Halloween 2014 at Fortis

So I wore a Hanbok on Chuseok at my school and was the only one wearing it. But for Halloween they went all out with candy and costumes and prizes for costumes. I had already spent money for my Hanbok so it was not in my plans to dress up wearing anything new. I needed to find somethings to make my costume with at home. Then I thought of the countless costumes I could make with everything I had back in Canada, including my short bob wig and mourned my lack of raw material. 

Then I looked at my bookshelf. And saw my dolls, wearing old style classic little girl dresses... And then I just decided on getting a petticoat to wear under a dress I had made before to be one of those dolls. Nothing in particular, just a country girl. And it did the trick alright for what I needed it for.

I expected to see Elsa and Anna. I was not surprised by that. What surprised me was that where were only one of each. Everyone had a different costume. Then, thinking about it, I realized that those moms all talk to each other, of course they wouldn't have made their kids wear costumes that were the same, so people would compare.

My favorite was my favorite kid's dress. Cuteness overload of Snow White. The bottom part of the dress was so much like Belle's dress I had a feeling they mixd two dresses. But I think it must be the prettiest Show White dress I've seen. Who said Snow White's dress had to be thin and straight. It's still a princess dress. 

And there was mister popular, AKA Aiden Kim. Or Minsung Kim (because his Korean name is the same as our Nexen player :P). 

We went to an English Village around Anyang and got the kids completely freaked out with the haunted walk around the school, food and trick-or-treating at the end. The say was good but honestly tiring. I had to come early for the outing with the kids, but still finished as late as my coming-in-late schedule. 

I'll end this quick blog entry with a few pics of my favorites that were taken there.

Belle, love this kid's name, even though it it like...... really not an English name... has a weird mom. I mean, she has a normal mom, in a country where moms are crazy. Her mom does not care about being compared to other kids and does not care about what other moms think. She forgot to dress her kid for halloween and she showed up with nothing on Halloween Day. So we looked for a costume in the boxes at school and dressed her up as a vampire. She was actually the coolest costume. I mean, she is already such a gorgeous looking child anything would look nice on her, but this just makes her look amazing.

Andrew. This kid is a pain to teach. He's such a little snot. But I love him as a kid. If I were not his teacher he'd be one of my favorites.

Yvonne. Because I just love Yvonne :)))

Outings with Fortis

My feet, in the miniature of the Roman Colosseum at Aiins World, looking if it was worth going into.
Was not. But at least we got one picture out of it so I guess that was a winning adventure...

One thing I really like with teaching kindies is that, since you need to care so much for many other details than teaching - like bathroom, putting clothes on and off in the winter, changing indoor for outdoor shoes, lunchtime etc.- you get much closer with the kids than when teaching older kids. But the best part is when you get to hang out with the kids in a context out of teaching: the monthly outings. I like those kids because they are adorable, they are adorable because they love life and like to play. Of course, when you teach kids, it's precisely those things that make them cute that are the hardest to deal with (the kid needs to behave, but that exact rule-breaking attitude is endearing....).

When you go out with the kids you only get the best parts. You eat yummy foods with them, you keep speaking English, but they are used to the idea and playing in English, is still playing for them so we are all good.

Alexis, the most fluent of our 5 years old... but the most capricious as well.

Here are a few pictures of the outings we did before, taken with the school camera, that I got last week. There are two different places, as you can tell with the difference of clothing: Strawberry picking, and Aiins World.

 Me, derping near the (?) Buckingham Palace... in one of the hottest days of spring we have had. We had an early taste of summer at that time. Which was all good, really, taken that I was really looking forward to hang out in the sun. Yes, even if I was fully covered and wore a hat, that DOES NOT mean I don't like the sun.

There's Yvonne, who got extra brownie points by coming to the school
wearing Nexen colors instead of her usual princess dresses and headbands.

Pretty Ellie, our tomboy princess...

Aiden, alias Kim Minsung (yup, same as the Nexen baseball player...) the womanizer

아인즈 월드

I am writing this entry with my phone on a hospital bed so for the time being I won't put too many pictures cuz I cannot put them where I want with the Blogger app for my phone... so now you'll have to be satisfied with the written happiness...

As for why I am in a hospital bed.

I'll make you wait.

Because I can. Doing things my way and slowly is my privilege as a patient.

On the last 3 of May, we went on a school outing with the kindies in Incheon's Aiins World, a big park filled with miniatures of famous places all around the world.

It was a C.R.A.Z.Y. hot day in the sun and the pictures I took with my phone came out really nicely. I did well to bring my hat though,  the sun was really intense.

On the morning of the outing I got a nice surprise,  one of my kindies that always dress up like a princess showed up with a Nexen jersey and leggings. She was so stinking cute.

One thing I love about teaching kindies is that getting them out of teaching context once a monthish is really fun. Those kids really grow on you.

Fortis Collegiate - Mokdong

Fortis Collegiate.

I have been working there for already two weeks. Time really flies, and I really feel like I've not accomplished much. The fact that I have been REALLY sick all through since April 1st, does not help. Every night, I cough myself to sleep; every morning, I wake up coughing and half-way through the afternoon I usually get a daily let's-cough-our-lungs-out-for-15-minutes party in my throat. It's pretty bad. 

The first week I had no voice. Luckily, kids are amazing. They understand that sick people exist and wait patiently until my voice comes back. Students at Fortis are amazingly well-behaved. That is, if you compare them to the kids at NgLOW, who all had come from play schools and were to be moulded into schedule following beasts...

Teaching at Fortis is not straining so far. Being a more book-based school, the schedule is somewhat easier to foresee - if I compare it to NGLOW, that had a great monthly-based concept, but always got us the books late because they are still publishing them and they never get printed on time.

Kindie-time is much less part of my day than before, so I feel like I just get the best of both worlds. I see those babies in the mornings and end up my day with bunch of small classes of elementary to middle school kids in the afternoons and evenings, all kids who are bright and lovely. The book system is a bit confusing because they not only have Student Books, they have a Practice Book (sometimes two, one for Spelling and Grammar, and an ON one) and a Workbook. I think there were some mess up in the timing of some books because some kids are all up to date, some others are all over the place with all the books at different stage of completion. Anyways, so far I've been busy trying to understand how everything works, while getting all books up to date with their Student Book levels. In two weeks we'll have mid-terms so we'll need to prepare tests for each classes, and some new homework-only reading classes were added to the lot so it makes for lots of correction after school. 

All in all I am pretty busy.

But weird,

I am NOT stressed. 

The only stress in my life is my cold, that has not gone away for 12 days straight so far, even with the help of meds since I went to the hospital three times so far. 

Work has me busy, but I don't find it hard. I feel in a weird state now, as if there's something big and bad coming up, someone going to complain about me big time, because I'm doing everything wrong, because I feel like everything is right. 

This kind of situation only happened to me once before. It was in grade 10 or something, in trigonometry class, when I had this final test and I felt like I did everything right but just started doubting. And in the end I had 100% average for the whole semester. 

You know, when you do things right, but feel like you don't really should, cuz you're human and all, and you should make mistakes.

 Stupid elections went on in Quebec in the last 3 weeks, and while my party, QS, got 2 more candidates elected, the whole election felt like a messed up scam. Quebecers are depressingly old-style I'-not-voting-for-what-I-want-I'm-voting-against-what-I-don't-want. How can ANYONE think they can get what they want voting that way?

Anyways, to end my rambling, here is a picture I find kind of memorable, what's with me and all those sweet kids.

Ode aux Petits Princes et aux Petites Princesses...

Moi pis mes p'tits gars

 Ça fait un tit bout j'ai pas écrit en français alors j'me gâte. Ça fait pas longtemps j'ai parlé français: Je viens juste de quitter la job, avec ma collègue de travail qui est de Montréal. Je célèbre le Québécois depuis 6 mois déjà, en Corée du Sud. Quel pourcentage de chance a-t-on de trouver, en Corée du Sud, une personne francophone? Quel pourcentage de chance peut-il y avoir pour que cette personne travaille au même établissement? Quel pourcentage, pour que cette personne vienne de Montréal, francophone...?

C'est pour ça que parfois, malgré mon cynisme grandissant (ça a l'air c'est proportionnel avec l'âge...), je me dis que, peut importe toutes les choses impossible qui arrivent pour nous amener quelque part dans la vie, bein dans le fond, on est peut-être dû pour être où on est, quand on l'est. C'est pareil pour la chance, pareil pour la malchance (c'est quoi une malchance après tout, sinon qu'une chance pour quelqu'un d'autre...).

Je me dis que, Miss N., j'étais due pour la rencontrer. En Corée du Sud. Pis c'est bein comme ça.

Amen. 

Bon... on fini avec le québécois, reprenons avec mon histoire palpitante.

Et puis parce que ma vie est peuplée d'enfants. Ils va y en avoir partout.

Monica avec sa petite veste par-dessus sa belle robe de princesse...

Cela ne fait que depuis le mois de mai l'an dernier que je les aies, ces petites bestioles, mais c'est déjà la fin de notre voyage ensemble à travers les mots. Une grosse année pour eux autres, et une grosse année pour moi aussi....

On était huit. Huit copains qui sommes descendus, d'un étage pour continuer la petite école dans une école qui avait changé de nom. NGLOW qu'ils disent. Bein nous, on est des amis pareil, peut importe le nom de l'école. On s'aime et on s'aime moins par moments, mais on est amis. 

Pis ça c'est ça notre chance. 

Puis, il y a eu un neuvième. Un intrus. Qui a passé quelques mois avec nous et s'en est allé. Il a changé de pays, ça a l'air. C'est le même pays que le prof. C'est pas grand le Canada, ils vont sûrement se rencontrer là-bas...

Mais il est parti et nous on a continué. On était huit. huit champions. Mais pas quatre garçons et quatre filles. On était 5 filles et trois garçons. Mais l'équilibre c'est monotone, de toute façon. 

Puis une de nos amie est partie. Elle a laissé le bateau avant la fin, deux petits mois avant la fin, parce qu'elle allait avoir un nouveau petit frère.

C'est mignon un petit frère. 

Mais nous on est restés ensemble jusqu'à la fin. Et on est rendu bon en ti bateau.

On est spécial pour plein de raisons. On est spécial parce qu'on est tous des princes et des princesses. On est spécial parce qu'on est ensemble. Parce qu'on reste ensemble même si on ne s'aime pas tout le temps. Mais ça c'est la vie, et c'est partout comme ça, même si tout le monde n'est pas au courant.

Ce qui nous rend spécial c'est tout ce qu'on peut être, quand on s'y met. 

On était le groupe qui se faisait laisser tomber. On était le groupe dont personne n'attendait de résultat parce qu'on n'était ni studieux, surdoués. On n'attendait rien de nous...

Bein maudit, on s'en est sortis. Pis on s'en est sorti comme des champions. Nous, on écrit avec une main d'oiseau délicate, nous on dessine avec des doigts d'artistes, nous on chante, on se raconte des histoires. Pis on fait ça en anglais. Dans un pays où c'est pas ça qu'on parle. On est des champions.

Mais avant tout on est des enfants. 

 Mes petits poux graduent dans une semaine. Un gros spectacle en vue, à finir de préparer. Une fin d'année à boucler et des au revoirs à faire... et puis une nouvelle année qui va commencer.

Trois jours après la fin.

Ah la Corée.... ils aiment tellement ça travailler qu'ils ne prennent pas de break.

En tout cas nous on prend nos minutes de libre à coeur. Elles nous sont précieuses. Mais plus précieuses que ça, sont les minutes de bonheur qui nous frappent au visage sans avertissement, et qui donnent de l'énergie à une journée, même fatigante. 

Une fin d'année c'est une fin d'année. C'est triste et joyeux à la fois. 

Nous à NGLOW, on a fait ça prétentieux. Avec des photos de graduation....

Alice, la princesse au plus beau sourire, rare et précieux.

Hillary - comme dans Hillary Clinton, la grande actrice rêveuse.

Jaden - un petit prince qui a tant d'amour à donner, mais en recherche tout autant.

Joey - maître dans l'art de s'éclipser d'une photo, petit prince furtif.

Julie, princesse au coeur sensible et grande expressive

Princesse Monica, dure carapace au coeur tendre. 

Sunbin, petit prince incompris qui a tant d'amour à donner.

Je n'aurai pas la chance de vous voir plus grands. Mais vous êtes si beaux je peut m'imaginer et ça me suffit :)