Hey, look at that!

Another update and we’re still in the month of April!

I’m keeping with the short and sweet updates to help me keep on top of things and so as not to bore you to death through repetition of my normal, everyday life.

Here we go then…

I’m still here in Korea.

I feel it is always going to be important to point this out, given there is such a high incidence of people who come here and then very quickly quit. I want to at least feel pleased I am showing some type of fortitude.

And it’s not that I’m just ‘sticking it out’. Shhhh. Keep it to yourself, but I’m actually enjoying living in Korea right now. I’m always worried about saying good things about life, for fear they will suddenly change. And while I am satisfied with what I have right now, I definitely don’t need it to get any harder, that’s for sure.

My teaching has been continuing in much the same vein as before. Almost another month down and every week is still a race to try and keep on top of lesson planning and making sure that I understand what is happening with the school schedules and when. Some news I get is fairly last minute – yesterday I just learned I don’t need to teach my middle school next week due to midterms. I had no clue that was a thing for them. Two weeks ago, my elementary and middle schools swapped my days for teaching at short notice, which really threw my schedule out of whack not to mention confused me on the bus schedule front.

Still, it is all ‘manageable’ right now. And so I’ll take that as a win.

I’ve had some nice moments recently with a few of my students. I have more of my individual high schoolers engaging with me. Occasionally they will stop me in the hallway to try and tell me things in English. I have one particular student I see walking to her academy in the evenings and without fail she always cheerfully greets me. I’ve had a couple of students share candy with me in class, and one who approached me after class to put hand cream on my hands for me (odd for me, but a thing here). Really small things, but they make me feel happy deep down inside.

My middle school kids continue to be both a bane and delight. I never realised coming to teach English in Korea would require me to start memorising the names of random English Premier League football players and how to spell them. I also have had to brush up on team names and the names of the positions played in the game. But doing this has given me a small in with some of my harder students. I recently discovered, and was amazed by, the fact that my students are in fact so football obsessed because they attend a football academy. They have moved from different parts of the country to attend the boarding academy with dreams of becoming professional players, and as a result attend the local school together for their regular education.

This. Makes. So. Much. More. Sense. Now.

Armed with this information, for my most difficult class I now make sure I plan for questions I can ask them about the matches they play in, what their role is, and anything else football related I can find. They might still have no interest in learning English, but at least I can try and pass a certain amount of time in class less painfully (hopefully) by trying to occasionally pique their interest.

As for my elementary school kids…they’re still cute. On some days I find the older groups more interesting, and on other days I love singing with my 3^rd graders instead. Every week is a bit different.     

Currently, spare time is a little bit of a luxury for me. As I said, playing catch up is mostly what I do. However, I am now getting to the point where I am trying to rectify that.

To start with, I have joined a badminton club. Once a week I will make the effort to catch a bus over to a local school where they have a club for adults. It’s a mixed group, with mostly Koreans but some English teachers too. It’s very friendly. You just turn up, hang around on the sidelines, and then people invite you to play in the doubles matches. I don’t need to speak Korean beyond being able to say ‘Thank you’, I’m sorry’, and ‘Fighting’ (kind of a Let’s go! chant). One gentleman last week practiced with me and and gave me tips on racquets to buy, he had very good English skills. One thing I have learned from this – I’m really unfit.

Last week I finally made the effort to resume my online Korean lessons. I was devastated (but not surprised) to discover my skills had declined to an embarrassing level. I really couldn’t expect anything less given I haven’t studied AT ALL since I took my TOPIK test last October. Ooof. That hurt. So, it’s time to take some inspiration from my hard-working students and get back to studying.

Finally, I am still playing my DnD game on Sunday nights with my little group of adventurers. I’ve really come to like it and have something really different to look forward to each week just before school starts again.

And just before I go, I want to let you know that I did indeed attend the EXO fan meeting a couple weeks back, and yes, it was fantastically amazing and my seat this time was so close, I didn’t even need binoculars! The arena, despite being 3 billion miles away from Seoul proper and a pain in the backside to get to and from, was a really good venue. The stage setting worked well and the sound quality was far better than the KSPO dome last year.

And I don’t want to make you jealous any further but, I have just managed to score a ticket for D.O.’s first solo concert in Seoul in June. Crazily, with just 6,600 tickets up for grabs, I managed to get a seat for one of the 3 performances. There were 83,000 people who logged on to try and get seats and I give quiet thanks to whoever gave me the luck to snag one. I almost had a heart attack form the shock.  

It is no lie when I say once I have seen his concert, I can die perfectly content.

You best steel yourselves now for THAT blog post in June.

Keep safe and happy everyone!