The End Of May

May winded down with a busy last week, which included conferences and a field trip. Same as last year, when we have kindergarten conferences our neighbor teacher takes our class for the day. This year, I am next door to the new Nemos, so I got to teach them for a day. Really the only similarity between my old Nemos and Marie's new Nemos is that they are both 5-1. The Nemos this year are much more outgoing and have come in with more basic English. All ready her kids will say hi to me and like to ask me if they can come to Bambi class. Marie and I already have a running joke where we dump a kid or two off in the others room once or twice a day. Last year, my Nemos were scared to talk to the teacher next door to me, even in February. This is not to say there isn't a huge difference between our kids. I could definitely notice during circle time as my kids were able to process faster, asked more questions, and just behaved better overall. While it was fun to have them for a day, I was more than happy to give them back to Marie and am glad I took 6-1 and not 5-1 this year!

My own conferences went well, two of my parents were comfortable enough to conduct the entire conference in English. All of my parents are very relaxed, which is a nice change from most Korean parents who put their "6" year olds in English school. My parents are not concerned about academics and don't want their kids to feel pressured. This makes my life easier, as I don't have to worry about jamming concepts down my students' throats that they probably won't comprehend and allows me time to do fun things like crafts and games.

Last Thursday we went on another field trip, this time to the Samsung Transportation Museum. The museum is about 45 minutes outside of Seoul and we ended up getting lost (of course). The way the system works here is each class piles into one of the CIS buses (which is actually just a 15 passenger van) and then we all caravan to the location, but only the bus driver in the front of the caravan knows how to get there. Yes, it is a brilliant system. And given the Seoul traffic in the morning and the manic way they drive, it is inevitable that someone always gets lost. Anyway, we were supposed to have a traffic safety education lesson (which I am sure, given what I have gathered about traffic safety in this country, would have been fantastic) but we arrived too late and missed it. Instead, we had about an hour and a half to wander around the museum. All I could gather (given that all the signs were in Korean) was that there were really old cars and motercycles from various places in the world, some interactive activities, and an area devoted to race cars. My kids seemed to have a pretty good time, despite the fact that in typical Korean fashion, everytime they were having fun a photographer would pull them aside and make them awkwardly pose with a forced smile (or grim expression more often than not).

Afterward we went outside where there were a couple airplanes and a car from a train. Strangely enough, my kids were only interested in one thing outside - the grass. Since Seoul is such a concrete jungle, it is very rare for the children to see grass, let alone have a bunch of it to play in. Since everyone lives in apartments here, no one has front or back lawns, and even the parks don't really have grass. My kids were rather angry with me that they only got to spend about 3 minutes running in the grass, in fact Ian even went as far as to tell me that he didn't have fun on the trip because he didn't get to play in the grass.

I know some people have had questions about the current situation with North Korea. Interestingly, it is really not a big deal over here. Many of the Koreans on my staff haven't even been following the news about the current events. Since the Koreas technically remain at a state of war, being at odds with the north really isn't anything new to the south. The Koreans are going about life as usual, and I have been told by Sae Hee (my principal) many times that nothing is going to happen, which seems to be the consensus across much of the country.

While May ended up being a busy month at school, June is shaping up to be a busy month outside of school. This weekend the CIS staff (Korean and Western) is going hiking on Saturday. Near the end of the month, I will be going back to Seoraksan (Meg and I visited here last year) to hike a differnt part of the mountain. I will also be going to get my visa for China in preparation for my trip at the end of July!