I should be sleeping

...or getting ready to at least, but I know my loyal readers are dying for an update. Heather 'cause she's fond of me and Ken because he's looking for clues. Its been a busy couple of days but good.

I moved into my new place on Monday and so far I like it. Its not big but its got a nice little look to it, with sliding glass doors and tons of closet space. Its tough to explain why but even my first night there I felt so much more comfortable. My first morning was not quite as good. I was woken up by a strange beeping noise. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It seemed like it was either the intercom or the floor heating unit (thats how they heat apartments here). It woke me up at about 7am, and I wasn't planning to get up until 8. I fiddled with every wierd looking dial I could find but the piercing noise just continued every minute or so for about half and hour. Even with earplugs in I couldn't sleep. Then it just stopped. I figured it was something about me turning the the floor heater on the night before.

Anyway it went away and I made a mental note to ask someone about it but completely forgot. School is starting to hit a good level of coasting, I can just go in and do my thing and the day passes pretty quickly. Even quicker on Tuesday because it was parent/teacher day at the Elementary school and I didn't have to do my exercise class for the teachers at the end of the day. Technically I was good to go for the class and a bunch of teachers showed up I was told. But the main teacher I work with on Tuesdays told them with the parents in my classes it was a long exhausting day for me. Truth is I think she just didn't want to work out and figured the easiest way to get out of it was to cancel the class for everyone. Fine by me!
So I had some experience with the parents of students and the principal even sat in on one of my classes. Me, I love an audience so I did some of my better classes, and got some good reviews. At the time I didn't even know I was being reviewed.

After school on Tuesday I met up with Rocky to get some help hooking up my cellphone. When I met up with him he told me that the school had fired him. Which really sucks, he was definitely my favourite Korean teacher there. The school has been losing a lot of students lately, and I guess they just needed a scapegoat. The only 'problem' with Rocky was that he was very strict with the students and didn't let them play around. This made the students unhappy and they complained to their parents they didn't like school and their parents complained to the school. Of course if you aren't strict with the students they can't learn any english b/c they're playing around all the time- hence the speech contests & festivals. Staged shows to convince the parents their kids can speak english. Anyway its a bit of a shitty buzz, but Rocky wasn't happy there and we're gonna keep in touch. He still helped me set up my phone though (email me for the number if you want it, I'm still figuring the international dialing codes) and we grabbed some dinner.
Its wierd at the school because the director has told me what a good job teaching she thinks I'm doing and has told Nick that she is not pleased with his lack of control over the class. Now some of my discipline things have been working fine (although the students are getting a little too sticker-happy for my liking) but the truth is Nick and I are probably about equal in managing classes. Mrs. Kim evaluates our teaching by walking by the class at a random point maybe twice a week and peeking in. She saw me today with one of my elementary class very well behaved as I taught a lesson. Although if she had walked by five minutes ealier she would have seen me letting the kids punch me in the stomach as hard as they could while proclaiming myself "Ultimate K-1 Fighter!". Partially to let the kids blow off some energy before making them sit for half an hour and partially just to affirm my position as Alpha Male. So its really just luck of the draw there.

I joined a new gym yesterday, the old one was too much of a hike from my new place and this one is on the way home from work. Its about the same as the other one as far as price and equipment but this one seems a bit friendlier. The staff knows a little more english, although they had to pull a member off the floor to help with me signing up. His name is Joon and he's a Korean that lived in San-deigo for Eight years, real nice guy. His English seems darn near perfect and he's just back in Korea completing his civic duty. He's opting for two years of public service rather than a tour in the army. Wow sometimes its great to be Canadian, I can't imagine what mandatory military service must be like. Jsut about every male here over the age of twenty has been in the army.

The next morning I was woken up at 5 am by that beeping. I hit things. I muttered. I took my intercom apart with a screwdriver but couldn't get it to stop. Half an hour later I was fiddling with every button and knob on my floor heating panel (messing with gas powered appliances. yay!) before I thought to check the pocket of my coat which was hanging right beside the intercom and floor unit. the beeping was the cell phone in my pocket's battery warning. I had forgotten and left it on two nights in a row, and i had replaced the battery inbetween without making the connection. Silly me. I would haved laughed. But there was one problem. It was 5:30 in the gorram morning and nothing is ever funny then.

Today after work I went for my first workout at the new gym and really liked it. When I came in I had to fill out a health questionnare and undergo some BF% tests. It was funny b/c the consultant didn't speak english and had conscripted Joon into translating the entire thing for me. He didn't seem to mind, and it was nice to see a familliar face. Anyway the tests say I'm 18% bodyfat and need to lose 5 pounds. I'm not surprised that I'm carrying a few more pounds, too many simple carbs, fried chicken and beer (its been tough to turn down social invites here) and Schwietzer's melted prize candy (I had left a bag of chocolate on the floor, forgeting thats where the heat comes from in my place) but theres no way I'm focussing on losing weight.. And its Korea, everyone has a beer belly! (Note to Heather: don;t worry I won't get fat). But now that I'm settled I've started eating a lot better, just took me a while to get a kitchen good enough to cook in.

It was surprising that the consultant at the gym was impressed by the Korean I did speak. i literally just said hello. Joon was syaing that some of the foriegeners that have joined in the past didn't speak a single word of Korean. I didn't see any other foreigners, bu tI did notice on the day pass sign in sheet on my way out that someone had written "Stargazer" and "I don't need a name!" in the columns that I assume were "name" and "signature". they rightly assumed that the desk clerk woul dhave absolutely no idea what they wrote if they wrote it in english.
Anyway I really do have to go but we're having a work gathering tomorrow and it'll be while befor eI can update again.

And it looks like on saturday I will finally be getting my own internet!