Happy Holiday ! Korean Thanksgiving "Chuseok"

Grace from Korea here.

It's been a long time coming :0

We had a long weekend in Korea because it was Korean Thanksgiving day "Chuseok" last Sunday. When it's Chuseok, we have 3 days off including the day of Chuseok. This time, since it was on weekend, we had Tuesday off too. It was long~ weekend x)

Normally, everybody visits their families during the holiday. But I didn't go to Seoul to visit my family.. I was lazy.. and had lots of assignments to do.. :(

But I was quite satisfied with having chance to read many books after long time.

Yay. Reading time ! haha

The only thing I missed a lot was the traditional Korean Chuseok dish, 'Songpyeon'.

(Sorry mum, of course I miss my family all the time)

It's rice cake, stuffed with sweet things. It's sticky and very tasty.

The day of Chuseok, families gather around and make Songpyeon together.

Yes.. I missed that warmness so much last weekend :(

But it's okay.. I'll look forward to having a New Year's feast. haha

Anyway..

Happy Chuseok everybody ! :D

Practicing Speaking English by Shadow Reading

Grace from Korea here.

I practiced speaking English by shadow reading. :D

The original video I practiced was Oprah's speech video that she told Harvard graduates ; <There is No Such Thing as Failure>

Oprah's speech video from English Central

As usual, English is difficult.. haha :-p

I got to think again that we have to keep practicing reading English !!

Because learning English is always hard for who are learning English as a second language.. right?

Here's my 'Before' audio that I recorded.

Grace's shadow reading - Before

Let me write down the subtitles of speech here.

<There is No Such Thing as Failure>

by Oprah

I know that you all might have a little anxiety now

and hesitation about leaving the comfort of college

and putting those Harvard credentials to the test.

But no matter what challenges or setbacks or disappointments you may encounter along the way, you will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal.

There really is only one, and that is this :

to fulfill the highest, most truthful expression of yourself as a human being.

You wanna max out your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family and the people around you.

Theologian Howard Thurman said it best.

He said, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs."

"Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that,

because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

And here's my 'After' audio !

Grace's shadow reading - After

What do you think?

Did it get better? :)

I need to keep on practicing and I will !

Why don't you try ?

And the website I used, 

English Central is a very great website to learn English !

Please check it out.

See you soon ~ :D

Preferred Careers in Korea

Grace from Korea here.

Continued to last posting, I would like to talk about 'jobs', especially 'preferred careers in Korea' today.

I remember, when I was an elementary school student, my classmates dreamed to be a singer, lawyer, soccer player and even president. Many girls wanted to be a pop star, they practiced dancing and singing after school. I also remember boys had so much passion about sports. They were always kicking balls after lunch and PE class was their favorite.

But a recent study shows quite different result from my childhood. Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training studied students aged from 12 to 18. What do you think the most preferred career for students was?

Well.. Elementary school teacher ranked first place.

Doctor ranked second,

and government employee ranked third.

It's been few years that students choose an elementary school teacher as their dream job.

It seems like they are greatly influenced by their parents because the same research for parents had the same result.

The top 3 reasons why they chose those jobs as their dream job were

1. It's stable.

2. It's less stressful job than others.

3. It's high-paying job.

Obviously nowadays in Korea,  young people prefer having stable job to challenging one. I can understand because I've been hearing things like 'You need to get a stable job like a teacher so that you can get married well'.. It's public social mood in Korea.

So, I would like to know what your dream job is and why, also public standard that people choose a career as their dream jobs.

How is it like in your country?

What's Your Dream Job?

Grace from Korea here.

Only 1 more week to go to final examination :(

and I have 1 year left in my university. I'm on my 2nd semester of Junior year.

Recently, as preparing my presentation for English Presentation class, I had this opportunity to think about my future dream job, as well as my career goal. (Maybe it can be same meaning)

So, here's the question.

"What is your dream job?"

When I was a child, adults always asked me about what I want to be in the future. There were many answers had changed many times. As time goes by, there was passion in my heart towards children over the world.

My final goal of my life is having my own foundation to give children in poor countries opportunities that they can learn whatever they want, for free.  Basically, I want to teach them many languages because languages are like a door , a key to the whole new world. I want them to see and experience the world by their own eyes. 

So, that's my long-term goal and my short-term one is getting in educational publishing company.

There was one question what I asked to myself 2 years ago.

It was,

"What do I like?" 

The answers were 'I love kids so much' and 'I love making things for them'.

I searched for occupation by these keywords and I found the job 'Children's Materials Editor' interesting and will be perfect for me !

Children's materials editor makes books or materials for children. I'm more than interested in educational materials and making things for children so I think I'm great fit to educational publisher.

So I'm preparing myself for the job, such as working as an Au-pair and camp counselor at English camp. I would like to make some books before I graduate so that my future job interviewer can see how much I've been wanted this job.

My students from 'Lilac' class at 2015 winter English camp.

With my lovely boys I looked after in Australia.

So,

What's your dream job?

What / How are you preparing for it?

What motivated you to have that dream?

I hope we all can live a life doing what we want to do :)

, doing what we feel happy when we're doing it.

I'll keep up my work for my dream job !

Of course I'll let you know every steps of it.

Wish me luck ! I wish you luck, too :)

[Korean Culture] What is Jjimjilbang? 한국 문화 체험 - 찜질방

Grace from Korea here.

This time, my friends Q, Jieun, Sungji and I went to Jjimjilbang to show you Korean culture about public bath ; sauna. 

There will be 2 videos about it, and this video is the first one. 

Please enjoy watching it and always feel free to let me know what you want to know about Korean culture and any feedback.

이번에는 제 친구 큐, 성지, 지은과 함께 

한국 사우나 문화를 소개하기 위하여 찜질방을 다녀왔습니다 !  

두개의 비디오로 나눠질텐데요, 이번 비디오는 그 중에 파트 원이에요 :) 

재밌게 봐주세요~!

See you soon with the part two !

:D

찜질방(Jjimjil-bang)? Sauna? Public Bath?

Grace from Korea here.

Have you ever heard of Jjimjil-bang?

Korean Sauna?

It's Korean public bath.

Jjimjil means steam massage in Korean.

This time, I went to Jjimjil-bang to introduce Korean way to enjoy sauna, public bath with my friends Q, Jieun and Sungji.

It's called 'Spaland'.

One of the brand of Korean Jjimjil-bang and it's famous one in Busan city.

To enter the Jjimjil-bang,

we had to change our clothes to Jjimjil-bok.

(bok means clothes)

We had a really great time in there !

We did fun games, took lots of selfies :D haha

And you definitely need to have some snacks in Jjimjil-bang !

There are some typical snacks Koreans enjoy in there.

All these information,

you can find out in my next, coming video :D

Please look forward to it !

I'll do my best editing the video :D haha

See you soon

영어 면접 연습 - Let's practice interviewing in English !

Grace from Korea here.

I had an opportunity to practice interviewing in English. 

I would like to show you the video of it 

and have lots of feedback and advice from you :)  

Please feel free to give me some ! 

이번에 수업시간에 영어로 인터뷰할 수 있는 기회가 있었는데요~ 

비디오로 녹화해봤어요! 

부디 인터뷰하시는 상관의 입장에서 바라봐주시고, 

많은 피드백 주시면 감사하겠습니다!! :D

As you can see at the last part of the video, I got 3 self-reflection points from it.

I found my self doing eye-rolling too much. 

I don't think I can help myself doing eye-rolling but maybe I should try to do less..

I felt I was answering questions too simple.

So, telling more about my own story would be more impressive to interviewer. 

And follow up to my 2nd opinion, I think I need more specific examples of my past experiences.

What I was impressed by my classmate's interview was she was answering her questions, using her past experiences. Even though I(Imaginary boss to her) was not asking her to answer using her experiences, I was so impressed by her answers. I thought if I was her real boss, I would hire her as my employee :)

I hope I can make another video of interviewing in English,

but advanced one ! :D

I'm more than happy because I'm sure it will help for my future interviews.

Thank you for watching and I'm looking forward to meeting you with another video coming !