My Favorite Student: Jersey Girl!

Well this week has turned out good so far. I was stressing hardcore on Sunday night about a lesson plan for the grade 4's because the "How Old Are You" unit is so boring and hard to come up with activities for. I finally had the help of a friend, which made for a very easy activity. I basically scrambled the sentences on a computer program that did it for me and they had to unscramble the sentence to read properly. Monday started off boring because it was with the grade 4's and we all know I can't stand the co-teacher. Anyways, the classes actually went smoother than I anticipated, but when she talks to me I go crazy. The first class of the day had a new girl in it. She just moved to Korea from New Jersey, USA. This already makes her my favorite student. I will likely be giving reports every time I see her and talk to her. She is adorable and obviously has great English skills. Her and I could easily carry on a conversation and at a rapid pace. The Korean teacher can hardly understand her when she speaks English in an English class, so I actually have to repeat what the student says to my co-teacher in slow broken English. I think Jersey girl and I could be very good friends :) I just hope she doesn't lose her English because of how crappy the curicuulum is here. The English she is learning at school here she learned in grade one in America, poor poor girl. After school I went to buy my gym membership with Tracy. It's 150,000 won for 3 months, which is resonable and no different than back home. All I had to do was sign this small piece of paper and have my finger print scanned. When I paid the guy 150,000 won cash he gave me 20,000 won back and said, "Discount." I was like, "Very nice, thank you very much!" He just smiled and we laughed and I'm set to start tomorrow, so that is very exciting. The best part is I have three friends that work out at the gym, so I can now have workout buddies. It will be so nice to get back into the routine of going to the gym. Then I rounded up some friends and we took a trip to Costco. I promised myself I wasn't going to buy anything too heavy this trip because I had to get it home on my own. Well, I decided to buy a big 4lb peanut butter because I eat it all the time...bad idea. It was the heaviest thing I bought. Lugging a huge Costco bag full of good stuff home is hard work when you have to take two trains and then a bus. Poor Tracy had it the worst because she is a short little thing and the bags were bigger than her and heavy, so she really struggled home. It was the greatest trip to Costco yet, we ordered more food at the cafeteria than we knew what to do with, we each bought one full cloth bag full of good stuff and we had a load of laughs. We are already ready to make our second date. When I got off the train at my station I was really struggling with my bag. As I was walking up the stairs to the bus this middle aged Korean guy came up to me and offered to help with my bag. I couldn't let him carry it by himself because it was that heavy, so we each held a handle up the stairs. It's nice that there are a few decent and kind people in Korea. I was completely shocked at his kindness, but I won't ever forget it. We met to go to Costco at 6:00 p.m. and I didn't get home until just after 10:00 p.m. so it was a bit of a later night than I was hoping for. Today at school I had the grade 4's once. I swear that the grade 4's are the worst when it comes to learning and speaking English. Anyways, I handed out the sentence scramble worksheet and you can always tell who the students are who know the answers and don't try or just genuinely don't care. I spent 10 minutes with this one student who moaned and groaned as I walked him through the worksheet. On top of that, he was playing with a stupid rubber band and not paying attention to my help. I took the rubber band away and told him to listen and try because I knew he knew the answers. Well, we did the first five questions together where I basically told him what to write and then he finally caught on and finished the last five questions on his own. I then congratulated him after bitching at him for the first five questions and told him that I knew he could do it. You got to build their confidence up if you expect them to continue to try or try at all. My last class of the day got cancelled because of the 'earthquake' drill that was taking place. Yes, an earthquake drill. Koreans are so obsessed with bad stuff happening to them that they take ever percaution to prepare and avoid it. MAD COW, Bird Flu, etc. In light of the recent earthquake in China they were practicing what would happen if there was an earthquake. I would think a fire would be more likely to start than an earthquake. Anyways, Jiny and I sat in the office during the drill, so we have no idea how to deal with one, well I do, but I'm not sure she does. Basically, get under a desk or in a doorway. Since my office is on the fifth floor of the school I'm pretty much dead if there is an earthquake. This earthquake drill took place at every school throughout Incheon today. I think it is ridiculous myself, but I don't make the rules. I spent the entire afternoon watching a movie and finally talking to my sister. I miss her a ton and finally getting to talk to her (MIA for over two weeks) and hearing her voice on Skype made my day. After school I had taekwondo, but since I didn't want to go to Bupyeong and hang out for an hour and a half before class started I went over to Nick's place and ate dinner and watched him clean his apartment after 5 weeks of it being dirty. GROSS! Then Tracy graced us with her presence and I hung out for about an hour and then headed to taekwondo. I'm hoping I can come visit Tracy or Nick every day before taekwondo to pass the time. I always dread going to taekwondo because it's so far to go two days a week and I don't get home until close to 10:00 p.m. Tomorrow is bowling night, so I must get my rest. P.S. My camera has been fixed for the second time and couldn't be more excited. Pray with me that it remains unbroken for a while longer.