Happy Birthday 선생님!

선생님 = sawn-sehng-nim = teacher

My Korean teachers, You Hana and Park Areum, are two of the most adorable people I've ever met. They're enthusiastic, happy, and oh so cute. They both had birthdays this past week, so we got to celebrate as a class. As the class captain (lovingly called Cap-씨, 씨 = (pronounced) shee = Miss/Mister) , I was charged with organizing a class cards, a class gift, and a dinner out. Despite the extra work, I'm glad we had the chance to celebrate as a class and with our teachers.

You Hana and Park Areum are both Korean language teachers at Korea University in Seoul. You Hana teaches our class 9:00-11:00am, and Park teaches us 11:00am-1:00pm. For the six weeks of Orientation, they live in the dorm, share the showers, and eat cafeteria food with us. They put in a lot of extra work for us; besides the four hours of class, they also have office hours in the evenings, and prepare for the lessons. I figure that the amount of time I spend studying for Korean class is equal to, probably lesson than, the time they spend preparing lessons and office houring. If I'm even half as effective as either of them in my classroom, it'll be a successful year in terms of teaching. Both of them said the Seogwipo is 'the best' and that they'll come visit me on Jeju.

Korean class is always a great experience--sometimes overwhelming, but always has great moments. Their English is limited (still better than our Korean), which makes some explanations and general conversation more interesting. Class usually has an elementary feel due to the simplicity of our lessons, but every so often someone interjects a mention of soju or beer. You Hana lived in England teaching Korean for a short time, so is more comfortable talking with us. She also confided to us that while she was supposed to be studying in an English program, she instead took floral design classes!

For dinner, we went out for Chuncheon's famous dakgalbi. Before the food had finished cooking, there was plenty of converstation. You Hana and Park opened their gifts and showed us several Asain photo poses (hilarious). Everyone had a great time!

Korean class B1 couldn't ask for better 선생님s!