyhole, in the library, on the stairs eating ants..etc.
Typically the rest of the afternoon is filled with either good ol' Annie alone time, or my second grade entourage comes to visit me. I challenge the entourage to games of Temple Run, Angry Birds, or I make them dance to American Classics like "Single Ladies" or "Call me Maybe" (ok call me maybe is a Canadian song, but Canada is basically America. SUCK ON THAT CANADA!). Sometimes I go find Jimmy and he teaches me Korean. Other times my Principal finds me, and HE teaches me Korean...however he focuses on teaching me how to order alcohol at bars.
Usually around 3, Danny finds me somehow and tells me of an activity I am encouraged to participate in. Sometimes it's mountain climbing. Other times it is staff-wide volleyball.
During Volleyball, we all suit up and divide into teams. We kick all of the students off the gym floor and make them keep score and bring us water, alcohol and food (again I am not joking).
This is followed by an INTENSE game of volleyball where people have gotten balls spiked at their faces, serves bounced off the backs of their craniums, glasses broken, bruises, curds, stains, you name it. typically we will play for an hour or so, take a beer and Soju break, then play for another hour. Often times my principal will call out "hey Annie" and serve it straight for me. Mostly I giggle because the Koreans have adopted American volleyball verbiage and will call out "nice-ah serve-ah" or "mine-ah" or just tell me that I am a "good vorreybarr prayer" which is always a nice compliment.
On mountain climbing days, we trek up a local hiking trail which is like a straight vertical incline. At the top we drink and eat barbecue pork and have long conversations about life, politics, nature....well at least that's what I assume is going on....because everyone is just speaking Korean. Occasionally I can tell hey are
Talking about me due to general pointing in my direction or saying my name, but I enjoy the smaller mysteries in life and don't pressure to ask what exactly they are saying about the crazy "waygook" teacher.
After a long day of awesomeness I go home around 5, where I meet up either the other foreigners and have dinner, go shopping, go for a walk or read by the river. Sometimes I will sit and think to myself what a problem it will be when one day I will have to have a real person job, where I don't hang out with kobabies everyday, where I can't drink on the job with my boss, where we don't play games after hours or hike up mountains. What will I do when I have to actually grow up and settle down and live in reality?
But mostly I just reflect at the craziness of the past year and how lucky I feel to have such cool experiences...even if I don't know what anyone is saying to me ever. Sometimes I think it's better that way.
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