The Various Musings and Ramblings of an Educated Layabout

Back in the Saddle

After three bumpy weeks I'm gradually getting into the swing of things. Kindergarten is a different kettle of fish from anything. But my homeroom class are loveable characters and I do let them loose a little which annoys the school I think. Like if May and HW wanna walk around the room and be kids in the little free time they're given I let them. When I say walk though it often descends into some kind of crazy running rough housing with books and toys and a lot of paper.

HW is perhaps one of my favourites. He's one energetic kid. However, even his parents and grandparents have expressed concerns on his wild side. And it is now my responsibility to try curb his wild outbursts. Basically I'm improving his social skills. It's mindblowing to consider this my job now. Occasionally I get little nightmares of my epic failure and HW's imminent future as a 15 year old gangster all because Bobbie Teacher didn't make him sit down enough!

I told my Mum on the phone sometimes I wake up and wonder where the kids are and think 'God, who's supervising them!'. In my half awake mode I genuinely worry where they are and why aren't they in my line of sight. Then my logic kicks in and I think why on earth would they be in my apartment?

One of the girls Sarah, with the funky glasses and selective deafness, warmed to me a little this week. It was her birthday, so immediately Tuesday and Wednesday she walked in the door with a giant smile on her face. This was a real departure from her usual demeanor - either ignoring teachers and greetings or a little grouchy.

The school had a big birthday party for everyone whose birthdays fell in this month, Sarah was over the moon. She wore a strawberry dress, new red glasses and managed to keep her hairstyle intact til lunchtime. I had hugs, talk and smiles all day. The new relationship continued throughout the week where she began to speak more and more. At first I thought she didn't like me but I guess it just took awhile.  Plus her mother brought in the biggest and creamiest cake ever. I love birthday parties at the school now!

May is still wary with me. Plus he is quite unruly generally as a person. I think he just likes to test boundaries and stretch patiences! I've changed the system - now everyone has to earn stars. Before it was 5 star system then losing stars for bad manners. Now I want to see them earning them with good behaviour. After a week, when the winners get some bribery/prizes - it should get some results! Fingers crossed. 

Slowly but Surely

Man, I feel like I got a mini rollercoaster of self doubt going on right now. I'm bi-winning as Charlie Sheen would put it. On the one hand I do like the job and by the end of the looong day I get a sense of 'wow - I did just do a lot of work' - on the other hand I find out I get paid the least. But then I think, well, put it in perspective to where you were 3 weeks ago.

Also I'm slowly learning how to manage a class of six 5 year olds. It involves a GIANT number of activities and a massive vat of energy. Haven't quite learnt the knack of controlling 4 year olds yet. Not even sure if it's possible. I currently have them for story time twice a week after school. Thing is it's a 50 minute slot, so today around the 30 minute mark we hit the playroom and watched TV with the owner's son!

My homeroom class if getting good, although May is still testing the limits. They're one up from the baby class so I guess they're still getting used to being considered older and having an English speaking teacher full time. So I guess we're all learning at the same time.

Onwards and upwards!

Work, Work and No Play

I have hectic work days - usually I'm working from 9.30am to 3.30pm non stop. Even during the lunch hour I'm sat with the class supervising their lunch. I don't get tired til around 2.30pm, I noticed myself yawning a little today. Even when not teaching or supervising kids - I'm planning or cleaning the classroom. It's exhausting. Then around 6pm I got hungry, really hungry. But I had some planning to do for tomorrow. Hopefully once I've got into the swing of things and am able to plan ahead, I'll feel less overwhelmed. It's just at the moment I'm doing a lot of work for not that much money. I feel bad as I feel like I always want to complain about my job or at least rant like crazy.

But at the same time I strangely enjoy it, when manageable, the children are great - like today the worst behaved kid in the world followed ever instruction during the science lesson and understood perfectly. I was amazed. And I do finish everyday in a kind of jubiliant mood - I do have an inkling this is due to my happiness at leaving work for the night though.

I'm questioning whether I'll last the year. I know I'll last at least 6 months as I have friends in Korea staying til then, plus my financial situation simply doesn't warrant a return ticket and the reimbursement the school paid for my outward ticket.

Just... not feeling it at the moment I guess...

New Job - Back in the K-Hood

*all names of people and places have been changed to ensure anonymity and my job :) *

I've  never fully appreciated a Friday as much as I did this week. Let's set the record straight - kindergarten teaching is hard. English kindergarten teaching in Korea is like a double suckerpunch hard. It's very different to high school, in many ways, - earlier in  the week I had this terrible realisation I am now actually in charge of providing the foundations of education to these mini-people. Ahhh - can I do this?

I work at an English hagwon, let's call it Yellow Wagon School. Everyday I roll up at 9am to meet the kids at 9.30am. Then until lunchtime at 12pm - it's a nonstop roll of lesson after lesson. Then after an hour for lunch - it's lessons on til 2.30pm.

Both for me and the kids - there are no breaks. I sold my soul for a consistent pay check and young children experience - makes me wonder what did the kids do to deserve this? My homeroom is a energy packed class of six 5 year olds with a number of different characters.

There's H.W, a fun kid with never ending energy levels - if you could distill the essence of H.W and make an energy drink customers wouldn't sleep for a week. It's actually enjoyable as he soaks up the English and likes to shout it out loudly:

Me: 'H.W, do you like rice?' H.W: 'RIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCEEEEE!'

Next up is J. J is a sweet little girl who likes to hug in the morning and natters away in English. She was born in America and during English lessons she speeds ahead like a rocket. Only downside is she often gets upset, luckily this doesn't involve massive freak-outs - she's a quiet drama queen: the bottom lip sticks out and she sits in the corner with a 'I'M UPSET' face on. I prefer to let this just ride out and ignore it until she decides it's time to interact again.

Sarah is always dressed impeccably, with funky green and red glasses which always sit at the end of her nose, threatening to hit the floor and shatter into a million pieces. She loves books - always picking them up from the book case and carrying it around. Thing is, I have a set number of textbook pages I have to cover in class - so getting her to listen and concentrate is like banging my head against a book wall. She never makes eye contact when I am talking to her or disciplining her. She's easily influenced by the louder, more dominant members of class. However, when she wears her bright green turtle hat she looks like a manic aquarium exhibit and makes it all better.

May is a boy. May likes to play the bad boy of the class. He talks a lot and tends to ignore me a little. Whenever I ask a question, ie. to provoke some English, May prefers to answer 'no' and laugh manically. Either May genuinely dislikes everything in the world or this kid is messing with my head. I believe it is the second option so I grassed him up to his mother in the weekly student comments - take that May~! I think May just needs to get used to being with a foreign teacher and slowly get into the routine. Plus he is five. I need to get used to that too! Although May is not his real name, he does have a name related to the months of the year and a girly one. Subconsciously this may affect his behaviour :p

D is awesome. The perfect student. Eats all his lunch, understands lessons easily, does as he is told and cleans up unasked. I wish I had a class of D's. He is also sweet and usually walks into school saying my name over and over. Ahhh... D. Big hug. His mother must just walk round in life thinking 'hellz yeah my son is awesome'.

Rachie is also good but again she is influenced by May. But she's a good kid, helps out handing out textbooks etc. I have experienced her on a bad day though - when the girl wants to do taekwon do, the girl wanna do taekwondo! No English! No Lunch! Taekwondo. I just smiled.

I also have a mixture of after-school classes. The first being 50minutes until 3.30pm. Ooouch - a long time for young young kids.

After this week I discovered some things about myself. I do like kids but entire days where I have been thrown in the deep end and simply told page numbers to teach to five year olds is hard. Plus there's the added downside that the school has cameras - although this is a plus when it comes to safety etc - it does add an element of being watched constantly. Every minute of every day I have to be on my game. And I don't know what the game is yet.

And the job is long, without breaks. In the litttle time I'm not teaching - usually at 3.30pm I am planning. But yet I haven't felt tired or run down yet as I'm always moving around the school. Hopefully a routine will set in where I can get enough sleep to keep my energy levels up for optimum kindergarten teacher control. Then again just not burning out after a month would be good.

So in conclusion - I feel I'm not the perfect kindergarten teacher but I have hope I will become one. When I finish at 6.30pm I feel hopeful for the next - maybe I can make some flashcards, maybe I could find some games online. I spend a lot of my free time researching preschool teaching techniques. I think I will evolve with the children as they and I get used to each other.

 All I know is this year I will learn a lot about myself and what I can do as a person and a teacher. And how much I will learn to love the weekends!

Avoid Public Outpourings of Grief

I'd post more regularly but there's every chance it would have descended into a massive whinge fest. So I've spared myself the public outpouring of desperation for over a month. Time to start posting again.

I have a job, I can't really mention it online as it's with a bakery chain. And I wouldn't want to unknowingly compromise my 'team member' position. Got to love job titles right? Be a member of the team!

It was weird at first and I felt very out of place after being a teacher for a year. A year where I basically defined my role and was in charge, then back to the part time manual jobs I used to do to fund my studies. There were a few sleepless nights and crying myself to sleep but the economic climate has thrown me a curve ball and I gotta cope with it. And get on with it.

Nevertheless I am applying for jobs. Applying for jobs in London, not being currently located there and the competition is making my relocation really difficult. So currently using the 'team member' role to build up my finances, alongside other things like selling some of my books on Amazon and clothes on ebay.

Onwards and upwards... make lemonade and all that!

Life has been ridculously boring the last few weeks.

Hence my lack of updates. Rejection/Ignorings of job applications are soul-destroyingly regular and routine. Again the urge to just run away raises. Except running away costs money. Damn.

Boring ... so here is a picture of some tasty delights

 
 I have nothing really to blog about at the moment as my life is quite routine and boring at the moment. So here is a photo of the Baskins & Robbins fondu set I shared with friends during my last week in Seoul. Very yummy!

Photoshoot

My last day in Seoul, I bobbed into Insadong my favourite part of the city. It was chucking it down with rain so I headed into Hue, a small chocolate cafe where I partook of a handmade chocolate set then went to a little photostudio. I chose the kisaeng costume as whenever I've seen them in old Korean drawings I've appreciated their style.

These are my favourite pictures of the bunch, although technically there were 'service', freebies as the package just one full hanbok pic and a sat down one. I have a feeling they accidentally took too many pictures of me and enjoyed having a non-Japanese client. Usually the studio's clientele are Asian tourists, they even automatically use Japanese rather than Korean! The price was pretty good for a costume photoshoot with make-up and hair and I got a little album with the photos inside. :)

Visited the job centre today to sign on for jobseeker's benefit for the first time today. I sit down as I get home and sigh.

Dad: It's tiring earning money isn't it.

-_-

Leeds Night Out

Went out last night to Leeds to reunite with Becky and Sophie, along with some other friends I have not seen for a long time. It is kind of strange to be going out without my Korea friends, but also strangely similar as I've been out with Sophie and Becky a lot in the past too.

I spent too much money at dinner. Sophie bemoaned my amazing memory. Becky chose an amazing drink Velvet Vanilla Martini? from Verve for me. Good night.

Now back to the massive clear out! My sister's back from Thailand tomorrow and my Mum demands I finally move my luggage from the dining room.

So far: 4 massive bags of clothes to sell. Two boxes of bric-a-brac and assorted accessories to sell too. How did I hoard all this junk?