I live!

Not dead yet!

Though it may be amazing to believe, I have in fact survived my first two days as an official teacher. Huzzah. I must say, it was a near thing- today I spent the first hour and a half of the day chasing my two kindergarteners while the third one cried inconsolably in the arms of practically every Korean teacher available. It really is awfully hard to chase children when you are not allowed to run. They aren't either but... well, let's just say if they get in trouble, they get put in time out or lose a sticker. I have a much higher risk here.

Even so, I did survive them, even if it meant chasing them from the jungle gym to the classroom to the water jug and back again. I am even fairly sure they learned the word hello- they were taunting me with it as they threw balls from the ball pit at me.

In other news, I am very proud of myself and my excellent hunting skills. Today I went into no less than three grocery stores searching for the ingredients for baking muffins. I was bound and determined to find those ingredients, even though the search for baking soda almost brought me to tears. Imagine running through a store the size of Costco, filled with hundreds of people who don't speak your language and wondering if they use baking soda in Korea. I did eventually find it without asking for help (didn't know baking soda in Korean, otherwise I totally would have asked- this was not a matter of pride). Unfortunately, I did have to settle for vanilla powder and margarine, but I imagine they will produce muffins that still taste like muffins.

One thing I did realize after my epic shopping adventure (which took approximately 1.5 hours)- my toaster oven doesn't have temperature settings... we'll see how this muffin thing goes.

A side effect of teaching that I did not expect: I am developing a love-hate relationship with hangman. On one hand, it is an excellent way to kill time and practice letters and spelling in my elementary classes. On the other hand though, there is really only so much hangman one can take before one is forced to reconsider the purpose of one's life. Did I really get my bachelor's degree just so I could play this rather gruesome game four times a day?