Pay It Forward

We recently lost one of my co teachers due to her contract finishing.  She was the one who trained me showed me the ropes and shared all of her ideas with me (we taught the same age class).  While she will be sorely missed, we have gained a new teacher to take her place.  We have all been helping the new teacher out so that she can make a smooth transition.  This past week, she got a few big boxes delivered to the school and didn't really have any way of getting them home (we all pretty much live in the same apartment building).  I offered to help and we walked out to the intersection to hail a cab with huge boxes in our arms.  Now, in previous posts, I have talked a little about cab drivers and how they can be picky about who they let in their car.  Cab drivers generally want someone who is not in a big group, someone who has minimal luggage, and someone who wants to be dropped off at a high traffic location.  We fell into 2 of these categories and as we stood there trying to hail a cab, with the huge boxes at our feet, they all zoomed by, not wanting to pick us up.  I was explaining to the new teacher why they don't want to pick us up as she had this discouraged look on her face.

All of the sudden, there is a SUV slowly creeping by with a Korean man at the wheel staring at us.  He pulls over and gets out of the car.  He walks up to us and asks if we need help taking our boxes to wherever they need to go.  We kind of look at each other with skepticism and decide that maybe we shouldn't.  After all, in the good ole US of A, we are taught never to get in cars with strangers.  So, with this in mind (our mothers should be so proud!!), he continues to try to talk us into it.  He says that he used to live in Oregon and that when he was there, so many kind foreigners helped him when he needed it.  His English was pretty good and we could tell that he had definitely either been well educated or spent some time in an English speaking country, or both.  We looked in his car and saw that there was a child seat inside which meant he was a family man, so maybe we could trust him. 

We finally agreed to let him take us, since our place was only a few blocks away and we were together.  He lifted the boxes into the vehicle and when I offered to help, he simply said that he was a man and he should do it. We got in the car and started driving.  He told us he had 2 daughters and he wanted them to speak better English.  I told him what school we worked at and how we really liked the style of teaching that they offer.  He said that he had put his daughter in our school's program at a different branch and that they were displeased with the way that things were handled.  As the new teacher and I tried to talk up our school, he repeatedly discredited it.  Oh well, you win some and you lose some! We also talked a little about the holiday that would occur that same week and how he thought that it was unfair sometimes the way that women were treated in Korea. 

When we got out at our apartment he proceeded to unload the boxes.  When the new teacher asked him if she could give him any money, he said that was very offensive in Korea and that she shouldn't offer money to someone who willingly offers to help you...good to know!   We thanked him multiple times and were so glad getting into the elevator that we had gotten help (those boxes were heavy). 

So, the moral of this story is that you should always try to help people out when you can, because you never know when you are going to need someone to help you.  You also never know where a kind act can lead; PAY IT FORWARD! 

Until next time...

Blue Bear Classroom

When I got to Korea this time around, I was expecting the same ole thing as last time, someone gives me the book that I teach from and I throw in a few activities/arts and crafts every so often.  While this is super easy work, it has no real meaning...at least not to me.  My new school is a North American curriculum based school where we have units mapped out for us for the entire school year, and we make our own weekly lessons based on those units.  No books, just fun and learning.  I absolutely LOVE it!!  I mean it is way more work, but I feel a better connection with the kids and with the actual lessons that we do because they were designed by me to cater to the needs of those kids specifically.  I also have my own classroom and have had so much fun with the decorating process, which is ongoing.  Here are a few pics of my classroom currently (I still have lots of work to do).

 The board with our birthdays on top, class schedule, 

our piggy bank (class reward), colors, numbers, rules, etc.

Our life-sized self portraits (we only had 3 kids in the very beginning).

 This is my big work-in-progress wall.  Currently it is littered with coloring pages the kids have competed in their free/play time and a tree that we add letter crafts to every other week 

(A for apple, B for butterfly, C for caterpillar, etc.).

Our Circle Time area on the mat, probably my favorite time of the day (lots of singing and dancing)!

 The door with all of our names and hopefully we will add a few more!

I'm Back Snitches!

So, I'm back in Korea...as you can see now that I am writing about my life again.  There for a while when I was back home, things were a little boring.  Not boring in the way that I would see the same people all of the time, because believe me, after being away from my family for 2 whole years, it was great to have them around all of the time!!  Boring in the way that I had no friends close by, and travel in America is a BITCH!!  I love that Korea has such an amazing transportation system and oh how I have missed it.  The buses and subways takes you almost anywhere you want to go, and they even have a rapid train to travel longer distances.  The taxis are also SO CHEAP!

I actually just had a rather funny experience in a taxi a couple of days ago.  I was headed to Costco (yes, there is Costco here, who would have thought!?) and was running a little late after a very rude bus driver wouldn't let me on the bus, granted I was trying to get on at an intersection rather than an actual bus stop; they tend to frown upon that, but sometimes I can get away with it because I am a 'dumb' foreigner.  So instead of waiting for the next bus (about 10-15 min), I hailed a cab.  Actually, it is quite a good thing that the bus driver didn't let me on because the one I was trying to get on, was going the opposite direction, so yes, we can remove the 'quotes' from dumb foreigner just this once!  Haha!  Anyway, I was leaning in the front window, asking the guy if he would take me to this particular location to meet up with a friend first (it is good to ask about a location before you get in the taxi because sometimes if they are feeling grumpy, they won't take you there...happens a lot actually).  He said ok and opened the front door to let me in the seat.  Now, I'm not sure what the actual protocol is, but when I have been by myself in a taxi, I have always sat in the backseat.  If there are 3 or 4 of us, umm yeah, somebody has to sit in the front obviously but I generally try to jump in the back so that it isn't me.  So, 'front seat' should have been my first indication of a weird ride. 

The man was maybe in his 70s and was completely shaven bald, which is very rare in Korea unless you are a monk.  Koreans take so much pride in their hair...especially men!  I got in the front seat and for the first 5 minutes of the ride, I swear he stared at me the whole time!  I am not sure how we didn't crash.  Me feeling slightly uncomfortable, decided to just smile the whole time and try to pretend I was playing with my phone.  Finally, he says, "Sooooooooo beautiful girl!"  I told him thank you and tried to act like my phone was super interesting.  He then proceeded to take out his wallet and show me a million pictures of his grandchild, which I must say, they kid was super cute, but I was scared for my life at this point because he is not really paying attention to the road and other drivers were honking at us as we swerved back and forth.  Next, he tries to talk to me in Korean, which I can speak a small amount (very small!), but I do know the "Where are you from?" "What is your occupation?" and "How old are you?" questions and answers in Korean (these are very important get-to-know-you questions here because that is all that you need to know about a person; age, income, heritage...sigh, Koreans).  So after I have now exhausted all of  my Korean language skills, he thinks that I am fluent.  He begins to go into turbo mode and I have no idea what he is saying.  Something about his CD that is in the CD player, something about going jogging every day, something about learning English.  I can pick things up but can't put them together to form complete thoughts.  I politely explain to him that I can only speak a little Korean, but this doesn't deter him.  He then turns off the radio and serenades me with a song that I think is from a Korean drama (soap opera).  The words that he sings are, "I love you."  Talk about an uncomfortable situation indeed!  It was a very long song, and he was not the best singer, but I guess it is the thought that counts...right!?  Ugh! 

When he is finished singing, I can tell that he seems a little embarrassed, but not enough to stop chatting.  He pulls out his wallet again and tells me that he enjoys going hiking in the mountains and that he is scuba certified!!  Now how many 70-year-olds do you know who go jogging every day, climb mountains on the weekend, and are scuba certified?  I know of only one now.  The scuba certification actually peaked my interest a little, because I have been trying to find a place to become certified ever since I first moved here a little over 3 years ago.  At this point, we were to the destination and I didn't get a chance to ask more about it, but I am not so sure that I would have wanted the conversation that would have followed. 

WELCOME BACK TO KOREA!