Year 2

A beautiful summer view of a Namsan trail

Clearly, it's been over a year since this blog's conception. During that time, I've had some wild and...not so wild adventures; many unforgettable memories to say the least.

Now, as some of you know, I've been a bit unsure of the SaveOurToya blog. My original vision just didn't seem like it would be a good fit anymore for year 2.

However, fret not!

My hot ride around Geochang

(That's right. I said, 'fret'.)

Year 2 won't be any less boring! In fact, it's going to be active.

So...so...active.

If you follow me on instagram (@SaveOurToya), you're well aware that I've started up running again.

A new fondness for archery
>__<!!!

And not just any ol'running. I'm training to run a 5k again. It's been over a year since my last 5k in June 2018, which hadn't focused on beating my PR. The run in June wasn't for breaking my record. It had been for a more personal matter. My best time had been earlier that year, where I'd almost run a complete 5k.

I remember feeling so proud of myself. Sure, I played soccer for roughly 8 years, but...I don't know. Being able to consistently run for that long of a distance without dying of suffocation was pretty fucking awesome for me. I was a lazy sports person back in my day.

I'm not even kidding. I could play a 90mins soccer game straight through, but tell me to go run a mile in gym and I hated everything.

I also remembered that on that day of my almost 100%-5k-run, I felt almost unstoppable in my journey to get fit.

And I want that feeling back.

So, here's to my new health goals!

Otter pond at 5:30am with mountains slowly peaking out
from the fog. 

1) Run a 5k in Korea. (If I can buy the damn ticket: Seoul Marvel Run 2019 this October.)
2) Lose 27kg/60lbs. (Already lost about 3kg/6lbs, but the first few are always the easiest to lose!)
3) Get 8 to 9 consistent hours of sleep. (I've struggled with this since high school, but I will win!)
4) Become part of the Geochang early af community. (I'm already greeted by some ahjummas with '굿모닝' and its the cutest thing.)

And my last goal...

Geochang at dusk

5) Officially drop 10 pants sizes from my biggest size in October 2017 (I've already dropped 6 since then, soooooo 4 more to go~!)

Just thinking about the journey I've started sometimes leaves me overwhelmed. I can best sum it up as: Toya = GAH!

Wish me luck, yall.

I'll need it.

#SaveOurToya

Depends on your school

Some of you who've found my blog, may be contemplating Fulbright Korea? If so, then this post may be of interest to you!

As right now, I'm about to drop some knowledge about the program that you don't see until you're in the program.

Everything can be boiled down to four words: depends on your school.

How many classes you teach? - depends on your school.

What kind of classes you teach? - depends on your school.

Homestay Family? - depends on your school.

Coteacher's interaction with you? - depends on your school.

None of us ETAs have the same story. From one ETA who teaches 8 classes to another who teaches 25. Oh yeah, you may be teaching over 22 hours a week. Of course, you'll be paid for the extra work, but still. It's overwhelming and intimidating, but once you get into the flow of things, it's doable. You may be lucky that you don't have to create a new lesson for each hour and that you can use the same lesson for all the same grade levels. Unless, you're like me...

Me, being an Elementary ETA who teaches a total of 20 students, with my smallest class being 2 students big and my largest class being 11 students small. Practically creating new lessons at a constant rate. 

Fulbright can prepare you for some of the cultural differences and potential misunderstandings during Orientation. They can also help with your language skills. Oh! And polish some of your teaching skills through workshops and FEP teaching .

But, once you leave Orientation and you're at your placement...your school is who guides you through the rest of your year. You will get tested emotionally, physically, mentally, psychologically, and any other '-ally' that I can't think of right now. 

It is literally like any other job, if I were honest. Your first month at a new job will have you thinking, 'I love this job!' to 'Ugh, why did I take this job?'. When you become a teacher abroad, it's a bit longer than a month. And once you feel at peace with your job, you realize it's been about six months. That is why a lot of people who teach abroad tell you, 'the first six months are the hardest'. 

Probably a little harder than they need to be, but a positive attitude helps you get through the worst of it. How you look at your situations, every single one of them, will shape your experience during your grant year. While a lot of your day to day is dependent on your school, all of it is dependent on you.

Are you going to look at your situation in a negative way, making it worse, or are you going to be positive, and make the best of what you have?

I could be upset that I have to create 22 new lesson plans a week, or I could just take this as an opportunity to show my students more fun ways to learn English.

#SaveOurToya

What about my Health?

As many of you back home know, health and healthy living is important to me. And while I'm not able to uphold the same things I was able to back in Florida...I've been making it work for me.

Somehow.

At some point during my stay, I have lost 20lbs (9kg) without really having to do anything in particular. Which was a very nice surprise.

But I wanted to be more intentional.

Which is why I've started back on the C25K app. I've used the app before in training for running a 5K, and felt very successful using the app. I still struggled to run a full 5K, but maybe like 10 minutes of it.

Now, I've started back up. And getting back into running shape.

But uh...

The weather isn't exactly conducive to running at the moment.

Especially in the morning.

My runs have been consisting of 18 to 36 degree Fahrenheit weather. I see frost every morning I'm out there, heading over to the meet up spot. I swear, if it weren't for my running partner, I would've given up and waited until it was warm again.

I'm two weeks away from finishing the C25K app, and afterwards...well...who knows what I'll be up to!

My health is important to me, and it's about time I took care of it again!

#SaveOurToya

JjimjilBAD

When the jjimjilbang turns into a jjimjilBAD.

Y'all...the experience was so bad that when I "woke up" today, I needed to get outta there ASAP. Muy rapido. No looking back. Gone. Bye.

I cannot make any of this up. 

So, let me tell you what happened. (T, here's the story in my own words!)

Oh! And before I forget, this is all from my perspective. There were seven other people who have perspectives of what happened. And we all unanimously agreed without saying anything the next day, 'WTF was our night?'

I was at the lantern festival this year, which was lit. (This pun must be overused by now...?) Gigantic lanterns that depicted different symbols, stories, or points in history (Jinju's electricity bill must be very high during this time of the year...).  There was lots of food, lots of people, lots of fun! 

We all had a great time!

Then it came down to figuring out where we were staying. As you know, I had a great time at a Korean Bathhouse while in Daegu, so I was keen to do the same in Jinju. Cheap, fun, and relaxing.

Which would've been a great ending to our day in Jinju.

But uh...that's not how it worked out.

I'm still not sure if I'll be able to explain it exactly, because it was one of those: "you had to be there" moments. So bear with me as I list things out.

1) We couldn't find where we were going.

2) There was a creepy alleyway we had to walk down. For the record, the fact that there was five of us may deter some people from attacking us, but not all. 

3) The price was $10 for the night, which yay! Saving money! And okay, maybe at this point you're like, only $10 Toya? Don't you think that should've told you what was going to happen? You know, besides the alleyway? My answer: hush, I'm not done.

4) The pjs they gave me didn't fit. As you know, Asians tend to fall on the more...smaller side. But I got curves and those shorts did not fit. (Meanwhile, they're all concerned about the shirt not fitting, ha!)

5) The baths were closed, ugh. But the showers were available, yay! At this point, I'm like, 'alright, cool. We can shower, lay down, sleep, eat some snacks, whatever, and get in the baths in the morning'. Oh how wrong was I.

6) No snacks. At all.

7) No mats for the floor. I was sleeping on solid tile. No wait. We got blankets, so that was nice. But I had to either sleep straight on the tile with the blanket covering me, or sleep on the tile and be exposed to the air. I could've gotten a second blanket, but I was too tired to get up, and my injuries were flaring badly.

8) I missed four chapters in my audiobook. 

9) The lights were on in the sleeping area???

Wow, we're already at nine and I haven't even gotten to the 'best' part. And again...I seriously cannot make this up.

10) I'm finally asleep, or at least dozing. If I had been left alone, I would've woken up at least somewhat functioning. Instead, I was startled awake by some snoring. Loudly. 

11) Snoring? Okay, I can handle snoring. Not my first snorer. But then there was a second one who snored when the other one was breathing. There was just enough break in between the snores to keep you from sleeping.

12) Farting. Next came farting. 

13) There was the overachiever who farted and snored simultaneously too.

14) An older couple having a late night chat near our area because why not. They have nothing better to do around 2AM. Besides sleeping, but ha! Who needs that? Clearly no one in the jjimjilbang last night.

Okay, so at this point, its maybe 3AM? And I somehow found a way to doze off again. I thought that would be it.

It wasn't.

15) Some old man came into our area, which was kind of sectioned off from the other areas, and started yelling at us. In Korean. I had no idea what was going on, but at this point I figured this man was drunk and thought, 'hey, maybe if we ignore him, he'll go away'. But apparently, no. I found out later someone in my group made eye contact with him and that's why he stayed for a good moment...yelling...in Korean. Once he finally left, someone that I knew but didn't know joined us until then (like 3 more Fulbright ETAs joined our area) asked, "What did he say?". Apparently it was, "shut the hell up! I'm trying to sleep!" 

What fucking irony. So was I.

16) He didn't stop. He went around for a good while this morning, yelling at people who were snoring. He stopped after he had a rather lengthy and LOUD conversation with one of the snoring victims. That was around 4AM. So nice of them.

17) At 6AM, I gave up on sleeping and just sat up and waited for more people to give up on the lost cause that was sleep.

Then in the next three hours, the first few people in our group got up to leave. Then another. Then myself and one other person. Two people stayed still, but I'm sure they left not too long after us. We were all just done. 

Personally, my thoughts were along the lines of 'get me the fuck out of this city'.

Now, don't get me wrong. Jinju was a great place! Cute cafe that I went to twice, delicious food, and a fantastic lantern festival that's worth going to!

Just the...jjimjilbang was much to be desired. 

The experience was such a turnoff that instead of taking the direct bus to my town, I went directly to Daegu instead. I just...really needed to leave.

One day, I'll be back in Jinju. And if I'm spending the night, it won't be at a jjimjilbang. Either a hotel or airbnb. 

18) You thought the list was done. That's cute. Okay, so I'm in Daegu now. Which I've gotten pretty familiar with. We had brunch at the cutest place and ended up seeing Christopher Robin in theaters. Sounding good right? But then, I get grabbed by some old guy as I walk by him. 

Not sexually.

He just grabbed my arm.

As if he had the right to put his hands on me.

(Which he fucking does not.)

19) And then on the subway to the bus terminal in Daegu...some random old man started shouting. Unprovoked, I found out a few seconds later. And he just kept shouting for six stops. This time, I had no one to translate for me, so I can't tell you what he said, BUT! Some of the people around him either got uncomfortable or laughed it off. 

Wait.

Let me correct that.

The women got uncomfortable. The men laughed it off.

SO!

After what I thought would be a relaxing few hours in Daegu, ended up being not so relaxing.

At all.

The second I got home, I fell into bed and didn't move until dinner time. 

Lesson planning could wait.

#SaveOurToya

If you wanna keep up with the shenanigans I find myself in, please subscribe to my blog to get the notifications! 

PS. Festival, cafe, and brunch pictures will be uploaded on a separate post.

The Mini-Break

During my hiatus, I thought a lot about my status of renewing my contract or not. We had October 3rd off for 개천절. And thank goodness that we did, because I was emotionally dead by that point.

It's why I was thinking about renewing my contract. It got real rough at work.

Given, I've been here for a short time in the grand scheme, and it's not something I need to make decision about now.

But.

My thoughts still wandered and I decided to give it some serious thought. Especially since I was on a hiatus and was taking the time to care for myself. Ignoring my thoughts or feelings is the exact opposite of what I told myself I needed to do.

Now, as many of you know, I want to do all three years with Fulbright.

At least...I did...

And I'm not saying that I'll switch over to EPIK or maybe go to a different country. I've seriously contemplated going back home after this year.

Crazy! I know!

But, at the current moment, that's just where my head is and I wanted to make note of it. I'm not disregarding this feeling or thought because I made it during a not so good time for myself. It's still a very real feeling.

It's not shade at Korea or anything.

I'm just contemplating if teaching is really my thing...

It's especially hard when you're faced with misbehaving children. And I'm not talking about tantrum-ready, screaming children. I'm talking about kids who are quicker to curse you out and call you a pig. I've always said kids were mean, but sometimes...they can be particularly vicious.

Behavior like this is hard to correct. It's doable, but hard. And since we have a language barrier between each other, it's even harder. But you can be proud of me. I did not let it stop me. I'm not afraid to stop a lesson midway through and get serious. 

And why should I be afraid to do that? It'll ruin the lesson? Let's be real. The misbehavior has already ruined it.

I had had enough and pulled a full halt on everything. I cut them off. I stared them down. I spoke over them. I made sure I had everyone's attention. Then in as simple as possible with words I know they know, I told them: "No. I do not like bad words. You will not say 'fuck you', 'what the fuck', or 'mother fucker'. That is bad. No more."

Of course, there had to be that one kid who called me a 'pig' to lighten the mood. Shut that right down as well.

I've yet to escalate this to their homeroom teachers or my coteacher. Honestly, I don't know why I haven't. Maybe, it's because I want to try to handle it on my own, as I hadn't tried yet. It could be because of anything. As far as I see it, if it does happen again, I'll get serious again and bring it up to their teachers then.

I did not fly all the way across the planet to be disrespected or made fun of. And yes, kids are kids. But it doesn't mean they have to be horrible. That crap won't fly in the real world. And frankly, it doesn't matter that they're only elementary school kids, because they're still in the real world. I'm in the real world.

This behavior definitely will play a part in influencing whether I want to be here another year or not. To do three years would be beautiful, but...if reality is telling me differently, then it's telling me differently.

Are any of you having these thoughts of renewing your contracts or staying at your place of employment for another year?

If you wanna see what else I get up to while in Korea, please hit the 'FOLLOW' button on the right!

#SaveOurToya

Happy Birthday to Toya!

Birthday cake - Blueberry
from Paris Baguette

My birthday fell this week in an odd case of 'Wait, its September?' I don't know what happened, but I don't think it clicked for me that after August came September, until I was in my 5th grade class asking them, "What is today?" 

To everyone's surprise, mine included, it was my birthday.

Birthday dinner was delicious!

Nonetheless, I had a very happy birthday! 

My host family surprised me with a birthday cake and a traditional Korean birthday dinner. It was a night of good food, good conversation, and good people. I couldn't have asked for a better host family! 

I was so very happy!

Outside of the homestay, my friends and family reached out, not letting a little distance come between us. I don't think I'll be able to express how much the well wishes meant to me. It may sound silly, but in all honesty...the fact that people from home reached out to me, it was like they still remembered I existed. It's so easy getting caught up in the day-to-day and the on-goings of everything around you; its so easy to just rely on someone's physical presence as a casual reminder that they exist. Since I'm no longer in the city beautiful, I don't hold it against others when they don't reach out. I understand and am guilty of it myself. 

Apsan with a view~!

In summation (scrabble word of the day), I was grateful and thankful.

Since my birthday fell on a weekday, I was perfectly alright with the small party. I was tired anyways, I was in no mood to get turnt.

However...the following weekend, I went to Daegu and had a such a blast!

Let's just say I climbed a mountain (again!), went to Costco, found cheap good vodka, and didn't make it to bed until 3am. 

This is what 25 years old looks like. At least for me it was. 

#SaveOurToya

Superlative for 2018-19

Guess who got the superlative of Most Likely to Actually Maintain their Blog this Year?

Here's a picture of me in Seoul~!

Me.

I did.

No pressure...right?

Fingers crossed it actually happens~!

Though, this may be a good time to mention...after my Week 6 blog, I'm putting up a warning that Week 7 may be delayed or combined with Week 8! I will be settling into my Homestay and possibly starting school right away.

Which means...I don't know my schedule yet! Sunday Post Day may be switching.

So, there's your warning.

#SaveOurToya