6 Month Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to me for being in Korea for 6 months! Feel free to send gifts to my LCI address. :)
I arrived on August 24th, but I don't think I leave until the end of August (around the 28th) so I'm counting this as my six months. I still can't really believe that it has been six months already.

February has been pretty busy. Graduation is tomorrow (the 29th) for all the kindergarten classes so the Korean staff has been pretty on edge most of the this week and last week. I did find out my new classes though last week and I'm super excited!

The new semester in Korea starts in March, so we'll start our new classes on March 5th. Since my kindergarten is graduating, I'm getting a new class. I'll have a 6-1 class, which means that they will be brand new six year olds, aka they know absolutely nothing... I'm really excited to have a new class but I'm pretty nervous too! In August, I started with a 7-1.5 class, meaning they were seven year olds, and they will have graduated with one and a half years of English (my first six months was my class's last six months, the .5). Like I said before (I think?) everyone goes to first grade when they turn 8 years old, regardless of how many years they've had at our school. We have kindergarten in the morning because they don't go to their Korean schools yet. So some parents put their kids into private English school starting at 5 years old, some wait until they're 6, and some wait until they're 7. Also remember that Koreans all become a year older at the New Year so they are all the same "age".

Anyways, moral of the story, I will have a 6-1 class which I'm nervous and excited about! I found out that my first grade is my kindergarten class. I'm so so excited about it. They  usually like to switch up the teachers from kindergarten to their first grade but they told me my kids are "really attached" to me so I still get to be their teacher. First grade is usually everyday, but one of my kid's moms decided that was too much for her daughter and made them switch it for my class to only Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The best part about it is that this mom caused all this trouble and then decided her daughter would be going to a different school that had less work. Quite disrespectful if you ask me but I'm kind of happy this girl is no longer coming! So out of my six kindergartners, only four will be returning to LCI, my school, for first grade. Jessie and Angelina decided not to come back and yeah, I'm not too upset.

Tuesday and Thursday then during the first grade time I'll be teaching Reading Club which is story reading with the kindergartners from other classes. I'll have a 6-2 kindergarten class Tuesdays and a 7-3 class on Thursdays. These classes should be pretty smart, especially the 7-3 class. They are 7 years old, so they will go to first grade NEXT March, and they are starting their third year of English.

Second grade and third grade aren't too exciting. I'm teaching Storytown though now instead of Science which I think I will like better! I don't have a break in the middle of the day anymore which was really nice but I'll make more money and I think it'll make the days go by even faster!

We also had to switch our classrooms for the new semester because all the 7 year old rooms are on one wall, and then the 6 year old rooms are on the other wall. I have to leave my big classroom which is unfortunate but I get to move into a room that at least the other teacher kept pretty clean so it's not too bad! I only have 7 kindergartners which is really nice too because I don't know if I could handle teaching more than that without them knowing any English! The supervisors put me in one room, but then asked me to switch to the room that the parents see a lot more because they know  I keep my room really clean and organized, so that was a nice compliment! :)

Well this has been pretty boring! I'm really excited to start this next 6 months though. Our new teachers arrived on Sunday to replace the 5 teachers that are leaving. I'm going to miss them all but the new teachers all seem really nice too. We went to the casino Saturday night since that's what some of the old teachers wanted to do before they left. Gambling is illegal for Koreans so it's really only there for foreigners and Koreans who have dual citizenship. It was a really nice casino, much less trashy than the one I went to in Minnesota once. I learned how to play roulette but didn't play too long after I lost my 20,000 won and told myself that was the equivalent of dinner and a movie or something haha.

Now I have to go prepare for our graduation, I also have to give a little speech about the class and all my students (eek). We have a staff party to celebrate everyone coming/leaving tomorrow so that is exciting! Then on Thursday Christine, Rachel, and I are leaving to go to Jeju island which is supposedly the "Hawaii" of Korea, not that it'll be that warm at all but it will still be nice to get away for a while! I'll write about it when I get back!

Love from Korea,
  Meghan