Concerning cautious optimism

Well, if you are still reading this after the whiny rant of my last post, kudos. This blog will be a bit more cheerful, I promise. After writing that friday night (and despite how self-indulgent it seemed, I think it was good that I realized what was bugging me), I woke up saturday and headed off to Seoul for some teacher training. We found the building really easily, being the cosmopolitan Seoul veterans that we are, and strapped in for our 3 1/2 hour long presentation. The first section was really helpful, introducing a new type of class for our kindies which I am not, as of yet, teaching, but I am freely stealing some of its games to play with my kids. There were some really helpful videos of this guy teaching this particular lesson. Around break-time, my coffee perk deserted me so the second half kind of drudged by. It, too, was helpful in its own way and gave me some ideas to implement with my afternoon kids to help them do better on our company wide standard exams that monitor their progress. One of the best ideas was to turn the frequent dialogues that we go through in the book into a movie. This was a much needed development, because in one of my classes, I have become such an automaton that we mechanically went through the dialogue as usual and then just as I was about to say "Any questions? No? Are you sure? OK, workbook!", my students said it for me. Ahem. Time for a change, I'd say. They cracked up when I made a student curl their book into a tube to be "cameraman" and I, as the director, shouted out "Action!" and "Cut!" I usually try to be creative in my classes as it's waaaaaaaay more fun for both them and me but I had let this one slip through the cracks. My two oldest classes are less than thrilled that I purloined a "one minute speech" concept from the training as well, to be implemented at our next class, but they are a little more enthusiastic at the chocolate pie bribery that will await them upon completion. I think this will be really good, relaxed practice to help their fluency in stringing together sentences.

After the training, Asteria recognized two guys who went to Whitman (who are apparently not the two people from Whitman that I already knew about- my little college is slowly taking over South Korea, colonizing it one bottle of wine and onion at a time. Our old president, Tom Cronin, is also here. Weird.) so we talked to them for a second before moving on to my favorite portion of my day...shopping. We hopped a subway to Insadong, the touristy area of Seoul but also one of the best market streets ever. There were a lot of traditional Korean stuff like hamboks and painted paper things and antiques and jewelry and GORGEOUS ceramics. If I could think of any possible way to get the ceramics home with me, my bank account would be in trouble. Some of it was also not so genuine but I really really really liked walking around and beginning to accrue Christmas presents. There were also two guys giving free hugs so we hit them up before getting some cool traditional cookies called "Dragon's Beard." It's basically spun sugar in a spidery web around a mildly sweet nut mixture. Fun to eat. After, we went to Itaewon (the foreigner district) for an OK French dinner of mustard chicken and a mediocre waffle. I am so aware of how much of a snob this makes me....but you can't beet the Belgian waffles in France and, go figure, BELGIUM. But, it was good enough, and sent us on our way full and happy.

The next morning, I felt a little under the weather, so I redefined "Lazy Sunday" and didn't move from the same spot on the couch. For the whooooole day. Yep. Monday was a breezy day at work that went well because I was still riding on my wave of training motivation. I noticed that a grammar lesson for NYU was a little scanty on quotation marks so I wrote them a short Halloween story about all of them and had them all read their own parts, slyly reinforcing quotation marks as we went, and they ate it up. We even turned off the lights and pretended that it was a scary story, so that was fun. Yesterday, we had more teacher training, but it was only two hours in the morning here at school. After, Asteria and I went for really nice workout at our gym.

An aside on the gym: Korean gyms are bizarre. First off, the machines are really hyperbolic. There is either no resistance at all, or, if you increase the setting by even one, the machine magically transforms into a medieval torture device. Imagine that. They are pretty convenient, I will give them that, as they provide the workout clothes for you to wear. Most just go with that but I have also seen velvetine sparkly bell bottom jazz pants, panty hose, and even bare footed treadmilling so the fashion thing is a bit of a variable. I also got a peak at one of the three types of classes that they offer (yoga, jazzercise, and aerobics) and it looked great and difficult. I even saw a pilates move or two, so yay, though the instructor was a little scary-- a young musclely guy with shaved legs who moved around and physically made the women do the exercise who were too tired to finish themselves. Oh dear. Well, I'll get fit whether I am willing or not.

Anyway, after doing some free weights, we hit up the spa area which I liked even more than Yuseong Hotel. It was pretty nice (not the least so because it's completely included in our gym package...) because there were frog fountains around the pools and a big Aphrodite statue in the middle. Sounds kitch, and it is, but nice in a yay femininity kind of way. There were also more massage jets, and the temperatures were less extreme so I could take advantage of more of the areas. There was even a sauna that I could brave that had a really pretty mosaic of semi-precious stones AND some hot tile bed cave thingies that you could lie in. True, they had stone pillows that reminded me uncomfortably of Memoirs of a Geisha but it was veeeeery relaxing. The only slight hiccup was the low grade anxiety of being naked in public so close to the school...I've heard horror stories of some of the younger kindie boys accompanying their mothers only to jump out in the locker room to say hi to their teachers. Having a spa less than a block from work has its convenience but exacts its pound of flesh in a distinct hyperawareness when in the women-only areas.

Once fully steamed, soaked, heated, and scrubbed, we got some quick groceries and a snack of popcorn chicken and mandu, watched HP 6 and then Asteria made me tell her the entirety of HP 7 right after. That, of course, ate up the rest of the day right there and it was a pretty good one. So...still trying to change my mentality with regards to where I am and taking advantage of it but I have lowered my voice a few octaves below shrill panic and enjoying a nice few days. OH, and mom and dad left for their 3 month cruise a few days ago and, despite an early technology snaggle that made me think I might not be able to talk to them voice to voice for those whole 3 months, are happily sailing the Panama Canal tomorrow. Exciting! My family has never been so all over the place. But, it was really adorable because the parents sent me a Christmas package that will dutifully stay in the deepest darkest corner of my little wardrobe until December 25th. I had to take some food care package stuff and saw the carefully wrapped presents with the little tags "To Becky, From Mom" and all right yeah I cried (JUST a little) but it was a very sweet and welcome reminder of home.

So, sappiness aside, I'm have a relatively quiet weekend here in Daejeon. The big highlight is...COSTCO. I kid you not....neither that there is a Costco here, nor that it is actually the anticipated highlight of my weekend. I think all will be explained when I reveal that not only does it have cheese (a hot commodity here), but PIE which I will be investigating for Thanksgiving purposes. That's about it for now, KEEP THE EMAILS and COMMENTS coming and miss you all!

Love, me.