Month Numero Uno

So as I sit here writing this for all of you at home and around the world it is 2 days before my one month anniversary with Korea. I still can't believe it has been this long, it seems like yesterday I was packing up my things and leaving home. Time has just flown by and if this month has been any indication on how my time here will be, I can assure you that I will be home in no time.

Alright so this month has been an eventful one from floods, to new apartments, to being sick, to teaching, to mud...

Teaching...

Teaching has been a blast!!!! I love my kids! I can honestly say that Mookkhang English Academy has made this ESL teaching thing a breeze. We work from 4 pm to 10:20 pm Monday to Friday and we show up and gather our already made lesson plans and teach relatively well behaved children...

Of course there are the "problem" children, but they tend to be the ones I like the most, because they definitely make teaching interesting. Getting to know the kids in my classes has also been really fun. Of course I have my favourites but overall I really enjoy them all.

The Korean names are hard to learn sometimes, they can be VERY hard to pronounce and hard to remember when you have 75 kids (not all at once but in all the classes I teach) so we ask them to give themselves western names to make it easier for us. Now take a moment to think back to when you were young, and given the opportunity to rename yourself what would you have chosen? Well most kids pick fairly common names: Ann, Sam, John, Nick, Richard, Ally...but then you get the ones that choose less conventional names. Here is a list of my favourite names:

Harry Potter
Superman
Prince
King
The Hulk
George Washington
Mr. West
Ha Ha Ha
Zerg
F-Killer (this is a brand of mosquito repellent here in Korea...hehehe)
Killer
Pass
Person (he had named himself Boy at first but decided Person was better!!)

It's very hard to not laugh when you're yelling at a kid but you have to call him King..."Hey!! King stop speaking Korean!!"

The New Place...

So I've finally moved into my new apartment. Its pretty nice. A little bit bigger than my temporary and MUCH MUCH closer to my school. I am in a good location, very central, and I'm really liking everything. The next step is making it more home. I need to get a few essentials and I should be set. I will post pictures as soon as I can but my camera battery is charging as I write this entry so that must wait.

Boryeong Mud Festival...

The school organized a road trip to this years Mud Festival. What is a mud festival you ask?? Well apparently this mud is special and is very good for the skin. They have marketed the mud as skin products. For us it was more like a trip to the beach. Overall it was a great time and a very memorable weekend. Here are some of the pictures. ENJOY!!!