After an enjoyable few days hosting amazing CouchSurfers Tugca and Onur, Melissa awoke on the morning of Friday the 13th unprepared for the sheer length of the day that awaited her.
Typical Friday's pair Melissa with 5 classes of energetic and fantastic 4th grade students whom always require Melissa's greatest expenditure of energy and enthusiasm. Fortunately, they are a fine bunch and easily receive such treatment from their Native English Teacher.
However, on Friday the 13th, while things were not entirely frightening, the day did not end with 5 classes of 4th graders and allow Melissa Teacher opportunities to blog and waste time on Facebook as typical Friday afternoons do. Rather, Friday the 13th gave Melissa another 2 and a half hours of school-work obligations in the form of listening to and judging approximately 20 speeches. Working in a wealthier Daejeon neighborhood, students at Samcheon elementary were able to present speeches on a variety of topics with an impressive command of the English language. The afternoon was therefore spent listening to 5th and 6th grade students sharing their thoughts and proposed solutions for
school bullying, environmental pollution and degradation and the unification of North and South Korea. Additionally, students spoke of their admiration for their grandparents,
the love they have for their once-abandoned-now-adopted-pets, their goals, the culture of their nation, their dreams of being scientists who build time machines or who work for UNICEF and encourage the wealthy to give mosquito nets to Malaria-infected regions of the world.
So while speech contest day results in more hours of being engaged as an educator, hearing students passionately and creatively use the foreign language they work so hard to learn was nothing short of enjoyable for Melissa.
But with the final school bell ringing and Melissa intending on returning home for a peaceful night reading and slipping off into dreamland early, Melissa received a text message inviting her to her favorite OEC Coffee shop to meet up with a dear friend and discuss the finer points of making perfect beer bread. This text was followed by a call from the man explaining another friend was going to be helping them with an errand and we should plan to have dinner together. Therefore, having discussed beer bread, Melissa got into the little Matiz with the man, Aaron and Hyunhee to run an errand and make their way out for dinner.
A failed attempt to grab a bite at Daejeon's new Habibi Restaurant on opening night soon led the errand crew to a nearby, famous Samgyetang Restaurant (Chicken and Ginseng Soup). Having picked apart their chickens, the crew reloaded the Matiz, dropped Hyunhee off and found themselves heading toward old downtown where Mike had a meeting of sorts with the soccer gents at Brickhouse Bar.
Typical Friday's pair Melissa with 5 classes of energetic and fantastic 4th grade students whom always require Melissa's greatest expenditure of energy and enthusiasm. Fortunately, they are a fine bunch and easily receive such treatment from their Native English Teacher.
However, on Friday the 13th, while things were not entirely frightening, the day did not end with 5 classes of 4th graders and allow Melissa Teacher opportunities to blog and waste time on Facebook as typical Friday afternoons do. Rather, Friday the 13th gave Melissa another 2 and a half hours of school-work obligations in the form of listening to and judging approximately 20 speeches. Working in a wealthier Daejeon neighborhood, students at Samcheon elementary were able to present speeches on a variety of topics with an impressive command of the English language. The afternoon was therefore spent listening to 5th and 6th grade students sharing their thoughts and proposed solutions for
school bullying, environmental pollution and degradation and the unification of North and South Korea. Additionally, students spoke of their admiration for their grandparents,
the love they have for their once-abandoned-now-adopted-pets, their goals, the culture of their nation, their dreams of being scientists who build time machines or who work for UNICEF and encourage the wealthy to give mosquito nets to Malaria-infected regions of the world.
So while speech contest day results in more hours of being engaged as an educator, hearing students passionately and creatively use the foreign language they work so hard to learn was nothing short of enjoyable for Melissa.
But with the final school bell ringing and Melissa intending on returning home for a peaceful night reading and slipping off into dreamland early, Melissa received a text message inviting her to her favorite OEC Coffee shop to meet up with a dear friend and discuss the finer points of making perfect beer bread. This text was followed by a call from the man explaining another friend was going to be helping them with an errand and we should plan to have dinner together. Therefore, having discussed beer bread, Melissa got into the little Matiz with the man, Aaron and Hyunhee to run an errand and make their way out for dinner.
A failed attempt to grab a bite at Daejeon's new Habibi Restaurant on opening night soon led the errand crew to a nearby, famous Samgyetang Restaurant (Chicken and Ginseng Soup). Having picked apart their chickens, the crew reloaded the Matiz, dropped Hyunhee off and found themselves heading toward old downtown where Mike had a meeting of sorts with the soccer gents at Brickhouse Bar.
Before landing in Brickhouse for a few drinks and french fries. Aaron, the man and Melissa popped into Cafe Arte for Chocolate Shakes that tasted like strawberry and other flavor varieties before finally stumbling into their home around midnight. A place Melissa hadn't seen since 7:30 that morning.
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