potpouri

I am becoming an expert with chopsticks. They use stainless steel chopsticks a lot here so it's kind of like running with ankle weights. When I get the wooden one's I feel like Daniel-son in Karate Kid. I could totally catch flies.

I'm still a little in the dark regarding my teaching curriculum. My co-teachers told me that I should focus on the speaking and listening portions of the book, but I found the lesson plans from the last foreign teacher and he had all kinds of other stuff going on. I think I will supplement the book with some fun activities and speaking practice. 3 lesson plans per week should be pretty nice but I might have to add a couple of classes to teach the teachers too.

Any time I say the words baby or time someone in the class will sing out "baby one more time". This is what they are talking about.



The genre is K-pop. Every Korean loves K-pop. K-pop and ballads. As you can see, Koreans love to throw random English phrases into songs. I wish every Korean girl looked like these ones!!!

Well, I'm off to a lunch buffet "western style" at a place called VIPS (pronounced Vips, not V I P's) then it's bath-house time. I guess they're really relaxing and full of sauna's and other sweat inducing areas. They call them Jim Jae Bongs.

O sha hee si o (this might mean goodbye but the way I've been saying it it probably sounds like Groodbryeee to them)

wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa

If anyone has seen the old "Peanuts" cartoons they have an idea what it is like to live abroad. Last night I went out to dinner with my department. The food was good, I have no idea how the conversation was. It was just like Peanuts. Wa wa, wawawawawa blah, on and on, for 2.5 hours. It was good to get some of the sounds down, and I was included every once in a while. Apparently they like my style and think my hair is like an artist's hair. I think this was the only situation in my life where I could sit with 5 women, stare at their mouths, and zone out without getting into trouble.

Week two

My first class was moved today but it coincides with another class that I teach so it's canceled for me. My co-teacher showed me her stick today. Spare the rod spoil the child must be this country's motto. These are not "switches", these are 1 x 2 death sticks. All morning I've had some troublemaker behind me getting scolded. Intermittently the baton of pain will strike a table or chair and scare the hell out of me. I wonder what he did.

I still can't figure out the garbage system here. You have to buy special bags but I can't find them yet so Ive been stockpiling my trash. Also, everything has to be separated. Plastic, food, cans, etc. The only real trash for the garbage bags ends up being little wrappers.

They eat live octopus here. I think that's where I draw the line. I will eat raw stuff, but live is a different story all together.

Back to work.

Tonan out

Flexible Schedule

There is a schedule of classes written on the wall. Sometimes we actually use it! This week we've had a mothers day at the school so all of the class times were adjusted to make room for an assembly, I think they we're all about 35 minutes long! Today I found out that 2 of my classes are being moved from their normal times to later in the day. That's too bad because I'm leaving after 5th period to get my alien registration card. Only two classes today!!!! I've started using parts of the course book which makes putting lessons together a breeze. I think I'll eventually get a CD with handouts and activities to go along with the book lessons. I don't want to rely completely on the book since there are some grammar mistakes and they will never learn to speak the language from the book alone. It is a nice crutch to have though. This first week of teaching is like a trial by fire. It's only gonna get easier though so this is rad. Every morning I feel a little nervous coming to the school but once I get that first lesson out of the way the day seems to fly by.


Random Korea facts:
You have to buy TP from dispensers for the subway bathrooms. I haven't had the need, but I'm curious how much they charge and how much you get.

Kareoke here is totally different. Everyone is all about group outings (I think it's a Confucian thing). Groups of people rent Karaoke rooms (at Nori Bangs) and sing with each other. The HAL of the Karaoke world then decides what kind of score you deserve from 0-100. I think there's some system worked out where you get a lot of $$$ from your peers if you get 100 but I haven't quite figured that out yet.

The dog eating thing is definitely true. I was walking through the street market with Dave the other day and we went a little too far. We walked through an alley and we could hear dogs yelping all around us. Then we saw their carcases prepared in glass cases like thanksgiving turkeys. I wanted to cry. I seriously felt sick to my stomach and had to fast walk back to the veggie area. They have the live dogs in cages on the street and they're so cute!!!! They're all white and they look rad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_Jindo_Dog

How could anyone eat that?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Confused Teaching

This teaching thing is really not hard, but for me it's kind've frustrating. I have 3 different levels of students and 4 different co-teachers. This means that I need to get used to 4 different personalities in the classroom and figure out the best way to work with them. They are all very nice and helpful but it's hard to get a routine down with that many different people.

We really are here for our pronunciation. I spent half of my last class repeating words with the class. Orphanage - I swear I said this word 20 times, maybe more, and had it repeated back. It's pretty easy though, to realize that you're here to say words slowly.

I still haven't been given a curriculum yet!?!?! I swear I have to pry information out of these people. We're supposed to have an English teachers meeting soon so hopefully that will clear up some of the confusion. I would really just like to know what they expect of me, like any job.

Of course the other option would be to teach at a private Hagwan where they choose your lesson plans and everyone speaks English. I think that this public school experience will help me to become a better teacher and also to adapt to this crazy foreign culture faster. Right now I am editing an application for one of my co-teacher's daughters. She wants to be a camp counselor at an English camp. It's entertaining to read and pull out the pink pen for the errors (I don't have a red one yet). Another co-teacher already invited me to her wedding! That will be a crazy experience. By the way, Koreans love that word, Crazy. She's crazy, he's crazy, you're crazy, etc. . . . . . . .

Crazy out.

Some Pics

These are some pics of the new pad. The shower is weird and Koreans don't use dryers but other than that it's pretty decent. Usually I hate wood floors but it is heated so I really don't mind it that much.
Here's a typical alleyway, street vendors everywhere. I got a bushel of strawberries today for 3 bucks. Not quite sure how much a bushel is but it sounded appropriate. I got a lot of strawberries.

English Names

The students pick out their own English names, here are some of my favorites:

Killer
God
Rex
Eminem
Snoopy

First real day and I was 2 hours late. I went the wrong way on the subway to the Sports Complex stop instead of the Sports Park stop. I eventually made it and got a couple more classes under my belt. I think I need to start acting tougher in class, I'm naturally to nice and fun to gain any respect from students. I smile too much.

Longest day of my life

OK, get ready:

I'm still a little jet lagged, so I haven't been able to sleep in past 6:00 am yet. Saturday morning I woke up at six, got ready, unpacked a little more and set out to explore Busan. I hopped on the Subway and set off to meet Dave in his city which is about 10 minutes away by train. Neither of us has a phone yet or internet in our apartments so we had arranged to meet at 10:00 in front of a big hotel. We kept missing each other for about an hour, but we eventually met up. We went to the beach, which is really pretty nice here. The most popular beach is called Haeundae.

The subway system here is awesome. There is a train every 5-6 minutes and they go everywhere. It stops running a little after midnight but starts up again after 5 in the morning. I'm told that cabs are cheap (not when they don't understand you and take you 2 hours in the wrong direction - more on this later).

This place is really safe too. There are kids walking around by themselves everywhere. I'm not just talking about middle school kids, there are some really young kids just strolling on the streets.

Every subway stop is a different city and there are a lot of stops. These are really densely populated areas with tons of buildings. There are street vendors everwhere selling T shirts, watches, sunglasses, crazy food, etc. Think Mexico but less pushy and cheaper. I got a watch last night with a picture of a sea otter on it. It says: "I'm not a beaver, I'm an otter!" I love it.

So we took the train to the coast. We were on a mission to find some other foreigners and to make some new friends. There are actually a lot more white people here than you would think. We found some Canadians who pointed us in the direction of the expat bars. After getting off at the wrong stop and enjoying a beer at "Miller Time" (yes that is the name of the bar!!) we eventually found the University area and the Expat bars Vinyl Underground and Ol'55. The Bar names here are ridiculous:

"Girls and Beer"
"Chicken and Beer"
"Sexy Girls"
"Sexy Organiser" - not sure if this one is a bar but I thought it was worth mentioning.
etc.

Koreans and Asians in general use English as a marketing tool. Most of them don't understand it but in their eyes it looks cool. Often times the English will be spelled wrong and make no sense. China is currently attempting to go around Beijing and correct all of the bad English that is visable from the streets before the coming Olympics. Many people wear T-shirts with English phrases on them that they don't understand themselves. Today I saw a guy wearing hoodie with "Jesus Loves Even Me" in huge letters on the back. Some are inappropriate. For some asian gems check out www.engrish.com, there is some funny stuff there.

By the time we finally get to the University district we are exhausted. We've been up for over 14 hours, we're still dealing with jetlag, and we've been walking around this new city all day long. By the way, Koreans (along with other Asians) are skinny because they walk everywhere. I swear I burned more than 1000 calories just walking around yesterday. We stopped into a bar called Thursday club, made a couple new foreign teacher friends and set off for Vinyl Underground. by this time it's around 10:00, this is when most places back home start to pick up and get crowded. Vinyl was empty. Not a soul. This is when we learned that clubs in Korea don't close. There is no last call. People go all night long and wait for the morning train to go home. We moved along to Ol'55 a block away and ran into a whole group of teachers who work in the some program we do. Success!! It was nice to chat with some people experiencing the same stuff we were. There was a good live foreigner band there playing some old punk rock hits, it was a good time.

Eventually around 1:00 am our legs were ready to give out so we decided to try our luck with a cab. Dave lives in a city called Sasang which was closer to the University District than my place so he says "Sasang Subway station" and proceeds to fall asleep. Apparently I did too because the next thing I know it's 3:00 am and we're stopped somewhere in the mountains!! Our driver speaks no English and all we know to say is Sasang subway station. After some modified pronunciations we eventually clued him into the fact that he had gone way too far. by the time we got back to Dave's city it was around 5:00 am and I was able to take the subway back home. I was watching the driver's gps screen on the way back, we we're way out there. The good side of all of this is that we got to see some beautiful countryside. Korea is all Mountains, valleys, rivers, and greenery.

So today I am resting, tomorrow there is an assembly to introduce me to the entire school. Crazy stuff.

Teacher Tony

I made it!

It is crazy!!! I taught 2 classes today after barely sleeping last night. It was rough, but the kids make it fun.
Here were some of the comments:
"You are very handsome."
"You look like Leonardo Dicaprio."
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"Hi, I love you. Give me candy."
I'm in an area called Deokcheon on the outskirts of Busan. I'm basically living in a downtown area. It's pretty fun, Dave and I roamed around the crazy plaza area tonight. We're at a PC bang using the internet right now, I won't have it in my apartment until early next week. I will post some pictures of my apartment once I have internet at home. It's decent, the whole bathroom is the shower too. I have a partial view of some kind of river and a huge indoor ice skating rink.
Everyone is very nice and my co-teacher Suni has been very helpful. I went to the doctor for the longest, weirdest health check today. I would wait outside of a doctors room for 10-15 minutes for a check up that would take literally one minute. I now have a bank account and will hopefully have a cell phone in a month or so.
The English level of my students is way below what I expected. They barely understand me unless I ask very simple questions. The level of the teachers is not much better. I think the curriculum is up in the air so this will be a good oppportunity for me to try a few things out and see how they work. All in all this should be an easy way to boost my ESL teaching resume in a fairly non-stressful environment.
Monday they are having an assembly to introduce me to the whole school. I feel like a celebrity over here.
Tomorrow I think we'll take the train to the coast.

Tony