There is reason why 5 day weekends are completely unheard of in some parts of the world. Time seems to sit still and the taps never run dry, but sometimes I wished they would. My only regret is not getting out of Busan to see other parts of Korea, even though it seems like the place to be. It probably could have softened the blow to the head courtesy of my good friend alcohol. Each day brought on new adventures exploring the city and all its little intricacies.
One of the most interesting places I went to was a bar that was exclusively for people born in 1993. It took a while to figure this out because of the language barrier but the doorman was a perfect gentleman and tried many ways to explain how my friend and I are too old for the bar. As we continued on our crawl we stumbled into a gem of a bar: All you can drink for 2 hours for the price of 10,000 won. The bar was pretty empty, the bar tenders were awesome, because they let you pour your own beer and took song requests. Tons of fun and I’d go back in a heartbeat once I feel like drinking again.
Then there were the nights of the sloth. One day I went for a long walk in Dancheon Park which is a gorgeous walk along a rocky river. It was a beautiful sunny day which really added to the magnificence of the site. At this point I really considered buying a camera. Taking that hike was a great decision, and rejuvenated me from the night before. One thing in nature is you can just admire it and not worry about bad stuff happening. While walking back home, still in my doe-eyed state, I go to cross the street and without warning a car blows by me. It was so close I could have high-fived the driver, a harsh welcome back to civilization. After cleaning up I went out to dinner, to my dismay it was at the same place where I had that raw steak. This time I had the Philly cheese steak which was much better, but it had way too much bun. Needless to say I hit a food wall and couldn’t continue in the evening and went home and fell asleep instantly.
On the last night of drinking we went to PNU, where we had orientation and some amazing nights. Things got really out of control. After a sojo roadie, couple of beers, an extremely fun drinking game, and Ho Bar we stumbled into a place that served mixed drinks in a pitcher. I was the first one to order one of these colossal drinks and as I watched the bar tender pour me the biggest rum and coke of my life I began to mentally count how long he poured the rum,
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi… NINE mississippi, Ten miss-
I remember explaining this to several people, and that’s about all. Apparently this galactic cocktail was downed in half an hour according to the “sober” one. You’d think the drink was good, but it was just really hot in that bar. After waking up completely wasted I decided I did not need to drink anymore for a while. Maybe have a sober October? Don’t count on it.
Once I recovered from Tuesday night, I needed to answer a very important question: Where do I work?
Luckily I remembered, and I arrived early as usual to play guitar in the specialist room. Since today was the first school day in October I am now the Grade 3-4 teacher. Even though I have seen Grade 3s and 4s wandering through the halls I expected them to look much smaller in the classroom. They were still really happy and silly but not as crazy as some of the stories I’ve heard from other NETs. My co-teacher’s classroom management is completely on-point and that might have something to do with their behaviour. Her main technique to manage the class is her voice drops at least 2 octaves and bellows, “ATTENTION!” the kids clap back and reply “Attention” with hands behind their backs, straight as an arrow.
For my first week at the school I had to prepare and present a PPT introducing myself to each class. I did it 18 times and never wanted to do it again. Thankfully this time around the students got to ask me questions in Korean and my co-teacher would translate it for me. These children asked very interesting questions to say the least.
There were standard ones:
Do you speak Korean?
Do you like Korean food?
What sports do you play?
Do you have a girlfriend?
Do you have any pets?
hat’s your favourite song?
hat’s your favourite animal?
How tall are you?
How old are you?
How old are you?
Then some were weird ones:
What’s your favourite tree?
Have you ever been in a car accident?
What’s 4+4? (got that one wrong)
Have you ever had a terminal illness?
How many friends do you have?
What’s your favourite proverb?
Who is your ideal mate?
Have you ever attended a musical academy?
Have you ever attended a musical academy?
I have a feeling if this keeps up it will be an excellent month and much different from teaching grade 5 and 6.
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