I Teach

The McDonalds' D-Day sign is definitely counting down. In 16 days, I am not going anywhere near that place.

Today was my first day running the classroom. I taught four classes of kindergarten and two classes of first grade. It was absolutely amazing! My observing teacher told me I was glowing the whole time. The kids are so excited to learn and really enjoy engaging the subjects. During a reading lesson using folktales (how the raven carried the sun up into the sky) a six year old girl raised her hand and explained that before Galileo, people used the think that the sun revolved around the earth but that it is actually the other way around. So I taught them the word "heliocentric". And they totally dug it!

During another class, we were writing letters to a friend and one student chose to write a letter to me. Maybe he was kissing up, but I don't care. I felt like I'd just won the lottery, then given the money to charity, and then been given another batch of lottery money from God for being awesome.

My wanderings around Anyang have taken me to some interesting places. I found an incredible coffee shop with green tea lattes, a traditional Korean diner with fried pork cutlets stuffed with tomatoes and cheese, and Orga, the Korean branch of Whole Foods. This place has dozens of colorful fruits and veggies all vacuum sealed in funny little tubes. I will be for sure doing some hardcore grocery shopping when I get settled into my apartment.

Speaking of shopping, I made a luxury item purchase this evening: a fancy designer watch. This is necessity in the classroom and it looks cool. The brand is French, loosely translates to "The Sporting Cock". This brings me to what I hope to develop into a regular feature on this blogue: Korean T-Shirts with Strange English Sayings on Them!

Korean T-Shirts with Strange English Sayings on Them:

Fuzzy Patrol
Enter Your Risk
Janpan Restroom
Lohan Princess (with a picture of Lindsay Lohan)
I Am Style Express Express

This is just a sample of the surreal shit that appears on people's clothing. English writing is everywhere, it just doesn't always make a lot of sense. For example, next to my school is a little lunch window serving bizarre kimchi and pork bun things. Its name? Western Hotdog. Now, there is nothing western about this dish, in theology or geometry. There is, however, a cartoon of a cowboy hotdog on their sign.

It came to my attention today that our school will be going on a field trip this Friday to a children's museum. This will without doubt be another strange and wonderful place for me to glow in. Stay tuned for all that and more!