... children's crying that is. You hear it just about as often in a job like mine. Now it used to bother me that I was often the cause of this crying. It is beginning to lose its impact on me.
I think that anyone who is planning on having kids should teach kindergarten for a year. I firmly believe that if you follow that advice you are very susceptible to influence and shouldn't have kids in the first place. Now kids will cry for darn near any legitimate reason: You wont lend them your board marker so they can draw a cat on your cheek, Sally hit them after only repeated physical provocation or you wont let them have five squirts of strawberry scented hand sanitizer (after already talking you up from one). Sometimes you have to resort to a baser form of language to communicate. Crying fits the bill. I have the second worst grasp of Korean in history (Ken wins) but even I know what a kid wants when he starts bawling his eyes out. A sticker.
Even I have my little crying escape, where i just need to do something to express that I am beginning to lose it. i have started to sing in class when the class gets out of control. Its my little way of counting to ten and not letting the antics and shenanigans get the best of me. I figure its still an English lesson to them. Its really hard to get frustrated when you're singing 'if I only had a brain' or 'I am slowly going crazy' to a room of oblivious kids. its tough to take anything seriously in that circumstance. I am toying with the idea of teaching the kids 'The song that never ends', which will cause me headaches in the short term but could be a legacy I will leave here for all teachers of the future to deal with.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
5 days without an update???
Where has he been? Well I just haven’t been up to too much lately and trying to rewrite the same activities into a blog in a new way seemed daunting. Worry not, updates will continue when interesting stuff I do continues. Perhaps it was becoming an uncle for the first time this week that made me put my little blogs into perspective and wonder if I can’t crank out something more meaningful. This isn’t comparing my blogs to having a baby (what an ugly retard baby that would be) but more about reporting even marginally more meaningful things.
I’ve been working on trying to get good food into me lately. I’m about as finicky an eater as a three year old that was just introduced to ice cream; but has not been given any compelling reasons not to eat it exclusively. I will say that grocery shopping is an interesting experience here, I split my shopping between a weekly trip to Emart and more frequent trips to street vendors. Emart (kind of like Walmart, but with an E) has a wide selection, mostly of stuff I have no interest in, but the selection is wide nonetheless. The street vendors have fruits and vegeatables for sale for usually insanely low prices (except apples which are priced by volume at the current price of gold), and from what I hear its the exact same food that is sold at the Emart so I’ve no reason to get picky about my source. There is an untapped third option, which are fruit and fish trucks that drive around with public address systems advertising bushels of apples and bumfish and the like. I have no interest in buying from them however. Sure it may be the best prices but its the same reason you don’t buy from a salesman that sneaks into your bedroom and yells in your face first thing in the morning. You don’t want to encourage them.
Koreans are a very shy people, while still possessing a movable head and eyelids thy will do their best to avoid direct eye contact. With anything. This is my explanation for why even in the grocery stores there are people paid to yell at you as you walk by a display. They sometimes have microphones. They always yell. At first it made me feel uncomfortable because I didn’t know what they were saying or how to respond. Nowadays I still rarely know what they are saying but I know exactly how to respond. Quickly divert eye contact.
Now I imagine you are all wondering what kind of diverse foods I buy over here, truth of the matter I don’t see much of the different stuff that is all that appealing. I avoid products made from rice which eliminates most of the oddities here, and I now know from experience that the only purpose buying kimchi has is to make me feel guilty for not eating it. One section that does look promising is the fish section. There are things here to make aquaman go: ‘huh?” and being so close to the sea pretty much ensures freshness. Now I am fine with eating fish, but making it is a different story. Perhaps its just years of living with my dad who makes fish in the microwave or my old roommate Drew who has an interesting way of preparing fish (throw fillet on an ungreased pan, cook until pan and fish become the same entity and leave for someone else to clean up. Serves 2) that worries me about the smells that I will invite into my kitchen. I have no fan in there so I think I will hold off on fish cooking until the summer when I can open my windows.
So that’s the end of the blog for today, I only hope that one day my nephew Jonah will read this entry and say to himself: “I guess crazy uncle Kevin did go to Korea.”
I’ve been working on trying to get good food into me lately. I’m about as finicky an eater as a three year old that was just introduced to ice cream; but has not been given any compelling reasons not to eat it exclusively. I will say that grocery shopping is an interesting experience here, I split my shopping between a weekly trip to Emart and more frequent trips to street vendors. Emart (kind of like Walmart, but with an E) has a wide selection, mostly of stuff I have no interest in, but the selection is wide nonetheless. The street vendors have fruits and vegeatables for sale for usually insanely low prices (except apples which are priced by volume at the current price of gold), and from what I hear its the exact same food that is sold at the Emart so I’ve no reason to get picky about my source. There is an untapped third option, which are fruit and fish trucks that drive around with public address systems advertising bushels of apples and bumfish and the like. I have no interest in buying from them however. Sure it may be the best prices but its the same reason you don’t buy from a salesman that sneaks into your bedroom and yells in your face first thing in the morning. You don’t want to encourage them.
Koreans are a very shy people, while still possessing a movable head and eyelids thy will do their best to avoid direct eye contact. With anything. This is my explanation for why even in the grocery stores there are people paid to yell at you as you walk by a display. They sometimes have microphones. They always yell. At first it made me feel uncomfortable because I didn’t know what they were saying or how to respond. Nowadays I still rarely know what they are saying but I know exactly how to respond. Quickly divert eye contact.
Now I imagine you are all wondering what kind of diverse foods I buy over here, truth of the matter I don’t see much of the different stuff that is all that appealing. I avoid products made from rice which eliminates most of the oddities here, and I now know from experience that the only purpose buying kimchi has is to make me feel guilty for not eating it. One section that does look promising is the fish section. There are things here to make aquaman go: ‘huh?” and being so close to the sea pretty much ensures freshness. Now I am fine with eating fish, but making it is a different story. Perhaps its just years of living with my dad who makes fish in the microwave or my old roommate Drew who has an interesting way of preparing fish (throw fillet on an ungreased pan, cook until pan and fish become the same entity and leave for someone else to clean up. Serves 2) that worries me about the smells that I will invite into my kitchen. I have no fan in there so I think I will hold off on fish cooking until the summer when I can open my windows.
So that’s the end of the blog for today, I only hope that one day my nephew Jonah will read this entry and say to himself: “I guess crazy uncle Kevin did go to Korea.”
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
I have officially given up on the hagwon lunches. Well not officially but after a half week without them I can’t see myself going back. It isn’t all ticker tape and streamers. We had some good times me and them. That nice little stainless steel bowl of rice that I never opened, despite the lunchlady’s repeated pleas to eat. The cold fishsticks served with ketchup. The kimchi, which oddly I don’t mind unless its made from radish, which is funny b/c of my hatred for cabbage. The soup that I have I nothing clever to say about because I generally liked it. All of this I have decided to forgo. The unreliability of the lunches has convinced me to just go home and make my own.
Nick recently bought a motorcycle, I think its just to prove that he has more balls than me (four and counting), and he has been jetting home for lunch and I started to think about it myself. I tried it on Monday and I think it’ll become a routine. Most days I have a silly hour and twenty minute break for lunch, now seeing as how I don’t do any prep work for class (I would if there were any materials to prep) I just usually end up doing very little and generally wasting that time. Monday contained in it an exasperating enough morning that when I thought about all the good food i had in my fridge and the awesome Ethiopian coffee my girlfriend sent me I just had to get out of the school. I figure the walk helps too. Airs my brain out a bit, and probably burns like a billion calories.
I sometimes rate the difficulty of a job by how many cups of coffee I need in a day to face it. Now I get plenty of sleep so its not a tiredness thing, its more about little rewards I give myself throughout the day for making it so far without a fatality. One day I’m sure I will have an office job and a bowl of Rolos on the desk for everytime I answer an email successfully. Now I guess today I had six cups of the ole black magic, but that’s only because my coffee maker creates three at a time and I have trouble convincing myself not to make a full batch. Its like a firefighter only saving one puppy from a burning building instead of grabbing the lot. I know that seems a little overblown, but I really likey my coffee.
In my past job I got used to coming home on breaks, and it has its ups and downs. Number one is that I do find I can relax so much better when in my own place (and yes that means I’m naked). I can also eat what I want (peanut butter and mayonnaise!) without having to scavenge. Some down sides are that its tough to get into and out of relaxation mode in an hour. Many times I only get into it. Like today for instance, I was able to loosen up a bit during my break but didn’t have time to shadow box, let out some grunts and get my game back on before I went back to school. Which left me a little sedated for the rest of the work day. Which was probably good cause its really not a great job to get worked up over.
I looked into some package tour things here. Taking a look at a little island resort or maybe just a quickie to Seoul. I know I’m in a foreign country and should be doing more to take in the sights and unless I do darn soon I’m not going to see any of them. I have a whole list of reasons why its tough for me to go (busy, tired and scared basically but articulated in a much more stable defense) but there is one darn good reason to go: b/c I want to.
At one point by the end of Feburary I will have left this city at least once. This is vow. If I don’t I will banish this blog to nothingness.
Nick recently bought a motorcycle, I think its just to prove that he has more balls than me (four and counting), and he has been jetting home for lunch and I started to think about it myself. I tried it on Monday and I think it’ll become a routine. Most days I have a silly hour and twenty minute break for lunch, now seeing as how I don’t do any prep work for class (I would if there were any materials to prep) I just usually end up doing very little and generally wasting that time. Monday contained in it an exasperating enough morning that when I thought about all the good food i had in my fridge and the awesome Ethiopian coffee my girlfriend sent me I just had to get out of the school. I figure the walk helps too. Airs my brain out a bit, and probably burns like a billion calories.
I sometimes rate the difficulty of a job by how many cups of coffee I need in a day to face it. Now I get plenty of sleep so its not a tiredness thing, its more about little rewards I give myself throughout the day for making it so far without a fatality. One day I’m sure I will have an office job and a bowl of Rolos on the desk for everytime I answer an email successfully. Now I guess today I had six cups of the ole black magic, but that’s only because my coffee maker creates three at a time and I have trouble convincing myself not to make a full batch. Its like a firefighter only saving one puppy from a burning building instead of grabbing the lot. I know that seems a little overblown, but I really likey my coffee.
In my past job I got used to coming home on breaks, and it has its ups and downs. Number one is that I do find I can relax so much better when in my own place (and yes that means I’m naked). I can also eat what I want (peanut butter and mayonnaise!) without having to scavenge. Some down sides are that its tough to get into and out of relaxation mode in an hour. Many times I only get into it. Like today for instance, I was able to loosen up a bit during my break but didn’t have time to shadow box, let out some grunts and get my game back on before I went back to school. Which left me a little sedated for the rest of the work day. Which was probably good cause its really not a great job to get worked up over.
I looked into some package tour things here. Taking a look at a little island resort or maybe just a quickie to Seoul. I know I’m in a foreign country and should be doing more to take in the sights and unless I do darn soon I’m not going to see any of them. I have a whole list of reasons why its tough for me to go (busy, tired and scared basically but articulated in a much more stable defense) but there is one darn good reason to go: b/c I want to.
At one point by the end of Feburary I will have left this city at least once. This is vow. If I don’t I will banish this blog to nothingness.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Arnie had it right
I remember when I saw the movie ‘Kindergarten Cop’ back when I was 10 years old. That triumph of cinematic storytelling impacted everyone so very heavily at the time but even still it was hard for me to think that it would be so true to life for me. For those of you not familiar with it (or for some reason whose brains did not find it needed to commit the movie to enduring memory) I will give you a brief rundown;
Arnold Schwarzenegger was a tough cop, he was so adept at keeping the criminal world in line that they decided to give him a tougher mission. Put him in a room with a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds and make him promise not to kill any of them (not even just one as an example to the rest like they do in Harvard). We quickly see that big brawny Arnie is reduced to relying on his wits and acting chops to keep these adorable little munchkins that are still too young to have learned the concept of sanity in line. So he yells at them and then treats them like army cadets which magically keeps them from eating glue. Then he decides to go back to crime fighting and ends up getting the school burned down. And there was a ferret in the movie too.
The parallels here are almost too many to count. I look at my experience as a scale model of that. Sure I don’t teach as many kids as him or for as long, but my classrooms are a lot smaller and so am I. I too, having no actual training in teaching, must rely on my acting training and my wits to keep them in line. Much like Arnold those don’t get me too far in life (I should marry a Kennedy) so I sometimes feel myself overwhelmed. I even half considered making the kids run around and jump and do calisthenics or something but the main trouble class is way too overcrowded for that, and there’s no use in making the class army style anyway. For all the males at least they’ll get quite enough of that when they turn 18. So although I know there is a lesson that I can glean from Kindergarten Cop, I’m not sure what it is. The sad/ funny thing is that movie is probably the most relevant training material I’ve seen.
My littlest class just got a new student today. Another one. That brings the class total up to ten students. Three of which now speak no English whatsoever. Two others I cannot keep in their seats, and if I stop paying attention to either of them for even a second they will either start taking off their clothes or eating the books. There are four average students, which get no attention due to the constant need to keep the aforementioned five in check and get no challenging work because there is no chance to teach them something new so it is constant review- but they are at least content to be relatively quiet most of the time and rub their cheeks against my arm hair now and again. Then there is one bright kid, very well behaved, who enjoys English to the point that he is now constantly fighting for my attention (so nice to be needed) so he can practice talking to me more. Now there is obviously a simple way to deal with this. Perhaps not an easy way but a simple one. There has to be. I just have no idea what it is. It probably has something to do with teaching experience. I hope not, I hope it’s a pill.
This was the class that was getting stickers at the end of every class in which they did not misbehave, which I’ve been experimenting not doing now and then. Its not a perfect system, and often I felt I was rewarding kids for doing nothing. Honestly if one of the ten kids just didn’t make a ruckus during the class they got a sticker for being good, despite the fact that they did nothing English related. I’m going to try only rewarding good behavior and use of English skills, but its tough as it isn’t a level playing field. In any case this is only a temporary thing, until the end of the month. The school is aware the class is mismatched and it seems they just want me to do damage control. We have three kindergarten classes graduating at the end of the month and that’s when this one will be split up with some of them moving on and some of them staying at the base level. The only reason they accepted the kids into the class before the graduation was to get the extra tuition from the parents. Its not a horrible system really, and it’s the only way the class could really run but some days it is very very tough. So I guess the lesson is to keep the stickers in until I can figure out a better discipline system and try to buy a ferret somewhere (and no they don’t farm them for food here).
Well tomorrow’s another day last time I checked, and its bound to be a good one. Happy Trials!
Arnold Schwarzenegger was a tough cop, he was so adept at keeping the criminal world in line that they decided to give him a tougher mission. Put him in a room with a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds and make him promise not to kill any of them (not even just one as an example to the rest like they do in Harvard). We quickly see that big brawny Arnie is reduced to relying on his wits and acting chops to keep these adorable little munchkins that are still too young to have learned the concept of sanity in line. So he yells at them and then treats them like army cadets which magically keeps them from eating glue. Then he decides to go back to crime fighting and ends up getting the school burned down. And there was a ferret in the movie too.
The parallels here are almost too many to count. I look at my experience as a scale model of that. Sure I don’t teach as many kids as him or for as long, but my classrooms are a lot smaller and so am I. I too, having no actual training in teaching, must rely on my acting training and my wits to keep them in line. Much like Arnold those don’t get me too far in life (I should marry a Kennedy) so I sometimes feel myself overwhelmed. I even half considered making the kids run around and jump and do calisthenics or something but the main trouble class is way too overcrowded for that, and there’s no use in making the class army style anyway. For all the males at least they’ll get quite enough of that when they turn 18. So although I know there is a lesson that I can glean from Kindergarten Cop, I’m not sure what it is. The sad/ funny thing is that movie is probably the most relevant training material I’ve seen.
My littlest class just got a new student today. Another one. That brings the class total up to ten students. Three of which now speak no English whatsoever. Two others I cannot keep in their seats, and if I stop paying attention to either of them for even a second they will either start taking off their clothes or eating the books. There are four average students, which get no attention due to the constant need to keep the aforementioned five in check and get no challenging work because there is no chance to teach them something new so it is constant review- but they are at least content to be relatively quiet most of the time and rub their cheeks against my arm hair now and again. Then there is one bright kid, very well behaved, who enjoys English to the point that he is now constantly fighting for my attention (so nice to be needed) so he can practice talking to me more. Now there is obviously a simple way to deal with this. Perhaps not an easy way but a simple one. There has to be. I just have no idea what it is. It probably has something to do with teaching experience. I hope not, I hope it’s a pill.
This was the class that was getting stickers at the end of every class in which they did not misbehave, which I’ve been experimenting not doing now and then. Its not a perfect system, and often I felt I was rewarding kids for doing nothing. Honestly if one of the ten kids just didn’t make a ruckus during the class they got a sticker for being good, despite the fact that they did nothing English related. I’m going to try only rewarding good behavior and use of English skills, but its tough as it isn’t a level playing field. In any case this is only a temporary thing, until the end of the month. The school is aware the class is mismatched and it seems they just want me to do damage control. We have three kindergarten classes graduating at the end of the month and that’s when this one will be split up with some of them moving on and some of them staying at the base level. The only reason they accepted the kids into the class before the graduation was to get the extra tuition from the parents. Its not a horrible system really, and it’s the only way the class could really run but some days it is very very tough. So I guess the lesson is to keep the stickers in until I can figure out a better discipline system and try to buy a ferret somewhere (and no they don’t farm them for food here).
Well tomorrow’s another day last time I checked, and its bound to be a good one. Happy Trials!
Sunday, January 21, 2007
food, pool and beer (VIDEO-but not a good one)
Well Ken and I didn’t get up to too much mischief today, which he clearly had panned in his datebook written in glitter pen and underlined with highliters. I was so sorry to disappoint him, it’s like every time you have to kick a cute like squirrel. The common misconception is that every weekend here is like a mini-vacation in a foreign country. Well that doesn’t really work out when you’re a lazy tool. So we didn’t go to a buddist temple or make rice with ninjas or any cool shit like that. We did went to an all you can eat grill house near my place that turned out to be one of the most satisfying meals we’ve ever had here. It didn’t have as many side dishes as the other places we’ve been to and the meat was of lower quality by Korean standards (which meant that it was leaner, although we still trimmed it before throwing it on the grill, to the confused glances of the hosts) but we were both more than satisfied and will probably go back often enough to cancel out the relative healthiness of the spread with the pure quantity we will eat. Everything in moderation; especially moderation.
Afterwards we walked downtown and hit a pool hall. But not before we witnessed the tail end of a performance by three singers in the subway as we were crossing through it (something you always have to do to cross busy intersections here, they don’t even have cross walks at intersections with subway entrances). It seemed to be three girls that were local performers just doing karaoke style renditions of pop favorites to the mildy not disninterested adoration of onlookers. The singing was alright I guess but I don’t think much of the stage presence of performers here. That may b unwarranted and judgmental but I see the only useful thing to come out my degree is to be able to critique performances technically as a professional ( with all sorts of professional envy and unfulfilled dreams to boot!). The performers didn’t really entrance me quite as much as this old gentleman dancing along to the music. Tough to see on the sup-bar vantage point and the ‘cool that I have it but not really useful’ video feature on my digicam. But it was just funny to see everyone standing like statues and one old man just dancing away quite poorly but everyone seeming quite proud of him to do it. If my vantage point was better I would have gotten the singers in the shot too but alas it was not to be. I think I’ll have to be here a little longer before I can really decode what a cultural statement the whole dancing thing makes about the people here.
Anyway I tried to capture the moment forever in video but some guy got in my way and my digicam ain’t the best tool for the job in any case (kinda like using a toothpick as a flyswatter- it can get the job done… sort of... in theory)
I won two games of pool in a row against Ken and finally on the third game I thought it would be nice to let him win a game. I did this by letting him not scratch on sinking the eight ball like he had for the last two games. I’m such a big man sometimes.
Afterwards I insisted that he come down to Ol’55, the foreigner bar I’ve been to a few times. I figured it was a good place for him to check out already, as it is a staple in so many ESL teachers lives here. And I also figured I could introduce him to the few people I knew that frequent that place and help him feel a little more at home. Well it turns out that nobody I knew was there while we were (not that I know a lot, but every other time I’ve been there I’ve met at least one person who was familiar) so Ken assumes that I made all those people up. I just wish that I was sure he was wrong.
The foreign bar is a cool little experience if you are getting at all homesick because it can give you a reminder of how much you didn’t really like bars back home. Well that’s a mean statement if viewed across the board, but Ken and I are both guys that are trying to leave behind their pint mugs and do other stuff with our time so we got bored fairly quickly and like usual we were both home by midnight. I have the tragic vision of some teenager who hero-worships me reading this blog and finding out that my nights out are so short and throwing his hat down and screaming “you’ve changed man! I don’t believe in you anymore!” Luckily for me no one actually read this blog so that won’t happen.
We’ve mentioned how we want to make more solid plans for our weekends, like a temple retreat or a trip to Soeul, but that takes planning and effort and we’re neither of us good at that. But that last thing we want is to spend all night out at a bar just so we can convince ourselves that we’ve done something exciting with our night, and if that makes us losers than so be it.
Oh my god. We’re losers.
And you know who the real winners are?
Nope me neither. Well I’m getting a little too dopey to keep writing so I’ll see you all next week.
Afterwards we walked downtown and hit a pool hall. But not before we witnessed the tail end of a performance by three singers in the subway as we were crossing through it (something you always have to do to cross busy intersections here, they don’t even have cross walks at intersections with subway entrances). It seemed to be three girls that were local performers just doing karaoke style renditions of pop favorites to the mildy not disninterested adoration of onlookers. The singing was alright I guess but I don’t think much of the stage presence of performers here. That may b unwarranted and judgmental but I see the only useful thing to come out my degree is to be able to critique performances technically as a professional ( with all sorts of professional envy and unfulfilled dreams to boot!). The performers didn’t really entrance me quite as much as this old gentleman dancing along to the music. Tough to see on the sup-bar vantage point and the ‘cool that I have it but not really useful’ video feature on my digicam. But it was just funny to see everyone standing like statues and one old man just dancing away quite poorly but everyone seeming quite proud of him to do it. If my vantage point was better I would have gotten the singers in the shot too but alas it was not to be. I think I’ll have to be here a little longer before I can really decode what a cultural statement the whole dancing thing makes about the people here.
Anyway I tried to capture the moment forever in video but some guy got in my way and my digicam ain’t the best tool for the job in any case (kinda like using a toothpick as a flyswatter- it can get the job done… sort of... in theory)
I won two games of pool in a row against Ken and finally on the third game I thought it would be nice to let him win a game. I did this by letting him not scratch on sinking the eight ball like he had for the last two games. I’m such a big man sometimes.
Afterwards I insisted that he come down to Ol’55, the foreigner bar I’ve been to a few times. I figured it was a good place for him to check out already, as it is a staple in so many ESL teachers lives here. And I also figured I could introduce him to the few people I knew that frequent that place and help him feel a little more at home. Well it turns out that nobody I knew was there while we were (not that I know a lot, but every other time I’ve been there I’ve met at least one person who was familiar) so Ken assumes that I made all those people up. I just wish that I was sure he was wrong.
The foreign bar is a cool little experience if you are getting at all homesick because it can give you a reminder of how much you didn’t really like bars back home. Well that’s a mean statement if viewed across the board, but Ken and I are both guys that are trying to leave behind their pint mugs and do other stuff with our time so we got bored fairly quickly and like usual we were both home by midnight. I have the tragic vision of some teenager who hero-worships me reading this blog and finding out that my nights out are so short and throwing his hat down and screaming “you’ve changed man! I don’t believe in you anymore!” Luckily for me no one actually read this blog so that won’t happen.
We’ve mentioned how we want to make more solid plans for our weekends, like a temple retreat or a trip to Soeul, but that takes planning and effort and we’re neither of us good at that. But that last thing we want is to spend all night out at a bar just so we can convince ourselves that we’ve done something exciting with our night, and if that makes us losers than so be it.
Oh my god. We’re losers.
And you know who the real winners are?
Nope me neither. Well I’m getting a little too dopey to keep writing so I’ll see you all next week.
Friday, January 19, 2007
A good Friday
Only three things of any note today and I will try to present them in bullet style to eliminate any taking of valuable reading time from your day with uneeded or unnecessary descriptions or explanations or anecdotal stories that in fact turn into run on sentences that don’t accomplish much except causing my readership to drop after the first paragraph. I can only imagine you are all as busy as I and would appreciate some brevity and ‘to-the-pointedness’ instead of endless tirades on minutae. To that end this blog will be a stripped down “just the facts ma’am” version of my day. No filler. I’ve proofread it several times to get rid of even the minorest uneeded or unwanted word.
I crack myself up sometimes.
• You can convince yourself that just about anything is educational if it involves English. I have griped before about how my kindergarten classes are saddled with sub-standard textbooks that don’t actually have any imformation in them, they’re basically picture books. And I am only allowed to go through about 6 pages a month with them. So I sometimes have to make up new ways to insert vocabulary words into their brains. Enter the thingy:
I don’t really know what these things are called but I figured it would at least get the kids recognizing the spelling of English numbers and foods (their current unit). To get an idea lets give it a whirl. Pick a number. 4? Okay. 1-2-3-4
Now pick a food. Pear? Okay P-E-A-R.
Now pick another food. Strawberries?
Okay and the survey says:
Yeah it all kinda falls apart with the last bit but the kids were enthralled, and treated it like a game they got points on so they would all pick the same food so they could all get “yummy”. I had the class twice today and for the second one they all got to make their own thingies, mainly so they would stop badgering me to play it with them. The director saw me doing this with one of her little walkbys and I have no idea if she approved or not, but compared to the other teachers that just let the kids color half the time I think I can justify the exercise.
• Sometimes even my best class has a bad day. My Galileo class, the kindergarten class full of all the smart nice kids was very somber when I entered the room. No one was playing around they all just had their heads hung and one girl was crying while the rest looked pretty close. Sometimes little arguments happen when teachers aren’t in the room but it is usually forgotten about a minute into class, not this time. It took me a little while to figure out what had happened, they are only 5 and 6 year olds so it almost became a weird combination of a cop drama and esl as I tried to write on the board (in bullet form of course) what they were explaining to me. It took just about everyone in the class contiributing some English to set out the story so I could understand it. Basically the three girls were drawing on the board during playtime with some dryerase markers some teacher had left there. Now at the end of playtime one of the boys erased the board and they all got really mad at him. I tried to talk to the boy and find out why he did it, which I could have already guessed. He always goes nuts when I let him erase the board when I’m done and he always puts away all the toys and books at the end of class. He was really just trying to be a good student, he told me that he just wanted to help ‘clean up’, and that he liked the pictures the girls drew. I tried to explain to the class that Edward was just trying to be good and he didn’t want to make anyone sad. This seemed to mollify the rest of the class but then Edward broke down into horrible sobs. Everyone then gathered around him and patted him and apologized and brought tissues until he had at least fifteen of them. He calmed down after a minute or two, but I gave him (and everyone else) some stickers (which I rarely ever ever do with that particular class- since they are never happy unless everyone gets stickers and I’ve had to ration them for the troubled classes) and a double dose of peach scented hand sanitizer just to make sure everyone was happy. And also because they are one of the classes that makes me really like my job sometimes and it was just my little way of thanking them for being such a good group. If all my classes were like them I would be in heaven here. And when you consider that Ken’s students are roundhouse kicking eachother and getting in bloody fistfights altercations like this really are but in perspective.
• In my last class of the day they were graduated off of their Pop-Up textbooks and onto a storybook. I only mention the name of the textbooks we use for elementary schools b/c it only occurred to me to today that “Pop-up” sounds a little like “Baapo” (the Korean word for silly-head or fool) and I finally understood why kids liked repeating the title when I said it. I was told the students would be on this textbook for one month, I’m not sure if they just mean until the end of this month (the January break time) because the book is very short. I see this class three times a week and in a month that would mean that we could only cover less than half a page of this book each time if we paced it properly. As it was we finished a quarter of it (including all associated activities in their books) in one class, and this was with me trying to hold them back. One of the students who has never cared about anything in class was so thrilled to be reading it she got almost angry when I told her we couldn’t do it all in one day. So I had the kids all read for all the different characters, and to basically eat up time but also to give them some proper practice on how to say things I drama coached them through it. If the little girl said ‘I’m so hungry mom!” I told the kid reading it to be almost in tears when saying it. Then for the other kid to be super angry. It took them a little while to get out of the robotic recitals they were used to but once they did they loved it. They cast me in one of the parts and my performance had them laughing so hard one of them fell out of their chairs. It was nice to see such a usually unmotivated class having fun with English class. I’m starting to learn how to toe the line of being entertaining to them. Go too far and they will lose respect for you and call you Baapo, but a little once in a while goes a long way.
Well that’s enough blogging for one day, hopefully Ken and I will have some weekend adventures to relate soon.
I crack myself up sometimes.
• You can convince yourself that just about anything is educational if it involves English. I have griped before about how my kindergarten classes are saddled with sub-standard textbooks that don’t actually have any imformation in them, they’re basically picture books. And I am only allowed to go through about 6 pages a month with them. So I sometimes have to make up new ways to insert vocabulary words into their brains. Enter the thingy:
I don’t really know what these things are called but I figured it would at least get the kids recognizing the spelling of English numbers and foods (their current unit). To get an idea lets give it a whirl. Pick a number. 4? Okay. 1-2-3-4
Now pick a food. Pear? Okay P-E-A-R.
Now pick another food. Strawberries?
Okay and the survey says:
Yeah it all kinda falls apart with the last bit but the kids were enthralled, and treated it like a game they got points on so they would all pick the same food so they could all get “yummy”. I had the class twice today and for the second one they all got to make their own thingies, mainly so they would stop badgering me to play it with them. The director saw me doing this with one of her little walkbys and I have no idea if she approved or not, but compared to the other teachers that just let the kids color half the time I think I can justify the exercise.
• Sometimes even my best class has a bad day. My Galileo class, the kindergarten class full of all the smart nice kids was very somber when I entered the room. No one was playing around they all just had their heads hung and one girl was crying while the rest looked pretty close. Sometimes little arguments happen when teachers aren’t in the room but it is usually forgotten about a minute into class, not this time. It took me a little while to figure out what had happened, they are only 5 and 6 year olds so it almost became a weird combination of a cop drama and esl as I tried to write on the board (in bullet form of course) what they were explaining to me. It took just about everyone in the class contiributing some English to set out the story so I could understand it. Basically the three girls were drawing on the board during playtime with some dryerase markers some teacher had left there. Now at the end of playtime one of the boys erased the board and they all got really mad at him. I tried to talk to the boy and find out why he did it, which I could have already guessed. He always goes nuts when I let him erase the board when I’m done and he always puts away all the toys and books at the end of class. He was really just trying to be a good student, he told me that he just wanted to help ‘clean up’, and that he liked the pictures the girls drew. I tried to explain to the class that Edward was just trying to be good and he didn’t want to make anyone sad. This seemed to mollify the rest of the class but then Edward broke down into horrible sobs. Everyone then gathered around him and patted him and apologized and brought tissues until he had at least fifteen of them. He calmed down after a minute or two, but I gave him (and everyone else) some stickers (which I rarely ever ever do with that particular class- since they are never happy unless everyone gets stickers and I’ve had to ration them for the troubled classes) and a double dose of peach scented hand sanitizer just to make sure everyone was happy. And also because they are one of the classes that makes me really like my job sometimes and it was just my little way of thanking them for being such a good group. If all my classes were like them I would be in heaven here. And when you consider that Ken’s students are roundhouse kicking eachother and getting in bloody fistfights altercations like this really are but in perspective.
• In my last class of the day they were graduated off of their Pop-Up textbooks and onto a storybook. I only mention the name of the textbooks we use for elementary schools b/c it only occurred to me to today that “Pop-up” sounds a little like “Baapo” (the Korean word for silly-head or fool) and I finally understood why kids liked repeating the title when I said it. I was told the students would be on this textbook for one month, I’m not sure if they just mean until the end of this month (the January break time) because the book is very short. I see this class three times a week and in a month that would mean that we could only cover less than half a page of this book each time if we paced it properly. As it was we finished a quarter of it (including all associated activities in their books) in one class, and this was with me trying to hold them back. One of the students who has never cared about anything in class was so thrilled to be reading it she got almost angry when I told her we couldn’t do it all in one day. So I had the kids all read for all the different characters, and to basically eat up time but also to give them some proper practice on how to say things I drama coached them through it. If the little girl said ‘I’m so hungry mom!” I told the kid reading it to be almost in tears when saying it. Then for the other kid to be super angry. It took them a little while to get out of the robotic recitals they were used to but once they did they loved it. They cast me in one of the parts and my performance had them laughing so hard one of them fell out of their chairs. It was nice to see such a usually unmotivated class having fun with English class. I’m starting to learn how to toe the line of being entertaining to them. Go too far and they will lose respect for you and call you Baapo, but a little once in a while goes a long way.
Well that’s enough blogging for one day, hopefully Ken and I will have some weekend adventures to relate soon.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
An overpriced meal
Work was average and brief today. One of my youngest students is becoming very comfortable with nakedness. Ah well that’s a story for another day.
After work I went to go meet up with Ken and check out one of the spas near his area. While I was waiting for him outside his building my school called me. The assistant director was telling me that the director wants to start a new program where Nick and I call our students once every two weeks for a quick 3 minute call to check up and make sure that they are up to speed on the lessons. And in return I would be paid 1,000 won per call. Now I saw a few flaws in this right away. First off there is only a handful of students that I teach that have the English proficiency to benefit from such a call, the rest of them would all just talk to me in Korean, and the ones that would understand the call really don’t need the extra help. I’ve heard of this type of thing going on with other teachers and its all just to give more perceived value to the parents, it also just sounded like a headache. There’s no way a ‘3 minute call’ only lasts three minutes. When you take into account scheduling, getting a hold of the kid and the odd parent that will want to talk to me while I’m on the line I’d figure that 5 minutes per call would be a safe estimate.
I told her that it didn’t sound that appealing. She sounded surprised and asked why. I told her that 1,000 won really didn’t seem like much. Keep in mind that 1,000 won is only about a dollar. She said that was a very good amount for only three minutes on the phone . I explained that being on my cell phone cost me 500 won a minute, to which she replied I could use the phones at the school after my shift- totally missing the hint that the call we were having right then was costing me more than it was worth. Also half my kids wouldn’t even be home at 6 oclock, and there was no way I was calling my kindergarten kids (the futility of it boggles me). So theres really no way it could amount to more than 20-30 dollars a month for an extra 1 (ideal) to 5 (more likely) or more hours a month. She was still pushing it, so I did what I always do with her when she asks me to do something I don’t want to : write it down so I could take a look at it later. She said that Mrs. Kim needed an answer right away. ‘Ok, then no I don’t think so,’ I replied. She was surprised saying that Nick had already agreed. I told her that I was just too busy and didn’t want any more hours at work, but I thanked her very much for the opportunity.
Ken had caught the last part of the exchange and when I filled him in he was amused. Thinking back now I hope that Nick still gets to do it if he wants, I’d hate to have cost him a chance he wanted. Heck I hope they let him call my students too. But if it wasn’t for me Nick and I would both be working an extra three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I think he’ll trust me on this one. I do like the fact that I am getting some good practice in business confrontations. I used to be such a people pleaser.
So Ken and I headed to Haeundae to check out some spas. The last one we went to was great, but it was a little out of the way for us so I thought we’d check out his area (mine doesn’t have many). The one we ended up at wasn’t bad, but not really anything special. It was almost empty (I figured weekdays would be better) so we did have the run of it. It had a hot tub, a cold tub, a more hot tub, three saunas and various rest areas. We kept going from hot to cold for a while to get the blood flowing. Ken has started working out again so we were both nursing sore muscles going into it. There was also a small room called an ‘Oxygen Room’ that had a floor covered with smooth pebbles and slightly different airflow. I was hoping it would have been a high oxygen room, but neither of us got a buzz from it. Overall the spa was relaxing, but I can’t see us going back. It just wasn’t anything special compared to the other one. We’ll likely check out a few more in Ken’s area over time though (there are a lot of them).
Afterwards we went to grab something to eat. I wasn’t really planning on eating out after all the lackluster experiences we had of late so I had eaten a little before heading out, but was still starving after the spa. I had forgotten my meals today so while I was at school I had subsisted off of beef jerky (always be prepared) instead of my usual 2 huge mealshakes (its not fair to call what I make in a blender a protein drink) so I was just underfed for the day. This time we decided to just cut the crap and go to one of the western restaurants in his area, even though we had been burned by pizza hut I figured I couldn’t go wrong with a steak. Well I did.
I got a Texas rib eye steak at Bennigans, which cost about $30. Everything on the menu was a little pricey so I figured I was best to pay a few extra bucks for something decent (although it was still one of the cheapest steaks they had). It was a decent size, although they seemed to take my medium-rare order as a half and half request. The side dishes were pitiful, and the steak was slathered in sauce. It also came with some orange marmalade that I couldn’t figure out. Ken also ordered us some beers, which I was on the fence about but wasn’t going to object to. Luckily for my waistline they at least tasted like mostly water.
So you could say that I wasn’t entirely happy with my meal, but at least it was filling. I couldn’t say the same for the fajita that Ken ordered. I had heard that there is only one place in Busan to get good Mexican food, and I realized quickly why Bennigans was not that place. I won’t even try to steal his thunder, I’m sure he will be more detailed in his blog.
So the meal was overpriced and not very good, which was what I was kinda fearing from going in but there was part of me that was hoping that against odds I would find a reasonably priced place to get hearty western fare from time to time.
C’est la vie. I think I’m just going to have to start packing lunches wherever I go and hope I don’t get sick of chicken breasts, mealshakes(the name will catch on) and tuna. Otherwise I’m just going to get poor, fat, skinny or some undgodly combination of the three.
Oh and heres a pic of me posing outside some random restaurant in Busan where the food is like a free aquariam view until you eat it.
After work I went to go meet up with Ken and check out one of the spas near his area. While I was waiting for him outside his building my school called me. The assistant director was telling me that the director wants to start a new program where Nick and I call our students once every two weeks for a quick 3 minute call to check up and make sure that they are up to speed on the lessons. And in return I would be paid 1,000 won per call. Now I saw a few flaws in this right away. First off there is only a handful of students that I teach that have the English proficiency to benefit from such a call, the rest of them would all just talk to me in Korean, and the ones that would understand the call really don’t need the extra help. I’ve heard of this type of thing going on with other teachers and its all just to give more perceived value to the parents, it also just sounded like a headache. There’s no way a ‘3 minute call’ only lasts three minutes. When you take into account scheduling, getting a hold of the kid and the odd parent that will want to talk to me while I’m on the line I’d figure that 5 minutes per call would be a safe estimate.
I told her that it didn’t sound that appealing. She sounded surprised and asked why. I told her that 1,000 won really didn’t seem like much. Keep in mind that 1,000 won is only about a dollar. She said that was a very good amount for only three minutes on the phone . I explained that being on my cell phone cost me 500 won a minute, to which she replied I could use the phones at the school after my shift- totally missing the hint that the call we were having right then was costing me more than it was worth. Also half my kids wouldn’t even be home at 6 oclock, and there was no way I was calling my kindergarten kids (the futility of it boggles me). So theres really no way it could amount to more than 20-30 dollars a month for an extra 1 (ideal) to 5 (more likely) or more hours a month. She was still pushing it, so I did what I always do with her when she asks me to do something I don’t want to : write it down so I could take a look at it later. She said that Mrs. Kim needed an answer right away. ‘Ok, then no I don’t think so,’ I replied. She was surprised saying that Nick had already agreed. I told her that I was just too busy and didn’t want any more hours at work, but I thanked her very much for the opportunity.
Ken had caught the last part of the exchange and when I filled him in he was amused. Thinking back now I hope that Nick still gets to do it if he wants, I’d hate to have cost him a chance he wanted. Heck I hope they let him call my students too. But if it wasn’t for me Nick and I would both be working an extra three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I think he’ll trust me on this one. I do like the fact that I am getting some good practice in business confrontations. I used to be such a people pleaser.
So Ken and I headed to Haeundae to check out some spas. The last one we went to was great, but it was a little out of the way for us so I thought we’d check out his area (mine doesn’t have many). The one we ended up at wasn’t bad, but not really anything special. It was almost empty (I figured weekdays would be better) so we did have the run of it. It had a hot tub, a cold tub, a more hot tub, three saunas and various rest areas. We kept going from hot to cold for a while to get the blood flowing. Ken has started working out again so we were both nursing sore muscles going into it. There was also a small room called an ‘Oxygen Room’ that had a floor covered with smooth pebbles and slightly different airflow. I was hoping it would have been a high oxygen room, but neither of us got a buzz from it. Overall the spa was relaxing, but I can’t see us going back. It just wasn’t anything special compared to the other one. We’ll likely check out a few more in Ken’s area over time though (there are a lot of them).
Afterwards we went to grab something to eat. I wasn’t really planning on eating out after all the lackluster experiences we had of late so I had eaten a little before heading out, but was still starving after the spa. I had forgotten my meals today so while I was at school I had subsisted off of beef jerky (always be prepared) instead of my usual 2 huge mealshakes (its not fair to call what I make in a blender a protein drink) so I was just underfed for the day. This time we decided to just cut the crap and go to one of the western restaurants in his area, even though we had been burned by pizza hut I figured I couldn’t go wrong with a steak. Well I did.
I got a Texas rib eye steak at Bennigans, which cost about $30. Everything on the menu was a little pricey so I figured I was best to pay a few extra bucks for something decent (although it was still one of the cheapest steaks they had). It was a decent size, although they seemed to take my medium-rare order as a half and half request. The side dishes were pitiful, and the steak was slathered in sauce. It also came with some orange marmalade that I couldn’t figure out. Ken also ordered us some beers, which I was on the fence about but wasn’t going to object to. Luckily for my waistline they at least tasted like mostly water.
So you could say that I wasn’t entirely happy with my meal, but at least it was filling. I couldn’t say the same for the fajita that Ken ordered. I had heard that there is only one place in Busan to get good Mexican food, and I realized quickly why Bennigans was not that place. I won’t even try to steal his thunder, I’m sure he will be more detailed in his blog.
So the meal was overpriced and not very good, which was what I was kinda fearing from going in but there was part of me that was hoping that against odds I would find a reasonably priced place to get hearty western fare from time to time.
C’est la vie. I think I’m just going to have to start packing lunches wherever I go and hope I don’t get sick of chicken breasts, mealshakes(the name will catch on) and tuna. Otherwise I’m just going to get poor, fat, skinny or some undgodly combination of the three.
Oh and heres a pic of me posing outside some random restaurant in Busan where the food is like a free aquariam view until you eat it.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
In praise of napping
Tuesday is my easiest day of the week during the January vacation period. When you take out breaks I only work for four hours this day. I have and hour and a half lunch and get off at three. Its very nice and I wish it would last more than one more week. Ah well I'll enjoy it while I can. I didn't even have a workout scheduled today so I came home and did something I used to do a lot but haven't done in a while; took a good long nap.
Now in my former job as a trainer where 4 hour work days were the norm I used to ensure my eight hours of sleep with some good midday naps Now lately I've been a little shy of the eight hours and I was feeling it. For any of you that don't sleep for eight hours a night because you're too busy, try it for a month. You are so much more productive. the problem with a good nap though is that sometimes you wake up feeling refreshed and able and sometimes you wake up feeling refreshed and sluggish. today was a sluggish one. I've heard it all has to do with your REM cycle and not napping more than 4o minutes or longer than 2.5 hours. I clocked in at about 2 so I've been a little drowsy since then. I also still have a bunch of stuff to do so this blog will be a brief one. Hold back your tears.
My sticker supply is running dangerously low. There is only one class that I still need to use stickers as a reinforcement tool to keep them in line, but I have to make sure I have a good variety for them. Its the little guys; Edison. They're not a bad group of kids but there is just too many of them and they are restless. Now there are only nine of them, ranging from 3-4 years old, so I give mad props to any teachers that can handle more. I took the kindergarten job because I liked the hours, I knew from the get go that it would be tough. The benefit to these little kids is that they haven't really met that many people in their life and you become like a superhero to them. Anyway I picked up some stickers at the dollar store here but they are kinda crap. I have enough to hold out until I can find more at a real store (or steal from Ken). I'd hate to have to resort to proper teaching methods to keep them in line for the same reason Batman hates to resort to flying, because he can't.
Now in my former job as a trainer where 4 hour work days were the norm I used to ensure my eight hours of sleep with some good midday naps Now lately I've been a little shy of the eight hours and I was feeling it. For any of you that don't sleep for eight hours a night because you're too busy, try it for a month. You are so much more productive. the problem with a good nap though is that sometimes you wake up feeling refreshed and able and sometimes you wake up feeling refreshed and sluggish. today was a sluggish one. I've heard it all has to do with your REM cycle and not napping more than 4o minutes or longer than 2.5 hours. I clocked in at about 2 so I've been a little drowsy since then. I also still have a bunch of stuff to do so this blog will be a brief one. Hold back your tears.
My sticker supply is running dangerously low. There is only one class that I still need to use stickers as a reinforcement tool to keep them in line, but I have to make sure I have a good variety for them. Its the little guys; Edison. They're not a bad group of kids but there is just too many of them and they are restless. Now there are only nine of them, ranging from 3-4 years old, so I give mad props to any teachers that can handle more. I took the kindergarten job because I liked the hours, I knew from the get go that it would be tough. The benefit to these little kids is that they haven't really met that many people in their life and you become like a superhero to them. Anyway I picked up some stickers at the dollar store here but they are kinda crap. I have enough to hold out until I can find more at a real store (or steal from Ken). I'd hate to have to resort to proper teaching methods to keep them in line for the same reason Batman hates to resort to flying, because he can't.
Monday, January 15, 2007
A good day
Well with Ken's complaint on my last post I think I should mention that if you're ever just jonsin' for a blog update you can click on the link to the left for my Myspace blog, where I do my non-korea related thoughts. I usually update each one every other day, taking the sabbath off. But be warned whereas this blog is PG, the other one is distinctly PG13.
Today was another day where I came off smelling like roses despite being full of shit. Well that isn't the best description of the day actually but that sentence just flowed so well I couldn't resist. First off since all my clothes were either dirty or hopelessly wrinkled (no dryers and me being too stupid to use fabric softener makes a puzzle that requires 2o minutes with an iron to fix) so I ended up wearing dress pants with a collared shirt and a sweater vest to cover up the fact that the shirt was wrinkled. Did I look still pretty biz-cas-fri? Yep. Was it still better than they're used to any foreign teacher dressing? heck yeah.
Now this dress was helpful since this turned out to be one of the days that the director was hovering around all day. It also happened to be the day that Nick had to call in sick with food poisoning , on a day when one of the Korean teachers was on vacation. The director mentioned them both to me and commended me for always showing up. Yeah damn Nick for getting food poisoning, what a bastard he was (not like the honor-system health code here could have had much to do with that). And Julie? Taking time off for her honeymoon? What. A. Bitch.
This was also the day I figured out a new game for my kids that went over really well. There's these vocabulary flashcards I'm suppose to use- I have to stretch the same 8 words for one month. So I decided to just improvise a bit with my one kindergarten class and set up a mock store where they could buy the food items on the flashcards with play money I doled out. I just figured that learning how to navigate buying things in a store might be more useful to them than asking them for the 5oth time how to plant a seed. Well they did great with it, granted there are only a few phrases to know but they tackled it with more enthusiasm than I've seen in them before. I do think that more roleplaying exercises would benefit these kids as it takes the pressure of school off them (they have way too much) and as a theatre grad i could really help them with their motivation and characterization:
ME: Okay Valentine, you're buying the yogurt but I want you to use some sense memory and think about your dead grandma when she tells you they don't have any.
VALENTINE: Moo Laa? [huh?]
Anyway this is the first roleplaying exercise I've managed to pull off successfully. Very successfully in fact. I had that class twice today and the second class they begged me to play again. I upped the vocabulary they needed to use and just corrected their syntax when needed. I even let some of the kids run the shop and got to mostly sit back and watch. And the director got to see a very engaged class doing a complicated exercise she couldn't figure out. But the kids were happy and speaking english so she was fine with it.
The other few classes she peeked in on were all pretty well behaved, I think I'm just getting a feel for what approaches work with which classes. Which will serve me for two more weeks until the new semester starts and the classes all change (hope I don't lose my favourites).
On my way to my last class bogged down with important looking books she told me that she was 'happy that you always working hard.' Its tough to believe she runs an english school sometimes. Truth be told the important looking books were the 'teachers books' that no one else uses that lay out the daily lesson plan for you, and I am putting as little effort into my job as possible. I will never be a kindergarten teacher, but I am proving myself not incompetent at my work and apparently that is enough for praise around here. there must be some horrible teachers in this country. And this is not me fishing for compliments or downplaying my natural abilities, I'm seriously not suited to this job long term- but its nice to know there can be good days now and then
Today was another day where I came off smelling like roses despite being full of shit. Well that isn't the best description of the day actually but that sentence just flowed so well I couldn't resist. First off since all my clothes were either dirty or hopelessly wrinkled (no dryers and me being too stupid to use fabric softener makes a puzzle that requires 2o minutes with an iron to fix) so I ended up wearing dress pants with a collared shirt and a sweater vest to cover up the fact that the shirt was wrinkled. Did I look still pretty biz-cas-fri? Yep. Was it still better than they're used to any foreign teacher dressing? heck yeah.
Now this dress was helpful since this turned out to be one of the days that the director was hovering around all day. It also happened to be the day that Nick had to call in sick with food poisoning , on a day when one of the Korean teachers was on vacation. The director mentioned them both to me and commended me for always showing up. Yeah damn Nick for getting food poisoning, what a bastard he was (not like the honor-system health code here could have had much to do with that). And Julie? Taking time off for her honeymoon? What. A. Bitch.This was also the day I figured out a new game for my kids that went over really well. There's these vocabulary flashcards I'm suppose to use- I have to stretch the same 8 words for one month. So I decided to just improvise a bit with my one kindergarten class and set up a mock store where they could buy the food items on the flashcards with play money I doled out. I just figured that learning how to navigate buying things in a store might be more useful to them than asking them for the 5oth time how to plant a seed. Well they did great with it, granted there are only a few phrases to know but they tackled it with more enthusiasm than I've seen in them before. I do think that more roleplaying exercises would benefit these kids as it takes the pressure of school off them (they have way too much) and as a theatre grad i could really help them with their motivation and characterization:
ME: Okay Valentine, you're buying the yogurt but I want you to use some sense memory and think about your dead grandma when she tells you they don't have any.
VALENTINE: Moo Laa? [huh?]
Anyway this is the first roleplaying exercise I've managed to pull off successfully. Very successfully in fact. I had that class twice today and the second class they begged me to play again. I upped the vocabulary they needed to use and just corrected their syntax when needed. I even let some of the kids run the shop and got to mostly sit back and watch. And the director got to see a very engaged class doing a complicated exercise she couldn't figure out. But the kids were happy and speaking english so she was fine with it.
The other few classes she peeked in on were all pretty well behaved, I think I'm just getting a feel for what approaches work with which classes. Which will serve me for two more weeks until the new semester starts and the classes all change (hope I don't lose my favourites).
On my way to my last class bogged down with important looking books she told me that she was 'happy that you always working hard.' Its tough to believe she runs an english school sometimes. Truth be told the important looking books were the 'teachers books' that no one else uses that lay out the daily lesson plan for you, and I am putting as little effort into my job as possible. I will never be a kindergarten teacher, but I am proving myself not incompetent at my work and apparently that is enough for praise around here. there must be some horrible teachers in this country. And this is not me fishing for compliments or downplaying my natural abilities, I'm seriously not suited to this job long term- but its nice to know there can be good days now and then
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Just another night (PICS)
Korea can be weird sometimes. 
Today Ken and I met up and headed into Seomyeon, the downtown core of Busan. Imagine Las Vegas without all the gambling. Now get back on track and think about Seomyeon. We didn't really have a plan when going here, which is pretty much par for us. I wanted to hit a bookstore to pick up a dictionary as I've been meaning to get one for ages here and have been getting by with the small one in the back of my phrase book. There is a pretty good book store in the area with a small foreigner section, which coincidentally had a few books by Dale Carnegie there which was a coincidence since Ken and I had been talking about his books on the subway ride up. Its those kind of trippy things that make you wonder if you’re on ‘The Truman Show’ sometime. I also took a look at the Korean learning books there but couldn’t make up my mind, none of them looked all that much better than the free stuff online. Nick has started taking Korean lessons and I’m on the fence about whether or not to join him. I’ve been making progress but I’m also a quarter done my stay here and will probably not be that proficient by the time I leave at this rate. I think I may just have to decide if that’s a big deal to me or not.
Anyway after the bookstore we embarked on another epic quest for food. During which Ken got sidetracked by one of the giant soju bottles that roams the street. He made such good friend with this large plushy denizen that we were invited to play a game that was basically a cross between wheel of fortune, darts, and alcoholism. Ken won a ball point pen. I won a mini bottle of soju. I felt bad for Ken and let him keep the bottle. He was happy then.
We passed by the typical pork grill houses and fried chicken places, a few sushi places and a bunch of soup places. But everything had the meal focus being fatty meat or empty carbs. And after Ken’s food poisoning earlier this month we weren’t going near the street vendors. So we ended up in a pizza hut. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t after all. Well honestly the thin crust pizza we got there was less detrimental to us than the alternatives and at least we knew we would enjoy it. I will have to start just carrying around food with me though, as I am really starting to realize that 90% of the options out here just don’t jive with the way I want to eat.
Then we decided to find a place to grab a drink, Ken asked a kindly pig for directions, incurring only the jealousy of Minnie Mouse. We ended up at a western bar. Now this is usually just a term for a place foreigners hang out, but it turned out this was an actual wild west themed bar, complete with some tables made up to look like covered wagons. So we shared a few pints, and for a little while it was just like being back at home. Sitting over beers we both adamantly claim we hardly ever drink complaining about stuff we insist that we would never complain about.
It just kind of reinforced in us that this experience is whatever we make of it, and so far I think we’re both doing alright. Or at least Ken was until this cowboy decided to hold him for ransom. Maybe one day I’ll be able to pony up the release money.
We had ran into another foreigner at the bookstore, a nice guy from Georgia named Michael that reinforced that i was not doing the typical ESL teacher experience. He had traveled the country a bit more but admitted to just drinking most of the time with other westerners. And although that is what I've been doing with Ken lately I do realize that how I spend my time on average is way different than most other ESL teachers here. And even with Ken and I having a few drinks you have to keep in mind that we always finish up by 11pm so we can get home before the subway closes. Maybe we're just getting a little older but I'd rather get in early, sleep well and enjoy some sunshine hours than stay out till 5am (when the bars close) and spend all Sunday with a hangover. And the only reason I can of course know that for a fact is the number of times I've done that exact thing in my past. I'm not claiming that fear of the unknown isn't hampering my activities somewhat, but a lot of it is just not wanting to waste my time either. Anyway as usual; me tired go sleep now.
I hate Birthday cake
If I go back in a time machine and tell an eight year old version of myself that I now hate birthday cake it will lead to all sorts of disbelief and strife. One more reason not to build a time machine. But in any case birthday cakes turn children into monsters.
Today we had a 'birthday party' for the kindergarten kids at school. They basically just take all the kids that have birthdays in a given season and celebrate them all at once. Coming in on a Friday with less than adequate sleep it sounded like a great idea at first. Basically one of my classes would be me just watching a mass of kids eat cake and chips. But I remember I had been warned about these days by Matt, one of the former teachers at my school. No birthdays don't turn these kids into greedy little monsters, and there genuinely isn't jealously for the kids getting all the presents. The problem involves a lot of cake and something called blood sugar, and an ever more scientific term called bouncing off the f*in walls. My second period of the day I had to try to teach a class of hyped up 3-4 year olds English. Well if repetition is a good method I'm sure the phrases 'please be quiet', ' sit down' , 'I swear to god i will kill you in cold blood' and 'the big,big pig' are all firmly ingrained in their vocabulary now. Only one of those was part of the lesson but I did say all of those more than once today. They only understood the first two in any case, and would do it for about a second then forget and start doing backflips off the table again.
I'll admit it was my own lack of sleep that compounded my frustration but the rest of the day was just a little sour. No other classes were really bad, but none were especially good either. Found it funny and creepy that following the lesson plan I caught myself asking a nine year old about three times in a row :"What are you wearing Michelle?" felt a little dirty after that.
It didn't help that the lunch served today was basically two tiny pieces of kimchee a bowl of gravy and a bowl of rice. It was kind of like being at Legoland, where you know there must be something cool you're supposed combine those pieces to make, but in the end you end up with a brick. So I just ditched my bowl now full of gravy and rice and looking like a bad bowel movement. I broke into the emergency rations in my backpack of beef jerky and fruit. The apple tasted a little weird as it appeared to have creatine all over it. I keep my bag clean but figured I probably spilled a little bit somewhere along the way. Seemed odd but no big deal. turns out it was a ruptured pack of silica gel from the beef jerky package that had gotten all over it. You know those little packets you find in clothes and pills and nuts that clearly say 'DO NOT EAT', well fyi they are very salty.
After work Ken and I went out for dinner and searched for a long while to try to find something that wasn't fatty bacon or rice. We finally set upon a grillhouse that served beef, in what turned out to be very thin and fatty slices. It was also more expensive than I'm used to here, probably about the same as a decent dinner with several drinks would run back home but still surprising. I am fairly useless when it comes to restaurants here, I can't figure out the words on the menu and I never know any good places. Until Ken got here I never really bothered with them much. I think I'm going to just start inviting him over for dinner instead. I'm no great cook but at least there's some meat on my dishes.
Anyway I'm tired, I pushed through my first crash six hours ago and its time to pay the piper.
But I will relate at least one good note to end off on. I've stocked up on hand sanitizer after my last bout with sickness (doesn't lower immune system like antibacterial soap) and have gotten my kindergartners hooked on the stuff. I think they just like the tactile sense of rubbing their hands together, and they seem to get equal but different enjoyment out of the alcohol scented and peach scented versions I have. But after seeing the way they wash their hands (running water in the vicinity but not always touching their hands) i thought it best to protect myself. Its just little nice that i might be nipping some of my potential viruses in the bud. Plus they see it as a reward and it kills two minutes of classtime.
Today we had a 'birthday party' for the kindergarten kids at school. They basically just take all the kids that have birthdays in a given season and celebrate them all at once. Coming in on a Friday with less than adequate sleep it sounded like a great idea at first. Basically one of my classes would be me just watching a mass of kids eat cake and chips. But I remember I had been warned about these days by Matt, one of the former teachers at my school. No birthdays don't turn these kids into greedy little monsters, and there genuinely isn't jealously for the kids getting all the presents. The problem involves a lot of cake and something called blood sugar, and an ever more scientific term called bouncing off the f*in walls. My second period of the day I had to try to teach a class of hyped up 3-4 year olds English. Well if repetition is a good method I'm sure the phrases 'please be quiet', ' sit down' , 'I swear to god i will kill you in cold blood' and 'the big,big pig' are all firmly ingrained in their vocabulary now. Only one of those was part of the lesson but I did say all of those more than once today. They only understood the first two in any case, and would do it for about a second then forget and start doing backflips off the table again.
I'll admit it was my own lack of sleep that compounded my frustration but the rest of the day was just a little sour. No other classes were really bad, but none were especially good either. Found it funny and creepy that following the lesson plan I caught myself asking a nine year old about three times in a row :"What are you wearing Michelle?" felt a little dirty after that.
It didn't help that the lunch served today was basically two tiny pieces of kimchee a bowl of gravy and a bowl of rice. It was kind of like being at Legoland, where you know there must be something cool you're supposed combine those pieces to make, but in the end you end up with a brick. So I just ditched my bowl now full of gravy and rice and looking like a bad bowel movement. I broke into the emergency rations in my backpack of beef jerky and fruit. The apple tasted a little weird as it appeared to have creatine all over it. I keep my bag clean but figured I probably spilled a little bit somewhere along the way. Seemed odd but no big deal. turns out it was a ruptured pack of silica gel from the beef jerky package that had gotten all over it. You know those little packets you find in clothes and pills and nuts that clearly say 'DO NOT EAT', well fyi they are very salty.
After work Ken and I went out for dinner and searched for a long while to try to find something that wasn't fatty bacon or rice. We finally set upon a grillhouse that served beef, in what turned out to be very thin and fatty slices. It was also more expensive than I'm used to here, probably about the same as a decent dinner with several drinks would run back home but still surprising. I am fairly useless when it comes to restaurants here, I can't figure out the words on the menu and I never know any good places. Until Ken got here I never really bothered with them much. I think I'm going to just start inviting him over for dinner instead. I'm no great cook but at least there's some meat on my dishes.
Anyway I'm tired, I pushed through my first crash six hours ago and its time to pay the piper.
But I will relate at least one good note to end off on. I've stocked up on hand sanitizer after my last bout with sickness (doesn't lower immune system like antibacterial soap) and have gotten my kindergartners hooked on the stuff. I think they just like the tactile sense of rubbing their hands together, and they seem to get equal but different enjoyment out of the alcohol scented and peach scented versions I have. But after seeing the way they wash their hands (running water in the vicinity but not always touching their hands) i thought it best to protect myself. Its just little nice that i might be nipping some of my potential viruses in the bud. Plus they see it as a reward and it kills two minutes of classtime.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Korean Teeth
Korean Children have really bad teeth. I can't really understand it. I mean I know why they have bad teeth, they have more sugar in their diets than a hummingbird. I think it would take a concentrated effort to get more sugar into their systems. Maybe if they put coca-cola in their humidifiers and breathed it in all day they could get a little more in.
Before you decry me as a hypocrite keep in mind that I have long since reformed my candy-giving discipline system for my classes. As in I don’t do it anymore, now their prize is notapunch. I can't tell you what that is, but I'm glad to show you what it isn't. Now to be fair I can't really compare to back home as I haven't spent much time around Canadian kids recently either, not because I'm afraid of being accused of being a pedophile - I just never get much out of the conversations. But at least back home people seem more aware of the cause and effect of high candy intake, fat and bad teeth. Here I have to listen to the director explaining that diabetes is on the rise because people eat too much meat (which may be a factor for all I know, but I bet the sugar has more to do with it). Maybe its just that the public water here isn't fluoridated. Or maybe it is , no one drinks it anyway so it really doesn't matter. The toothpaste isn't fluoridated either. I think there’s fluoride in the green tea, but that drink is falling out of popularity.
I bought some instant decaf coffee and some ginger tea the other day only to find that both of them are loaded with sugar. I specifically grabbed them so I would have something to drink when I was writing blogs that wouldn't keep me up. That only applies a little to the topic at hand but it pissed me off so I wanted to mention it.
In any case the reason it surprises me that kids have such bad teeth is that the adults don't really seem to. Usually crooked and stuff but not as bad as the kids. Now I don't know how aggressively the candy companies (liquid and otherwise) have been marketing here in the last 10 years or so but it's probably a lot. There are almost all the candy bars you know from home, and then some local flavors. The kids never seem to get any dental work done, almost all have visible plaque and tons of gaping cavities. Keep in mind that the kids I see are not poor kids, if anything the kids I teach at the elementary school (usually lower middle class) have better teeth and the best were the ones at the orphanage.
Well the catalyst fr this entry was one of my kids who was chewing some kind of gum and lost a metal crown. Or i guess it was a crown, what remained in her mouth was little more than a root and exposed central tissue. It was far from pretty, but at least it showed that there is some dental work that does go on here, and shoddy work at that. My original guess was that these parents figure that there’s no point in patching a few leaks when the boat is sinking so they don't bother with baby teeth. But then you get your adult front teeth at the age of 9 at the latest and there are kids older than that with cavities.
Anyway it may seem like a weird topic for a blog, but it really struck me as odd. I've always been paranoid about my teeth. I used to get those recurring dreams where my teeth would fall out and I know that psychologist say that’s a fear of maturing. For me it was just a real fear of losing all my gorram teeth. To think that a country like Korea where they are so wrapped up in plastic surgery, and dressing well and presenting a well polished exterior that they don't fix teeth in kids is odd. But then the parents could just be saving up for some huge reconstruction later in life. Although completely unexpected this is the type of cultural differences I am experiencing.
I'll post more developments on this story as time goes on, whether anyone wants to hear about it or not. Right now I think I'm going to go try to buy some real instant decaf.
Before you decry me as a hypocrite keep in mind that I have long since reformed my candy-giving discipline system for my classes. As in I don’t do it anymore, now their prize is notapunch. I can't tell you what that is, but I'm glad to show you what it isn't. Now to be fair I can't really compare to back home as I haven't spent much time around Canadian kids recently either, not because I'm afraid of being accused of being a pedophile - I just never get much out of the conversations. But at least back home people seem more aware of the cause and effect of high candy intake, fat and bad teeth. Here I have to listen to the director explaining that diabetes is on the rise because people eat too much meat (which may be a factor for all I know, but I bet the sugar has more to do with it). Maybe its just that the public water here isn't fluoridated. Or maybe it is , no one drinks it anyway so it really doesn't matter. The toothpaste isn't fluoridated either. I think there’s fluoride in the green tea, but that drink is falling out of popularity.
I bought some instant decaf coffee and some ginger tea the other day only to find that both of them are loaded with sugar. I specifically grabbed them so I would have something to drink when I was writing blogs that wouldn't keep me up. That only applies a little to the topic at hand but it pissed me off so I wanted to mention it.
In any case the reason it surprises me that kids have such bad teeth is that the adults don't really seem to. Usually crooked and stuff but not as bad as the kids. Now I don't know how aggressively the candy companies (liquid and otherwise) have been marketing here in the last 10 years or so but it's probably a lot. There are almost all the candy bars you know from home, and then some local flavors. The kids never seem to get any dental work done, almost all have visible plaque and tons of gaping cavities. Keep in mind that the kids I see are not poor kids, if anything the kids I teach at the elementary school (usually lower middle class) have better teeth and the best were the ones at the orphanage.
Well the catalyst fr this entry was one of my kids who was chewing some kind of gum and lost a metal crown. Or i guess it was a crown, what remained in her mouth was little more than a root and exposed central tissue. It was far from pretty, but at least it showed that there is some dental work that does go on here, and shoddy work at that. My original guess was that these parents figure that there’s no point in patching a few leaks when the boat is sinking so they don't bother with baby teeth. But then you get your adult front teeth at the age of 9 at the latest and there are kids older than that with cavities.
Anyway it may seem like a weird topic for a blog, but it really struck me as odd. I've always been paranoid about my teeth. I used to get those recurring dreams where my teeth would fall out and I know that psychologist say that’s a fear of maturing. For me it was just a real fear of losing all my gorram teeth. To think that a country like Korea where they are so wrapped up in plastic surgery, and dressing well and presenting a well polished exterior that they don't fix teeth in kids is odd. But then the parents could just be saving up for some huge reconstruction later in life. Although completely unexpected this is the type of cultural differences I am experiencing.
I'll post more developments on this story as time goes on, whether anyone wants to hear about it or not. Right now I think I'm going to go try to buy some real instant decaf.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Mostly Painless
Well I got my voice back enough to teach today, which was almost a shame. It would have been bad for me to use one of my (only three) sickdays for the year- but then again if I am going to be sick legitimately laryngitis is a great one to be out with. Usually when I take a sick day I’m just too darn sick to enjoy it.
Work was painless today, there is no extraordinary sense of accomplishement I get from there but it does not stress me out anymore either. Now obviously everyday and in every way I’m getting better and better, but the kids just aren’t keeping up. This isn’t some lame attempt at compliment fishing- trust me if you saw the way this place was run you’d have to agree. The textbook lessons could eventually teach them English, but on a long enough time frame so could re-runs of Friends.
But I must reinforce that I am not complaining, I would be if I wanted to make this job into a career- then the futility of it all would lead me to some dark inner turmoil. The kind that is manifested by bleak rhyming poetry. But as someone who has gotten far too invested in a lot of the jobs I’ve had in the past this is quite liberating. I do my work and leave, knowing that it is the time outside of the school that is my most productive. I have been very productive and proactive on a lot of little projects in my free time that I have long been putting off. Heck you gotta wonder how I manage to update both my blogs on a regular basis and still get anything else in life done. Too much caffeine and too little sleep is the short answer.
The only real thing that happened today of any real note was when the director popped in on one of my classes, well part of her, she literally sticks her head in the door and looks around for a second before yelling at the students. I think she was a little disappointed because when she stuck her head in one of my kindergarten classes earlier that day she didn’t see anyone misbehaving. This isn’t due to me, that class were angels when I got ‘em. So this time around she yelled at the students a bit (these ones were actually not acting up too much at all) and then watched me write some questions on the board. She then asked that I not write my “y”s from bottom to top, but top to bottom. She thought it might confuse the children as that was not the proper way. Now I hold my pencil funny and I write all my ‘o’s counterclockwise and all my letters from bottom to top and all of it sloppier than a pig covered in maple syrup. I had someone tell me once that was an indication that I was actually left handed or ambidextrous. Its my personal conclusion (and that of anyone familiar with my penmanship) that I am just equally useless with both hands when it comes to good handwriting. In any case my director is really not good at picking her battles, as I just mumbled something back about me being ambidextrous and unwilling to change. It had the intended effect of not imparting any comprehension on her sub-par English skills. I really don’t know what more she expected from me when I was ten minutes from being done for the day.
Anyway me tired go sleep now.
Work was painless today, there is no extraordinary sense of accomplishement I get from there but it does not stress me out anymore either. Now obviously everyday and in every way I’m getting better and better, but the kids just aren’t keeping up. This isn’t some lame attempt at compliment fishing- trust me if you saw the way this place was run you’d have to agree. The textbook lessons could eventually teach them English, but on a long enough time frame so could re-runs of Friends.
But I must reinforce that I am not complaining, I would be if I wanted to make this job into a career- then the futility of it all would lead me to some dark inner turmoil. The kind that is manifested by bleak rhyming poetry. But as someone who has gotten far too invested in a lot of the jobs I’ve had in the past this is quite liberating. I do my work and leave, knowing that it is the time outside of the school that is my most productive. I have been very productive and proactive on a lot of little projects in my free time that I have long been putting off. Heck you gotta wonder how I manage to update both my blogs on a regular basis and still get anything else in life done. Too much caffeine and too little sleep is the short answer.
The only real thing that happened today of any real note was when the director popped in on one of my classes, well part of her, she literally sticks her head in the door and looks around for a second before yelling at the students. I think she was a little disappointed because when she stuck her head in one of my kindergarten classes earlier that day she didn’t see anyone misbehaving. This isn’t due to me, that class were angels when I got ‘em. So this time around she yelled at the students a bit (these ones were actually not acting up too much at all) and then watched me write some questions on the board. She then asked that I not write my “y”s from bottom to top, but top to bottom. She thought it might confuse the children as that was not the proper way. Now I hold my pencil funny and I write all my ‘o’s counterclockwise and all my letters from bottom to top and all of it sloppier than a pig covered in maple syrup. I had someone tell me once that was an indication that I was actually left handed or ambidextrous. Its my personal conclusion (and that of anyone familiar with my penmanship) that I am just equally useless with both hands when it comes to good handwriting. In any case my director is really not good at picking her battles, as I just mumbled something back about me being ambidextrous and unwilling to change. It had the intended effect of not imparting any comprehension on her sub-par English skills. I really don’t know what more she expected from me when I was ten minutes from being done for the day.
Anyway me tired go sleep now.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Trade english for muscles!
Today at the gym I met the director of the fitness center, a nice guy around my age who is getting his masters in physiology from one of the local universities. I found it kind of funny that he already knew a little bit about me. He knew where I worked and what time I worked out and stuff like that, I guess being the only white person at my gym gives me a bit of notoriety. There might actually be another white person or two that goes there occasionally but none that I’ve ever seen. In any case he spoke a little English, not much but enough so that we could understand each other. He could even understand the feeble croaking that is passing for my voice today. He was very surprised to learn that we were both the same age, as he commented my beard made me look older. Maybe its time to shave.
In any case he is interested in learning more English and I mentioned that I would like to learn more Korean so he proposed that we could perhaps work out together and teach each other language. Either that or he was offering to personal train me in exchange for English lessons. Now the biggest roadblock is the time that he works, which means that I would have to come in the mornings and I’m not a big fan of morning workouts. Its proven that people with gimpy backs like mine should avoid certain exercises in the morning . Another thing would be the fact that I’ve already got a training plan laid out for the rest of my stay here and I’m not sure if he would be down with following it.
But the chance to do something a little different, learn more of the language, could be fun. In the end I explained that January was going to be a little busy for me but I’d be open to trying something out in February. I figure one or two early workouts a week wouldn’t kill me.
I was supposed to hang out with Ken today but my worsening larengytis made it obvious that staying in would be the better route. I’m interested to see how much of a voice I have left on Monday and thought it would be best not to load the dice by talking all day. I find that when I’m around people, especially friends, I find it really tough to shut up. I’m sure that has gone unnoticed by those around me up to this point so I thought it important to note that.
I bought some American money off Ken (he can’t exchange his funds without a passport) and think that I might try my first hand at investing by waiting until the US dollar rises before exchanging it myself. Then Ken helped me pick out a humidifier at Emart. It gets drier than Colbert here and I usually wake up hacking even when I’m not under the weather. By the amount that the store sold I can guess pretty much every home has one. So far it does seem to be helping with the air in my place although I can bet it will make my clothes dry a lot slower.
So I am just going to be hanging out at home today, and quite possibly tomorrow. Trying to rest up as much as possible. Now I’m not usually the master of excitement when it comes to how I spend my free time but I do get a little stir crazy when I’m confined indoors rather than choosing to be there.
In any case he is interested in learning more English and I mentioned that I would like to learn more Korean so he proposed that we could perhaps work out together and teach each other language. Either that or he was offering to personal train me in exchange for English lessons. Now the biggest roadblock is the time that he works, which means that I would have to come in the mornings and I’m not a big fan of morning workouts. Its proven that people with gimpy backs like mine should avoid certain exercises in the morning . Another thing would be the fact that I’ve already got a training plan laid out for the rest of my stay here and I’m not sure if he would be down with following it.
But the chance to do something a little different, learn more of the language, could be fun. In the end I explained that January was going to be a little busy for me but I’d be open to trying something out in February. I figure one or two early workouts a week wouldn’t kill me.
I was supposed to hang out with Ken today but my worsening larengytis made it obvious that staying in would be the better route. I’m interested to see how much of a voice I have left on Monday and thought it would be best not to load the dice by talking all day. I find that when I’m around people, especially friends, I find it really tough to shut up. I’m sure that has gone unnoticed by those around me up to this point so I thought it important to note that.
I bought some American money off Ken (he can’t exchange his funds without a passport) and think that I might try my first hand at investing by waiting until the US dollar rises before exchanging it myself. Then Ken helped me pick out a humidifier at Emart. It gets drier than Colbert here and I usually wake up hacking even when I’m not under the weather. By the amount that the store sold I can guess pretty much every home has one. So far it does seem to be helping with the air in my place although I can bet it will make my clothes dry a lot slower.
So I am just going to be hanging out at home today, and quite possibly tomorrow. Trying to rest up as much as possible. Now I’m not usually the master of excitement when it comes to how I spend my free time but I do get a little stir crazy when I’m confined indoors rather than choosing to be there.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
When all else fails (VIDEO)
How you do you teach an ESL class when you're losing your voice? Keep in mind the only reason you're on the payroll is your english accent. Sure theres a lot of time wasters, but there is a magic show I do when all else fails.
Well I'm going to pull back the curtian and reveal the showstopping act that keeps my kids entertained. It also convinces them that I have powers. Fantastical powers!
I'd love to reveal the secrets here, but I wouldn't want to get blacklisted. But feel free to comment on your theories. I'll give you a hint, it doesn't involve necromancy.
Well I'm going to pull back the curtian and reveal the showstopping act that keeps my kids entertained. It also convinces them that I have powers. Fantastical powers!
I'd love to reveal the secrets here, but I wouldn't want to get blacklisted. But feel free to comment on your theories. I'll give you a hint, it doesn't involve necromancy.
this short week feels long
“If you want to act like a child then go ahead!”
-Kevin Manley circa 2007, poorly admonishing a three year old.
Maybe it was the short lunch. I bartered mine away in exchange for getting out of work early, figuring I’d still have time to wolf down a packed meal. That didn’t happen. I had to settle for a handful of beef jerky and some fruit. -Kevin Manley circa 2007, poorly admonishing a three year old.
Maybe it was my sore throat, I think I’m coming down with a bit of laryngitis. My throat is hoarse but aside from that I feel fine. But that may have just been my vocal folds lying down in the face of futility.
Maybe its just that my kids still aren’t used to being back in school. That’s probably it. Truthfully most of my classes went remarkably well. One of my classes that is famous for being rowdy (ask anyone!) I managed to keep in line easily today. One of my classes was pretty much taken up by them each writing a sentence on the board about food. That was the class I ate my lunch in. They’re like zombies, once they get an idea in their head they go for it.
But in my last class of the day there were difficulties. This is my super young class, who has just been moved into one of the bigger classrooms because it is constantly growing. I think a combination of the new digs coupled with the vacation has rolled back some of their focus and dedication to the diligent study of English. Three year olds, when will they ever learn.
It was hot when I got into the class so I opened the window, which is childproofed for safety reasons. Instantly four of the students flocked to the window like they had magnets for eyeballs. Any stimuli usually has that effect but two of them wouldn’t sit down when asked. One of them was just moody (I think three year old Korean boys have ‘time of the months’) the other one was transfixed to the sunlight and city view like he had just gotten out of solitary confinement. Now I sympathize with kids being stuck inside all day, and their old class didn’t even have a window so this was a novelty. But after a good 60 seconds I really had to get this kid back in his seat.
I teach his older brother in another class and he has similar problems with authority figures. They both respect and like me (at least outside of class) but moreso than other children haven’t learned that their whims aren’t the focus of the lesson. I tried asking, telling and then a one way ticket back to Seatsville via the Kevin Manley express. I had to close the shutters again in the end to get him from going all Icarus on me.
The class spurred on by the sun worshipper and the moody chubby kid had trouble being quiet for longer than four seconds at a stretch. Yes I think its relevant that the other kid is chubby, mainly because he is the one I witnessed being placated by his mother and her endless bag of cupcakes lo those many months ago (shameful plug for the archives). He is also the one that will come back for seconds and thirds for snack time (available because I don’t eat the double serving given to me) and then will throw a fit when he finds out that helping number four of choco-pie doesn’t exist. So there’s a room full of kids that won’t keep quiet and are being rowdier than ever.
I can’t raise my voice at them because I’ve pretty much lost it (my voice that is- I wasn’t angry just exasperated). I can’t even fall back on my ace in the hole threat of sending the loud kids out of the room- there would be some professional drawbacks to being the only one left in the room. Then I remember something. Just like in an 80s martial arts flick where the hero remembers a lesson from his master halfway through his final fight I remember what Jarod (the teacher I replaced) told me on my first day. I let the kids color. Two minutes later it was like there was a gas leak these kids were so pacified. Jarod you are my Yoda.
Now the director of my school doesn’t like it when we let the kids color, since they aren’t really learning any English. Yet at the same time the kids all have coloring pencils at the school and their textbooks are about 40% coloring activites. With temptations like that who needs a serpent. I don’t break it out often, but when I do the effects are magical. I coached them through the coloring, telling them to color the banana yellow and the apple red and so on. And god bless them for deciding to follow their own creative instincts instead Good job Vince you managed to coat the entire page in a layer of green. So I eventually settled for just walking around the class and whispering (all I was capable of at that point) little bits of English to each kid individually.
It was just an odd day with the kids in an odd mood and myself a little hungry. I thought that I’d be floored after that point, but I hit the gym after school and had a surprisingly good workout. Just read a new fitness book Muscle Revolution by Chad Waterbury and have started following the programs in there. I sometimes get asked why I follow books for workouts even though I was a trainer for three years. Well silly, its because their workouts are good. Nah, honestly its because if I write my own program I will tweak it endlessly and never have any consistent style of training. If its someone elses program (and a good one) I’ll tweak it a little at first then just ride it out. I only even mention the book because I think anyone who wants some good workouts should check it out. We’ll use me as a guide, if I’m not impossibly fit in nine months then don’t buy the book.
Anyway that’s all the news that’s fit to print, and arguably 70% more.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
First day back
One role model for ideal class discipline.
One of the biggest problems I face in class is getting my kids to be quiet. And sit down. Getting them to speak english is I'm sure somewhere on my list of priorities but i'm trying to stick to realistic goals.
Its tough when the kids genuinely annoy you. For the most part they are just bored or restless, when you have students that do 60 hour study weeks its understandable. But when its a kid deliberately just trying to see how far they can push you its tough. Today I had two girls call me some korean insult that basically means that I'm old and unmarried. Now this does not hit very close to home for me as neither of these things are really touchy subjects. In Korean culture however to be older than your mid twenties and not be married is a taboo best to be avoided, you instantly become crazy cat lady if 26 years pass without a wedding ring. So its not really what they said thats important, whats important is that thier heart was in the right place (captain planet villian level of wrongdoing). Bear in mind these kids weren't bad kids and they don't really dislike me, they were just the only kids to show up to class (vacation time for most) and thought they'd just push the envelope to alleviate the mind numbing boredness I choose to inflict.
So you've got loud kids not paying attention to the lesson and using thier loudness to insult you. Now resisting the urge for the mother of all sucker punches I typically just steamroll them with my superior vocal cords by reading loudly from the textbook. I had enough of trading insults with 12 year olds when I was 12. No one ever wins an argument with a kid, the best you can do is scare them into holding thier tongue.
Now of course this is a problem every teacher and scout leader and crossing guard faces- not being paid enough to discipline children trying to avoid wanting to push them ito traffic too. Crossing guards walk that razors edge oh so many times. Now there are a million techniques out there to discipline kids, but most of them rely on said children understanding the words you speak. My current approach of just staring at them and trying to use some as-of-yet untapped physic manipulation on them has only yielded mixed results.
The real problem today was probably just that both the students and I got used to not coming to school for 5 days and it will just take a while to get back in the routine. They just have to remember that I am the supreme overlord of thier destiny for an average 40 minutes a day. except for the kindergarteners which I sometimes have twice in a day, but with them I consider myself more like a sheepdog. If sheep picked thier noses.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Last day of vacation (VIDEO)
Didn't get up to much today, slept in and just did some chores. I'm trying to keep my place cleaner nowadays, which has nothing to do with my envy of Ken's wicked apartment. This green eyed monster eats sour grapes- and therefore I'm sure he'll find out he has a roomate or something moving in next week.
So I thought I'd try something a little different and relate an incident I forgot to talk about before. And in a different way, just for a little snazz.
Hope y'all had a good new years.
So I thought I'd try something a little different and relate an incident I forgot to talk about before. And in a different way, just for a little snazz.
Hope y'all had a good new years.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Happy New Year!
Well another year is over, I met up with Ken yesterday and we had a good little new years. We decided to check out the festival on Haeundae Beach, which I guess is a little like hitting Nathan Philips Square for New Year's in Toronto. Sure its something you do when you don't really have any plans, but its better than just hitting a bar and getting stupid drunk.
In typical new years eve fashion we entertained some vices before midnight, with a small bottle of Scotch we bought from the grocery store, a really good pizza and a couple of cans of beer we brought to the beach. Drinking in public seems to be one of those things where as long as you try to be a little discreet its considered okay.
Ken led us to the beach from his place in typical Blair Witch fashion, with various reappearing landmarks. Its a little tough to navigate in Busan as right angled streets are considered bad luck, as it is to defy the gods to strive for a simple path in life. I just imagineered that little bit of colourful culture history, and I hope that one day Korea thanks me for adding to their mosaic.
I commented to him that the Emart we passed looked like the same one we were at before, to which he replied that yeah everything looked the same around there. I drove my point home a little further by noting that the subway station by the Emart had the same name as the one before too.
"Yeah those, krazy Koreans!" Ken said with a smile.
Well we got to the beach soon enough and there were already a fair number of people there. it was my first time seeing the famous haeundae beach, but I'll really have to check it out in the summer to get the full effect. It was a nice enough place though.
One of the first things that happened was a couple of korean teenage girls giggled and walked up to us. Most of the time they just want to say a hello, but this time they also wanted to sell us firecrackers. They proffered a tube to me and said that it was 30. To which I shook my head, thirty bucks is a lot to pay for one firework. Turns out she meant 3 bucks, which I found more reasonable. So I bought one, to which they thanked ken profusely and told him how beautiful and handsome he was.
We found someone with a lighter and then took turns holding the stick and firing colorful balls of sparks into the sea. This was what everyone else was doing and it looked for the life of me that they were trying to fight off the approaching new year with magic. Either that or they were just trying to light the Japan Sea on fire (they don't like the Japanese too much here).
We sat for a bit and drank a can of beer as a couple was setting off bottle rockets nearby. We noted that koreans don't seem to have the same fear of fireworks that most beings human and otherwise do. Perhaps its since they've been around in this part of the world for so long is why they are so comfortable in handing a roman candle to a three year old and trusting that they'll discover the proper way to handle it through trial and error.
We didn't see anyone get hit, but there were a few close calls, Ken also noted that the couple kept on moving their bottle rockets closer and closer to us. i proposed that was probably to cleanse the area of our evil influence. A short time later the guy timidly gave us four bottle rockets to fire off ourselves, which is a sign that they were just trying to be friendly and were a little too shy.
We walked around the neighbourhood a bit but came back to the beach for midnight where there were many more fireworks, both big ones the city did and volleys of fireworks fired into the sea by the public. There was also a cruise boat a few hundred feet out that was firing out fireworks in reply. I couldn't figure out what that was symbolic of in Korean culture so I'll have to assume that people just like cool fireworks.
Now we had heard that the big cultural thing was to stay up and greet the sunrise, but honestly the idea of staying up another 6 hours wasn't too appealing. We had the big midnight countdown already in any case. So we headed back to Ken's place (after I made him try to win me a hello kitty doll at a nearby dart game- all he won was an astroboy so I let him keep it). We split a small bottle of champagne we had bought earlier at ken's place and i crashed there for the night.
Its kind of strange that last new year's I could never have really seen myself in South Korea a year from then. New year's resolutions have never been a big thing for me, as I think its silly to wait until a specific day to try to make good changes. but as silly as it is the symbolism of it does seem to help and i am aware that I am on the path to making some good changes in my life. No idea where it'll lead, but so far its a fun ride.
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