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.