King Tutankhamun Carter

This is another blog dedicated to student stories, with some added artwork and letters.

First picture: I may have told this story before, but here's the picture. My middle school students were planning a party and decided to make it a party where girls wear boys clothes and boys were required to wear Hot Pants and high heels.


Story 2: I taught a listening class on King Tut a couple weeks ago for my upper level students. They all knew a huge amount about King Tut, so it ended up being a very fun class, with lots of stories to tell. One student got a little confused when they started talking about Howard Carter, the man who found King Tut's tomb. The following conversation ensued:

Student 1: What is "Carter?
Me: It's a last name, like "Hillard" is my last name or "Kim" might be your last name.
Student 2: Oh Teacher, I thought you said your last name was "Killer!"
Me: hahahaha
Student 1: So, King Tutankhamen's name was "King Tutankhamen Carter?"
Student 3: Oh Irene, you are cute.

Story 3: The same student earlier heard a sentence about the process of making a mummy very clearly, minus one word, which really changed the sentence and made us all laugh hysterically.

The sentence was "They wrapped the dead bodies with long strips of white linen to protect the body during the dehydration and mummification process" She wrote and then read out loud, "they wrapped the dead bodies with long strips of white women to protect the body during the dehydration and mummification process"

Story 4: I then had a student ask about the process of making a mummy, "Teacher, why does salt dehydrate the body?" and, as I was thinking "errr I have no idea" I said "well for some reason it sucks out all the water...have you ever put salt on a slug before?" All my students said no, but they knew what a slug is, so I explained that they shrivel up because they lose all their liquids-- the students looked extremely horrified.

Story 5: Later that very same day, the same student who had the King Tut Carter incident, was writing something and speaking that came out as "I. Am. Your. Father" in a really dramatic voice, which again led to all of us laughing hysterically.

Story 6: I was talking about Disneyland with the same class a couple days ago. They asked about the difference between Disney World and Disneyland. One girl had been to Disney World and said that she was there for 4 days and didn't see it all. I explained that Disneyland was smaller. I then said I went to Disneyland when I was 11 and a student said, in a very surprised voice "IT'S THAT OLD!?!"

I am officially over the hill.

Story 7: A student, who is usually really great in class was basically falling asleep for about 20 minutes and I kept having to wake her up. She came back from after break and said, "The sleep ghost has gone away. Now I live."

Story 8: My lower level classes were talking about a picture, which showed a man fixing a motorcycle with a sticky fruit. I asked my students what was happening and one said, "The man is banana-ing the motorcycle."

Story 9: I had to explain that "snot" is not called "nose water"

Story 10: There was some construction going on directly outside my window, which led to an awkward moment, when there was a construction worker who decided to stare in at all of us (Me) rather than working. I was attempting to explain what a faucet was with a man creepily staring in the 4th floor window, with my students looking at him yelling "HE'S TALKING TO US!!!!!" There was a lot of nervous laughter from all of us.

Story 11: This picture is the epitome of my student's grammar issues. They like to use "is" excessively. Example: last week I was teaching my students "be happy about"

Student: I be happy about
Me: "It's I AM happy about
Student: I am be happy about
Me: No I am happy about.
Student: I be am happy about
Me: I AM happy about, no be
Student: I be am happy about
Me: *thinking* good heavens

Here's the picture

This is look like bread. This is I'm drawing crown.

She was an adorable student, who obviously had trouble using "is" correctly.

Story 12:
This is a picture of me and Grammy. They asked me what she looked like and if she was tall. And what her hair looked like. I said it was short and curly....

And the other picture, drawn the same day:
Apparently I touch my face a lot and I have giant alien eyes and giant lips.

Here are some letters and artwork by my students. And my new flannel sheets in the background of some of them.

This came in a little Minnie Mouse envelope. awww

My students were obsessed with "The Lucky Rabbit"
Notice my face

"OH MY GODS BOM"

This is a story of my students on a deserted island, being rescued by dolphins, meeting a shark along the way, fighting the shark and then riding the shark to safety.

I most definitely did not spell, "Boom" "BOOB" but apparently I was misheard. It happens.



And next up, I will finally write about my first trip out of Seoul!

Here is a preview:

You get no further explanation.

Except that I also saw this:

Mamma Mia, does she have a gun?

Random stories, before discussing Mamma Mia. While driving to Costco, our bus driver got tired of the traffic and literally drove straight over the orange construction cones, you know those thin ones that are about 4 feet tall? It was a little surprising. Also, I went to Costco to buy actual food and ended up coming home with a blanket, Cheerios and chicken. The blanket is amazingly soft though, so it was totally worth it.

Also, I witnessed a fire in Hongdae while waiting for the bus home. Actually, it's possible it was an arson, since there was no fire then suddenly an entire construction wall next to the subway exit was engulfed in flames.

Then, literally two minutes later, I saw a guy while looking out the bus window completely asleep in his car long after the light turned green.

Ben and I went to see Contagion. It was at a theater I hadn't entered since my first month here and I was quite positive it was on the other side of the street. And he's new and didn't know. It ended up being in a building that I insisted did not have a theater. Oops.

I went shopping and got some nice fall clothes.

Anyway, two Saturdays ago, Elaine and I went to see Mamma Mia. Before we went, I taught my class as usual. Then, I went to get a haircut. I was a little concerned about communicating what I wanted, since before I had had my friends to translate for me. Luckily, my hairdresser here speaks English pretty well, so it turned not to be a problem. However, it does take a great act of faith to get your haircut when there is a language barrier. Luckily, it has turned out well so far!

I then headed to the station where I was meeting Elaine. She was a tad late, but it was fine because there was an orchestra playing Abba songs just outside the station exit. I took a video, but unfortunately accidentally deleted the video. I listened to them, while also marveling at the number of people coming down the extremely small escalator.

Which of course Elaine and I rode because it was so small that we had to experience it in person.

We went to pick up the tickets, then we went to dinner. We ate and chatted, since it had been a while since we saw each other. We looked at some of the cool buildings outside the theater and also the cool building that was the theater.

This building was the theater where the play was being shown.

We took pictures of the lights. And Angelina Jolie's look-alike who is really enjoying her coffee.



We stopped by the bathroom, which had an amazingly rare element: Soap.

Which also happened to be on a stick. I shall take this time to explain the lack of soap and paper towels or hand dryers in bathrooms in Korea. It has gotten to the point that if you see soap in a bathroom, you are pleasantly surprised. I carry handsantizer wherever I go of course. My favorite is when the toilet paper rolls are on the wall and you have to grab the toilet paper before going into the stall. Or when the toilet paper is on the wall in the middle of the restaurant. I am not joking.

After using the soap, we headed and found our seats, which were in the very back row, but it was ok because our view was perfect. While waiting for Mamma Mia to begin, there was a woman who was walking around trying to stop people from taking pictures. We noticed her talking to a couple who had their camera out. Then, we glanced around and I would say about 90% of the people there had their cameras/phones/ipads out taking pictures. The woman seemed resigned to people taking pictures, so of course I covertly took a picture of the stage.

That curtain had some trippy lights going on...it looked like the ocean and was kind of disconcerting.

When we booked the tickets, we assumed the play was in English with Korean subtitles (as they do have sometimes), due to all the posters looking like this:


When we arrived, the posters looked like this:


Why yes, I did watch Mamma Mia entirely in Korean.

Luckily it was a story I know very well and they were singing songs I also know very well, so there was only one 5 minutes section where I was confused.

They used the main phrases of each song, such as Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia, I do I do I do I d, Honey Honey, Money Money Money, but then directly translated everything else. Somehow, it actually worked really well and they sounded like songs written for Korean.

Here is Dancing Queen in Korean. Same cast as I saw actually. Also, Chiquitita.

As it was 2 weeks ago and my Korean was much worse than it is now (ha) I could not understand very much. I was able to understand certain words, such as "friend," "She is 21 years old," "We are meeting our friend" but that was it. So, naturally, my brain chose to understand the words as they sounded in English. This is what I heard:

Mamma Mia, does she have a gun.

And at one point during "The Winner Takes it All" they said "Hamburger."

Obviously not, but I found those translations rather entertaining.

I was only confused during a very strange dream sequence where the entire cast comes out in bright orange and yellow scuba suits and sings a song that I had never heard before. It was called "Under Attack."

Elaine and I thoroughly enjoyed our evening at the theater. Even though we couldn't understand the play, they used very physical humor so it ended up being quite hilarious. And since I know the story so well, minus random dream sequence, I understood exactly what was going on. The woman who played Sophie's mother was absolutely incredible. She is the same one in the video, so if you can find her singing "Winner Takes it All" you can hear. Her name is Choi Jeong Won or 최정원 Oh and in case you were wondering, yes, they kept the English names while still speaking in Korean. It was interesting to see the men introduce themselves as"Harry Bright" or "Sam Carmichael" while speaking in Korean.



The cast

Afterwards, we took pictures with the poster cut out and I bought the Korean soundtrack, which I still cannot understand but I am hoping will magically infuse Korean into my head. All it's accomplished so far is me getting Korean Abba songs stuck in my head, but I still don't know what I'm singing.

We took pictures of the theater from the outside, which looked awesome:

hung out at a cafe for a bit and headed home. As we were waiting for the subway, a man comes up to Elaine and I and says, "blah blah blah blah" which turned out to be "You where nationality?" Then we answered "America" and he said "During Korean War, America come. Three Eight One One One America die. Thank you America" and walked off. I was actually rather surprised. It was a nice change from the leering and the staring. Not that I had anything to do with America during the Korean War.

And my post shall end here. Next up, I will write some students stories, I'll write about the international Art Festival from the day after Mamma Mia and my first trip out of Seoul!

Streams, Gongs and Clowns

Sorry once again for not posting in a long time. I have been busy and exhausted from Korean class, which is requiring extensive studying. I had great fantasies of being very good at Korean, but it's rather difficult. It's been a month and the only things I can comfortably say are "My name is Lauren" and "I am an English Teacher." I cannot say those things when I am being asked in class, but rather respond in a panic, "JUICE."

Not really. But practically.

Somehow I managed to level up to the next month, under the condition that I study verbs, adjectives, particles, answering questions verbally, question words, listening and reading. Aka everything. I am hoping my studying will eventually lead me to be able to say other things, but we shall see. But for now, 제 이름은 로렌 입니다.

So a couple weekends ago, Ben, one of the new teachers, and I went to Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul. It is a man-made stream very close to City Hall, but it was still pretty cool.

They had stream performers along the way, which were pretty cool. It reminded me of Victoria, except that the street performers were doing Korean things.

Here's the beginning of the stream:




There were lots of people there, but it wasn't as crowded as the website said it would be.

The first performance was a clown:

His performance was pretty good. It started with a bit of a clown fail:



But, then it got pretty good:

And that little boy was super adorable.

We then moved on to the next street performers. I was minding my own business taking pictures, when suddenly Ben had my camera and I was sitting playing the gong.

Then, I'm not sure how it happened, but some random guy had my camera and Ben was sitting next to me playing another instrument. Here is my first try at playing the gong, which I have repeatedly referred to as the "bong"

It made me nervous, it seems.

Here we are sitting:

So we're playing away

I'm thinking it's going very well, but apparently the leaders of the musical instruments did not think so and thought I need remedial gong lessons. Here he is coming over:

And now he is helping me:

Apparently I am a gong playing failure.

We then kept walking. There was some wildlife hanging around the man-made stream.

Some ducks:



Large fish:

and a crane:



Next up was the wall of pictures of the Joseon Dynasty:



Then some more of the river, bridges and buildings:
Notice the water artificially flowing into the stream

Then, there were some traditional dancers:

That was pretty cool.

Then, I got thirsty so we went to get some water next to the stream. I figured we could walk a little bit down the way and go back down to the stream, but we couldn't find other stairs and ended up having to take an elevator down to the river. Very authentic to nature.

Next up, more river.

Then, a wall with tiles that people had painted.



Oh and there was a carriage and cute bench:


And what seems to be a shack


The shack was the end of the stream.

It was a very lovely day.

In other news, the temperature in Seoul has dropped dramatically. Last Wednesday it was about 85 degrees, then Thursday it rained and Friday the low was 42. Yikes.

I had another student refer to a person who is a vegetable as a "Plant human and who only drinks air." I'm thinking in Korean they are called Plant humans, since this student was a much lower level then the other one.

I saw a car crash into a motorcycle. The driver was ok.

I was on the bus recently, when suddenly he stopped the bus and the bus driver got off the bus. He returned about 2 minutes later with a sandwich.

I learned "Draw O coward" is a palindrome.

I saw two shirts. One said "Be a water warrior" and the other said "Omg what the balazees" with a picture of a hippo on it. Unfortunately I did not have my camera.

Also, I learned that my students pronounce zoo as "Jew." One of my students said "The animals feel like they are in jail in Jews. They feel stressed in Jews." and referred to the zookeepers as Jewkeepers. Hmm.

Reminds me of 3rd grade when I came home from school after having my first lesson about the Holocaust. I asked my mother why the Nazis were so interested in the Juice people hid in their cupboards, because I misunderstood my teacher.

Then I found this on www.iwastesomuchtime.com and it seemed fitting: