In the PC BangsBANGBANGpewpew- May I have your name? 이름이

I'm optimistic about teacher training now that I have gotten to actually use the books. My co-teacher approached me this morning and we hashed out how we'd like to utilize the materials, and basically we share the same ideas for how to be prodcutive instructors to the teachers. It's never the people I get upset with, it's the differences in culture and the language barrier that is sometimes the hardest to deal with. But we always seem to get over any hitches (hopefully there's no grudge being harbored for something), and I certainly hope that we continue this trend.

After consistently forgetting the papers that have students' photos and names, I finally brought one to a class and I consulted with students on how to pronounce names. It will be a long. long. time before I know everyone's names by heart. So many sound the same- one student was asking what my favorite Korean name was, and I said just that. They're hard to pronounce with the subtle differences of this vowel or that vowel, and I wonder if English names are difficult to remember for Koreans. The whole damn school new my name in 2 seconds, but I'm just 1 person. Some of the teachers have taken on English names, and they say I should call them by that, but I don't think they understand that it's important to me and other English teachers I know that we learn their names.

Yesterday, a teacher handed me about a foot of 떡(ddeok), a type of rice cake. It was plain, warm, and it looked like a giant fat worm. And they wanted me to chow down. This was about 1 minute before class. I love ddeok, don't get me wrong- but stuff like this, and the sweet potato the vice principle gave me a couple weeks ago... it's so random! :)  I had to throw most of the ddeok away since I couldn't eat it, and by the end of class it was funky and cold. It's steamed or something, so it's initially sticky, but when it cools you get that kind of pudding skin. Nasty.

Looks like mozarella cheese sticks, right?

Oh yes and genius me! jk, but seriously I suggested that I differentiate some of the teaching materials for students, and my teacher gave me the OK! I'm so excited, but I just welcomed a fair amount of extra work. I've noticed that when we do reading exercises, classes seem to be split from those who have strong listening comprehension skills and those who really struggle. The reading selections are already pretty tough for the students, and I'm doubting how much they can auditorily decipher. Some students have a lot of trouble spelling, and 1 student that I've seen makes writing mistakes that people with a learning disability might make. So I get to remake materials so they're more accessible to lower level students. HAPPY.

My hour at the PC Bang is about up. Quality date with my boyfriend... Then it's off to Homeplus to buy myself the lamb bathmat as a computer seat. It's cute! It's pink!