(no subject)
So the school where I teach has had a lot of days off this year. This is a massive change from the academy (hagwon) where I worked my tush off for the two and a half years before I hit the educator's jackpot.
This week, the first and second grade teachers only had to teach three days this week, because yesterday and today, they went to ski camp. English teachers were invited, although we would have had to pay 164,000 won to go (around $150). And since skiing is expressly forbidden for pregnant women, I decided it would probably be a huge waste of money and time. And also, it would be cold. I don't like the cold. (Though this winter has been far more bearable due to all the super-warm clothes my mother-in-law bought for me.)
So, yesterday and today, we just hung out in the office. I worked on my 2012 vocabulary list, which took forever, because we try to cater as much as possible to the struggling students. So every word has a definition, an example sentence, and a picture. And since I want all my second graders to be little verb geniuses this year, I threw in all the past-tense forms of all the verbs.
Random question: Do you think the past tense of "plead" should be "pleaded" or "pled"? I have my own opinions but I want to know your opinion first.
Did I mention it is also color-coded, divided by lesson, and sub-divided by part of speech? So this has taken a total of about 18 work hours to finish. But it's really awesome now.
However. I have had two insanely boring days in a row, sitting on my butt, typing and eating almonds and dried mangoes. One of my co-teachers, Kyle, caught the plague and has been home sick both days, so I don't even have any entertaining conversations. Kyle's a really great co-teacher, honestly, I really appreciate him when he's around, but I appreciated him a lot more today.
But now it's the weekend! I don't know why, but if I have a ton of time on Thursday, I just sit around waiting for David to come home. But if it's Friday, I have all this energy and get all kinds of stuff done that I'd avoided earlier in the week, cleaning, organizing, planning stuff, doing crafts, actually answering emails...it's amazing. And this happens every Friday. I'm always happy to be alone, getting stuff done, if it's Friday. If it's any other weekday, I want other people around to play with.
David's sister wants me to teach her English. But, she wants to come to our house, and have me teach her for two hours. And I would be able to do this if I weren't pregnant, I think, but as it is now I get really tired really fast, so I said maybe an hour or so would be fine. She lives in Ansan, though, with David's parents, which means she has to travel almost four hours, round trip, to visit our house. Plus, she usually stays for dinner. So David talked to her and we decided it wasn't going to work. But I felt kind of sorry, too. She's my sister-in-law, and I know one of the reasons she wanted to do this was so we could get closer. My language partner, Hye Young, had an idea though. She asked why we couldn't just have skype lessons, for say, 90 minutes? Then we could chat, and no one would have to travel far away, and no one would get exhausted. It could work.
This week, the first and second grade teachers only had to teach three days this week, because yesterday and today, they went to ski camp. English teachers were invited, although we would have had to pay 164,000 won to go (around $150). And since skiing is expressly forbidden for pregnant women, I decided it would probably be a huge waste of money and time. And also, it would be cold. I don't like the cold. (Though this winter has been far more bearable due to all the super-warm clothes my mother-in-law bought for me.)
So, yesterday and today, we just hung out in the office. I worked on my 2012 vocabulary list, which took forever, because we try to cater as much as possible to the struggling students. So every word has a definition, an example sentence, and a picture. And since I want all my second graders to be little verb geniuses this year, I threw in all the past-tense forms of all the verbs.
Random question: Do you think the past tense of "plead" should be "pleaded" or "pled"? I have my own opinions but I want to know your opinion first.
Did I mention it is also color-coded, divided by lesson, and sub-divided by part of speech? So this has taken a total of about 18 work hours to finish. But it's really awesome now.
However. I have had two insanely boring days in a row, sitting on my butt, typing and eating almonds and dried mangoes. One of my co-teachers, Kyle, caught the plague and has been home sick both days, so I don't even have any entertaining conversations. Kyle's a really great co-teacher, honestly, I really appreciate him when he's around, but I appreciated him a lot more today.
But now it's the weekend! I don't know why, but if I have a ton of time on Thursday, I just sit around waiting for David to come home. But if it's Friday, I have all this energy and get all kinds of stuff done that I'd avoided earlier in the week, cleaning, organizing, planning stuff, doing crafts, actually answering emails...it's amazing. And this happens every Friday. I'm always happy to be alone, getting stuff done, if it's Friday. If it's any other weekday, I want other people around to play with.
David's sister wants me to teach her English. But, she wants to come to our house, and have me teach her for two hours. And I would be able to do this if I weren't pregnant, I think, but as it is now I get really tired really fast, so I said maybe an hour or so would be fine. She lives in Ansan, though, with David's parents, which means she has to travel almost four hours, round trip, to visit our house. Plus, she usually stays for dinner. So David talked to her and we decided it wasn't going to work. But I felt kind of sorry, too. She's my sister-in-law, and I know one of the reasons she wanted to do this was so we could get closer. My language partner, Hye Young, had an idea though. She asked why we couldn't just have skype lessons, for say, 90 minutes? Then we could chat, and no one would have to travel far away, and no one would get exhausted. It could work.