So that was Monday and Korean lessons (Part 1). Tuesday - hmmm. Ok well I will talk a little about school on Tuesday (and also just in general about Korean children and dancing...) So, I love how third graders are uninhibited...when we sing songs, many times the children get up and start dancing like crazy. It is SO adorable. It looks like they are having harmless and extremely enjoyable seizures. And another thing that they do is tickle each other. Sigh. It's so cute. The teachers (or at least my co-teacher at Dong Sang) tells them to when the songs are in intermission from the verses (I don't know what that part of the song is called...shame on me...). Oh! And some of them will rub each others' heads...(sometimes it is harder than a rub, more like a scalp...somewhere between a massage and a beating). Ah. I'm so glad I have third graders! The sixth graders will sing too, but they don't dance like that - they are much more inhibited...naturally. But still.
Tuesday night I went for another swim with Chol. YAY. At one point during the swim I was doing a flip turn and pushed off of the wall into a man...that was interesting...hahaha. To be fair, it technically wasn't my fault because the rules (yes, even in Korea, I wasn't assuming the rules in the US were universal) of the lanes are you always stay on the right hand side. But I was swimming up on the right hand side, and did a flip turn, and went to push off into the right hand side going back, and he was right there - so he was coming up the lane on the left hand side and technically shouldn't have been there. Normally I would have come above water and said "I'm sorry", but people don't say "I'm sorry" in Korea when they walk into you - at least I have never heard it, and they taught us in orientation that Koreans usually don't say anything when they walk into you (for example if people are getting on on the subway and pushing their way through...I like it better actually, saves time). Anyway...come to think of it now, I probably should have noticed the man...whatever. But anyway, I didn't come above water, I just kept on swimming...?! I told Chol later and he smiled and asked if I had said "I'm sorry" and I was like...what?? Crappp. I definitely didn't...Oops!
Wednesday. Today, I gave out my first grades. ! (Yes, that punctuation is intentional.) We were doing the lesson "I Like Apples" in the 3rd grade, and they had a speaking test. There are four parts to each lesson (like 4 lessons in a chapter type-of-thing), and on the fourth part they have a test. Sometimes it is written, etc. Today, it consisted of the kids making a picture of the foods they liked (next to a smiley face) and the foods they didn't like (next to a sad face). Then, they came up to the front of the room and said "My name is ___. I like ___. I like___, etc, I don't like ___. I don't like___." I sat in the back and gave out grades. It was weird...I felt kind of powerful...haha. Mun-Jeong (my co-teacher at Dong Sang) told me to give grades of 1, 2, and 3 or A, B and C, so I did the latter. However, there was a lot of discrepancies between their abilities and more importantly, their efforts, so I gave out +s and -s (also, I didn't want to give a C as long as they showed any sign of effort because I know how hard it is to speak in front of people, so the lowest grade I gave was a B-, and that kid really wasn't trying much at all). Anyway. We didn't finish the tests so we will be doing more of that next week. That was a fun class!
I also got my computer set up at Dong Sang today, with a printer! Yay! :) Oh! Wow I almost forgot this part - ! So after class while I was studying Korean, I had a question so I went up to the board and wrote something and asked Mun-Jeong if it was right. We started talking about Korean for a little, and she was making a comment that "it is kind of difficult"m referring to a grammar point. And I said "oh, it's not bad, I know this stuff from Tamil." And I made an example on the board (in Tamil script - I haven't used that in a long time! Well, 4 months - but still). One example turned into one hour of explaining some Tamil grammar and pronunciation and the alphabet...it was AMAZING. Ah. I forgot how much I love languages! (Not that I don't recognize it here when I am learning Korean, but I get SO excited learning about different grammar points that exist in other languages that aren't in English. For example, one thing I was telling her was that in Tamil, you would never say "I am reading a book", because that sentence is too vague. You would always have to specify why you are reading the book - e.g. for your own pleasure, or for school, or to learn how to knit, etc. - and I was getting SO happy and so excited. I think I might of jumped up and down at one point...haha. I clapped my hands a lot too. I think I may have to pursue a career in Linguistics and/or Languages...maybe I can combine that with sports, like coaching/exercise physiology - that would be a PERFECT job - but I realized that I absolutely love languages and linguistics and I think I am going to start looking at schools online to see what is available. For next year. Or maybe the year after. I'm excited - one reason I came to Korea was because I didn't know what I wanted to do, and was hoping to figure that out here - and I might have done just that. Not that this would be a surprise to anyone who knows me, because I am a linguophile (sp? that's just ironic if I spell that word wrong...) at heart. Oops. I just realized I didn't close my parenthesis from several lines above... so here...)
Anyway. After school I went to PNU for my track workout. Coach said that today was going to be an easy run, and I'm thinking, ok, sweet. Nice and chill. But he also told me that he lost his swim stuff yesterday, along with his stopwatch (which he usually carries with him when we run). I didn't think anything of it, especially since he usually doesn't keep up with us when we run faster workouts...But we started nice and slow, and after about 5 laps he started picking it up (granted also it was raining - cool, and very low humidity - so easier to run faster) and I'm thinking, ok sweet, we are going to go a little faster. But he keeps going faster and faster and at about 5/6 of the way through the 40 minute workout he runs a lap at a 6:48 mile pace!! That KILLED me! I was reading off lap times because he didn't have his stopwatch (and mine doesn't give lap splits so I am both calculating the time of each lap in relationship to total elapsed time as well as reading the lap times off in Korean...that was awesome :) And I was saying "_minutes_seconds have passed" in Korean -I learned how to say 'has passed'... :) :) :) ) But after that lap (we had about 2 1/2 to go...I took off my watch and gave it to him and said "here, you take this" so that he could go ahead and know his splits because I wasn't planning on being able to run 2 1/2 more laps at a 6:48 mile pace..haha...but he slowed down a bit and ran with me the rest of the way. That was a SICK workout. Coach busts out the big guns. All because he doesn't have a feel for pace without his watch. So now I tell him he has no excuse to not do Ironman China with me. 6:48mile pace, after 35 minutes, not even breathing hard. SICK.
After the workout, we were all supposed to go to Dong-a University, where one of my teammates goes to school. Dong-a is having a festival this week and he invited us there for some wine and soju. I was really excited (and a little nervous...) about this. At dinner Coach asks me if I remembered that the festival was tonight, and I say 'yes...' and he asks me if I can still go. So I'm like, ok, sweet. This will be interesting. But apparently Coach wasn't going to come with us Wednesday and it was just going to be me and Song-in - and he ended up getting a bunch of homework that night so he could go...! :( They said they were probably going to go Friday, thought, and asked me how that was for me. I actually had plans on Friday though! I had just asked two of my co-teachers if I could take them out to dinner...and I hate to cancel something like that...but I really wanted to do this team activity, and go see my friend's University. I ended up asking my co-teachers on Thursday to reschedule, and I had also made plans for after dinner that I asked to reschedule. (I know what you are probably thinking...and if so, yes, it's true :) ) So I go to practice Thursday and make sure that we are still going Friday, and Coach says...mmm, maybe, I'm not sure. Ahh! Nooo. I hope we still go! In any case I retro-scheduled (ha I can't believe I have a situation where I am able to use that phrase) for the later activity, sadly assuming that I won't be able to go to the University tonight, but if I end up going I will just leave early :( Wayyy too complicated, I know.
I'm going to publish this now and go onto Part 3 because this is already too long.
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