Emily Seonsaengnim, Teacher Extraordinaire!

So, there's a group of about 6 elementary schools in the Peongtaek area that have native English teachers (me, a sickly looking American guy from Utah, a big black guy from the US, 2 Canadian girls, and an English guy). The last couple of months on Fridays we've taken turns watching a class at each school (a demo class). All the native teachers show up, as does their Korean co-teachers, the Pyeongtaek educational office people, etc. All in all about 25 people sit and stand in your classroom watching your class. Like it's not crowded enough as it is. Anyway, I guess it's a pretty big deal. After the class we all sit around and have a 'discussion' about it. Which is never really much of a discussion. Anyway, my demo class was this past Friday. It was the last demo class, save one (next week). And it totally was the best one. My co-teacher planned most of it, although a lot of it was from the books. We prepared a crap load of materials for it, though. She had me drawing and coloring shit all the time up until the class. She's a perfectionist. But anyway, I guess everyone was super impressed with it and my superior teaching abilities. I'm much more animated than the other native teachers were, which "makes it easier for the students to understand things," according to the Korean teacher people. I pretty much think I look like an ass up there, but hey, I guess it's a good thing. :) I honestly feel like an actress when I teach--pretend I'm interested in what I'm teaching even though I've taught it about 8,000 times, use excessive gestures and facial expressions, etc. After the class one guy came up to me and said, "Thank you so much for finally allowing me to see a very good English lesson." Ouch! That hurts if you're one of the other native English teachers! I don't think he really meant it in that way, but that's how it sounds. Another guy said to me, "You are definitely a natural teacher." Then I told him I actually had an education degree and he almost crapped his pants. Very few English teachers here have teaching certificates. I guess the Korean people were also telling my school, "Don't let her fly away back to America! We must try to keep her in Pyeongtaek!" Sorry guys. Not going to happen. Anyway, I just thought that was funny. I rock. I hope my principal hears that I was awesome. I don't think he likes me much for whatever reason (I think because I'm a girl and I'm shy). But I guess it's a source of pride to have a native English teacher...and I'm apparently a good one, so he should be happy with me. Anyway, enough bragging for now.

You know what really annoys me? People I don't know talking to me on the subway. When I'm on the subway I like to just sit and listen to my iPod in peace. That peace is shattered when some annoying person attempts to talk with you even when your body language is clearly telling them that you really don't want to talk. And usually their English is not the greatest, so it's just annoying. And if it's a native English speaker, they're usually weird. For some reason, Indonesian men have a propensity for attempting to talk with me. Today when I was in the subway an Indonesian guy kwpt talking with me. Then he proceeded to try to get my phone number because "I like to practice English." I just said, "I don't have a phone." So then he keeps talking to me. Ok, really, who doesn't have a phone??? If that isn't a "please leave me alone" statement, I don't know what is. Luckily when the subway train came (aforementioned convo happened on the platform) it was really crowded and I was able to hide away from him.