Ranting Blog!!

I know I haven't posted anything in the past couple days and nothing really exciting happened today. I felt I needed to post something to keep everyone's interest! So this blog is just going to be random thoughts...


I'm soooo happy for the Bodines and Tones. Baby Quinn is finally at home with her family like she should be. God granted her family the serenity of knowing they have a healthy baby girl now. It really how showed me the power of prayer because the outreach for Quinn was AMAZING!!!! Miracles really do happen....


I'm still trying to figure out the health habits here. We are asked to wear house slippers because the families often take naps on the ground in their houses! I understand this completely! BUT!!!!! Then you eat dinner from the same plates (everyone picking out of every plate on the table sharing the germs on your chopsticks).... then you shower NOT in the shower but on the ground that you walk on! All I can think every time I go in the shower is if the boys have similar actions that a lot of American boys have and pee in the shower... and I'm standing there on the same floor they just pee'd on!!! I have invested in shower shoes for this reason!! They also do not wash their hands after they go to the bathroom, BUT make you wash your hands and feet when you come in from outside. I DON'T GET IT!!!! You are so concerned about the germs on my feet on your floor, even though I just washed my feet from coming home but you share germs soooooo many other ways.....


Before we came on this trip, we were told that we were going to be amazed at how advanced this country is compared to ours! I was expecting to see gadgets and technology that was beyond comparable. We were also told that the education system was a million times better! After teaching for a couple of weeks now, I can definitely say that there are flaws in the Korean education system that greatly out-number our education flaws. Flaw #1 ) Many of the English teachers are not fluent in English! They speak broken English and are teaching the students bad grammar. Someone teaching a foreign language should be fluent in the language. Flaw #2) During the students 2nd year in high school, they are broken up by what subjects they are good at. If they are better at math and science, they can only take those classes for the rest of high school. Same if they are good at arts and social studies. So... if a student who scores higher on their science test than they do on their arts test and wants to take a journalism class, too bad so sad! Flaw #3) The lesson plans are often way lower than the students intelligence level. I have often seen my advanced students frustrated with the fact that they are learning something they have already learned multiple times. They are not being challenged. Flaw #4) The teachers often have amazing ideas in their head and have just assummed that we would figure out what they want to do by reading their minds. During these weeks of teaching, the 3 of us at my school have often been asked to create powerpoints for the next day's lesson. If I had known before we left that we were going to play such a big part in creating the lesson, I would have planned out some more challenging activities. Instead, we are asked to think on our feet! Kind of hard to do when you're 6,000 miles away from your common resources!
Because of this, I have made the conclusion that even though we lack the funding to have more advancements in our classrooms, our education is still better!


Las rant of the day.... I explained in my "realizations" blog how pedestrians do not have the right-away here.... Tonight made me soooo frustrated!!! As my family and I walked home from dinner, a car pulled up to the crosswalk making a right hand turn. We had the okay to cross and he had a red light. As we were walking across, he inched closer and closer to where we were at. When we got in front of his car, there was still about 30 seconds of time for us to cross, and he had the nerve to honk at us to go quicker! HE HAD A RED LIGHT!!! I really wanted to go knock on his window and say "Sir, You honking at me and inching closer and closer to your turn is not going to make me walk any faster, so now I'm just going to stand in front of your car so you can't move at all!" It's that whole mentality that I have when people cut you off back home... "OMG you are one car closer to your destination! Now you have time to stop for coffee and a doughnut!!" Luckily I only have 8 more days of crazy drivers, ridiculously slow buses, humidity up the ying yang, and kimchi!!!


OOOO and at least 60% chance of rain for the rest of trip.... most days are above 80%!! Lucky us right?