Mission Accomplished (I Think)

When I started teaching last semester, I set very high goals for myself. I pushed my students and I think my expectations were too high for both myself and for them. I learned my lesson and decided to be more easygoing this semester as a teacher. While I'm not sure how much of it has to do with the students I had this semester (they were much better overall than the 1st semester students) or with my teaching approach, but I had a much, much better and easier semester. I simplified my goal too, only wishing for my students to gain confidence speaking English and to not be so afraid of making mistakes speaking English.

And according to what many of my students have told me, either personally or through the evaluations they completed for me, I accomplished that goal. Which feels both great and...strange. I suppose because I wasn't expecting to achieve it in the first place. But it has made me so happy that my students feel more confident speaking English, "especially with foriegners." I can't say that their English has improved dramatically but the fact that they're willing to speak English more is really great for them. Because otherwise they'll never improve. So I'm glad that I was able to help them, even if it was only a little bit.

I can't believe I only have about 8 more days of teaching left. And most of those classes will be self-study time for thier finals so realy only 3 more days. It's an exremely bittersweet feeling. I've become much closer to the students this semester and it'll be hard to say goodbye.

I hate saying goodbye.

Craptacular

Reasons why this week already sucks:

1) Sunday = blazing hot and humid. Went to the store for packing supplies. Wished to buy exactly one thing but got stuck behind a party of 4 with a ginormous cart full of crap who pointedly looked at me and my measly one thing and did not let me go ahead of them. When I would've taken literally 5 seconds to be rung up. Koreans don't believe in letting people go ahead of them in a line, even if it makes all the sense in the world to do so. I timed the people--they took 10 minutes to be rung up. I took less than 1 minute. Now, I know that they certainly don't have to let me go first, but doesn't it make infinitely more sense to let someone go ahead when they would barely make you wait rather than have the person wait 10 minutes for you and your crap? Alas, Korean believe to a fault that first come, first serve.

2) Monday = hot and humid. Decided to get a haircut.Bad decision. Bad, bad decision. The hairdresser fucked my bangs up royally. I don't know where she learned to cut side-swept bangs but these are NOT side-swept bangs. It's going to take me months to grow them out. The only nice thing was that I didn't have to pay for it. But seriously she messed up so why should I?

3) Tuesday = hot and humid. So tired after school that I end up taking a 4 hour nap from 9-1. Completely unproductive night.

4) Wednesday = blazing hot. Have a new contact mysteriously disappear this morning. Students are especially moody and apathetic, making me extremely frustrated. A bird shat on my back and I didn't realize it until after about 1 hour of walking around with bird crap on my back. I've never, ever had a bird crap on me until now. Formed new and grotesque blisters on my feet from my shoes.

I can't wait for this godforsaken week to be over. I'm sick of my students and of my school. I'm sick of this hot weather. I think I might be getting sick, literally.

And it's only Wednesday. Le sigh.

$5

I desperately need summer clothes. Ok, not desperately, but really do. But it sucks because I keep looking and never buying anything and also I don't want to buy a lot here because I know I have a whole closet full of clothes back in the states that definitely include summer clothes. So I basically just keep wearing the same thing over and over again. Which isn't such a big deal here, but I get sick of wearing the same outfits again and again.

Anyway, I finally realized what I've really been missing in Korea: the thrill of bargain-shopping. Since I'm still on a liquid diet (although today I did have french fries--baby steps) I took the week off from the gym. Yesterday I went shopping again to see if there were any summer clothes appropriate for work and not too expensive and well, no suprise, but no, nothing. I did manage to get a t-shirt from UNIQLO for $5 which is awesome because I actually did genuinely like the shirt, it wasn't cheap quality like a lot of clothes here, and it was $5! Did I need the shirt? Nope. But I do love a good bargain. Which Korea is lacking, at least in the clothes department.

In other news, I've written about 3 unfinished personal statements, all pretty different from each other, although I keep touching upon the same themes. It's like I know what I'm aiming for in the essay, I just don't know how to put it all together. Grrrrrr. And I feel the pressure because I know this essay has to be brilliant if I want a real chance at getting into a good school. And it should be good, it should be like the best thing I've written considering the stakes. But I just don't know. It doesn't help that I'm losing my English. Soon I will only be talking in Engrish. Or even worse, Konglish.

Wisdom Tooth

I got my wisdom tooth out yesterday. On Friday my jaw and wisdom tooth hurt so much that I could barely eat anything. I had yogurt and veggie juice for lunch and rice and tofu for dinner. Naturally I was still pretty hungry but if there's one thing that will force you to eat less, it's tooth pain.

I like to be prepared for things so on Friday I also stocked up on soft, non-chewy foods like bananas (ridiculously expensive here; 5 banana = roughly $5), canned peaches, and yogurt. I also had read that you're not supposed to eat the morning before the surgery because it might affect the anesthesia and/or prevent you from vomiting during the surgery. Neither of which sounded very pleasant so despite my hunger pangs, I skipped breakfast yesterday morning.

My aunt called me and woke me up asking if I felt tooth pain because if I did then for some reason they'd have to postpone the surgery. As it turned out I did have some minor pain but they said it'd be ok to go ahead with the surgery. And I was glad because I really just wanted to get it over with.

First thing they did was prep me with the anesthesia, which consisted of several shots to the left side of my mouth. And that hurt like hell. The inside of my left cheek was already sore and tender and here they were sticking a sharp needle right into it. It was horrible. Then they went to it right away and actually I didn't feel a thing when they took it out. I thought it would take much longer but it was over in probably less than 10 minutes.

Afterward, they gave me 2 shots to the bum and I was on my way.

I had a gauze pad in my mouth for the 1st hours after the surgery for the bleeding and it hurt a it, but not too much. It was when I took out the gauze pad that I really felt the pain. But that, luckily, was temporary and lasted maybe for an hour and then my mouth got used to it.

As of now, it hurts a little but mostly it just feels strange. What I wasn't expecting was to feel so damn tired. I guess it's because I'm not eating enough--yesterday I had yogurt and a mashed-up banana for lunch and rice porridge for dinner--but I just feel very weak. I've been sleeping like 12+ hours lately, a lot even by my standards.

I'm not even sure about work tomorrow. I don't know when I'll be able to eat solid foods again (my jaw is stiff and it hurts to open my mouth) and even just standing there teaching will take a lot of energy out of me, energy I don't really have.

All in all I'm really, really looking forward to when I can eat normally again.

Wisdom Teeth = FAIL

For the past few days I've been experiencing the worst toothache I've ever felt. It's basically this dull, throbbing ache on the left side of my jaw. I can just barely tolerate the pain but sometimes a shooting pain will run through and I'll literally have to suppress the urge to cry or scream. It's been hell. I can only use one side of my mouth to eat which is not fun and basically forces me to eat less food.

My wisdom teeth have been periodically given me some pain but none as awful or as long-lasting as this pain. So finally I called up my aunt and told her I needed to see the dentist because the pain was not going away. It's been horrible trying to teach when my teeth hurt every time I open my mouth. I left school early (I was finished my classes anyway) to go to the dental hospital.

After getting an X-ray done which confirmed what I already knew--that I needed to get my wisdom tooth taken out--they had to clean my wisdom tooth and the surrounding teeth. And even though they claimed they gave me anesthesia, (which they did with a needle to the gum) I still felt immense pain. It was so painful, in fact, I literally cried the whole time. I think they were baffled by my crying but they also didn't do anything about it. And it seriously hurt. I mean I don't tend to cry over a tiny bit of pain.

Then when that torture was finished with, they led me to this other room and told me I needed to get another shot. In the butt. Like whaaaaat? They said it was for the pain.

Now the left side of my mouth is numb and the right side of my butt is sore.

It was also awful not knowing fully what the hell was going on. People are just doing things to you and you're not really sure why.

Anyway, I made an appointment to get my tooth taken out this Saturday. Hopefully, this will be the last of my troubles with the wisdom teeth.

Weekend Crappiness

This weekend kinda sucked. I mean not completely. Emily came to visit me in my town. It was kinda hectic though because she came in pretty late, around 9 at night. Then I hadn't asked my host family about having her sleep over and when I finally asked last minute, they were apparently having a bunch of family over. Which I had no idea about till that day. But it worked out, Emily came over and the family was super nice.

Saturday we went into Seoul. We and a bunch of other ETAs had signed up to proctor the CFA test on Sunday. For the proctoring we had to attend a training session on Saturday. Then we hung out with people afterwards. I tried to go shopping but found nothing. SIGH. At least I save money that way.

Anyway, Sunday was absolutely awful. We had to get to the test center by 7 AM and I hardly got any sleep Saturday because the walls in our motel were thin and I could hear people talking loudly all night. I also had the job of reading all the announcements and instructions at the beginning and end of each test session (3 hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon). I would proctor in between. Proctoring was absolutely horrid. We couldn't do anything but literally stand and watch the people take the tests. No reading, no sitting, no nothing. Since there were about 3 proctors in each room we'd take turns taking breaks. As time went on, we each kept taking longer and longer breaks. After the first 5 minutes of standing there watching people, you start to wonder why the hell you signed up for this. After doing that all day, I'm not sure it was really worth the $300.

To occupy myself I tried to make mental to-do and to-buy lists. I also tried to practice Korean and solving math problems but I suck at doing math in my head. I also tried my friend's suggestion of giving the test-takers names and background stories. But all my stories were boring. There was only 1 woman in the entire room and the rest were men so it was hard to make any complicated love stories. Actually 10 people didn't show up for my room. Which is insane. You have to pay about $1000 to even take the test, which you have to pay beforehand. Even if I hadn't studied and I knew I would fail anyway, I would still take the damn test. For one, you already paid so much money just to take it. Also, it could help you study for the next time you take the test.

And this test is pretty important. It can put you on a different level from your peers, kind of like getting a certification or something. As my friend put it, you pass this test you "make bank."

And on Sunday, my wisdom teeth started hurting. They're coming in now and it hurts like hell. LIKE HELL.

I also realized that I can't deal with large groups of people anymore. I dunno if it's because I'm older or becoming more anti-social but I just can't stand it anymore. A small group of people is fine but when it starts to balloon I just get really overwhelmed. And annoyed. I think mostly because it takes forever to get anything done in a big group. Also it's like there are too many people to deal with. Which sounds terrible and it's not like I don't want to see and talk to these people but I just find it hard to do small talk with people.

So that was my weekend. So looking forward to just chilling next weekend.

To Do

Another To Do list: (I'm forever making them but not always finishing them)

1) Work on personal statement. (I HATE PERSONAL STATEMENTS. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CONVEY HOW GREAT AND HUMBLE I AM IN 2 PAGES????)
2) Study.
3) PACK. I'm actually looking forward to a time when I won't have to pack all my crap again and move yet again. Sigh.
4) Lesson Plan. Can't these things plan themselves already?
5) Get winter clothes dry cleaned so they're not all stinky in storage over the summer/fall.
6) Somehow see a buncha people before they leave and I never ever see their face again because ohmygod they're going back to the States.
7) Figure out what to buy my homestay as my goodbye gift. (Advice?)
8) Write my farewell speech to my school which will be in Korean--my students are gonna freak. It'll totally be worth it.
9) Get my haircut. It's so cheap here I might as well so I won't have to back in the States.