Date: 11/30
Monday was a good day in terms of Orientation. It was almost over so the Time Warp that is Orientation was coming to an end.
In the morning we had to present the lessons that we'd been planning all weekend. Basically we had to present a 45 minute lesson in 15 minutes. So, for example, we'd pass out the hand out and say, "Ok, you have 5 minutes to finish!" And then they would wait a second and say, "Good job!" There were 5 groups in our "class" and everyone did well. I heard some groups in other classes just bombed, but we didn't.
My group was the only Middle School lesson plan in the room (everyone else was elementary). We had "What can I get you?/I want a Cheeseburger" as our main points and then we had to spin it off from there. We basically let the "students" (aka: the other teachers) brainstorm about food words and then we introduced a dialogue and then we played a game where the students had to come up and order food from a fellow classmate. It went ok--although we were finished before time ran out so we had to a do a little improvising and have the "students" practice ordering food at different types of restaurants: Chinese, Italian, TacoBell, etc.
Then we had group feedback. The feedback that my group got was to write the Key Expressions on the board. We said that since the lesson was geared at speaking that writing the expressions down would make it more of a reading exercise. Everyone basically agreed with that.
Next came lunch. And then off to our "cultural experience." We went to Namsang Traditional village where I had signed up for Hanji Paperfolding (read: origami). We made these cute little men and women paper cards. They were fun. But unfortunately, the house, since it was a traditional style, used hanji as windows and doors. So, it was about 40 degrees outside, but there was only a sheet of think paper on the windows (no glass). It wasn't very "airtight" so to say. I was really cold. But since that was the only times spent *cough cough* outside, it wasn't that bad. I'm actually glad that I wasn't in the musical group because they had to play a lot of various drums and cymbals , etc for 45 minutes. I would have gotten a headache.
Then we headed over to the Namtang musical performance. These guys had opened up the ceremony way back on Friday, so we didn't know if was going to be a giant repeat performance. But they surprised us with Korean traditional instruments, ballet, dance, opera, and singing. It was very cool. I was a giant dork and got to go on stage not once, but twice. First, after the traditional dancing, they asked if anyone wanted to go up. About 15 people went up and waved our arms around and jumped in circles. We looked like idiots. Then when the opera lady came out and sang, she taught us the traditional Korean song Arirang. It was a good teach, but the words are obviously Korean so it was a little hard to remember. (Aka, read impossible.) But then she asks for a volunteer. You could hear a pin drop. No only does no one actually know this song, but who actually wants to sing in front of everyone.
That's when my problem pops up. I hate for people to feel discouraged when they are trying to teach. I get it every day at school and I know I don't like it when it feels like I'm pulling teeth. So, I raised my hand for this opera lady.
Which meant, I went back on stage. Luckily she took pity on me and she sand a verse and then I would try to imitate. On the long verses she would join me. It was neat though because the traditional Korean orchestra was playing when I was trying to sing.
Not something I will really forget. It was fun--if not a little embarrassing. But hey, I can always fall back on the "Foreigner" card.
Next we piled back on the busses to go to Nanta. Nanta reminds me of Stomp or Jump performances. You know, using every day objects to make music and sound and rhythms. It is actually a "cooking show" where they use all cooking objects to make noises. It was really high powered and fun. They involve the audience by making random people come up onto stage. One couple got "married" while another helped in a food-making competition.
The best was that one of the men, the "oldest" chief has this solo section where he basically divides the audience in half and tries to get them to clap/stomp/make noise for him. He plays off the crowd during this section. But, he is used to the group-ism orientation of Koreans so when he gets faced with a bunch of individualism-oriented people it turned into quiet a laugh. Then he was getting frustrated, exaspereated, it was just great when a Korean yells, "Get out!" at audience members. He tried to do the splitting-the-audience-one-more-time thing, but since he was frustrated, he flipped his apron around his waist. He's wearing pants, but when he gets in this Taekwondo pose, his pants get quiet tight. Someone in the audience just burst out laughing and pointing...basically at his...well...his crotch. He looses it. I love it when the moment is so funny that we got the man to break his control. And he really lost it, it took about 4 minutes to get under control--which just made it that much more funny. When he laughed, you couldn't help but laugh. I'm laughing thinking about it right now. It was fabulous.
We piled back into the bus and they took us to an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant called Marisco. It was delicious--and it also had plenty of both Asian and Western foods.
By that time though, I was exhausted. I had only gotten about 6 hours of sleep the previous night and it was just a nerve-wracking day with the presentations. I didn't want to go out. But then my group leader comes up to me and says that since I volunteered (see, my problem is seriously a problem) for class leader, and then I volunteered (again, with the problem) to help say a little speech at the closing ceremony the following morning, I needed to go to a closing-ceremony practice at 10 pm.
Luckily, I had co-volunteered with a guy named Richard from Class 3 to do the speech. Earlier we had split up the ceremony duties: He wrote the speech and I would get a gift for the Orientation Director: Mrs. Lee.
Richard has been in Korea for over a year, but this is his first time in a public school. He is "in it for the long haul" which means roughly 6-7 years. He viewed the orientation as a giant "brownie-point" earning machine. He volunteered for lots of things, won his class lesson presentation, and so on a so forth. Basically the more brownie-points he earns at things like this, the more it is likely that his school will ask him to re-sign for another year.
Anyway, he was very surprised when I told him that I was only 5 weeks old (as in, I've been here for 5 weeks). He said usually people are too star-struck, culture shocked, or just plain old worried about getting wasted that they don't ask for more responsibility. I told him I'm just strange...or special...haven't figured that one out yet. Maybe I'm both!
But I was a good little thieving American that night. I had an hour before the practice closing ceremony so I started to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Then after the practice session I finished the movie. I probably should have waited another 15 days until the movie comes out here in Korea, because the pixilation was awful, but I needed a bit of a break and watching Daniel Radcliff was relaxing. *grin*
So that was Day 3 (which is really Day 4, because Day 1 was just registration, but who's really counting, right?!)
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