Snow

Some new Pictures- Copy and past link

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2114659&id=24504843&l=d9bc111a72

Snow in Suwon- Sunday night through Monday night we got about 8 inches of snow; you would have thought we got four feet of snow. As I walked into school Monday morning I got on the elevator to school with one of my students, as the elevator door opened, everything was dark. The door to the school was shut, I wondered if we had gone onto the wrong floor; so I hit another button to change floors and go back to the correct one, we were on the right floor. My student and I go downstairs (my student was about 6 years old and we hung out in the hall. I was waiting for her to start crying but she never did. Ten minutes later other employees came to the building; everyone was late except Molly (the six year old) who her mom drove through the snowstorm to get her to school on time, yet the people that run the school did not even get to school on time. Eventually all the teachers came in and we all sat in our office and did nothing for a while; waiting for the rest of the students to come in. About 40 minutes after school is supposed to begin half the students arrived on the school bus. I soon found out that Suwon does not get snowstorms like this. IT SHOWED. The rest of the day was not devoted to teaching rather having the kids play around in the jungle gym that is in the school. (it is inside) 1pm we all got sent home; this is were Suwon, South Korea gets pushed back to the 1800’s. It seems like no one has shovels, people are using brooms, cardboard boxes, and their feet to clear the snow. Asians tend not to be good drivers in perfect driving conditions so in the snow, it got ugly. On my one minute walk back to my apartment I must of saw ten cars stuck in snow; pushed most of them out and realized how unprepared they were for the snow storm. I went inside to get warm, then walked around (fighting boredom) I was looking forward to getting back to teaching because I had nothing else to do after the long vacation. Now with the snowstorm the internet has gone down, it is a complete mess outside and cold and nothing to do. I read a lot over the past few days. Another teacher got a call from one of the women we work with and school is cancelled for Tuesday also. Now it is time to get really bored. I played chess for the first time in probably a decade. After a while I decided to walk around and grab dinner from my restaurant I go to once a day. It cost me about 2,000 won to get enough Gimbap (which is the Korean way of saying sushi) and thank God for this meal because most of Korean food is not to tasty. Kimchi, which is the Korean staple food is now grown to be absolutely disgusting. I was talking about this with another teacher. That in the beginning we would eat it, then the excitement wore off and it is just disgusting now. It is a good thing Suwon is known for its BBQ meat; without that this would be a tough place to eat, and also my gimbap place. Tuesday afternoon I went for some gimbap and walked the streets which most are still not plowed. (The one main road is plowed) and by plowed, they had a backhoe. They came in and picked up the snow with its huge shovel. They did not even use any plows; it was quite entertaining to see. I think it is safe to say that the snow really caught them by surprise and they do not often get snow. So now the roads that have not even been touched are even narrower then the already narrow streets they had to begin with, they are icy, and many cars spin around the place. The good thing about the snow is that it hides the awful smell from the sewer. On my short walk to work there are places where if one was severely hung over it would not be a pretty site. I noticed how much better the infrastructure in Japan was then Korea. Korea’s is not bad; but it is nothing compared to Japans. And not even close to the good old USA.
I got this neighbor who does nothing but sing until the late hours of the night. It is pretty funny and also pretty annoying. (the walls are so thin) He does not sings songs either, all he does is work on his voice, so at times he gets very loud. I have not pinpointed him; even what floor he is coming from. Anyways I am real bored and figured I would let him become part of the blog. (This might be his big opportunity)
My classes- Every morning from 9:30 until 11:10 I have three students I teach. They are young students. Five and six year olds; one kid who’s mom I hear is absolutely insane and it shows on the kid until you get him to open up and he has become quite enjoyable. I have another boy in this class and he is a tiny little kid but a lighting rod full of energy and he is probably every teacher’s favorite kid in the whole school. This kid always hangs onto my feet and makes me drag him across the room with him on my leg or just has me lift up my leg as high as I can so he can go for a ride. The third student; a little girl who is really uptight and never says a word; yet, she is very smart. My next class runs from 11;20 until 1:25 with s 40 minute lunch break is by far my most interesting class. These kids also 5 and 6 yr olds randomly start acting like dogs in the middle of class. I should be yelling at them or telling them to stop but I can not stop laughing. ( I tend to laugh at just about every joke or trick they do, and everyone tells me to yell at them to stop but I usually find it pretty entertaining. Over break they forgot about acting like dogs until one teacher over break who I told him about them acting like dogs came in and got all the students to act like dogs. There are five students in this class and they are all really bright for their age. At 1:25 we have another hour break; at this point I get pretty bored. I go home and read or I will take a nap and get ready for the afternoon. The afternoon is fun because it consists of older students (middle school) who want to learn and it is much easier to interact with them. I have class at 2:50 until 3:40 with two students, then class from 3:45 until 4:25 and class from 4:30-5:10 and class from 5:15-5:55. My last class of the day is my favorite. These kids are smart. They might be the smartest group of kids in the whole school and it is fun to see them learn with a lot of enthusiasm compared to some other classes. This school is just like any other you would find in the world; smart kids, slower kids, funny kids, shy kids, wise kids, etc. the school is located on the third floor of a building; it is quite small for a school. (it is only a foreign language school) kids come after there regular school to learn English so they can become better off later in life. (Most of these kids come from wealthy families) there are probably around eight classrooms in the school.

I hope everyone is doing well, it is Thursday night and the streets are still a mess outside, it should only get worse because of the cold weather that has moved in and I think is planning on staying here. The snow is going to turn to ice soon,