Drafts...

I was also reviewing my past posts and realized I have some drafts from when I was a student that I never finished (My trip to Thailand and the DMZ). Hopefully I will have those done soon along with the trips I took to Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore this past winter vacation in February. Thanks ofr being patient!

Starting again!

Alright! After a long hiatus from blogging, I am going to start again. After someone shared the link to my blog on facebook again, I realized that I have experienced so many things in the past year and a half since being back in Korea as a teacher. I need to start sharing my experiences more regularly with those who are interested, so my challenge to myself is to try and post at least one blog post a week and hopefully increase over time.

I am sorry to anyone I may have disappointed by not blogging more but I will try my best to keep you all updated! Thanks for understanding and always being so supportive of me! I love you all!

Also, here is a picture of the school I have been working at for almost 2 years now on Jeju Island, Korea.

My school is big and consists of 3 buildings but my classroom is in the middle building that can be seen below:

Also,  I started growing some flowers and vegetables at school! I haven't decided what to do with them once they get bigger but I will figure it out!

Lettace and the plant on the end is for red peppers:

More lettace and some tomatoes:

Teaching

Well I have been teaching for about a month now. I have had a lot of interesting experiences so far and am sure that there are a lot of surprises waiting for me in the future. I am teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th grade this year. My 4th graders are all adorable and I have a lot of fun with teaching them! They seem to have a lot of fun with the games I create for them to practice the different components of the English language. I also enjoy teaching my 5th graders too! They are a ton of fun and usually pretty energetic. They are also extremely smart! I have some students that are so advanced that I feel like they need to be moved up to a higher level of English. I try and use my resources wisely by letting the more advanced students help the lower level students complete their work. My fifth graders are definitely amazing and I cannot wait  to see what they accomplish in the future! As for 6th grade, it is definitely an experience teaching these students. This is the beginning of the grades where it is extremely important to have patience.

Chuseok 2014

Last year for Chuseok 2013 I spent the holidays with my boyfriend's family in Suwon! This year for Chuseok, they invited me back to Suwon to spend the holidays with them again! It was so nice getting back to the mainland and being able to spend a few days with my boyfriend and his family! Thanks to the Chuseok holiday I had a long break from work that lasted from 09/5-09/10! It was absolutely lovely! I was able to make traditional Korean foods, watch the traditional honoring of the ancestors ceremony and play traditional korean games! It was a ton of fun! If you ever get invited to spend Chuseok with a Korean family, I would highly recommend it! It is an incredible experience. Thank you Mr. Gil and Mrs. Kim! I always enjoy seeing you!! :)

Jeju Island!

For those of you who have not heard yet, I will be teaching on Jeju Island instead of on the main Korean peninsula. Although it was a little bit sad for me to learn this news at first, I had to remember that I was blessed with the opportunity to come back to Korea as an English teacher. I am also becoming really excited to start teaching! I will be teaching at an elementary school located in Jeju city on the north part of the island, however the grade levels are still unknown so I could be teaching multiple grades since I will be the only English teacher at my school. Since I did not post anything about my previous visit to Jeju Island I thought I would share some of the photos I have. If you have any questions just comment and I will answer them as soon as I can!

They have statues all over the island! This is what a lot of them look like! They are pretty cool looking! We found this one in Seogwipo which is another large city on the island but it is on the bottom of the island! 

This pretty waterfall is also in the south by Seogwipo!

There were a lot of people too! Nice area to see! 

Here is a bridge and a port near the submarine tours you can take while on the island! 

They have an eco world on the island and these little plants were there! They make me think of Horton hears a who! 

This was coming out of the lava tubes of the volcano! Haha my friend kind of got in the way of the camera and I could not stop to take another picture. :) Exploring the lava tubes was my favorite part last time I went!! 

 

Here is the location of Jeju Island on a map in relation to the Korean peninsula

This map is of the Island itself! Jeju city (Cheju city) Is where I will be teaching! Also, I live an hour away from my school so it will be an interesting commute but I live somewhat close enough to Mt. Halla to go Hiking everyday after class! I am pretty excited about that! Also I am in a good location to go to the beach if I prefer a more relaxing night instead of hiking! 

Teaching in Korea!

Hello everyone! I am delighted to tell you that I am reopening my blog! I am back in Korea as an English teacher and want to continue sharing my experiences. I promise I will do a better job at updating my blog unlike when I was a student in Korea! (Sorry for the long delays family members) I am excited to share some more experiences though so keep following if you would like! God Bless and I love you all!

Gil and CMU! :D

As I may have told some of you, my boyfriend was trying to apply to be an exchange student at Central Michigan University for the spring semester when I go back to America. It is difficult to be accepted into CMU, because there is only one spot available for all of the Korean students who want to go to compete for. Therefore, there was a lot of pressure in trying to get my boyfriend prepared for winning that one spot! The first step we had to go through in the process was taking a very difficult and a very expensive test called the TOEFL, which is used to test students on their understanding and knowledge of the English language. So my boyfriend studied very hard during the summer in order to get a good score! We were very relieved when his test scores came back with a very impressive score that many Koreans wish for! However, that was only the first part of trying to study abroad at CMU. The second step required him to send in an application answering questions like "What kinds of classes he planned to take" and "Why he wanted to study abroad as an exchange student" and of course he needed to send in his TOEFL score to show he was qualified to apply to Central. Once his application was accepted, we were able to move on to the final step of the process which was an interview conducted in English with four judges that would decide his fate on whether or not he would be the one person going to CMU in the spring. We studied very long and very hard for the interview. We did not know the exact questions that would be asked during the interview but we tried thinking of some basic questions that most interviews would use for studying abroad such as "Why did you choose to apply to CMU for exchange student?" and "How would you introduce Korean culture to foreign students while abroad?". Gil put so much effort into studying to go abroad to America and I am proud of him for trying his best. He had his interview this past Monday on September 2nd and then we had to wait until Wednesday September 4th to find out the final results. When the interview was over he told me that he tried his very best and left no regrets and it made me so proud of him! He worked so hard and guess what!?!?!?! His hard work paid off!! Gil is the one Korea University student that will be going to America to study at Central Michigan University for the 2014 spring semester!! I am so happy and so proud of him!! I cannot wait until you can all meet him!! He is so amazing and will be flying in with me when I return to America!!:)

Thank you for reading about my exciting news!! I love and miss you all and am excited to introduce you to my boyfriend!! I am so proud of him!!