To Market! To Market!

I don’t think I have ever been more thankful for, or feel as though I have earned a weekend more. Great big HOLLA to that. During the latter part of this past week I began to feel as though I was getting on top of my game because I was able to implement more fearning (fun learning) activities into the day. I’ve started some new strategies to modify student behavior, which are working well, though one student told me he liked the other teacher better. That may seem like a shot to the heart, but I was actually happy to hear it because it means I am LAYING down the law. Ain’t no foolin’ in my room unless I say so….or unless I am the instigator.

The behavioral incentive that I am using rewards good behavior with a game at the end of the day. I thought back to my days at Lackawanna Trail Elementary Center and Journey’s End Farm Camp to get some ideas, and I am thankful for those two jackpots. One of my classes LOVES silent ball, which cracks me up. They don’t realize it’s a ploy to keep them, well, silent. Another class loves Heads Up Seven Up, which is quite an amazing game that not enough people past age 10 play.

Like my students, I am taking a class of sorts; after school the Principal, Mrs. Yi (or Lee, we’re not quite sure) teaches myself and another new teacher Korean. Before going into this I knew that it would be a hard language to master, and boy howdy was my assumption correct. Not only is there a whole different alphabet, but they stack letters to create new sounds, and have some silent characters that just hold the place. Mrs. Yi is teaching us to read the characters, and another Korean supervisor is helping us learn how to speak it. This little phrase made me feel like a champion when I ordered lunch yesterday: “Cham chee kim bop ju say oh. Kam sa ham ni da.” (I would like tuna sushi. Thank you.) The -k in the word kam is actually a k/g sound (not just k), which is why I was getting giggled at when I said ‘kam sa ham ni da,’ instead of k/gam sa ham ni da. Another funny thing I learned yesterday about this amazing language is that if the word for tuna (cham chee) is pronounced a little differently it becomes the word for female genitalia. Jin jah? (Really?) Jin jah. (Really.)

Today I met up wth my friend Kari, a fellow former Burlingtonian, and her boyfriend Charles. I met them at Namdaemun, an outdoor market that sells everything from shoes to toys to dried fruit to freshly picked vegetables. It covers over 10 acres and has over 1,000 shops/stalls/retailers/street vendors. We got an amazingly large Korean lunch for $7/person. I bought some dried fruit and even tried some dried tomatoes for the first time, which are really quite sweet. There were some cooked bugs for sale to eat, but they smelled like pee so I refrained from trying them. This time. I hope to work up the courage before leaving this fair city.

Bugs!

I am starting to recognize places and am better able to find my way around, which is quite thrilling. The subway is not too hard to navigate and I don’t mind being all touristy pulling out the map because one look at me tells the Koreans I am not from here. Tomorrow my goal is to find the Quaker Meeting in town. Jin ja.

Until next time.