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.