New Room, New Classes & A Few Sad Goodbyes.

Today marks the first day of my second term at Chungdahm.  A quarter of the way through my contract!  Over the weekend (which included a short and completely pointless day of training on Saturday) I cleaned out my old room, took down the C.T.P.s from the walls (the critical thinking project posters that my kids had done over the semester), and moved everything into my new classroom.  Holy hallelujah my new class has WINDOWS - if I had a camera or anything capable of taking an actual picture, I would have photos to post here of my new classroom, but that'll just have to wait.  Use your imagination: it looks a lot like my old room, except with windows, it's bigger, and there's less black ink on the walls.  My schedule is pretty similar to last terms - I have Monday half day, so I only work 4-7.  Tuesday, Thursday & Friday I have full days so 4-10.  Wednesday I come in from 7-10, my other half day.  This term will also (hopefully) include Winter Intensives, which are morning classes that a handful of teachers will get to teach.  I kinda sorta made an attempt to tell my boss I'd like to do Intensives, but I didn't want to step on any toes... so we'll see.  The extra money would be really nice, especially on the paycheck right before Damian & Kirk show up (early February)!  Still can't believe those two whack jobs are coming to visit (more on that later).

Anyway, I've only had one class so far in the new term, but it went absolutely great.  The level is Par, so they're slightly lower than my Birdie kids from last term, but still above the other levels I taught apart from Birdie (English Chip which is the lowest, and my Memory Giga class).  The Interactive English classes at Chungdahm are organized using golf terms, so it's relatively easy to keep track of what level is above or below another (Par, Birdie, Eagle, Albatross).  My Par class was great, they all seem to be pretty interactive and smart.  Of course they didn't speak out in class or do anything rude, because it's the first week and kids true colors really don't show until about week 3 or 4, but  I have high hopes for these guys!  Also a few of the other teachers who had them in previous classes said I have a good class, so that's nice affirmation.  Tomorrow I teach Albatross Reading, which is a higher level than I've taught before, so I'll probably have to go in relatively early and do some prep work and make sure I have a good handle on the material.  It's embarrassing to come into a class feeling under prepared, especially with these kids... they're little savants or something, some of them, I swear.  Wednesday I have my Par class again for Listening, then Thursday I split the day between a Birdie Listening and an Albatross Listening class.  Friday I believe I have a Bridge and Birdie Listening, but I might have mixed those up.  This is probably all really boring to anybody who doesn't understand what I'm talking about (aka all of you who read this), but I don't know what else to update about and I'm bored.  Great story.

Maybe I'll try to take some pictures of my class with my stupid flip phone and upload them... or I'll just hold out til my iPhone gets here (shout out to Steve Mulkey, holla).  This week is also the first week without Matt & Marty, two of our teachers who had signed on for another term (Autumn) and ended their contracts last week.  They're on vacation together (couples getaway) in Southeast Asia for a few weeks, then they'll be back in Suji for a couple of days before they both head home.  Matt just for the holidays, then he's back in Seoul in February, and Marty back for good and then he takes off on a huge 6-month bike trip across the states.  It's been weird without them here (and it's only been 3 days - oi vey).  Matt is definitely my best friend in Korea, and Marty has become a good friend as well, so it's weird to not have either of them here.  It'll definitely be even weirder once they come back from their trip and really leave.  Trying not to think about that... we all know how great I am with goodbyes!  Speaking of goodbyes, I had Matt take a picture of me with all of my E.C. kids (the littlest ones, the lowest level that we offer at Chungdahm) that I'll have to remind him to send me... they are so precious.  I hated telling them that I won't be their teacher this term.  I told them to come find me in my new classroom when they come to Chungdahm on Wednesday and say hi.  They all wrote me cute little love letters and some even brought me candy, too.  I love them.

Anyway, that's pretty much all that's going on over here.  The holidays are coming up and that's been a weird feeling, not being home for Thanksgiving and Christmas is right around the corner.  Hopefully I'll be too busy with work and doing pseudo-Christmas-y things with my friends here that it won't feel so lonely.  Love & miss you all.  xox
 

UPDATE!

Decided to post some pictures of a few funny little goodbye notes my students wrote me at the end of last term...

 EC 3 goodbye note... Erica was one of my favorite students.  She's so precious, when I see her in the hallways at school she still runs up and grabs my arm and hangs on me.

 My EC students LOVED to draw me, too. The girls always gave me big anime eyes and tried to make me look pretty, while the boys usually drew me as a barnyard animal or demon.

 These were so cute, Jenny (one of my Birdie Listening students) attached these notes to a chocolate bar and gave it to me on the last day of class.  "Bye Sydney! I can't forgot you!"  Konglish never fails to make me laugh...