An hour away from a six day weekend. Tomorrow is the school's birthday, Friday is May day, then comes the weekend where a picnic is is the plans (weather permitting) and Monday's classes got forfeited for an extra day off before Children's Day is celebrated on Tuesday. This is a holiday I desperately need before the final three months on my contract.
Last Thursday we had a field trip to a Space museum out on the main island off of Incheon (the name escapes me now). It took just over an hour and a half to get there and we stopped off at a fortress to have a potty break for the kids which they used by buying more snacks and toys from the convenient store. 
The space museum is privately owned and they did a great job. 
There were three floors of rides and information all about space. The older kids were a tad bored but the young ones seemed to love it. 
Luckily it was a one of the few sunny days of the month and we were able to eat outside. 
First graders taking a break from rolling down a grassy hill. 
Fifth grade girls before security yelled at them for climbing on stuff. 
Sixth grade boys trying to convince me that the prawns they were eating were actually chicken. 
More first graders. 
Water fights helping in the digestion process. 
Kindergartners doing their thing and looking cute. 
After lunch we wandered around the outside gardens. Here is Robot land. 
A couple of the moving dinosaurs in Dino Ville. 
Ending the day with tube rides down the hill. Good fun and much better than teaching.
I download the Best of YouTube podcast to my iPod each week and loved last week's clip. Somebody should have been policing Saejin when he decided to spend some money at Soho and ordered a bottle of Vodka at nearly 3am.
My co-teacher has been grinding on my nerves for the past couple of months and today after her incompetence in class yet again I finally called her on it and we had a blow out. Here are the top ten reasons I hate working with her:
1. She doesn't listen. If I ask her something I get a blank expression from her. If students call out flashcards many times they are saying the wrong answers and she doesn't catch the mistakes.
2. She runs everywhere in a panic.
3. She runs everywhere in a panic in high heeled slippers.
4. She sees the younger kids as cute and talks to them in a fake baby voice instead of as a teacher talking to students.
5. She walks around while the students are doing worksheets or working in pairs and instead of helping them she asks them important distracting questions about their pencils cases or what they like to eat.
6. She reapplies make-up for lunch.
7. She told me once that boys are more important than girls in Korea so we should help them more with English.
8. She teaches to the same high leveled students everyday instead of forcing the poor ones to be involved in class.
9. She doesn't listen. I've asked her to teach the flashcards a certain way so that they will be prepared for a later test (making them translate Korean into English) and she refuses because she thinks the class should be all in English. I also agree it should be all in English but the test is set up for them to translate and I can't help them here. Without practice the kids fail the test as we learnt last year.
10. She is useless. I want Betty teacher back.
The playoffs are currently going strong on the computer this morning. I know things look bad for the Flames but I want to believe they will beat Chicago. (They won't but I will still watch.) My predictions are Boston, Washington, Carolina and Philly out of the East in the first round. Anaheim, Detroit, St.Louis and Chicago in the West. I will also pick the final right now as Carolina vs Detroit with Detroit repeating as the Champions.
Some day's work is hard (I'll post a top ten reasons why I hate working with my co-teacher soon) but usually it's a breeze and today was a great Chinook of a day. Ten minutes down the highway from our school is another teeny tiny school like ours and so when things get planned for extra curricular activities our schools join forces to cover the costs. Today was a sports day. Today was also the first rainy day of the season. I have to admit I hoped the whole thing would of been put off until next week but I wasn't so lucky. Come three o'clock we were told to head downstairs for a barbecue. It worked out because they popped open the tents, set up tables and the best part was that there was home made makoli along with a box of soju to go round. With the rain pouring down it looked like the volleyball game was off.
As the first floor filled with the smoke from the fried pork and drinks were consumed the rain slowed to a drizzle. The planned game was suddenly back on. The winning school would have a dinner paid for out of the other school's funds so the pressure was on. It didn't look good for us when the other school brought along their four army workers along to play. (These guys work in public school's instead of going to the army for several different reasons including well connected parents.) We had three teachers play, the head of the PTA joined us and our head teacher (the only woman brave enough to take on the acid rain). It was five vs eight. It was also muddy, fun and we came out on top.
My favorite part was when the two principals joined their respective teams and then all rules left the game. They both were like children playing a board game against a parent and when they touched the ball no matter what happened the respective Principal's team got points. I was definitely confused but when all the others agreed with the call I just went along.
With spring there is nothing better than airing out the house with every possible window wide open and creating a breeze. The one problem with this is the screens in Korea don't always shut as tightly as they should, inviting the mosquitoes in for their nightly meal. Last night I killed my first hungry mosquito at 3:00 am. No more airing out the house after dark and time to reload on the mosquito pads that are sold here.
It's spring so that means I start actually jogging instead of talking about it and it also means it's time to post pictures of the flowers. Here goes:
Around School:
Around the neighbourhood:
Boramae Park:
In defense of the North Koreans testing out their missiles last week, Friday was rocket day at school. Kids build and launch their own rockets to protect the ROK (Republic of Korea for those not in the know). We do this every year and it's a day the kids get all excited for and as an innocent bystander I love to watch it. It's basically an afternoon where the kids build rockets out of old pop bottles. The bottom half is half full (half empty?) of water and you then connect the rocket to the air pump where it's pressurized and once ready you release the rocket by the hand held bicycle brake. Winners in each grade then get to compete city wide of the title of best rocket. 
Here, Jung Hui and Tae Hoon wager money on the winning rocket. 
The fourth grade class missed our after school English class for this. (I'm not complaining.) 
My favorite class in the school are the sixth graders and their teacher had me take a million pictures of them. They have a special yearbook made up at the end of the year and need pictures of everything they did in them. 
Third grade students looking cute but minutes earlier they held my phone and camera hostage after I passed it on to them while I beat up a kid who tried to "dongshim" (stick his fingers up my bum) me. The only way to get it back was to promise to take their photo. They are on the right path to becoming Korean women who never pass the opportunity to have their picture taken.
Yesterday there was an election in my province so school was cancelled. To celebrate I put on shorts and a T-shirt and showed off my pasty white skin to all lucky enough to see me walking about the neighbourhood.
The idea of getting nekkid with a bunch of strangers, showering before sweating in hot tubs then putting on provided gym shorts and T-shirts to head to a second floor (where Koreans sit around eating hard boiled eggs while watching bad Korean television) in between bouts of sweating in dry saunas isn't exactly how I would choose to spend a Sunday but it is what I did. It was super relaxing.
Near our place is a great jjimjilbang. The upstairs dry sauna's are amazing. The first room we went into is a salt room where you lie down on hot dry salt stones and drain yourself of water. To replenish we then bought huge crafts of ice tea and stuck our feet in bags to tackle the foot massage machine. After ten minutes of torture we sat on the massage chairs that work over your whole body for just one dollar. Saejin wanted more chair time so I went back to have my feet worked over. We ended the day heading to an outside section where there is a clay oven you crawl into to cook yourself in. It was my favorite. There are about three other rooms (including an ice room) but we skipped them.
That night I had the best sleep I have had in ages. I may have to go back again this weekend.
It's been a long time since I have been excited about a movie to come out. This is one of my all time favorite books and from the trailer it looks like it should be a great flick.
Growing up whenever we saw the bookmobile in the local strip mall's parking lot was always an excuse to stop the car. It was a converted RV that brought the library to your area and I loved when we got to enter to borrow books for the week. I usually had to be rushed into making my final pick as I could have spent hours searching the bookcases. Starting out young and having parents who read made it easy for me to pick up the hobby that I still continue to do.
Today I saw my first Korean version of this pull up into the school's playground. The kids seemed excited to see it and when I went out to check it out the kindergarten class was busily searching for the right book. I love the fact that Korean kids read so much. Each day the first twenty minutes before class the kids have to go into the library, take out a book before returning to class to read it. The principal made this rule a year and a half ago after the school did poorly on a standardised test. He said his son was an avid reader and he is now a dentist so he wants our students to fall in love with literature so they too will tackle plague and gingivitis. Not sure how well it worked but Tuesday the kids took another nationwide test so we will see if his theory worked its magic when results come back to school later.
Saejin had a crappy birthday yesterday but this weekend will be an all out effort to make up for it. It's been awhile since I did a midweek countdown for the weekend and I can't wait for Saturday. My co-teacher is officially a bitch but I think we have moved onto the stage of agreeing to disagree on everything.
I have been slowly weening myself off of TV. I spend way too much time downloading crap and watching crap. I have given up on Prison Break which used to be a favorite of mine because this year and last turned out to be ridiculous. I stopped watching almost all reality TV (except the Amazing Race) when I found myself distracted by how dumb people are and how poorly they speak English seeing as it's their first language. Now I wish I used my extra time on useful stuff but I have just finally made the effort to catch up on the movies I buy but never get around to watching.
Cheap DVDs are everywhere in Seoul and if you find a good reliable source you can catch almost any major movie released. Of course they are illegal but they are so popular here that major American studios after years of trying to get the market cleaned up finally gave up and closed down their DVD departments and left. The guy I go to once a month has recently been carrying a few Canadian movies. 
I just watched The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story, and loved seeing the legend he is come to life. You can see why all of Quebec loved this giant of a player. He never backed down and helped change the way the French were treated by the NHL. Other movies I want to recommend:
Slumdog Millionaire, just because anything about India is good in my mind.
Doubt, I didn't want to see this at all and then I started to hear great things about it. I put it in one night predicting to fall asleep in front of but the story and acting are amazing.
The Visitor, if you are alive you will definitely feel something watching this one.
The Wrestler, see above comment and it applies to this movie too. I still think it is the best movie from last year by far and I hate Wrestling.
Last week I made a 8:00 am call into work saying I was sick. Technically I wasn't 100 percent sick but I also wasn't 100 percent. Skip ahead a few days and I did fall ill. I got a huge fever and then chills three minutes later. Seeing as I had already skipped a day of work (a huge no-no in Korea where kids come to school hardly able to walk and the work force are contractually obliged to infect the office) I didn't want to push the special foreigner card too far asking for another day off. This meant I'd come home each night and collapse on the heated floor to just rest. This also meant the dishes continued to pile up in the sink. I do live with Saejin and he could of at anytime done the dishes but he is the oldest Korean son in his family.
For those lucky enough to be born into this role, housework is done between the time you leave the the house and before you return. Rumours have it that it may be your mom but Moms cook, bring you glasses of juice and tuck you in, how could they find time to wash dishes, do landry and/or sweep? This is what I live with. If I take ill the house is overrun with clutter. Credit to Saejin he does cook when I eat at home but all the rest of the housework is left to me. This weekend will mostly be used to tidy up. I'm already looking forward to next weekend so I can get out and enjoy the spring weather.
Last night must of been a wild one for a few ajoshis out for business dinner and drinks. My walk to work had me dodging multiple puddles of puke. Luckily the walk home won't be as disgusting as each kimchi tainted pile was serving up a buffet of food for the pigeons out on their morning flights.
I trust my first impressions of people 90 percent of the time. Even when I have heard stories (ok gossip) about new people I always try to give them a fair evaluation. I even put the people that fail that first impression a chance to prove my "feelings" wrong. The new school year has started and we have a new vice principal in the school.
He is an older man and a big man with an even bigger head (I don't mean that he's high on himself, I mean this in the Korean way, he has a ginormous head.) When it comes to public schools the VPs are the ones who make all the rules. They deal with the day to day stuff while the Principal just signs the papers put in front of him (ours does it while outside gardening.) In short when I have a problem I see my supervisor who then sees the VP to get things resolved.
When I first met the man he was imposing. He distanced himself from the teachers and seemed like a huge prick. This being my last year I was worried he could change up stuff. Luckily I think I'm starting to like the guy. Everyday I go into the staff room after lunch to do my photocopies for the next day and I have yet to see the guy not openly napping at his desk. Today when I went in the TV was on and he was busy watching Korea playing live in the World Baseball Classic. It was the eighth inning and as I was getting ready to laminate flashcards he told me to stop and sit to watch the rest of the game. I'm liking this guy a lot now. FYI...Korea beat Japan 4-1 and is now in the semi finals.
A huge Yellow dust storm is currently drifting it's way over from China. So far this spring we have been lucky and not had it too bad but the news was selling the next couple of days last night as being especially bad. 
The traditional way of protecting yourself from the microscopic sand and pollution is to wear a simple cloth mask. Newspapers have been reporting about a better product on the way. These tiny nose plugs get jammed up your nostrils and they do a better job filtering out the nasty bits in the air. Not sure I'd risk that slim line of plastic not breaking though. I'll suffer and so my plan of getting back into jogging is yet again pushed back until sometime next week.
Old Post from February. Since this summer Teddy has been talking about his bold plans for a complete makeover of our local watering hole, Bar Bliss. Finally shortly after the new year and after his trip to Cambodia he started the process. Here are some pictures of the new Bar Bliss. Gone is the outdoor patio and instead it's a glassed in place that on nice days will have all the doors completely open. It will be great once we get to test out this new feature but it will also lead to a few run ins. Summer's here are muggy but what was great about the old Bliss was that if you wanted to drink on the patio you could and if you needed a cool down you could slip inside for the air conditioner. Soon enough we will see which team of drinkers will win. 
Ted brought back some stone art he bought in Cambodia and on his relaunch night he unveiled it. 
The gang posing for a picture. 
The new art. 
Old art that was too big to be in a prominent position in the old smaller place. 
The new stage for dancing and to host Sunday afternoon Bingo (not sure how successful that venture will be for Ted but I will try it at least once.)
The new seating area at the front of the bar. He still needs to get and install long oriental lights to go over the tables. The tables and chairs also need to be updated but with a maxed out credit card Teddy needs Shelly to help boost his sales.
Being back to work has been alright (working on trying to get along with my new co-teacher as she is a tad annoying). I love routines and this new school year the times of classes changed so I'm learning what the best non-work things I can do on my breaks. I will try this week to use one of the breaks to blog.
Last weekend a few of us headed out for what could be the last ski trip of the year. I was not looking forward to the trip at all. On Friday the temperatures rose high enough that it was raining all day zoom that rain over a mountain and you end up skiing on pure ice with puddles of water scattering the flatter parts of the hill. Here's the view from the elevator in our hotel. 
I didn't join everyone until Saturday afternoon and just went skiing with a night lift ticket. This was Saejin's first time skiing and his afternoon ski consisted of a single run down before throwing his skis and walking down the hill. I was given the role of trying to teach him. It wasn't pretty but kind of funny seeing him build up sped, by ignoring everything I told him and crashing out of panic. Our first run took nearly an hour to get down the hill. Eventually somewhere along the way he started to get better and if we'd had more time he probably would make it down without falling. 
We woke up to see it snowing. This is the view from our room. 
Saejin wanting his picture taken in the snow. 
Our last stop at a restaurant for lunch before heading home.
