The show’s English name is “Boys Before Flowers,” and it’s incredibly ridiculous and geared toward high school kids, but I can’t stop watching it. Between my obsession with the show and my love of K-pop (Korean pop music, more on that later) it has recently dawned on me why I get along so well with high school students; I’m basically one of them. I listen to the same music and watch the same shows. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that sophomores seem to be my lot in life.
"Boys Before Flowers"
I've been watching it with English subtitles at mysoju.com
In other news, winter vacation is officially over and the new school year has begun. I have a new crop of 10th graders, and so far they are fantastic. It really helps being their teacher from day one, rather than coming in halfway through the school year like I did in August. I think the teaching situation overall is going to be a lot better this time around. Before, my students weren’t held accountable for what I taught, so as hard as I tried to get them to participate in class activities, there wasn’t much motivation for them do so. But this year, a percentage of their grade is based on a speaking exam conducted by yours truly. The word “exam” alone strikes fear in the hearts of all Korean students, and they are already anxious about this oral exam that will be held sometime in May. I’m optimistic that this will give me the authority I was lacking last school year.
I also have my own classroom this year, and not just any classroom, but a brand new “English Zone” paid for by a grant from the government and equipped with more technology than I know what to do with. Before I had nothing but a chalkboard, and now I have a touch screen LCD monitor. (I think that’s what it’s called anyway)
It’s a good thing that the school year is starting off on a positive note, because I came back from Thailand in sort of an anti-Korea funk. When I stepped off the plane in Seoul, I was greeted by frigid cold weather and fought a throng of pushing and shoving Koreans to get onto the light rail. It’s always like that coming back to Seoul. I forget what it’s like and then I’m rudely awakened. Also, that week the won took a nosedive in value. I have to transfer money home every month to pay bills regardless of the exchange rate, and that week it was at an 11 year low, so I cringed as hundreds of thousands of won disappeared into thin air. Right now I’m making almost $500 less a month than I was back in September because of the crappy exchange rate. If the won/dollar exchange rate were to continue to plummet, it wouldn’t be feasible to stay another year in Korea. But the exchange rate got a little bit better this week (after I transferred my money, of course) so I’ll just have to wait and see. I’ve decided to put the stay-or-go decision on the back burner for a while rather than stress out about it constantly.
Well, I will leave you with some pictures of my awesome new classroom. It’s definitely the nicest in the entire school and I feel a little guilty about that. I sometimes wonder what the Korean teachers think of me because I do less work than they do, I have the nicest room, and I’m really popular with the students only because I’m one of only two foreigners at the school. (We have a Chinese teacher now too) They seem to like me though, and more teachers have been making an effort lately to try to talk to me. Today at lunch one teacher told me that she wanted to talk to me before, but she was too scared. It seems more of them have gotten over their “shyness.” It only took six months. Anyway…
Here’s my new room!
4 comments:
finally! I've been dying not having anything to read......
awesome classroom Ms. Syrstad! I bet you miss your old one up at the ed center at North though right? Haha hopefully you'll be able to come back to North next year, we all miss you.
Zack Lameyer
WOW Have you figured out how to work it all yet?
No Adam, I need you to fly over and help me figure out how to work it all!
And Zack, I miss you guys too!
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