g2g [Going to Gochang]: School, Daejeon, Tomorrow?? (+ random pictures)

So, this weekend has been very interesting so far but I'll start on Thursday.

I am carrying the Fulbright torch by continuing the early morning conversation club with some of the advanced students in my class. In order to be in the club, the students are required to write an English diary. They are required to write at least 20 lines, which is a HUGE deal for them. They claim it takes them hours to ~rite it. I have no reason to doubt them. I think I spend about 2 hours a day reading them, editing them, and commenting on them. I would love to post some of the things they say but it would be a flagrant violation of their privacy. Hahaha. It has been good to see the students begin to trust me enough to confide in me.

Anyway, Thursday was a practice college entrance exam, which lasts all day. I was not required to go to school, so I chilled with my grandma in Jeongeup.and had dinner with Anne and Mina. I got to look through some OLD photos, so I will share them with you. When I got back to school on Friday, I found that I don't have to teach at the middle school anymore as they have another native speaker coming to them. I also read all the students journals that day. They all described the test as impossibly hard and quite a few of them shared their grades with me. It wasn't good. My advanced students were not doing well in the English portion of this test. Therefore, I decided to offer to help the students study for these tests. Once the teachers got wind of this proposal, they suggested I work with 3rd grade students (high school seniors) and help them do instead. Their results are infinitely more important. I agreed! I really look forward to helping them in this manner. The teachers were THRILLED about the idea, so I hope to have a good amount of support.

On a side adventure note, I have had a bottle of Jameson in my desk in the teachers lounge for about a week now. Its my gift to the principal but I can't ever seem to find him when I try to present it to him.

After school on Friday, I went to Daejeon (pop ~1.5 million, for reference, Gochang COUNTY is ~ 73,000) for J.R. and Korena's birthday celebrations! It was nice to meet with other ETAs and talk about our lives. I also took the Korean train for the first time and stayed in my first love motel. I also got to go to Costco today and buy some American chocolate bars. Like the king size twix, snickers, milkways etc... I have yet to open the package for fear of demolishing the package in a day or too. It was surreal because I felt as though we were in America, except everybody was Korean. Haha. Overall, we had a ton of fun and it really reminded me that I love my friends here. Had a good time :) Expect more occasions in the future! I was only able to stay for 1 day, because I have to finish lesson planning for the next week. Some more ETAs came up today so my early departure is regrettable. I'm sure they are having a blast right now without me though. :)

Lastly, the Gochang Blast have their first scrimmage of the second half of the season with the Jeongeup Puzzle tomorrow at 11:00. I hope I don't suck it up hahaha. I am pretty excited though. I am expecting.

Enjoy some of these random photos :) I promise to throw up more pictures soon.