Mun Family Picnic/Photonics

Last weekend I met my host family for lunch. I figured this would last 1, maybe 2 hours. Was I wrong!

After picking up their son, we drove about 45 minutes southeast of Gwangju to 화순. The park we went to was very nice and we had great weather (finally, a not cloudy/rainy day!!). For lunch we had 샌드위치,(sandwich triangles), 김밥 (kimbap rolls), 김치 (kimchi), and 오렌지 (oranges). My host mom is a great cook, and everything was so fresh.

We took around a small lake afterwards, and had fun skipping stones. I, of course, was horrible. I'll blame that on the fact that we were trying to skip from a ledge down at an angle!



The kids had a lot of fun:


I figued after lunch, I'd go back home, but my host family already had tickets for the 2010 World Photonics Expo in Gwangju. I'd had some friends go in weeks previous, and they really enjoyed. I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't think it would be as cool as it was.

First, the expo grounds are huge! There were 9 tents set up in an area the size your state fair grounds. The tents aren't permantent, and neither are the displays. Everything was wonderfully set up and at times I forgot I was in a tent and not in a childrens museum.

Second, the exhibits were pretty cool. There was some strange stuff that I couldn't figure out why it was there, like two air force planes and a piece of a real space ship. We had lots of fun playing around with the interactive exhibits.



Lastly, it was very crowded! Because it was Saturday, everyone came with their children. We had to stand in line for a while to get into the spaceship tent. I know the event is very long so I'm curious to know how many people total will have gone by the time it is over.


More pictures here:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=59501140#!/album.php?aid=2231601&id=59501140

This week in school... Part Two

This is a continuation of my previous post. Below are the rest of my favorite names and characteristics of some of the superheroes my classes created.

The names:
Fuck
Dirty and Loser Hero
Captian Park
Transgender
Pneomonoultramicrosilicovolcanoscopicconiosis
Dark Templer
Indiana Jones
Michael Jackson
Japanese Man
Undertaker

The descriptions:
"He looks like Mara"
"He is our teacher Ms. Park's friend."
"She kidnapps kids to eat... her face is disgusting and she doesn't wear clothes."
"His magic stick very small."
"Our superhero name is transgender because transgender is pretty and handsome and has a muscle."
"He can nuclear, he can upgrade attack point."
"He is dance God. He is stick dance. He likes children (goes with Michael Jackson)."
"He has a magic stick. He can't use magic without magic stick."
"She lives in sky castle. She has many servants. She can ride clouds. She makes their dreams come true."
"She eat blood. She has very bad smell. This smell is looks like trash smell."

This week in school...

I'm teaching about Superheroes! I can basically teach about whatever I like, and when I got this idea online, I figured that would be fun. It also allows me to watch "Jack-Jack Attack" from "The Incredibles" 15 times this week. I'll probably be sick of it by Wednesday, but for now, it's still amusing. Plus, the kids love it.

At the end of the lesson, once I've introduced the various super powers and done some warm-up activities, the students get a chance to "create your own superhero." I have them select a cut-out piece of paper with a random animation superhero on it (nobody I recgonize) and afix it to their worksheet. With a partner, they need to write their names, choose a name for their superhero, and write about their superhero. Of course, they are all amusing, but here's my favorite one.

This was read to the class of advanced level 7th graders in my first period Monday morning. Both Mihey and I laughed so hard that we literally cried. Even the students could understand, so they were laughing along as well. This is exactly what was typed, with my notes/corrections in ().

"Alagalamu is bisexual (they meant that shes a boy and a girl). She can eat bugs and even eat human. He lives in Africa. She change into bus. He doesn't help people. Just eat people. But helps environment and animals. Bugs come out of her mouth and dancing with bugs before eat time. His weapon is dandrop (dandruff). She wash her hair once a year. His dandrop (dandruff) has poison. She loves animals and environment very much."

Here are some other great excerpts. First, my favorite names thus far (and will be edited at the end of the week):

Sexy woman
Chita Queen
A pimple princess
Casanova
Thin-thin
Mara
Monkey of Japanese
Cleopatra

Here are some of their "descriptions" about their superheroes (to be added to later):

"She is very pretty but when you take off the mask she is very ugly"
"She likes magazines"
"He likes Girls Generation and children"
"She knows the map of the town well"
"His heart is half bad, half kind, kind is kill knife and enemy kill, brings peace"
"He wears skinny jeans"
"His hobby is fishing"
"...but she has weakness- it's handsome boys (man)"
"He is afraid of scissors... he is very poor barber"
"In fact, she is a transgender. Three years ago he was gay with his boyfriend but the couple broke two years ago. Japan have many strange person."
"His weapon is feet smell"
"He's very kind despite his scary appearance."
"He lacks intelligence"
"He's gay. He likes boys and men. He indifference to girls. He's very strange."
"... but he has a big weakness! He is Casanova! He has many girlfriends! He is a bad boy!"
"His favorite food is swans. So swans are endangered. He lives Jupiter, but he comes to Earth because Swans live only in Earth."
"She has many pimples. She weapon is pimple laser. This is very dirty and bad smell. So she hids her face. She lives in pimple world. She throw poop to the evil. She don't like boys because boys don't like her."
"He eats battery and engine oil."
"She is sexy. She is very many have boyfriends. She is love coach so she is very many have boyfriends...she has a hot belly."

I can't believe it's only Tuesday and I have three more days (9 classes) left of this!

Homemade Sundubu Chigae

One of my favorite things about the weekend is Sunday afternoon. It's generally a pretty relaxing time, and a great time to experiment in the kitchen. Last weeks project was homemade Kimbap, this week was Sundubu Chigae.

I went to a new mart just down the street, and picked up the ingredients I didn't already have- Soup base, bean sprouts, clams, and green onions. I already had the pork, sesame oil, tofu, red pepper flakes, and egg.

Here's all my ingredients. The bean sprouts aren't required, but they tasted good!



First, I put some sesame oil in the pan, and cooked the meat. I came across the soup base by chance and it said in English "Spicy soft tofu stew stock." I bought it since it was exactly what I was making. Since I needed 2c. of broth, I had to add some water to it. Once the broth boils, you basically add the tofu and rinsed clams. When the clams have opened, you carefully crack an egg into the broth and boil it. Lastly, you add the sprouts and green onion.



I tried it once it was done cooking and exclaimed outloud "Oh my God! This is sooo good!" With rice and kimchi to accompany it, it made the best meal I've made for myself since coming to Korea.

Power Music Concert

On Friday, I went downtown for the "Power Music Concert." Gwangju is known as the city of light, and the city put on a concert with big names to get our annual lights festival underway. My friends and I knew that Girls Generation would be the main act, but had no idea really what to expect.

When we got there, the place was just packed! The front area was reserved for people who had purchased tickets and media. We ended up standing far away, but that was fine most of the time because of the large projector screens. The concert started at 9pm with fireworks before. The first hour and 45 minutes was a variety of artists- some groups, some individuals, a few bands, and some people singing ballads. I did some You Tube research, and found that one of the bands is called ZE:A, and another was F Cuz. I didn't realize that I'd have to wait that long to see my favorite band!

Here's some pictures of the hour and 45 minutes before GG. Some were good, others weren't.


This was our view of the stage:


The emcee:


A KPOP group- ZE:A singing Mazeltov.


Here's Girls Generation. They sang three songs, and the crowd went crazy! Most of my pics are blury because the people were pushing and shoving like crazy.

Congratulations, Margot!

Congratulations to my sorority sister and fellow German Club co-president, Margot Pfefferle! She is the 2010 United States Cherry Blossom Queen!

This lucky lady applied to represent the state of WI, and by chance, her name was selected at the week's end ball to be the queen! Looks like she'll be going to Japan for a few weeks pretty soon. Couldn't be more proud of her, she deserves it!



Here's some news stories about the competition:

http://ncss.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/04/congratulations-to-2010-us-cheery-blossom-queen-margot-pfefferle-of-wisconsin.html

http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20104110553

Budget Meeting at Gio's

Tonight we had our English teachers budget meeting at Gio's Italian Restaurant in Suwan. The best part of the meal was by far the fresh mozarella salad! We also had pizza that had what I'm pretty sure was a hunk of butter on top- ew!

We talked about the budget (mostly in Korean, so I'm not sure what all was said), and somebody said we should give out vitamins instead of candy for kids that came into the EOZ during lunch period. I'm not sure how seriously people took that, but Mihey wrote it down. The idea would be to say 5 things in English, then you'd get a Vitamic C pill. Those lucky kids, they'll all be lining up now, I can see it!

Here's the group of us. From left- Mihey, Youngran, Hyunjeong, Me, Jieun, Chiwon, and Ms. Jo. I share an office now with Hyunjeong, and Chiwon's personality reminds me of my Uncle Tim, which means he's great to joke around with. :)

Smile ^^

My kids make me smile (most of the time). No other way to put it. It may be the funny things they say in class, the way they act, or maybe it's them just being stinkin' cute. Most things they do, make me happy.

During lunchtime, kids race into the EOZ room to play games. It makes me happy knowing that they are excited to see me and try speaking English. The little first graders get excited when they are the first ones to arrive. The other day they cheered, "Yay, we're the first ones here!" when they walked in. Here's some of them, playing one of their favorite board games:



During the 10 minute break time between classes, it's pure chaos. Kids running all over, pushing, shoving, etc. One of my favorite "break time" sights is seeing the kids running down the hallway, coming to a sliding stop in their slippery shoes, and almost tipping over while doing a full bow to greet me (stil sliding!). It's highly amusing, although I've yet to see any of the kids actually fall over. I'm just waiting for that day to come though.

Something else that's becoming a popular "break time" activity. The 2nd graders have recently discovered that their homeroom class is directly opposite mine(and up a floor). Because I don't teach them anymore, they're even more excited to see me than usual. They spend their entire 10 minute break times leaning out the open windows and yelling at me ("Hi, Mara!!!" "How are you doing today?" "Yes, I'm fine, thanks for asking!"). I've never yelled back, I just wave and give a thumbs up (to which they yell "ohhh-kaaay!!!" This is one of the pictures I snapped of some of the boys- I'm sorry I have bars on my windows- I guess they don't want me to fall out!



Happiness ^^