There's plenty of cultural differences you hear about in Korea that never really seem real until you go through them. The difference in perception of germs and contagious diseases was something I've heard about, and I've seen people take minimal care to avoid coughing or sneezing on others, but last week was the first time I really had something unexpected happen to me.
My grade 3 class came in, and their teacher was looking rather ill. In fact, she looked extremely ill, and I was surprised she had even come to school. I asked if she was OK, and she gave a hoarse response that she was, and we talked for a moment longer at which point she began coughing all over me. I was so surprised, I did a big learing slide backward and gave her a wide-eyed "what the heck are you doing lady?" look. She hardly seemed to notice anything was wrong other than our conversation had ended, and turned away from me casually, still coughing.
So now I'm sick, and I'm convinced it's her fault. I'm going to have to ask a few Koreans to get their thoughts on communicable diseases and whether they feel something like my experience is not a good way for people to stay healthy.
In other news, I've taken on the position of person most likely to have their bike stolen in Korea, if not the world. I write this only because, after having three bicycles stolen from me in the past 12 months, all of them locked up, I see no reason why a 4th or 5th won't also take place - unless of course I stop buying new bicycles. Two were taken from my school when left over-night (both locked and slightly hidden from view) and one was taken from outside my apartment building, locked again but it a less than desireable spot due to a flat tire and a big hill in front of me. Add this to the very expensive bike I had stolen from me while in Calgary (that one was not locked up and was just me being careless), and I'm starting to think that bicycles and I were just not meant to be together.
This is a big "ranting" day it seems, cause my last topic of discussion is also to complain, though like everything it's all in good humour and never actually upsetting (well, stolen bikes and the loss of money is kind of upsetting). So last week I wrote about the disorganization of the voice recording Shannon and I were doing. Well, here we were, a week later, the day it needed to be sent in, and word finally trickled down that we needed to do the entire project over again. As far as I can tell it was a culmination of a lazy recording technician who couldn't be bothered to sort out what English was correctly recorded and what was incorrect, as well as no one telling Shannon or I what we should be reading and what we should be leaving out. And so, we read the whole book again from start to finish, recording it in a single shot. The guy played the necessary music in between chapters, we couldn't cough or talk between sections, it was ridiculous. There were a few mistakes we made which he seemed the tech guy seemed to think he could patch up, but otherwise it was the most ludicrous recording session you could have done.
To make things go more smoothly, we had to drop all the grammatical changes we made to the book. See, this textbook we were reading was full of errors and just strange sentence formations, which we had edited to sound more appropriate. But we didn't have the edited copy, and fixing it on the fly meant lots of mistakes. So instead, we just read silly paragraphs like:
"Shinan is a place of many bridges. The bridges connect the islands to the islands. Especially Jeungdo is the beautiful island. Photographers may like to come here and take nude photos."
I am a little embarrassed at having my name attached to the project. Oh, and I had this goofy cold that was given to me as well, so I sound sick for the text book too. Oh geez, it's too funny.
Anyway, thanks for sticking around through my fun complaining session. I'm off to Jeju, the hawaii of Korea, this weekend for some ultimate. Lots of pics and fun stories to tell I'm sure, so take care until then!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Bloomin' Blossoms
It's cherry blossom season in Korea, and I thought I'd put up some of my attempts to artistically capture the colours erupting from the trees. These shots are all from the hill behind our house where I've been walking Miso in the mornings before school.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Contrast and Strangers
I've started teaching at a gifted school every Monday from 5-8pm. It's a nice little job that pays $30 an hour, so it's worth the loss of my Monday nights, but it's proving to have some unexpected challenges to it. These kids are indeed quite ahead of the rest of their age group, and for the first three weeks, they've quickly devoured everything I've thrown at them. My 3-week lesson plan on phonics I had developed was handled in a single class, with hardly a single mistake made in both the grade 5 and 6 classes. The students at my school have trouble correctly determining the difference between right and left, while yesterday I did a lengthy "Deserted Island" lesson plan with the gifted students, where they had to come up with what they would bring with them to a deserted island and explain why they would bring it.
The other little money-maker Shannon and I have been doing, the text-book voice recording, has possibly wrapped up,
but no one really knows. See, we go into the recording booth, and are given instructions 4th hand by the sound booth technician. See, the people who decide what to do work on an island school out of town. The administrators tell Shannon's school what they want, Shannon's school tells Shannon's co-teacher, and Shannon's co-teacher tells us and the technician over the phone. Any questions we have take about 2 or 3 days to answer properly, and so after 3 or 4 weeks now, we've only gone into the studio three times, and we still don't know if we've recorded it satisfactorily.
Despite the strange manner of communication, it's a fun job to be working, and I hope I get to hear myself on the finished product one day.
Strangers
Being in a new environment can leave you a little more aware of the things and people around you, especially when those people are a little strange, demented or outright creepy. After my trip to Busan last week, I've also found that when you enter a new environment, those strange creepy people are also quite good at noticing you.
I arrived early to the beach on Sunday, and sat down alone to eat some breakfast. While fixing my bag, a guy leans over my shoulder, and says to me:
"Water hey? That's great." I think he's talking about the ocean, so I mutter yeah and go back to my bag. He points at my oranges and says:
"Tangerines too. That's really nice." Ahhh, so he's complimenting me on my bottle of water and my fruit for breakfast. Thanks I say, but still don't turn to face him.
"Are you Australian?" No, Canadian. "Oh good, I don't like Americans. You sound so different. You must be a good Canadian. Very friendly."
He goes on like this, talking to my back for another minute about accents, when 4 more ultimate players show up. He mentions something about my friends coming, then darts off.
Next comes a guy in a soccer jersey and filthy pants. He's shaking everyone's hands, asking names and forgetting them, dancing a little bit and trying to give out hugs. He also talks rather briskly to one of the Korean ultimate players, Ki Boum. "What did he just say?" I ask Ki Boum.
"He told me to keep my mouth shut."
Over the rest of the day, the soccer dude would continue to scurry around us talking to whomever he could, another man would walk on the field repeatedly then just watch the games while we tried to shoo him off, and a lady with nothing to sell tried to sing along to some English songs with us hoping we would buy some of the things she didn't have.
Mokpo, being a smaller city, doesn't seem to have as many prominent crazies, but there are definitely a few characters out there. How all these people though managed to learn English so well is a little beyond me, but you gotta hand it to them for finding a way to get their point across, no matter how pointless it really is.
The other little money-maker Shannon and I have been doing, the text-book voice recording, has possibly wrapped up,
but no one really knows. See, we go into the recording booth, and are given instructions 4th hand by the sound booth technician. See, the people who decide what to do work on an island school out of town. The administrators tell Shannon's school what they want, Shannon's school tells Shannon's co-teacher, and Shannon's co-teacher tells us and the technician over the phone. Any questions we have take about 2 or 3 days to answer properly, and so after 3 or 4 weeks now, we've only gone into the studio three times, and we still don't know if we've recorded it satisfactorily.
Despite the strange manner of communication, it's a fun job to be working, and I hope I get to hear myself on the finished product one day.
Strangers
Being in a new environment can leave you a little more aware of the things and people around you, especially when those people are a little strange, demented or outright creepy. After my trip to Busan last week, I've also found that when you enter a new environment, those strange creepy people are also quite good at noticing you.
I arrived early to the beach on Sunday, and sat down alone to eat some breakfast. While fixing my bag, a guy leans over my shoulder, and says to me:
"Water hey? That's great." I think he's talking about the ocean, so I mutter yeah and go back to my bag. He points at my oranges and says:
"Tangerines too. That's really nice." Ahhh, so he's complimenting me on my bottle of water and my fruit for breakfast. Thanks I say, but still don't turn to face him.
"Are you Australian?" No, Canadian. "Oh good, I don't like Americans. You sound so different. You must be a good Canadian. Very friendly."
He goes on like this, talking to my back for another minute about accents, when 4 more ultimate players show up. He mentions something about my friends coming, then darts off.
Next comes a guy in a soccer jersey and filthy pants. He's shaking everyone's hands, asking names and forgetting them, dancing a little bit and trying to give out hugs. He also talks rather briskly to one of the Korean ultimate players, Ki Boum. "What did he just say?" I ask Ki Boum.
"He told me to keep my mouth shut."
Over the rest of the day, the soccer dude would continue to scurry around us talking to whomever he could, another man would walk on the field repeatedly then just watch the games while we tried to shoo him off, and a lady with nothing to sell tried to sing along to some English songs with us hoping we would buy some of the things she didn't have.
Mokpo, being a smaller city, doesn't seem to have as many prominent crazies, but there are definitely a few characters out there. How all these people though managed to learn English so well is a little beyond me, but you gotta hand it to them for finding a way to get their point across, no matter how pointless it really is.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The Love Motel
The idea of a "Love Motel" is by no means unique to Korea, but its ubiquitousness, usefulness and staggaring range of (or lack of) comfort offerings makes it very worthy of detailed mentioning.
While I have no facts on the rates for monogomy and infidelity in Korea and no idea on the prevalance of prostitution, the sheer number of motels and hotels marketed towards guest looking for brief and discreet stays makes me think both are quite common. What makes these motels so nice is that they are so cheap, and so long as you check that the room is OK, they can be quite pleasant. Any overnight stay away from Mokpo will usually take on the following routine:
1. FInd a busy part of town, and look for a not-too-shady side street.
2. Duck under the hanging-rope car entrance used to hide the identities of people walking from their cars to the motel.
3. At the front desk, bend over so your head is level with your hips - the front desk window is kept low and tiny so the clerk won't know who you are.
4. Avoid paying more than $30 a night, but be sure the room is clean from cigarettes, dirty laundry and previous guests (that hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will one day)
5. Avoid like the plague the terrible horrible X-rated movies playing on the TV. Even if you wanted to watch pornographic materials, you'd probably have a better time watching animals at the zoo than the painfully unflattering material offered on these TV's.
My previous stay at a love motel went quite well until I tried to actually sleep in it. Not only was the parking lot used as a drunken teenage sports field at night, but there was a noraebang (karaoke bar) right below me. By 3am I fell asleep, but I nearly lost my mind when at 6am the singing started again, now more drunken and off key. By 6:15 I had packed up all my bags and was asking the front desk for a new room upstairs, but they had none to give me. By 7 the singing stopped, but then a new game of baseball had started in the parking lot, and so rather than spend my morning sleeping, I spent it walking around looking for a new motel. The one I did find was amazingly better, putting me on the 5th floor and giving me free access to the public sauna/bath house in the building, which made me very happy once again.
This last motel adventure was during a trip to Busan to play ultimate. It turned into a great time despite my crazy-making first sleepless night. Here's some shots of me on the beach - the close-up is just after a dive for the disc, that left my face full of sand.
It's a quiet few weeks I think for now, then it's off to Jeju as a dozen of us go play in one of the bigger ultimate touraments around. There's even a team flying in from the US to play, which is pretty unexpected yet quite exciting.
In the meantime, it's busy times at school, as all my classes are coming these days and none of the teachers are showing up to help. Means of controling students are usually available to me, but it sure takes a lot of energy to get 30 kids who don't speak English under control, and I think I may have to have a talk with my administration staff about making all teachers accompany their students. Otherwise, it's going to lead to one unhappy mind-melted me.
While I have no facts on the rates for monogomy and infidelity in Korea and no idea on the prevalance of prostitution, the sheer number of motels and hotels marketed towards guest looking for brief and discreet stays makes me think both are quite common. What makes these motels so nice is that they are so cheap, and so long as you check that the room is OK, they can be quite pleasant. Any overnight stay away from Mokpo will usually take on the following routine:
1. FInd a busy part of town, and look for a not-too-shady side street.
2. Duck under the hanging-rope car entrance used to hide the identities of people walking from their cars to the motel.
3. At the front desk, bend over so your head is level with your hips - the front desk window is kept low and tiny so the clerk won't know who you are.
4. Avoid paying more than $30 a night, but be sure the room is clean from cigarettes, dirty laundry and previous guests (that hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will one day)
5. Avoid like the plague the terrible horrible X-rated movies playing on the TV. Even if you wanted to watch pornographic materials, you'd probably have a better time watching animals at the zoo than the painfully unflattering material offered on these TV's.
My previous stay at a love motel went quite well until I tried to actually sleep in it. Not only was the parking lot used as a drunken teenage sports field at night, but there was a noraebang (karaoke bar) right below me. By 3am I fell asleep, but I nearly lost my mind when at 6am the singing started again, now more drunken and off key. By 6:15 I had packed up all my bags and was asking the front desk for a new room upstairs, but they had none to give me. By 7 the singing stopped, but then a new game of baseball had started in the parking lot, and so rather than spend my morning sleeping, I spent it walking around looking for a new motel. The one I did find was amazingly better, putting me on the 5th floor and giving me free access to the public sauna/bath house in the building, which made me very happy once again.
This last motel adventure was during a trip to Busan to play ultimate. It turned into a great time despite my crazy-making first sleepless night. Here's some shots of me on the beach - the close-up is just after a dive for the disc, that left my face full of sand.
It's a quiet few weeks I think for now, then it's off to Jeju as a dozen of us go play in one of the bigger ultimate touraments around. There's even a team flying in from the US to play, which is pretty unexpected yet quite exciting.
In the meantime, it's busy times at school, as all my classes are coming these days and none of the teachers are showing up to help. Means of controling students are usually available to me, but it sure takes a lot of energy to get 30 kids who don't speak English under control, and I think I may have to have a talk with my administration staff about making all teachers accompany their students. Otherwise, it's going to lead to one unhappy mind-melted me.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Communication Through Song
This week I'm keeping the blog short and letting someone else do all the work. For a great musical and visual Korean experience, here's a video put together by some English teachers from the English in Paju (I wrote about it as the Disneyland-like English centre).
EV Boyz - Kickin' It In Geumchon
They do a great job of describing things in Korea without being too cruel or obnoxious. The chorus they're singing uses the Korean words "Kamsahamnida" (thank you) and "Annyong Haseyo" (a general greeting, or "peace be with you" roughly).
I may have to post another blog this week - we just had a murder mystery party over the weekend, and while it has very little to do with Korea, it was still a ripping god time with some great costumes. Anyway, thanks for reading!
EV Boyz - Kickin' It In Geumchon
They do a great job of describing things in Korea without being too cruel or obnoxious. The chorus they're singing uses the Korean words "Kamsahamnida" (thank you) and "Annyong Haseyo" (a general greeting, or "peace be with you" roughly).
I may have to post another blog this week - we just had a murder mystery party over the weekend, and while it has very little to do with Korea, it was still a ripping god time with some great costumes. Anyway, thanks for reading!
Monday, March 24, 2008
Nice To Meet You!
There's a teacher at my school who says to me "Nice to meet you!" every day we meet. My students do the same thing to me, and no matter how many times I tell them it's wrong, they just don't quite get it.
Whether you're old friends catching up, or strangers walking past each other on the street, "Nice to meet you" has become the quintessential greeting Koreans use when speaking English. There is very little deviation from it (until people become quite fluent), which I can't quite understand. I think it stems from a bad translation of the Korean word 반갑다 (bangabda), meaning to be pleased, which is a general greeting used in all sorts of situations for Koreans. Since this verb can be used for both "Nice to meet you" and "Good to see you again" people here seem to have stuck with the first one they learned. And so I've begun taking pain-staking process in each of my classes to differentiate between "Nice to meet you" and "Good to see you".
The next miracle I perform on my students will be to stop the use of nouns to describe feelings. This, however, I find hilarious, and I'll be sad if I do ever teach them to stop answering questions like "How are you?" with "Teacher, I am smile." or "Teacher, I am pizza!" One of my favourite responses when I ask how students are comes from one of lower level students. Wang Jeong Uk (왕정욱) is in gr. 5 and has about zero English skills. Even 5 extra hours a week with me still didn't get him anywhere. But now, after two years with this goofy kid, this is how he answers me:
Me: Jeong Uk, how are you?
Wang: Teacher, my angry... (waves his hands) Kim Jin Geon punch-ie! (makes a punching sound.) My (korean ramblings)... My teacher (falls out of chair) yes? O-K? Yes!
Me: Good job, Jeong Uk.
So it goes.
I'm off to make some legitimate extra money after class today. You may or may not be aware of many teachers making extra cash teaching private lessons in Korea, which is quite illegal and can get you booted from the country. In the last week however, I've gotten myself some legitimate overtime with the city education office at $30 an hour, plus Shannon and I did the voice recording for a small island English text. The city job is pretty straight forward, but the recording was quite unreal. I don't think there was much emphasis put on getting it done "properly" when it came to this book. Besides the savage amounts of spelling mistakes, Shannon and I were put in a recording booth with no one who spoke English, given no direction besides "stop" and "go" and asked to read various paragraphs and dialogues. Some of the dialogues invovled as many as 5 separate characters, and while I tried to do some voice "alteration" to fool some of the more deaf children who might listen, all you get is me sounding like a horse and Shannon giggling in the background. And our Korean soundman?
"Good. Go." he says.
Anyway, they may call us in to re-record it, they may just give us $150 each for 2 hours work. I'm not expecting any further interest in my talents, but it sure would be fun to do again. If anything new happens, I'll write about it next week. Thanks for reading.
Whether you're old friends catching up, or strangers walking past each other on the street, "Nice to meet you" has become the quintessential greeting Koreans use when speaking English. There is very little deviation from it (until people become quite fluent), which I can't quite understand. I think it stems from a bad translation of the Korean word 반갑다 (bangabda), meaning to be pleased, which is a general greeting used in all sorts of situations for Koreans. Since this verb can be used for both "Nice to meet you" and "Good to see you again" people here seem to have stuck with the first one they learned. And so I've begun taking pain-staking process in each of my classes to differentiate between "Nice to meet you" and "Good to see you".
The next miracle I perform on my students will be to stop the use of nouns to describe feelings. This, however, I find hilarious, and I'll be sad if I do ever teach them to stop answering questions like "How are you?" with "Teacher, I am smile." or "Teacher, I am pizza!" One of my favourite responses when I ask how students are comes from one of lower level students. Wang Jeong Uk (왕정욱) is in gr. 5 and has about zero English skills. Even 5 extra hours a week with me still didn't get him anywhere. But now, after two years with this goofy kid, this is how he answers me:
Me: Jeong Uk, how are you?
Wang: Teacher, my angry... (waves his hands) Kim Jin Geon punch-ie! (makes a punching sound.) My (korean ramblings)... My teacher (falls out of chair) yes? O-K? Yes!
Me: Good job, Jeong Uk.
So it goes.
I'm off to make some legitimate extra money after class today. You may or may not be aware of many teachers making extra cash teaching private lessons in Korea, which is quite illegal and can get you booted from the country. In the last week however, I've gotten myself some legitimate overtime with the city education office at $30 an hour, plus Shannon and I did the voice recording for a small island English text. The city job is pretty straight forward, but the recording was quite unreal. I don't think there was much emphasis put on getting it done "properly" when it came to this book. Besides the savage amounts of spelling mistakes, Shannon and I were put in a recording booth with no one who spoke English, given no direction besides "stop" and "go" and asked to read various paragraphs and dialogues. Some of the dialogues invovled as many as 5 separate characters, and while I tried to do some voice "alteration" to fool some of the more deaf children who might listen, all you get is me sounding like a horse and Shannon giggling in the background. And our Korean soundman?
"Good. Go." he says.
Anyway, they may call us in to re-record it, they may just give us $150 each for 2 hours work. I'm not expecting any further interest in my talents, but it sure would be fun to do again. If anything new happens, I'll write about it next week. Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Expansion Of My Horizons
I just took my first sip of a cool, refreshing McCol. http://www.ilhwa.co.kr/english/english.asp?m=detail&v=biz&c=beverage&sid=00054&sp=00053&l=2&pid=300050
I didn't even know what it was when I took my first sip, but it smells like a
sterilized stainless steel barnyard, yet it tastes like, well, barley cola I guess.It's been a while since I've had my socks blown off by something so unexpected, so I had to write about it quickly. Anyway, I'm off to play volleyball now!
I didn't even know what it was when I took my first sip, but it smells like a
sterilized stainless steel barnyard, yet it tastes like, well, barley cola I guess.It's been a while since I've had my socks blown off by something so unexpected, so I had to write about it quickly. Anyway, I'm off to play volleyball now!
오늘 어떠요? How Are You Today?
I don't think that's a very "Korean" thing to say (안녕하세요, "peace be with you" is really the norm for greetings), but I wanted to write something Korean in my title today.
It's a quiet day today, and I'm spending my afternoon listening to Bob McDonald on the Quirks and Quarks CBC podcast. Today he's talking about the possibilities of finding life on other planets, which may be much more likely than people think - the downside is that anything found would probably look about as lively and animated as a bucket of mud. So, with the loss of all possibilities of my visiting life on other planets, I'm glad I've taken the time to see all the alien-worldly things here in Korea. Here's what's been happening lately.
I've taken a liking to going rock climbing these days, and just did my first Korean 암벽드유ㅏㄴ (ambyeokdungban), or rock climbing, trip. My fingers felt like I'd ran them through a cheese grater for 5 hours by the time I was done, but it was a great time.
Have I talked about my new co-teacher at school yet? Well, she doesn't really help me teach, but she does aid me in other matters, and being the young eager-to-please teacher that she is, she's super helpful for me. Everyday we sit down for an hour studying Korean (for me) and English (for her), and for the first time since I've been here, I'm actually spending a good deal of time speaking Korean. I was feeling so confident today, when I needed to head to the bank for a minute, rather than sneaking out of the school like I normally do, I actually went to the office and asked my vice principal for permission. Another teacher in the room burst out laughing, but I said everything pretty correct, and he didn't make me sign the multiple sheets of paper discussing why I need to go the bank, how long I'll be, then gather the 3 signatures needed before leaving. Pretty sweet.
Here's another shot I took of Shannon climbing while in Thailand. It's one of the best action shots I took all month,
I just got my shoes delivered in the mail this morning, so pretty soon it'll be me ripping up the rock like that. In the meantime, I'm sticking to ultimate (frisbee). If anyone's interested, there's some tournaments happening in April here in Korea. I'll be sure to save a roster spot and even buy a beer for anyone who makes the big trip over. Till next week!
It's a quiet day today, and I'm spending my afternoon listening to Bob McDonald on the Quirks and Quarks CBC podcast. Today he's talking about the possibilities of finding life on other planets, which may be much more likely than people think - the downside is that anything found would probably look about as lively and animated as a bucket of mud. So, with the loss of all possibilities of my visiting life on other planets, I'm glad I've taken the time to see all the alien-worldly things here in Korea. Here's what's been happening lately.
I've taken a liking to going rock climbing these days, and just did my first Korean 암벽드유ㅏㄴ (ambyeokdungban), or rock climbing, trip. My fingers felt like I'd ran them through a cheese grater for 5 hours by the time I was done, but it was a great time.
Have I talked about my new co-teacher at school yet? Well, she doesn't really help me teach, but she does aid me in other matters, and being the young eager-to-please teacher that she is, she's super helpful for me. Everyday we sit down for an hour studying Korean (for me) and English (for her), and for the first time since I've been here, I'm actually spending a good deal of time speaking Korean. I was feeling so confident today, when I needed to head to the bank for a minute, rather than sneaking out of the school like I normally do, I actually went to the office and asked my vice principal for permission. Another teacher in the room burst out laughing, but I said everything pretty correct, and he didn't make me sign the multiple sheets of paper discussing why I need to go the bank, how long I'll be, then gather the 3 signatures needed before leaving. Pretty sweet.
Here's another shot I took of Shannon climbing while in Thailand. It's one of the best action shots I took all month,
I just got my shoes delivered in the mail this morning, so pretty soon it'll be me ripping up the rock like that. In the meantime, I'm sticking to ultimate (frisbee). If anyone's interested, there's some tournaments happening in April here in Korea. I'll be sure to save a roster spot and even buy a beer for anyone who makes the big trip over. Till next week!
Saturday, March 08, 2008
A Whole New Ball Game
A little change can go a long way, and my school just went through a massive change, making this semester completely unlike the last 17 months I've spent teaching at school. I'm not sure whether things are going to be better or worse, but they certainly are different now.
For starters, I'm now the 3rd longest tenured teacher at my school. Of course, I still have to get help when I need toilet paper for the bathroom, but all but two of the teachers who were here when I arrived have since rotated schools, something teachers do here on usually a 4-year basis, but I guess working at Jungang Elementary speeds that up a bit. Mostly I don't mind, some new faces are nice to see and meet at school, and no one gets tired of my strange English teacher antics this way. Unfortunately, my principal has left, and I'm now faced with a new, much more "by-the-traditional-book" kind of guy.
My New Principal
It took two days for my principal to speak to me (he has zilch for English skills). Before that, he asked others while right in front of me "Does the English teacher not have a cell phone?" and later on (while I wasn't around) make sure I was given proper instructions for saying hello and bowing in the morning. I now need to not only ensure I say "Please be peaceful honourable sir" each morning, but I was given a second round of instruction to remind me to enter the room fully, face my principal, and bow directly at him. I also need to do this for my vice-principal, and again for both when I leave school.
My vice-principal, who gets along much better with this new style of leader, now feels more comfortable guiding me towards becoming a better and honourable Korean. All ready he's begun informing me at lunch that I must eat everything given to me on my plate, something he would only mutter under his breath last semester. In reponse, I've changed times I eat lunch, and am much better at preventing the cafeteria workers from putting nasty foods on my tray.
Volleyball has also taken on new levels of importance, which is awesomely horrible since our teachers are even worse volleyball players than before. Last week we played 3 or 4 times, and most staff meetings revolved around how to improve our volleyball skills. When we do play, I'm trapped in this grey void of not knowing whether to impress the few male teachers and play hard, or have fun with the female teachers and not violently crush balls at them. It's degenerated for me into this silly dance where I spend 80% of the time with my hands in my pockets, then leap up to knock one or two balls down so I can get a high-five from my principal. Then, back to twiddling my thumbs and trying not to act too ridiculous on the court.
Well, I should wrap this up here. I didn't teach at all last week, setting a new personal record for internet surfing and time wasting. The British term for it is WILFing (What was I Looking For?) when you surf online without any real direction. I'm teacher a few extra classes per week now though, so perhaps I'll be moderately busy this semester.
Oh, while I don't mean to drag this out into another epicly long blog, but here's a funny tale from teaching. Last year my students were getting a little... over-excited... about certain body parts and human activites that start to get interesting once you're around 12 or so year old. During my teaching of parts of the body, they demanded very much to know the words for "penis", so they could use it in ways not ideal for speaking to me or other students. Well, I didn't feel good having them saying penis so rudely, but I didn't want them to be clueless or wrong about body parts, so I just gave them "groin" as a suitable and useable word. Now I've got kids yelling groin around the school left right and centre, making strange hand gestures and talking about "groin-groin-go", it gets so ridiculous I end up laughing with them and at them at the same time. That of course only encourages is, but hey, whatever gets them speaking English, right?
For starters, I'm now the 3rd longest tenured teacher at my school. Of course, I still have to get help when I need toilet paper for the bathroom, but all but two of the teachers who were here when I arrived have since rotated schools, something teachers do here on usually a 4-year basis, but I guess working at Jungang Elementary speeds that up a bit. Mostly I don't mind, some new faces are nice to see and meet at school, and no one gets tired of my strange English teacher antics this way. Unfortunately, my principal has left, and I'm now faced with a new, much more "by-the-traditional-book" kind of guy.
My New Principal
It took two days for my principal to speak to me (he has zilch for English skills). Before that, he asked others while right in front of me "Does the English teacher not have a cell phone?" and later on (while I wasn't around) make sure I was given proper instructions for saying hello and bowing in the morning. I now need to not only ensure I say "Please be peaceful honourable sir" each morning, but I was given a second round of instruction to remind me to enter the room fully, face my principal, and bow directly at him. I also need to do this for my vice-principal, and again for both when I leave school.
My vice-principal, who gets along much better with this new style of leader, now feels more comfortable guiding me towards becoming a better and honourable Korean. All ready he's begun informing me at lunch that I must eat everything given to me on my plate, something he would only mutter under his breath last semester. In reponse, I've changed times I eat lunch, and am much better at preventing the cafeteria workers from putting nasty foods on my tray.
Volleyball has also taken on new levels of importance, which is awesomely horrible since our teachers are even worse volleyball players than before. Last week we played 3 or 4 times, and most staff meetings revolved around how to improve our volleyball skills. When we do play, I'm trapped in this grey void of not knowing whether to impress the few male teachers and play hard, or have fun with the female teachers and not violently crush balls at them. It's degenerated for me into this silly dance where I spend 80% of the time with my hands in my pockets, then leap up to knock one or two balls down so I can get a high-five from my principal. Then, back to twiddling my thumbs and trying not to act too ridiculous on the court.
Well, I should wrap this up here. I didn't teach at all last week, setting a new personal record for internet surfing and time wasting. The British term for it is WILFing (What was I Looking For?) when you surf online without any real direction. I'm teacher a few extra classes per week now though, so perhaps I'll be moderately busy this semester.
Oh, while I don't mean to drag this out into another epicly long blog, but here's a funny tale from teaching. Last year my students were getting a little... over-excited... about certain body parts and human activites that start to get interesting once you're around 12 or so year old. During my teaching of parts of the body, they demanded very much to know the words for "penis", so they could use it in ways not ideal for speaking to me or other students. Well, I didn't feel good having them saying penis so rudely, but I didn't want them to be clueless or wrong about body parts, so I just gave them "groin" as a suitable and useable word. Now I've got kids yelling groin around the school left right and centre, making strange hand gestures and talking about "groin-groin-go", it gets so ridiculous I end up laughing with them and at them at the same time. That of course only encourages is, but hey, whatever gets them speaking English, right?
Thursday, March 06, 2008
A Few More Pictures
Here's some more photos I wasn't able to add in my last blog. While most should be self-explanatory, the one with the crab is a little strange. During our beach camp-out, Shannon noticed this massive crab hiding in the corner beside the toilet while she was sitting down, causing her to let out a horribly loud scream and nearly break the bathroom door down as she flew out.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
No Country For Tall Men
It's a short man's world out there, and I've got the divots in my head to prove it. 30 days in Thailand has only cemented the fact that people over 5'10" are not normally given the kind of consideration we deserve, and bathrooms, hostels, restaurants and nearly anywhere there's a doorway can be a treacherous place.
Yep, my month vacation in Thailand has come to an end, and it was a wonderful and exciting time that I'm sad to see go, yet it feels good to be back home in Korea where things are a little more stable.
Besides all the whacking of my head, I also contracted food poisoning twice, so it has been very refreshing to sit on my couch or bed after a long hot shower and not have to worry about doing activities or catching buses any time soon.
To recap the last month, Shannon and I spent 29 days in Thailand, 13 days in the south and 15 up north.
I know that only equals 28, but traveling ate up at least one day, perhaps even two. In the south, we went to Tonsai/Railay, where we rock-climbed and relaxed for 8 days solid. I had my first incident of food poisoning there, which kept us a day or two longer than we wanted, but it's about the most beautiful place in the world to be stuck at.
Our next stop was in Koh Pi Pi. This was another mega-beautiful tourist destination, where we went scuba diving and then spent a night camping on the beach where that late '90's movie, "The Beach" was filmed. Looking back, I realize that both Tonsai and Koh Pi Pi were incredibly tourist dominated remote locations, with no locals living there that weren't there to make money in tourism.
Foreigners, or "farangs" outnumbered Thais by as much as 5-1, and while we did get to experience the geography of Thailand, there really wasn't as much Thai culture to be found with so many foreigners muddling about.
Still, it was an amazing, magnificent time, and if nothing else, we got to see a 5 or 6 metre whale shark while scuba diving, which definitely had my eyes bugging out of my skull.
The north was much more varied, and I enjoyed it in an entirely different way than the south. Instead of beaches and rock climbing, we had mountains and hiking; most of our stops were only for 2 or 3 nights, and we covered an incredible amount of distance by bus, foot and bicycle.
In Tham Lod, our first major stop, we went caving. I never thought much for caving, but I certainly do enjoy it more now. Our first 7 hour hike took us through three caves, one lengthy deep one with vertebrate fossils in the back, one with 2000 year-old Thai coffins, and another that was a tiny stream cave. The stream cave was something I never imagined doing, and probably wouldn't have if I had stopped to think about it before crawling in.
For most of the 25 minutes going into this cave, you had to crawl on your hands and knees, sometimes even flat on your belly, through a small stream and it's muck to get along the cave. It was only wide enough for one person, and it terminated with a 20 meter waterfall where 5 years ago a Dutch person had fallen to his death. The cave was so small and awkward, it took two days to find a way to get the Dutchman's body out.
The second caving trip we did was a kayak tour through a massive cave filled with birds and bats. The bat poop was several centimeters thick on the ground, and gave off an incredible odour that wasn't terrible, but not at all pleasant either.
After Tham Lod, we went to Mae Hong Son to hike through the mountains. There's many different tours, packages and means to go hiking in Thailand's hills, and we wanted to do it in a way that exploited the people and animals of Thailand the least. One of the tribes living in Thailand are the "long-neck" tribes you may have heard of. Women generally in these tribes will put those metal rings around their necks, extending them over time as a beautification things. Well, at first we thought, "wow, how neat, a cultural event we should probably see." Well, that's not really what it is. See, these people are historically Burmese refugees who have fled Burma and now have started being exhibited in Thailand for the "neat" way they decorate themselves. The neck decorations they do probably would be gone by now, but the people are kept in small villages just off the main road so foreigners can pay $10 to go have a look at them. It's kind of like a human zoo, and while plenty of travel offices/writers seem to think it's okay, every local we talked to and newspaper we read said it was a sad example of exploitation of people in need of help and money.
So, our hike went through more traditional, less exploited villages from other people more closely linked to rebel soldiers than human zoo colonies. We hiked for 5 or 6 hours every day and would spend our nights sleeping in big bamboo huts, raised off the ground. Pigs, dogs, chickens and cows strolled around the huts, and the entire human population of these villages never was more than 10 or 12, and the fist night it was only 2. The second of our three days hiking, we crawled into another cave, which I know distinguish from the others by the animals lurking inside. Our guides, who knew what they were getting into, brought sticks with them to keep any trouble away, which at fist I may have thought was the bats. This cave, being much smaller than the previous caves with bats, had bats flying only a few feet from our heads (or into our guides head at one small point). But, it was the snakes that had everyone on edge by the end - poisonous cave snakes, which I was told will kill you, live in the caves around there, and we came across two of them. One stopped us from going any further, and the second was a good sign for us to get the heck out of the cave ASAP.
Our final event from the north was the self guided bike tour Shannon and I did. This probably would have been one of the highlights of the north if we didn't both get food poisoning again only 60 km into the trip. We spent the next two days and 100+ km struggling to make it to our next destination, ignoring all the beautiful scenery and side trips we could along the way. By the time we got back to the finish in Chiang Mai, I was ready to denounce any and all forms of physical activity for the next few years of my life. In the end, it took only a few more days to get my back on my feet feeling good, but by the time a few more days rolled around, I was in Korea again.
(I'll have a few more pics to add soon, I couldn't get them all of the camera in time for this week.)
And so, tomorrow is Monday, which means I'm back to work at school. I'm not dreading it as much as I thought I would be, but I'm not terribly excited either. I know I'll probably not teach any classes, and spend most of the day on the computer or studying Korea, then have a moderately fun dinner out with all my teachers, full of strange food that even after 18 months I still can't identify it's origins. It does feel very good being back in Korea though - after so much time being sick in Thailand, the familiar foods and feelings, sounds and smells, it all makes me feel quite strong and healthy again. I even ate two big chunks of kimchi (pickled spicy cabbage) at dinner last night and enjoyed it intensely. I may make a Korean out of myself yet.
Yep, my month vacation in Thailand has come to an end, and it was a wonderful and exciting time that I'm sad to see go, yet it feels good to be back home in Korea where things are a little more stable.
Besides all the whacking of my head, I also contracted food poisoning twice, so it has been very refreshing to sit on my couch or bed after a long hot shower and not have to worry about doing activities or catching buses any time soon.
To recap the last month, Shannon and I spent 29 days in Thailand, 13 days in the south and 15 up north.
I know that only equals 28, but traveling ate up at least one day, perhaps even two. In the south, we went to Tonsai/Railay, where we rock-climbed and relaxed for 8 days solid. I had my first incident of food poisoning there, which kept us a day or two longer than we wanted, but it's about the most beautiful place in the world to be stuck at.
Our next stop was in Koh Pi Pi. This was another mega-beautiful tourist destination, where we went scuba diving and then spent a night camping on the beach where that late '90's movie, "The Beach" was filmed. Looking back, I realize that both Tonsai and Koh Pi Pi were incredibly tourist dominated remote locations, with no locals living there that weren't there to make money in tourism.
Foreigners, or "farangs" outnumbered Thais by as much as 5-1, and while we did get to experience the geography of Thailand, there really wasn't as much Thai culture to be found with so many foreigners muddling about.
Still, it was an amazing, magnificent time, and if nothing else, we got to see a 5 or 6 metre whale shark while scuba diving, which definitely had my eyes bugging out of my skull.
The north was much more varied, and I enjoyed it in an entirely different way than the south. Instead of beaches and rock climbing, we had mountains and hiking; most of our stops were only for 2 or 3 nights, and we covered an incredible amount of distance by bus, foot and bicycle.
In Tham Lod, our first major stop, we went caving. I never thought much for caving, but I certainly do enjoy it more now. Our first 7 hour hike took us through three caves, one lengthy deep one with vertebrate fossils in the back, one with 2000 year-old Thai coffins, and another that was a tiny stream cave. The stream cave was something I never imagined doing, and probably wouldn't have if I had stopped to think about it before crawling in.
For most of the 25 minutes going into this cave, you had to crawl on your hands and knees, sometimes even flat on your belly, through a small stream and it's muck to get along the cave. It was only wide enough for one person, and it terminated with a 20 meter waterfall where 5 years ago a Dutch person had fallen to his death. The cave was so small and awkward, it took two days to find a way to get the Dutchman's body out.
The second caving trip we did was a kayak tour through a massive cave filled with birds and bats. The bat poop was several centimeters thick on the ground, and gave off an incredible odour that wasn't terrible, but not at all pleasant either.
After Tham Lod, we went to Mae Hong Son to hike through the mountains. There's many different tours, packages and means to go hiking in Thailand's hills, and we wanted to do it in a way that exploited the people and animals of Thailand the least. One of the tribes living in Thailand are the "long-neck" tribes you may have heard of. Women generally in these tribes will put those metal rings around their necks, extending them over time as a beautification things. Well, at first we thought, "wow, how neat, a cultural event we should probably see." Well, that's not really what it is. See, these people are historically Burmese refugees who have fled Burma and now have started being exhibited in Thailand for the "neat" way they decorate themselves. The neck decorations they do probably would be gone by now, but the people are kept in small villages just off the main road so foreigners can pay $10 to go have a look at them. It's kind of like a human zoo, and while plenty of travel offices/writers seem to think it's okay, every local we talked to and newspaper we read said it was a sad example of exploitation of people in need of help and money.
So, our hike went through more traditional, less exploited villages from other people more closely linked to rebel soldiers than human zoo colonies. We hiked for 5 or 6 hours every day and would spend our nights sleeping in big bamboo huts, raised off the ground. Pigs, dogs, chickens and cows strolled around the huts, and the entire human population of these villages never was more than 10 or 12, and the fist night it was only 2. The second of our three days hiking, we crawled into another cave, which I know distinguish from the others by the animals lurking inside. Our guides, who knew what they were getting into, brought sticks with them to keep any trouble away, which at fist I may have thought was the bats. This cave, being much smaller than the previous caves with bats, had bats flying only a few feet from our heads (or into our guides head at one small point). But, it was the snakes that had everyone on edge by the end - poisonous cave snakes, which I was told will kill you, live in the caves around there, and we came across two of them. One stopped us from going any further, and the second was a good sign for us to get the heck out of the cave ASAP.
Our final event from the north was the self guided bike tour Shannon and I did. This probably would have been one of the highlights of the north if we didn't both get food poisoning again only 60 km into the trip. We spent the next two days and 100+ km struggling to make it to our next destination, ignoring all the beautiful scenery and side trips we could along the way. By the time we got back to the finish in Chiang Mai, I was ready to denounce any and all forms of physical activity for the next few years of my life. In the end, it took only a few more days to get my back on my feet feeling good, but by the time a few more days rolled around, I was in Korea again.
(I'll have a few more pics to add soon, I couldn't get them all of the camera in time for this week.)
And so, tomorrow is Monday, which means I'm back to work at school. I'm not dreading it as much as I thought I would be, but I'm not terribly excited either. I know I'll probably not teach any classes, and spend most of the day on the computer or studying Korea, then have a moderately fun dinner out with all my teachers, full of strange food that even after 18 months I still can't identify it's origins. It does feel very good being back in Korea though - after so much time being sick in Thailand, the familiar foods and feelings, sounds and smells, it all makes me feel quite strong and healthy again. I even ate two big chunks of kimchi (pickled spicy cabbage) at dinner last night and enjoyed it intensely. I may make a Korean out of myself yet.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Life (and Death) in Thailand
There are layers of existence for people here in Thailand, from the brief vacationing families who hardly leave their tourist resort boundaries, to the locals living in remote villages who know little of the outside world. Shannon and I are coming as close to seeing (perhaps slightly even experiencing) the local communities of northern Thailand, and it's a wild, alien place.
To begin with, it's much more violent than I had originally imagined. We've fortunately not not been involved in anything unusual or difficult, but talking with people who've lived here for many years and learning more about life here, it can be a scary place to be at times.
Right now, we're in a small village called Tham Lod - mostly bamboo huts and farmland. It's nice, quiet, and everyone we've met has been incredibly friendly. Yet the owner of the hostel and the workers who've been there for a while have plenty of stories about people dying and being murdered. I started reading the owner's book, which begins with him being wrongfully accussed of murdering one backpacker only to have another dead person's whereabouts being linked with him and his buisness. Asking a hostel staff member a bit about this, he mentioned that while that story was rather unusual, things have a way of happening out in the middle of nowhere. A few years back, a Dutch tourist dies in a cave Shannon and I had only hours earlier crawled out of. The week prior to our arrival, a few local Thais had been murdered, and their bodies found in a large sinkhole outside of town. This story became really interesting when it turned out the limited search and rescue crews in the area were not available for some time, and it was the various trekking guides and tour staff who had to retrieve the bodies.
You may also have heard of the two Canadians shot in Thailand only a month or two ago. The man died, the woman survived, and the police officer who shot them is expected to be set free and be back on duty soon. While there are a few stories on how things happened, the version backed by the most evidence is the one where a drunk off-duty police officer tries to get friendly with a Candian girl, her boyfriend tells him to get stuffed, and as things go the way they do when people have been drinking, the officer shoots them both. Shannon and I just left the town this happened in, Pai, a few days ago.
In smaller towns, where authority and justice seem to be nice ideas that don't necessarily get followed, it's quite a different world from that at home, or even the one touched on briefly while traveling. Now, all this doesn't make being in Thailand unsafe - even the shooting in Pai could have been avoided if cooler heads and common sense had prevailed (or so I believe). And from conversations with other travelers, Thailand is one of the safest countries in the world when it comes to assault and robbery, especially for females travelling alone. But it for locals, for people living within the rules and law that seems to apply in small villages where no one knows what happens outside, it seems to be a scarier place. Today, walking into town after hearing all the stories from the folks living here, I even noticed all the road signs I passed had bullet holes through them. In the few days I'm here in Tham Lod, not much it seems will happen, but I bet as you look over longer and longer timelines, this small village can be a pretty wild place.
To begin with, it's much more violent than I had originally imagined. We've fortunately not not been involved in anything unusual or difficult, but talking with people who've lived here for many years and learning more about life here, it can be a scary place to be at times.
Right now, we're in a small village called Tham Lod - mostly bamboo huts and farmland. It's nice, quiet, and everyone we've met has been incredibly friendly. Yet the owner of the hostel and the workers who've been there for a while have plenty of stories about people dying and being murdered. I started reading the owner's book, which begins with him being wrongfully accussed of murdering one backpacker only to have another dead person's whereabouts being linked with him and his buisness. Asking a hostel staff member a bit about this, he mentioned that while that story was rather unusual, things have a way of happening out in the middle of nowhere. A few years back, a Dutch tourist dies in a cave Shannon and I had only hours earlier crawled out of. The week prior to our arrival, a few local Thais had been murdered, and their bodies found in a large sinkhole outside of town. This story became really interesting when it turned out the limited search and rescue crews in the area were not available for some time, and it was the various trekking guides and tour staff who had to retrieve the bodies.
You may also have heard of the two Canadians shot in Thailand only a month or two ago. The man died, the woman survived, and the police officer who shot them is expected to be set free and be back on duty soon. While there are a few stories on how things happened, the version backed by the most evidence is the one where a drunk off-duty police officer tries to get friendly with a Candian girl, her boyfriend tells him to get stuffed, and as things go the way they do when people have been drinking, the officer shoots them both. Shannon and I just left the town this happened in, Pai, a few days ago.
In smaller towns, where authority and justice seem to be nice ideas that don't necessarily get followed, it's quite a different world from that at home, or even the one touched on briefly while traveling. Now, all this doesn't make being in Thailand unsafe - even the shooting in Pai could have been avoided if cooler heads and common sense had prevailed (or so I believe). And from conversations with other travelers, Thailand is one of the safest countries in the world when it comes to assault and robbery, especially for females travelling alone. But it for locals, for people living within the rules and law that seems to apply in small villages where no one knows what happens outside, it seems to be a scarier place. Today, walking into town after hearing all the stories from the folks living here, I even noticed all the road signs I passed had bullet holes through them. In the few days I'm here in Tham Lod, not much it seems will happen, but I bet as you look over longer and longer timelines, this small village can be a pretty wild place.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Thailand
This will be relatively short, but I've made it safely to Thailand and am having a blast here now. The trip was generally uneventful, other than the full glass of orange juice I dumped in my lap during the flight to Thailand. That was pretty uncomfortable to go through.
Shannon and I are in Tonsai Bay now, a rock climbing mecca where there are more tanned, muscular bodies than anywhere I've ever seen in my life. We've gone climbing three or four days now, and it's been unbelievable. Took me some time to get used to hanging so high by a rope, but every time I go I like it more and more.
I've got food poisoning now, and spent all last night expelling it from my body in every way you could imagine. Today has been a very slow, painful day to get through, and I've only gotten out of bed twice. I shaved though, which is only noteworthy because I was so ill I managed to slash my chin with my razor. I'm not in good shape at the moment.
Anyway, tomorrow we're off to either Koh Pi Pi, Au Nang or Koh Lak - it all depends on how well I feel and what we want to do. I may blog again next week if I have time. Hope everyone in the rest of the world is doing well!
Shannon and I are in Tonsai Bay now, a rock climbing mecca where there are more tanned, muscular bodies than anywhere I've ever seen in my life. We've gone climbing three or four days now, and it's been unbelievable. Took me some time to get used to hanging so high by a rope, but every time I go I like it more and more.
I've got food poisoning now, and spent all last night expelling it from my body in every way you could imagine. Today has been a very slow, painful day to get through, and I've only gotten out of bed twice. I shaved though, which is only noteworthy because I was so ill I managed to slash my chin with my razor. I'm not in good shape at the moment.
Anyway, tomorrow we're off to either Koh Pi Pi, Au Nang or Koh Lak - it all depends on how well I feel and what we want to do. I may blog again next week if I have time. Hope everyone in the rest of the world is doing well!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
"Yeah, But You Should See The Other Guy!"
I can't think of any better way to start this blog than to come straight out and admit I got my back-side beaten up by a 16 year-old last week.
I've been going to Taekwondo now for almost a year, and every so often we get to spar with each other. Being the only person over 5'8", and weighing twice what most everyone else does, I always have to fight the toughest kids in class. And yes, they're all in high school, though that doesn't necessarily make them any less bad-ass.
This week I took a surprisingly good beating, though to be fair, I was trying more for good technique on my part and less for avoiding kicks to the abdomen. And so, every time I put out a good, well planned kick or two, the speedy little Korean student would slip in and hammer me three or four times before I could finally step back and start over again. I got some well deserved congratulations from everyone in class for doing so well, but I also have some bruised ribs and a tennis-ball sized welt on my foot from it all.
Oh, and the time before I fought this kid, I got a minor concussion. This kid is quite good, and had to fight everyone in class one day. I was at the end, so he was pretty tired, so I was able to chase him around the room. I'm all ready to (gently) finish him off, so to speak, when with my last kick to his head, I slip. Well, I had enough momentum going for me that I threw my entire body up in the air air and came down squarely on the back of my neck/skull. If it hadn't been so painful, I'm sure it would have been quite hilarious, like a cartoon character stepping on a banana peel.
I'm off to Jeju island for a school camp on Tuesday, then when I'm back Shan and I are heading to Thailand. It's getting very very exciting here, though dealing with the dog and our friend's cat while we're gone is a hassle and a half. Yes - for anyone out there who was wondering - this is definitely a sign I'm not ready to have children. So, there will be little to no blogging for the next month, but I'll be back in March! Thanks for reading everyone, send me an email if you're ever interested in what's happening with me, or if you have a fun story to tell yourself.
Oh, and my hip/buttock is moderately better these days. Physio has helled a bit, but it seems running, exercise and being very cautious with it also helps. Cured? I don't think so. But better. Okay, type to you later.
Rich
I've been going to Taekwondo now for almost a year, and every so often we get to spar with each other. Being the only person over 5'8", and weighing twice what most everyone else does, I always have to fight the toughest kids in class. And yes, they're all in high school, though that doesn't necessarily make them any less bad-ass.
This week I took a surprisingly good beating, though to be fair, I was trying more for good technique on my part and less for avoiding kicks to the abdomen. And so, every time I put out a good, well planned kick or two, the speedy little Korean student would slip in and hammer me three or four times before I could finally step back and start over again. I got some well deserved congratulations from everyone in class for doing so well, but I also have some bruised ribs and a tennis-ball sized welt on my foot from it all.
Oh, and the time before I fought this kid, I got a minor concussion. This kid is quite good, and had to fight everyone in class one day. I was at the end, so he was pretty tired, so I was able to chase him around the room. I'm all ready to (gently) finish him off, so to speak, when with my last kick to his head, I slip. Well, I had enough momentum going for me that I threw my entire body up in the air air and came down squarely on the back of my neck/skull. If it hadn't been so painful, I'm sure it would have been quite hilarious, like a cartoon character stepping on a banana peel.
I'm off to Jeju island for a school camp on Tuesday, then when I'm back Shan and I are heading to Thailand. It's getting very very exciting here, though dealing with the dog and our friend's cat while we're gone is a hassle and a half. Yes - for anyone out there who was wondering - this is definitely a sign I'm not ready to have children. So, there will be little to no blogging for the next month, but I'll be back in March! Thanks for reading everyone, send me an email if you're ever interested in what's happening with me, or if you have a fun story to tell yourself.
Oh, and my hip/buttock is moderately better these days. Physio has helled a bit, but it seems running, exercise and being very cautious with it also helps. Cured? I don't think so. But better. Okay, type to you later.
Rich
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Hard at Work Doin' Nothin'
It's week 3.7 of winter vacation here in Korea, and I've been nice and busy doing nothing these days. Actually, I really have been keeping myself wonderfully occupied with a whole schlack of activities these past few weeks, but it's still a pain having to stick around Mokpo/Korea when if you added up all my free time, it would be nearly a whole extra month doing something more interesting than this.
I've been working about 45 minutes a day at school this week, and the work I do is literally just "listen and repeat" with the kids so they can learn some new phrases in English. Shannon's not doing anything right now, so by 11:30 each day, we turn into Hugh Grant in that movie "About a Boy" where he retires at 30 and spends his days managing small blocks of time with trivial activities. Well, I have managed to go to the gym nearly every day lately, which is pretty good, but otherwise it's lots of reading, studying Korean and platting schemes to trick my students to do what I tell them to for next semester. Any scheme plotting is always a good time.
Miso
Since there's not too much going on then, why don't I introduce you all more formally to the littlest member of our Korean household, Miso. Any regular reader of my blog here will know of our poor little mongrel, but for those unaware, here's a quick history of our new four-legged friend.
We got the little guy after a friend found him wandering the streets. After a few days trying to find his owners, she began asking around if anyone would take care of him. Since we felt it was that or have him put down,
Shannon and I took him in. 10 months later, he's still a little rough on deciding where he should and shouldn't be peeing, but he's so cute how can you get mad at him.
It's winter now, so he hasn't stopped shivering in a few months.
I think the fact that he's small, has little hair, and was meant really to be in Mexico (he is half Chihuahua) makes him not so adept at dealing with chilly temperatures. Canada may be the end of him, I think. Still, if anyone is ever interested in babysitting, he's very loving, likes to cuddle, and sleeps comfortably with you under the covers.
Oh, and we're babysitting a friends cat right now. The cat is nuts, and spends most of the day trying to break in (and subsequently, out of) the fridge. Here's a funny picture we took of him that shows off all his insanity. Well, that's all until next week, or whenever-ish. I'm a little slow on the blogs now that I have all this free time. Strange how things work that way. After next week though, it's off to Thailand! I probably won't be blogging during that stint, but feel free to email me if you need to hear an adventure or two!
I've been working about 45 minutes a day at school this week, and the work I do is literally just "listen and repeat" with the kids so they can learn some new phrases in English. Shannon's not doing anything right now, so by 11:30 each day, we turn into Hugh Grant in that movie "About a Boy" where he retires at 30 and spends his days managing small blocks of time with trivial activities. Well, I have managed to go to the gym nearly every day lately, which is pretty good, but otherwise it's lots of reading, studying Korean and platting schemes to trick my students to do what I tell them to for next semester. Any scheme plotting is always a good time.
Miso
Since there's not too much going on then, why don't I introduce you all more formally to the littlest member of our Korean household, Miso. Any regular reader of my blog here will know of our poor little mongrel, but for those unaware, here's a quick history of our new four-legged friend.
We got the little guy after a friend found him wandering the streets. After a few days trying to find his owners, she began asking around if anyone would take care of him. Since we felt it was that or have him put down,
Shannon and I took him in. 10 months later, he's still a little rough on deciding where he should and shouldn't be peeing, but he's so cute how can you get mad at him.It's winter now, so he hasn't stopped shivering in a few months.
I think the fact that he's small, has little hair, and was meant really to be in Mexico (he is half Chihuahua) makes him not so adept at dealing with chilly temperatures. Canada may be the end of him, I think. Still, if anyone is ever interested in babysitting, he's very loving, likes to cuddle, and sleeps comfortably with you under the covers.
Oh, and we're babysitting a friends cat right now. The cat is nuts, and spends most of the day trying to break in (and subsequently, out of) the fridge. Here's a funny picture we took of him that shows off all his insanity. Well, that's all until next week, or whenever-ish. I'm a little slow on the blogs now that I have all this free time. Strange how things work that way. After next week though, it's off to Thailand! I probably won't be blogging during that stint, but feel free to email me if you need to hear an adventure or two!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Blame It On the Rain
The lack of foaming agents in Korea has started to come to my attention these last few weeks. It's by no means a serious issue, or even something that bothers me at all, but it's a strange thing to continually come across - go wash your hair, and you get no suds. Brush your teeth, and your mouth never gets as foamed up. The body wash we have, rather than getting all sudsy, just coats your body with a "silicone gel" that's put into it.
On the other hand, when given beer the locals just can't seem to give me enough foamy head whenever they pour me a drink, so I suppose it all balances out in one fashion or another. All right, enough meandering for now.
I number of months ago I went into some details on a pain in my hip that had come up and brought about a number of trips to the doctor, including my local "herb" doctor. Well, the pain has come back again, and I'm onto Round 2 of trying to sort it out here in Korea. I'm starting to think perhaps it's a pinched nerve or something up with my back, but my self-daignosis is by no means the interesting part of this story.
I've been going to physiotherapy for a few weeks now, which I think is pretty similar to Canadian standards. My doctor however is a little out there for my liking. He doesn't speak much English, so we get by in a mixture of our two languages to figure out what's going on. The other day though, his English came through just fine.
I was having a rather painful day yesterday (which has carried over to today), so I went in to try and see if we could better diagnose my problem. I told him that my leg and buttock was getting quite painful, and I was even having some difficulty walking today.
"Ah, yes," he says, "that's because of the rain."
The rain? I'm in a great deal of pain and you're blaming it on the weather? Ridiculous. Anyway, I did my physiotherapy, and things still aren't any better. Today I'm going to a new doctor, and if he can't help I may end up going to the hospital to get some much more in-depth testing. I'll keep you appraised on my progress, since I'm sure there are a few people or family members who are concerned for my health and well-being.
On a more fun and bizarre note, I got a new haircut this week. Normally this wouldn't be noteworthy, but since we've moved houses, I decided to try someone closer to home, and went with the nearby "stylist". Well, what an experience that was!
As you may be able to see, the stylist, a young guy who I was hoping could speak English, spent very little time actually "cutting" my hair, and styled it instead. And not to my liking. When he did cut, he would jump around me, waving his hands, thrashing though my hair, sliding his leg out to one side to crouch low and cut juuuuussssst the right piece of hair to make it look right. I asked him three or four times to cut it shorter, but he just kept saying "No, no - Wax!" The final product is like no hair style I'll ever wear, but when not styled that way, it doesn't look so bad on me.
All right, that's all for this week I think. I'm not working for another week or two now, so I don't expect much to happen here besides reading books and relaxing. Bye for now.
On the other hand, when given beer the locals just can't seem to give me enough foamy head whenever they pour me a drink, so I suppose it all balances out in one fashion or another. All right, enough meandering for now.
I number of months ago I went into some details on a pain in my hip that had come up and brought about a number of trips to the doctor, including my local "herb" doctor. Well, the pain has come back again, and I'm onto Round 2 of trying to sort it out here in Korea. I'm starting to think perhaps it's a pinched nerve or something up with my back, but my self-daignosis is by no means the interesting part of this story.
I've been going to physiotherapy for a few weeks now, which I think is pretty similar to Canadian standards. My doctor however is a little out there for my liking. He doesn't speak much English, so we get by in a mixture of our two languages to figure out what's going on. The other day though, his English came through just fine.
I was having a rather painful day yesterday (which has carried over to today), so I went in to try and see if we could better diagnose my problem. I told him that my leg and buttock was getting quite painful, and I was even having some difficulty walking today.
"Ah, yes," he says, "that's because of the rain."
The rain? I'm in a great deal of pain and you're blaming it on the weather? Ridiculous. Anyway, I did my physiotherapy, and things still aren't any better. Today I'm going to a new doctor, and if he can't help I may end up going to the hospital to get some much more in-depth testing. I'll keep you appraised on my progress, since I'm sure there are a few people or family members who are concerned for my health and well-being.
On a more fun and bizarre note, I got a new haircut this week. Normally this wouldn't be noteworthy, but since we've moved houses, I decided to try someone closer to home, and went with the nearby "stylist". Well, what an experience that was!
As you may be able to see, the stylist, a young guy who I was hoping could speak English, spent very little time actually "cutting" my hair, and styled it instead. And not to my liking. When he did cut, he would jump around me, waving his hands, thrashing though my hair, sliding his leg out to one side to crouch low and cut juuuuussssst the right piece of hair to make it look right. I asked him three or four times to cut it shorter, but he just kept saying "No, no - Wax!" The final product is like no hair style I'll ever wear, but when not styled that way, it doesn't look so bad on me.
All right, that's all for this week I think. I'm not working for another week or two now, so I don't expect much to happen here besides reading books and relaxing. Bye for now.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Matters of Miscommunication
Well, I was at school working today. Up until about 8:50 this morning I wasn't expecting to be at all, so you can imagine my surprise when I got a phone call while just getting out of bed asking me where I was (yes, I am getting up late these days while on vacation). Somehow it seems no one let me know what day I was supposed to come in and work our school's winter camp, or they did let me know but in a way that made absolutely no sense to me. Either way, I was under the impression that I wasn't supposed to work until next week. Ha!
Of course, getting to school I had nothing at all prepared, and my classroom is being torn up to have new flooring done, so my options for getting anything ready at school were pretty limited. Fortunately I'm working with another teacher who happened to put together enough stuff to get through the day.
These little problems of never properly knowing times or dates of events, or even knowing of the events at all, has always been a bit of a problem while working here, and today was one of the best examples of it. It's even stranger when I'm asked what I'm "choosing" to do about something, when I never knew I had an option. For example, this winter camp - after weeks of deliberation, talking about when the camp will be, who will work it, how much the pay will be, I was asked at the end of school whether I would come and what day I would be coming on.
"Uuuh, yes, I'm going to come, and I'm going to come when I was told I should come (which was the 14th of January, not today, the 7th)."
Lunch today was also another "what option would you like, though we haven't given you any" situation. I was told that, since most of the students coming to this camp were poor, something would have to be done about meals for them. Maybe an outside group, maybe the cafeteria, no one knew the details yet. Today, as I'm packing up to go home, I'm asked what I wanted to do for lunch.
"Uuuuh, I'm going to eat lunch at home. Is that okay?" Yes, yes, that's good. Bye!
Now, most of these issues can all be chalked up to matters of miscommunication - everything was talked about with everyone involved, it just happens that I don't understand Korean and someone along the line forgot to let me know in a way I could understand what was going on. At least, I'm assuming that's the problem, though it might also be the people involved in organizing this. See, Shannon's now working a winter camp too, one that was setup so she could be working while I was and make some money/not be bored. Her co-teacher ran into my co-teacher for this camp and tried to get details on when the camp would be, how long each day, and when I would be working it. She had about as much success speaking Korean as I did in English.
Anyway, it's over and done now. I'm working this week and next (and maybe the week after?), and I'm 90% sure of what they're paying me (though that was a debacle too, requiring the services of a nice teacher not involved in the process to "point out" that maybe I was entitled to more than they were giving me), so I think I've got it all under control.
Once this is all done, it's off to Thailand for Shannon and me. We're going to be there from the 6th of Feb until the 29th, and I'm very much looking forward to a nice few weeks hiking mountains, sitting on beaches and taking it easy. My last blog I mentioned how it had been unseasonably warm here - well the next day a blizzard blew in shutting down the nearby airport and dropping as much as 40 cm of snow in places. Mokpo only got a few centimetres, but it was some pretty wild weather to see. Though maybe I just haven't seen a good Canadian winter in a long time. Anyway, happy New Year everyone.
Of course, getting to school I had nothing at all prepared, and my classroom is being torn up to have new flooring done, so my options for getting anything ready at school were pretty limited. Fortunately I'm working with another teacher who happened to put together enough stuff to get through the day.
These little problems of never properly knowing times or dates of events, or even knowing of the events at all, has always been a bit of a problem while working here, and today was one of the best examples of it. It's even stranger when I'm asked what I'm "choosing" to do about something, when I never knew I had an option. For example, this winter camp - after weeks of deliberation, talking about when the camp will be, who will work it, how much the pay will be, I was asked at the end of school whether I would come and what day I would be coming on.
"Uuuh, yes, I'm going to come, and I'm going to come when I was told I should come (which was the 14th of January, not today, the 7th)."
Lunch today was also another "what option would you like, though we haven't given you any" situation. I was told that, since most of the students coming to this camp were poor, something would have to be done about meals for them. Maybe an outside group, maybe the cafeteria, no one knew the details yet. Today, as I'm packing up to go home, I'm asked what I wanted to do for lunch.
"Uuuuh, I'm going to eat lunch at home. Is that okay?" Yes, yes, that's good. Bye!
Now, most of these issues can all be chalked up to matters of miscommunication - everything was talked about with everyone involved, it just happens that I don't understand Korean and someone along the line forgot to let me know in a way I could understand what was going on. At least, I'm assuming that's the problem, though it might also be the people involved in organizing this. See, Shannon's now working a winter camp too, one that was setup so she could be working while I was and make some money/not be bored. Her co-teacher ran into my co-teacher for this camp and tried to get details on when the camp would be, how long each day, and when I would be working it. She had about as much success speaking Korean as I did in English.
Anyway, it's over and done now. I'm working this week and next (and maybe the week after?), and I'm 90% sure of what they're paying me (though that was a debacle too, requiring the services of a nice teacher not involved in the process to "point out" that maybe I was entitled to more than they were giving me), so I think I've got it all under control.
Once this is all done, it's off to Thailand for Shannon and me. We're going to be there from the 6th of Feb until the 29th, and I'm very much looking forward to a nice few weeks hiking mountains, sitting on beaches and taking it easy. My last blog I mentioned how it had been unseasonably warm here - well the next day a blizzard blew in shutting down the nearby airport and dropping as much as 40 cm of snow in places. Mokpo only got a few centimetres, but it was some pretty wild weather to see. Though maybe I just haven't seen a good Canadian winter in a long time. Anyway, happy New Year everyone.
Friday, December 28, 2007
A Matter of Scheduling
For anyone who's talked to me in the past few weeks, you'd probably have a hard time pinning down exactly what days off I have over the next two months. Even friends here in Korea, whom I've talked about this in great detail with, will probably have trouble being sure about what exactly is going on with my schedule between now and March. That's because I don't really know exactly what's going on, and I'm pretty sure my school doesn't either.
Here' what I do know. I have to work for 10 days in January, but I'm not 100% sure when. Probably near the end, with the last 3 or 4 days being an overnight camp on Jeju Island, 4 hours south of Mokpo. The rest of the time working is still a muddled mess, and may not be sorted out till the day before I come in, which is most likely the 14th of Janurary.
After that, I come to school for two days on Feb 4th and 5th, during which time I'm sure I will do zero work, and then I'm off on vacation until March 3rd when school starts again. It's that long February break that Shannon and I will use to do something exciting, though we havne't found anything that's got us really pumped to go do. I think we just need to find some cheap flights to a warm beach.
Christmas is over now, and the kids are bringing all their fun toys to school. So many foriegners here in Mokpo have mentioned how little it's felt like Christmas lately, and I've been trying to come up with a few reasons why. The lack of cold is one reason, as even for Korea it's been unseasonally hot. No visits with extended families are happening. There's no malls to go to, which I never realized how much a crowded mall made me think of Christmas until now. And Wham! That silly Wham! song, "Last Christmas" is the most played Christmas song by far here in Korea. The only problem is, it has so very little to do with Christmas, it doesn't bring out any holiday or festive feelings at all. But, Christmas is in the title, and people here seem to love it, so I'm sure next year it'll be the #1 Christmas song again.
Anyhoo, today is the last day of school before the holidays, so I thought I should finish off the blog before I leave. I've got 3 hours of free time now which will be sent entirely on cleaning my classroom. It's not too bad of a disaster, but it's messy enough that I'll need all 3 hours. I'm off to Seoul again for New Year's Eve. I don't expect to be blogging again until a few days after then, so I should have some more exciting tales from the big city when I return! So long, and Happy New Year!
Here' what I do know. I have to work for 10 days in January, but I'm not 100% sure when. Probably near the end, with the last 3 or 4 days being an overnight camp on Jeju Island, 4 hours south of Mokpo. The rest of the time working is still a muddled mess, and may not be sorted out till the day before I come in, which is most likely the 14th of Janurary.
After that, I come to school for two days on Feb 4th and 5th, during which time I'm sure I will do zero work, and then I'm off on vacation until March 3rd when school starts again. It's that long February break that Shannon and I will use to do something exciting, though we havne't found anything that's got us really pumped to go do. I think we just need to find some cheap flights to a warm beach.
Christmas is over now, and the kids are bringing all their fun toys to school. So many foriegners here in Mokpo have mentioned how little it's felt like Christmas lately, and I've been trying to come up with a few reasons why. The lack of cold is one reason, as even for Korea it's been unseasonally hot. No visits with extended families are happening. There's no malls to go to, which I never realized how much a crowded mall made me think of Christmas until now. And Wham! That silly Wham! song, "Last Christmas" is the most played Christmas song by far here in Korea. The only problem is, it has so very little to do with Christmas, it doesn't bring out any holiday or festive feelings at all. But, Christmas is in the title, and people here seem to love it, so I'm sure next year it'll be the #1 Christmas song again.
Anyhoo, today is the last day of school before the holidays, so I thought I should finish off the blog before I leave. I've got 3 hours of free time now which will be sent entirely on cleaning my classroom. It's not too bad of a disaster, but it's messy enough that I'll need all 3 hours. I'm off to Seoul again for New Year's Eve. I don't expect to be blogging again until a few days after then, so I should have some more exciting tales from the big city when I return! So long, and Happy New Year!
Monday, December 24, 2007
Bright Lights, Big City
"The sounds of the city, somehow they comfort
me, on mornings when I am lonely"
A litle musical quote to start off this weeks blog seems a little fun. I'm a week behind again, and my apologies for that, but hopefully I can deliver on a modestly enjoyable blog-reading experience for you.
Last weekend was a great one, with a whole wack of teachers from Mokpo heading up to Seoul. I'm sure most everyone out there has heard of Seoul, as it's one of the largest cities in the world and has been ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in as well. 1 in 5 Koreans live in or right around Seoul, and while I've been to it a few times in the past, this was the first time I'd had a guide with local knowledge of the city.
I wasn't able to make it up until Saturday evening, as I was stuck at school working during the morning. Friday night had seen a major flurry of snow roll through Seoul, and I was sad at having missed out on the very Western wintery feeling everyone had had. Still, it was good just being able to get out of town for a while, whether it's for a few days or just a few hours.
We had a reservation for 20 at a Indian restaurant that night, and geez-oh-my was it amazing! I've never really had Indian food very often until this past year, and this was by far the best I've tried. I managed to make a complete wiener of myself trying to speak Korean to the Indian staff working there too, but that didn't seem to bother anyone and made for a good giggling at me with everyone. I guess the idea of traveling to Korea to try Indian food and using English as the means to communicate just seemed a little odd to me at the moment.
After dinner we got a good sampling of the night life away from Itaewon, the infamous tourist/foriegner district of Seoul. Itaweon is not really a bad place to go to, but it really loses any feeling of being in a foreign country, and quickly feels more like a backpacker hostel mixed in with a US military base. Speaking of US military, I learned that there are some 30,000 of them living in Seoul, and that they have a midnight (or maybe 1am) curfew every night. It seems excessive alcohol, late nights, and foreign militiary boys from the US don't go over so well in Seoul.
Anyway, we staying in the Hondae district, which is where (one of?) Seoul's major university is. I'm not sure if all night-time venues are overflowing with foreigners, but wherever we went there was an excess of Western faces sights and sounds. I don't think I needed to speak Korean to get a drink all night. Though speaking it better than I do would have come in handy at around 5 that morning when we went looking for somewhere that would serve us some food.
The next day had a moderately slow start to it. Two of our friends are moving to Seoul, so we helped move some things to where they could be stored till March, and grabbed some breakfast as well. We hit up a small diner, a "greasy spoon" I'm told is a good word for places like this. I hadn't had a big meal of eggs and hashbrowns in ages, and i made a moderate pig of myself scarfing down all the exciting morning goodies I hadn't had in so long.
The rest of the day was spent shopping, which was relatively unintersting. Everyone had hit all the neat touristy artsy spots the day before, so on Sunday we stuck to foreign (Western) food markets and cheap electronics shops. By the time we got home, I was deathly exhausted.
It's almost Christmas now, and while Canada is pumping itself full of Christmas music and commercial marketing schemes, it's pretty quiet here. There's been a few times out for dinner that I've heard some Christmas jingles, and every church has christmas lights strung around them. Still, it's not the same overwhelming cram-it-down-your-Celine-Dion-Jingle-Cats-what-would-Jesus-do-throat kind of experience. There has however been a different Christmas party every few days around town, with lots of singing and various forms of merry making. So even all this distance away, it's still very holiday-ish here too.
Well, I'll let everyone know how the actual Christmas day went down later. Till then, have a fun holiday!
me, on mornings when I am lonely"
A litle musical quote to start off this weeks blog seems a little fun. I'm a week behind again, and my apologies for that, but hopefully I can deliver on a modestly enjoyable blog-reading experience for you.
Last weekend was a great one, with a whole wack of teachers from Mokpo heading up to Seoul. I'm sure most everyone out there has heard of Seoul, as it's one of the largest cities in the world and has been ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in as well. 1 in 5 Koreans live in or right around Seoul, and while I've been to it a few times in the past, this was the first time I'd had a guide with local knowledge of the city.
I wasn't able to make it up until Saturday evening, as I was stuck at school working during the morning. Friday night had seen a major flurry of snow roll through Seoul, and I was sad at having missed out on the very Western wintery feeling everyone had had. Still, it was good just being able to get out of town for a while, whether it's for a few days or just a few hours.
We had a reservation for 20 at a Indian restaurant that night, and geez-oh-my was it amazing! I've never really had Indian food very often until this past year, and this was by far the best I've tried. I managed to make a complete wiener of myself trying to speak Korean to the Indian staff working there too, but that didn't seem to bother anyone and made for a good giggling at me with everyone. I guess the idea of traveling to Korea to try Indian food and using English as the means to communicate just seemed a little odd to me at the moment.
After dinner we got a good sampling of the night life away from Itaewon, the infamous tourist/foriegner district of Seoul. Itaweon is not really a bad place to go to, but it really loses any feeling of being in a foreign country, and quickly feels more like a backpacker hostel mixed in with a US military base. Speaking of US military, I learned that there are some 30,000 of them living in Seoul, and that they have a midnight (or maybe 1am) curfew every night. It seems excessive alcohol, late nights, and foreign militiary boys from the US don't go over so well in Seoul.
Anyway, we staying in the Hondae district, which is where (one of?) Seoul's major university is. I'm not sure if all night-time venues are overflowing with foreigners, but wherever we went there was an excess of Western faces sights and sounds. I don't think I needed to speak Korean to get a drink all night. Though speaking it better than I do would have come in handy at around 5 that morning when we went looking for somewhere that would serve us some food.
The next day had a moderately slow start to it. Two of our friends are moving to Seoul, so we helped move some things to where they could be stored till March, and grabbed some breakfast as well. We hit up a small diner, a "greasy spoon" I'm told is a good word for places like this. I hadn't had a big meal of eggs and hashbrowns in ages, and i made a moderate pig of myself scarfing down all the exciting morning goodies I hadn't had in so long.
The rest of the day was spent shopping, which was relatively unintersting. Everyone had hit all the neat touristy artsy spots the day before, so on Sunday we stuck to foreign (Western) food markets and cheap electronics shops. By the time we got home, I was deathly exhausted.
It's almost Christmas now, and while Canada is pumping itself full of Christmas music and commercial marketing schemes, it's pretty quiet here. There's been a few times out for dinner that I've heard some Christmas jingles, and every church has christmas lights strung around them. Still, it's not the same overwhelming cram-it-down-your-Celine-Dion-Jingle-Cats-what-would-Jesus-do-throat kind of experience. There has however been a different Christmas party every few days around town, with lots of singing and various forms of merry making. So even all this distance away, it's still very holiday-ish here too.
Well, I'll let everyone know how the actual Christmas day went down later. Till then, have a fun holiday!
Friday, December 14, 2007
A Busy Week of Nothing Much
It's been a slow week here in Korea, and it's nice to finally have Friday come around. I hinted at having a pretty big week coming up this week, and in some senses it was, but in others, well, I've basically spent half of it or more just sitting at my desk again. Allow me to explain.
I'm going to be working during my vacation in January. How much I'll be working isn't enirely determined yet, but it will probably be at least 2 1/2 weeks. So, to make up for that, Shannon and I have requested an extra week off in February, which means we'll be traveling from Feb 6th-Mar 1st (not sure where quite yet). To make up for the lost week (during which I'll probably only teach 10 hours out of 40) I've been scheduled to have an extra 10 classes per week for three weeks, plus a Saturday of work. Basically my workload has nearly doubled from now until Dec. 27.
So, why have I been just sitting at my desk? Because no one is coming to class anyway. I've actually taught less during this week of "hell" than I did the week prior when I had only a regular workload. Most of this has to do with my grade 4's off at the English Village all week, but even then other classes haven't been coming. So I've spent X hours preparing for 30 classes and only 15 have actually happened. It's a lot of busy work with very little reward.
My computer also crashed this week, which made for some interesting scrambles to get teaching done. The curriculum is based around textbooks and CD-ROM's, and in each class I'll use it for 60% of the time, so I had some mad dashes making up new materials as well as some long boring waits when classes didn't come and I had nothing to work with. Anyway, I'm whining, let's chat about something more interesting.
I've been learning a little more about driving and liability issues on the road in Korea. Not that I'm planning on getting a car or scooter anymore, but it's pretty interesting and bizarre stuff. For example, liability is always split when it comes to an accident in Korea, usually 60-40, and rarely more than 80-20. You could be in a parked car, engine off, having a snooze, and if someone hits you, you'll have to pay for some of the damages. In fact, if you don't have enough insurance to cover it, you have to pay out of your own pocket to cover it. My one friend who was in a car accident (a very bad one where someone ran a red light and creamed him off of his scooter. His superman-esque tumble was eventually stopped by a refrigerator) found that he was still liable for 20% though he did nothing wrong, and he had to fight very hard even to get that amount. His description of the law was that:
"Say you're sitting in your living room, watching TV and a car comes crashing through your wall and pins you underneath it. By the law's rationale here, you're partially at fault, since maybe you shouldn't have been sitting watching TV at that time or maybe you should have had a fence up around your house."
Here's a couple of links if you're interested in reading more about this,
Anyway, it's Friday afternoon, I may or may not have one more class to go today. I work tomorrow then I'm off to Seoul! Should be some good times. See you next week.
I'm going to be working during my vacation in January. How much I'll be working isn't enirely determined yet, but it will probably be at least 2 1/2 weeks. So, to make up for that, Shannon and I have requested an extra week off in February, which means we'll be traveling from Feb 6th-Mar 1st (not sure where quite yet). To make up for the lost week (during which I'll probably only teach 10 hours out of 40) I've been scheduled to have an extra 10 classes per week for three weeks, plus a Saturday of work. Basically my workload has nearly doubled from now until Dec. 27.
So, why have I been just sitting at my desk? Because no one is coming to class anyway. I've actually taught less during this week of "hell" than I did the week prior when I had only a regular workload. Most of this has to do with my grade 4's off at the English Village all week, but even then other classes haven't been coming. So I've spent X hours preparing for 30 classes and only 15 have actually happened. It's a lot of busy work with very little reward.
My computer also crashed this week, which made for some interesting scrambles to get teaching done. The curriculum is based around textbooks and CD-ROM's, and in each class I'll use it for 60% of the time, so I had some mad dashes making up new materials as well as some long boring waits when classes didn't come and I had nothing to work with. Anyway, I'm whining, let's chat about something more interesting.
I've been learning a little more about driving and liability issues on the road in Korea. Not that I'm planning on getting a car or scooter anymore, but it's pretty interesting and bizarre stuff. For example, liability is always split when it comes to an accident in Korea, usually 60-40, and rarely more than 80-20. You could be in a parked car, engine off, having a snooze, and if someone hits you, you'll have to pay for some of the damages. In fact, if you don't have enough insurance to cover it, you have to pay out of your own pocket to cover it. My one friend who was in a car accident (a very bad one where someone ran a red light and creamed him off of his scooter. His superman-esque tumble was eventually stopped by a refrigerator) found that he was still liable for 20% though he did nothing wrong, and he had to fight very hard even to get that amount. His description of the law was that:
"Say you're sitting in your living room, watching TV and a car comes crashing through your wall and pins you underneath it. By the law's rationale here, you're partially at fault, since maybe you shouldn't have been sitting watching TV at that time or maybe you should have had a fence up around your house."
Here's a couple of links if you're interested in reading more about this,
Anyway, it's Friday afternoon, I may or may not have one more class to go today. I work tomorrow then I'm off to Seoul! Should be some good times. See you next week.
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