Even though my patience completely expired, and I wanted to hide in the bathroom--I still left the school loving teaching and loving my kids. I feel this way.. maybe 1 week out of the month.
I started to write things down when they struck me. Today in my 2.25 class, the kids were role playing the story (which they call "CHARACTER, TEACHER!!!") when one of the student's pants started to buzz uncontrolably. He had a wind-up monster in his pocket--and no that is not a keyword for some thing children should not get a hold of. He literally had a monster doll stuffed in his cargo shorts, and some part of the mechanism had been tripped when he moved--and amidst his perfect pronunciation of "Here you go, Sally" the thing started to go wild. And I just stared at him with this "wtf" look, and he gave me the biggest "I am so guilty and I am enjoying it so much" grin I have ever seen.
I also gave this kid his English name. I named him Paul after my dad and brother's middle, and I knew he was going to be one of those over enthusiastic, slightly-trouble inducing fellows.
In my 3.30 class I am so proud that my little student--Mina--who refused to talk until maybe a week ago, is raising her and and answering questions. Her voice is still tiny, but she answers them. It's so amazing.
At my 4.35 class, I walk into the wrong classroom. They changed it around, switching two of my classes around--but nobody thought it prudent to tell me. But I just turned around and walked out, because I recognized immediately that I was in the wrong place, and my brain connected the two occurrences, and it was just "business as usual."
In my 5.50 class, I called the desk on a student who was pissing me off. Another student refused to talk to me for the entire class, I thought because I failed to produce the stickers I had promised. I honestly went looking for them, and then I discovered that a student potentially stole them out of my unlocked desk drawers. Or I buried them under presentation papers. Who knows. After class, her two friends explain to me, in very broken English (and with a drawing on the board) why she was angry. It had nothing to do with me. But I think maybe the failure to produce stickers kicked her off the edge.
In my 6.55 class, one of my older students insists on screaming the Korean word for "delicious" in a demon voice. We have a great connection, this kid and I. He exhausts me when I'm already tired, but when I'm in a good mood I love to tease them. They tease me back and its hysterical. In this class I have a student, no joke, named "Major Joseph." He has an epic stutter and is the most nationalistically indoctrinated child I have ever met. I love him, but today I was so exhausted that I could barely deal with it. They drove me up the wall, but I loved them anyway, after walking away from the class. "Delicious" kid came back and talked to me for a while. He erased my board for me too. I used to buy coffee from his mom every day at the Dunkin Donuts below us. I always bow and wave at her now, if I come in that direction and catch her eye.
In my 8.00 class, there are two students. Ricky does his work, which is rare, and then the new girl, the one who has a really cool English name, and walks like she is from the hood, tells me all about her exploits as a teenager. She tells me about alcohol and smoking, and her friend that died because he crashed his motor bike at 160 meters per hour. I don't know if I believe her, but I keep asking her questions, and keep asking her: "Why are these people your friends?" She shows me her fake ID that she supposedly stole. And a visa card that she supposedly stole. I'm not sure what is what. They use English and I think it's kind of a joke to them. They don't know that they're really communicating, because all matters of substance to them happen in Korean. And I'm not sure she really thinks I'm a real person. She might be trying to impress me because there's this stereotype that Foreigners only drink and party. She tells me about clubs. I don't have the guts to ask her what clubs she's been to--or to tell her that they are all epicly lame. I'm not sure if I should even be having this conversation with her. But the hagwon camera is on, and she's doing all the talking. I'm asking questions--and occasionally telling her that she should make good, safe decisions. At one point, I tell her that the most important thing that anyone, anywhere, in any country can learn is how to choose friends who make you feel safe and happy. Hastily, after the bell rings, she tells me that she goes to church and believes in Jesus. I wonder if it wasn't just a joke to begin with.
I leave Little Fox and I go over to Taekwondo, where the dojeong is empty except for her brother. I sit next to him, ask him a few questions (he acts out just as much as she does--but mostly he charms the ladies), sit with him for a minute before I change my clothes. When I get back, he's on his way out and I start training.
Then I come home and I go to buy a beer at the corner mart next to my house, and I run into another foreigner, who lives next door to me but I've never really met. She's freaked out my my word-vomit "Hi, how are you? Who are you? I can't believe we're neighbors--can I have your number?" -- and she says, "Actually I'm leaving in three weeks." So I give up, don't make a new friend, and buy a liter of beer instead.
And I've been reading testimonial stories on Teach for America's website. Hence the out pour of love for the students, even when I hate their guts. I feel weak because I don't have enough patience, but I think the more I write it down, the easier it gets to keep that patience up. Who knows.
Showing posts with label daejeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label daejeon. Show all posts
Monday, June 21, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
World Cup and My Neighborhood
There are a lot of things I love about this country--and partially about being abroad in general. It's always amazing to watch soccer with people who really, really care about soccer. When Korea played Argentina on Thursday, it was a wild mess. Classes were canceled. (Not mine, though.) The streets were empty, and the game could be heard or seen from every television in the entire city. In the bar, everyone wore red--the Korean team's color--and howled and cheered with a kind of fanaticism that only comes from doing things in crowds. It was truly amazing--even though they lost.
And they didn't just loose. They REALLY lost. Soccer is a low scoring game, and to loose 4-1 is something that takes skill. In fact, the Korean players actually scored two goals in the game--one of them was Argentina's first. Bad luck, guys.
Anyway, next they're playing Nigeria, and Nigeria's not been having a good season. They lost to Argentina and to Greece. (Which the Koreans beat.) I am secretly rooting for all the African teams (but Ghana the most--duh.) Lucky for me, I have like 3 teams that I want to win, so I've got a great chance of being pretty excited with the final outcome.
In other news, I'm spending a much deserved and much wanted weekend being lazy at home. It's great. I am cleaning, fiddling with my decor, and finally getting my kitchen into shape. My neighborhood mystifies me for the contracts that I see here. I live in a non-descript, typical Korean small-size apartment building. An elderly woman owns it, collects money for bills, and maintains general order. On the other side of the street, there are the megolith blocks of 25-story buildings, all identital to each other, with their numbers painted on their sides, but here on this side of the street, strange things sit next to each other.
The trash dump across the street from me has been cleaned up. The lot used to be blocked off with aluminum siding, gated, and full of garbage. The lot across from me used to be a cabbage feild. Now it's an expensive looking duplex--the exterior is finished and now they're starting on the interior. There are men skirting around the skeleton structure on the outside. Next to me is the little mart, filled with all sorts of household items and food. It's family owned and the owners are excited to hear every new Korean phrase I learn.
But in addition to that, there are enormous houses, suburban enormities that for most Korean families are not the things they, themselves dream of owning, but the things they would buy for their parents if they suddenly won the lottery. One house looks as though it was designed by a rockstar architect in the sixties--it's all square and sharp lines, and Frank Loyd Wrighty--f-the Victorians. Though the expensive windows of that house don't look out onto a open feild, a forest, or even another house. They look into a cabbage patch the size of another suburban lot, and next to that there's another new apartment structure going up, and there are tanned men, covered head to toe, jumping around on scaffolding on its edges. There's a Chinese delivery restaurant that always has two or three moto drivers speeding food around town. One of them always waves at me when he sees me driving by. He invited me to drink coffee with him once, and I was really disappointed that I couldn't do it. He speaks no English. I have no idea what we would have talked about.
And in all these expensive houses, little plots of farmland, and construction projects, old women walk around with bent backs, picking up good cardboard and putting it on carts. There are no dumpsters even in rich suburbia, and piles of garbage sit outside in bright green bags--the color prescribed by Yuseong's garbage collection agency. One of these tan, ancient women recognizes me as she goes through the houses looking for boxes. She smiles sometimes, if I give her a little bow.
It doesn't seem to make sense--all this richness living right beside the farms, and the trash-picking grandmothers, and the little corner mart that would be in a poor but successful small town. This is one of the reasons that I really do enjoy Korea.
And they didn't just loose. They REALLY lost. Soccer is a low scoring game, and to loose 4-1 is something that takes skill. In fact, the Korean players actually scored two goals in the game--one of them was Argentina's first. Bad luck, guys.
Anyway, next they're playing Nigeria, and Nigeria's not been having a good season. They lost to Argentina and to Greece. (Which the Koreans beat.) I am secretly rooting for all the African teams (but Ghana the most--duh.) Lucky for me, I have like 3 teams that I want to win, so I've got a great chance of being pretty excited with the final outcome.
In other news, I'm spending a much deserved and much wanted weekend being lazy at home. It's great. I am cleaning, fiddling with my decor, and finally getting my kitchen into shape. My neighborhood mystifies me for the contracts that I see here. I live in a non-descript, typical Korean small-size apartment building. An elderly woman owns it, collects money for bills, and maintains general order. On the other side of the street, there are the megolith blocks of 25-story buildings, all identital to each other, with their numbers painted on their sides, but here on this side of the street, strange things sit next to each other.
The trash dump across the street from me has been cleaned up. The lot used to be blocked off with aluminum siding, gated, and full of garbage. The lot across from me used to be a cabbage feild. Now it's an expensive looking duplex--the exterior is finished and now they're starting on the interior. There are men skirting around the skeleton structure on the outside. Next to me is the little mart, filled with all sorts of household items and food. It's family owned and the owners are excited to hear every new Korean phrase I learn.
But in addition to that, there are enormous houses, suburban enormities that for most Korean families are not the things they, themselves dream of owning, but the things they would buy for their parents if they suddenly won the lottery. One house looks as though it was designed by a rockstar architect in the sixties--it's all square and sharp lines, and Frank Loyd Wrighty--f-the Victorians. Though the expensive windows of that house don't look out onto a open feild, a forest, or even another house. They look into a cabbage patch the size of another suburban lot, and next to that there's another new apartment structure going up, and there are tanned men, covered head to toe, jumping around on scaffolding on its edges. There's a Chinese delivery restaurant that always has two or three moto drivers speeding food around town. One of them always waves at me when he sees me driving by. He invited me to drink coffee with him once, and I was really disappointed that I couldn't do it. He speaks no English. I have no idea what we would have talked about.
And in all these expensive houses, little plots of farmland, and construction projects, old women walk around with bent backs, picking up good cardboard and putting it on carts. There are no dumpsters even in rich suburbia, and piles of garbage sit outside in bright green bags--the color prescribed by Yuseong's garbage collection agency. One of these tan, ancient women recognizes me as she goes through the houses looking for boxes. She smiles sometimes, if I give her a little bow.
It doesn't seem to make sense--all this richness living right beside the farms, and the trash-picking grandmothers, and the little corner mart that would be in a poor but successful small town. This is one of the reasons that I really do enjoy Korea.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Images that stick in your head
Last night, a little restless and bored, unable to sit down to read or write, I called up Kristen and we went for beers at the local convenience store. Sitting outside on a summer night, drinking liter bottles of beer outside of a convenience store is something quintessentially Korean, which I have really desired to do since I got here.
However, instead of sitting at the store (which was about to close), we headed up to the park and sat on benches for a little while, drinking our beer, eating ice cream, and discussing life and its charms and drawbacks. Slowly it started to rain, little drops that turned into big ones, few and far between, until we couldn't really sit out in the open any longer. We moved to sit under the park's pavilion, a raised table-like structure. Another man was already sitting there, eating cup ramen and watching the world cup on his cell phone.
We finished our beers as the rain got extravagant--huge monsoon style drops that fell so fast and so hard that the only audible thing was the roar of the water. The man next to us tried to start a conversation, but it didn't work, since English was terribly limited. But we shared a little moment as he showed me that the world cup game was Ghana vrs. Serbia.
Finally we decided to make a run for it, and got completely drenched in the less-than-100-meter stretch from the park to my apartment. Sneaking around piles of junk so that we could walk under awnings, flip flops soaked and slippery, drenched in summer rain.
Those are the images that stick with you.
However, instead of sitting at the store (which was about to close), we headed up to the park and sat on benches for a little while, drinking our beer, eating ice cream, and discussing life and its charms and drawbacks. Slowly it started to rain, little drops that turned into big ones, few and far between, until we couldn't really sit out in the open any longer. We moved to sit under the park's pavilion, a raised table-like structure. Another man was already sitting there, eating cup ramen and watching the world cup on his cell phone.
We finished our beers as the rain got extravagant--huge monsoon style drops that fell so fast and so hard that the only audible thing was the roar of the water. The man next to us tried to start a conversation, but it didn't work, since English was terribly limited. But we shared a little moment as he showed me that the world cup game was Ghana vrs. Serbia.
Finally we decided to make a run for it, and got completely drenched in the less-than-100-meter stretch from the park to my apartment. Sneaking around piles of junk so that we could walk under awnings, flip flops soaked and slippery, drenched in summer rain.
Those are the images that stick with you.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
One of Daejeon's Famous Places--and I finally got there!
Yesterday was election day, and so I had a very exciting holiday, in which I *finally* made it to Gyereong National Park. It's probably the only place in Daejeon that's famous, and it was really wonderful.
The park is huge, with many peaks to climb, but we took a short (and very steep) course up to some small pagodas and a tiny mountain hermitage. It was only about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) but it was so steep and so abrupt that it took us almost two hours to get up.
The green and the summer smell is making me really happy these days. It gives me a lot of joy, even though I am battling with the homesickness of missing Minnesota summers. Oddly enough, I'm also getting waves of homesickness from Eagle Harbor-like vibes too. That's kind of sad, because I don't even know the next time I'll be able to go there.
The view from the top of the mountain was fantastic. The mountains were bathed in the green trees, except for enormous pieces of that tan-yellow Korean rock that peaks to give these particular mountains huge bald spots. Like the back of a boar, or perhaps something from a really good fantasy novel.
Speaking of fantasy novels--I'm looking for some good ones to read. I'm going to order some books on the internet so I'm in the market for good reads. Here's my list so far...
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
About Mumbai--the city I'm going to in India!! Woo!!
Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women Who are Changing World
Really excited about this one: part travel memoir, part service to our sweet globe. Super exciting.
Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure
This book looks good because the author, at first, HATES India, and this is her story of learning to love it.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie is such a big name these days... I want to read the Satanic Verses, too, since it's such a huge controversy, but the plot of the book looks a little out of my league.
The Darkness that Comes Before
A good old fashioned Fantasy novel to add to the mix--this one seems to have some good reviews, and the website says that it is similar to authors that I like.
Anyway, that's a lot... I need some help narrowing it down, but I'm hoping with all these books to read, I'll spend less time running around spending money. Right?
The park is huge, with many peaks to climb, but we took a short (and very steep) course up to some small pagodas and a tiny mountain hermitage. It was only about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) but it was so steep and so abrupt that it took us almost two hours to get up.
The green and the summer smell is making me really happy these days. It gives me a lot of joy, even though I am battling with the homesickness of missing Minnesota summers. Oddly enough, I'm also getting waves of homesickness from Eagle Harbor-like vibes too. That's kind of sad, because I don't even know the next time I'll be able to go there.
The view from the top of the mountain was fantastic. The mountains were bathed in the green trees, except for enormous pieces of that tan-yellow Korean rock that peaks to give these particular mountains huge bald spots. Like the back of a boar, or perhaps something from a really good fantasy novel.
Speaking of fantasy novels--I'm looking for some good ones to read. I'm going to order some books on the internet so I'm in the market for good reads. Here's my list so far...
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
About Mumbai--the city I'm going to in India!! Woo!!
Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women Who are Changing World
Really excited about this one: part travel memoir, part service to our sweet globe. Super exciting.
Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure
This book looks good because the author, at first, HATES India, and this is her story of learning to love it.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie is such a big name these days... I want to read the Satanic Verses, too, since it's such a huge controversy, but the plot of the book looks a little out of my league.
The Darkness that Comes Before
A good old fashioned Fantasy novel to add to the mix--this one seems to have some good reviews, and the website says that it is similar to authors that I like.
Anyway, that's a lot... I need some help narrowing it down, but I'm hoping with all these books to read, I'll spend less time running around spending money. Right?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Things I want to do in the next five years
+ Go back to Ghana and Volunteer with a community program or orphanage
+ Visit/Volunteer in India
+ Get a TEFL or other equivalent certificate
+ Hold another art show; sell some originals
+ significantly reduce my undergrad debt
+ study Arabic in an Arabic speaking country
Just been popping around the Matador site lately. Also been working on an article about Jeonju for my recruiter's newsletter. I found out that my new co-teachers were both recruited from the same agency, but they didn't contact me. I think it's kind of weird, since they did put them in touch with each other, and a bunch of other girls that they sent to Daejeon at the same time. I think I've kind of fallen off their radar. Then again, I feel like I've fallen off of all the radar these days.
I had a stressful week but I had a really nice weekend. I'm sitting right now on the patio of a coffee shop, enjoying the sun, which was exactly what I did yesterday. Today, my new friend Amina and I climbed one of the mountains on the other side of the city. I didn't get the name of it, but with Google maps, I found a Gemeori mountain in just about the right place, so I think that's the name of it. It was a really steep hike, full of stairs and constant upward climbing. But it was totally worth it. From the top, we could see all of Daejeon. I could almost find my neighborhood, even though it was on the opposite side of the city.
Daejeon seems so big when you're traveling across it but it's actually quite small. You can see the whole city in one 360 view from this mountain... even with the haze, my neighborhood was just barely disappearing on the other side. Daejeon is a flat space surrounded on all sides by mountains. Gyeryeong, the mountain close to me, had disappeared in the haze, but the apartments close to me were just barely visable over the small hill that separates my neighborhood from the ritzier ones along the river. I could see my grocery store and the river where I ride my bike. It was pretty neat.
Anyway I'm going to focus now on readying more photos for my website, and then I'm going to go home and clean my house something fierce.
+ Visit/Volunteer in India
+ Get a TEFL or other equivalent certificate
+ Hold another art show; sell some originals
+ significantly reduce my undergrad debt
+ study Arabic in an Arabic speaking country
Just been popping around the Matador site lately. Also been working on an article about Jeonju for my recruiter's newsletter. I found out that my new co-teachers were both recruited from the same agency, but they didn't contact me. I think it's kind of weird, since they did put them in touch with each other, and a bunch of other girls that they sent to Daejeon at the same time. I think I've kind of fallen off their radar. Then again, I feel like I've fallen off of all the radar these days.
I had a stressful week but I had a really nice weekend. I'm sitting right now on the patio of a coffee shop, enjoying the sun, which was exactly what I did yesterday. Today, my new friend Amina and I climbed one of the mountains on the other side of the city. I didn't get the name of it, but with Google maps, I found a Gemeori mountain in just about the right place, so I think that's the name of it. It was a really steep hike, full of stairs and constant upward climbing. But it was totally worth it. From the top, we could see all of Daejeon. I could almost find my neighborhood, even though it was on the opposite side of the city.
Daejeon seems so big when you're traveling across it but it's actually quite small. You can see the whole city in one 360 view from this mountain... even with the haze, my neighborhood was just barely disappearing on the other side. Daejeon is a flat space surrounded on all sides by mountains. Gyeryeong, the mountain close to me, had disappeared in the haze, but the apartments close to me were just barely visable over the small hill that separates my neighborhood from the ritzier ones along the river. I could see my grocery store and the river where I ride my bike. It was pretty neat.
Anyway I'm going to focus now on readying more photos for my website, and then I'm going to go home and clean my house something fierce.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
New Year's Weekend Entry 1: Traditional New Year's Party!
Since I didn't make any resolutions for Solar New Year (epic fail), I figured I might as well make some for Lunar New Year, or Seolnal, which was this weekend. One of those resolutions is to be better about blogging, so here we go. We had Monday off, and Stephanie came down to visit Daejeon. Since there isn't really much to do in Daejeon itself, we took some interesting day trips, and hung out with friends here. Some friends of mine put on a Traditional Lunar New Years Party on Saturday night, and then on Sunday we went to Songnisan National Park, and on Monday we visited Buyeo. I figured that I would split it up into three entries since there's just soo much
Seolnal is a big deal in many Korean families, and there are special, traditional things that must be done. My friends at J and J Recruiting put together a big party to introduce us foreigners to some of the customs on the holiday. Certain foods must be made, special Korean pancakes, special fish, and some sweets, and then they are set up in a certain order on a table. Ours looked like this:
There is a formal ritual where food is offered to the ancestors, which we all preformed. Food for the meal is prepared, then we have to bow, pray, and offer our ancestors their 'favorite'. (I picked the apples, because I figured that my ancestors wouldn't really know what to do with all that Korean food.) The ritual is called Sae-be. First, you are given some wine, which you offer to the ancestors. (You use the same glass as the person previous to you, and dump the contents into a communal bowl. I don't know if that was just for convenience or if it is part of the ritual, haha.) Then you hit your chopsticks three times on the table, spin them around the incense three times, and then choose your ancestor's favorite food. Then you bow twice--full, head-to-the-floor bow. Women and men bow just a little bit differently--men with right hands on top and women with left hands on top. I'm assuming that's for the sake of symmetry, since couples bow together. But we all did it by ourselves.
Then everyone bows together, which--to me--looked like sallat prayer at Mosque. I missed that part, since I was chatting with some of the Korean ladies in the back when they were doing it. Even though I didn't participate, though, it looked pretty cool. It feels good to be included in cultural activities, since I feel like that doesn't happen so often here.
After eating, we played some traditional games like the "Four Stick Game", which basically requires that you throw four enormous sticks into the air, and hope that they land face up so that you can move your little pieces on a board. They have five different animals--a dog, a pig, a sheep, and a horse, and a cow. The word for dog in Korean is 개, pronounced "gay". (Or Kay, the sounds run together), so basically we spent about 40 minutes yelling "GAY!" every time somebody rolled a 2. Anyway I super lost and my friends super won, but it was a good time. Then we played Korean hackie sack with funny feathery things, and I was terrible at it. :D
Overall we had a great time and I'm glad my friends did this party. The food was great and we had a lot of fun, even though there weren't a ton of us. I really enjoy their company, so it was a great time.
Seolnal is a big deal in many Korean families, and there are special, traditional things that must be done. My friends at J and J Recruiting put together a big party to introduce us foreigners to some of the customs on the holiday. Certain foods must be made, special Korean pancakes, special fish, and some sweets, and then they are set up in a certain order on a table. Ours looked like this:
There is a formal ritual where food is offered to the ancestors, which we all preformed. Food for the meal is prepared, then we have to bow, pray, and offer our ancestors their 'favorite'. (I picked the apples, because I figured that my ancestors wouldn't really know what to do with all that Korean food.) The ritual is called Sae-be. First, you are given some wine, which you offer to the ancestors. (You use the same glass as the person previous to you, and dump the contents into a communal bowl. I don't know if that was just for convenience or if it is part of the ritual, haha.) Then you hit your chopsticks three times on the table, spin them around the incense three times, and then choose your ancestor's favorite food. Then you bow twice--full, head-to-the-floor bow. Women and men bow just a little bit differently--men with right hands on top and women with left hands on top. I'm assuming that's for the sake of symmetry, since couples bow together. But we all did it by ourselves.
Then everyone bows together, which--to me--looked like sallat prayer at Mosque. I missed that part, since I was chatting with some of the Korean ladies in the back when they were doing it. Even though I didn't participate, though, it looked pretty cool. It feels good to be included in cultural activities, since I feel like that doesn't happen so often here.
After eating, we played some traditional games like the "Four Stick Game", which basically requires that you throw four enormous sticks into the air, and hope that they land face up so that you can move your little pieces on a board. They have five different animals--a dog, a pig, a sheep, and a horse, and a cow. The word for dog in Korean is 개, pronounced "gay". (Or Kay, the sounds run together), so basically we spent about 40 minutes yelling "GAY!" every time somebody rolled a 2. Anyway I super lost and my friends super won, but it was a good time. Then we played Korean hackie sack with funny feathery things, and I was terrible at it. :D
Overall we had a great time and I'm glad my friends did this party. The food was great and we had a lot of fun, even though there weren't a ton of us. I really enjoy their company, so it was a great time.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
I seriously need to do laundry.
Spent an interesting weekend--and when I say spent, I mean SPENT, because I went shopping and bought SO MUCH that I might have set back my saving plans by weeks. Lord.
But I now have a pair of THE coolest boots on the face of the earth. For less than 40 bucks. And who can beat that, anyhow? I went shopping with Kristen, the girl who works at Avalon down the street from me. She's a lot of fun, and it's great to have a girl around again--especially one that likes to shop, bwaha. But I definitely spent too much too quickly.
I went dancing on Friday night at the 'hiphop' style club in Dunsan-dong called Cocoon. It's an intriguing place... good music, to an extent, but dancing there is slightly awkward. People watch you but don't approach you, and when they do, they're usually 20 years old, and their idea of dancing is basically to just latch onto you like a leech and try to suck the blood out of you. A friend told me that everybody at Cocoon was really young, and I didn't quite believe him (because he's old, haha). But once again, I'm realizing that I might be the 'young' one (at the remarkable age of 22, which apparently is really strange here), but the people on my level are much older--27-28-29. In fact the people that I most enjoy being with are around the 30s range. And while I love having an older group of friends, it's also a testament to how difficult the younger ones can be--like when you go to Cocoon and have awkward boys all over you.
Anyway after spending all Saturday shopping, I went to a birthday party of a friend of a friend over at the KAIST dorms. (And the dorm/apartments are much nicer than mine. Putain.) Failed at playing Korean drinking games, (which was a consumption disaster, I will tell you that), then ended up at--of course--Sponge, where I ran into friends who like to play pool and darts for drinks. All in all, we can say that I got the week's stress out of my system, and then spent all day Sunday at the jjimjilbang recovering.
This jjimjilbang that I went to was great though, they had all kinds of stuff in there. The outside waiting area, where the entrances to the saunas were, had a fake waterfall with little bridges and cars and people. And it was awesome. In the bathing area they had a really hot room with a really cold pool, and I loved that. I met a woman who had lived in DC for five years, and at first I had no idea that she was even Korean. Her English was so good that I thought she was foreign. (Is that a bad assumption?) Anyway I had a great time chilling out, and then I went home and napped.
Things at work have been stressful. Rumor has it that the husband is watching the cameras from the wife's center, and while I've heard nothing about how I am 'misbehaving' or 'not teaching properly', my boss has called up my coworker to tell him super anal things. I'm worried that the hands of corporate Korean hagwon madness are going to start closing on my already dwindling soul. I'm struggling to be a better teacher, but the weight of things is just pressing too hard. Once and a while I just need a little faith. Someone to say--"you're doing okay." or, "You handled this correctly." Instead of this constant silence, thin smiles, and continual avoidance. Or, my least favorite thing, "Maggie, why did you do this?" And it's been five months, so now it's really hard for me to say "I just didn't know." But there are things that I just don't know, because nobody tells me anything. And contrary to popular belief, I don't read minds, and I didn't really have much training, and someone who as worked with a program for 5 months, simply doesn't know the same amount about it as someone who has worked there for five years.
Sigh. At least it's getting warmer.
But I now have a pair of THE coolest boots on the face of the earth. For less than 40 bucks. And who can beat that, anyhow? I went shopping with Kristen, the girl who works at Avalon down the street from me. She's a lot of fun, and it's great to have a girl around again--especially one that likes to shop, bwaha. But I definitely spent too much too quickly.
I went dancing on Friday night at the 'hiphop' style club in Dunsan-dong called Cocoon. It's an intriguing place... good music, to an extent, but dancing there is slightly awkward. People watch you but don't approach you, and when they do, they're usually 20 years old, and their idea of dancing is basically to just latch onto you like a leech and try to suck the blood out of you. A friend told me that everybody at Cocoon was really young, and I didn't quite believe him (because he's old, haha). But once again, I'm realizing that I might be the 'young' one (at the remarkable age of 22, which apparently is really strange here), but the people on my level are much older--27-28-29. In fact the people that I most enjoy being with are around the 30s range. And while I love having an older group of friends, it's also a testament to how difficult the younger ones can be--like when you go to Cocoon and have awkward boys all over you.
Anyway after spending all Saturday shopping, I went to a birthday party of a friend of a friend over at the KAIST dorms. (And the dorm/apartments are much nicer than mine. Putain.) Failed at playing Korean drinking games, (which was a consumption disaster, I will tell you that), then ended up at--of course--Sponge, where I ran into friends who like to play pool and darts for drinks. All in all, we can say that I got the week's stress out of my system, and then spent all day Sunday at the jjimjilbang recovering.
This jjimjilbang that I went to was great though, they had all kinds of stuff in there. The outside waiting area, where the entrances to the saunas were, had a fake waterfall with little bridges and cars and people. And it was awesome. In the bathing area they had a really hot room with a really cold pool, and I loved that. I met a woman who had lived in DC for five years, and at first I had no idea that she was even Korean. Her English was so good that I thought she was foreign. (Is that a bad assumption?) Anyway I had a great time chilling out, and then I went home and napped.
Things at work have been stressful. Rumor has it that the husband is watching the cameras from the wife's center, and while I've heard nothing about how I am 'misbehaving' or 'not teaching properly', my boss has called up my coworker to tell him super anal things. I'm worried that the hands of corporate Korean hagwon madness are going to start closing on my already dwindling soul. I'm struggling to be a better teacher, but the weight of things is just pressing too hard. Once and a while I just need a little faith. Someone to say--"you're doing okay." or, "You handled this correctly." Instead of this constant silence, thin smiles, and continual avoidance. Or, my least favorite thing, "Maggie, why did you do this?" And it's been five months, so now it's really hard for me to say "I just didn't know." But there are things that I just don't know, because nobody tells me anything. And contrary to popular belief, I don't read minds, and I didn't really have much training, and someone who as worked with a program for 5 months, simply doesn't know the same amount about it as someone who has worked there for five years.
Sigh. At least it's getting warmer.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Photos Taken Around Daejeon
Exploring my City with A Camera!
Here we are behind the main road, in the small farmy place where I like to ride my bike at night. (Or I did, before it got really cold.)
Small road bordering a field, and the houses behind it. It's odd, but I ride though this area and all of a sudden I could be in a very Asian looking Ghana. There are water tanks on top of the houses, and they are flat, with little railings around the roofs.
Its things like these gates and concrete blocks that make me think that. Plus this is a wonderful break from the monotonous city development, which really is all the same.
You can see those lovely apartment buildings waiting in the background--almost as stark as the mountains behind them. They have intreguing names, but the kids who live there only say which block they live in--I live in 900 or 1000. These things are built with great gusto, and the same apartment building style can go on for ten city blocks, changing only by the numbers listed on their windowless sides. When I first got here I thought I might be lucky enough to live in one. Yeah, definitely not. These are the ritzy ones.
And now, here were are in Kung-dong, the college neighborhood close to me. It serves Chungnam and Kaist, so there are a fair amount of international places here. On this particular Sunday, I had a rather terrible kimbab roll and a place where the staff was just so nice that I couldn't complain. But that tuna had definitely been sitting out for hours.
Another intriguing Korean thing is that guns are perfectly normal toys here. And they look like real guns. The more realistic it looks, the better it is, and these kinds bring this stuff to school. One child (who actually got kicked out of the hagwon) was firing his toy bb gun out of the window. My hagwon is on the 6th floor. But besides firing the gun out of the window, having it and playing with it whenever you want is totally acceptable. I saw one kid riding around with a toy AK strapped to his back, on his bike--he was four or five.
Anyway, those are some pictures from my Daejeon bike riding adventures. I'll leave you one more... a pic of my trusty dusty Korean bike!
Small road bordering a field, and the houses behind it. It's odd, but I ride though this area and all of a sudden I could be in a very Asian looking Ghana. There are water tanks on top of the houses, and they are flat, with little railings around the roofs.
Anyway, those are some pictures from my Daejeon bike riding adventures. I'll leave you one more... a pic of my trusty dusty Korean bike!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Annyeong haseyo!
WOW! .. Yeah I'm not really sure where to start.
You will notice that I am awake at 7:30am. At home it's 5.30 pm. This is strange because usually when you are jetlagged, you can't sleep when you wouldn't sleep normally. However, I am the queen of napping through the evening, so I can't figure out why I was wide awake this early. Who knows! It is a mystery of the universe.
Anyhow, yesterday I was up even earlier, 6:00am, which means that I had a pretty jam packed day. I started training yesterday, which basically consisted of my boss showing me where the teacher's guides are, and then letting me sit in on five classes. It wasn't until the two last classes, that had American teachers, that I really started to understand what my job would be like. It sounds stressful and confusing, and it kind of is, but this is the way I learn--I refer to it as the "if you throw her in the pool, she will learn to swim" method. Now I would never teach a child how to swim like that, mostly because that endangers their lives, but this is how I best learn new jobs. It just takes a big toll on you the first week or so.
I am surprised at how calm I am about things. I remember the first time I went abroad on my own--to London--I was nervous about this, and that, and all these different things. This time I am just at ease. I think it's because I'm older and better traveled, but also my bosses have put me at ease. They are great people, very kind.
I am staying at a hotel right now, because the teacher I am replacing is still in my apartment. He is leaving tonight, but my bosses said that they wanted to clean the apartment before I moved in. (Good plan!) I am really excited to have my own place--decorate everything, make myself at home. Of course, I do like the (free) broadband internet that the hotel offers... and the self-making bed and self-folding towels, haha. Anyway, though, I started to say that because wen I arrived, I pretty quickly realized that the power outlets in Korea are recessed, meaning that my converter plug wouldn't fit! It is big and square, and the outlets have round holes. (Pondering the situation, I decided that recessed outlets are silly and don't make any sense, but maybe it helps with tripping on a chord and breaking it.) I went to have lunch with my bosses, and I mentioned this problem to them, and Mr. Kim ran off and bought me an extender! I was so happy!
Okay so a note about food. FOOD IS AMAZING. Mr. Kim and Mrs. Park took me to a Japanese fusion restaurant for lunch yesterday. I had some kind of fried meat (pork or chicken) with sweet potatoes stuffed inside. Mr. Kim had the same thing only the stuffing was cheese! CHEESE! NO WAY MAN. I don't know if that is an anomaly in Korea--to have so much cheese in one meal--but I know where I will be eating if I am having a craving for a cheesy deliciousness. For dinner, we went to a restaurant where you cook your own vegetables and meat. I went with Mr. Kim and Mrs. Park and Rebecca, the other American teacher at my school. She is interesting and does well with the kids. I sat in on a class with her that was VERY rambunctious, but at least they were rambunctious and speaking English, haha.
The curriculum is simple, and I think it will be easy to learn. It's even all online, so I can check it out on my laptop! That is what I intend to be doing for the AHH million hours that I have before I need to go to work. Mr. Kim is coming to pick me up, because.. well, I don't actually know how to get from my hotel to my school. Hehe. Like I said, I'm being pretty laid back about things.
Anyway... overall I am doing well!! I am tired, but I am so excited about living here! The eye has plenty of things to feast on, from the distant mountains (!!!) to grandmothers sitting on the street selling their produce. Just from briefly walking on the street yesterday, I feel like this is going to be a fascinating fusion of old and new... where you can have a farmer sitting on the ground with beans for sale on top of a subway tunnel and next to the kind of clothing shop that would be at home on 5th Avenue.
This is going to be great, I can tell.
You will notice that I am awake at 7:30am. At home it's 5.30 pm. This is strange because usually when you are jetlagged, you can't sleep when you wouldn't sleep normally. However, I am the queen of napping through the evening, so I can't figure out why I was wide awake this early. Who knows! It is a mystery of the universe.
Anyhow, yesterday I was up even earlier, 6:00am, which means that I had a pretty jam packed day. I started training yesterday, which basically consisted of my boss showing me where the teacher's guides are, and then letting me sit in on five classes. It wasn't until the two last classes, that had American teachers, that I really started to understand what my job would be like. It sounds stressful and confusing, and it kind of is, but this is the way I learn--I refer to it as the "if you throw her in the pool, she will learn to swim" method. Now I would never teach a child how to swim like that, mostly because that endangers their lives, but this is how I best learn new jobs. It just takes a big toll on you the first week or so.
I am surprised at how calm I am about things. I remember the first time I went abroad on my own--to London--I was nervous about this, and that, and all these different things. This time I am just at ease. I think it's because I'm older and better traveled, but also my bosses have put me at ease. They are great people, very kind.
I am staying at a hotel right now, because the teacher I am replacing is still in my apartment. He is leaving tonight, but my bosses said that they wanted to clean the apartment before I moved in. (Good plan!) I am really excited to have my own place--decorate everything, make myself at home. Of course, I do like the (free) broadband internet that the hotel offers... and the self-making bed and self-folding towels, haha. Anyway, though, I started to say that because wen I arrived, I pretty quickly realized that the power outlets in Korea are recessed, meaning that my converter plug wouldn't fit! It is big and square, and the outlets have round holes. (Pondering the situation, I decided that recessed outlets are silly and don't make any sense, but maybe it helps with tripping on a chord and breaking it.) I went to have lunch with my bosses, and I mentioned this problem to them, and Mr. Kim ran off and bought me an extender! I was so happy!
Okay so a note about food. FOOD IS AMAZING. Mr. Kim and Mrs. Park took me to a Japanese fusion restaurant for lunch yesterday. I had some kind of fried meat (pork or chicken) with sweet potatoes stuffed inside. Mr. Kim had the same thing only the stuffing was cheese! CHEESE! NO WAY MAN. I don't know if that is an anomaly in Korea--to have so much cheese in one meal--but I know where I will be eating if I am having a craving for a cheesy deliciousness. For dinner, we went to a restaurant where you cook your own vegetables and meat. I went with Mr. Kim and Mrs. Park and Rebecca, the other American teacher at my school. She is interesting and does well with the kids. I sat in on a class with her that was VERY rambunctious, but at least they were rambunctious and speaking English, haha.
The curriculum is simple, and I think it will be easy to learn. It's even all online, so I can check it out on my laptop! That is what I intend to be doing for the AHH million hours that I have before I need to go to work. Mr. Kim is coming to pick me up, because.. well, I don't actually know how to get from my hotel to my school. Hehe. Like I said, I'm being pretty laid back about things.
Anyway... overall I am doing well!! I am tired, but I am so excited about living here! The eye has plenty of things to feast on, from the distant mountains (!!!) to grandmothers sitting on the street selling their produce. Just from briefly walking on the street yesterday, I feel like this is going to be a fascinating fusion of old and new... where you can have a farmer sitting on the ground with beans for sale on top of a subway tunnel and next to the kind of clothing shop that would be at home on 5th Avenue.
This is going to be great, I can tell.
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