Teacher, Bug!

Dear bike master who lives below me,
Thank you for fixing my bike for free AND giving us rice cakes!

Well, this past week was more eventful than I thought it was going to be. Up until Thursday, everything went as usual. Like I said, I've been trying to remember what my students say to tell you about it, but since they are really caught on the word "dung" which i found is basically the Korean word for poo, I figured I'd spare you the details.

Thursday came and it was really quite a day full of unexpected happenings. The morning class was it's same ole same ole. I love that class. We now have 6 regular adult students coming. The orginal 3 and then 1 other middle aged woman and two college aged girls added the class. Mr. Che is one lucky man.

Then I went on to the company class. On my way out of the class I ran into this white dude, and we were both like, "what?" So, we got to talking and turns out he's from Holland and is actually an employee of the company. His name is Floris and he is 1 of 2 foreigners. At first I was struggling to understand him. I mean his English was basically perfect and far better than a big majority of Koreans I've talked to these past 9 months, but he had this European accent and he actually used prepositions and articles. I felt like I had forgotten English myself when we were talking. Anyhow, It was nice to see a little diversity for a change.

The afternoon classes started out with one of my younger students dropping a glass container full of beads on the floor sending glass and beads everywhere. That was a bit of excitement, and it didn't stop there. The very next class, I walked in and one of the students, shouted, "Teacher! Bug!" over and over again, he shouted this. You would think this would spark some kind of reaction from me, but since for the first 2 minutes of class, this particular class shouts random things like this in English, it didn't really phase me.

A little later, after I quieted them down, the little boy got serious while he took out his pencil case and said, "teacher, bug." I was like, "Seungwon, I don't understand." He didn't really say anything so I turned around to write something on the board. When I turned back around, there was Seungwon holding this "bug."



They all got a good laugh from my reaction of a gasp and eyes bulging out of my head. Turns out Seungwon found him in the park behind our school and had been carrying the lizard around all afternoon in his pencil case. The boys all took out their small box cutters (I have no idea why it's a requirement for elementary students to carry around box cutters, but it is) and wanted to cut it's tail. Obviously, I would not allow this.

Today I walked into the same class and asked Seungwon about the lizard and he says, "Maybe die." I was like, "What, did he die?" He shrugs, pulls out his pencil case, opens it and exclaims, "No, it's not die!" Boys will be boys no matter the country.

The excitement of Thursday finally ended and the weekend was here. This past weekend was the 40th anniversary of the church I've been attending here. I think I've mentioned it before, but I go to a church here called The Haven. It's an English speaking church with an American pastor and really, it's purpose is for the guys on the American Airforce base, but there are Koreans, teachers, other random foreigners who are apart of the church too. So, it was a big gathering this weekend with many people sharing about their experiences from being at the Haven in past years and talking about how much it has meant to them. It was really awesome hearing all the stories, and I think I have come to the realization of how much this church and the people in it mean to me. They have really become my family these past 9 months, and it's been hard saying goodbye after one of them has finished a contract or their year service. But the pastor, his wife, and those that are still there continue to be such a comfort to me when I'm feeling lonely and homesick. Although no terrible or depressing event has taken place thus far, I know that if something did, I would have this incredible support system to stand with me. The church is such a blessing.

Well, I figured I'd keep this one short. There are a few other random things like riding around Gunsan on this ghetto bike that I inherited and still getting asked as I speed by the masses of Koreans, "Hello, how are you? Where are you from? What's your name?" or going to Lotte Mart and seeing that they are selling the iPad2 or seeing, also, that they are selling bug nets that are supposed to go over beds to keep the bugs out during the summer (uh oh, I foresee a blog about REAL bugs coming soon). The weather is not too hot, however, my apartment is a sauna for reasons I don't understand but it's almost June 1 so I will start using the A/C soon! Yay! That's all I have, hope you are keeping cool and enjoying your summer!