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!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Checking In
I meant to make a nice long post tonight since it's been awhile since I've written, but it's probably not going to happen. My laundry machine is broken. I think. More than likely I'm just not pressing the right buttons, but I've tried everything I can think of. It filled up with water, started the washing process, and then stopped. I wasn't completely worried, because that happened last time too. This time though, I couldn't get it started again. I was out of ideas, so I had to pull all of my soaking wet clothes out, wring them out, and then hang them up on my drying rack. Luckily the rack fit in the bathroom. I've got the fan on them now, hopefully they are semi-dry by the morning (i.e. not dripping on the floor) and then wearable by tomorrow night. In case you are wondering - yes, I am deeming them "clean". They moved around in soapy water for awhile (actual time unknown) - they're clean.
So my lack of posting has been due to a combination of busyness, laziness, and watching about 30 episodes of Lost in about 3 days. Last weekend I went out to Exit again on Friday night, then on Saturday I spent all day in Seoul. I went with a few Suji people up to Yongsan to go shopping at the enormous electronics mart. I got some awesome speakers for my laptop for about $50, and my apartment is so much more fun for me now.
After that, I separated from those guys and met some people to do a wine making thing. It was pretty fun, we got to taste a bunch of wines, and decide which one we wanted to make. Then we actually got to toss the ingredients into a bucket of water, and in 6 weeks we get to come back and take our wine home. I feel like we cut about a billion corners on the wine making process (there were 5 ingredients: water, grape concentrate, clarifying agent, oak chips, and yeast), but we'll see how it turns out. For less than $30 bucks each we got to taste 10-12 wines, go through the wine making instruction, and then we each get 2 bottles of wine (we decided on a Shiraz and a Cab). Apparently we can also email a picture and they will put it on the label, so I'll take pictures of the bottles when I get them.
After that we all went to this cool little bar where the owner brews his own beer. For the first time in Korea I got to drink some decently priced dark beer. His stout was really good. While we there, I mentioned to one of the guys that I was planning on meeting some people from Suji to see Digitalism that night. Word started spreading around the table and after awhile about 6-8 people were down for going with me. I was pretty happy because I thought I was going to have to find the place by myself and I was worried I wouldn't be able to find my friends once I got there. However, the number severely dwindled when we found out it was 55,000 won.
Pretty soon everyone had made plans to go to a different bar, and I was just going to go with them - I wasn't even sure if I was still going to go to the show. But then 2 guys who I had never met and had barely spoken to that night said they were going to go, and they were just going to stay at that bar until the show started (Digitalism wasn't going on until 1am). So I hung out with them and had a really good time, they were really nice guys. Then we made our way over to the Ritz Carlton and went to the basement and entered Club Eden. The club was really nice, other than Vegas it's probably the swankiest place I've ever been to. And then Digitalism was ridiculous. It's a good thing I had been drinking all day, because I proceeded to dance for about 3 hours straight. Everyone who knows me knows that is a rarity, but hey, it happens every once in awhile, and I had a really good time. They played a lot of their own songs, but then also remixed a lot of popular songs. I can't remember all of them, but I know they played Bloc Party, and they also played the coolest version of "Kids" by MGMT I have ever heard in my life. I remember at the time thinking "omg how did they make this perfect song even perfecter?"
After I got out of there I went to a place to get something to eat because I had to kill time until the Subway started running again at 5:30am. I finally found a place that was open, and just pointed at something that cost 10,000 won on the menu. She gave me a really confused look and said "soup?" and I said "sure". She brought out 2 kinds of gross kimchi, and some other weird not-tasty stuff. Finally she brought out the soup, which was decent, but loaded with seafood that I did not recognize at all. I was really hungry though, so I finished it off. Korean food is about the worst drunk food ever. I was totally queasy after that. I got the bill and it was only 5,000, so I guess she was just looking out for me. I was probably trying to order an enormous 7 course meal originally. Too bad there's no tipping in Korea, or else I would have left her a good one.
So once the Subway started running, I had to go back to Apgujeong which was where I started the night at because I had left the previously mentioned speakers in a locker at the Subway up there. Then all the way back down home. It was about 7:30am Sunday morning when I got home, and I had the next two days off. I only left the house once between then and Wednesday morning, and it was to get pizza.
So I'm really stupid and I forgot to bring my camera that night, but I'll try to steal some pics from other people and post them. For now, I'm going to bed, and so glad this short week is already almost over.
So my lack of posting has been due to a combination of busyness, laziness, and watching about 30 episodes of Lost in about 3 days. Last weekend I went out to Exit again on Friday night, then on Saturday I spent all day in Seoul. I went with a few Suji people up to Yongsan to go shopping at the enormous electronics mart. I got some awesome speakers for my laptop for about $50, and my apartment is so much more fun for me now.
After that, I separated from those guys and met some people to do a wine making thing. It was pretty fun, we got to taste a bunch of wines, and decide which one we wanted to make. Then we actually got to toss the ingredients into a bucket of water, and in 6 weeks we get to come back and take our wine home. I feel like we cut about a billion corners on the wine making process (there were 5 ingredients: water, grape concentrate, clarifying agent, oak chips, and yeast), but we'll see how it turns out. For less than $30 bucks each we got to taste 10-12 wines, go through the wine making instruction, and then we each get 2 bottles of wine (we decided on a Shiraz and a Cab). Apparently we can also email a picture and they will put it on the label, so I'll take pictures of the bottles when I get them.
After that we all went to this cool little bar where the owner brews his own beer. For the first time in Korea I got to drink some decently priced dark beer. His stout was really good. While we there, I mentioned to one of the guys that I was planning on meeting some people from Suji to see Digitalism that night. Word started spreading around the table and after awhile about 6-8 people were down for going with me. I was pretty happy because I thought I was going to have to find the place by myself and I was worried I wouldn't be able to find my friends once I got there. However, the number severely dwindled when we found out it was 55,000 won.
Pretty soon everyone had made plans to go to a different bar, and I was just going to go with them - I wasn't even sure if I was still going to go to the show. But then 2 guys who I had never met and had barely spoken to that night said they were going to go, and they were just going to stay at that bar until the show started (Digitalism wasn't going on until 1am). So I hung out with them and had a really good time, they were really nice guys. Then we made our way over to the Ritz Carlton and went to the basement and entered Club Eden. The club was really nice, other than Vegas it's probably the swankiest place I've ever been to. And then Digitalism was ridiculous. It's a good thing I had been drinking all day, because I proceeded to dance for about 3 hours straight. Everyone who knows me knows that is a rarity, but hey, it happens every once in awhile, and I had a really good time. They played a lot of their own songs, but then also remixed a lot of popular songs. I can't remember all of them, but I know they played Bloc Party, and they also played the coolest version of "Kids" by MGMT I have ever heard in my life. I remember at the time thinking "omg how did they make this perfect song even perfecter?"
After I got out of there I went to a place to get something to eat because I had to kill time until the Subway started running again at 5:30am. I finally found a place that was open, and just pointed at something that cost 10,000 won on the menu. She gave me a really confused look and said "soup?" and I said "sure". She brought out 2 kinds of gross kimchi, and some other weird not-tasty stuff. Finally she brought out the soup, which was decent, but loaded with seafood that I did not recognize at all. I was really hungry though, so I finished it off. Korean food is about the worst drunk food ever. I was totally queasy after that. I got the bill and it was only 5,000, so I guess she was just looking out for me. I was probably trying to order an enormous 7 course meal originally. Too bad there's no tipping in Korea, or else I would have left her a good one.
So once the Subway started running, I had to go back to Apgujeong which was where I started the night at because I had left the previously mentioned speakers in a locker at the Subway up there. Then all the way back down home. It was about 7:30am Sunday morning when I got home, and I had the next two days off. I only left the house once between then and Wednesday morning, and it was to get pizza.
So I'm really stupid and I forgot to bring my camera that night, but I'll try to steal some pics from other people and post them. For now, I'm going to bed, and so glad this short week is already almost over.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Class Video
Ok, here's a video of my class. I found out the reason that it didn't work last night was because the video I took was way too large to upload. So I found some video trimming software, and cut it down to just the Go Fish game. This is one of my smallest classes, just five boys: 2 Billy's (Billy A and Billy B), 2 Andy's (Andy A and Andy B), and Ben.
Now that I know it's really easy to take videos with my camera, I'll try to get more going in the future.
Now that I know it's really easy to take videos with my camera, I'll try to get more going in the future.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Kids, Laundry, Food, etc...
So I'm starting my third week here, and it kind of feels like I've been here forever already. People keep telling me that my time here will fly by, but it really doesn't feel like it so far. I've got a normal 5 day week this week, and then next weekend is the Lunar New Year. We get next Monday and Tuesday off for that. Then the following Friday is a training day, so next week I only have to teach on Wednesday and Thursday. It is waaaay too early for me to already be this desperate for a short week, but I really can't wait. Last week was rough because I didn't have many lessons prepared, and I was kind of winging it, and it made for some stressful classes. Today went much better though. The day goes a lot faster when you know what you're doing.
I've gathered that 2009 is a bad year for getting days off for national holidays, and it's kind of a shame that this really long weekend came up so fast, because it is really expensive to get tickets to go anywhere this late. A few people from the school are going to China, but they booked the trip long ago. I got invited to take the train and then the ferry to Japan, but I haven't even gotten paid yet, and I feel like I haven't been here long enough to already start taking trips, so I passed. But apparently a lot of holidays fall on weekends, so we're not getting as many 3 day weekends as we normally would. Chusok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving, is on a Saturday. I've heard that if it would've been on a Wednesday we probably would have gotten three or four days off, but now we will probably only get the Friday.
So far I've only gone to the gym that first morning, which is no surprise at all. I'll try to go a couple times this week though. It's pretty nice in there though, they give you a locker, and you get a little gym uniform to wear (I'll take a picture of myself in the mirror next time I go, it's a dead sexy outfit), so you don't have to worry about sweating in your clothes. You're supposed to bring your own gym shoes since you can't wear your outside shoes into the gym. Since I didn't bring an extra pair of tennis shoes, that means I worked out in my socks. They have a couple of funny machines there, like the one that is just a belt that wraps around you and goes back and forth and jiggles your fat, and the one that you lay on and it turns you completely upside down so all of the blood rushes to your head. Then there are a few others that I couldn't figure out what they did at all. The best thing about the Korean gym is that there aren't a bunch of intimidating buff dudes walking around. In fact there were a few times when I put MORE weight on the machine I was using, which is much different than my standard method of assuming that I can do about half of whatever the person before me was doing.
Below I've got some pictures of some of my classes. The first three are all kindy classes, so they are 6 or 7. Then the last two are of my Kiwi 3 class, which is one of the classes I've had since the beginning. They are probably my favorite class, they're the oldest (maybe 8 or 9?), so I can talk with them more easily. They also drive me the most insane, but I enjoy it. The younger ones took to getting their picture taken much better. I just told them to smile and they started popping peace signs like crazy (the national Korean photographee's pastime). The older kids were a bit more bashful, but eventually came around. Little Sunny even progressed from crouched in the fetal position facing the wall to facing the camera with her hands covering her face. The girl in the middle in the black and white sweatshirt is Angel, and she is the really smart girl I mentioned before. She is probably my favorite student, but man, is she bossy. I just end up letting her have her way a lot because she complains more than everyone else combined.
Here is a shot of my laundry machine. I couldn't find ANY instructions online that gave me a clue how to use it, so I just started pushing buttons. And it eventually washed my clothes. So, awesome.
Some of them were easy enough. The one on the far left that looks like a faucet is just hot or cold water, and I actually had a few "in between" options. The next one to the right is just how large of a load is it. The two that look like a finger and a play/fast-forward button totally stumped me, so I just kept pressing them until the timer on the left went as high as possible, which was 92 minutes I think. On the first try it started going for about 15 minutes, and then just stopped with 70 something left on the timer. Nothing was happening. So I pressed a bunch of buttons again, which ended with me turning it off and turning it back on again and starting the whole process again. That time it went the whole way though, so, whatever. After the laundry is done, the clothes gotta dry, so thank you whoever left me an enormous drying rack. Here is what a full load of laundry looks like hanging out on a drying rack (taking up my entire kitchen/dining room/living room/foyer.)
This is one page of the menu from Papa Johns, and then the delicious Spicy Chicken Ranch pizza that I got. Unfortunately I think the glare totally whited out my selection from the menu, whoops. Also you get 15-20% off for takeout, so the prices aren't as outrageous as they might seem. (About $15 for a large Spicy Chicken Ranch).
Tonight I actually got crazy and ate something besides pizza though! I went to this Japanese place and got a wonderful fried pork thing that came with mucho side dishes (which, to the best of my understanding, is the Korean side of this Japanese place showing.) I got a few nigiri style sushi pieces and a couple of maki rolls, some kind of cabbagey thing with thousand island dressing(?) on it that tasted like cole slaw, some crazy thick noodles, and a huge clear POUCH of liquid, that I'm thinking was tea, but I did not open. I've eaten a lot of new things over here, and while most of it is all right, I really miss burritos. I don't think I've gone over the crazy stuff they serve at lunch yet. I've had rabbit and squid multiple times. Sometimes they have these little tiny fish, that you just eat whole. It's just a tiny 1.5-2 inch fish. And you just chew it - eyes, scales, bones and all. It's weird. All of the meat has bones. Ugh. I hate school lunch so bad. At this point my lunch is 90% rice. I stopped trying to like kimchi about 3 days after I got here. Worst food ever. (Editors note: Korean food in general should not be judged by the quality of food served at the cafeteria at Mike's school.)
This weekend was thankfully a bit more low-key than the last. On Friday night I went to Exit again and once again had a grand time. It was a lot of the same people again, but I also met quite a few new people, including the group I accompanied to a noraebang at about 3am. This is actually a great way to do karaoke, because people are much more likely to make complete idiots out of themselves if they know everyone in the room's name. I didn't even have to sing, in fact I wasn't even asked once if I wanted to.
That night I once again couldn't remember the word for Suji Middle School (I now have it etched in my memory (until I'm drunk again) - Suji Jung Hakyo (probably spelled wrong (who is digging all of these parentheses within parentheses?))) - so I went to a group of cabs, said it in English, and one of them waved me in. He then dropped me off in some area I had never seen before. I said "Suji Middle School?" and he nodded, so I got out. Nevermind the fact that this was not the Suji Middle School. So I started walking and it took me a good hour to get home, luckily I eventually saw a church that is on the bus route from our school to our apartment. It was pretty fantastic considering I started off about a 15 minute walk from home.
Oh yeah, and before going to Exit I went with a bunch of the teachers to this breakfast place called Butterfinger's that was kind of like Korea's take on a Denny's. It was very good - I got eggs, hash browns, ham, sausage, pancakes, the whole deal. As I mentioned before, breakfast is apparently a big deal for the other teachers, so everyone was pretty excited about it.
On Saturday night I just stayed in the Villa (which our apt. complex is commonly referred to as) and went next door and played poker and hung out with some of the other teachers. And I was in bed by midnight or so, which I wasn't sure was possible on a weekend in Korea.
This website is great for humorous Korean shirts: http://www.baboshirts.com/. A lot of them are spot on.
1) The kids LOVE scissors, rock, paper. At first I thought, "aw, that's cute, he said them out of order." Then I realized that everyone here says scissors, rock, paper, and I'm the one who sounds like a jackass when I say rock, paper, scissors.
2) The kids have all been trained to say "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" when you say "How are you?" And they just yell it in this ridiculous 1-2 cadence that leads me to believe they have no idea what they're saying. And yes, it sounds like they're saying "pine" when they say "fine". I just about lost it the other day when I was playing memory with one of my classes. Each vocab word had a card with a picture of the object, and then a card with the actual word. One of the kids who had been closely monitoring what the other kids had been turning over pounced on the cards when it was his turn. First he turns over the word "rock" and yells "Rock!" and then confidently flips over a picture of a lock and yells "Rock!" It broke my heart telling him that those did not match, because his memory was spot on.
3) Soju is already one of my favorite things about Korea, and it definitely makes me "not afraid of the cops" or talking to girls in the bar.
4) The shirt with the two hands making a point with the index fingers really made me laugh, because that is a reference to the fact the kids for some reason love sticking their fingers up your butt. Not making that up - people who have worked with kids in America - is this common for kids all over? I rarely yell at the kids, but that is just crossing the line.
5) The "I'm a Englishee Teecher" one is funny because Koreans hate ending words with consonants. I'm constantly having to correct kids for calling me Teacher Mikuh. That is when they're not calling me Teacher Mariki (their former teacher (female)), Teacher Cola (they saw me drink a Coke once), or Teacher something in Korean (I'm assuming these are not complimentary endearing nicknames.)
Speaking of funny things the kids do, last Friday we were playing games a lot and I let them pick team names in four of the classes. These were the four resulting match-ups:
1) White Dragon vs. White Dinosaur
2) Dangerous Snake vs. Super Power Monkey
3) Jet vs. Fire Dragon
4) Snake vs. Spider
I <3 those kids.
Also I had an incident last Friday where a few of the girls were suddenly alarmed and yelling at me that one of the boys was "bad speaking". Then they told me that he made the "F finger." I just told them I had no idea what they were talking about.
Oh, and for those requesting Engrish (Tim) - I found a great little bit right in my own apartment! The other day I just happened to glance at the teapot that had been sitting on my stove the whole time I've been here. It says Sweetberry Bear on it, but below that, in very small writing, it says: "With incredible magic of the pretty bear, you too will be the best friend like a lot of many people all over the world." Poignant, no? I tried to take a picture but the writing is really small and it wouldn't turn out right. I tried to google for it and interestingly enough the first few results for "sweetberry bear" (in quotes) are nsfw. Gotta love the internet.
That reminds me... the other night a few of the teachers were exchanging stories about all the porn that turns up when they look up (seemingly) totally innocent things in front of the kids. One lady said that she tried to look up country music and porn came up - I'm not really sure how that happened. (I asked her if she forgot the "o" in country, got a few laughs, and did NOT credit Family Guy.) Some of them make a little more sense - snake, box, fox. Anyway, the moral of the story is - do all of your internet searching before class.
Finally, I was going to upload a video that I took of class. I tried to do it last night but it was taking forever to upload, so I let it go over-night. This morning, it was still not uploaded, so I'll have to try again tonight.
I've gathered that 2009 is a bad year for getting days off for national holidays, and it's kind of a shame that this really long weekend came up so fast, because it is really expensive to get tickets to go anywhere this late. A few people from the school are going to China, but they booked the trip long ago. I got invited to take the train and then the ferry to Japan, but I haven't even gotten paid yet, and I feel like I haven't been here long enough to already start taking trips, so I passed. But apparently a lot of holidays fall on weekends, so we're not getting as many 3 day weekends as we normally would. Chusok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving, is on a Saturday. I've heard that if it would've been on a Wednesday we probably would have gotten three or four days off, but now we will probably only get the Friday.
So far I've only gone to the gym that first morning, which is no surprise at all. I'll try to go a couple times this week though. It's pretty nice in there though, they give you a locker, and you get a little gym uniform to wear (I'll take a picture of myself in the mirror next time I go, it's a dead sexy outfit), so you don't have to worry about sweating in your clothes. You're supposed to bring your own gym shoes since you can't wear your outside shoes into the gym. Since I didn't bring an extra pair of tennis shoes, that means I worked out in my socks. They have a couple of funny machines there, like the one that is just a belt that wraps around you and goes back and forth and jiggles your fat, and the one that you lay on and it turns you completely upside down so all of the blood rushes to your head. Then there are a few others that I couldn't figure out what they did at all. The best thing about the Korean gym is that there aren't a bunch of intimidating buff dudes walking around. In fact there were a few times when I put MORE weight on the machine I was using, which is much different than my standard method of assuming that I can do about half of whatever the person before me was doing.
Below I've got some pictures of some of my classes. The first three are all kindy classes, so they are 6 or 7. Then the last two are of my Kiwi 3 class, which is one of the classes I've had since the beginning. They are probably my favorite class, they're the oldest (maybe 8 or 9?), so I can talk with them more easily. They also drive me the most insane, but I enjoy it. The younger ones took to getting their picture taken much better. I just told them to smile and they started popping peace signs like crazy (the national Korean photographee's pastime). The older kids were a bit more bashful, but eventually came around. Little Sunny even progressed from crouched in the fetal position facing the wall to facing the camera with her hands covering her face. The girl in the middle in the black and white sweatshirt is Angel, and she is the really smart girl I mentioned before. She is probably my favorite student, but man, is she bossy. I just end up letting her have her way a lot because she complains more than everyone else combined.
Here is a shot of my laundry machine. I couldn't find ANY instructions online that gave me a clue how to use it, so I just started pushing buttons. And it eventually washed my clothes. So, awesome.
Some of them were easy enough. The one on the far left that looks like a faucet is just hot or cold water, and I actually had a few "in between" options. The next one to the right is just how large of a load is it. The two that look like a finger and a play/fast-forward button totally stumped me, so I just kept pressing them until the timer on the left went as high as possible, which was 92 minutes I think. On the first try it started going for about 15 minutes, and then just stopped with 70 something left on the timer. Nothing was happening. So I pressed a bunch of buttons again, which ended with me turning it off and turning it back on again and starting the whole process again. That time it went the whole way though, so, whatever. After the laundry is done, the clothes gotta dry, so thank you whoever left me an enormous drying rack. Here is what a full load of laundry looks like hanging out on a drying rack (taking up my entire kitchen/dining room/living room/foyer.)
This is one page of the menu from Papa Johns, and then the delicious Spicy Chicken Ranch pizza that I got. Unfortunately I think the glare totally whited out my selection from the menu, whoops. Also you get 15-20% off for takeout, so the prices aren't as outrageous as they might seem. (About $15 for a large Spicy Chicken Ranch).
Tonight I actually got crazy and ate something besides pizza though! I went to this Japanese place and got a wonderful fried pork thing that came with mucho side dishes (which, to the best of my understanding, is the Korean side of this Japanese place showing.) I got a few nigiri style sushi pieces and a couple of maki rolls, some kind of cabbagey thing with thousand island dressing(?) on it that tasted like cole slaw, some crazy thick noodles, and a huge clear POUCH of liquid, that I'm thinking was tea, but I did not open. I've eaten a lot of new things over here, and while most of it is all right, I really miss burritos. I don't think I've gone over the crazy stuff they serve at lunch yet. I've had rabbit and squid multiple times. Sometimes they have these little tiny fish, that you just eat whole. It's just a tiny 1.5-2 inch fish. And you just chew it - eyes, scales, bones and all. It's weird. All of the meat has bones. Ugh. I hate school lunch so bad. At this point my lunch is 90% rice. I stopped trying to like kimchi about 3 days after I got here. Worst food ever. (Editors note: Korean food in general should not be judged by the quality of food served at the cafeteria at Mike's school.)
This weekend was thankfully a bit more low-key than the last. On Friday night I went to Exit again and once again had a grand time. It was a lot of the same people again, but I also met quite a few new people, including the group I accompanied to a noraebang at about 3am. This is actually a great way to do karaoke, because people are much more likely to make complete idiots out of themselves if they know everyone in the room's name. I didn't even have to sing, in fact I wasn't even asked once if I wanted to.
That night I once again couldn't remember the word for Suji Middle School (I now have it etched in my memory (until I'm drunk again) - Suji Jung Hakyo (probably spelled wrong (who is digging all of these parentheses within parentheses?))) - so I went to a group of cabs, said it in English, and one of them waved me in. He then dropped me off in some area I had never seen before. I said "Suji Middle School?" and he nodded, so I got out. Nevermind the fact that this was not the Suji Middle School. So I started walking and it took me a good hour to get home, luckily I eventually saw a church that is on the bus route from our school to our apartment. It was pretty fantastic considering I started off about a 15 minute walk from home.
Oh yeah, and before going to Exit I went with a bunch of the teachers to this breakfast place called Butterfinger's that was kind of like Korea's take on a Denny's. It was very good - I got eggs, hash browns, ham, sausage, pancakes, the whole deal. As I mentioned before, breakfast is apparently a big deal for the other teachers, so everyone was pretty excited about it.
On Saturday night I just stayed in the Villa (which our apt. complex is commonly referred to as) and went next door and played poker and hung out with some of the other teachers. And I was in bed by midnight or so, which I wasn't sure was possible on a weekend in Korea.
This website is great for humorous Korean shirts: http://www.baboshirts.com/. A lot of them are spot on.
1) The kids LOVE scissors, rock, paper. At first I thought, "aw, that's cute, he said them out of order." Then I realized that everyone here says scissors, rock, paper, and I'm the one who sounds like a jackass when I say rock, paper, scissors.
2) The kids have all been trained to say "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" when you say "How are you?" And they just yell it in this ridiculous 1-2 cadence that leads me to believe they have no idea what they're saying. And yes, it sounds like they're saying "pine" when they say "fine". I just about lost it the other day when I was playing memory with one of my classes. Each vocab word had a card with a picture of the object, and then a card with the actual word. One of the kids who had been closely monitoring what the other kids had been turning over pounced on the cards when it was his turn. First he turns over the word "rock" and yells "Rock!" and then confidently flips over a picture of a lock and yells "Rock!" It broke my heart telling him that those did not match, because his memory was spot on.
3) Soju is already one of my favorite things about Korea, and it definitely makes me "not afraid of the cops" or talking to girls in the bar.
4) The shirt with the two hands making a point with the index fingers really made me laugh, because that is a reference to the fact the kids for some reason love sticking their fingers up your butt. Not making that up - people who have worked with kids in America - is this common for kids all over? I rarely yell at the kids, but that is just crossing the line.
5) The "I'm a Englishee Teecher" one is funny because Koreans hate ending words with consonants. I'm constantly having to correct kids for calling me Teacher Mikuh. That is when they're not calling me Teacher Mariki (their former teacher (female)), Teacher Cola (they saw me drink a Coke once), or Teacher something in Korean (I'm assuming these are not complimentary endearing nicknames.)
Speaking of funny things the kids do, last Friday we were playing games a lot and I let them pick team names in four of the classes. These were the four resulting match-ups:
1) White Dragon vs. White Dinosaur
2) Dangerous Snake vs. Super Power Monkey
3) Jet vs. Fire Dragon
4) Snake vs. Spider
I <3 those kids.
Also I had an incident last Friday where a few of the girls were suddenly alarmed and yelling at me that one of the boys was "bad speaking". Then they told me that he made the "F finger." I just told them I had no idea what they were talking about.
Oh, and for those requesting Engrish (Tim) - I found a great little bit right in my own apartment! The other day I just happened to glance at the teapot that had been sitting on my stove the whole time I've been here. It says Sweetberry Bear on it, but below that, in very small writing, it says: "With incredible magic of the pretty bear, you too will be the best friend like a lot of many people all over the world." Poignant, no? I tried to take a picture but the writing is really small and it wouldn't turn out right. I tried to google for it and interestingly enough the first few results for "sweetberry bear" (in quotes) are nsfw. Gotta love the internet.
That reminds me... the other night a few of the teachers were exchanging stories about all the porn that turns up when they look up (seemingly) totally innocent things in front of the kids. One lady said that she tried to look up country music and porn came up - I'm not really sure how that happened. (I asked her if she forgot the "o" in country, got a few laughs, and did NOT credit Family Guy.) Some of them make a little more sense - snake, box, fox. Anyway, the moral of the story is - do all of your internet searching before class.
Finally, I was going to upload a video that I took of class. I tried to do it last night but it was taking forever to upload, so I let it go over-night. This morning, it was still not uploaded, so I'll have to try again tonight.
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