Yet another Korean adventure...

Another weekend has managed to roll around and pass by and what a weekend it was! Friday night was spent with a good friends and a good game (something like charades) which caused a competitive streak to come out in most of us and a lot of laughs. An early rise on Saturday morning and a subway ride and we arrived at the meet-up point for my first ever attempt at paint-balling (in celebration of Kyle's birthday)!

I'll admit my nerves were in full swing as we got all geared up in our army suits and were given our guns. I was excited to try it but scared at how much it could supposedly hurt! We dived into 2 teams; America (team 1) versus the Rest of the World (team 2). Thankfully the World managed to overcome America despite a few early setbacks. My nerves disappeared after the first few shots (once I realised that the although it did hurt being hit, it was easily forgotten in the adrenaline rush). 42 of us from all over different parts of the world and living in different parts of Korea meched together for a few hours of  fun filled terror and adventure. Despite my reservations at the beginning I had a day of fun that I'd happily repeat. The day didn't end there but was followed up by a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant and yummy frozen margaritas before we finally made the trip home, tired but happy.

St. Patrick's Day in Korea.

So roughly 6,000 miles from home It's hard to imagine that St. Patrick's day would be anything like a normal one...and yet it was. The 17th itself passed off without too much fuss or fancy as most of the Koreans had never heard of the day but our fellow co-workers made an effort wearing green (more than Dee and I did, we realised that neither of us owned a single piece of green clothing in our entire wardrobes). That night we went for a few quiet drinks but the real fun and celebrations happened on Saturday the 19th. Dee and I, anxious for an early start, headed to Seoul before most of our friends and were more than happy with what we discovered on our arrival. A river of green shirt, hats, pants and faces flowing along the streets of Insa-dong. The distant melody of Molly Malone led us to the main gathering and it wasn't long before Dee and I were in full swing blaring out the songs along with the band at the top of our lungs. Looking around and seeing so many obviously non-Irish people who were celebrating our small country made me so proud. It really seemed to be true that the Irish are a beloved nationality. The sun shown down on the crowd as they attempted the siege of Ennis (it was a funny sight to watch such a mixed group of people hop up and down and crash into each other all to the unheard directions of an Irish man on the stage)

! We were joined slightly after by our friends (Canadian, America, Korean and English) who all embraced the spirit of the day just as quickly and it was obvious from the beginning that it was going to be a very good day. That evening the U2 cover band finally finished up the official festival but that was not the end of the day. We moved to the Itaewon (foreigner area) of Seoul and continued the celebrations which were topped off with the Ireland-England match live at 2am that night. The Irish bar was packed with all sorts of people (the vast majority of whom were supporting Ireland) and winning that game was the cherry on top of an altogether wonderful day.

After the match people started to drift out to the next pub leaving the few obvious Irish stragglers. I started chatting to a girl standing beside me and discovered she was from Clare. Being so close I named a few people I thought she might have known and discovered she is actually 2nd cousins with my 2nd cousin. At that moment standing in a bar in Seoul celebrating St. Patrick's day, surrounded by Irish and finding a cousin of a cousin I may as well have been at home. I felt that the world got a whole lot smaller for me in that second and home isn't as far away as I thought.

My new class!

Where to even begin?? That is both the question for this blog and also the question for the new class I have begun teaching. I haven't even had them a week yet and still have had numerous criers, a nosebleed, had to wipe bums and change clothes after a "little accident"! Oh the joys of little kids! It has been a bit of a shock to the system as it is a total change from my last class. I didn't realise how lucky I had it. Don't get me wrong my new little kids are still gorgeous and so cute and so tiny... I just wish we could understand each other. The language barrier is proving a difficulty as some of them stare blankly at me when I even ask the simplest questions like 'What is your name?' then again, in the opposite sense, I too have to shrug my shoulders when they come to me telling me a story in Korean. With 17 kids in the class it is quiet a test (and the fact that 13 of the 17 are boys doesn't help!) The difference between boys and girls is strikingly obviously every playtime after lunch when the girls politely ask for paper so they can colour (usually pretty pictures of flowers and the likes) while the boys proceed to build towers out of Lego (which they then use as weapons to beat each other the minute you turn your back!) The saying 'boys will be boys' has suddenly gotten a whole new light in my eyes and has left me with the slight hope in the back of my mind that whenever I do have kids (a long time away in the future) they will be little girls!

Teaching so far...

So back two months ago when I arrived I was pretty much dropped in at the deep end. It was a case of welcome to Korea you start work in the morning. In one way that was good though and although I was totally lost at first (didn't know what they'd covered, or what the kids personalities were) I soon figured most of it out.

In the last few weeks I have to say I was really enjoying my teaching. My class were good, they bolder ones I had worked out and had figured out the best way to deal with them and it was pretty settled!!

So much for that.. today was the start of the new school year and I have gotten a class half of whom don't even know what I'm asking when I ask their name. Poor creatures they are only babies really but it still is gonna make my life a bundle of laughs for a while.. I'll write again bout my adventures with my new class but this blog is about how much I settled in 2 months and how much I loved my class. I love teaching kindergarten, I love the spontaneous hugs from the kids and the fact that they will laugh when you pull a funny face or say a word they think sounds strange. I love that they keep an open mind (they're like little sponges). I'll admit it gets tiring.. I mean you can only take so much of 'teacher he won't share his pokemon with me!!' Generally in the evening I am over the moon to have adult conversation too but all the same it was great. I had a good (and small) class who spoke excellent English.. that's all changed but all I'm hoping is that 2 more months down the line I'll have settled into my new class just as well as I have my old one. I'll let you know then but til now I've a few photos of the class I said goodbye to.

Talent show and graduation!

So my long anticipated talent show went off very successfully in the end, I am happy to say! The kids sang loudly and remembered all their lines but most importantly I didn't make too big a fool of myself playing the traditional Korean gong. Lemon tree was a popular choice and the kids looked so cute in their costumes for 'The Ugly Duckling' unfortunately I stupidly forgot to charge my camera before the show so no photographic evidence of their cuteness. (Found some pictures).
Ye'll just have to trust me. The Friday after we held the talent show (last Friday) was graduation. I teach the oldest class in the kindergarten at the moment, the 7 year olds (5-6 year olds internationally). So they are "graduating" and starting in elementary school next week. They were so cute in their little gowns and hats walking on stage to collect their certificates. I'll actually miss them. As of next Wednesday I start teaching the 6 year old class Korean age (4-5 year olds internationally) which is going to be interesting. Their level of English is a lot lower that what I am used to now ( as in most of them stare at you blankly if you ask them a long sentence in English)! That and the fact that I am going to have 17 students in my class (at the moment I have 7) is going to make things very different. It'll be an experience though, most things are here. So until next Wednesday I am going to appreciate the class I have now and hope for the best!

Nana

                      Sadly I got news from home this week that nana had passed away. I loved her very much and still do, so being away from home is pretty hard at the moment. All I wanted was to be able to be there to say goodbye but I know she is happy now. I know that wherever she is she knows I am thinking about her too. My friends here have been fantastic and I love them for that but one of the hardest parts of being away is not having anyone here who knew nana to talk about to. Since this blog is mainly read by my family at home I thought I could share some of my stories about nana.
                    She was a wonderful woman and the keystone of the Hennessy family around whom so many of my memories as a child are based. I remember Christmas at nana's house which for many years involved a Christmas tree which was a branch cut off the big evergreen tree outside stuck in a bucket of sand and of course the "blow-up" santa doll which hung in the kitchen (which since before I remember was far too full with holes to blow-up so had been stuffed with straw instead). I remember waking up early to watch Sesame street before nana would come downstairs and start cleaning out the fire. I remember collecting buckets of fresh milk from the milking parlour both to feed the baby calves and to drink ourselves and her showing us hows we could put our hands into the calves mouths which caused much fun between all the cousins as we chased each other around covered in slobber. Collecting the eggs was another fun job, with nana not letting the poor hens out of the house until she knew they'd laid, or having to run across the hay in the barn looking for new "secret" nests. Making toast by sticking slices of bread on a fork and holding it against the flames in the fire then drowning it in real butter, while of course wearing a pair of nana's knitted slippers!
                   I can thank nana as well for being one of the main reasons I have religion although when we were younger we were never too happy about that. Joanne and me and the cousins would all conveniently disappear when we knew it was time for the angelus or especially the rosary. The few times we lost track of time and were still upstairs playing when she called us to say it we'd all go as quiet as we could and pretend we hadn't heard her call in the hope the adults would think we weren't there. Nana taught us all to play draughts. When we were young we thought it was great beating her all the time until we got a little older and we suddenly realised she had been going easy on us because now we couldn't ever win! Or how to amuse us on wet days she's sit us at the table and give us the knife with the black handle (the one she always used) to play a silly game where we would ask a ridiculous question like "Who here is the biggest baby?", then spin the knife and get super excited and laugh at whoever it stopped on.
                   As I got older I appreciated nana for different reasons. One story from a few years ago that I love was a day we were doing a crossword (bear in mind that I had NEVER EVER heard nana swear). Mom called out the clues and we all answered. Anyway it came to a clue, a word starting with 'f' and it was 'what does the umpire shout in a tennis match when the ball goes off the court?'. We all sat there for a second thinking when without any warning nana looks up from her knitting and says "fuck". We sat in stunned silence for a second before bursting into uncontrollable laughter which left us all with tears down our cheeks from laughing so much.
                   As nana got older I realised what a strong woman she was. She had lived a tough life but she never never complained. I loved spending time with her even if crosswords and the six-one news weren't the most exciting things to do. Nana was a very wise woman and she often often told me that travel was the best education I could get along with other things, which I guess is one of the reasons I am in Korea now. When I told her about my plans to go to Korea she said wasn't I great and that she'd do the same thing if she was my age again. She was always open minded to change even new technology and when I explained skype she didn't bat an eyelid but simply wondered what they'd come up with next. She also warned me not to bring home a foreign man. Then obviously she thought about it for a second because she said "Ah sure Lisa, they might be better than the Irish ones" which we both had a laugh about.
              She was forever thankful and hated being a 'burden' on anyone as she put it herself. So I know she is happier now. I will always remember saying bye to her after the last night I stayed there just before I left for Korea when she took my hand as I hugged her and gave her a kiss goodbye and said that I was a good girl and that she was proud of me. So for all those memories and so many more I love her. May she rest in peace.

Time flies...

Time seems to be zipping by here before I can even get to grips with it. The dates keep rolling by and I still feel like such a newbie in Korea. Well, I know I still am a newbie in comparison to so many other expats here but I've been here 1 and a half months, which in my world seems like a lot! One and a half months in though and I am still virtually cut off from home. No laptops purchased yet and no mobile phones means that I am left relying on the schools computers for my internet use. As grateful as I am for it an email doesn't even come close to hearing my family and friends voices or better still (thanks to the wonder of skype) seeing their faces. When I think of how many options there are now though it makes it impossible to imagine how it must have felt leaving home years ago when goodbye really meant goodbye. Korea is still a totally new place to me... new beliefs, new customs, new places, new language but it's not scary anymore. I am learning the customs (slowly). I am starting to recognize familiar sights and I managed to navigate Seoul's subway system. I have also learnt some of the basic but necessary Korean words (hello, goodbye, please, thank you, water, beer, take me to, where, etc.) which makes life a lot easier. I understand that things can change very quickly here and other things that should probably change stay the same. Korea is a beautiful country with wonderful people and I love being here, in one way though I love it because it reminds me how much I love home. I've heard so many other expats say it and I thoroughly agree that if we could have all our family and friends here on this experience with us that would make it perfect.