Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Wavegookin

This weekend, I went to a Samsung Lions baseball game again, along with 13 other Waygooks. We ended up starting the wave (and by "we" I mean Amanda). The BEST WAVE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Ok maybe not the entire world, but it was awesome. Amanda stood up at the front and screamed something along the lines of "Hey, look at me!" in Korean, then explained that we were going to start the wave. Now, we knew it would take a few tries. We have seen waves started by Waygooks at the baseball games before, so we figured probably 3 times before it got maybe half way around the stadium, where it would hit the opposing team's fans and die out.

So we started... 3... 2... 1... GO! And BAM. There is a perfect wave. Traveling all the way around the stadium, through the opposing team's fans, through the Samsung cheering section, and back to us! So we figured we would try to keep it going... and it worked! It went around about 3 full times... THEN it got back around to the cheering section and it was like a light switch, they slowed it down to a slow-motion wave... it was the coolest thing I've ever seen! So it went around, ssssssssllllloooooowwwwww mmmmooooooo... then as it hit the cheering section again, ZOOM it was a super fast wave.

And that is the story of the Wavegookin.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Picking a team name

I recently did a game day with some of my classes where they have to choose a team name. It is incredible to see how difficult it is for them to understand the concept of choosing an ENGLISH team name... a lot of time they want to pick one of the student's names or something that is in Korean, but this is English class so I make them choose something in English. I tell them it can be anything... Purple Stars or Black Ninjas... anything they want... so at first I was expecting something along the line of Pretty Girls or Iron Man (some have come up with something like these) but it is so funny to see what they actually decide to choose.... here is a list of the names that I've remembered to write down after the classes.... I've grouped them into the class groups...

Playboy (in retrospect I probably should've made them change this)
Johnson (again, probably should've made them change this)
Passage
Alistar
Jelly Bean
Ryze Hair (it means bald, but I found this out after class)


Ah
Oh
Q
BBBig
Teletubby
Girls Generation (GG)


Goblin
Mafia
Kokomo
Farmer
Pig
Troll


Beak
Alistar
Sleepy
Bighead
Dragon Man
Texas


Challenger 
Perfect Man
Gentlemen
King of the Mountain
Bronze
Back Door


Marshmallow
Prada
Samsung
Pretty Girls
Star (literally a picture of a star, not the word)
Hannah Montana (can you guess the movie they watched during their speaking tests)


Yo
Woo
Ah!
Princess
Bagel Girls
Ho


Mini
Princess
Call
Foxy
Crystal
Rr


I Want You
Get Guy (I made them change it from Gay Bar)
Sexy Boys
Ugly Boys
Action Mask
Uncle


Wow! (the entire class would all scream "WOW!" when I gave them points)
Oh Yeah! (again, would scream "OH YEAH!")
Hey Guys
Peace
PG (short for Pretty Girls)
Yahoo


There are so many others, however I didn't write them all down... but I find their choices absolutely hilarious and wanted to share :)

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

I speakie Englishee

As a native English teacher in a Korean High School, I get the privilege of conducting speaking tests for all of the 1st and 2nd graders in my school. I just got finished with the 1st grade tests... each class takes 2 class periods to do, so they lasted for 2 weeks... The prompts were:

1. Tell me about yourself (introduce yourself)
2. Describe your favorite movie or a book
3. Explain the differences between Korean High School and American High School (this is because I did a lesson on this with my classes)

They were told to make it under 2 minutes and they were graded on grammar, vocabulary, fluency,  pronunciation and task completion, each counting for either 12, 14, 16, 18 or 20 points.

Some of the responses were OK, others struggled pretty badly, but others blew me away... I wanted to share a few of the moments or common comments I heard throughout the 2 weeks of 1st grade tests (a follow up blog on the 2nd graders to follow after those are finished).....

1. Most students started their speech by saying "From now on, please listen carefully.".... as if I wasn't going to listen to your speaking test, since it is just you and me out here in this hot hallway

2. A lot of students told me their height and weight (yes even girls, though their weight was usually "secret")... except they pronounced it "hate" and "weight"... guess because they are spelled alike, they think they sound alike.

3. Everything is "cute" or "funny".... their sisters are cute, their friends are cute, the color blue is cute... their favorite movie is funny and soccer is funny too.

4. I'd really like to know who told them to say "My family number is four"....

5. After "My family number is four" they would continue with "Mother, Father..." and every time I wanted to interrupt "GENTLEMAN" right after... only one student joked about it... I gave her extra points... if you don't know what I'm talking about watch this

6. I've never heard a hotel manager called a "hotelier" until now... and EVERY SINGLE Korean calls it that

7. One girl explained the difference between American HS and Korean HS and told me how, in Korea, everyone wants to go to college, but in America only a few people want to go to college

8. One boy told me "I'm shorter than my friends, so I drink milk every day"

9. Hopefully they don't think it is OK to, before sitting down, violently cough on someone that you will be speaking to... but apparently one boy did

10. One student told me that they are interested in learning other cultures, so they watch the Simpsons a lot to learn about America... oh great

11. One student said "My favorite color is blue, because I like it"

12. Another boy sat down and stared at me for a few seconds, then mumbled something in Korean, got up, and walked away

13. That boy unfortunately got the same score (as low as I could give) as the boy who sent the Korean teacher out to tell me he didn't prepare anything at all and wouldn't be coming out to try

14. A classic example of what "maybe" means in this country... when I asked someone if they were finished... "Yes, maybe" then proceeded to get up and leave

15. One boy, whom I knew had studied abroad before, just blurted at the end of his perfectly natural introduction "Can I go now?" uh, sure I guess...

16. One girl sat down, and started to speak perfect English, however it went something like this: "I like actually studied in America for like one and a half years. Like, I lived in Atlanta. Like. LIKE. LIIIKKKEEE"... though I gave her a 100, I really wanted to tell her, like, she shouldn't, like, use "like" like all the time. LIKE.

17. One boy sang me part of Jason Mraz's Lucky... he knows the way to my heart, and could really sing!

18. Another girl sang part of Beyonce's Halo (she was great)

Overall though I was really impressed. A lot of the students did very well... a LOT better than I had expected. I was so happy when I was surprised by someones English, but I was also proud of myself for realizing who a lot of the students were and knew kind of what to expect.

It was, however, hilarious to see how nervous they were... So many of the students would sit down and whine... several were shocked when I started the clock and made me stop it and start over... You could pretty much tell that most of them were reciting a memorized speech... it was like I could see them staring off into space, reading the lines of the paper in their head... though that's better than the few that ACTUALLY just read from their paper... I really wish I could've video taped these kids... they were just so darn cute!

It was a great time listening to the 1st graders responses, but I'm even more excited to hear what my 2nd graders have to say (and meeting the classes I don't teach yet)! Another blog to follow...

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Row Row Row Your Raft

Again, another awesome weekend! This one is definitely in my top favorites!

This weekend, Adrienne and I, along with several other friends, headed back up to the northern part of South Korea (why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Those bus rides are horrible!) for some outdoor fun. On the agenda for the weekend: paintballing and white water rafting!

We woke up SUPER early Saturday morning, which I actually liked a lot better than sleeping in... it made it easier to fall back asleep once on the bus...and headed to the pension where we had only a few minutes to change before heading straight to paintballing...

Once we arrived at the paintballing site, we had to endure an extremely long speech from a Korean ex-marine being translated (he kept getting mad at us because we were talking)... I think he didn't realize that we were there just to have fun... he wanted blood though... he really wanted us to be serious... at one point he told us we were not allowed to hit each other with the guns if we were out of bullets... no shit!?! Once we finally got dressed and had our guns in hand, we were divided up and set out on the course...

Team Blue!

The Girls

The course

I've only been paintballing once before, but it was a little different this time. We were actually in the woods, and there were gullies and ditches that you had to run to, you used trees and tall grass to hide your body, there was even a huge hill on one side that you could climb and end up attacking the other team from behind. It was actually tons of fun and I had a blast. I was really impressed with myself because I was not one of the girls that just sat in the back and hid... I ran out of ammo all 3 games, and "killed" someone each game as well. The first and last round, I was the one that ended up rushing while my team members covered and getting multiple people out, which surprised me. Though the second game my team was up the hill, rather than at the bottom, and I ended up getting stuck in some bush and couldn't get a clear shot and eventually wasted most of my bullets (though I did end up getting one or two people out). It was tons of fun and my team ended up winning all three rounds (and I didn't even get hit!).

After we were finished, we headed back to the pension and had a few minutes to change before heading to the rafting site. We divided into teams and drove the short way up the river. I was kind of nervous because I had never done rafting before, but then I kind of expected it to be slightly boring as well, thinking there wouldn't be much to the rafting course. I was wrong though! There were several times where my "family" ended up slipping and falling into the raft (thankfully not out of the raft). And MAN does rafting require you to use your muscles! Between my legs holding me in, my abs having to keep me from flailing around, and my arms having to actually row the raft, it was painful at times, but still a lot of fun! We got to swim on the more relaxed parts of the river, and they took us onto the land where there was a really cold stream that they dunked us in, the whole experience was just amazing, I can't wait to go again.

The Family



At one point in the trip I wasn't paying much attention and the instructor was talking to us and I turned and said "yes" as in "yea we are listening"... apparently he had just asked if I had WINKED at him! haha.... so from that point on, we were "boyfriend and girlfriend".... at one point he had his arm around me when we were walking, then he gave an ore to his friend who had lost one, and he told me "his girlfriend" didn't have to work anymore, and at the end we got a cute little couple picture :) It was great how everyone in the boat caught on right away and it ended up being the ongoing joke of the day... we really had a great "family" in our boat, great atmosphere and great laughs!

Me and my Boyfriend :)



That night we had a cookout, but for some reason I wasn't feeling very well, so I ended up going to bed pretty early after helping cook a little. But the next morning I felt refreshed and we all ended up making the most of our day before loading back onto the boats by heading back down to the river to hang out for a bit. Some people swam and played, while others just dipped our toes in, but it was a wonderful end to a great weekend!
Our sleeping arrangements- Korean style

Glorious Morning


Relaxing before the long trip home

Fun times with fun people