Saturday, July 19, 2008
Happy Alien Day!
Just a quick note... I have my passport back, I have my alien registration card (read: internet, new cell phone with plan and ability to travel) and no more possibility for deportation. Yay! Oh, p.s. Happy Bday papa-san!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
A little about work and my schedule
Interestingly enough, I am sitting at work right now, a class just cancelled so I thought I would use the opportunity to tell you all a little about my job. I work for a haegwon, or private school, called English Country School (ECS for short). My schedule is rather absurd, but it fits in with the culture of Korea, and is fairly typical of haegwon life.
Most businesses stay open very late here, generally closing around midnight for your average biz, such as hair salon or corner grocery store, but the internet cafes are 24 hours, the norebangs and restaurants and bars all close about 6 am... well most of them close at that time, some never close, but quite a few businesses end up shutting down from 6am til noon. Every time I've gone to the PC bang to call home, I end up leaving around 3 or 4 am and all of the tables outside the restaurants are still full. But I digress...
I generally wake up around ten am just enough time to wake up and brush my teeth before I walk down to Hapkido, a Korean martial art, which lasts from 11 til noon. I head home, shower, cook lunch and head to work around 1:40pm... just enough time to walk to school and get there around 2pm or shortly thereafter. My day really begins at 2:30 when all my little rugrats show up. My first classes are younger students, my students range from 7 -16 years old. Korean age is slightly different, you are born at 1 years old and every lunar new year you have a birthday, so the entire country celebrates their birthday on the same day every year! But it also means that depending on when you were born, by the time lunar new year rolls around, if you were born in December, come January/February, you could be two years old! LOL So that was the roundabout way of saying they are all younger than you think.
My day is basically split into two halves: classes before 7pm and those after 7pm. 2:30-7p are my students in younger elementary grades, most between 7 and 12. The students after 7p are all TOEFL students, working for a purpose: to get into good high schools and eventually good universities. Classes last 45 minutes and after each class you get a 5 minute break to catch your breath, find your next book and head on to the next one. Every class has a different dynamic and they are always shuffling our schedules around. One week may be with these classes and next a completely different schedule. My classes are rather small, which is ideal for learning a new language, and not one of mine is over 13 students. My biggest class, which is also one of my faves is on Tuesday/Thursday and if I'm not in the room when the bell rings, 4 or 5 of them come into the teacher's room and literally drag me out ready or not! It's kind of nice to be that adored, but don't get me wrong... there are quite a few that don't like me either. It isn't cheap to send students to these haegwons, in fact, statistics say that parents are willing to spend up to 30% of their gross income on their child's education. Alot of kids don't want to be here and studying and most of their are overworked and sleep deprived, but again, that's a cultural thing. I love being able to see the effects of my work. Its taken awhile and with some of the attitudes, I actually wondered if we did anything here but I am finally seeing that some of the things I've taught have sunk in at least a bit. The students here are masters of memorization so you almost have to trick them to see if they've learned the material. As much fun as I have with the younger students, I prefer teaching the older middle schoolers because they can have complete conversations and understand much better, flip side is that they are much lazier, but it is all a bunch of give and take. Anyway, back to teaching.
The Amazing Race will be explained in full with pictures... really, I'm not lying, however after I post the next batch I will be out of pics for awhile since I broke (read: got sand stuck in the lens) my camera at Boryeong Mud Festival 2008... see a trend in this post? More and more things to write about... can I please have the internet in my house!?!?! Anyway, on a bright note... tomorrow is citizen day! I get my passport and my alien registration card! WOO HOO!!!
Most businesses stay open very late here, generally closing around midnight for your average biz, such as hair salon or corner grocery store, but the internet cafes are 24 hours, the norebangs and restaurants and bars all close about 6 am... well most of them close at that time, some never close, but quite a few businesses end up shutting down from 6am til noon. Every time I've gone to the PC bang to call home, I end up leaving around 3 or 4 am and all of the tables outside the restaurants are still full. But I digress...
I generally wake up around ten am just enough time to wake up and brush my teeth before I walk down to Hapkido, a Korean martial art, which lasts from 11 til noon. I head home, shower, cook lunch and head to work around 1:40pm... just enough time to walk to school and get there around 2pm or shortly thereafter. My day really begins at 2:30 when all my little rugrats show up. My first classes are younger students, my students range from 7 -16 years old. Korean age is slightly different, you are born at 1 years old and every lunar new year you have a birthday, so the entire country celebrates their birthday on the same day every year! But it also means that depending on when you were born, by the time lunar new year rolls around, if you were born in December, come January/February, you could be two years old! LOL So that was the roundabout way of saying they are all younger than you think.
My day is basically split into two halves: classes before 7pm and those after 7pm. 2:30-7p are my students in younger elementary grades, most between 7 and 12. The students after 7p are all TOEFL students, working for a purpose: to get into good high schools and eventually good universities. Classes last 45 minutes and after each class you get a 5 minute break to catch your breath, find your next book and head on to the next one. Every class has a different dynamic and they are always shuffling our schedules around. One week may be with these classes and next a completely different schedule. My classes are rather small, which is ideal for learning a new language, and not one of mine is over 13 students. My biggest class, which is also one of my faves is on Tuesday/Thursday and if I'm not in the room when the bell rings, 4 or 5 of them come into the teacher's room and literally drag me out ready or not! It's kind of nice to be that adored, but don't get me wrong... there are quite a few that don't like me either. It isn't cheap to send students to these haegwons, in fact, statistics say that parents are willing to spend up to 30% of their gross income on their child's education. Alot of kids don't want to be here and studying and most of their are overworked and sleep deprived, but again, that's a cultural thing. I love being able to see the effects of my work. Its taken awhile and with some of the attitudes, I actually wondered if we did anything here but I am finally seeing that some of the things I've taught have sunk in at least a bit. The students here are masters of memorization so you almost have to trick them to see if they've learned the material. As much fun as I have with the younger students, I prefer teaching the older middle schoolers because they can have complete conversations and understand much better, flip side is that they are much lazier, but it is all a bunch of give and take. Anyway, back to teaching.
The Amazing Race will be explained in full with pictures... really, I'm not lying, however after I post the next batch I will be out of pics for awhile since I broke (read: got sand stuck in the lens) my camera at Boryeong Mud Festival 2008... see a trend in this post? More and more things to write about... can I please have the internet in my house!?!?! Anyway, on a bright note... tomorrow is citizen day! I get my passport and my alien registration card! WOO HOO!!!
Monday, July 14, 2008
Amazing Race Daegu
So... one week after and with so many new things to write about, I have to get The Amazing Race out before I forget the details... and yes pictures are still forthcoming. The day began as many here in Korea do: hot and sweaty! it was over 90 degrees and the humidity was scalding! Amanda and I met up at Sangin station and headed on down to Jungangno where we disembarked and strolled on down to Thunderbirds Lounge, the wonderful drinking establishment owned by the Moose, local Candian extraordinaire. Once everyone was in, 27 teams in all, the door was locked and each team was given an envelope. We opened them to find a map of downtown Daegu and a "passport" which we hung around neck which would show how many challenges we had completed. It was at this time that I started to feel bad for all of those in flip flops... I love my Saucony's! After the rules were explained, the doors were unlocked and the Race had begun! Amanda and I ran off with several other teams in the direction of the park, which didn't fit in the neat square of the rest of downtown, which was a sure sign that some event was located within. We showed up and the station wasn't set up yet =( The event was set up in coordination with alot of Daegu businesses and even their Chamber of Commerce and Parks and Rec, who hadn't opened up their building for the necessary supplies to be retrieved yet. So off we ran to find the next challenge. Now, Amanda and I were by far the newest people to be in the race and knew downtown less than anyone around so we definitely faced an uphill battle! After wandering around for twenty minutes we stumbled onto our next site... stumbled being very appropriate because one of the team had to drink a cup of soju, fill the cup, get blindfolded and be lead down the street to the end of the station where still blindfolded pour the soju into the cup and pass a certain line on the other cup or else you fail and get a 30 minute penalty. Now the soju was extremely hot being stuck outside so this was definitely not the highest on my favorite challenges, but we managed without too much difficulty despite walking through the packed downtown streets! We roamed around downtown and went in circle after circle trying to figure out which streets we had been down. It really is a maze with so many places looking identical. After letting my buddy Mike know where the soju station was he told us where the DDR station was located: on the 8th floor of the XN Milano building! So we roll up to the arcade on the 8th floor and we get 300 won to play Dance Dance Revolution...
let it be known that white boys can dance as I got one of the highest scores of any contestant lol. The challenge was that each team had to compete, both members had to dance, and to pass the challenge the only requirement is that you don't fail. I got a D and Amanda got an F, but even an F is still passing ha! Don't let the game deceive you though.... its not all that easy to pass! Anyhow, we got out of there and wandered around the streets trying to find our way and figure out which streets we hadn't walked when we came upon Outback Steakhouse. Outside of Outback there was a large platform and two people from Tbirds. Challenge Three was to pick a song from the list, they would cue the music, give you a mic and you had to stand on the platform and sing the song karaoke style while your partner grabbed 3 pedestrians from the street to join in singing and dancing with you! I, for some reason still unknown to even myself, chose ABBA's Dancing Queen and got up and started singing. Amanda went off to round up some people but failed miserably!
I kept interrupting my song to tell her to physically drag them up on stage but she was too timid and we ended up failing and taking a 30 minute penalty. Since we knew where the park was we started wandering around looking for the last station, which we had been given a hint of a hot Japanese restaurant... after about 45 minutes we finally found it along with another group, Mike (different Mike and he's from Thief River Falls) and his girlfriend Maum, rock, paper, scissored our way to do it before them and went in, where we learned the true meaning of the "hot" restaurant. Challenge Four was choose 2 of 3 plates of sushi, blue, green, and pink plates. One of the three had a "hot" piece of sushi and the other two were fine. We chose pink and green, we sat down and Amanda was given the pink and I was given the green, we had to chew each piece twenty times before we were allowed to swallow it. When I looked at the green plate, I knew I was in trouble. Beyond having a chunk of wasabi the size of the first bone of your thumb, it was dripping in red pepper sauce. I was fine until around bite 15-17 and then I started sweating, at bite 20 it still took me another 10 or so bites to actually be able to swallow it! I was sweating and crying from the heat! It was hilarious! We ran off to find the park to do the last event and get back to the bar to kill the burning sensation in my mouth and belly! We hit the park and had to throw these bamboo sticks with rubber tips into these 3 holes... kind of a variation on lawn darts but the bamboo/rubber combo made this extremely difficult, we only got 2 in 3 minutes and failed, but only two teams actually passed that event, so we didn't feel too bad, except we now had our second 30 minute penalty. We know we weren't going to win so we kind of strolled back to the bar and we show up and grab waters and a beer to kill the burn, even though I just wanted to drink water because of the insane heat.
Moose hands us a note that says: Detour! Head to Woobang Tower, walk up the long road and turn to the left of the ticket booth! Don't buy a ticket! So we ran out with beer and water in hand and hail a cab going to Woobang.
We meet up with Mike and Maum again on the walk up the road and we come to the base of Woobang Tower and are told to head to the 77th floor. This can only mean one thing... Sky Jump! We get up there and since both Amanda and I want to do it, we rock, paper, scissors (this is the argument decider for everything over here) and she wins so she gets to jump for our team. Stuck on picture duty I watch enviously as Amanda jumps off this guideded free-fall. Mike and Maum are up next and they both back out so I get lucky and get to take Mike's jump!
It was a blast, like walking the plank, clipped in to a harness and then get clipped into the cable. You jump off and then fall all the way down to the ground! The jump off is kind of breath taking but then it was all fun in the sun! Caught a cab back to Tbirds and BBQ'd on the roof and relaxed after an amazing day!
let it be known that white boys can dance as I got one of the highest scores of any contestant lol. The challenge was that each team had to compete, both members had to dance, and to pass the challenge the only requirement is that you don't fail. I got a D and Amanda got an F, but even an F is still passing ha! Don't let the game deceive you though.... its not all that easy to pass! Anyhow, we got out of there and wandered around the streets trying to find our way and figure out which streets we hadn't walked when we came upon Outback Steakhouse. Outside of Outback there was a large platform and two people from Tbirds. Challenge Three was to pick a song from the list, they would cue the music, give you a mic and you had to stand on the platform and sing the song karaoke style while your partner grabbed 3 pedestrians from the street to join in singing and dancing with you! I, for some reason still unknown to even myself, chose ABBA's Dancing Queen and got up and started singing. Amanda went off to round up some people but failed miserably!
I kept interrupting my song to tell her to physically drag them up on stage but she was too timid and we ended up failing and taking a 30 minute penalty. Since we knew where the park was we started wandering around looking for the last station, which we had been given a hint of a hot Japanese restaurant... after about 45 minutes we finally found it along with another group, Mike (different Mike and he's from Thief River Falls) and his girlfriend Maum, rock, paper, scissored our way to do it before them and went in, where we learned the true meaning of the "hot" restaurant. Challenge Four was choose 2 of 3 plates of sushi, blue, green, and pink plates. One of the three had a "hot" piece of sushi and the other two were fine. We chose pink and green, we sat down and Amanda was given the pink and I was given the green, we had to chew each piece twenty times before we were allowed to swallow it. When I looked at the green plate, I knew I was in trouble. Beyond having a chunk of wasabi the size of the first bone of your thumb, it was dripping in red pepper sauce. I was fine until around bite 15-17 and then I started sweating, at bite 20 it still took me another 10 or so bites to actually be able to swallow it! I was sweating and crying from the heat! It was hilarious! We ran off to find the park to do the last event and get back to the bar to kill the burning sensation in my mouth and belly! We hit the park and had to throw these bamboo sticks with rubber tips into these 3 holes... kind of a variation on lawn darts but the bamboo/rubber combo made this extremely difficult, we only got 2 in 3 minutes and failed, but only two teams actually passed that event, so we didn't feel too bad, except we now had our second 30 minute penalty. We know we weren't going to win so we kind of strolled back to the bar and we show up and grab waters and a beer to kill the burn, even though I just wanted to drink water because of the insane heat.
Moose hands us a note that says: Detour! Head to Woobang Tower, walk up the long road and turn to the left of the ticket booth! Don't buy a ticket! So we ran out with beer and water in hand and hail a cab going to Woobang.
We meet up with Mike and Maum again on the walk up the road and we come to the base of Woobang Tower and are told to head to the 77th floor. This can only mean one thing... Sky Jump! We get up there and since both Amanda and I want to do it, we rock, paper, scissors (this is the argument decider for everything over here) and she wins so she gets to jump for our team. Stuck on picture duty I watch enviously as Amanda jumps off this guideded free-fall. Mike and Maum are up next and they both back out so I get lucky and get to take Mike's jump!
It was a blast, like walking the plank, clipped in to a harness and then get clipped into the cable. You jump off and then fall all the way down to the ground! The jump off is kind of breath taking but then it was all fun in the sun! Caught a cab back to Tbirds and BBQ'd on the roof and relaxed after an amazing day!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
the amazing 4th
So in my slacktudiness and along with the plethora of other activities I have been finding myself participating in the daeguru has been a little light on material... don't worry as soon as my lazy butt gets them downloaded, the pics will tell a million tales that I have already stored in memory or chosen to forget... but anyway, after a grueling day at work (gotta love those 9 class days... which reminds me I really need to put up a post about how work works), Amanda, Peter and I rolled downtown to hit up trivia night at Commune's. Unfortunately we were a little bit late and couldn't make a team so we ended up just watching the tomfoolery and laughing off in our own little corner... well, we did some mocking too! Anyway, en route from work to the cab stand, we picked up some fireworks from the local stationary store. Talk about something paradoxical: stationary stores are your best source for fireworks over here, I don't really understand the need for flammables/explosives to be sold in a paper store but meh, that's their problem. After an intense round of trivia (Amanda and I squeezed our way onto Justin's team about halfway through), all the Americans stood up and sang the Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America and This Land Is Your Land to the boos of a couple Canucks and this obnoxious drunk brit (such a twit I refuse to capitalize Brit for him, the one person I don't like over here and who may actually get his own post as a result of his beligerant drunken behavior) and my team went outside to the street and we all lit up sparklers! Happy B-day America! After we burned up our two foot long sparklers we rolled around the block to hit up Old Skool for some good ole dance the night away boogie down times! We sang the Star Spangled again in Old Skool and stuck around dancing til about 4 a.m. when we went over to Club Frog and danced until the sun came up and the Metro opened up again. Quick stop at Burger King on the way to the subway and Justin and I hopped on the train and slept our way across town. We got home around 6.30 a.m. and crashed out after making plans to watch Superbad on Saturday afternoon. Justin called around noon just to confirm and I finally answered his calls around 1 (3 missed calls later) to confirm that I'd roll over around 3.30 p.m. So I show up at Daegok subway station and he comes down to meet me and on the way to his place we stop and pick up a couple bottles of soju and four bottles of Korean plum wine, some really tasty stuff! Watched Superbad which was actually a pretty funny movie although I'm sure the 4 bottles of wine and the bottle of soju helped. Around 7, I ran home to change and was going to try and meet Justin to see a movie... He beat me there and went to one on his own, I figured I may as well hit up a movie to see what its like and watched "Wanted" with Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie with Korean subtitles. It was pretty cool! The movie theatre was enormous and the seats were so extremely comfortable! Ahhh leg room! Met up with Justin at Thunderbirds for Nick's going away party and then danced at Old Skool a bit before calling it an early night at 4 a.m. I needed my beauty sleep... Sunday was a big day with the Amazing Race Daegu II. To be cont...
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
remiss in updating
okay, okay, so i know that i am slacking! i will actually put something up very soon! this is a filler so you all know i am still alive and kicking. so many stories to write about! i want internet! have to go teach now, but i will be back on soon!
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