Update on the Kindy Kids!

So here's a bit of a photo update on my kindergarten kids...they are the 2nd row from the camera. There are 10 of them, 5 boys (Sean, Jay, Eric, Justin and Daniel) and 5 girls (Sandy, Becky, Chloe, Aran and Melody): they are Jupiter Class. We had welcome day for the kids today so there was a small assembly with the boss to talk about the rules and introduce them to the school without their mommies. That lasted about an hour and then they were all mine! There are currently 80 kindergarten children in our school in the mornings, that's a lot of screaming and yelling at playtime I'll tell you now! Happily, at the end of kindergarten I can say without exaggeration: I already love my kids. I have some photos attached for the ones I managed to catch today... the others I'll get soon enough. One of our blocks was in the playroom, so that's where the photos are from.

**You'll notice that I've edited my kid pictures... there were a lot of distractions in the photos, so I wanted to focus more on the kids themselves... enjoy!

Sandy

Daniel

Aran (a-ran, not Erin)

Eric

Chloe

Sean

Becky

Jay

School Today

Though I am now exhausted the day went (mostly) according to plan. The first pickup (bus) of the day was quick since I had only 2 returnees this morning. I got the best bus driver of all, he's friendly, kind to the children, and even speaks a bit of English... we (the 2 kids and I) decided he should have an English name, so they chose Daniel, he thought that was pretty cute and then told everyone at the school when we got back, heheheh.

My kindy kids are cute (there are 10 of them). 2 cried for most of the first class (Sean and Becky), and the rest were good - thank god it was only an hour today! We just had to entertain them in our classrooms while boss talked to their moms, so it was pretty easy. Actually, all of the morning was pretty easy: even the standing and smiling and nodding only lasted about 10 minutes TOTAL! Once the kids were out on their way I had the rest of the morning to prep and plan and photocopy and all that good stuff. A couple more meetings with the boss about the same books and the same pages and the same stuff as the past few days :) and then I had break with Maggie.

She has now decided that when we're in the house "go pee" now officially means "sit on your pee mat and look cute, but don't under any circumstances go pee"... as you can imagine, I am loving this new development! We went for a run after shopping tonight and guess what? She loves running if she gets to run with me off the leash, she was a little speed demon in the park, and you should have seen her race me on the stairs!! It was  adorable, very cute.

After lunch I taught my first 2 'real' classes with boss bopping his head in umpteen times to interrupt me. Needless to say we didn't get even CLOSE to enough of the bookwork done today, but that was to be expected. I love my 2 early afternoon classes, both groups were wonderful and I had a really good time meeting them and getting everything started. Boss repapered our classroom walls over the weekend so there's nice clean paper, also a nice bonus as ugh, they were awful on Friday! Done teaching for the day at about 5 and I*was*wiped! (but very happy).

Went shopping almost immediately this evening (lest I sit down on my bed never to get up again!) for a few things for school. I found the stationary store in the E-Mart (uh-oh for my paycheque) and just bought a few things to make lesson planning and such a bit easier. Mostly I just enjoyed looking around, it was much fun! Also ventured over to AK Plaza a couple of subway stops up from me but (wow) was that ever (mostly) a waste of time. It was fun to see a new neighbourhood but the mall was WAY out of my price range... EVERYthing in it was from Prada or Burberry or Gucci and such, and the grocery store must have been organic or something because WOW it was mah-ni pee-sah-yo (very expensive)!!! Fun though, and I took a couple of videos I'll upload when I figure it out!

So I enjoyed my time after school, and Mags is doing very well in her kennel at home now. I'm no longer worried about her being an only child, I think I have it under control now! I rearranged my apartment because my windows have a bit of a draft that may be contributing to the huge congestion I have going on - it feels SO much BIGGER in here now!! I'll post photos tomorrow, it's late and I'm tired and going to hit the hay I think. Tomorrow after work I (might) go to Costco with some of the other teachers just to look around (and maybe have one of their world famous very-same-as-at-home hotdogs from downstairs!!) and find another new spot near home. We'll see, it's on the 'maybe' list anyway...

So that's all for today, good night!

Pencils, Books, and (Teacher's) Dirty Looks... Yaaaay!!!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the first day of the new semester (the school year for all kids in Korea starts in March). I'm thinking the day is going to look something like this...

• 6:30-7:30am - Get up and take Mags for a walk or a run in the park by the river (ignoring the fact that she does not like running)
• 7:30-8am - Get ready for school, change clothes and redo hair several times to calm nerves
• 8am - Go to breakfast at the kimbap cafe for soup or kimbap or somethin'
• 8:30am - Get a vanilla late from coffeenie before walking to the school
• 8:40am - Catch Bus#1 to get the returnee kindy kids that I'll be picking up for the next year (the 7 year olds starting year-2 of morning English this year)
• 9:10ish - Arrive at school to drink several cups of coffee (thank god for the school coffee maker) while nervously awaiting beginning of 'orientation' for new babies
• 9:50am - Stand 'On Display' (smiling and nodding and appearing the least amount of threatening as possible) in common room while parents and new kindergarten children arrive and stare until the ceremony begins

• 10-11am - Continue on display until end of entirely Korean welcome and orientation ceremony, bowing, smiling and nodding profusely as required until parents and children go home
• 11am-1:30pm - Listen to 5th and 6th explanation from my boss about how I shall teach my classes and what books I will use while nodding and smiling and making agreeable "uh-huh" murmurs
• 1:30-2:50pm - Break with Mags in the park or down at the river before going back to school!
• 3:00-5:00pm - Teach my 2 new classes for 1 hour each "Loving them and making them love English" and the day's OVER!!!

So, I'm a little nervous for the start of the new year. 11 new scared little children who don't know anything in English beyond their ABCs, going to whimper and cry and pee as often as they can manage... I have always really enjoyed teaching, and always done really well, so it will surely be fine. Oh! And since today (Monday) was a holiday I got the skip the super-long-work-'til-7pm day (yay!) until Friday, and I'm all fine with that!! So when the day is done and I've had some kimchi-jigaye I'm off to AK Plaza so I'll have some grocery shopping escapades to share! For now, I think I'll go pick out my clothes for tomorrow so it doesn't take me hours in the morning... Wish me luck!!