Full Circle

So I've had an amazing year with most of the stories cataloged in this internet book. Running on the fumes of soju and the tumbler of Mackiss & Lemonade next to me I write to all of you.

I remember a year ago knowing what I wanted out of my time in Korea. And I feel like I did most of those things. Today is different though. I'm searching for a job and I don't have many particulars about where it is so long as I'm teaching. I wish I could promise 100 blogs, even 120, for the year but when you have no direction it's tough to make that call.

I'm here until August. That's all I know. In a perfect world I would teach English in France and get two birds with one stone. That doesn't look like something that will happen. Because Korea has changed me I'm open to move almost anywhere I can with the promise of making and saving money. The toughest part is leaving all that I've managed to discover behind me and watching it grow from a far on Facebook (unless I go to China). That's what really tears at me is leaving what I've managed to make outside of my job, you know, the things that make life worth living. I guess I've never been in this situation where one thing in life flops but its what everything you love orbits around.

My resolution of the year is just figure life out. Teaching here is something anyone can do and the magic on this peninsula keeps you care-free and ageless. You can put the dial all the way down and do what you're told or crank it and run it like an actual teacher with activities, games and no PPTs.

I feel miles away from my keyboard right now, I apologize for ^that stuff. I guess its from the heart and all but I'm at this point where I'm thinking about ... a girl. We met on a Monday ... at a bar. My buddy and I always play beer pong given the opportunity and his Korean girlfriend recruited these two locals to play with us. One of those people was her. She's a nursing student, likes Big Bang Theory, hates red bean (this is HUGE) and doesn't speak a lot of English. She's really charming though. I'd break my collarbone again if she was working at my local hospital. I take that back. Maybe just a hip injection or some TLC on the IV for an hour.

Either way 2013 ended well. Here's to 2014.
Cheers, Folks!

Culture on Christmas

On Christmas Eve I went to an awesome Christmas gathering and saw a hole bunch of friends. We ate, drank and gabbed until 6 in the morning at this pension with a conference room that felt like a old basement. Now that I'm talking about it, that night feels so far away.  

The following day we packed up, ate the remaining bits turkey, potatoes salad. Then I hung out with some other people for Christmas day and went to the water temple which is a little off the grid because you can't take a subway there. Here are the photos.  

This marks the entrance down to the temple.  

The Korean writing says GwanEum Daebul which is the Goddess of Mercy. Apparently this goddess is a tree. Mercy doesn't look like its going to be around for much longer unless somebody waters her.

I don't know if you can tell but these people are standing on the bridge throwing coins into either the bowl on the turtle's back or the bowl in the man's hand. If you get it in the bowl you'll have good luck. The two times I've been here I've never seen one person make it and, more importantly, I'm out at least two thousand Won in coins.

A friend I met on the plane here is Jewish and was really spooked about what he thought were Swastikas all over Korea. These fan out in the other direction and are one of the many symbols in Buddhism. On maps, these mark historic temples.  

This is a lookout point from one side of the temple. On a bright day in spring it's really quite something.

If you happen to bring any iron or pets that you don't need anymore please dump them in the appropriate bin.

Two of the creepiest statues I've ever seen.

That's all until the new year, me thinks. 100 blogs with 3 days left in the year. Have a great holiday readers and best wishes in the new year!

Shraham Garp ~~

A Surprising Situation Leads to a Surprising Punishment!

Third graders are an interesting bunch. They're very inquisitive in a variety of ways: most are very vocal, others love to draw (ON DESKS!),  the brainiacs that are disciplined and silent until I ask a question, and the rare few who are very quiet, curious, and always moving. In every class there is at least one boy who lifts his desk up at the back and sees how far it can go forward before they pull it back up or it falls on the floor. One kid, one of those "glue both sides of the worksheet" kids, has had his desk crash onto the floor on several separate occasions. I don't think he speaks a word of English and that's because his workbooks it glued shut. Big surprise.

But I digress, yesterday little Doe-Yoo, the infamous desk lifter of his class, was leaning back in his chair and rocking his desk at the same time as I taught the lesson. I kept checking him in my periphery as he lazily leaned back in his chair and pushing his desk up and forward with his knees. Then, because this is Grade 3, a student turns around in his chair and begins wailing on the boy behind him. Once my space cadet CT saw this act that has happened so many times before, and done absolutely nothing to prevent or punish previous offenders. Today was different I guess. She went on for a good 5 minutes and I forgot about Doe-Yoo. Coming back to the lesson I look to Doe-Yoo to answer a question. Low and behold his textbook is on the floor. Then I saw the most bizarre thing: All of the desks have a metal bar three inches off the floor for students to rest their feet on. Doe-Yoo had managed to get the front legs of his chair over this bar. He was stuck under his wobbly desk. I helped him out of the predicament carefully as his pudgy frame wiggled out. While this was going on I knew he needed to be punished for something I tell him not to do every class. So I put his desk against the wall and told him he had lost his desk privileges for the ten remaining minutes of class. He nodded and then struggled to hold his books and pencil case on his lap as he followed along with the class.

I felt like an asshole to be honest but I could see no other disciplinary tact to teach little Doe-Yoo a lesson. So for the days I'm desk-warming at the school I'll be filling the legs of Doe-Yoo's desk with lead..          

Don't have a "Good Day"

Today I was walking from the library to my office as the children file out and run off to their hagwons and adventures elsewhere.
"Bye teacher"
"Bye, have a good day, kids"

Then my mind started ticking:


https://files.nyu.edu/nc994/public/types_of_soju.html

"Good Day" is a type of soju. I have been encouraging students to drink soju subliminally! Not only am I a horrible teacher I'm a sell out:

  
http://www.ourthursday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/reebok-garth.png

^ Now I want to watch this movie...
Have a nice day everyone!

When there's no last call

Friday night I went to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and it was mesmerizing. Aesthetically pleasing would be an understatement. Before watching this movie I had no desire to go out afterwards for even one beer. Smaug's beauty, fitted with Benny Cumberbatch's eloquent British tongue, along with an excellent fight scene along the riverside where elves and dwarfs battled hordes upon hordes of orcs revitalized all of my senses! With a bounce in my step I decided to go out with an Ultimate friend for drinks at a bar called L-Zone. Apparently they were having bottomless drinks, a Friday night staple.

When we got there I met some other new people through my fellow movie-goer and walked up to the bar.
"What time does the bottomless drinks special end?"
"1am"
"What time is it now?"
"11pm"
"Here's my ten thousand won, I'll have a rum and coke, please."

After countless drinks and just as many sunken cue balls 1am had befallen L-Zone and, without a doubt or itch of hesitation, we moved the party elsewhere. Once we got outside into the bumping district of KSU the neon lights overwhelm you with 24/7 barbecue spots, convenience stores and bars that stay open until 6 in the morning. These differences separate Korean and Western night-lives by miles. With the opportunity to eat food at almost every other restaurant and continue drinking cheap bottles of soju and beer: you can't complain especially when its dirt cheap!

I remember leaving bars in the frozen town of Thunder Bay at 2 am after they ring the bell at the bar. Wired off the company, brisk air, and energizing jager-bombs and there's no where to go. With nothing to do we would all cab to someone's house and continue the nightlife in some gross college living room with shitty seating, warm beer, and frozen fish sticks or worse. Usually random textbooks and clothes were scattered around the floor too, reminding us that we have sunday mornings that require research and trips to the library. Sometimes the music was okay, but other times it was country music or house music. Either way it put you on your back ready to pass out in no time because there was nothing to stay up for once the city shuts down. No one expects the night to last past last call.

Now that I've been exposed to Korea, and the concept of the 6am subway ride home from Blue Monkey I don't think I can go back to the bell toll at 2am. Even 3am could be a stretch. Maybe when I get back that means I'll have to grow up. It took this quiz and although I was caught in the middle with some of them this website said I'm mentally a 19 year-old. I honestly blame the country I live in. I'm not stressed unless its over something trivial like my CTs being difficult, or me just losing things. I'm saving money, I love most aspects of my job, and I'm active enough outside my job to avoid boredom/ depression.  I can't take the Korean life seriously anymore. This is a vacation at the worst of times. I probably could take on more responsibility... but that'd take away from this experience.

Bar hours are one of the many things Korea has going on that not many other places could sustain. There's a lot of respect for everything and everyone in this country and that's why people have the privilege to go out until 4 in the morn because they won't rob, rape, kill, or vandalize anything or anyone. I wish there was a way Canadians, and Westerners as a whole, could achieve this sense of community and respect for everything, but for now its only a pipe dream. Just to clarify, I'm not converting to some pro-Korea-anti-Canadian ideology: I just think there are tons of really special things in this country and you don't have to dig very deep to find them. With news about Rob Ford, and gang violence its difficult to see a city, let alone country, that's banded together to support each other, and that's something that everyone wants deep down: a place where we all stand together and can join hands with family, friends and strangers of all walks of life and know we have each other supporting one another as we party safely until the sun rises.          

The Korean Planner

Today I purchased my last morning coffee of the year. Because I have a earned enough e-stickers to get a free planner from Starbucks. I did this last year and I absolutely loved having it with me on my desk to organize my life at work. It's not as awesome as buying a $40 hat or t-shirt and getting a free case of beer (most people look at it the other way around, I choose not to) but it's free. And everyone loves free!

I opened it up to find the monthly calendar pages at the front like the old one so I started penciling in my vacation dates and when my parents are coming to Korea. I kept flipping through and noticed that there are no week by week pages! It's thirteen full calendar pages and then the rest is blank paper, lined paper, and historical facts about Starbucks. I guess it's my fault for not looking inside the sample book, at the same time it should have been called a journal, not a planner. Then the second half of these not pages are dedicated to sketches even though there's a faded line going across the pages. Super bummed about this investment. This might be a little exaggerated, but I imagine it would feel like doing a scavenger hunt, winning the scavenger hunt and receiving a keg of beer... "Oh wait, it's empty."    

I'm just happy I've lost an eagerness to organize my life in a notebook. That might change with the new school year, even though all the other player remain the same, but at the same time, it's Korea, I know I'm shipping out in August I just don't know where yet. All in all Starbucks has really let me down.

Maybe this is karma for that post about Friday the 13th being just another day on my monthly calendar. Mid-morning breakthrough! At least I didn't order someone to kill an innocent woman that would, presumably, rat on me since I'm accountable for distributing unregistered automatic weapons, one of which was used in a school shooting killing four children, this woman's son being one of them, Jax Teller. That would lead to some pretty intense karma you would think.

On that note: If you haven't started watching Sons of Anarchy already, start now. With some patience, you won't regret it. Hooray for streaming! Netflix in the US has it too.                

Erection Day

That's how one student, and several teachers, say election day. How can I resist a title so hilarious? I advised them all to say "the voting time" it comes out poting time but I don't need to worry about the pleats in my pants when they say that word.

The school has their elections tomorrow to determine who will be the next president and vice president of the school year starting in March. It's just like back home where a student will come into a classroom disrupt everything by promising ridiculous things that don't make sense (honestly, I just ignored them, they could have said something logical). The candidates also bring in two sign carrying blokes the say some sort of cheer for the peer they're supporting. Very supportive and very Korean.

The two candidates that I know by name are completely polar from one another. Kyoung-Ha is completely insane and an egotistical class clown. In class he always has his hand up because I'm 90% sure he just wants to hear his own voice. Usually he doesn't know the actual answer but has a long "umm" or a joke that most often proves he's completely off the rails. I don't want to discredit his intelligence, because he is a super smart kid, but he'll be making personal announcements over the PA every hour if he gets elected. Yoorim, on the other hand, is just a hard working girl with the personality of a potato, homework, study, homework, study, eat, play violin, study, go to school at 8:00 am, and she just keeps going. You get the picture. She'd be a great admin person but she's not this approachable person at all. Even I'm intimidated by her. Yeah, she's taller than me.

The other kid seems to have this band wagon of the degenerates of our school which can't bode well if  the faculty has anything to say about it. I will consider him a dark horse in the race.

There very well could be others as well. I'm excited to here the results whenever that may be. Fact this is the most I've ever looked into any election ever. It's because I don't want this to happen to anything ,anywhere, EVER.

Going Coastal in Korea

After having shoulder surgery and things going smoothly it'd be really nice to pretend like I'm normal again and go travel around Asia for my vacation. However, the cautionary cow inside my head moos, "Stay here and find some greener pastures in Korea." Alright, cow, I'll give it a try.

So far with my morning off I've looked over several tourism sites in Korea and there are so many interesting things to do and places to see. Ideally I'd like to go hiking/ exploring the west coast or south coast but that's proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be because I want to work my trip around a rail pass. If I buy a rail pass for the week it measures out to 22,000W a day with infinite train rides which is pretty awesome. Exclusive to foreigners, its a great way to promote Korea in all of its beauty gliding from city to city and site to site on a warp speed cloud.

There are a lot of natural sites I  want to see but since all the railways branch out from Seoul I'm going to have to pick and choose where I travel to make the best of my seven days. There's the lovely Northeast, prime for ice fishing and winter activities; Taean National Park, under Seoul; then further down more national parks; and the town famous for its mud, Boryeong. The South is really enticing with all the isles and lookout points, but the train tracks go north and south in this country so I'd be on a bus if I took this route. The alternative is climbing up and down on the train to hit each spot. This will probably be what happens. If I run out of days and I'm just going to take a monster long bus ride back to Busan.

I'm obviously packing light bringing along a camera, notebook, a phone, respective chargers, enough underwear for the journey (and the necessary extra one), and recycle through my warmest winter gear. I might be eating even lighter: Winter is the soup season and man'o'man do these Koreans know how to make a good soup. Looking at the travel websites made this seem really intimidating considering the mountain of things to do in the window I'm giving myself, but this will be my first adventurous back-packing (with a gym bag) vacation I've ever had.

This might become a brainstorming/ mapping out spot to list the things I want to see as well as the routes I'll be taking. My co-teacher said that Suncheon is a good place to go, so I'm looking into that as well right now. Currently though everything is up in the air and it's 75% likely to stay that way until cabin fever strikes (like my plan, I have no date(s) planned either).

I remember going out for dinner with this one person who talked about this memoir about a woman who wandered through the Appalachians all by herself for a month or longer on her own. Although I don't plan on doing something that isolating, I am going to try my best to only speak Korean and when someone speaks to me in English I will reply in French. This winter vacation isn't shaping up to be a typical vacation of searching for a beach or a cold beer but one of those Into the Wild explorations where (I haven't seen the movie or read the book) you soul-search, kill some stuff, eat it, bath in a stream, build a log cabin, whatever, I know it's going to test me, and I'm excited about that. I will also need to get a real pair of running shoes too.      

  

What do you want to be? A top 5

We had a test day today. I had no class while students were tested on each subject with a new written/ multiple choice examination every forty minutes. In between 3rd and 4th period my co-teachers are bombarded with newsprint covered with the right and wrong answers of the past three or four English lesson from our textbook.

Because the Grade 6 teacher has more classes than any other grade I take four classes off of her plate to round out the workload. She gives me a perfect test she's already marked and sends me on my way. Would you believe it there is a question that involves having some sort of outer thought beyond the textbook? I certainly didn't. The last question on the test prompted the students to say what they wanted to be when they grew up. There were lots of answers some more bizarre than others.  Here's the bottom top 5: 1 being the most discouraging.

5. Animal doctor: There was a student who wrote veterinarian so I have to give this student props for wanting to do something I was hell bent on doing until I met my colossal bitch of a science teacher in middle school. You need to remember that consonant-vowel pattern until the end of the word, kiddo.
4. A toy doctor. I don't know what this would be.
3. Spot Preson: Uh oh, here comes a kid who can't spell and is riding on the likelihood that he'll be an athlete some day. Boody Miles Kim?
2. Touusst: This was also this student's answer for every written question. I know exactly who it is too and she never comes to my phonics class even after I tell her teacher to tell her! Moral of her life: You get what you put in.
1. Model: Really? You just want to look pretty not actually have a ... skill? ... Good luck I guess.

A lot of others wrote baseball player, teacher, astronaut, lawyer, diplomat, designer, fashion designer, singer, soccer player, programmer (NOT pro-gamer, I hope). It was really nice to see their aspiring goals coupled with 90+ test scores because my personal aspirations are sliding a bit these days (Resolution time'll save me though!). No one wanted to be a cop or a fireman though.

They're still managing to drive my pet peeves wild with Vs and Rs and Fs and Ts. There's always something to work on with kids, that's what's great about them .
Keep dreaming kids!!!
AND PRACTICE YOUR PRINTING!!!  

The Last Time I will Eat Mini-Stop Chicken

Whenever I have Mini-Stop chicken I'm unbelievably upset with myself, like a single girl with a sad movie and bucket of ice cream. It's my quick fix for dinners if I don't feel like making, or even waiting, for actual food. Simply go up to the cashier in the Mini-Stop and point to the skewered, deep-fried nuggets you wish to eat. Sometimes they warm it for you other times they don't. Either way it's deep-fried so its obviously cooked right.

SPOILER ALERT: IT DOESN'T!!

Yesterday, feeling peckish after some pick-up Ultimate (such an awesome time) and knowing that my sink was already jammed with dishes I accepted the fact that I would have no motivation to wash dishes and then make food. I had too choose between doing two arduous tasks or eating the chicken on a stick. I took the chicken, at the counter I impulsively ordered two skewers. The cashier put them in a bag and held out his hand.
"Oh, you're not going to heat it, that's okay because it's already been cooked and battered. What could go wrong anyways? Here's your 2,400 won."

I walked out of the store and across the road into my building pulling off one nugget at a time. While waiting for the elevator I pulled off a rather large nugget of warm, delicious meat from the skewer. It was so big, "How big was it?" it was a two-biter. Then it all went downhill. I looked at what was left in my hand. A crusted outside and a pink middle:
WHAT
THE
HELL
I spat out the gob of raw meat back into the bag it came in. I could feel my stomach turning. Rage building. How can this happen? I don't care to find out. But I'm gonna tell you flat out that I'm never eating Mini-Stop chicken again. Now it's ramen or nothing. So say goodbye to that marginalized single girl eating a gluttonous amount of ice cream while watching The Notebook burrowed inside me.  She's dead. But don't mourn, celebrate! Because it is one more step on the road to accidentally becoming a vegetarian. healthier person.
  

Indoctrination and a Rant

I didn't edit this so just deal with it.

There's this Grade 6 lesson titled "How do you say it in Korean" I really don't think its for the kids. It's for the ex-pats. The goal of the lesson is to know how to tell people about authentic Korean whatevers (word choice isn't a thing today, I'm hungover). In the confines of our textbook we expect are students to know the difference between a six stringed piece of crap and its eerily similar 12 stringed hunk of shit, and also Korean dresses. My CT has upped the ante though. We played a game where I ask them, "How do you say thingamadoo in Korean?" to which they respond "We say ting-a-moo-doo." You would think this would be easy but it never is. These were the five set questions I asked. 

1. How do you say seasoned vegetables in Korean?

2. How do you say steamed rice mixed with various other grains in Korean?

3. How do you say thin noodles mixed with seasoned vegetables in Korean?

4. How to you say unfiltered rice wine in Korean?

5. How d you say a Korean see-saw game in Korean?

First off, nobody got the first two questions right, nobody. A) no one knew what seasoned meant, or the idea of various grains. It really pissed me off that she but these kids through that. The other aggravating thing is that asking someone about how do you say a Korean thing in Korean. The CT has all of these "Korean" things that I assumed were all specific to Korea until I pulled my head out of the sand and realized she's got a big'ol pride boner for Korea. Example? Okay, Korean socks, what's so special about them? They are white and have a pattern (one stripe). These are not Korean socks. They're just regular fucking socks. The other things she programs these kids into thinking is important is all these archaic hunks of crap that no one uses. Fun fact a Korean "laundry machine" is a slab of concrete a foot off the ground and two wooden bats. Seriously, this is a MACHINE!!!???? I have no words to describe it but if I saw one in real life I'd ask the professor who took me back in time: "Professor, who put these sticks on this poorly made bench?" 

I'm sorry I love this place but I don't want to learn about everything that makes this place special dating back to whenever Moses was playing hacky-sack. I'm not totally involved in my history, as far as I'm concerned my family's history started with my grandfather and maybe that's why I have no inclination to learn about these really weird things with incredibly awkward definition (a Korean sedan chair??). I appreciate the effort of the editors trying to present Korea as this cultural beauty packed with tradition and hoopla but frankly I'd prefer teaching them about world culture. 

This country is physically and mentally isolated in the world. A peninsula of the mind if you will. We have this little section in each textbook called "Around the World" where they relate the lesson to something in America or Europe. Frankly that's not enough for me because it makes you believe that the world opens and closes on America. Nothing against Americans (but this happened) it's just I'm teaching the future and I think having a world's perspective is the best way to grow towards a better place to live in. I guess I've calmed down, thinking is still hard.    

One week without the sling/ Birthday Blog

On November 20th I went for my check-up and my clavicle was 100% healed. Now I just need to keep up with some exercises to increase my mobility.  It's a tough line to walk between having a stiff shoulder and a strained one. All in all, I feel great!

During the first couple of days whenever I was writing something on the board in class my left arm would just fold up as if it was still in the sling. Same thing with showering, eating and other things I got used to doing with my arm tied up. Now I'm finding excuses to use both hands: pulling bowls down for the top shelf, washing my hair and sleeping like a bendy Kamasutra cutout. These are all awesome but I wouldn't say I'm out of the woods yet. I can't put any weight on my left shoulder so backpacking is out of the question for the time being. My doctor told me I wouldn't be lifting anything major for a year. However, I'm testing it day by day just to regain the little coordination I use to have. I might be on par with Jepsen here. Still I can't lean on my left side without feeling like I'm going to wobble over. I've also realized that children and homeroom teachers alike are only starting to notice that I'm not in a sling. They all make this face like I'm super human for recovering. I've been so tempted to show them my scar but I feel like that would breach some sort of conduct code.

My doctor offered to get me into physiotherapy but the way my co-teachers handle me being out of the school on a bi-monthly basis I doubt they could handle me being gone every other day or whatever my schedule would be. Which is why I'll start it with Winter Camp and because February is a waste of class time I hope my CTs won't mind that I'm missing Monsters Inc or Toy Story 3. I'm still doing exercises that I've pulled off of medical websites and they seem to be helping and they offer great advice about the before and after physio to reduce pain. Like any forward thinking (fine, impatient) person I'm jumping the gun on some of these exercises. On Sunday morning I found out that I'm nowhere near doing reps with even teenie-weenie weights.

Also, drum roll please:

Today is my BIRTHDAY and I've opened some packages and read some wall posts filled with nicknames and love. It really makes me feel thankful, and special, for all the friends and family I have around me, especially after this whole crazy collarbone thing support was like oxygen.

Fun fact:

Thiis is the same day Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee were born today along with other celebrities, most notably Bill Nye the Science Guy!

     

G-Star

Reasoning

Like everywhere in the world, teenage boys love video games. This is why G-Star exists here in Korea. I'm starting to realize I'm a dinosaur when I talk about video games because, to me, nothing compares to a solid six-hour bender of FF7. More and more games are getting more universal ever since the Wii, no ten year-old has experienced organizing their materia or the speed burst button. Now everyone plays games on their phones or tablets and honestly they seem like modern Gameboys with reinventions of Angry Birds and Donkey Kong except the animals and premises have changed.

Here's an really good article to help explain why I'm upset with the path of video games. I've never been a "good" gamer and obviously never became that committed (the newest game I own is Chel '12) but I have realized that I'm in need of some upgrades. That's why I'm heading to G-Star:

The Adventure

The wrist band to get inside was 6,000 won and was pretty worth it for someone with patience to wait in line to test out these new games. I wasn't surprised at all by the lack of controllers. Everything was either on a phone or a computer. Some games needed a controller to play, but they were about as complicated as an SNES game: flat background, run and jump to the left, collect coins, don't fall in the hole, level complete. A lot of games seemed like variations of WOW or better versions of Runescape with more violence or sex appeal. Having post-its on the computers listing the controls in Korean didn't real inspire me to play.

G-Star appeals to a general audience: teenage boys, and young men. Somehow, these young men manage to convince their significant others to come with them. All the women I saw were collapsing from the inside. Even mothers taking their husbands and children were off daydreaming about things that didn't involve a hit points, coins, and hot keys. Of course I saw some of my kids there, BEXCO is two subway stops away, and it was the sixth graders that don't talk to girls, now I know why.

The disturbing highlight of this expo was the objectification of women. Obviously CGI boobs aren't enough for these pimple-faced teens and college students but the game industry has gotten some real-life Koreans to dress up like video game characters, or rock a tube top with their brand name. My favorite part of it all is these video game junkies bring stools with them so they can stand above the crowds and take pictures of these fantastic pin-ups. This is what happens when you outlaw pornography in a country.

This was typical for all costumed-girl displays.
Note the baked panda on that kids' hoodie too.

This was the best photo I could get of this antlered dragon-tailed character brought to life... who is friends with Princess
Peach?

To further my point, there's a game called Princess Maker, where you, a retired knight, has to build the perfect Princess in order for her to find a suitable mate. Maybe it's targeted to girls as an electronic Barbie, or maybe it's just a way to for people to spend more money on plastic surgery.

There was a section I did not expect to find at G-Star and that was the board game area. Then I realized that Magic is still really popular here. They also had variations of Hungry-Hungry Hippos with chopsticks and fruit which is soooo Asian. A variation of chess where you build walls around the board to protect the only movable piece on the board. Some seemed really interesting but others bothered me: there were a bunch of games with numbered tiles which obviously could be replaced by cards, and cards are just way better than tiles for so many reasons, in my opinion. I bought an English game for my English  Library which is a much less challenging version of scrabble.  

I've had a couple days to digest what I saw and the future is bright with new forms of technology and life-altering games, in which a game becomes your life. Here are a collection of photos from Korean is costume, some weird words, random stuff, and upcoming mobile games. Apologies for the blurriness.

Hunt Monster, look handsome.

THIS IS MOST INTENSE GAME IN THE WORLD!! PUTT,
SCREAM, AND FIST-PUMP ALL FUCKING DAY!!

I just liked the artwork of this poster.

Premise: President Tankington has been assisinated by
those Red Commie tanks, and as a brave righteous Korean
tank you must infiltrate and avenge President Tankington.

Does he bust the wild? Or is he just a wild buster?

Real Cart Game, race around a grocery store.

Satisfying your hunger  for game before you dinner. 

I feel this Woong-Ca Woong-Ca farts every time he moves,
or he's an old disgruntle pink bear. possibly wearing a cape.

Behold! The best looking girls of the convention!

A Father's Decision

Today was the first day of the school's story telling contest. We kicked off we Grade 3 students and ended with fifth graders. Tomorrow we'll have the fourth and six graders present their stories. These are like speech competitions where you are obligated to memorize your story and present to the English co-teachers as a preliminary round. Each student provides the teachers with a copy of their story to follow along while they present it. To be frank, most of them are Korean Folktales that pull out very interesting morals. Some were traditional, others were opinionated and then there stories I had never heard of before. Which brings we to "A Father's Decision" typed verbatim: (try to imagine a child reading this to you)

A Father's Decision

Some random school

A grade 5 student

After a day long tour in Switzerland, we were on our way back to hotel on a tour bus. 

Everybody was tired, but glad to be on a vacation like this. 

The bus driver was a nice, gentleman, too. Soon, many of us started to fall asleep because we were tired from touring.

I wasn't sure if we were going downhill, but the bus seems to be gaining speed. 

The sleeping passengers began to wake up one by one.

Everyone panicked.

The bus was going too fast!

"Ladies and gentlemen, please stay calm and remain seated! The brakes are out of order, but we will be all right. Please, don't panic. Hold on to the handrails," the bus driver told us calmly. 

Then, the anxious passengers calmed down and were seated. They held tightly onto handrails. 

"Five curves from here we have to go uphill. Then, we can stop the bus, and we will be safe."

The bus driver continued to calm the passengers down. But, we could not breathe easily, yet.

"Oh, no! Look out!" people shouted each time the bus driver made a curve. 

After the last curve, people were overwhelmed with joy.

"Thank you, you saved us all!"

Just then, we saw children playing soccer in the street in front of us.

The bus driver was distraught.

He honked repeatedly at the children.

The children started to run off the road quickly, one by one.  

But, there was a child left in the street.
He didn't know where to go.
Then, it was too late.

Our bus driver had to choose between our lives and the life of that small child.
"Oh my God!" We heard a thud. Then, the bus began moving uphill and came to a stop.
Everybody on the bus was safe.

The bus driver hurried out of the bus.
The people on the bus heaved a sign of relief, then, began to wonder if the child was okay.
"The boy is dead!"
"Oh, God! No! The child was hit by our bus!" one of the passengers shouted.

The bus driver had saved our lives instead of that child's.
"Quiet everyone! Look! The dead child is the bus driver's son!" someone yelled out.
We were speechless.
It became very quiet.
The bus driver had sacrificed the life of his own son to save us all from certain death.

The bus driver valued the lives of his passengers.
He thought that we were special and important people to our own families, just as his son was a special and important to him and to his family.

I can't imagine how terrible the driver felt  when he had to hit his own son to save the passengers on the bus.
But, his son probably understood the choice his father made.

Don't you agree?

Digest that.

This sent chills up my spine listening to it and retyping it just now. Maybe it's the format its written in reminds me of A Million Little Pieces which was a very raw and direct book. Sign should have been written sigh, but I didn't want to take away this boy's poetic licence. There are lots of things you can say about this story and where it was presented but all I could say after was a soft, "'the fuck?" 

   

It's a Great Day for Football

I have had an excellent day thus far. I woke up at 2:45 this morning and headed off to a friends house to watch some NFL football. Now that day light savings is on in the West games start at 3am as opposed to 2am because Koreans don't abide by those crazy farmer laws. Schedule-wise this works out really well because when 7am rolls around I can get out and walk to school from my friend's place. So now I'm at school well rested and it feels like 11am instead of the crack of dawn. I even beat my super keen co-teacher to work today.

As for the football games they all went my way. The Eagles, my team, staved off the Professional Washington Football team in the fourth quarter after giving up sixteen unanswered points. The Raiders and Texans had a B+ shootout. The Lions blew the game in a back-alley, running a fake field goal when they were up by four. Then the Steelers put some salt in the wound throwing a lob into the end-zone for a 37-27 win courtesy of Jim Schwartz egregious play-calling and the Steelers defense triple teaming Calvin Johnson. Oh yeah, Bobby Rainey torched Atlanta on several occasions giving the Buccaneers a big win. Geno Smith shit the bed against Buffalo, whose defense took over the game. Arizona beat Jacksonville... who cares? Finally, Vontaze "Perfect" Burfict not only ran through some unfortunate athlete who plays for the Browns, but recovered his own forced fumble and took it to the house! Cleveland never recovered, in fact they haven't recovered since Lebron. It was my first time experiencing NFL Redzone and it's target audience is anyone with ADD. I do miss hearing those little announcer stories about all of the athletes and, of course, all those trivia worthy stats.

Fantasy wise I couldn't be happier. Megatron had a great game bring in a whopping 29.9 points. Harry Douglas got 19 and change thanks to garbage time. That made up for Bush's measly 3.3. I had Luck and Fleener playing the Thursday game and they both delivered too. Boldin's playing great (for now) and Hauschka kicked a 50-yarder before I left. This all covers my butt if Peyton torches the Chiefs' D. Still 106 points makes me a happy camper  

This beats watching the ticker on Yahoo! at school. Now I'll definitely do this again if I can stay up until 9 tonight and go back to a regular sleeping pattern. That's my prayer up to the NFL gods. Make it happen.

I really like writing this blog so I'll probably start writing more of them too if the opportunity presents itself. 

The Bullets of Wednesday, November 13th 2013: Culture Day

Yesterday was an awfully long day here are the bullets:

• Woke up late booked it out of my apartment.
• Got on the subway. Two stops later a horde of wild children come onto the subway, it was a log jam. A very loud remedial log jam.
• I made it to school only to remember that I had to be in early for a broadcasting program. Thankfully my co-host saved my ass with a back-up plan that didn't involve me.
• Thrown immediately into my first class feeling like shit about how my day has started.
• The second class was the worst class I have this month and they weren't any different, maybe even worse. I was mentally drained and strained after that.
• To calm down I just caught up on marking my afternoon classes notebooks after my classes were done.
• I sent out my first Korean message to let the students in my afternoon class know it was cancelled because the entire staff is going hiking.
• Lunch was good but could have been better if went earlier.
• After that I lesson planned for today and Friday's afternoon classes.
• Out the door and off to our hiking destination.
• I got a ride with my space cadet teacher, which is always a nervous ride when the driver changes the volume of the radio frequently with her foot on the pedal, as well as the heat settings.
• We drove eastwards to a beautiful hilly area (specific I know).
• I walked up to this set of temples with some other teachers, and admired the artwork and scenery.
• I went to the bathroom and went up to another path to a break in the trees.
• When I got back to temples everyone was gone...
• Luckily, another group of teachers came up less than a minute after and showed me how to get back down. Everyone was shocked by my footwear too.
• Once I was down my co-teacher told me to check out some of the main temples on the other side of the parking lot. 
• We piled four people into a backseat of a luxury sedan made by Samsung (!?) and drove off to dinner in a restaurant off of the highway.
• We ate copious amounts of duck meat, various types of kimchi, salads, spicy fish soup and pickled root vegetables.
• The principal was fashionably late and toasted "Let's do better." and then said, "You do better too." Everyone laughed except me. Learning Korean is starting... soon.
• Then came the drinks.
• I was sitting next to the Grade 5 teachers and got to chat with some of them they were all soft-spokenexcept for the one who was pouring drinks like a cocktail waitress and drinking hers twice as fast.  
• Shuttled home in a teacher's backseat and walked home along the beach.
• Got home, watched two great episodes of The Shield while doing laundry.
• Read Nothing to Envy and passed the hell out.    

Here are pictures of the scenery and temples as well as a candid shot of half of the school's staff.

The staff: Drinks McGee is in the knit cap in front.

Dude on a door.

Hiking in slip-ons!

Everybody's favorite Golden Boy this side of the Pacific.

Junior Jams

There's some musical thing-a-ma-jig happening one room over. Right now there are two groups of jams happening 4 feet apart. It gets a little annoying because there's no chemistry just practicing but it makes me forget how insanely cold I am. AND how much I want to start bringing my guitar to school to pass these ever-so boring afternoons. Its the same picking and business over and over again but its growing on me like every pop song I hear more than once in a day or Colbie Calliat songs.

The cast includes some popular Grade 6 boys with some singers and two guitars then three third graders just picking away at their ukuleles. All of them are pretty well dressed, after all it is a performance. The sixth graders have matching powder blue baseball hats they're wearing backwards.

Now one of the awesome teacher has walked in and simply grabbed a guitar off of one of these Grade 6 kids and is acting like he knows how to play more than one song. I'm so tempted to go over and play and indirectly show him up. I'd have to take my gloves off though. I retract what I previously said this Teachah has got some finger-picking skill.

PS I'm cleared to start physio and get on the ol'guit-box. And I'm off to play if I can get my hands on one.

"It's Obama!"

We played this guessing game my co-teacher gave me as a warm up for an open class. The students would get five hints and had to guess the right person.

First person:
"I am American"
Everyone begins shouting at the top of their lungs, "Obama!, Teacher Obama!"
They were right.
The rest of the questions were a little tougher but this one stood out to me for a lot of reasons.

It made me realize that Obama (who doesn't even have a first name in this country) is the face of one of the most powerful countries in the world. At the same time, and this is the sad part, all black people are type cast as Obama. Al Rocker, Samuel Jackson, Michael Jordan, Bill Cosby, and even Lebron James are all Obama in the eyes of my students and the rest of their generation so my colleagues say.

This is stereotyping at its finest. Koreans and probably other nations too that aren't obsessed with the NFL or NBA can't name another successful person of African descent. There were always jokes that every Asian guy was Jackie Chan and every white guy was either Tom Hanks or Hans Gruber, now when this joke becomes a reality the world loses a little bit of its dignity.

Since February is a write-off month at school for reasons that I'll explain in February, I feel obligated to honour black history month and talk about a different accomplished man or woman of African descent in order to broaden the horizons of my students. Even if I talk about this for 5 minutes it'll be worth it.

Even though some jokes are deeply seeded in racism I can't resist sharing this one:
On student whose family name is Oh told me his first child will have the given name Ba-Ma so that his child's name will be Oh Ba-Ma. No pressure for that kid to change the world.

Through the Eyes of the Waygook: The F Floor

I'll let it be known that on a Friday the 13th a couple years ago I walked by three black cats on the way to a friends place. I had a feeling everything was going to suck because my day was already in the drain and this triple cat sighting made me feel like the real shit-storm was coming. Not the case. I got to my friend's place and we had duck cassoulet (one of top ten meals of my life) while watching one of the most exciting hockey games I've ever seen. Then of course we had some top notch beers then drunk-food from the Burger Shack. Overall it was a great night and I've never cared about that calendar day anymore unless I'm teaching to raise awareness about how karma and the cosmos can mess you up.

We all know that in most apartment buildings and some hotels in the Western world the thirteenth floor is marked as the fourteenth because of superstition and all that voodoo-jazz. After coming to Korea and stepping into my elevator for the first time it was novel to see the thirteenth floor. I just assumed the number thirteen wasn't an unlucky one. Eventually it just became another floor to get off on. Now in hindsight I  can't believe that Koreans aren't superstitious because they knit-pick a lot things. Example being people don't buy black dogs or cats because there is a "darkness" in them. Maybe they'd classify this is paranoia over superstition but still it's bizarre.

Recently I went over to a friend's place for a potluck. She lived on the sixth floor and it had been a long day so we decided to take the elevator. The panel was pretty standard for a small apartment except there was an "F" floor. We had no idea but I'm sure you can think of what an F can stand for. The weirdest thing is the F sound isn't even a sound in Korea. Come on up! I'm on the Ep-puh ploor. My Korean friend explained that the number 4 is also a sign of death in Korea. Spoooky. Looking back there wasn't a fourth floor in my hospital which makes complete sense now. This is an Asian-wide belief. In fact some buildings will go from 39 right to fifty. Did Samsung and Nokia users have to settle for 3G until 5G came out? This supstition can spread all over from train serial numbers to a an elevator omitting the number.  

Maybe it's another reason to yell, "Fore!" in golf because death could be on its way.

Explaining Halloween

Today at school no one is dressed up apart from me. That's a lie. I wore this exact same outfit two weeks ago but this time I'm wearing a cowboy hat too. Obviously this strange custom needs to be explained so that children understand why they aren't part of this ridiculous holiday.

Enter my Grade 3 co-teacher.

"I'll explain this bizarre holiday to these third graders using a PPT presentation fresh off of the Korean equivalent of waygook.org" she gallantly thinks to herself.

Boy, was she wrong. The second slide in the presentation asks "Where does Halloween come from?" The answer: Celtic Tradition.

"Oh, English Teacher, what does this mean?"

What I felt like saying: "Well, it originated from Paganism, which originated from Ireland. Those are the people who only eat potatoes because after they fell from the sky those Irelanders, as they like to be called, ate all the dinosaurs and then all the dinosaurs died, just like the buffalo, remember that digression children? Now they only eat potatoes because its the closest thing to dinosaur meat in both flavor and texture. Back to the question though, they celebrate Halloween because they believed the Giant Spaghetti Monsters from Mars, who have ancestral lineage to dinosaurs, come to Earth seeking revenge for their slaughtered brethren on October 31st. Irelanders disguise themselves by dressing up as other people who don't have fire-red hair or neon green lips. And they decided to eat candy instead of potatoes too. That's all the facts you need children."

Annnnnd what I actually said: "It's just really old."

I tuned out the rest of the PPT cuing in on words like "Jombie," "Bampire," and "Gosootuh." Then we started a lesson on weather which went splendidly each time. This was my last day with grade 3s and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. As I type, the two quietest kids in today's storytelling class are doing a Halloween word search. While the others are nowhere to be found. Life's great.

Happy Halloween!

Dajeon Halloween Hat X

This past weekend was Dajeon's tenth annual Halloween Hat Tournament. Held along the river and under the big ol'sun the setting was prime. AND with little to no wind it was a great time for Ultimate.

'stumes:

On Halloween, plenty of people equals plenty of costumes: it was great to see costumes that reflected the creativity and fun-loving philosophy behind the ROK-U community. From the 40+ onesies, and the drag queens to the local impersonations and Alcohol-themed super heroes and everything in between everything was amazing. One of the neatest ones was Operation, and a Ramen Samurai but I was too drunk to remember seeing that. The spirit of the game flowed into the spirit of Halloween, everyone was happy and classy the whole weekend.

Highlights   

Obviously I didn't see everything with three games being played at once but here are five things I'll never forget... until something better happens. One highlight I didn't see was K-Mike's callahan on Sunday, kudos to him.

The Greatest;

Nick Whale was running with two defenders after a disc heading to the end zone. The disc was at least eight feet in the air and staying there. No biggy, Nick just leaped out the back of the end zone and threw it behind him like he's done it a million times. Whale's throw ended up right in between his trailing teammate's hands. Both made the play look easy. 

The Bid:

James CheeseWhiz (our only recurring player) was on the far side of the field ten feet out of the end zone. He put a dart into the endzone to a wide open Dan Danson. Danson made a great bid, parallel to the ground, fully extended, and made a spectacular one handed grab. It could have been an easier play... but what's the fun in that?

Coast to Coast 

Andy Wind, the man behind the event, plays so hard every second of the game it's just awesome to watch. He cut deep, leaving his man behind, and laid out for a disc that was a finger tip away from being caught. Off the turn, the opposition's handler put a deep disc to Wind's man who was all by himself. With Wind just getting up off the ground it looked like an easy point. Not the case Wind sprung up off the grass and chased down the disc into his own end zone and smacked it out of bounds. Simply nuts. 

Up in the Air

CheeseWhiz was defending Travis Nurse who was chasing down a bomb. The disc was curling into the corner of end zone and coming down. Both guys leaped up for it leaving a solid two feet between cleats and grass. James managed to get a hand on it pushing it out towards the sideline. That was until Travis got under the disc and brought it down, in bounds, with two hands.    

Tips

Obviously I didn't get to play an actual game this weekend since you can't defend with one arm but I still got to play a fun game of Tips. Which is non-contact and usually goes perfectly with a beer in one hand. It was four-on-four. As usual headers, knees, and kicks are worth more points than tipping the disc with your hands. The disc was being thrown to my team it dropped pretty quickly. CheeseWhiz (I promise I'm not following him.) kicked it up and sent it wobbling over to me. Still too low to grab I popped it up with the toe of my shoe and James managed to grab it. Double-kick, 10 points! I couldn't find it on youTube so this was obviously the first one ever. It's nice to be a part of history.

This tourney was great, as was the partay (from what I heard), and I can't wait to play in Halloween XI! 

    

TGIFF

Sorry I've had a long few days since this happened and caught up on some sleep. Can't wait for the next Friday!

I had three surprisingly good classes today. Yesterday being a test day I guess no third grader has a reason to be high strung any more. This lesson is the last one of the unit so we did a review of listening, speaking, and writing. One class barely participated but the rest were really into the activity and the gif at the end. I would go as far as to say that I had an amazing morning.

At the stroke of noon, everything changed. The last class of the morning came in clique by clique. The boys were yelling, others fighting, the girls were conspiring and others were dragging one another around on the floor. One of the lower level students came in and was crying. She sits directly across from my co-teacher who didn't do anything about anything until the bell rang. When the bell finally rang the class sat in their seats and continued yammering in Korean. Meanwhile this little girl at the front is still sobbing while her neighbor is yelling to his friend at the back of the class. One of the students is missing and for some bizarre reason my CT asked where he was. The question brought on a tidal wave of answers. With this class if one person says something you get 26 other students telling their side of the story. I hate it. At the same time I know more of these third graders because my office shares a wall with them. Honestly, I don't know how I've survived up until now.

Finally the boy who was late came in moody as ever and just completely shut down, but he talked a little bit during the speaking activity after cooling down from what looked like a good old fashion angry cry.

Anyways my CT took the first half of the class and decides to ask them questions using words only one student knows. And, of course, this is the noisiest kid in the class. My co-teacher plows through the textbook portion and I get through my activity with only a few hiccups which involved shushing the class and calling out ten kids. Five for hitting their neighbors; two for talking; another two for shouting out the wrong answer; and one for wiping his boogers on the top of his desk. With three minutes left my co-teacher plays a song about the lesson. This being the last lesson in the unit everyone knows the song off by heart and start yelling and screaming like hooligans at a soccer game. The two criers plug their ears and bury their heads in their desk. Half way through the boy who was late yelled over all of them in Korean which resulted in 25 voices attacking right back. There was no control, nothing could prevent a screaming match except for the bell and the promise of food. As the yelling continued to escalate, looking at the clock I just started waving and saying goodbye. They all stopped looking in wonder and hearing the end of the bell chiming. In an even bigger uproar everyone climbs overs chairs and desks to file out the backdoor of the classroom. Waving good bye to the last student it was remarkable to see what they left behind. A desk was knocked over, no chairs were pushed in, worksheets littered the floor and my co-teacher was already out the door.

I put on some Sammy R to clean and straighten the desks. Some students from another third grade class came into help as well. I promised them candy but I don't think they understood.

Thank goodness lunch was good. Then my afternoon class was just tattle-tales and nothing fun. I'm burnt out. Sleep is happening tonight.  

Speaking Tests: The DMV of the Teaching World.

At least once a year I have to perform speaking tests for each class. I set up a desk and two chairs across from each other in the hall with pictures of our topics. This time around its food. Students come out one by one to identify the pictures and answer some questions related to liking and not liking food, or reading a list of food. It's a pretty dull set of days. There are lots of things I hate about this week of bogus testing. First of all, these ESL classes are run like universities in the sense that you will have less than ten evaluations over the course of the year. Personally, I find this to be really stupid in an elementary school, because of the whole good day, bad day business, and you can't scope a student's ability based on only ten assessments, if that.

Speaking tests are one of these and the students are given an A,B, or C. An A obviously is perfect. B is a pretty big gap varying from major mistakes to minor ones. A C is an North American F. Obviously I don't agree with this at all because barely passing and just missing perfection is the same mark. I gets really finicky too. Some kids who are head and shoulders above their class will throw an advanced phrase they've learned at the academy which the state would fail because the program bases itself on cookie-cutter answers. I don't really follow these guidelines because there's more than one way to get your point across in a conversation. In the end I don't even know where this information gets processed, part of me doesn't want to know anyways.

The materials I get for these tests are crap too. Once again, I'm just given the resources, the marking sheet, then fed a script. No input required. However, I did get to change a picture on a test! One of the food's to identify is chicken; the picture is a platter of fried chicken that goes outside of the frame printed in black and white. I got a variety of answers when kids were asked to tell me what they see: flowers, ice cream, curry, candy, cookies, and "I don't know." Obviously this was a write-off answer. So long as they said an English word I let it go. The next day I told my CT and she printed off a nice roast chicken with a clip-art watermark plain as day in the middle of the picture.Having these is a major pet peeve so I went back to the mystery food because its far more entertaining.

That's when I realized this viably redundant assessment is turning me into a bitter asshole. There's no stimulation or excitement. Also the windows are open for air circulation; as a result, the hallway is a wind tunnel if the wind picks up. Don't worry I tape down my pictures, but the gusts just send an icy shiver up my spine and having cashed in all my paid sick days from being stuck in the hospital I can't afford to get sick this winter.

Upsides still exist: having the reigns of the hall and three pieces of furniture, learning kids names slowly, and chatting with my favorites. It's a dreary job but as a civil servant in Korea I'm bound to get stuck with hokey paperwork that I'm not 100% for. It's just like working at the DMV: move the lines, tick the boxes, complain, punch-out, and forget about it. I became a teacher to make a difference in the future of the world, and for these classes life is super mundane. I've finished off the Grade 3s at the tail-end of this past week, and I have 6 more Grade 4 classes to go. Workload stat: 162 more letters too write in the appropriate box. At least they're no multiple choice questions.              

minimalist

after walking through this school after lunch countless times i'm used to the routine. the children pack up their things and head to their after school program, some are even in the school. in these classrooms monitors and materials that are stowed in the back of the class set aside for these programs. meanwhile i'm in a library where ottomans are desks, the curriculum is on scraps of paper that change day to day, and there isn't a textbook in sight.

i remember when i was given the reigns to teach an afternoon class all by myself. i was ecstatic. on my schedule i was so optimistic that in november i planned an independent novel study. reality has sunk in. even the word novel is something lost in this learning environment but i have accepted these discouraging facts. i'm an esl teacher not a language arts teacher at some prestigious middle school in southern ontario. teachers and admin have not granted me any sort of advice or goal for my afternoon classes, thus, i'm doing what ever i feel like which is coaching these kids to not only read but understand what they're reading.

do i need a smart board? do i need a textbook? do i need a fucking curriculum to teach children? no, but sometimes i wish i could reward them with youtube videos on a big screen. i'll admit worksheets have been overused as have shared and group readings but when there's nothing cool and educational inspiration doesn't kick me in the teeth. in the beginning i only had a plethora of books-- 80% about drivel they couldn't understand-- and a whiteboard the size of a monopoly junior board which was the glue to having instructions and examples for my little learners. only recently did i find a half-busted whiteboard in the garbage heap of a resource room. now life is significantly better because i'm not crammed for writing space.

for the record i'm not venting about my lack of resources i'm just enlightening you, the reader, that education doesn't ride on flash and jazz. it helps in some cases but its founded on the questions you ask and the discussions you have about the answers. these kids are learning about plot and inferences, countless times in the beginning kids would pull words off the page and use it as their answer. that didn't fly with me, paraphrasing isn't a word my co-teachers know so i've had to get my students to paraphrase by talking about pictures and the bare bones of our scholastic and hello reader products. most of them are fighting with this and now some are starting to win and its nice to see. after my first class of grades 3-4 storytelling, as we call it, seeing the product is like watching the sun rising in the west.

and i've done that with creativity and hard work on both sides of the worksheet. after being in teacher's college with a smart board in every room, then the same deal in my first placement i realized that teaching can be low maintenance and easy to get kids involved. my second placement was in a low-end toronto school with little extra-curricular activities and zero spending money. i was stuck using overheads, worksheets, and writing notes on a 'black'board. reality sank in that equal education doesn't exist in ontario. mind you the professionals i met on my second placement could teach circles around those smart board technicians. still, there isn't an educational equality. i'm still not the best but getting these opportunities to be a minimalist teacher is so helpful because the world isn't perfect: power surges, computer malfunctions, misplaced flash drives happen to the best of us. its always nice to have mediums other than pen to paper and a voice (lemon juice helps with that issue) but warming up to this job with minimal resources benefits, and preserves, what makes someone a good teacher. i mean c'mon, who needs a shift key especially if you're doing an editing workshop?

Canadian Thanksgiving

After a little rough patch in September the rest of October is shaping up to be pretty memorable. I can't raise my arms in celebration but that doesn't mean I'll never celebrate. Since being out of the hospital I've had to change my routine to accommodate my disability by waking up earlier, eating more take-out, pan-frying less, and putting my belt through pant loops before putting my pants on. I've also had to buy several things to make life easier: back scrubber, back scratcher, slip-on Vans, and a messenger bag. I feel so much older bringing a messenger bag to school instead of a back-pack. I'm no longer that man-child-teachah with 5 o'clock shadow! Since button-up shirts are easier to take on and off I rarely wear t-shirts anymore too. Obviously drinking in excess doesn't happen because of that whole trust issue I have with my wobbly, drunken self. Despite finding out tripping down to Cambodia and CM, again, is no longer an option I'm still jazzed about the entries/events to come:
- Halloween Hat
- Comfort Korean Food
- Community Gardens
- Cultural Day/ Dinner
 
In honor of Canadian Thanksgiving here are the Top 5 things I'm thankful for:
5. Still having my awesome job. Kids keep you young.
4. Slip-on Vans.  
3. The delicious Canadian Thanksgiving dinner provided by HQ Bar and the company that came with it.
2. The friends and family near and far who always find a way to brighten my day.
1. Not being in the hospital.

Korean Kid: Each Kid has at Least One Surprise in Them.

The first day my co-teacher for the day told me to ride the tide and take it easy. I still had the privilege of splitting a lesson with her. Our lesson involves food so most kids are interested in it. As teachers, we're barely speaking Korean too. Because of the simplicity I picked on the lower-level kids to answer some questions.

There's this one boy who I've known for a year now and has always struggled with English and it seems to carry over from the way other students act towards him. Consequently, he's completely checked out in class be it reading comics or doodling he has zero interest in learning. Today I call on him to identify a cookie. As usual he looks at me, then my co-teacher, then the screen, shrugs his shoulders, and goes back to doodling. BUT this time this little girl who sits next to him whispers something to him. He nods and reaches into his desk pulling out a GLASSES CASE. He takes out his glasses and puts them on and once again stares at the screen. Meanwhile, I could have shit a brick. Thankfully cookie is the same thing in Korean so he got the answer right. He's on the road to redemption.

Never a dull moment in an elementary school.
I'm Glad to be back.

I had an Idea, then it Spun outta Control. Here it ... is.

I have a checkout date and that feels weird. Now that I know the things I need to do when I open the door to my apartment: throw out food, clean (maybe), dust (efff that), there are probably dishes, sort mail, laundry, take out the trash, then buy and make food. Okay, part of me is really excited about food but for the past two weeks and change I have had get to the bathroom on my own, and clean chopsticks and a spoon. The vacation is over, and I'm antsy about the bill as well as the trip back into being an adult. Then come Monday there's this thing I have called a job. Hell, I can't even remember what my office looks like. In the end it'll be nice to get back to work and see all the teachers and kids. With all of these things comes one thing I haven't missed at all, eye-gouging stress.

There's been a bulwark in the hospital from certain aspects of Korea that I loathe. I haven't dealt with scooter-riding turds weaving from the road to the sidewalk and back. My supremely anal teacher has not asked me to do anything in over a month which feels more like a year. The routine is so simple here that both the nurses and I manage to get by with the marginal English and Korean crossover we share (although I'm sure both of us use a translation generator before speaking to one another). Also, no one would push past an injured person on the subway or an escalator. Hospitals showcase hospitality and outside there isn't a lot of hospitality in the hustle-bustle of a Korean workday... which is everyday. Either way, when you're insincerely pushed off-stride, told to do something last minute, calming a screaming child that doesn't understand you, or just trying to solve an issue can't hop over the language barrier life gets frustrating little by little until the weekend rolls around. This is when the watering holes fill up and people rant, dance, and guzzle until all the weight of the week slides off your shoulders and you're back to the care-free days of an undergrad .

Since I've been off the front lines for a long time and coming back in the middle of the semester I don't have time to smell the roses. The second I walk in those doors I'm one lesson behind and have an hour to solve the problem. I'm already anticipating a cold Cafri just thinking about Monday. In the end, when the going gets to be too much the bottle's my alleviate. That's what scares me. My parents have warned me about my alcoholic family members and the belief its genetic, and that was a good scare tactic until I read A Million Little Pieces. Despite all the controversy around it, a story is a story; anyone can salvage a lesson out of fiction. What I got out of Frey's novel was that you are in charge of your own life, genetic weaknesses or not just a mentality with stuff like that. I'm slowly learning this isn't the case all the time (E.g. my current situation). But when you fall off a horse, or a wagon, you get back on again or you can mope and complain about it. Plain and simple, your actions reflect your choices not some higher power or voodoo magic.  

When I step out of this hospital its a different ball game. Not because my arm is out of commission but I feel wiser than I was before and have a lot of empathy for the injured. Being isolated in a hospital as an anomaly is an experience I never want to experience again. How I play ultimate will change. When Boody Miles ruined his knee in Friday Night Lights he came back and wasn't confident playing his best on it and then became a regular Joe in two plays. Same here, Boody, if I fall on my left side, I wouldn't feel confident putting my arm out to brace myself let alone lean on it. The road to recovery will be a long one. The road to regaining confidence will be even longer. I started this blog to talk about how life makes me drink for all sorts of reasons but now that doesn't seem as important. Mind you drinking with this will be a bad idea because drunk "logic" can go like this. I won't turn myself into an alcoholic escapist because I will make life fun, stress-free, and without vices. If another curveball comes my way I'll just take a step out of the batter's box, have couple deep breathes, then go back in and try to hit it out of the park.

... Since I made a few baseball references...
Dodgers beat the Red Sox in 5*

* I don't watch baseball.