New Korean Pet Peeve

Why can't I buy one?

On the street, for some reason around my neighborhood you can't buy one apple, you have to buy like 6 or 10. I can't buy one bag of grapes I have to buy a box of 8 bags. I can't buy one orange, I have to buy a bowl. And what really peeved me today was when I was at the grocery store and I couldn't buy two individual yogurts, I literally had to buy 10. So I bought none.

WTK! (what the Korea?!)

I really miss Krogers, where they can do math. For instance when they say '10 gatorades for 10 dollars" and I only want two gatorades, I pay 2 dollars.

I seriously do not understand. For a country who says they are so concerned with waste, why do I have to purchase more than I can demolish before it goes bad?

Anyway. That was my cultural moment of the day. That and boys in my youngest class writing bad words in korean on their papers that were probably the equivalent of 'redneck,' or 'white trash' in korean. (it was a lesson on a rich man and a poor man).

I feel like I am getting meaner here. I am pretty sure the kids who see me getting frustrated and mean with other kids really just pity me and understand. They never seem to dislike me for punishing other kids. It's like they recognize they are being gypped by the kids themselves their distracting the class.

After some rough classes, I made oragami pumpkins with one of my classes. It was amazing, and peaceful. The quietest the class had ever been, everyone just crafting all seriously. What a blessed few moments that was. *sigh* Still I think my pumpkin reflects my inward feelings of the earlier classes.

p.s. notice the little man that makes his hat/stem.

My Mission Field

I have been super negative about work. I complain whenever I get the chance and in comparison to other jobs, my job really isn't so bad. Still I have plenty to complain about, mostly miscommunication with my boss and feeling like I never am doing anything correctly.

So at church this week Pastor Jimmy spoke on 'who controls your thinking' and how we are not responsible for many of our thoughts, because some come from God, other's from media, and others from the deceiver, but we are responsible for what we dwell on and continue to entertain in our heads. So then he continued to ask " Are you grateful for what you have been given?" and I don't quite remember how it worked in, but it made sense.

I am not grateful.

And so....I more easily entertain negative thoughts because that is what I dwell on. It is so easy to just focus on my boss giving me more and more work to do and being behind on commenting on students folders or listening assignments , or not having the appropriate lessons for some of my classes.........see what I'm saying?

BUT, that keeps me from seeing what is good in my life. The blessings I have everyday. Increased patience, a sincere enjoyment for many of my classes, and my students growing to understand me and how things are to work.

I shared with my church in our weekly sharing time (of prayer requests, things that stuck out in the sermon, praises, etc.) how I have been so negative and ungrateful. It has been especially apparent in how much my other friends enjoy their jobs or at least look at it as an opportunity to love their students and be a light in their lives rather than an energy suck. I realized I have been a bad teacher; half hearted, unenthusiastic and easily angered-well not externally, but internally. I am looking at my job in the wrong way.

My job is my Mission.

Jesus placed me here to be with these kids for the majority of my time here. 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. THAT IS A LOT. So why am I acting like the only time I have to 'minister' is outside of that time?

Monday, I started my day off late. I did not wake till 11 and I got up, went to the store, grabbed veggies and cooked them for my meals for the day (I feel God wants me to do a Daniel fast, not sure the answer as to why yet....) and I didn't get a quiet time in. However on the way to work I was flipping through some verses and came across this....

Matthew 5:16

"In the same way let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. "

That's what I want, to be a light. To be joyful and an encouragement to others. Not a Debby downer, but someone that makes you realize the blessings in life and be grateful to God for them.

Monday was great. Every class the Lord brought to my attention that I am blessed to be in these kids lives and have the opportunity to love them. Later in the day my friend Jessi texted me saying she hoped my day felt extra blessed by God and that she had been praying for me that it would. It was a really good day. God is yet again teaching me how to be a servant more effectively, sincerely and joyfully.

Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts, I know I have been bad at writing lately, it has something to do with being busy and blessed.

Longest Week Yet

It seems as though I will be getting overtime this month. I have 28 classes a week and on a 31 day month with no holidays that means 8 hours overtime. They do it by the month, 110 classes a month. OYE.

Still today was interesting. I have been trying to present my mind to the Lord so he can give me a positive attitude. It is taking some work on his part to calm me down from finding out I have 4 more classes this week than I did last week. It is a good thing I am starting to enjoy most of my students.

Monday Moments of the day that were super:

My first class of the day only has two students and they were both gone on a field trip.

A student bounced his eraser across the table and he totally shot it down another boy's shirt. EPIC.

A student threw another student's wallet, it went past him and out the window. "GASP!" and then when we went to look out the window, there it was just on the ledge. Brilliant.

Still I can't believe I have 28 classes. UHG! I don't get off work until 9 every night. I was told that would be possible but the previous teacher never had more than 26 classes. Probably to avoid the overtime pay. seriously I would much rather less classes than to have overtime. And then my boss asks if I want to teach her family in my free time? HA!

The funny thing is the teacher who had my position before me, Jason, wants to tutor the boss and her kids.

I went to take my i-pod out this morning and my versepack fell into my hand, I think the Lord was saying I need to dive back in. Needless to say I almost got hit by a car crossing the street reading my verse pack.

Matthew 4:20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

Answered Prayer

So this morning I sat in my room with my diary thinking of the day ahead of me and how I had my two least favorite classes in a row and then 4 more classes after. OYE. So running through my head was only ideas of how I could control two particular students. I only have ungodly descriptions of these boys so we will name them J and A. J is particulary bad, always distracting and getting angry and throwing things. Yelling at me in Korean or just in general being obnoxious. A is very similar although at one point he did participate in my class but was turned evil by J and now only wants to be a pain in my behind.

Well, this morning as I thought of ways to beat them, a fly swatter, a ruler, the book, my hand......I realized, maybe there is another way. So I prayed I would stop at least thinking of ways to punish them and trust that the Lord would make the class bearable, somehow. I had no idea how he would do this and I thought maybe they would not hate me today. WELL, I got to class to hear from Grace (the boss/classroom teacher) that I would soon be getting new students in this class. I laughed and said "This class? It's the worst to add to, I can't even teach it now. They (J and A) are too distracting." She asked who I was talking about and said "Oh, Justin has quit." I was exstatic and learned it was not just me, but he also hated Grace.

Totally stoked.

The class was still only half-way enjoyable with A still being a bit of a pain ripping up his book and notebook and balling up the paper and tossing it around, but I had fun with the girls. I decided not to get upset with his destruction, he can ruin his possessions that is of no consequence to me.

Still how awesome is it so see such an immediate answer to prayer? I didn't ask him to make J quit, although I had wished for it on other occasions.

God is good...

(and as my new church says...)

All the time.

Chuseok Days

So as it turns out, once you get outside of Korean cities, the country side is gorgeous. Sharp mountains and farms all over. Although my co-worker informed me many of the small farms don't even have real toilets, in fact when she visited her grandmother's for chuseok she had to drive her army (American) boyfriend into town because he was afraid of breaking the boards, over the hole that you squat on to do your business......anyway Korea is lovely. We visited the 'Toy Market' which is a young boys dream. The toy guns are eerily realistic.

You can buy groundhogs for pets here.....I am reminded of a stop at the humane society in Virginia and hearing a story of a pet groundhog that they had which would come in and out of the house as it pleased and was smart enough to open the fridge and help himself to the veggies in the lower drawers.....so maybe they would be fun to have.

Did I mention that Koreans are crazy and put cats, dogs, and bunnies all in the same cage? Well it is true; you can't see it in this picture, but there were puppies beside these cats and bunny.

We almost bought this little guy. He was seriously the softest thing I have ever touched. It was unreal, like long cashmere on a living creature. However when we asked the price he was 200,000 won ($200), so we decided to shop and think about bargaining them down. He thought we would pay 120,000 won; unfortunately when we went back, they told us the price was 250,000 and we decided we didn't want to deal with crooks and told them "In America cats are free."

I made a new friend....

So did Stephen....

In downtown Cheonan we found some dance wear.... well Stephen did, I wasn't about to hop in that green nasty.
And ate some Taco bell, which was a bit dissapointing, all I wanted was a crunch wrap supreme (which just writing about it now makes my mouth water) but sure enough, they were out of the large quesadillas and therefore my dreams were smashed, still it was fun to eat on the 3rd floor.
Lil' dude we passed after eating DELICIOUS Italian food, made by a man who actually studied in Italy how to cook....*sigh*

I also got to visit with Emily, which was wonderful. It was just really nice to hang out with someone who already knows you, no introduction or life stories, just chillin.

Stephen found his dream bike....

So all in all it was a good vacation, relaxed and full of blessings, be they a soft kitten or an art museum with wonderful Asian art.

Blessings in Photography

My fiance says my blog is not full of Whims or Joy, so I have decided to just post a few pictures that show my actual joy living in Korea.

This is our new friend, he kept staring at us so our photographer (Yolondo Lupoe) decided we should jump in with our buddy for a quick picture. Stunning old man isn't he?

After a long day of shooting we decided to jump in a fountain for our last location. Dripping wet, cold and completely happy. I love green.
We bought our traditional clothing at a market that sells used clothing, together they cost us about 20,000 won, which is less than $20 US. Amazing and my very favorite part of picture taking. Hanboks are lovely, comfortable and so fun. We definitely were in the Korean spirit.
Life is good. I am blessed with a man of God who knows my heart. He even recognizes when I need time alone and doesn't take it personally that I would rather paint than hang out on a rainy holiday day.

God is good all the time, and although I have been finding it hard to see his exact purpose for my being here in Korea teaching english and not art, I do believe he is good and I can clearly see how blessed I am. I mean God cares about the details; on our photography day I didn't have acne or chapped lips and even my hair was in place, which of recent has been non-existent. He provided a perfect green dress for fountain pictures and hanbok's for our Korean style and all for near nothing. He provided a professional photographer who loves us enough to cut us a ridiculous deal and took her entire saturday to bless us. He blessed us with perfect picture weather and locations all within walking distance of each other.

When normality lies across the sea I like to store away these small blessings in the pockets of my mind, easily accessible for that rainy holiday.

My Job

I work 5 days a week and I don't believe I have mentioned it yet.

My job is nothing too exciting and today I have found myself counting down the minutes. All too often we finish reading a story and we have 30 minutes to go and I have few ideas on how to spend the time.

Still I have some favorite students. I'm starting to see that some of them actually do like me. And that is encouraging even though they are often pains in the you-know-what.

Yesterday I had four girls fighting in my class, which for these 8/9 year-olds consists of tattling when they speak Korean and tattling when they point at each other and make the sign for 'crazy.'

I literally screamed at one point "uhhhhhhhhhhhg! I don't care. DON'T talk to each other, DON'T look at each other, NO crazy signs, NO 'teacher teacher she korean talking, she crazy.'" While at the same time I fake sign languaged- with X arms (Japanese style) and mimicking their bad english. So frustrating.

The boys must have been loving it. I usually have trouble with the guys, but it seems they have gotten over their hatred for me and now just want to get points. They actually pay attention most the time and rarely give me attitude.

When I pulled in their regular teacher to talk to the girls, there was an eruption of noise in trying to blame each other. Poor Jessica (my co-teacher), I tried to silence the girls long enough to explain that I don't care who was first, or who said what, I just don't want it in my class-and that's all I wanted translated. I am not really sure if that made it through.

I hate it when kids gang up on each other, or are mean. It makes me sad for their hearts.

On the other hand I have two boys that I teach, Nelly and Kevin and they are probably younger, maybe American age 8, and adorable! Well Kevin is REALLY adorable (like ring-bearer adorable), but Nelly has this funny way of clapping his hands "ah-ha!" every time he understands something, which is particularly endearing. They are just such a joy. I go from classes of a rowdy 10 kids, 70% of which are dumb as bricks and then I get to teach Nelly and Kevin who's understanding is far past their grade level AND they have a sense of humor!

I give them so much candy. Shoot, the classes that I like get so much candy and actually get to have fun.

All this job makes me realize is how much better suited I am to teach Art. I am already bored of teaching english and it hasn't even been two months.

At least the money is good.