Life is good but it’s just about to get better… much better!
The afternoon class I teach is coming to an end at the end of July, as is my job at the daycare, so I’ll have a clean slate to load up work however and whenever I want. I'm rather excited about the whole not knowing what's next.
I'll really miss my afternoon part time gig at the hagwon. It was a simple job with no complications or drama and I really was allowed and encouraged to have fun with it.
It’s rather ironic to note just how positive the hagwon experience has been though, especially considering hagwons don’t exactly have a good rep in Korea, nor did I really have high expectations of it to start off with.
My boss trusted me enough to let me do my own thing and run my class accordingly. With only a couple of textbooks being what I had to teach, I was free to be as creative and wild as I wanted to. I replaced their tedious topic writing sheets with fill-in-the-bubble cartoons and other silly writing sheets I made. I made an activity called Vocab Builders to incorporate everyday slang, idioms and random daily words into their learning. We had held song competitions in class, did a lot of role-playing activities, had show and tell, and every day a Star Student Helper was picked among them as a kind of classroom assistant.
They loved the whole idea of having a Star Student Helper so we really went far with it, coming up with a list of Star Student Helper responsibilities and even allowing their classmates to “fire them”. If three students said “I want [name] fired” on any given day, the Star Student Helper for the day would be fired, meaning they would lose their “pay” of two extra stars for the job and they would no longer be the classroom assistant that day.
Moreover, I loved the fact that I was allowed to use Korean in the classroom. It sure came in handy for those hard to explain English words or when taking a child out of the room to talk to them privately about their behavior.
Today Snickers surprised me by picking me up at the hagwon. It was rainy pretty bad and he thought he’d be sweet by making sure I got home safe and dry. Both he and Pyen Chi came to get me.
QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What makes or breaks a job for you?
QUOTE OF THE DAY...
I want her fired!
-- yelled out in class today by one of my students... hahaha
As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).
After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.
Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.
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