So...another weekend past

So another interesting week and weekend. Teaching was very good for the short 3 day week. The kids really seem to be less shy, and they are talking a bit more. It is interesting to see how each class differentiates from each other. One class is very upbeat and excited to talk (along with your class clowns..not too bad though lol), then another class is just sooooo quiet and it's more difficult to get them to speak. I don't want to talk for 45 minutes because first of all, it will bore them, and second, I know they can't understand a lot of what I say if I speak too long. The second graders (which would be the 8th grade in America) are more energetic but the 3rd graders (9th grade in America) are overall almost into that teenage stage where they just don't care. I don't teach the first graders.

I also on Wednesday started my after school conversational class. This one follows a book, so really no lesson planning for this one.

So Thursday was cool opened my bank account, and then Friday, I made plans with the friends I made last weekend to go to the movies. Now this is a long story of my weekend.

So they live in a town called Pocheon and one of them also lives in a town called Uijeongbu (where we were all meeting). Now these places are about 2 hours away from me on the subway. So after I got off from school on Friday, I came back to my apartment to change real fast and then I proceeded to take a cab to Suwon Station. I then got on the subway and got on the line 1 train. What was good about the trip was that I didn't have to make any transfers. The line goes straight to Uijeongbu.

So the two hours pass and I finally make it to meet everybody. Since I was a little late, we were gonna have to see the X-Men movie at around 10. This presented a problem for me because the subways stop running at midnight and seeing as how I just took two hours to get there, I was dreading the fact that I may have to turn right back around to get back before 12. Fortunately, my friend Joe said I could crash at his place until the buses and subways started running again at 5:30 AM.

So before the movie started, we all played some games at this place called Amusing World. This place has literally everything. Food, shops, arcade, DVD Rooms, PC Rooms, and Noribongs (karaoke). I didn't get to do karaoke this time but I know that time will come soon lol.

So after the games, one group of us split off to see the movie, while the other three went to the DVD Room to watch some Korean movie which they said was crazy. I think they kind of just randomly picked it, but it turned out to be some serial killer movie where a pimp kept losing his "workers", or something to a serial killer....ummm yeah lol. Craziness.

The Wolverine movie was good and it was better than expected. The next movie I want to see is the Star Trek movie and TRANSFORMERS...can't wait until that comes out. One thing about watching American movies in Korea is that the Koreans will not understand the jokes sometimes, so when we foreigners laugh at the jokes, they look at us like what is so funny LOL.

So anyways after the movie, we all meet back up to go home. One of the guys, Leonard, invited me and Joe to play some video games on the 360m so after playing that for awhile, it was about 330 in the morning....hunger has set in and we set out on a mission to find chicken...mission fails, so we find a Chinese food place which in my opinion was delicious. Definitely different than "Chinese food" back in the states.

So after we eat, it's about 430. Leonard doesn't eat pork, so he was still on a mission to find the chicken (the Chinese place had no chicken surprisingly) So me and Joe went to his place so I could get a quick nap. I really didn't sleep and I was headed out at around 515 am.

So...I take the bus back to Uijeongbu from Pocheon, get on the subway. Thinking it's a nice two hour ride, I'm tired, and promptly fall asleep on the subway. I wake up, and realized I've severely passed my stop lol. I get off, go to the other side to catch the train back, fall asleep and miss my stop again....GRSSHH.

I finally get it right and after 3 hours, I arrive back in Suwon. Oh but the day is not over. I made a commitment to go to the Ceramics Festival with my church (and I had paid already). So I headed to the church running a low sleep. I decided to try coffee for the first time ever in my life...I think it's nasty and never again.

So I get on the bus and wait for everybody to arrive and I am just completely out of it and I just fell asleep once we started rolling to Ichon for the festival. Before we got to the festival, we stopped for Korean food and I was still out of it and all I wanted to eat was some but the Koreans kept trying to give me Korean food that I had tried and already did not like, so I said I was tired and they assumed that's why I didn't want to eat, which was true. Also I'm pretty sure that people thought I was some kind of rude anti social prick, because I wasn't saying much. But I literally felt like I was going to tip over. I really thought I was going to start hallucinating at any moment lol. So everybody was just trying to start conversations and I just was not feeling it. Any other time I would've been fine.

So after they eat, we head to the festival, I'm still struggling, so I had planned to leave early. We all went to see a 10 minute presentation about the festival, but I can't even remember what was said. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Next we head out to see some of the art work, and it really was beautiful and I love art, but my tiredness just killed all that and I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted and I was ready to be out. I said my goodbyes and headed to the bus terminal...so I thought.

The shuttle bus took me nowhere near the bus terminal and I was walking around for about 45 minutes trying to hail cabs and looking for the bus terminal to no avail. The tiredness just made things even worse. So I finally found a police station and managed to say enough Korean (I know how to say bus and station in Korean and I think terminal is the same) So the police officer told me and luckily a cab driver was right at the station so he said he would take me. So I finally arrived at the terminal, bought my ticket to Suwon, waited for the bus, got on and headed to Suwon.

I made it to Suwon, now with a severe headache from no sleep (couldn't sleep on the bus) took a cab back to my place even though it was more expensive than the city bus. I just wanted to get home.

I FINALLY get home, take some aspirin and just jump in the bed and sleep.

Surprisingly I only slept 3 hours. I got up and got some Papa John's pizza and then went back to bed again.

I didn't go to church today because I was still tired, but later on I met up with someone I had talked with on mylanguageexchange who was a very nice person. She is Korean and was in the states for awhile but is back in Korea studying at university. We talked for about 3 hours, I showed her pictures of Detroit on my camera, we talked about differences in American food, culture, etc. It was fun. So we're gonna hang out again because her weeks are usually free and I still have yet to find good friends that are not into drinking every night here in Suwon. I've met a lot of people here in Suwon, but they either live too far, we don't have the same interests, or they don't seem to want to do anything on the weekdays.

All the people I seem to click with live in Uijeongbu and Pocheon which are two hours away and what's ironic is that I was supposed to be placed in Uijeongbu at a school, but my papers took too long so I came to Suwon. Life is funny.

So it's Sunday and another week begins. I talked with my mom on Skype for the first time and it's Mother's Day! We had a good talk and she was so happy to talk and see me (via webcam)

So Happy Mother's Day to all the eo-meo-nis out there (Mother in Korean 어머니) Until next time readers, see ya.