Goodbye Wangsan Middle School
Bittersweet goodbyes.
Wangsan Middle School is my smallest school with 20 students. I only go to the school once a week to teach classes and I don’t always see my students every week. There was a two month hiatus after my coteacher was in an accident and a substitute teacher took his place. I had learned to recognize most of my students names but unfortunately with the absence of not going I forgot almost all of them. Though if I have a list of names I am more likely to pinpoint the right name to the right student.
…Do you wanna build a snowman?! Damn you Frozen.
For those of you who haven’t seen Disney’s new animated movie, Frozen, you are lucky. Personally while the story was cute there was way too much singing for me. Unfortunately, if you are an English teacher in Korea this movie and its songs are pretty popular. My co-teacher wanted to do a lesson on the song, “Let it go,” lucky for us most of the students didn’t show up to school because of snow on Friday, and the teacher’s also showed up late.
…Delivering Coal
Our school does a lot of community service. Now most of the time I’m not aware of the community service as it happens on days or hours I am at another school. Which is a shame because I like participating with my students.
…Winter Garden BBQ Party!
My school wanted to have a garden bbq party. My principal bought wine for the occasion and we were going to grill fish and eat cows hearts (쇠염통).
…Korean Banking 101
Living as an Expat there are a lot of Banks that are recommended to go with when you live in Korea. KEB and Citibank seem to be the two that most people recommend. With that being said if you live in a city your options are pretty limitless, however, living in a rural part of the country your options are normally limited to one. My only option is Nonghyup bank as that is what my school uses.
…Off to Gangneung
Today I met up with a few other English teachers who are placed in Gangneung. I am about 25 minutes away by bus. So this morning I set out early to leave and I asked to make sure I got on the right bus even though I knew it was the right bus. I like to double check these things. A middle-aged man befriended me and talked to me a bit on the bus and then before I knew it, I was at my stop, luckily I saw Home plus out of the corner of my eye. I arrived around 9:30 a.m. and I wasn’t supposed to meet up with anyone until 11:45 , so I grabbed a coffee and enjoyed the wifi. I decided to take an aimless walk and found a historical place in the center of the city and then I went to Daiso (A cheap store similar to the dollar tree kind of), and then off to Home plus I went.
…