Slowly but Surely...

So today I taught five classes which is my normal teaching schedule for Thursdays and it was a good day. The only class that made me rethink my entire life and all major decisions was the last one, so other than that we're doin' great! ;) From this point on I'll be learning the personality of all my classes which is the best in my opinion. Today I had one class of all girls that was super quiet, smart, and on task. Next I had a class of eight Jr High girls and three boys that was more fun and easy going. I need to learn the pace of the class so I can determine how the speed I need to teach to get through the material. There are Korean homeroom teachers that prepare the material for the foreigners to teach so I will see my lesson for maybe fifteen minutes before I teach it. I'm definitely going to need to learn how to keep a good pace, explain basic words like confidence...? and take care of my voice because at the end of the day my throat hurts pretty bad..

Kids story: so far one of the boys insists on calling me Meeeegan. Seriously everywhere I go there's at least one person who calls me that. ha
I get onto the kids when they speak Korean in my class and this one boy was being really bad about it so his friend started making up what he was saying. ha! he said that the boy was talking about how much he loved North Korea and Kim Jong was his father and blah blah...it was hilarious. 

Cultural fact: If you say "crazy", it's bad. Calling a kid crazy is like calling them a bad word essentially. If you say "you're so crazy", they will probably go home and tell their parents that we were being mean to them. Also, writing in a red marker is something we don't do either. If i wrote a kids' name on the board in red, they would probably start crying. haha Also, the number four is like the number 13 in America. On elevators, instead of "4", they use and "F". 

Today, before school Asha and I went and tried out a local coffee shop. They have familiar coffee drinks. I got a white mocha and she ordered a caramel macchiato. So, it's very familiar still. The lady working was so nice. They usually know enough English for us to order but we try to learn korean words like hello, thank you, please, etc because personally, I think it's kind of jerky to not learn the language of the country you live in. She changed the music in the shop from Korean music to Maroon 5. Yup..that store is a keeper. 

We are called "Waygooks" (phonetically spelled) which means foreigners. Often times we're stared at and sometimes kids will point and yell or smile. We just smile and say hi. Owners of stores like people to see that the waygooks shop in their store so we have received a lot of discounts since we arrived and ya know...I'm not complaining. 

There is a group of foreigners that live here from America and South Africa who all go to the same church. It's a good community. It is usually extremely challenging moving to korea by yourself...or even with people because the culture is so different. We really have a great set up. The Lord is blessing our time here. We have people all around us to help and answer questions. We're months ahead of most foreigners when they arrive and I'm thankful for that...for reals.

Cultural Fact: There is a trash system here that is very precise and if you don't follow it, you're fined. It's pretty obvious who doesn't follow it=waygooks. So, we haven't quite mastered it yet. I know that there is a small yellow bag for waste, like food leftovers. There's a large green bag for regular trash and then a certain spot to recycle. You take the trash to the nearest light pole and tada! umm...but we know we've messed it up a few times so we take our trash out in the middle of the night and walk down a few light poles just in case :)

Tomorrow is my first full day with eight classes total! It will be a challenge but I think I'm up for it! 

New Life

So, I've been living in Gumi, South Korea for four days now but it feels like it has been far longer than that...in a good way. My whole life is different. The food I eat, how i cook dinner, the style of how Asha and I set up and organize our apartment, the roads/outside/directions, walking, communication/language barrier, and of course the fact that I am not an English teacher! This will be an experience of a lifetime. 

Asha and I spent the weekend reuniting with friends who live here and trying to get our place set up so we can feel settled. The school has provided for us a two bedroom apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, and balcony/outside/laundry area. It is a very nice apartment and we're really enjoying it. We're waiting to receive the furniture of the previous teachers so we can actually get settled. We have one room with blankets on the floor which is where we have been sleeping and the other room is a massive explosion of five suitcases. The bathroom has a shower curtain all set up which is typically not Korean culture so it cracks me up every time I see it. Our fridge is full of fruits and veggies from the market plus about 15 yogurts....totally normal right? So, needless to say it will be another week or so before we're totally set up. Pictures will follow soon.

A fun cultural fact: when Koreans are done with furniture in their house, they put it on the street with their trash and it's up for grabs by anyone who wants it. If no one claims it, then the trash people will take it away. So, in an attempt to get furniture, we have been scouring the streets for shelves and we found a small dining room table that we will put inside as soon as we have the rest of our place set up! 

I've wondered around the city a lot to know my way home from all the main places but of course I still feel the need to explore. There is a coffee shop about 5 minutes away from us that's called "Angel in us" and it's a legit coffee shop that is really an American style even though it's owned by Koreans. Everything that I have tried here in Korea, I've enjoyed...however, I have been choosy about what I tried :) no seafood please! 

Teaching has been good so far! At the end of the day, i'm very tired which has given me a greater appreciation for teachers. It's a tiring job. In the morning MWF I teach kindergarten at one school and then travel to the school in Gumi to teach Academy which is elementary aged kids.Those days i teach about 8 classes and T/TH I'll teach just my afternoon kids. I've just been shadowing the last two days and that has been a blessing in itself. Typically, when teachers move overseas they are just thrown in, but Asha and I have had the opportunity to get to know the teachers we're replacing and shadow their classes. Meeting the kids really helps me understand the purpose in teaching. I'm SOO excited to start taking over classes and see how it goes. I enjoy teaching so i'm anticipating it will be a good experience. I'm a teacher. whoa.

Cultural fact: no one wears shoes inside the schools. Everyone wears socks or slippers. I actually like this a lot. It's very comfortable. They call me "Meagan Teacher". So, the name and title are actually backwards from what Americans would say. It's been fun getting used to that. 

blahhh...i'm very tired

I wish that I could fast forward to when things are normal and routine is established. The hardest part of moving is getting used to everything new at once. The currency is about 1000 won to 1 USD. I'm still getting used to the conversion. South Korea is first world and so there aren't a lot of "luxuries" that we'll have to give up which  I think is maybe the perception people had when I told them I was moving here! It's a beautiful country and it's really a matter of learning the different cultural customs and routines. I'm up for it. It challenges me and that's where I do the best. 

I'll post pics in a few days

Thanks for the prayers and encouragement! If you have any questions about specific things just leave a comment! :)

Friends are irreplaceable for reals

In 19 hours I'll be on an airplane beginning the journey to move to South Korea. I'm so excited because I feel like this has been planned for so long and now it's REAL. Over the past few months, I've been answering people's questions and helping friends and family around me understand what life might possibly look like in another country. However, recently it hit me that answering questions felt like I was telling a story and now this is real life! No more story telling...I'm so excited and ready to start this adventure.

FRIENDS!!

I was able to visit Minneapolis for the past week and catch up with college friends. We have quite a strong and quality group of people that have miraculously bonded and grown over the past few years. Somehow we have morphed into the people we call family even though there's no blood relation and the only ones who can match our own personal levels of crazy. I realized this week that we have all put in our work to make these individual friendships unique, strong and genuinely "worth it". We arguably know each other better than most people in this world and will be friends for years to come because we saw the value in having quality people around us years ago. We used to reminisce about old times, funny stories, and memories that more or less have defined the culture of our interactions with each other. Lately, we've talked more about dreams, futures, how we'll make it to each other's weddings, ways to stay connected and how our families will be friends as we grow older and move from life transition to settling down. Growing up is a weird concept, but I think more than ever, I appreciate these strangely motivated people. We're going places and with that, our bond of friendship is growing and getting deeper. To be honest, I'm not sure how many people can say that. Surely, the depth and consistency of communication will ebb and flow with time and life events, but I can't help but believe that the roots and foundations that we've worked hard to build and maintain will stand the test of time. It makes me proud to know such people and confident to follow my dreams and plans the Lord's laid out. Similarly I feel compelled to be each of their biggest support system and the loudest one in the peanut gallery.  Thank God for these friends because without them my life would be a little more bleak, I would be a little less quality, and the world would be done a great disservice.

Back to Blogging...

So the last week has been a busy week of airports, planes, friends, family, and inevitably the goodbyes. I spent three days in Huntington Beach with my friend Lauren.

Lauren and I

Huntington Beach

I continued on to spend three days in Tulsa with my Dad and grandparents. It was good to see everyone before I take off for Korea.

For the next two-ish weeks I'll be spending time in Minneapolis with family and friends here. It's ironic that I was able to make it to the city just in time for Battle of the Floors. If you know anything about my friends or 3West in general, you know just how funny that is. I'm looking forward to catching up with my best friends and i couldn't be more ecstatic about meeting my new baby cousin! 

If for some reason you haven't heard yet, I'm leaving February 28th to teach English in Gumi, South Korea. I've signed a one year contract, but if given an option, I'll probably renew. This is a great opportunity to represent the Lord in another place as well as pay off student loan debt. I'll be teaching elementary-aged kids and I'm going with friends that i met at North Central so this experience although challenging, should be a good one! I'm ready for this adventure and after hearing so much about Korea and Gumi from other people, I'm very ready to go and live it up for myself. 

Map of Korea-Where I'll be! 

(Click the Link)

Lastly, I am very proud to say that i packed and ended up with only TWO suitcases...for MOVING to another country! Packing was the only thing I have been stressed about in this whole trip! I went through clothes probably five times and got rid of stuff...stuff that I like to wear, but just don't have room for! :/ It was a good lesson in realizing what i actually NEED. When I was leaving the Oklahoma airport, my suitcases were 1 pound over and the lady at the desk started to tell me that they needed to be lighter..so, naturally I casually mentioned that I was moving to another country and as we were talking, she just moved my bags one by one to the conveyor belt! Thank you Jesus! The hardest parts are done! 


My life has proven to never be dull so hopefully i'll be able to entertain with stories from time to time...

Culture:  people think of Europe as being developed and very in-tune with religion, but that is not the case. In one mass, literally the whole church will only be there, but not be practicing any religion. The idea of religion is so burnt into people that they are either so ignorant towards the idea of Christianity or so turned off from religion that talking about Jesus is literally something that has to happen! Europe is a first world country so there are luxuries in this place that are not found everywhere around the world. To be honest, some of the things that I see here I wonder why the United States has not adopted yet. However, just because there is development in structure and a history that literally speaks for itself does not mean that there is spiritual development. A third world country, often times Asia or Africa is typically put on the priority list when we think of missions and telling people about Jesus. This is done either consciously or subconsciously, but if we’re honest, we see that this really is the case the majority of the time. However, Europe is predicted to be majority Islamic within only a matter of years. So if this other religion can move in and convince people to follow it, then Christianity certainly can grow especially when there is power behind it of the one true God. As it is with most cultures, as least in my opinion, it is our responsibility to reach the children and through that generations will change and follow. Honestly, the revolutions and culture changes throughout history have all been started by young people. The church was developed through the disciples who were teenagers that had been discipled and developed by Jesus himself.

So, for all of you out there who follow this, I hope you take two things from this blog. The first would be a desire to educate yourself on the real-life cultures of countries, especially if you are going to visit them. Do not fill a stereotype of being an ignorant American. We have enough of those. The second thing would be to allow your perspective of the world to change. Begin to look at parts of the world as God would. Ask the Lord to give you his eyes. It will change your life. Just because that happens does not mean that you will be called to missions, but instead you will be enlightened and that is perhaps a blessing and a curse. If you can understand where another person is coming from, you are light years ahead of most people in this world. However, it is pure laziness that we walk around proud and ignorant. So, I challenge you, I dare you: do something different.

some things are just universal

So my class is in a little tiny nursery that sits off of the big room that the rest of the class rotates through during our two hours of teaching English each day. When the air conditioning is not working, it is easily the hottest room in the building and when it is working, it is easily the hottest room in the building. So, needless to say my kids are often very rowdy and pretty crazy when we have class. I like to let them have fun, but some of those boys just go crazy. It’s interesting the opportunities that present themselves while teaching something as simple yet as complicated as English. The room we are in, apart from being the in-house sauna has windows from floor to ceiling on two of the walls. So, we can see people walking around. The area that the church is located in would be the equivalent of the area North Central University is located in the city. It is not the roughest neighborhood but it also not the upper end of the town if you know what I mean. So, we see some pretty interesting people walk past. Almost every day there are homeless men who lay on the bench across from the church and take naps during the day. When the kids come in, they notice it and usually comment.

One day, one class of about nine kids came in and they started laughing at him for being homeless…as you can imagine, my teaching skills and passion for justice arose in me and I started to get on their case for laughing. I asked them if they would want people laughing at them if they had no place to live. They quieted right down. I asked them if they believed in Jesus and surprisingly they all said yes. So, then I told them it was their job to take care of people who were poor. We had a whole discussion about where money would go if they were drunks. I told them it wasn’t their job to judge that and that there were other ways to help. The kids were clueless. They had never heard this information before. I told them that if they couldn’t help by giving them anything, then it was THEIR responsibility to pray for the homeless people. So, we prayed for them and then we started class.

I have been able to share a lot of other things about treating people nicely and taking responsibility for your actions. I created a small problem for myself. I told the kids that they could only speak in English all day; no Phillippino, no Chinese, no Italian, no Spanish, and no French. So, now they just tattle on each other when they speak in other languages. If they get caught, they have to write one sentence in my class that day. So, every time they get caught, it’s one more sentence. The advanced kids have to write two sentences. My classes write a lot of sentences. Ha I know what all of their favorite things are!!

The Lord is so good. He works things out. That is for sure. Stay tuned…

oops...dang language barriers

So when you’re teaching English to 9,10, and 11-year-olds who are from Italy, the Philippines, Nigeria, and even China, there are bound to be some funny stories that come out of the class time together. About a week and a half ago, one of my students, Cici was simply trying to help out one of the boys in our class. The act was innocent to be completely honest. One of the boys was asking for paper and he was using only motions so I asked for him to tell me in English that he wanted a piece of paper. He was struggling to think of the word “sheet” and CiCi helped him out by responding with “shit, the shit of paper”. I’m sorry if this is vulgar to you, but at the time I was doing everything I could not to laugh. She had no idea what she was saying because the sound only thing that made an innocent word turn into a seemingly bad word was her accent. I was hoping the whole situation would fly under the radar and no one would understand what she said, but as she started repeating it over and over again, one of the boys yelled “HEY THAT’S A BAD WORD!!”. Great. So, at that moment I was able to explain to my whole class what “s***” means and why CiCi said it and that in the future they should all just say that they want a piece of paper….and that’s my story for today…even though there are so many more to tell…