It's Cool in Fall

What is this?

  What type of blog is this?? 

I read on some page somewhere that all blogs should fall into some sort of category... Which got me thinking. Is this a travel blog?? I certainly talk about my travels, but I don't know if the whole content falls here. It's def not a cooking blog, although I do post what I am eating and have been known to add a recipe here and there...

Lifestyle blog? Maybe... But I feel that implies I need to either have kids or talk more about my sex life (gotta have one to talk about it I spose...)

So what will I call this? I think it is a "life experiences/conversational/mind dump" blog. Hope this title is ok with everyone...

*mental note to change the blog description*

#wantsmoretraffic

#missuseofhashtags

#hashtags4lyf

What really happens in Johto...

  Myself and a friend got chatting the other day, and for whatever reason our conversation turned to one of my favourite topics - pokemon. He raised some disturbing points that I want to flesh out here on my life experiences/conversational/mind dump (henceforth called ECMD blog). 

  First, I want to say that these are questions that can be applied to all Pokemon regions, not just Johto, but as I am playing Pokemon Ruby on my phone atm, note that I am referring to the Johto region and all Pokemon I mention will be from there. 

  Ok. So, you get given a Pokemon by the good Profession Littleroot, and you start catching Pokemon. You battle with them, and end up a champ. Let's apply this to a real life situation. You capture an animal and train it to battle until it passes out. Some of them you keep in the back of a van in the dark, others are sent to a warehouse where they are kept in dark cages and never seen again. The ones in your van you train to fight, and regularly challenge people and are challenged in return. You right your animals for money. You force them to grow up with growth hormones (yeah, "rare candy" my arse) or prevent them from growing. You do this repeatedly for your own personal gain. And yet people tell you that your animals like to battle. 

  Let's now look at what is happening in the world of Pokemon. I used to watch the show. It was good. Here are some interesting observations - 

You never see any farm animals, or see any regular fish or birds. 

You see Ash and his friends eating burgers and pizza and other things.

Sometimes you see Pokemon doing hard labour. 

Here is what I think:

They are eating pokemon. They need meat, and there are no cows or whatever so they have, as my friend put it, "pikachu steaks"... And for sport, do they hunt the deer Pokemon? And shoot the bird Pokemon? 

Is there illegal fishing of the sea Pokemon? WHO MANAGES THESE THINGS?

Do people keep goldeens in a bowl like a normal goldfish?

What about that Pokemon that kinda looks like a giraffe? I wonder if someone out there has pelts hanging on their wall of that one... 

  And we who are playing are like sick hunters... we look for the most rare pokemon, the ones where there is only ONE LEFT IN THE WORLD and we try to catch it. And then we force it to fight. What the hell are we turning our children into??

  As you probably know I am eagerly awaiting the next Pokemon game to be released. I will be all over that like Asians on rice. 

In other news...

  I was mega emo last Friday, just missing people who have left Korea and also home... I have had so many dreams lately where I am in Australia. Its prob cos of all the planning for my trip back in January. I will be home for about 3 weeks before heading back to the land of kimchi, so hit me up if you wanna hang. Anyway I had too many drinks and ended up yelling at some poor guy I know (overwhelmed him with English and girl tears. He was suitably freaked out), and then went and had a cry to Steve, Jinsook and Shanda. Sorry everyone... I am not usually a teary drunk, but I was feeling kinda overwhelmed. And lonely. I miss my old friends sooo much. Korea isn't the same without them. 

  I want to buy a new camera. I have pretty much decided to get the Sony NEX 5T, it seems to have all the cool features I want. I don't know much about cameras and stuff so this is a decision based of recommendations by friends. I will let you know when I get it and start posting stupid pics and hopefully doing some new videos. 

Ok, I think thats all I have for now. Let's talk again later, ok??

xoxox

ESL Teaching

  This blog is not really an ESL blog... It is more just ramblings and mind vomit. In saying this, we have to remember that I AM actually an ESL teacher, and occasionally I do some work. I also occasionally get asked by other people about my work, and what I actually do. I can't remember if I have done this before, but I will give you a brief run down of my average day. Let's pick Friday because it is one of my longer days, and also a more varied day in terms of the classes I take.

ESL on a Friday

  I leave my house/cell at 8:15. Get to school by 8:30 where I sit at my desk for 15 odd minutes, checking FB and reading the Herald Sun online. At about 8:45 I go into the classroom and turn on the comp in there and play cookie run on my phone until the kids arrive. Friday I have Grade 6 for the first 3 classes. Generally Co does not turn up to the first class, and I take it alone. Luckily, I love Gr 6-3 and we usually have a fun lesson. Lots of chatting and maybe watching something stupid on YouTube, as well as following the book. Then Co will come for the next few classes and they will be bored and not paying much attention unless they are called on. Then Gr 5, which is usually ok. Lunch is at 12:10 where I do exactly what I did in the morning, but this time with food. Then there is one class after lunch, on Friday's its Gr 4 who are awful and I usually take this class alone. Then, for the rest of the afternoon, I derp around online. If I am feeling especially motivated I might blog like I am now, or I might do some Korean study. And that, my friends, is my day.  At 4:30 I head home.

  Let's briefly go back to the point I made about me being an actual ESL teacher...
Here are a few tips I have thought about for teaching -  

 If you are teaching any grade, but specifically Gr 6, find some common ground. It's a pretty shitty age group, unless you can find something they all like. They all have their favorite songs, and like certain things on TV. If you can connect witht hem then you are half way there. It isnt about speaking their language fluently, its about understanding them on a more basic level. 

  Get to know who their fave k-pop stars are - the girls will love you and the boys will tease you. Personally I like Infinite and B.A.P (curtesy of the girls in Gr 6-1). Also get to know Larva, this stupid animated show they all love. Paint your nails a cute colour, or if you are a guy get a cool hair cut. It doesnt seem like much but little things will go a long way. 

  USE THE HAGWON KIDS THEY ARE YOUR FRIENDS IN CLASS.

Most of the kids I teach are low level English. I speak more Korean than some of them speak English (and this is a disaster, let me tell you). So if you have a kid in your classroom that has a decent grasp on the language make them your friend. Give them candy, pat them on the head whatever. You need him/her to help you out. I am lucky, I get along well with most of the kids, but the ones who fucl around all the time really grind my gears. I have the hagwon kids tell them off all the time. Works a treat.

  Threats don't work if you never follow through on them. I used to say things like "i'm gonna get Co if you guys don't shut up" but naturally he was no where to be found, so this turned into a hollow threat. Now I say "if you don't shut up I am leaving this class" and I leave. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.

  Teaching tools I love include:
- any online game. Obvs if its an English one that's cool, if you can turn it into a team activity even better.
- YouTube... I have soooo many videos I could recommend. And basically all of them you can turn into a lesson if you have a bit of time. And the kids love watching things.
- fluffy dice... we have these fluffy dice thingies in the classroom that you can use. Couple this with a deck of cards and you have hours of fun at your fingertips. Again, teams.

  If possible, ALWAYS DO TEAMS. They are stupidly competitive here. And you can use this competitiveness as a way to discipline too. For my little kids (Gr 3 and 4's) I give the teams points. If they are bad they lose points. The winning team gets stickers. Very basic stuff... and it generally means they will police themselves. If their friend sucks and it talking the whole team gets mad at them. This also works for the older kids but you need a better bribe than stickers. Leaving class 5 mins early is a good bribe item :)

  These are just things I have picked up as I have gone along. And most I have stolen from other teaching sites. It got to the point about 2 months ago where Co was hardly coming to any classes and I was like "Fuck, I actually have to teach these kids something" but I hate preparing lessons. And the other issue was that Co would never tell me if he was coming or not, so I didn't want to go to all this effort and prepare something only for him to turn up and make them study the book. So all my plans are based on something that I can pretty much pull out my ass at the last minute. 

Is this normal?

  For me? Yes. For everyone else in Korea? No. 

I am not required to do lesson plans, and I do not teach with Co. Either he teaches and I stand there or I teach while he is... well... wherever he is. The time in the afternoon is for lesson planning, and I actually have heaps and heaps of plans that I have made but will never use. So at least I have emergency plans if I need them.  As camp approaches I plan for camp. This is the extent of my planning. I also have a word doc of games I want to play, and activities. So I do plan, but there just isn't really anyone to plan for. Are my planned lessons very good? No idea, Co seems to think they are shit so I just leave it. 

  If you are coming to teach in South Korea, you will have a different experience to me. A different one to all my friends, and different to their friends. All schools and situations are different and you will come into this world with no idea what to expect, regardless of what research you do. All I can say is that I hope you get a good co teacher, and that you have at least one kid in every class that speaks some English. 

Field Trip

  I went on my first ever field trip with Gr 3 yesterday. I love these kids, they are still cute and they crack me uyp. We went to some Independence Park in Cheonan which was interesting. Let's just say if every single elementary student visits this park, I can understand why they all hate Japan. Not gonna lie, some of it came across as propaganda (not taking away from what happened, I also agree that occupation was awful) but the wording of some of it was... interesting. I wonder what the translation was like. Anyway here are some pics from the day - 

I took a heap more photos, I just think these kids are adorable. And for the most part they were very well behaved, until the very end where they decided it would be a good idea to run fully clothed through the fountain... We teachers were off having a coffee while the kids were running wild (something that would never happen at home I am sure) when one of the girls came screaming up to us to say that - 

- One boy has slipped and cut his head (bleeding very badly... just above his eyebrow)

- Kids from another school are yelling at our students for splashing them

- Some of the boys are taking their clothes off

We went running back over to the kids and yes, they were bleeding, dripping wet and getting naked. So the other teachers yelled at them a bit, the boys put their shirts back on and fixed the bleeding kid. They had stopped splashing the other school at this point so no harm no foul. We ushered them all back onto the bus and headed back to school. It was a fun day, and I got to go home at 4pm. 

  And this week our school has given us both Thursday (a national holiday) and Friday off, so LONG WEEKEND. 

I am sure there will be something fun to report next week!

xoxo

Vomit Berries, Bin Juice and Other Tales

  I have had such an incredible last few months, I can't even begin to write about it. Both good and bad things have happened, but as I am feeling reasonably joyful tonight I will touch on only nice things... And Other Tales.

Vomit Berries

  What the hell? 

Its amazing to me how smells can trigger memories you forgot you had. 

  Here in Korea they have these trees, and the look a little bit like mini-oak trees. No idea what they are called... Anyway there are a heap of them living in the side street right near my building. There are also a heap of them in Pyeongtaek, but not many in Seoul that I have seen. They are green for all of Spring and Summer, then fade off in Autumn and look completely dead in Winter. Pretty standard for a tree in this part of the world. the weird thing about these trees are the fruit they drop at the end of Summer - when they open the smell dead set like fresh vomit. Total spew stench. I remember when I first smelt that awful stench... It was a weekend, one of my first in Korea I would imagine, and I thought that there must be fresh spew somewhere. But the smell was everywhere!!! It wasn't until a friend pointed out to me that these small orange fruits were squished everywhere, and maybe it was this I could smell. 

I said to her "Can you not smell the puke smell?" 

She said no, not really, it was just a sort of off fruit smell. Nope, I replied, I can smell spew. So basically I think I must be the only one who can smell them this way. Strange but whatever.

  I got back from Malaysia on Sunday around 11:30, and I am strolling down the road with my bags in tow and I smell this vom smell. Its a Sunday morning so this is def not out of the ordinary in my area. I start paying closer attention, as I don't fancy rolling my bags through someones old dinner and drinks regurgitated. Of course, as you probably guessed, there was no spew to be seen. And then, as I near my building, walking down the street with the weird mini-oaks I see all these squashed fruits littering the road. And I remember. Its the Vomit Berries. Almost instantly I remember the feeling of being excited, fresh and alive. It was just over a year ago I first caught scent of this gross fruit, and now when I smell it, to me the fruit smells like freedom and adventure. Its strange that a sniff of vomit can create this sense. Yet here I am, remembering. I walked around the corner back to my house and thought about it a bit. Not much, because I was so fucking tired from the plane/bus ride, but thought enough to know that I actually quite like the smell of Vomit Berries. Not because I want to turn them into a perfume and wear it, but because it makes me re-live those first few weeks I came to this strange country. I remember being nervous, excited, grossed out and lonely. And I love it. 

Speaking of bad smells...

  Some asshole has left what smells like bin juice in the elevator. It fully reeks, even Milky didn't want to go in there. Its like someone has had fish or something, and binned it and dripped it everywhere. Or something equally rotten. My other big issue (apart from the smell) with this is that I am worried someone is gonna blame it on Milky, and suggest that he peed in the elevator. Which he NEVER has done. So someone better get rid of it. This is probably the reason why we have bugs in our building... If I discover who the jerk is who is not properly managing their wastes I am gonna go all Hulk on them and pitch them off the building. Actually, its going on my list of things that annoy me... #6 for sure (if thats what I am up to). End rant.

Travels

  In the last 2 months I was lucky enough to visit Japan, see new parts of Korea and also visit Malaysia. Let me sum up these places briefly:

Japan

  The Land of the Rising Sun was not what I expected. To be fair to Japan I was sick the whole time I was there - my wisdom teeth were killing me so I couldn't really sample the yummy food. My sinuses were blocked to the point I couldn't breath through my nose, and my head felt like it was full of painful cotton wool. I was feverish and on pain killers the entire time. And to top it off we were there in probably the worst time to visit - high summer. It was so humid and sticky we could hardly be bothered doing the sightseeing we did let alone adding on more things. Coupled with one hectic night in Kyoto where we got shitfaced and consequently hungover the next day, I think we did the best with what we had. BUT Japan did not leave a lasting impression on me. 

  

 

Osaka Castle

  I didn't really like Osaka (at least the parts I saw), I thought it was dirty and the stations grossed me out. The best part about it was the fact that everyone there seemed to ride pushbikes. It was adorable. 

  I liked Kyoto much more, it had a sense of history that I had not experienced anywhere else. Asian castles are something else all together, and although we saw one in Osaka (Osaka Castle) I still preferred the shrines we saw in Kyoto area. I would have liked to have spent at least another full day there. Night life was also funnnnn.

Deer selfie in Nara

Some Shrine... Can't remember its name but its famous (I am hopeless)

Me, Jess and Nay -
high school sweethearts!

  Tokyo was all over the place. It was huge, and we def needed mroe time to explore. But I felt disconnected from the city, in a way that I haven't felt in other cities. It felt kind of... unfriendly and false. Like it was lying to me about its intentions. I don't know how else to explain it... Anyway I would like to go back and see Tokyo and Kyoto, and also maybe go up to Sapporo one day.

  In all, the best part of Japan was seeing my friends from Australia. They made the trip. Oh, and also discovering my new favorite author Haruki Marukami. Read his books, please. They have kinda changed my life.

One of the temples

Penang

  I went to Penang, Malaysia over Chuseok with mum. It was totally uneventful, which was just what we both wanted. Sun, pool and good food. Penang has it all in large doses. We both we looking forward to the break, and also catching up after nearly 12 months of not seeing each other. I mean, we Skype all the time but its not the same. So it was so great to just hang out and do nothing but chat and catch up. I am already excited to see her again at Christmas!!!

Hotel was amazing - Hard Rock Hotel, Penang

Beach right outside. Water was beautiful

I love temples... Mum doesn't share my enthusiasm for them :s

Wow. I really didn't mean to go on like I did. It's nearly 12am and I need to sleep, but I am feeling all reflective... I could go on all night the way my mind is ticking right now. I won't though, cos lets be honest - most of what comes out my mouth is nonsense anyway. And its always worse when it's late night rambles.

Sleep well, citizens

xoxoxo

Give him a smack

How do you punish your students?

What do you do when the little shits are so naughty you want to throw them out the window? How the hell do parents deal with their children day and day out??? 

My "situation" at school has changed somewhat dramatically over the last few months, where I have gone from teaching basically no classes, to me teaching 85% of classes WITHOUT a co-teacher. How and why this happened I still have no idea, but it is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because the kids don't enjoy his classes, but a curse because suddenly discipline has become an issue and so has their comprehension of the topics. Unfortunately the kids are missing important points because there is no one to translate what I say. But that's another issue. For now, I am mainly concerned about how to keep them from making me want to do a midnight run. 

What exactly are they doing wrong?

  Are they just talking or are they being violent with each other? Most of the time, in my classroom, the kids are just being rowdy. They know I don't speak Korean and they take advantage of that by ignoring me. I mean, what am I gonna do? Go mime to their parents or homeroom teacher? No, I need a strategy.

  When they are talking, I tend to just stand at the front and look angry. This works most of the time. Eventually at least 1 student will see that I am pissed and start telling the others to shut up. With 4-1 the other day I made them sit in silence at the end of the class rather than race out the door to show them who is boss (its clearly not me, but they don't fully know that yet). Sometimes one loud "HEY" will get their attention long enough to start the next activity too. 

  The next stage in my annoyed teacher phase is to single out the trouble makers. I point, or go up to the kids responsible for pissing me off and get them to stand up while I tell them off. The kids don't know exactly what I am saying of course, generally there is at least one kid that understands enough to know what I am harping on about. But even if they don't, the message is clear - Bonnie Teacher is angry and its my fault. 

  If they keep it up, I send them out. I did this a few times earlier this year and the kids were going back to their homerooms. Eventually my co teacher asked me why I was doing it. I told him straight up I don't have the language to tell them off for being naughty, so I make them leave. He seemed on board so I kept doing it. They have cleaned up their acts a bit so I haven't had to boot anyone in a while.

  Today I took it to the next level and booted the whole of 5-3 out of the room. There was only 5 mins to go so I didn't care much but they were driving me crazy so I told them all to piss off. They were super confused and knew I was mad, and I could tell they were afraid to go back to their homeroom. They loitered outside the English room until the bell went. And they were quiet as mice. 

  Now, I have had kids beat each other up too, or bully another kid and that sort of thing. I will not tolerate this in my class. Any kid punching or slapping another kid (in a non-playful manner I mean, the kids are forever hitting each other here) have to leave. I drag them to Co and let him deal with them. When I can't find him I drag them to their homeroom teacher and say "tell her/him what you did" and they tell their teacher what they did. Without fail they tell the truth. 

  Once, one of my Gr 4 kids picked up a chair and threw it at another boy. It missed, but the violence of it was cray. He was so upset, the chair thrower, that he was in tears. He was so frustrated and mad at this other boy he expressed it like Hulk. Even though he was upset I dragged both him and the boy who was upsetting him to their teacher. They came back 15 minutes later and both apologized. 

What does Co do?

  Well, when he is in class he has a few tricks up his sleeve... Some of his faves are:

- Standing at the back of the classroom with arms in the air

- Standing at the front of the room with the forehead on the whiteboard

- Hurling insults at them (e.g. you are so stupid, you are fat, your parents will be angry etc)

- Sending them out

- Grabbing their cheeks and shaking their face

- Make them grab each others cheeks and shake (when there are 2 students involved)

- Smacking them on the head with their workbooks

And the worst I saw - slapping them in the face (I am not suggesting that the little shit didn't deserve a smack, but shouldn't it come from a parent?? If at all???)

  I don't want to start a debate on the best way to punish kids, but I would be interested in how other people get their brats to STFU. And this list isn't exhaustive, other things I have tried include limiting game/movie time, bribery etc. 

Honestly, they are all generally pretty good, but sometimes I want to lock them all outside.

xoxoxo

Price of Beauty

  While Nay was in Korean we shopped up a storm at all my favorite cosmetics stores - Etude House, Missha (I have a loyalty card), Face Shop and Innisfree. All awesome places to get cool make up and other body products. Yet it makes me wonder... where is the line for buying beauty products?
Since I have been in Korea I know I both buy and wear more make up and other cosmetics. Is this because its so cheap, or is it something else?

  Not gonna lie, I have actually had a net gain of 2 kilos since arriving last year... So am I compensating my weight gain by wearing more make up? Possibly. There is pressure here to look good at all times, not so much because everyone else looks great (they don't) but I feel its more because of how we, as foreigners, react the the brutal honesty of Korean people. For example, I have been told multiple times by co-workers that my diet isn't working. I am also told that I look tired, that they don't like what I have done with my hair today, or that I have hairy arms. Geez, I can't help my arms!!!

  So, on a weekend, I will end up doing face masks to minimize blackheads and clear up my skin. I either wax or veet my arms, I make sure my hair roots don't get too dark, I wear my BB cream to school and always wear mascara. I keep my nails painted, and I am now addicted to the foot peels you get from Tony Moly, so I can have baby soft feet. I have also become OCD about suncream (not necessarily a bad thing) and no longer wear low cut tops. I am also about to get onto a serious lose weight kick - gonna get some gym time in and get back into walking and maybe start small hikes around the area.

WHO THE FUCK AM I DOING THIS FOR?

  In a way I am doing it for myself and my mental health. I know that I am being constantly watched, and I know I am being judged. No one knows me as a person, so they judge me in the only way possible - my appearance. If I am too fat they will think me lazy, so I must lose weight. If I have no make up on, then I will be perceived as tired. Bad hair? Dirty. If I take pride in my appearance I am thought to be a better person. I remember overhearing a discussion about me in the staff room between teachers from our school and 2 from another school - "Your foreign teacher is much prettier than ours" and me thinking woooo awesome! When I really should have thought omg that poor girl from whatever school they are from. How can her school tell other people this stuff, and why the hell should it matter???
  But it does.

  Something Nay thought was hilarious about the TV here was all the ads for products to make yourself more beautiful. I wish we had more of a chance to get the subway around Seoul so she could have seen all the deals for plastic surgery, all the before and after pics that line the walls. It makes for an interesting trip. And the advertising works! I buy the No. 1 selling BB cream in Asia, cos I saw it on TV. I copy nail designs that the starts are wearing. And I want my teeth whitened and to have dimples cosmetically put into my face to make me cuter.

BONNIE CAN YOU HEAR YOURSELF?

  Once I was finishing up a class with the grade 6 kids, and at the end one of the girls came up and asked me if I was wearing (contact) lenses. I said no, this is my real eye colour. She asked if she could take a picture, because she wants to get lenses the same colour as my eyes. I was like, sure why not? The one big thing they don't like are my freckles... They think its a shame my white skin has ugly brown spots. "Don't worry, teacher... doctor can fix it". Phew!

 I can hear myself, and I agree its not healthy... Yet I am still wearing my full face and looking at my arms thinking they are too hairy, and looking at my belly thinking its too big and trying to decide if I have the motivation to do anything about it yet. I guess the pressure is finally getting to me, because otherwise why blog about it???