Old Kicks

It's looking more and more like the disease residing against me wasn't, in fact, my old friend Bronchitis, but my old nemesis: Pneumonia. This (oh, so classic) Mister Alex is from early 2007, titled 'Mister Alex successfully Kicks Pneumonia'. Apparently, not hard enough. Obviously, since I took the time to dig around for that, you might guess what i've been doing during my 'break' (nothing).

I ran out of antibiotics today, so I went back to the doctor's for more, since this 'Bronchitis' wasn't getting any better. There really wasn't much that he could do there, aside from give me more antibiotics, and give me a referal letter. With that letter, i'm to go to the hospital on Monday to get Chest X-Rays, and confirm the entirely sucky news. It feels the same as it did two years ago, so I don't really doubt Pneumonia at this point.

Now, Pneumonia is one of those things that sounds painful and dangerous, but I don't really feel that bad. It's a disease that's more annoying than anything, since any deep breaths makes you cough. It's annoying to have, and annoying to have to be treated for, since it really doesn't allow me to do anything worthwile during the Holidays. Ah well - One small consolation is the experience of comparing Medical facilities and procedures between Korea and Canada. This kind of stuff is always interesting.

Anyway, on to more positive subjects: First, at the end of January, i'll be going to Hong Kong with three fellow teachers. We found very decent airfare rates, as well as accomodations, so we'll start planning on what we'll be doing on the trip fairly soon. Second: Christmas was okay. I was happy to hear my sister Emily got engaged (congrats to you and Nick again!), and it wasn't completely horrible to be so far away; only moderately horrible.

Hope everyone continues to have a good Holiday Season.

Christmas Eve: In Bed with Bronchitis Edition

With my immune system kicking ass day in, and day out this year, I suppose I was due to come down with something sooner or later. I think it's unfortunate that Christmas Eve is the day that I get diagnosed with Bronchitis - but what can you do?

I really felt like hell this morning, and although I was due to go out with my Intro Adult-Class to lunch, I told them that I (unfortunately) had to go back to the Doctor's. What's funny is that one of the last units in the book was called 'Advice', where we saw 'What should you do if you have a headache? a toothache?', etc etc. So they were very quick to say 'Alex! Go see a Doctor! Rest in Bed! Eat Soup!'... haha. I like them. I got the okay to go to the clinic, and I was even brought in by two of my students, who were able to translate everything that needed to be translated (which just speaks of their great progress in the past four months).

After the Doc prescribed antibiotics, they insisted that I let them take me out for Soup for lunch anyway. Since I needed to eat before Meds, I agreed. Turns out they have gotten me a few Christmas Presents as well, which was a surprise, considering how uncelebrated Christmas is over here. I ended up spending the rest of the day in bed, but what can you do?

Ah well. Merry Christmas.

Four Down

Time just keeps on whizzing by - it's hard to believe Christmas is this week. On Saturday, GEC celebrated by having a staff Christmas party at a local bar, Jack's.

For ten dollars, we were served a great Christmas meal (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes - mmm, first time in four months), and given unlimited amounts of alcohol. I wasn't feeling 100%, so I didn't indulge all that much - though it was still fun. I was even called upon to bartend near the end of the night, which was cool - but I had to be that bastard that cuts you off and says 'No. You've had enough. Go home'. Bartending wasn't particularly difficult, since by that point in the night, we only had Vodka and Wine left over.

The coming week is going to be fairly relaxed, as can be expected for Christmas week. I'm off on Christmas Day, and only teach a single adult-class on Friday, which essentially means that i'm only working three days. Plans for Thursday are still pretty flimsy at this point, but i'll be spending the day with other teachers, so it won't be too bad.

Happy Holidays!

The Brave, The Nice?

The most bizzare thing just happened. As I was walking back from the dentist, suddenly a couple of hundred Korean Soldiers are marching my way. Wearing face paint, holding automatic guns, and wearing camoufflage vests. I've never seen that before. I start thinking 'oh crap, i'd better put on a good smile and just hope for the best'. When they reach me, every 10 or 20 Soldier goes 'Hello, how are you?' and 'Have a nice day!'.

How wonderfully random.

No Big Deal

When I teach my intro-level adult class in the morning, I usually set aside the final 10 minutes for a discussion period, based on a question I gave them during the previous class. This week, the questions have gone from 'What do you think is more important: Physical Appearance or Intelligence?', to 'What is the happiest time of the year?', and today, 'How do you celebrate Christmas?'.

The answers I get are sometimes funny and unexpected, but always interesting. As it stands for the month of December, it's composed of 8 Korean housewives, all of which i've been teaching since the beginning of September - and it's great to hear answers from their own point of view. To the first question, my favourite answer was 'Intelligence. If you're intelligent, you can become very rich, and you can pay to make your physical appearance beautiful' - well, that was the gist of the answer. The sentence structure is still a bit shaky, but they've made great, great progress over the last four months.

To the second question, 'What is the happiest time of the year?', I had told them examples of holidays (Christmas is my favourite time of the year, because...). The problem we ran into, is that they understood 'What was the happiest time you had, this year?' - and that kind of stuff really highlights how much we 'native speakers' take for granted with our vocabulary. It never even occured to me that a generalized question could be misinterpreted that way.

Today's question, 'How do you celebrate Christmas?', was pretty interesting. I was starting to wonder what a typical Korean does on Christmas day - I knew it was a low-key affair, but not to what extent. As it turns out, most of them have very similar plans - a dinner with their immediate family, a little shopping, and going to the movies. Some were giving small gifts to their children. I think it's pretty close to the same level of hype as 'Family Day' is, in Ontario - no big deal. That same low-hype athmosphere is pretty much what I see everywhere.

There are very few Christmas lights and decorations. Christmas music does play in a handful of places, but not in the bulk of locales. In a way, i'm pretty happy with it - it sucks to be far away for the holidays, but since it doesn't feel like the holidays, it almost feels like i'm not missing anything. Here's hoping the feelin' continues.

Anyway, GEC has a staff Christmas Party on Saturday, so that should be fun. Unfortunately, I have yet another dentist visit tomorrow (which marks #4), followed by another on Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday the 27th. It's not that my teeth are horrible, it's just that he's taken 5 appointments to complete the root canal, one to do a tooth molding, and one to install the crown.

Ah well. At least for the rest of my life, i'll be able to say 'I had root canal surgery 5 times within two weeks - and in a foreign country'.

Beat that!

All I Want for Christmas is my Bottom Right Molar

Maybe 'Bottom Right Molar' isn't quite as catchy as 'Two Front Teeth', but i'm sad to report, me and the Molar have decided to go our own seperate ways.

I had been feeling some tooth sensitivity there for a couple of weeks (it'd sting if I drank cold water, or had something sugary lodged inside of it), so I decided to take a precautionary trip to the Dentist on Thursday. Worst thing that can happen, I figured, was to have to get a filling (no big deal!). It seems I was a wee bit too optimistic.


After taking an X-Ray, the dentist told me 'Root! Root.. uhh'. I offered, slightly scared: 'Caa.. Canal?'.

'Yes!'

Ah crap. He told me to come back at 2PM, apparently not wanting to wait any extra days. I say 'okay'. I went back to the school, and they (thankfully) agreed to let me miss my first two classes for the appointment of pain. I still had to teach my last two, but I figured i'd be okay by then.

The 'surgery' wasn't too bad, although I have to go back Monday morning to continue/finish it. While I can't say that the pain was really that bad, i'll hold my reservations until he's completed. I will say, though, a Korean Dentist coming at my mouth with a giant needle, and several drilling instruments is not one of the cultural experiences that I had in mind.

The good news: the Root Canal is mostly covered by the insurance provided by the school (I only had to pay 13$) - the bad news: getting a Crown is not. The cheapest choice i've been given for a crown is 350$ (A-Gold), followed by 400$ ('Super' Gold), or 450$ (Platinum Gold). Hoooorayyy.

There goes that overtime money.

Ohoho, OC Transpo

With the 30 centimetres of snow and OC Transpo Strike having hit Ottawa today, I thought i'd cheer you up by not-only writing an entry, but posting a picture of a truly awesome snack I found today: Crunky Ball Chocolate. Noooow, I could go on a really immature spew about how Crunky Ball Chocolate melts in your mouth (and is delicious), but - as I said - that'd be immature (and besides, i'm sure you can come up with much better lines than that).

Anyway, it's been an uneventful day in an uneventful week - but it seems like almost every week is eventful, so, really, an uneventful week is in itself eventful. Although I did finally get a Cellphone, so if you're ever affected by a life-threatening disease who's only cure is to hear my voice, you now have access to that cure. You can nab the number off Facebook if you need it.

On the Christmas Present front, everything is shipped and sent (though I had to sacrifice my lunch hours on Monday and Tuesday - you're welcome). They said it could take up to 15 days (which i'll assume are business days), so everything should get to its destination a little before, or a little after Christmas. If you're one of those lucky people getting a package, you'll notice I didn't actually say 'this is for this person, this is for that person'. It's not because I forgot to label things (well, as far as you know), but back in September, when I was in Busan, the three of us that made the trip down were given gifts - and we decided amongst ourselves who would get what. I liked that approach, so give it a go. If someone ends up with a black eye, I may or may not revisit that method.

As always, have a good one!
Cheers

Cellphone Chagrin

About a month ago, I decided to finally get a cellphone. You may remember I ventured to Bupyeong (an Incheon market) to get one, which I bought second-hand, since it was cheaper. That phone ended up being stolen (which means they couldn't activate it). Ah well - just a bit of bad luck - I told myself i'd go back the following Friday.

That Friday, I got another phone. They felt bad about making me go back, so they gave me one worth about twice the value of the first. Cool! So the following Monday, it gets activated. Now, obviously, I don't know all that many people in Korea, so I don't have an actual conversation with someone until a week later. Only problem: they can't hear me. Arrrrgh. So again, the next Friday, I go back. They say 'Okay - no problem, we'll change it now'. So they cancel that phone - attempt to activate a new phone - only to find out that there's no English setting on it.

And they have no other phones! Now, why I didn't just insist on a refund, i'm not too sure. I suppose I was hoping to bank on a little guilt, to get a much more decent phone. I'm all for giving people extra chances, but sheesh, these guys suck. It took them a week to locate another phone, which they apparently mailed out two days ago (this Friday). If you add up all of the weeks it's taken, it doesn't take a genius to acknowledge that the total is a hundred times longer than it should've taken. I suppose it's a lesson for those kids out there about being cheap.

Support your local economy! Buy stuff that works!

Anyway, there's nothing terribly exciting about the coming week. Not in Korea, anyway. For everyone with excellent TV-taste, though, make sure not to miss the upcoming series finale of Boston Legal. Denny Crane and Alan Shore - ye shall be missed.

(oh, and watch Dexter too)

Ciao

'Does this Space Suit make me look Fat?'

For this week, and the following two weeks, GEC is hosting a Winter Camp for kids. It entails classes Monday through Thursday, followed by a field trip on Friday. About a third of the teaching staff gets to go on the Friday outings. I was lucky enough to be picked for this week's outing: Space Camp. I must say, I was probably more excited than the kids (and I couldn't even understand jack.

The camp in question is about an hour outside of Incheon. I don't know exactly where, but then, neither did the bus driver. We spent fifteen minutes being lost, before turning around and finding the right place. Not that the location's very obvious either; since there are no street names in Korea, it's not all that reasonable to expect any driver to find his way to some faraway amusement centre. The kids didn't get too roudy though; what do you expect, with a large flat-screen TV playing them Tom and Jerry?

Once we arrived, it was pretty fast-paced. The kids were first given a presentation on the Solar System, and its planet - including the one pictured here, on the right. That's right: Naptune. The sleepiest planet in the Solar System. After that, they were given what I assume is a presentation on the Space Race, since there were pictures of JFK and Neil Armstrong.

We were then escorted to a 3D theatre, where I watched one of the most bizzare movies i'll ever see. Obviously, I didn't understand a word of what was said, but the visuals didn't make that much sense either. There was a little boy, playing with a robot. The robot gets kidnapped. The boy is sad. The robot is now marching in the army. He gets sad, and stop (while the rest of the troops move on). There's a nuclear explosion that destroys all of the Robot Army, and knocks the robot unconscious for a hundred years. He then wakes up with a tree growing over his head. So he walks around the earth (with said tree on his head), to find the boy he was playing with (who's now an old man). When they reach each other, the earth is rejuvenated, and everything's happy again.

I.. I don't know.

After that, the kids were brought up to make some sort of constellation-necklace, while I wandered off. They had what seemed like pretty cool exhibits, so it was a shame I wasn't able to read them. Thankfully, you don't need to know Korean to admire little models of the NCC-1701.

Ohhh yeaaa.

If Only I Had CPAC...

These are interesting times right now in the Parliament of Canada. During my three-month break, between School and Korea, I watched quite a bit of CPAC - to the point where I was getting excited for question period every day (reminder: it starts earlier on fridays). I'd absolutely love to have access to it this week. The drama that's unfolding is the stuff that Sweeps TV-weeks are made of. Unfortunately, i'm stuck watching it from afar - but it should be a very interesting week. Will Harper prorogate Parliament? Will the House be brought down? Stayyyy tuned (then you have to wait a whole weekend for the thrilling conclusion!). Whether you're a leftie, a rightie, or a person of bidextrous political leanings, it's definitely interesting stuff.

As for what's going on over here, though... The new school semester began on Monday. I've held on to both of my adult classes (which depend on the adults re-registering monthly), so that's pretty great. I continue to do overtime Monday and Wednesday (by having 7 classes), but i've thankfully been given a break for the Tuesday-Thursday block. On those days, i'm starting the semester with 6 classes, which will shrink to 5, once the Winter Camp classes are over. Winter Camp is an intensive, three-week long class, teaching about three seperate countries - South Africa, Canada, and England.

The kids that I have have been good so far, but it's way too early in the semester to assess who'll be good, and who'll be more difficult. My goal for this semester is to put on a much stricter face to all classes, and loosen up if i'm able to. I've taken a cue from some more experienced teachers, and i'm starting to implement more and more classroom rules. In the long run, it should help with the stability of each class.

I did have a problem i've never encountered before, though. One of my classes, which is composed of only four kids, is deathly quiet. All the time. One of the rules I implemented today was the 'Quiet' rule (where I say 3! 2! 1!, and after one, they're quiet) - but for this class, it's ridiculously unnecessary. I have to accomplish the exact opposite - get them to communicate (not just with me, but with each other). I tried a variation of the 3-2-1 thing, where instead of silence, I tried to have them yell a silly word (just to have them yell something). Nooope.

Ah well. I'm looking forward to the challenge.
Happy December.

So Much for December 23rd.

For the past few years, the tradition went unchanged: Christmas shopping began around December 20th, and ended on the 23rd (or 24th, if I pushed my luck). I wouldn't even think of shopping before December hits (if I recall correctly, at the end of November, it was usually 'Oh-crap-I-have-too-much-stuff-to-hand-in' mode).

Yet I successfully managed to finish all my shopping this year, with a little under four weeks to go. Mind you, all the shipping I usually had to do was fueled by feet. Anyway, this weekend, I went to an area called Insadong - a place in Seoul that's renowned for selling traditional Korean goods. I decided to take a Solo trip for this one, just to prove to myself that i've regained the ability to know where the heck i'm going.

I only got a little lost.

Next up on my list of abilities to regain: How to understand prices, without pointing to the currency! I only ran into a little bit of trouble with that aspect though, and I think it actually turned out in my favour - a storeowner took my look of confusion as a hard-lined negotiation tactic, and when I was pondering over what he said, he went 'Okay, okay.. discount'. So I saved 10$! Whee.

There were also a few 'Cultural Events' going on in the area. One of which I took a picture of, a group of elderly Korean people playing some very beautiful (and what i'd assume to be traditional) Korean Flute music. As you can see, they were just there, in the middle of the street. I don't think this was pre-organized - they just decided to pick that spot to play.

I usually try not to pay too much attention to bad (and sometimes funny) spellings on signs, wherever I go, but I saw one store-sign that was too good to pass up, so I took a picture. It was a Korean Wellbeing Tea and Tea Set store, but the 'e' from Wellbeing was ommited from the original sign - so they added a correctional checkmark with an 'e' on top of the original sign (which is something kids do alot at school, as well). Even though it's hilarious, I have to commend them for the effort to fix their mistakes.

As solo adventures go, this ended up being a pretty successful one. In the end, I made it back to the dorm in Incheon in a little over four hours from the time i'd left. The next step, sometime this week, will be to figure out the shipping details - which i'm really not looking forward to sorting out, but alas, it must be done. My apologies in advance for not wrapping gifts (well, most gifts.. one of them was pre-wrapped), but they'll most likely be opened up by customs anyway.

Speaking of gifts, I received an early Christmas piece of mail from ma Soeur Émilie. When I opened it, there was an envelope marked 'Frère Jacques Alex' - I tried to explain the joke, after I burst out laughing, but alas, it's a bit hard to explain to anglos. With the package came an awesome Sens picture, some lottery scratchers, a keychain, and a great card from Émilie and Nick - thanks a lot guys! As I build up the Korean Senators-shrine, hopefully they'll start having some sort of success again.

They just haven't been the same since I left. Clearly, since the cheering has been quieter without me, they've all taken a psychological hit and are battling depression.

Hang in there, guys. Hang in there.

Where to go?

With Christmas being a month away, our actual 'long holiday' is still 7 or 8 weeks from now. While we do have Christmas day, Boxing day, and January 1st off, that's about the bulk of it. For the rest of the Holiday-week, i'll be hard at work, until the end of January. When the Chinese New Year starts though, we'll have an entire week off.

Prime time for a trip.

I'm still doing some research on possible destinations. With the Korean Won being the equivalent of this year's Ottawa Senators in the International Currency League, even trips in Asia look to be fairly expensive - so my best bet would be somewhere with a low cost of living. Possibly Taiwan or the Phillipines.

We'll see.

Should've been a Bowler

The weekend's already nearing its end over here, and it was a fairly relaxed one. Apart from going Bowling on Friday (and kicking a fair amount of ass, I must say), I stayed in for most of the weekend - apart from a little shopping. I did manage to pick up a couple more Christmas gifts, so i'm hoping to have everything done by next weekend so that I can start shipping.

On Friday, I also continued my secondary-job of 'Promotional Monkey' (I wonder how that would look on a resume?), by doing some extra work at a Korean Art Community Center. When I say work, I use that term pretty loosely.. The extent of what I did was really just stand there, smile, give pamphlets, and do the occasional bow. I'm not really there for the labour, so much as for the image of 'Hey look! We have foreigners!'; and looking foreign is a skill I definitely possess.

Other than that, I really don't have very much to report.. except for things on the Nerd front. So if you don't know/care about what Binary is, and other nerdly items, you can stop reading here for today, I won't be angry.

Okay. Good. The nerd crew: I don't actually have anything to say about binary. But Video-Game wise, i've been representing my French ancestry quite well, by conquering dozens of empires in Age of Empires 3. I've been playing with three other teachers for the better part of a month, and it seems I would've made a pretty excellent Military Strategist back in the day. We've also started installing the original Unreal Tournament on a few people's machines, so we'll have a decent group playing First Person shooters on the LAN soon enough.

It's exciting. Really.

25%

I've now been in Korea for a little over three months. Incidently, it means that my first semester as a Teacher is nearly complete. (They're a total of three months each). Not counting my adult classes, I only have one remaining class for each group of kids- which means 10 classes, to be completed Thursday and Monday.

The experience of teaching has been a pretty great one so far. 80% of my classes are always fun to teach, mostly because the kids are genuinely interested in learning. The other two classes (for those who've managed to do the math), are what i'd consider a waste of time. Kids rarely pay attention, and when they do, it's a challenge keeping that attention for longer than 10 minutes - so instead of having them learn language skills, most of the time is spent arguing or doing discipline. The few in the class that do want to learn, are the ones that end up suffering.

It almost sounds cliché, after having heard this attitude for years and years from teachers and Professors (''those who don't want to be here, leave''), but a negative classroom environment can be incredibly frustrating . While other students might not be directly frustrated at someone acting up, a lot of their time is wasted when one person has to be pinpointed by the teacher (and the general-attention level also drifts away - making the whole class harder to manage).

But back to the positive: The classes that are good are really good. The more they know what to expect, the smoother the classes go. I think there's a period, at the beginning of the semester, where all kids in all classes are just sizing you up on discipline and teaching style.

It's not the easiest balance to strike. My approach is to be silly and easy-going most of the time, but letting the kids know when I need them to be serious. That way it keeps the class fun (and interesting), yet in control. But the level of how easy-going and serious is a shifting scale, from class to class. Some kids may not need any sort of discipline, while some may need quite a bit of it... so the more you know each child in the class, the easier it is to teach them.

Sadly, with the end of the semester, i've been told that i'm going to have to change co-teachers (which also means a change of kids). Generally, the kids stick with the Korean co-teachers, which is a shame... but also an opportunity to start again, and learn from my mistakes. Hopefully I can manage to make 100% of my classes great (or at least, to get the bad ones under a tighter leash).

Anyway, the upcoming weekend shouldn't be anything special - i'm hoping to finish my Christmas shopping (or have it almost finished, anyway) so that I can start mailing things in two or three weeks.

Have a good one

Hockey Night in Korea

Saturday night, I traveled with a few other teachers to Anyang, located in Southern Seoul, to watch my first live hockey game of the year. Who needs the Ottawa Senators when you've got the Anyang Halla?? The commute was a whopping two hours, but I have no complaints. The Anyang Halla were playing the China Sharks, a matchup of the Asia Ice Hockey League. The Stadium isn't very big - it could probably hold two or three thousand people - but the crowds seemed to get into the game quite a bit.

After two periods, Halla was down 2-Zip, but stormed back with three goals in the third, to win the game - which is more than I can say about our 'ol boys back in Ottawa (arrrgh). Tickets were pretty cheap, at 8$ a pop, and we had a central view of the whole thing. The rul.es seemed to be the same as any International game (no-touch icing, two line passes, larger ice) The only strange thing about the Arena was the lack of any concession stand - forcing us to bring our own beer and snack - (and forcing us to pay only 2$ for a tallboy as opposed to 10 - haha).

To celebrate Halla's good result, some of us went to a Chinese restaurant nearby. Although this is like going to celebrate a Senators win at a Toronto-restaurant, for whatever reason, the staff seemed pretty uncaring (I wonder why?). We ordered some Kung Pow chicken that completely kicked our asses. There were dark, roasted peppers that tasted pretty good for the first five seconds - only to induce a state of complete pain and panic moments later. It's the closest i've ever felt to an out-of-body experience. Oiii. And for whatever reason, I thought i'd have better luck eating them the second time, and that I was just kidding myself as to how bad they were.

Nope. Word of advice: Never order Kung Pow chicken in a genuinely Chinese restaurant. Ever.

Friday night, I had gone to a market in Bupyeong (a district of Incheon, about 45 mintues away) to finally go and buy myself a cellphone. It wasn't exactly a fun process, but I managed to find a decent one for around 30$ (a really good bargain). Since it was late, they weren't able to activate it, and assured me it would be done the next morning, and that they'd call the Korean teacher that had gone with me with the phone number. As it turns out, they couldn't activate it. It was a permanently locked phone, because it was stolen. Oiiii.

I returned today (Sunday), and they seemed pretty contrite - and instead of a 30$ phone, they gave me one worth about 70-80$. Score. They just need to activate it tomorrow morning (though i'm keeping my fingers crossed), and I should finally have a Cell. I'll let the bunch of you know the number, once I get it.

Cheers.

Happy Pepero Day

While November 11th is being celebrated around the world as Rememberance Day, Korea has a slightly different 'day' for 11/11. Pepero day. It's the equivalent of the west's Valentine's Day, where people give each other 'Pepero's, chocolate sticks. I was told by my adult students that the reason it's on November 11 is because the number of the Month and Date (ones) are shaped like the Pepero sticks... or maybe the Pepero sticks are shaped like 1s? Ah, it's the chicken and the egg, i'm afraid (i'm not one to start an argument on who came first - the generally recognized Calendar year, or a heavily marketed ploy to sell chocolate).

Anyhoo, I was given a crapload of the stuff by some students - two by adult students, three by my child students, and one from a random student who i'd never seen before. Maybe she just saw me on TV.

Tonight (Friday) i'm finally planning on getting a Cellphone. While it's been a pretty enjoyable three months without one, I have to admit that those suckers are useful. When you're trying to meet up with people somewhere in Seoul, and you're completely lost, it would be preeeetty helpful. The cost of cellphones here is much less ridiculous than in Canada - the initial phone is about 40-50$, but you just do Pay as you Go afterwards. Texting is free, and the most heavy uses will only cost around 20-25$ per month. Eat it, Rogers.

This weekend, i'll be meeting up with Chris in Seoul again, to go watch a Live hockey game in the south. There's evidently an Asian Ice Hockey League, and the Anyang Halla (Seoul Team) is playing some team from China. It should be promising in the hilarity department, but hey, i'll do anything for live hockey these days. Sunday, at this point, is up in the air, but there's talk of going Paintballing and Go-Karting, so it should be another pretty cool weekend. If I get a chance, i'll start my Christmas Shopping as well, since I want to try and get everything done and shipped by the endo of the first week of December.

Cheers!

Back to School for the Weekend

I've just returned from a Teacher's Conference at Korea University, which was organized by the Cambridge University Press. The location was very well chosen; Korea University has a very beautiful campus, and the accomodations were more than big enough for the event (i'd estimate about 500 people in all showed up). There were Five lecturers, in a span of 8 hours - three of which were excellent.


One of the Professors gave an awesome lesson/song to share with any age groups, entitled 'Five Key Steps to Happiness', (there were gestures associated with each 'Step'); Which were: 1- Smile from Ear to Ear; 2- Take a deep breath ; 3- Look at the Sky ; 4- Sing a Melody ; 5- Dare to show your love. He had the entire auditorium Point to the Sky (roof), Smile from Ear to Ear, and said 'Now how can that not make any person happy?'. Possibly one of those 'you had to be there' moments, but it was great.

It's strange to admit, but I kind of do miss lectures, and general University life. Maybe it's just starting to dawn on me that school is over - for now at least. I suppose after doing it non-stop since I was 4 years old, it's strange to be without it. Even in the reversed-role of Teacher, it's not even close to student-life. Ah well - reason more to look into an MBA program when I return.

Friday Night, a few teachers went to see the new James Bond movie. It was pretty cool to go to a Korean Cinema; When you buy your ticket, it's assigned seating, so there's no need to rush to get a good seat. All English movies are actually shown in English, with Korean subtitles - the only part where you run into trouble is when people start speaking other languages (The new James Bond, particularly, likes to have people randomly start speaking Spanish or Italian). Fun night, but not the greatest movie, in my humble opinion.

Saturday, I (unfortunately) had to work from 9:30 to 3 - but really, it was nothing too difficult. There were 9 groups of kids who came from a Private School that our company recently bought out, to experience the 'Experience Rooms'. They were all very, very well behaved - so it ended up being a breeze. During the evening, I made my way with a fellow-Canadian to meet my friend Chris in Seoul, to witness my first Sens Game of the Year, at a bar called 'Rocky Mountain Tavern'. It was a re-broadcast of the previous night's Ottawa vs Carolina game, which we lost. Arrr. The next time I make the trip, they better make it worthwhile (although that's bound to happen when Gerber's finally kicked off the team).

Nothing too special going on during this coming week, but i'll keep you posted. Hope Canada's still in one piece when I come back (seriously, if you guys let Quebec somehow get away, i'll be mad at you).

Cheers.

In Other News...

Well, since every headline has been dominated by Obama's victory, I know it must be refreshing for you to come here and read about something else..

Right?

Heh, well.. Myself and Crian, another teacher (and the only fellow Business Major) decided to watch the election coverage yesterday morning. We watched from 10am (8pm EST) to 1PM (Do the math, lazy person) - while taking a break from 11am-12pm to teach our adult classes. They seemed pretty amused that we were that interested in the results. In the end, it was a very satisfying morning.

The week's been fairly busy, as the semester's winding down. This semester ends November 24th, and the new one begins December 1st. There are several things that happen at the end of a semester: The first is a 'Star' Show - which is tomorrow - where kids from each 'Special Program' (special classes, ranging from Grammar, to Bookclub) get to present things that they've learned to their parents (i'm teaching a Bookclub 2 class). I wrote a song, with their help, entitled 'The Planet Song'. It's pretty awesome, and has great lyrics, including 'Venus is a Planet ; It is Yellow'. You can't find anything truer in today's music. The second event is a 'Global Star Show', where one child from each class is picked to be in a Speech competition, and the last is a Spelling Bee.

It should be a pretty busy weekend, coming up. I've signed up for some overtime work, on Saturday, which will last from 10 to 3 (hooray unexpected income), and afterwards, i'm off to Seoul to meet Chris and watch my FIRST SENS GAME OF THE YEAR. It's in a bar called the Rockie Mountain Tavern. They'll be re-broadcasting the Carolina game at 6pm, so please, if you somehow get in contact with me, don't tell me how it ends.

On Sunday, i've registered to attend a Teacher's Conference from Cambridge University - the folks who authored our Adult books. They have about half a dozen speakers, that give you tips on how to adapt your curriculum, and generally help in developping your teaching skills. It's somewhere in Seoul (i'll be going with mostly Korean teachers), but it should be pretty cool. Hope you folks at home have a great weekend, and for those who still haven't given me their address.. hurry it up, will ya?

Cheers

Fall Back? No, no.

Daylight savings-time is not something that Korea is familiar with. As such, instead of the 13-hour time difference i've growned accustomed to, as of today, the difference is 14 hours. What does that mean for you? Well, not much. Except that now, in the mandatory 6-time-a-day timeslots where you ask yourself 'I wonder what Alex is doing now', when you glance at your watch, you adjust the math by one hour.

Aside from that - it's been a good weekend. I went to Itaewon last night, a very, very heavily 'Foreignized' part of Seoul (one of the reasons being its proximity to the US Army bases). I went to a bar called 'The Loft', for a friend's Birthday party (Kelly, who I used to work with at Midway in Ottawa). Entry was 5$, but included a free drink coupon; Ladies also drank free (damn sexism). But after friday night, I wasn't in shape to do any kind of heavy drinking, anyway.

The ratio of foreigners was incredibly high - the highest i've seen since i've gotten here - with about 3 out of 4 people being non-Korean.

There were still, apparently, quite a few Halloween parties going on, although the majority of the people partaking in them were foreign. I saw quite a few awesome costumes, that seemed to make the ever-conservative Koreans giggle at their sight - including this picture, of a man dressed as a middle-aged Korean Hiking Woman. The curly black hair, suncap, mask, gloves, and pink vest are all things that i've grown accustomed to seeing, but it took a Halloween costume to really nail how different the outfits really are.

Anyhoo, looking to the week ahead: I hear there's some sort of election going on. I'm looking forward to talking with some of my adult-students to get their view of the whole affair. I notice that the Sens have resigned Alfredsson (woooooo!), so I can finally stop wishing for a new contract every night, before going to bed. I'll now tackle the #2 priority that this world should be concerned about; Global Warming.

Have a good one.

A Korean Halloween

As it turns out, Halloween is pretty awesome over here. The day started out somewhat poorly, with the weather being rainy, cold, and windy (not to mention my having a headache). But things progressively got better and better. The morning was spent pretty much just setting up all of the booths, to get ready for our Halloween Party (where we were expecting a couple of thousand people). The activities available were almost the same as the ones we typically do at the 'Hello GEC' school events (a Ring Toss, a Dizzy Race, a Taste Test, Face Painting, Flag Painting, etc), except on a much larger scale.

There was a stage installed in the front yard of the school, where some teachers entertained a bit (Talking to kids, Juggling, Singing). Mareli and Katie, two fellow teachers, asked me to be in the final part of their performance (where they lip synced to the song from A Nightmare before Christmas), by being the 'Pumpkin King'. Basically, they bowed to me as I tossed some candy out to the kids from the stage. I'm a sucker for any events that lead to people bowing down to me. Later during the day, there was also a 'Costume Fashion Show', where all the teachers competed for claps in order to win a Gift Certificate. Shockingly, I didn't come out of it victorious. Ah well.

The booth I manned was the 'Blind Test', where people had to guess what flavour was the juice that I poured them (in English of course!). It wasn't bad, but kind of a hectic thing to do for an event like this. The total turn out, from what I can tell, was probably around what was anticipated.

As a 'thank you', all of teachers were taken out to a nearby Galbi (Korean BBQ) restaurant afterwards, where copious amounts of Beer and Soju were purchased. Steven, the director, made sure that everyone drank as much as they wanted - before making us drink even more.










The next logical step to take, after drinking more than one should, is obviously to go to a Bar - followed by another go to Noraebang, the always-awesome singing rooms. Sadly, I didn't manage to find the theme to Ghostbusters to cap off the night, but t'was still a pretty great start to the weekend.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween - Have a good weekend

Would you Like a Straw?

Korean servicepeople continue to impress me. Just now, after buying a Sandwhich and a box 'o Chocolate Milk, I was actually offered a straw. Good luck having that offered to you at Loblaws! haha.

It's been a fun week. My apologies for not keeping up with the regular Wednesday update, but I was dead tired after last night. But lets start the recap on Monday.

It was one of the fellow-Canadians' birthdays, so we had a nice outing to a Galbi restaurant (with about a dozen teachers), followed by some beer at the Chicken Hof (pictured above - with Rory, the birthday man), and some Noraebang to cap it all off. In the morning, my Intro-leveled adults asked me if I was available on Wednesday for lunch - well - on the second try, anyway. At first, I was told 'We want to eat you on Wednesday' - which may very well be the most awesome rookie mistake ever heard.

We agreed to hold class an hour earlier than usual on Wednesday, in order to have two hours to eat (which the management agreed to) - so instead of having it from 11:00 to 11:50, we held it from 10:00 to 10:50. They took me to yet another high-class restaurant (I seriously need to get them all something around Christmas time), this time one that served Duck. It was served on a Korean BBQ type of setting, where the meat cooks in front of you, and it was very, very good. During a conversation, they mentioned that since we're done half the book, that it would probably take another two months to finish it. Then they asked what would happen after we finish it - so they're already thinking about the next two months, and evidently want four mour after that with me. I told them i'd ask management if they'd allow me to upgrade the class, once it's done, to the next level (Interchange 1, from Interchange Intro), and keep the same people. If that works, it means i'll have been teaching these same great people for a total of 8 months. That's pretty awesome.

On Wednesday, I was also told that I was picked (yet again) to be filmed as part of a Promotional video for GEC. I'm less and less surprised by these things, and fully expect my face to be put on a Billboard in front of the school by the time the year is over. Today (Thursday), they had a very Professional crew come in and film me; only, my class wasn't very big. So we combined both of my classes for that time-period (which was only 7 people), along with another random 5 Kids. I was then told to 'Pretend to teach'. But heck, I needed the kids to be somewhat responsive, so I was forced to come up with something on the spot. For anyone considering any ESL teaching, take heed of my words of widsom: Colors are your friends. So I opened my book, and asked 'What color is..... THIS!! THIS! THIS! THIS! What's my name?? What color is THIS?! THIS! THIS, What's my name?', getting faster and faster. Kids respond really well to these types of questions, i've discovered.

Although it was fun, as teaching always is, it really knocked me out of sync for the rest of the day - the lessons I had planned for those classes had to be cancelled or pushed back. Yet I still summoned the energy to go to the Spinning class at the gym tonight, so I guess I ain't doing that bad.

Tomorrow, we're having the annual GEC Halloween Party. Halloween, while not that popular in Korea, is still somewhat celebrated. Most districts have their own events, but Seogu, the district we live in, does not. So it falls to the GEC. Last year, i'm told that there was a whopping 3000 people who attended. They're expecting a somewhat smaller turnout this year, since there'll be a little bit of rain (at least it's not 15cm of snow - zing), but it should still be above two thousand. I have my costume picked out, and i'll make sure to carry my Camera with me at all times to capture the Korean Halloween for all of you. If I have an interesting-enough day, i'll write up a Halloween-Special post.

Until then, Cheers, and Happy Halloweeeeeeeen

A Weekend of Tea and Warcraft 3

You're probably wondering why I have a picture of Rosie here, on the left. Well, I finally ate some Dog, this weekend.

..

Okay, not really. But when nothing terribly interesting happens, I have to dig in the photo-archives to find something remotely fun. But no worries, Rosie, I haven't yet (to my knowledge) eaten any of your kin, nor am I planning on it.

It was a nice, slow weekend - just the way I like 'em. Friday night, after school, I went with a few teachers for dinner in Bupyeong (a district about 40 minutes away by bus), in turn for some computer-purchasing advice. (Yessss, nerdom pays off). We went to Outback's Steakhouse - the same 'Aussie' franchise that can be found in Canada - although the menu was drastically different. The Big Sky burger was nowhere to be found - in fact, there weren't any burgers at all. Outback's is positioned as a fairly high-end restaurant in Korea, given the prices (about 16$ a plate, minimum.. which is very, very high for Korea).

Afterward, we made our way to Seoul with another Korean teacher, to a Tea House. It was in a very artsy district of Seoul, close to where you can find (at least, apparently), the 'blue' House - the Korean Equivalent of the White House, where the president resides. I can't remember the last time that I was out 'drinking' anything on a Friday Night at 1:00am, when the drink in question wasn't alcoholic. The place in question was three stories tall, and the third floor (where we had to remove our shoes) was heated - it was pretty cool, and I wish I would've thought of bringing my Camera along with me.

On Saturday, I went to an Internet Café (PC Bong!); one of my adult students (James, who's 20 years old) had challenged me to a game of Warcraft 3. While I had a fair amount of confidence in my WC3 skills, playing against any South Korean youth is somewhat intimidating. I mean, they've got not only one 24-Hour Video Game Channel, but two. As it turns out, though, i'm fairly good for a simple Canadian Boy. I won the first game pretty handily, and the second game was even easier.

On Sunday, I wish I could tell you I had a less-geeky day, but alas, it was a geeky-weekend. I installed Age of Empires 3 on my laptop, so that I could play with two other teachers over the LAN.

I'll try to be a tad less geeky next weekend.

The Unspoken Correlation: The Fall of the Loonie

While economists everywhere struggle to explain how the Loonie could dip so low, so fast, I offer up my own theory: it's the Market's equivalent to a 'We miss you' greeting-card.

I'm touched.

As expected, thus far it's been a fairly uneventful week. I'm due to give my Adults their first test this morning, which I think they should be quite ready for. We did a review yesterday, and in my zeal to try to be as available as possible, I decided to give them my e-mail in case they had any questions (realizing as I was writing it down, that it'd probably be more work for them to compose an e-mail in english than to look up any question they might have).

Those who have been keeping track of the grumblings from North Korea will notice that the news has been fairly more positive as of late, but further talks of nuclear disarmamant may have to start excluding Japan. The nation had been stalling talks, over a dispute stemming from Japanese Citizens that were abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. Talking to my freetalking adults about it, frankly, the consensus seems to be that it's not really any of their problem. While no one's a fan of the current North Korean regime, you'll have to look hard to find any big fans of Japan, either (unless of course you count the legions of Nintendo fans). Pictured to the right is one of my favourite pictures, where Ryan challenged a random kid on the ferry from Nami Island to a game of Mario Kart. Maaaan are they into it.

This coming weekend should see me going into Seoul once or twice, for the birthday parties of a few teachers that i've met over the last few weeks. There's also talk of finding our way to a Canadian Bar called Canada Buddy on Friday night (and if they're playing hockey, I ain't leaving).

Lastly, as a side note, Go Sens!
For those who have lost faith already, stop it.
In Alfie We Trust.

Of Hikes and Costcos

It's been a welcomingly uneventful week. Monday to Thursday was a whole-lot of ordinary, aside from Thursday night; my second set of Adults, the ones more-advanced ones that I usually teach from 6:30-8:00, wanted to go out for a few drinks instead of having the class in the usual classroom-setting. It was pretty great; instead of the curriculum-controlled discussion subjects, I got to hear the Korean perspective on many issues, including their view on North Korea, Foreigners within Korea, and International Politics.

Friday went by quickly, although I was hit with a lightning-sickness. In the morning, I started seeing blurs, and couldn't see anything further than 5 feet; this fixed itself within an hour, but then came a gigantic headache, followed by stomach-sickness - but about 6 hours later, I felt just as fine as usual. Pretty strange... i'm just hoping it was a one-time thing, i'd hate to have to go see a Korean Neurologist. A few teachers and myself then went to a Shabu-Shabu joint, a very-spicy (and delicious) Korean stew, followed by some light drinking at the Chicken Hof, and finally, a couple of hours of Noraebang.

Saturday was the day-of-rest i'd been waiting for for a few weeks, and it lived up to its bill with my sleeping-in until 12 (ohhh yea). The rest of the day was relaxing, with me doing some laundry, watching a movie, and starting to catch up on Heroes. On Sunday, I went on a hike with two teachers, Ryan and Julia, on a mountain behind GEC. The top of it was a good 45 minutes away, but the trip was well-worth it. I miss doing hiking, and I haven't done any since I stopped doing Scouts two years ago. It felt great to hit up the mountains again.

We decided to head out to the Korean Costco afterwards. Ryan had gotten a membership last week (they run for 35,000 Won here, which is about 35$ Canadian - my plan is to get one when i'm closer to returning home, since it's valid internationally). Costco in Korea utilizes the same basic layout, but since the real-estate in the country is so high, it's built on levels. The first floor is general goods, the second floor is food, and anything from the third floor up is parking.

Costco is the closest i've come yet to finding products that resembled anything from back home. Cheap cheese, US-Sized clothing, it pretty much had it all. I only picked up a few things I needed, but at least I now know where to come for any familiar brands.

The coming week should be another ordinary one, but i'll keep you posted. Take care, and have a good one!

Two Months Later

It's now been two months since i've come to Korea (and since i've been updating a blog regularly - wow!), and I must say, I have absolutely no regrets thus far. It's definitely been a great learning experience, and i've been settling into a pretty good routine.

Monday to Thursday, since I work 11-8, I sleep in a bit. Then, I catch up on my news, attempt to talk to some folks back home, and maybe watch an episode of a show i'm trying to keep up with. I've only really managed to keep up with Boston Legal, Dexter, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, but I think that's just indicative of how little free time I have - which I consider a good thing. After work, i'll usually unwind for half an hour, and three out of those four days, i'll go to the gym with Abigail, one of the Korean teachers. I complain about it a bit, but it's pretty great to have someone to push you (force you) to go. Whenever I tell myself 'ahh, i'm too tired for it tonight', I remind myself 'Well, it's too late now, you said you were going'. Sure, sometimes it makes me hate myself, and sparks an internal conflict, but overall I recognize that it's a big, big positive.

I've been doing a Spinning class once a week, for the past three weeks. Spinning, for those of you who are lucky enough to be unfamiliar with it, is an intense Cycling/Head-Bopping exercise that lasts for an hour, and is set to fast music. I don't sweat all that much usually, but I come out of there with a soaked t-shirt everytime.

Friday, the work hours at 9:30-6:30 - we either have Kindies in the morning (Kindergarden kids who are 'experiencing' an english Academy), or 'Hello-GEC' in the afternoon, a promotional-run in local elementary schools where we play games and do activities in english. For the past couple of weeks, we've had both Kindies and Hello GEC, which leaves us with very little free time to prepare for the coming week; so more often than not, to really get the preparation that you need to get done, you have to stay a little bit past the work hours. That's alright though - I think it's a dose of the real-world jobs, and a sign of things to come.

This weekend is really up in the air, and i'm not sure of what i'll be doing yet, though it'll probably involve venturing into Seoul and exploring a fair bit - after I catch up on my sleep. I'll keep you posted.

On a sidenote, today is October 16th over here, so BONNE FÊTE VÉRONIQUE!

Have a good one!

Nami Island: Done Tripping

As part of a 'team building' exercise, GEC Teachers (along with some public school teachers) used Saturday to go on a retreat to Nami Island, situated east of Seoul - around the center of South Korea. It was yet another early morning for me, making it nearly three weeks since i've been able to sleep in at all. It's starting to take its toll, but i'm not one to turn down a free trip.

We met in front of the dormitory at 8:20am, which didn't seem to agree very well with some of the teachers that only got home at around 3:30am. Now now, have no fears, i'm not *that* irresponsible.. I got home at the very respectable hour of 1:30am, the night before. The bus pulled in, and Kay (our HR Manager) had an Egg McMuffin meal ready for everyone (served with coke). Yummeh. The trip was going to be about three hours, so it was good to get everyone fed.

This had to be one of the coolest buses i'd ever been on, though. I've mentioned Korean Karaoke before, the singing-room 'Noraebongs'. Well, we dubbed this the 'Noraebus'. While singing on a bus isn't really a new concept, having a Karaoke Machine on one was a spin that can only be labelled as awesome.












Nami Island itself was small, but very beautiful. We had to take a ferry to get there, and there was literally a lineup of hundreds of people waiting to get on it. It got its name from General Nami, a Korean General who died, in the 1400s, while he was only 27. The shape of the island is that of a leaf, and it was actually not at all an Island until the construction of the Cheongpyeong Dam on its river.

When we arrived, we had some free time to explore the island. Here's a selection of photos from that:






Randomly throughout the day, a few kids asked us (foreigners) to take pictures with them, with our arms over our head, shaped like an M - which apparently represents a heart. There must've been some type of contest, or scavenger hunt, but it was kind of bizzare. So for the last group of kids that asked me, I pretended like I thought that they wanted me to take a pictures of them. So I did. This is them saying 'no! no!' haha. --->

We then had some team-based activities, such as three-legged races and a relay race. It was alright, but the problem with having a bunch of tired/hungover teachers is that they're (we're) not a very energetic bunch. So the logical step after that, for me, was a well-earned nap time. I didn't doze off for too long, with the sun still shining brightly, but it felt nice to lay there for awhile. The temperature here is getting colder, but still reasonably warm.

Finally, we headed back onto the ferry, and to a nearby Galbi (Korean BBQ) restaurant. Steven, the school director, made sure that everyone had more than enough Chicken (mm), Soju, and Beer to make the bus ride interesting. We had some more Karaoke on the bus, and all and all, it was a pretty awesome day. I managed to get a whopping 11 hours of sleep last night, and i'm still tired as heck, so i'll probably call it an early night tonight as well.

For all the folks back home, have a very happy Thanksgiving, and all the best from Korea.

Pour la famille, je vous aimes beaucoup, je pense à vous, et j'espère que tout va bien. C'est sans-doute plus difficile cette année sans la tradition annuelle avec Grand-Maman, mais elle est certainement avec nous dans nos pensées. Buvez un verre de bière pour moi en son honneure! Prenez bien-soins de vous.

Cheers.