Fall in Korea has been a beautiful and exhilarating, calm, yet exciting time.

If you're interested, here's a sound clip of some really amazing Korean folk music.

http://soundcloud.com/krystabobista/korean-folk-music 
(don't worry about the snippets of gossip here and there)


I find Korean folk music to be really fascinating because I have never seen another type of music being led by a cymbal type of instrument.  In all types of percussion performances that I have seen, there is always a leader, someone who signals to everyone else the changes in rhythm and in sections.  The little gong instrument is called the kkwaenggwari (꽹꽹), which is really in onomatopoetic word, as it mimics that sound of the "kwang" of a mallet against a metal gong. 

I am amazed by this type of music.  I always soak it in whenever I have a chance to.  I'd like to learn a little of it myself..but, I am still on the quest to find a teacher, maybe a little music hagwon that would be willing to teach little ol' me. 

Here's some audio of  my students.  Everyday, when I walk into my younger classes, I start E.T. time.  I take my marker and I write it right across the board.."E.T."  and this means it's English Time.  If I catch them speaking Korean, I take away a star, which means they get one less stamp at the end of class, which means they're one less stamp away from a prize from the sticker cabinet.  But even in using the little English that they can, they still find ways to insult each other.  (call me a bad teacher, but it tickles me pink when I catch moments like this on my recorder...)

http://soundcloud.com/krystabobista/your-is-very-dirty

I'm not quite sure why, but calling someone "dirty" is a very popular insult among Korean students.

Everyday, I'm still surprised about what my students say.  Just today, I had my hair in a bun at the back of my head and a student told me it was in the "dung" style.  Which means ""excrement"" in Korean.  Now, it wasn't necessarily supposed to be an insult.  It was simply an observation of the style that I decided to wear my hair in this particular day, which Koreans have declared resembles "dung".


It's been an absolute pleasure teaching English as a second language.  One of the reasons being this:

http://soundcloud.com/krystabobista/how-much-wood-would-a

This last Friday, we had a huge Halloween party at my hagwon.  Halloween isn't a holiday in Korea, it's a Western tradition.  Therefore, English academies tend to really run with Halloween, making it this whole cultural type of activity.  It's by far the biggest party of the year for our hagwon.  It was lovely and the students really enjoyed themselves.  There were about two places you could go to buy Halloween costumes: Home Plus and the one Toys-R-Us in Gwangju (there are only two in Korea and we've got one of them...ㅋㅋㅋ)  which means that the students that did wear a costume had a variety of about the 4 different capes, hats and masks you could buy from these two stores. 

These are two of my classes.  The lovely lady on the left is my co-teacher, Molly.  Whenever we have some sort of activity, she wears her activity smock.  I think it's super cute.

This weekend there were downtown shenanigans among the foreigners in town.  It was actually quite a site to see.  Saturday night, walking downtown, the foreigners took over the streets, looking something crazy.  It seemed there was a unanimous opinion among the foreigners that this costume was the best one:

The amount of time put into this costume merits an award all of its own.









All is well with me and Korea.  I'm happy here.  My life has become normal, with added bonuses of newness and excitement everyday....just the way I like it.