Korea Day 3

Finally able to sleep through the entire night. Unfortuantely, I ate lunch at McDonalds. I told myself I would avoid familiar food as much as possible, but I was hungry and I knew what a cheeseburger was so I decided to eat it. The menu is a little different here. They have what's called a bulgogi burger. Bulgogi is just a popular meat dish here and they made it into a burger. Clever. It also serves a shrimp burger, which I thought was different. And the happy meals come with corn instead of fries. Everything comes with corn.

I learned a lot just from going to the school and watching Amy teach the classes. And it's a lot different here than in America. In one class, there is only one high school student named Krista that I really like to talk to. She told me that one time she decided to shave her eyebrows off, just for fun. When she went to her public school, the teacher pulled her out of the room, sat her down and slapped her a few times. For shaving her eyebrows off! I guess Krista's mom wrote a letter to the school, but not much else was done.

Education is extremely important here and Korean children are always in school, it seems. Amy told me that after they finish their day at public school, many kids will go to "academies," math, art or science for example. As well as their English lessons. They literally learn all day. I was even told that when they take their tests to determine what university they can get into (sort of like the ACT's in America) planes aren't allowed to fly over the schools since it might disturb or distract the kids. It's that serious.

Not only is the schooling different but the students are as well. Whenever you ask one of the students why another student is missing that day, they say he or she "died." They think it's the funniest thing ever. They also sharpen their pencils with razors and act like they're shooting each other with guns. This is just normal every day behavior for them. But I think this is because you aren't allowed to have guns in Korea. Crimes, at least gun crimes, are pretty low here from what I gather.

I know that I'm going to really like the children. There are a few brats and that's natural, but they're all sweet and do some hilarious things. They all have English names and I'm able to remember several of them because they're the same names of my friends. I even had the privilege of naming a new student and he picked Kyle, which I gave him as an option since it's my brother's name. He's an awesome kid. It's the funniest when talking to the young kids because they're not afraid to tell you how different you look or how big you are.