Incorporating "Friends" into Lesson Plan; First Interval Track Workout; Funny Stories

This week has been a very interesting week for classes. I have tried out a lot of new things, and both of the things that I incorporated were ideas that I fully developed within 10 minutes, which makes me feel like I am becoming more and more subconsciously prepared for school-related challanges, which is exciting :)

For Tuesday's 5th grade class, I had told my co teacher that I would prepare a powerpoint presentation with rooms in the house and then superimpose objects in each room so we can ask questions that will help them practice vocabulary. However, since this weekend was busy (I can't use that as an excuse because all of my weekends are busy) and since I was just getting over being sick and I insisted on getting a decent amount of sleep, I did not have enough time to prepare the powerpoint. So when I got to school on Tuesday, we were talking about what kind of activity we would do in place of the powerpoint (and we actually didn't have any other game planned for post-powerpoint either, other than the boring book activity), and I thought, hmm - usually playing a game that involves some kind of curiosity and mild competition bodes well with the kids - so I proposed that we incorporate the last chapter's lesson by having them ask me 'what are you doing?' And I would answer, 'I am making kimchi', or 'I am going to the second floor'. Then I would ask them, 'where am I?' And each group of 4 got a whiteboard onto which they had to write the answer. I think it went pretty well!! And I was happy that I was able to incorporate the last lesson :) But I was actually a bit surprised that I was able to come up with that on the spot. Not that I think it was an amazing activity, but for me and my experience teaching (all of about 6 weeks), I was pretty pumped :)

After class on Tuesday, we talked about the 6th grade lesson that we would teach on Wednesday. The chapter that we are doing in 6th grade is called "Will you help me please?", and the activities/games for this chapter are horrendously boring, so my co teacher asked if I had any better ideas. I hadn't thought of anything good over the weekend (or even just before Tuesday, even though we had briefly gone over this lesson the week before so that we would have time to think of better activities), so I kind of pulled this out of nowhere. I suggested that we use a scene to a movie or a tv show and have the kids first watch the scene with no sound. Then, we could have them write dialogue using some of the phrases we are studying (actually the main phrase we are studying is "will you help me please?" and the other phrases are "sure" and "of course"...seriously...this chapter needs serious help...). I thought doing something like this would give the kids more motivation to actually get involved with this chapter and to get a little bit excited about using these monotonous phrases, which would be compoundedly monotonous if the kids were just to use their picture flashcards and ask their partners "will you help me with my homework?", and have them answer "sure, of course!" (By the way I'm not sure if compoundedly is technically a word but I think it should be so I am utilizing my right of free speech :) ). Anyway, I used the scene where Ross buys a new couch and wants to get it delivered, but since the delivery charge ends up being ridiculously expensive, he decides to take it to his apartment himself. Once in his apartment building he and Rachel and Chandler are trying to get it up the staircase, and at one point the couch mangles Chandler against the railing (not really but you get the point). So I had them write two exchanges, one related to the characters actually picking up the couch and moving it (something to that extent) and then another one pertaining to Chandler's unfortunate circumstance. I thought overall everything was going decently well. The kids did get a little rowdy doing this, but they are always rowdy. However, my co teacher did express a degree of discontent towards the end of the last class; we showed the scene with sound after everyone was finished reading their dialogues (which was not something we had to do, I did not insist on that), and at one point (a point which was actually past the 20 second snippet for which we had them write dialogue) Chandler says to Ross "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UPPPPPP" because Ross is being...Ross (but don't get me wrong, I love Ross). In some of the classes, after showing this scene, the kids started to repeat "shut up", and so my co teacher said that she didn't think the exercise this was a very good idea because they weren't paying attention much in general and now they are all saying "shut up". I felt really bad about this, but I was thinking, ok, there is no way we will get them all to pay attention/contribute anyway unless we make each one of them speak individually, which would take wayyy too much time - and also we didn't have to show that part. But still, I feel bad, because if kids are going around the school now saying 'shut up' (especially to teachers..! oh no...I'm scared that that might happen...), then the teachers are going to wonder where they heard it from (not like they couldn't hear that on their own from American tv shows or anything but if they all are saying it then people will be suspicious), and if they say 'we learned it in English class! Teacher Catie taught us!' ...crapppp. Whatever. I hear some kids in Allak (I did this at Dong Sang) say 'shut up' (which I stare them down for even if they don't know what they are saying) so its not like they would be shielded from ever hearing those words. But there is nothing I can do now so I have to try and chill and just hope that the kids behave themselves. So that was my experience teaching Friends in 6th grade. Haha.

Wednesday was also my first track workout with intervals. I won't go too much into it, but it was amazing. I looooove intervals!!! Oh man. It was pretty short because Tuesday we did out week's long run, so we only ran for 30 minutes today. But we did sets of two laps, first lap easy, second lap hard. And we decreased the time for the second lap by 5 seconds for every set (or atleast that was the plan but it ended up being more sporadic than that...and actually ended up being much faster than we originally intended...:) :) ) But that was great. I am definitely a little sore today! I love it :) Although I have been sleeping through my morning workouts because I have been so tired, but that is only because I am afraid of getting sick again. If I get 8, or even 7.5 hours of sleep, then there is no way I will skip a morning workout; but it I only get 6.5 hours and I feel really tired upon waking then sometimes I can justify it...but now I'm sad because I didn't get to ride this morning... :(.

So after practice we went to eat some delicious meat and noodles, and talked about marathons. We were talking Tuesday about marathons, and I told Coach that I had never just a marathon before, and come to think of it, never a half marathon either. I have only run those distances in triathlons (although it might be misleading to say I 'ran' them because in both cases I definitely did not run the whole way, and not even close to it). So I asked him if there were any marathons or half marathons in Korea before April, and he said he would check it out. So at dinner he pulls out some information on a marathon in late January...!! Perfect!! Well, early February would probably be perfect but late January is fine too - I think I will have enough time to prepare from now until then, and then I will definitely have enough time post-marathon to recuperate before IM China. YAYYYY. My first marathon!! Especially since I plan on running the whole way in IM (or as much as I can, save the occasional feedings), it will be nice to see if I can actually run a whole marathon without walking having to deal with battle scars (or more appropriately, cardiovascular deterioration) from the pre swim-and-bike portion. And also I will have to set my time goal as faster for the marathon...so it will be a very interesting experience. Ah!! :) I love life!!!!

As for the funny stories - well, I will just grace you with one for now, because even though I don't have classes today (I am still at school but we were supposed to have a field trip today but it is raining so it is cancelled, and apparently now so are classes to-boot...:) ) I still have things to do, like lots and lots and lots of Korean... but anyway. So Coach and I were talking about resistance training, because I voiced the concern of not getting in enough strength training to keep my knees healthy for marathon training (although just to be clear that will not stop me, it is just going to keep me more busy finding ways to realize this necessity). So we are talking about muscular strength, etc, and then we start talking about water resistance, and then he adds in 'air resistance'. 'Have you ever heard of air resistance?' And he draws me a picture (I almost spit out my guk-su (noodles/soup) Just because it looked like skydiving at first and I don't know...both my imaginative visualization and the picture was quite humorous). But apparently it was someone on a bike with a TIRE rolling behind!!! He said before all of this more sophisticated resistance research and technology was developed, they used to do things like tie a car tire to the seatpost and hop on the bike and pull!! Oh mannn. Hahaha - then he said - usually we used the small car tires (I didn't understand, because small + car tire + me + riding my bike = by no means would I classify a car tire as 'small'), but occasionally we would use big truck tires...!!!! HAHAHA. I started laughing like crazy, and he was laughing harder than I have ever seen him before, so uninhibited. It was great. That must have been such a great time for him, and I can just imagine him thinking back to those days and not being able to control his reminiscence of the adventurous and unbelievably fun days that he used to have with hauling truck tires behind he and his friends on bikes. Truck tires. Oh man. Dude, those things are bigger than bikes. They could run you over from behind!!! Haha. I would pay good money to have been able to watch that.

Alright. Time to study. The next entry should be interesting because we have a long training weekend and Coach won't be there because he will be at the Asian Games in Bali. I hope you enjoyed this post, because I really enjoyed writing it!