August 2010
2 posts
It's been over 2 months you say...
Who’s keeping track! :)
Well, summer vacation is almost over and it’s ridiculously hot here… so hot in fact that I’m just going to stay inside and post on here!
Well it’s almost been six months since I came to Korea and the time went by kind of quick. People have asked me whether I’ve miss the US or want to go back home and I always tell them not really :) Now...
June 2010
1 post
Can We Skip Tomorrow?
My co-teacher is out-of-town tomorrow (on his honeymoon) so I have to teach all 4 classes (3rd-6th grade) and an after-school program class by myself. I’m not sure why I’m making this post instead of preparing for my lessons. Having never prepared a lesson by myself before I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. I’ve been looking for content the last couple of days and...
May 2010
2 posts
Excuse Me, You Don't Look Like Your From Around...
Well, that felt completely backwards. So as I was walking back from the supermarket and a random person asked me where the supermarket was. Granted the only reason they probably asked me was because I was walking with a plastic bag which had a supermarket name on it.
In English I wanted to say “Keep going down this street and take a right and go all the way down that street and it will be...
Still Here
I’m still here and things are going good, sorry for not really posting. Sometimes I don’t think things are interesting enough to post about, but maybe I should just write about stuff anyway.
I promise to post stuff soon :)
April 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Gahoe Girl Squad Badges Of Honor
This is the cell phone that I use in Korea.
You might be asking yourself, what are all those things attached to my phone!? Well, let me tell you…
First, let me talk about the black and white things since they’re unrelated to the story, but you might be curious anyway. The black thing allows me to attach a charger to the phone, I’ll never understand why they didn’t make...
Where toilet paper is the new napkin
So I’ve realized that it’s been about a month since I’ve posted on here… for shame!
I find that I want to post about stuff, but what I want to say winds up being to long so I never get around to it. So this time I’m going to keep it short.
It’s been a little over a month and half since I’ve arrived in Korea. A quick update of what’s happened since...
March 2010
17 posts
Anonymous asked: How are you helping the students learn English, besides just playing games? Are the classes very different from back in the US?
1 tag
It Means What!?
Nah-pun-num!
This word doesn’t mean what I thought it did. Growing up, I heard that word from either my mom or other kids and I always thought it meant “bad person”. Yesterday, I found out that it does not.
So a couple of days ago one of the girls in the 6th grade was being mean to me and I thought I would be clever and call her a bad person in Korean, so I pointed at her and...
Anonymous asked: What are you doing for food these days?
2 tags
1 tag
In A Weekend Far, Far Away...
I’m in the middle of another no plan weekend and I’ve done more then I originally thought I would.
When I first arrived in Hapcheon, I randomly met another foreign English teacher while shopping in the supermarket. At the time I didn’t have a place and I also didn’t have a phone, but he gave me his number anyway so I could call when I finally got a phone. So yesterday...
joowon-deactivated20110409 asked: Hey Billy,
I let Tumblr do a search using my gmail and you popped up. Do I know you?
I'm also an English teacher in Korea.
I let Tumblr do a search using my gmail and you popped up. Do I know you?
I'm also an English teacher in Korea.
3 tags
Last Of Three
I’m at my final school today and I’ve got to say that I like this school better then Gahoe (2nd school). The kids are more active and seem to take part in the classes more. I really like the 6th grade here, I think all we did was play games for two hours. They remind me of the 6th grade from Bongsan (first school), but there’s few more of them.
Unlike the other two schools they...
3 tags
Ridiculous Day
Yesterday had to be one of the most ridiculous school days ever. It was my first day at Gahoe Elementary School and it was closed because of the weather. Of course nobody decided to tell me until I was half way through my bus ride which took an hour and a half. The day started with me having to wake up 5:45am, catch bus at 7:30am which stops in another town at 8:00 and waits till 8:40 before...
2 tags
So Much For Teaching
Sometimes I wish were explained to me a little better.
Today I expected to be teaching a class, but alas that was not meant to be. This morning another teacher joined me in the staff room today and I learned that she was going to be teaching English for today, so I was like “Me too!”. The interesting thing was that the 5th grade teacher that I worked with yesterday for today’s...
Anonymous asked: BILLY!
Congrats on the personal/professional endevor! Nothing is more captivating and rivetting than a "fish out of water" tale. I see you ended up is the deep-souf' of Korea. When you get more setteled you should take a trip out to Busan. There are some really fun resorts/hot springs.
Reading your plight of being a stranger-in-a-strange-land is very...
Congrats on the personal/professional endevor! Nothing is more captivating and rivetting than a "fish out of water" tale. I see you ended up is the deep-souf' of Korea. When you get more setteled you should take a trip out to Busan. There are some really fun resorts/hot springs.
Reading your plight of being a stranger-in-a-strange-land is very...
3 tags
Michael Dooly!
Even though I said that today was mostly uneventful, I kinda forgot to mentions the kids at the school. For most kids I was either the scariest or coolest thing around, blank stares and random outbursts were the norm for me today.
For some reason the 6th grade class decided come talk to me every chance they got. I think it had something to do with the fact that their class was right beside the...
2 tags
Kids Leave Early On The First Day?
So today is my first day at the main elementary school that I’ll be teaching at, called Bongsan (봉산) Elementary.
Before I go on, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the Korean language and how it translates into written English. So the name of my school is Bongsan, which I would assume that most people would try to pronounce what I’ve written as bong-san which isn’t...
February 2010
1 post
1 tag
Random Korean Fact
In Korea, teachers do not get to choose their schools, the government chooses for them.
Teachers can only stay at their schools for five years at a time and then they have to move to another school chosen by the government.
Teachers here go to college to teach at a single school level such as elementary, middle and high school. So for the duration of their teaching career they will most likely...
1 tag
Random Korean Fact
The bathrooms don’t have shower curtains, so water just splashes over everything.
1 tag
Random Korean Fact
Plastic bags cost money at the supermarket, so you have to either bring your own bag or pay-up at the register.
1 tag
Thrown to the Wolves... Maybe I Don't Taste Like...
I hate to say this, but after being in Hapcheon for two days, I was not having fun.
The current situation of being in a completely different country with a different culture mixed with the fact that the teacher from my school threw me to the wolves (otherwise a nice fellow) to fend for myself finally got the best of me and I lost all confidence.
From most of the blogs that I read, I imagined...