So I videotaped most of my "cola zombie" class today so you could kind of see how it goes start from finish. The camera got disrupted before class ended, but you'll get the idea.
These guys are one of my 6 year old classes (remember - that is Korean age, so they are all about 5). I'm not exactly sure how they divide the classes, some of it depends on the kid's schedule, but also they are divided by ability. My other afternoon 6 year old class only has 6 kids (the one with Billy A and Billy B from the Go Fish game video) and they are all really smart. I think that was done intentionally. So my point is: this is one of my lowest level classes, and also my most rambunctious, so we don't always accomplish a lot... but I do my best. For all of their craziness, this is probably my cutest class too, which I guess is why I chose to make the video of them.
Videos can only be 100Mb on this blog, so I split it up into five clips.
In the beginning, we are finishing up our "conversation" portion. After watching this I realized that I talk and act like a complete idiot around the kids... I almost didn't recognize myself. I guess I just end up falling into whatever role the kids respond best to. Your entertainment comes before my embarrassment though... I'd like to think they taught me that.
In the second part the kids get REALLY excited about writing W's on the board. You just never know what is going to be really fun for them. Then they rattle off a bunch of W words, I was actually pretty impressed. (Their vocabulary is decent, they just don't know how to string words together properly.) After that a game of Simon Says breaks out.
In this clip we play the "blowing game". There are many varieties of the blowing game, but they all involve blowing something across the floor. In this version, there are two teams and they are each trying to blow their piece (a plastic coin) through their respective set of glue sticks. I say a bunch of words and the first person to slap my hand when I say a "W" word gets to blow. If they slap my hand and it's not a "W" word, the other team blows. Fun stuff!
This clip is just a second round of the blowing game, and then setting up for musical chairs. Also, Kelly commandeers the camera for awhile.
The last clip starts off with musical chairs (played to "Do the Whirlwind" by Architecture in Helsinki). After that we start going over our current PM+ book. Every two weeks there is a new PM+ book that goes over a different theme. This theme was "Up and Down". So we talk about things that go up and down. Towards the end Jake knocks the camera down. Thanks a lot Jake.
Ok, this last clip is a real gem. This is one of my 7 year old classes, and they are definitely my smartest bunch. And they are graduating on Saturday! *tear* I'll definitely miss them (but not my other 7 year class, I hate them - seriously.) So I basically decided to pretty much give this class the week off. They've been really good to me, and they're really smart, so we're just gonna have fun this week. Today we watched some Tom and Jerry and also the "Kill Da Wabbit" Bugs Bunny opera in between Go Fish games. I also found out that a few of them are learning Japanese - they started speaking Japanese to each other! These kids are 7 and are tri-lingual! It's nuts!
So anyway, last week one of the kids in this class bumped his shin on something and ended up on the floor clutching his leg and wincing in pain. He was totally doing the Peter Griffin "Ahhhhh" and then the sharp intake of breath through the teeth. So then I showed them a clip of Peter doing that (once again, thank you youtube) and they loved it. (Video below for those who are not well versed in Family Guy lore - fast forward to 1 minute in).
So ever since they saw that, they will spontaneously break out into a wincing fit. They were doing it for a little while today and I ran and grabbed my camera to try and catch some of it.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
I'm a millionaire.
Last Wednesday was payday, so I now have millions of won in my name. One of the Korean teachers was able to go to the bank and get me a debit card today too. I'm a little confused about how that worked - I just assumed that in order to open a bank account and get a debit card I would have had to go to the bank at some point. But apparently, "he works with me" was enough identification for her to do everything for me, and I made a successful withdrawal a few minutes ago.
This morning was slightly hellish. I woke up at about 8:45, and the van that takes us all to school leaves at 8:30. My first class starts at 9:10. I was out of my apartment by 8:50, and began running around in the rain searching for a cab. BTW, this is the first time I have seen it rain in Korea, so... great timing. I didn't really know where the best place to catch a cab was so I just started heading towards the school. The school is about a 7 minute drive away, but it is mostly down a stretch of road where you go about 60mph, so it would have taken a long time to walk/run. So I'm running down the sidewalk, even though wherever I'm running towards is no more likely to have a cab than the place I was was currently standing. At least, for all I know it isn't. But, I was late, and I just needed to run. I didn't know of any buses that way, and I certainly wasn't going to risk guessing and getting on one.
At about 8:58 I got to the major road that heads south to my school. It would be pointless to start walking down it, because there were no more intersections, and even if I saw a cab it wouldn't stop. So I waited at this major intersection (both roads were 3-4 lanes). The first cab I saw said no, because I don't think he understood when I said "Bojeong Jayeon". I saw a few cabs heading south but they just flew through the green light without stopping.
Finally I saw one stopped about 15 cars back at the red light. Just as I ran out into the middle of the road, cutting across lanes, trying to get his attention - the light turns green. So now people are honking at the crazy white guy who is running through the middle of this major road. And just as I'm getting to the cab, an ambulance comes up behind him blaring his sirens. Now everyone is trying to get out the ambulance's way, and I am frantically waving my arms at the cab. I just dove in and told him Bojeong Jayeon. Thankfully he understood me and started driving, because he would have been totally justified in throwing me out. I must have looked like a lunatic - I'm sure I had a pretty crazy look in my eyes as I was bearing down on him. I was desperate at that point though, and I was not going to let another cab get by. The whole way there he was laughing and talking in Korean, and miming me waving my arms and yelling at him. So I'm glad he got a laugh out of it.
I got to school at 9:20 and one of the teachers was watching Madagascar 2 with my class. I think I kind of scared the kids because I was soaking wet, and also sweaty (it was ridiculously humid today, and about 50 something degrees - and I was still dressed like it was about 30), I was out of breath, hadn't showered that morning. I was just a bit of a mess. And then I got to be the one to tell them they had to stop watching the movie and learn about the letter A. So they pretty much hated me. As I was asking them what day it was and what the date was it suddenly dawned on me that it's Friday the 13th. Of course it is.
So since I haven't written at all this week I'll briefly go over last weekend. It was pretty good times. On Friday we played Sojuno (which is pretty self-explanatory) before heading to Exit. Somehow it ended up that I was drinking a double jaeger-bomb with every beer. It made sense at the time (or not?). I think that was the drunkest I've been in Korea. I know that I was on fire at pool though. It was great - I knew I was drunk, and I was surprising myself. Also I almost got in a fight (like my friend had to drag me away) with a guy about how to rack (he was trying to say that you put a solid in the 1 spot and then stripes in the 2 and 3 spots.) I think we ended up hugging and doing shots after we played though, which is the way 100% of my bar fights end.
At the end of that night a couple of my friends and I were talking to a group of Korean guys. There was nothing particularly memorable about the conversation; however, I found out some very interesting info about those Koreans later in the week. My friend had to go back to the bar because she left her credit card, and the bartender told her that the guys we were talking to were all on a Korean tv show, and were pretty famous actors. They told the bartender they had a good time and that they were going to come back again next Friday (tonight). Before I heard that I was going to take it easy tonight, and save myself to do some crazy shopping with my millions of won tomorrow, but now I think I'm going to go out and try to make some famous friends.
On Saturday I went up to Seoul to hang out with my friends Heather and Lindsey, whom I had met in Chicago. They are awesome people, and we had a ton of fun. First we went to a Mexican restaurant in Itaewon (the foreignerburg). We were entertained by some Korean mariachi's playing CCR and other classic rock hits.
Then we went to a bar called Mike's Cabin for the rest of the night. It was a good bar - very small, very quaint. It was actually like a cabin on the inside. There were even bunk beds. We brought about 15 people there and we were about half the crowd. The dj basically let us pick what songs he played all night.
All of the Seoul people were amazed that we were able to make it out in the boonies of Suji. We were trying to tell them that it is actually quite nice, but things are a lot different in Seoul. I prefer my situation in Suji though. It's cheaper, easier to meet people, you make more money, everything you need is here, but it's also easy to get to Seoul to do whatever you want up there. However I'm quite optimistic, so I'm sure I'd come up with tons of reasons why it's better to live in Seoul if I lived there. (Logic trap: did I just say that I'm happier in Suji but I'm sure I'd be happier in Seoul? Probably not, and it's best not to dwell on it Mike.)
As far as school issues, things are going pretty well. I've pretty much hit my stride with the curriculum, and it's already starting to get boring and repetitive. It's a little more fun now that I really know all of the kids and have my own certain relationship with all of them. It's nice having little inside jokes with kids, or knowing what will make each one laugh. And they never get tired of anything! So you don't have to vary your schtick.
Sadly though, it's not all fun times. In fact, a lot of the kids are complete fucking brats. Sorry, really no other way to phrase that. And I hate myself for it, but sometimes I yell at them, and they get sad. Oh well, I guess it's all part of it. Also, they are kind of gross. They're always wiping snot on me or putting their hands in their mouth and then touching my face. On an unrelated note, I've been sick for the past two weeks. I NEVER used to get sick, but this cold is just unrelenting. I've got the worst sinus headache right now. Thankfully I'm also drinking a beer, so I'm starting to feel better already. (Speaking of beer - need an idea for what to send me? How about a case of Fat Tire?)
I'm starting to experiment with new songs to play during musical chairs. Musical chairs is now played at least once in all seven of my classes. To justify this I have started placing vocab words on the chairs, and the person who sits on the word I yell out when I stop the music is out. Recently I've been playing the Duck Tales theme a lot. The kids seem to really like it, although not as much as I do. I played the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme a few times and the kids seemed pretty confused. I kind of forgot how intense that song is. In one of my classes one kid just said "wow" when it started playing. I really enjoyed that reaction.
Weirdly though, the favorite seems to be "Heart it Races" by Architecture in Helsinki (video below). I just put it on on a whim, but the kids really enjoyed it and are now requesting it (they call it the boom dadadada song). It really is quite an enjoyable video, and Architecture definitely have a childish fun-times sound, so I guess I can see it. I'm going to continue to experiment and by the end of the year I'll publish a report on what kind of the music the Korean 6-9 age demographic enjoys the most.
Also, when the kids are good, I'll let them watch a little Tom and Jerry. (Having a tv connected to a computer with youtube is the greatest teaching tool of all time). They go freakin nuts for Tom and Jerry. It's hilarious. And I feel really really dumb for admitting this, but I had a startling revelation the other day. Itchy and Scratchy are a direct parody of Tom and Jerry! How had I never put that together before? It dawned on me when I was watching it with the kids and they were laughing their ass off at Tom getting wailed on and I was thinking "Man, this is really violent. It's kind of like Itchy and Scratchy. Actually... oh."
I'm going to try to start keeping track of all of the times the kids say unintentionally funny stuff and I can't tell them why I'm laughing. Today I was having them make complete sentences with certain words, and one of the words was "crab". One of the girls said "I am catching crabs" and I laughed out loud. They were all pretty confused. I was like, "You are catching crabs right now? In class?" And she said "Yes!" Hilarious.
Tomorrow I'm going to Myong-dong to do some shopping. I've heard from a variety of sources that it's the best place to go for clothes shopping. I'm really starting to realize what a small percentage of my clothes I brought here, so I'm excited about getting some new stuff.
This morning was slightly hellish. I woke up at about 8:45, and the van that takes us all to school leaves at 8:30. My first class starts at 9:10. I was out of my apartment by 8:50, and began running around in the rain searching for a cab. BTW, this is the first time I have seen it rain in Korea, so... great timing. I didn't really know where the best place to catch a cab was so I just started heading towards the school. The school is about a 7 minute drive away, but it is mostly down a stretch of road where you go about 60mph, so it would have taken a long time to walk/run. So I'm running down the sidewalk, even though wherever I'm running towards is no more likely to have a cab than the place I was was currently standing. At least, for all I know it isn't. But, I was late, and I just needed to run. I didn't know of any buses that way, and I certainly wasn't going to risk guessing and getting on one.
At about 8:58 I got to the major road that heads south to my school. It would be pointless to start walking down it, because there were no more intersections, and even if I saw a cab it wouldn't stop. So I waited at this major intersection (both roads were 3-4 lanes). The first cab I saw said no, because I don't think he understood when I said "Bojeong Jayeon". I saw a few cabs heading south but they just flew through the green light without stopping.
Finally I saw one stopped about 15 cars back at the red light. Just as I ran out into the middle of the road, cutting across lanes, trying to get his attention - the light turns green. So now people are honking at the crazy white guy who is running through the middle of this major road. And just as I'm getting to the cab, an ambulance comes up behind him blaring his sirens. Now everyone is trying to get out the ambulance's way, and I am frantically waving my arms at the cab. I just dove in and told him Bojeong Jayeon. Thankfully he understood me and started driving, because he would have been totally justified in throwing me out. I must have looked like a lunatic - I'm sure I had a pretty crazy look in my eyes as I was bearing down on him. I was desperate at that point though, and I was not going to let another cab get by. The whole way there he was laughing and talking in Korean, and miming me waving my arms and yelling at him. So I'm glad he got a laugh out of it.
I got to school at 9:20 and one of the teachers was watching Madagascar 2 with my class. I think I kind of scared the kids because I was soaking wet, and also sweaty (it was ridiculously humid today, and about 50 something degrees - and I was still dressed like it was about 30), I was out of breath, hadn't showered that morning. I was just a bit of a mess. And then I got to be the one to tell them they had to stop watching the movie and learn about the letter A. So they pretty much hated me. As I was asking them what day it was and what the date was it suddenly dawned on me that it's Friday the 13th. Of course it is.
So since I haven't written at all this week I'll briefly go over last weekend. It was pretty good times. On Friday we played Sojuno (which is pretty self-explanatory) before heading to Exit. Somehow it ended up that I was drinking a double jaeger-bomb with every beer. It made sense at the time (or not?). I think that was the drunkest I've been in Korea. I know that I was on fire at pool though. It was great - I knew I was drunk, and I was surprising myself. Also I almost got in a fight (like my friend had to drag me away) with a guy about how to rack (he was trying to say that you put a solid in the 1 spot and then stripes in the 2 and 3 spots.) I think we ended up hugging and doing shots after we played though, which is the way 100% of my bar fights end.
At the end of that night a couple of my friends and I were talking to a group of Korean guys. There was nothing particularly memorable about the conversation; however, I found out some very interesting info about those Koreans later in the week. My friend had to go back to the bar because she left her credit card, and the bartender told her that the guys we were talking to were all on a Korean tv show, and were pretty famous actors. They told the bartender they had a good time and that they were going to come back again next Friday (tonight). Before I heard that I was going to take it easy tonight, and save myself to do some crazy shopping with my millions of won tomorrow, but now I think I'm going to go out and try to make some famous friends.
On Saturday I went up to Seoul to hang out with my friends Heather and Lindsey, whom I had met in Chicago. They are awesome people, and we had a ton of fun. First we went to a Mexican restaurant in Itaewon (the foreignerburg). We were entertained by some Korean mariachi's playing CCR and other classic rock hits.
Then we went to a bar called Mike's Cabin for the rest of the night. It was a good bar - very small, very quaint. It was actually like a cabin on the inside. There were even bunk beds. We brought about 15 people there and we were about half the crowd. The dj basically let us pick what songs he played all night.
All of the Seoul people were amazed that we were able to make it out in the boonies of Suji. We were trying to tell them that it is actually quite nice, but things are a lot different in Seoul. I prefer my situation in Suji though. It's cheaper, easier to meet people, you make more money, everything you need is here, but it's also easy to get to Seoul to do whatever you want up there. However I'm quite optimistic, so I'm sure I'd come up with tons of reasons why it's better to live in Seoul if I lived there. (Logic trap: did I just say that I'm happier in Suji but I'm sure I'd be happier in Seoul? Probably not, and it's best not to dwell on it Mike.)
As far as school issues, things are going pretty well. I've pretty much hit my stride with the curriculum, and it's already starting to get boring and repetitive. It's a little more fun now that I really know all of the kids and have my own certain relationship with all of them. It's nice having little inside jokes with kids, or knowing what will make each one laugh. And they never get tired of anything! So you don't have to vary your schtick.
Sadly though, it's not all fun times. In fact, a lot of the kids are complete fucking brats. Sorry, really no other way to phrase that. And I hate myself for it, but sometimes I yell at them, and they get sad. Oh well, I guess it's all part of it. Also, they are kind of gross. They're always wiping snot on me or putting their hands in their mouth and then touching my face. On an unrelated note, I've been sick for the past two weeks. I NEVER used to get sick, but this cold is just unrelenting. I've got the worst sinus headache right now. Thankfully I'm also drinking a beer, so I'm starting to feel better already. (Speaking of beer - need an idea for what to send me? How about a case of Fat Tire?)
I'm starting to experiment with new songs to play during musical chairs. Musical chairs is now played at least once in all seven of my classes. To justify this I have started placing vocab words on the chairs, and the person who sits on the word I yell out when I stop the music is out. Recently I've been playing the Duck Tales theme a lot. The kids seem to really like it, although not as much as I do. I played the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme a few times and the kids seemed pretty confused. I kind of forgot how intense that song is. In one of my classes one kid just said "wow" when it started playing. I really enjoyed that reaction.
Weirdly though, the favorite seems to be "Heart it Races" by Architecture in Helsinki (video below). I just put it on on a whim, but the kids really enjoyed it and are now requesting it (they call it the boom dadadada song). It really is quite an enjoyable video, and Architecture definitely have a childish fun-times sound, so I guess I can see it. I'm going to continue to experiment and by the end of the year I'll publish a report on what kind of the music the Korean 6-9 age demographic enjoys the most.
Also, when the kids are good, I'll let them watch a little Tom and Jerry. (Having a tv connected to a computer with youtube is the greatest teaching tool of all time). They go freakin nuts for Tom and Jerry. It's hilarious. And I feel really really dumb for admitting this, but I had a startling revelation the other day. Itchy and Scratchy are a direct parody of Tom and Jerry! How had I never put that together before? It dawned on me when I was watching it with the kids and they were laughing their ass off at Tom getting wailed on and I was thinking "Man, this is really violent. It's kind of like Itchy and Scratchy. Actually... oh."
I'm going to try to start keeping track of all of the times the kids say unintentionally funny stuff and I can't tell them why I'm laughing. Today I was having them make complete sentences with certain words, and one of the words was "crab". One of the girls said "I am catching crabs" and I laughed out loud. They were all pretty confused. I was like, "You are catching crabs right now? In class?" And she said "Yes!" Hilarious.
Tomorrow I'm going to Myong-dong to do some shopping. I've heard from a variety of sources that it's the best place to go for clothes shopping. I'm really starting to realize what a small percentage of my clothes I brought here, so I'm excited about getting some new stuff.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Easy Week
I've only had one class a day the last three days because all of our kindy's were at an English Camp Wednesday through Friday. To keep us busy we all had to make some worksheets, but that took about 2 hours of total work. That means I've had about 22 hours of free time. On Wednesday I had grand plans of completely preparing myself for the upcoming weeks of teaching, but it turned into a lot internet surfing and watching tv online. Oh well. It's been pretty fun.
Next week we have another "open week". This is when the students' parents are invited to come observe the classes. It was kind of upsetting to the teachers because just last week we were told that we were going to make DVD's of our classes to replace the open days. We had a camera man come in and tape our classes, and they were going to distribute it to all of the teachers. Well at some point during the last week that idea went out the window. I didn't really mind having the camera guy in the classroom though. The kids all turn into little angels when there's a camera on them.
So I don't have much time until my next class starts, but I wanted to let all of you guys know that if you would like to spend some time actually talking to me, I downloaded Skype. It works really well, and I even have a webcam so I can make faces and do dances for you. In the case that I am not the only Mike Fitzgerald in South Korea, my user handle is mikefitzge.
Also, a few people have asked for my address, and I have it now, so if you'd like it, let me know and I'll email it to you. If you send me something I will try to send you a little Korean trinket in return.
Next week we have another "open week". This is when the students' parents are invited to come observe the classes. It was kind of upsetting to the teachers because just last week we were told that we were going to make DVD's of our classes to replace the open days. We had a camera man come in and tape our classes, and they were going to distribute it to all of the teachers. Well at some point during the last week that idea went out the window. I didn't really mind having the camera guy in the classroom though. The kids all turn into little angels when there's a camera on them.
So I don't have much time until my next class starts, but I wanted to let all of you guys know that if you would like to spend some time actually talking to me, I downloaded Skype. It works really well, and I even have a webcam so I can make faces and do dances for you. In the case that I am not the only Mike Fitzgerald in South Korea, my user handle is mikefitzge.
Also, a few people have asked for my address, and I have it now, so if you'd like it, let me know and I'll email it to you. If you send me something I will try to send you a little Korean trinket in return.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Cola Zombies
Ok, so I've got another video for you guys, taken by Hollis today. My first class after lunch goes absolutely insane whenever they see a Coke. Something just snaps, and they all start chanting "COLA... COLA... COLA...", it's really pretty adorable. I have to spend the first 5 minutes of that class just getting them to settle down and sit in their chairs. Lately I've learned to hide the Coke if I get one, but today we kind of set them up, because we wanted to get some video of it.
Haha, I love that class. They may be crazy, but they're always in a good mood. And I need their energy after lunch, because big bowls of rice and fish oil make me sleepy. I was kind of dreading starting work again today because, hey, it's work, and everyone hates work. But the kids were all really well behaved today, and I feel like this week is going to be just fine.
This weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday night I attended two birthday celebrations, which were both quite fun (we actually determined that there were at least THREE foreign teachers from Suji all with the same birthday). Friday turned into kind of a late night at Exit, and because of that I unfortunately was unable to go on my planned trip to the DMZ. They were meeting to catch the bus at 6am, and I got there at about 6:07. And then I didn't know what bus to take, or where to go, or anyone's cell phone number. You just can't make mistakes like that and expect to get places in Korea.
Looking at the situation optimistically, I'm actually kind of glad I didn't go though. I've got a pretty bad cold right now, and travelling to the DMZ on two hours sleep probably wasn't going to help it. Instead I ended up travelling around to a few different places in the area with a friend of mine, and learning a bit more about my surroundings. I can now walk from my place to downtown Suji (takes about 15 mins). I can also walk from downtown Suji to the Jukjeon Subway stop, but I still haven't figured out to walk from my place to the Subway closest to me. Everyone out there - hear these words - everytime you ever need to know how to get somewhere and simply type it into Google and immediately know what to do - know that I am out
there somewhere, hating you. I really need to find a map of Suji. Even if it's all in Korean, I'd take it.
So we went to Shinsaegae mall (picture to the right) and looked around for a little while. Everything was really fancy and expensive. I was worried I was going to be tempted to buy stuff, but once I looked at some prices I realized I would be able to easily refrain. The top floor has a movie theater. They were playing about 10 movies, 5 of them were in English.
1) Valkyrie - I am not sending any of my won, even indirectly, to Xenu.
2) The Flock - Ok, so I am about 99.9% sure this movie was called "Trap", but I just googled it, and unless there are multiple thrillers with Richard Gere, Claire Danes, and Avril Lavigne, it's called The Flock. Why were they showing this? It came out in 2007. It was directed by a Chinese guy, so maybe he's popular over here. But why did they change the name to "Trap"? Crazy Koreans. Or maybe I'm crazy. Whatever.
3) Changeling - I just felt like this has been out too long for me to justify seeing it in the theaters.
4) Madagascar 2 - This comes HIGHLY recommended by nearly all of my students, and I considered it simply because it would earn me enormous points with them, and probably improve my conversation making ability about tenfold. You would not believe how much they love this movie. You would also not believe how badly they pronounce Madagascar. Ok, you probably can believe that pretty easily. Anyway, during my first week or so here I remember being quite bemused when I heard a bunch of kids outside singing "I like to move it, move it. She like to move it, move it" in their Korean/Jamaican accented English. But hey, it's Korea, and the fact that a bunch of kids were singing some early 90's rap song was nowhere near the top of my WTF moments. When it kept happening I finally asked another teacher about it and they told me that it's from Madagascar 2. So now I play that song during musical chairs, because everytime I hear "Nobody" by Wondergirls I go a little more insane. I played "Nobody" about 17 times one day, and thought it was pretty cute. Then I realized you can't go anywhere without hearing that song.
5) I can't remember what the fifth movie was, but this little story ends with us deciding not to see a movie.
Instead we went to Samsung Plaza (picture below is one of the entrances to the Subway station) which is just a couple of stops further north on the Subway line. There's a lot of nice shopping around there. In fact there's a lot of nice shopping everywhere. It's really weird getting off of the subway and seeing a Gucci on your right and a
Prada on your left. I'm not talking about outside, you don't even leave the subway station, and you are immediately doing some high end shopping. I mean, can you imagine taking the red line to State and Lake, and picking up a pair of $800 jeans before you even saw the light of day?
So the main reason we went down there was because there is a real deal Mexican restaurant. And it was so delicious. The margaritas were a little weak, and the chips and salsa were anything but endless, but the burrito was cheesetastic. For an extra 1000 won you could get your burrito "enchilado" style, which meant that you got lettuce, sour cream, mole, and extra layer of cheese on top. I asked him to put the mole on the side, since I'm not really a fan, and ended up getting my guacamole on the side. Even doused in mole, that burrito was top notch though.
After that we headed back to the Jukjeon station and did some shopping for food and other household items at E-Mart. I had been hearing about E-Mart a lot because it's one of those places that you can buy anything you can imagine at. It was good to finally get there because I got of lot things I had been needing. I also got to see these lovely mannequins. From there we could walk back to Suji.
By looking at the Bundang line you can kind of see where a lot of the places I've been talking about are. Apparently the closest subway stop to where I live is Ori, but I know how to get to Migeum via a 4 minute bus ride, so that's the one I normally go to. Jukjeon is the closest one to downtown Suji. And then my school is near the Bojeong stop. The Seohyeon stop is in Samsung Plaza.
On Sunday I cleaned and reorganized my apartment (new discovery: hangover-less Sundays are awesome!). Below are two pics of my current setup. That now-empty space used to be taken by the table on the left in my bedroom. But now I have a super wall-long desk area. And on top of that, I totally have room for some furniture in my outer room now (I'm not going as far as calling it a living room). But I could theoretically entertain if I found some places to sit.
Also on Sunday I learned how to use my rice cooker and attempted to make some fried rice. I wasn't entirely successful, but I learned some good lessons, and feel like I came out on the positive. That night I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and had fried pho and fried rice served in a pineapple. Besides the burrito, I think it was the best meal I've had in Korea. I even drank half a pot of tea with the meal. My mouth is so used to weird tastes right now, that I'm starting to come around on tastes I've always disliked. I think my taste buds are getting "good" and "familiar" confused. Works for me though. Recently I have actually been actively looking for tea, because it makes my throat and sinuses feel better.
So I ended up not watching the Super Bowl. Today at work I couldn't resist the temptation and read an article about it. Once I knew how it ended I couldn't justify expending the energy it would take to go somewhere and watch it. Apparently they replay it during prime time in some places. I know a few people who said they were going to Hooters in Seoul tonight to watch it. It sounds like it was a really exciting game, although I wish the Cardinals would've won.
I watched Revolutionary Road yesterday. It was pretty good, kind of sad. I like Leo and Kate Winslett though, they were both really good. It's kind of about deciding whether it's best to make your life decisions based on what is smart and logical or to go with what is exciting and will make you happy. The whole theme of the movie was pretty applicable to my situation, minus the love story part. I mean, the thought has crossed my mind that I could have knuckled down in Chicago, worked a bunch of hours, made good money, and been well on my way to being successful(rich?). I know there are a lot of people out there saying "blah blah blah money doesn't buy happiness blah blah blah". But money makes me pretty happy! Seriously! I am really into money and would marry it, if it meant I could have an unlimited supply of it. Anyway, jokes aside, I don't think the comfort of stability should be discounted in favor of flights of fancy. And this is coming from the guy who quit his job to move to Korea. So, sometimes in my head, I weigh the pros and cons. And I'm really glad I came to Korea, but I hope it's only for a year. I still want to have a career. And I'm not sure if I want my career to be teaching. Or engineering. One thing I do know though - and I didn't factor this in before I got here - there is something psychologically therapeutic about working with kids. And I'm really glad that I'm getting a chance to do it, because I think that a year spent with little kids is going to have almost as big of an effect on me as spending a year in a foreign country. Anyway, some of that is kind of what Revolutionary Road is about.
I love the new Animal Collective cd "Merriweather Post Pavilion" so so so much. It's so light and airy and happy and is perfect for wandering around lost in a strange city. The harmonies around 1:30 in "Bluish" (video below) sound a lot like the Beach Boys to me. I recommend it to everyone from ages 8-80.
Ok, I could go on and on with the random thoughts, but I want to get in bed in time to make it to the gym tomorrow, and I also want to watch an episode or two of Lost. I'm planning on talking about more school-related topics soon. Also I REALLY need to tell you guys about Korean tv... I know I keep saying that, but it's just such a massive topic that I want it to get its due space.
Later dudes!
Haha, I love that class. They may be crazy, but they're always in a good mood. And I need their energy after lunch, because big bowls of rice and fish oil make me sleepy. I was kind of dreading starting work again today because, hey, it's work, and everyone hates work. But the kids were all really well behaved today, and I feel like this week is going to be just fine.
This weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday night I attended two birthday celebrations, which were both quite fun (we actually determined that there were at least THREE foreign teachers from Suji all with the same birthday). Friday turned into kind of a late night at Exit, and because of that I unfortunately was unable to go on my planned trip to the DMZ. They were meeting to catch the bus at 6am, and I got there at about 6:07. And then I didn't know what bus to take, or where to go, or anyone's cell phone number. You just can't make mistakes like that and expect to get places in Korea.
Looking at the situation optimistically, I'm actually kind of glad I didn't go though. I've got a pretty bad cold right now, and travelling to the DMZ on two hours sleep probably wasn't going to help it. Instead I ended up travelling around to a few different places in the area with a friend of mine, and learning a bit more about my surroundings. I can now walk from my place to downtown Suji (takes about 15 mins). I can also walk from downtown Suji to the Jukjeon Subway stop, but I still haven't figured out to walk from my place to the Subway closest to me. Everyone out there - hear these words - everytime you ever need to know how to get somewhere and simply type it into Google and immediately know what to do - know that I am out
there somewhere, hating you. I really need to find a map of Suji. Even if it's all in Korean, I'd take it.So we went to Shinsaegae mall (picture to the right) and looked around for a little while. Everything was really fancy and expensive. I was worried I was going to be tempted to buy stuff, but once I looked at some prices I realized I would be able to easily refrain. The top floor has a movie theater. They were playing about 10 movies, 5 of them were in English.
1) Valkyrie - I am not sending any of my won, even indirectly, to Xenu.
2) The Flock - Ok, so I am about 99.9% sure this movie was called "Trap", but I just googled it, and unless there are multiple thrillers with Richard Gere, Claire Danes, and Avril Lavigne, it's called The Flock. Why were they showing this? It came out in 2007. It was directed by a Chinese guy, so maybe he's popular over here. But why did they change the name to "Trap"? Crazy Koreans. Or maybe I'm crazy. Whatever.
3) Changeling - I just felt like this has been out too long for me to justify seeing it in the theaters.
4) Madagascar 2 - This comes HIGHLY recommended by nearly all of my students, and I considered it simply because it would earn me enormous points with them, and probably improve my conversation making ability about tenfold. You would not believe how much they love this movie. You would also not believe how badly they pronounce Madagascar. Ok, you probably can believe that pretty easily. Anyway, during my first week or so here I remember being quite bemused when I heard a bunch of kids outside singing "I like to move it, move it. She like to move it, move it" in their Korean/Jamaican accented English. But hey, it's Korea, and the fact that a bunch of kids were singing some early 90's rap song was nowhere near the top of my WTF moments. When it kept happening I finally asked another teacher about it and they told me that it's from Madagascar 2. So now I play that song during musical chairs, because everytime I hear "Nobody" by Wondergirls I go a little more insane. I played "Nobody" about 17 times one day, and thought it was pretty cute. Then I realized you can't go anywhere without hearing that song.
5) I can't remember what the fifth movie was, but this little story ends with us deciding not to see a movie.
Instead we went to Samsung Plaza (picture below is one of the entrances to the Subway station) which is just a couple of stops further north on the Subway line. There's a lot of nice shopping around there. In fact there's a lot of nice shopping everywhere. It's really weird getting off of the subway and seeing a Gucci on your right and a
Prada on your left. I'm not talking about outside, you don't even leave the subway station, and you are immediately doing some high end shopping. I mean, can you imagine taking the red line to State and Lake, and picking up a pair of $800 jeans before you even saw the light of day?So the main reason we went down there was because there is a real deal Mexican restaurant. And it was so delicious. The margaritas were a little weak, and the chips and salsa were anything but endless, but the burrito was cheesetastic. For an extra 1000 won you could get your burrito "enchilado" style, which meant that you got lettuce, sour cream, mole, and extra layer of cheese on top. I asked him to put the mole on the side, since I'm not really a fan, and ended up getting my guacamole on the side. Even doused in mole, that burrito was top notch though.
After that we headed back to the Jukjeon station and did some shopping for food and other household items at E-Mart. I had been hearing about E-Mart a lot because it's one of those places that you can buy anything you can imagine at. It was good to finally get there because I got of lot things I had been needing. I also got to see these lovely mannequins. From there we could walk back to Suji.
By looking at the Bundang line you can kind of see where a lot of the places I've been talking about are. Apparently the closest subway stop to where I live is Ori, but I know how to get to Migeum via a 4 minute bus ride, so that's the one I normally go to. Jukjeon is the closest one to downtown Suji. And then my school is near the Bojeong stop. The Seohyeon stop is in Samsung Plaza.
On Sunday I cleaned and reorganized my apartment (new discovery: hangover-less Sundays are awesome!). Below are two pics of my current setup. That now-empty space used to be taken by the table on the left in my bedroom. But now I have a super wall-long desk area. And on top of that, I totally have room for some furniture in my outer room now (I'm not going as far as calling it a living room). But I could theoretically entertain if I found some places to sit.
Also on Sunday I learned how to use my rice cooker and attempted to make some fried rice. I wasn't entirely successful, but I learned some good lessons, and feel like I came out on the positive. That night I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and had fried pho and fried rice served in a pineapple. Besides the burrito, I think it was the best meal I've had in Korea. I even drank half a pot of tea with the meal. My mouth is so used to weird tastes right now, that I'm starting to come around on tastes I've always disliked. I think my taste buds are getting "good" and "familiar" confused. Works for me though. Recently I have actually been actively looking for tea, because it makes my throat and sinuses feel better.
So I ended up not watching the Super Bowl. Today at work I couldn't resist the temptation and read an article about it. Once I knew how it ended I couldn't justify expending the energy it would take to go somewhere and watch it. Apparently they replay it during prime time in some places. I know a few people who said they were going to Hooters in Seoul tonight to watch it. It sounds like it was a really exciting game, although I wish the Cardinals would've won.
I watched Revolutionary Road yesterday. It was pretty good, kind of sad. I like Leo and Kate Winslett though, they were both really good. It's kind of about deciding whether it's best to make your life decisions based on what is smart and logical or to go with what is exciting and will make you happy. The whole theme of the movie was pretty applicable to my situation, minus the love story part. I mean, the thought has crossed my mind that I could have knuckled down in Chicago, worked a bunch of hours, made good money, and been well on my way to being successful(rich?). I know there are a lot of people out there saying "blah blah blah money doesn't buy happiness blah blah blah". But money makes me pretty happy! Seriously! I am really into money and would marry it, if it meant I could have an unlimited supply of it. Anyway, jokes aside, I don't think the comfort of stability should be discounted in favor of flights of fancy. And this is coming from the guy who quit his job to move to Korea. So, sometimes in my head, I weigh the pros and cons. And I'm really glad I came to Korea, but I hope it's only for a year. I still want to have a career. And I'm not sure if I want my career to be teaching. Or engineering. One thing I do know though - and I didn't factor this in before I got here - there is something psychologically therapeutic about working with kids. And I'm really glad that I'm getting a chance to do it, because I think that a year spent with little kids is going to have almost as big of an effect on me as spending a year in a foreign country. Anyway, some of that is kind of what Revolutionary Road is about.
I love the new Animal Collective cd "Merriweather Post Pavilion" so so so much. It's so light and airy and happy and is perfect for wandering around lost in a strange city. The harmonies around 1:30 in "Bluish" (video below) sound a lot like the Beach Boys to me. I recommend it to everyone from ages 8-80.
Ok, I could go on and on with the random thoughts, but I want to get in bed in time to make it to the gym tomorrow, and I also want to watch an episode or two of Lost. I'm planning on talking about more school-related topics soon. Also I REALLY need to tell you guys about Korean tv... I know I keep saying that, but it's just such a massive topic that I want it to get its due space.
Later dudes!
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