LONG Overdue Post!

I'm so disappointed in myself! I've already broken the only two goals I had for this blog, and I still really can't promise any better until I have my own laptop and wireless internet next next week. But I will go back and edit posts with all the pictures I've taken (which actually isn't that much hehe ^^;;). I'm at uncle 3's house right now with my mom and grandma. We slept over here last night. Uncle 3 is really fun and playful and the couple just seems very young because they don't have any kids. Seriously, kids suck out your youth and money.

So last weekend was Korean Memorial Day on Friday so me, my mom, my 30 yr. old girl cousin who I'm closest to here named Saerom- the one I talked about before, I should have used her name from the beginning, how confusing; and her mom, my first uncle's wife (first uncle as in my mom's oldest brother). haha! Family relations are seriously a brain exercise.

We went on a road trip to Kyungjoo, which is a historical city with a lot of tourist attractions such as old palaces, king's burial tombs, etc. Okay it wasn't as boring as that sounds. Lots of pretty scenery. My fourth uncle, the baller, hooked us up with a suite (haha I'm tempted to write 'sweet suite' hahha!!!! but I have control.) at Hilton and took us to this really expensive authentic restaurant. I lost count of how many courses came out! The restaurant has been passed down through the family for I don't know how many years, and I think it has somehting to do with a king. Like, a king made it or something.... Anyway it was really cool- it's not like one building, but many small buildings surrounding a small, pretty courtyard and it's spread out over a huge area. The buildings each held probably about 8-10 personal rooms, and there were 99 rooms (the king didn't like the number 100 or something, no I think there was a more meaningful reason than that but I wasn't listening cuz my uncle was explaining the history of the restaurant as I was eating) in all. Every party of customers gets their own room so we sat in a room the size of a living room and two waitresses dressed in traditional Korean hanbok served us. It was a little strange at first because they would bring out the next course and go around the table putting a little bit on everyone's individual plates. I don't know how much it cost but I think it was really expensive... Uncle 4 is so great because he's one of those successful people who are still very humble, and generous with everything, not just materialistically but with his time, concern, and love. I respect him so much! Oh yea I found out what his exact job is. He works for Posco, which is one of the biggest companies in Korea (maybe you've seen those big shipping containers in the harbor that say Posco on the side) and I think they do something with steel. Anyway he used to work within the actual company before, but he was promoted to president of the Posco Steelers, which is their own soccer team. In Korea, the major sports teams (like baseball, soccer, etc.) are all owned by the big companies like Samsung, LG, etc. Anyway he's so cool, me and my cousin were thanking him for some fresh seafood things he had had sent to us before and he was like "ok" and whipped out his phone and called his personal assistant and was like "hey send the family some of that __ from last week. Double the amount." and we were like WHAT!! We weren't saying that to ask for more! We were so impressed. And we were moved again when we got home from our weekend getaway to find a ginormous box of goodies ^^ I don't know exactly what it is, maybe sea snail? Ew I hope not, that sounds gross.

The next day we went into the mountains (Baegamsan) to a hot springs resort. Posco has their own for the company's employees and families to use so it was nice and convenient. We also went to a public bath place and I bathed butt naked with like 20 butt naked ladies. It was so weird at first!!! I didn't have my contacts on that day and didn't wear my glasses into the area so I couldn't get a good look, but I think that was better because I bet if I had vision I would have been shamelessly staring. But the water was seriously different. BETTER. My body was so soft and smooth and clean feeling after!

The next morning we drove back to Chungju so that we could make it in time for church. My relatives are strong Christians and all the ones that live nearby all go to the same church. After the main service, I followed Saerom unni (unni = older sister) to the young adults' fellowship and they made me introduce myself on stage. God. Haha! NPI. Anyway I said in Korean "Hello my name is Park Saemi and I am Saerom unni's younger cousin. I'm here studying abroad. Nice to meet you." and the guy with the mike goes "Where are you from?" so I say "California" in English and the crowd goes "WHOAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" I don't know if you have ever seen a Korean show before but Korean audiences make very loud reactions in unison, noises not unlike something you might make on a rollercoaster. So they did that at me because my pronunciation was shocking I guess. Then they made me repeat my introduction in English and screamed at me some more.

After, I went to the newcomers room with another new guy and we talked to the welcoming lady. She fed us a variety of delicious Korean crackers! The guy had to leave quick so I was left alone with the lady and that was SO WEIRD. She was nice and friendly and everything but then she had this weird fascination with my English ability too and made me talk about my experiences and how I feel about the church in English. Mind you this woman does not speak or understand English; she just wanted to hear. I thought she was just joking so I just smiled and went 'hehe' but she sat there with her hands clasped and grinning eagerly at me so I just rambled about how pretty the church was and friendly the people are. Then she was like "FRIENDLY!! YES!" and got super excited that she recognized the word. Endearing, I guess. Okay honestly it wasnt't as bad as I'm portraying it. I was actually kind of amused the whole time, not annoyed at all. Until she made me PRAY in English!! Dude I don't even pray by myself! Or at all! It's still a very uncomfortable aspect of my "Christian journey". Anyway I didn't like that. I saw a cute boy though and we talked a little bit. We are the same age too! Haha Korean culture... Out of all the people I was introduced to today, I learned everyone's ages but no names. Not fair! Everyone knows my name because I had to get up and introduce myself! Whatever, I only want to know that one boy's name anyway. Shoot I'm so not quick/smooth. When we were talking, he took out his id to prove to me his age because I didn't believe him and I should have looked at the name. Man. :]

That reminds me. Everyone here looks so young! The two other teachers I work with are in their early 30's but I would have completely believed them if they told me they were 10 years younger. The same goes for everyone I've met so far; they all look years younger than their ages! I, on the other hand, have been receiving many comments that I look quite mature. That would never have bothered me in America but here I'm suddenly offended that I don't look 15 years old.

I'm enjoying my job more and more. In the beginning I actually really didn't it that much because the kids were SUCH BRATS. I mean downright rude and FRIGHTENING. Out of the two years I worked at Kumon and 7 years of various experience with kids, I have never met demons like some of these. I was seriously scared of some of them and dreaded going to class to face them! The rotten ones really have no respect for others, whether it is a classmate, teacher or even the director of the center. What kind of crazy parents do these kids have?! They're like 7 years old, and in a class of only 3-4 students we are sitting around one table within close proximity to each other. I mean, I understand that they're kids and they don't want to study, but I would tell a kid to read a word or sentence and they would just completely ignore me and do their own thing. After I repeat myself several times, she would turn to her partner in crime (he's weaker than her (not physically, but personality-wise) so he follows her. she's so powerful...) and be like "what the hell is wrong with this lady. she keeps talking to herself as if anybody cares". I wish I could express better her scariness. Then they doubleteam on the other boy in the class and make fun of him at every opportunity. It is so sad. That is only one story too. My largest class is 4 boys and 2 girls, and I think they're mostly 5-6th graders. There is one boy who hit puberty fast so his voice is changing, his face looks more mature, and he's taller than most of the other kids. He abuses this advantage and wields power over the entire class. He's the scariest one out of all the kids I teach. I think his behavior is probably worse because he's trying to look hard in front of the girls too. Or not, they don't interact or anything, but you know how even the presence of the opposite sex can mean so much during that age. Anyway his name is Brian and the class proceeds according to his mood, seriously. If he's being good and does the work then so do his followers (the girls are always good, too quiet, but still polite). If he's acting up then so do the other boys. They "whisper" nasty comments about me that the whole class can hear like "look! someone put makeup on a pig!" and other "fat" insults" (bitches know where it hurts... T.T lol jk), and honestly it's not like it hurts me - I mean, come. on. - but their utter lack of respect!! I seriously don't know how to react so I just act like I didn't hear. What am I supposed to say! When class is just about to start Brian is like "I need to go to the bathroom/sharpen my pencil/get some water/etc." to kill time and I'm obviously like "no, class is about to start" and he goes "screw you I don't understand what the hell you're saying" and runs out and of course all the boys go too. I run out after them and start collecting the boys to shove them back into the room and I'm like 'let's go, guys~! class is starting~" and brian's like "why are you trying so hard? no matter what you do we're not gonna like you so just give up now. and stop talking in English. we're not in the classroom yet". I'm supposed to talk only in English with them because I'm the native-speaker teacher. My approach to the kids so far has been to be bright and friendly so they like me and will listen to me. When they act up and disturb the flow of class I put on my angry face and scold them in a tight voice with a slightly raised volume. I don't know what else to do besides that! But I don't know if it's because they have gotten used to seeing me now (you know how kids test out the new teacher at first. i'm sure a lot of the bad behavior was just that), or if my tactic worked and they like me, but it's gotten much better. Besides, as much as there are the evil kids, there are also the cute, nice ones too. One 10 year old boy was like "Teacher, how is it possible that you could be this cute?" and there is one class of two 8th graders who are my oldest students. They are, of course, much better at English than the other kids, so we have fun since we can actually have somewhat of a conversation.

Gas is so expensive here. Saerom unni drives a sedan and it costs something like $120 to fill up a tank. CRAZY!! It's seriously ridiculous. Another thing that's ridiculous. President Lee Myung Bak has been in office for 3 months and everyone's going crazy with demonstrations trying to impeach him ever since the FTA fiasco. Did you ever see pictures from 2002 World Cup when the streets of Seoul were filled with hundreds of thousands of people? It was like that. I saw it on the news of course since Chungju is 1.5 hours away from Seoul. Basically Prez Lee agreed to import American meat that didn't pass America FDA regulations. I'm not sure about the exact details, but in America, meat is not allowed to be sold after a certain amount of time (it's either 3 weeks or 3 months, probably the former?). It's not rotten or anything, but it's not 100% safe either. Anyway I guess a small percentage of people who consumed American beef got sick and the citizens went crazy. I personally think it's kind of an overreaction, considering all the benefits of the FTA and the fact that the majority of people who ate the meat are completely fine.

Okay I'll seriously try to do shorter, more frequent posts for the next couple of weeks.