Back America

I'm home for two weeks. Flying home was interesting, and not just because I traveled with Liz, another ETA. Our flight from Seoul to Tokyo was only supposed to be 2 hours. It turned out to be 6 hours, because wind shears prevented us from landing at our airport in Tokyo. As we were descending, we hit a big bump of turbulence, and those of us in the back of the plane flew out of our seats a little. The plane sped up, ascended, and the pilot decided to go to another airport, refuel, and then return. So we landed safely, but missed our connection to America and had to spend a night in a Tokyo airport hotel. The traveling was extended by a day and so my sleep schedule is pretty messed up. Almost as bad as when I had to get up for ROTC in college.

So... America... it hasn't changed too much. Being abroad in South Korea has also let me stay in touch really easily. The high speed internet, IM, Skype, and email means the only thing between me and friends and family is the time difference.

Notes on America:
New England isn't that cold right now.
I think I might have broken my pinky finger last night playing basketball (typing sucks right now).
I really did miss cheese, chips and salsa, and cranberry juice.
I saw Syriana today, and while it's good to think about some of the themes brought up in the movie, I didn't think it was a good movie.
The Pistons really are that good.

I wish I was better at putting into words the differences between Korea and America. That can be one of my goals for next semester. In addition to getting serious about learning Korean. Oh who are we kidding I'm just there to teach English.

I go to DC/Northern Virginia tomorrow to visit the college friends. I'm excited! Happy New Year!

Loving it

One of the best pictures I've been part of in a long time. Yes, Korea, yes. Thanks to Annie for this picture.

Happy Holidays Card

It's just for you!

For the past couple years, I've toyed with the idea of making Christmas cards (or holiday cards or whatever you want to call them). Obviously it's a nice way to keep in touch with people. I really haven't ever been too busy, but I finally got around to it. So here is the first Bennett Baldwin Holiday Winter Solstice Christmas Kwanzaa Hanukkah New Year Full Moon Greeting Card. Oh sorry, too long for you? Seriously though, Happy Holidays!

And then there's always this: maybe... I just wanted to play with photoshop. I haven't used photoshop in a while... but I'd like to think I still got it.

Checking Out Early

Off to Gwangju tonight for a little English speaking get together with some other ETAs. I had been planning to spend the weekend with my host family, but the kids have school tomorrow, and last night I learned that it's my host parents' anniversary this weekend, so they're not going to be here anyway. Good to know. And I'm babysitting tomorrow night! (I think)

But I'm going back to America next Thursday! That means:
1. Only 3 more days of teaching!
2. I'll see family and friends AND be able to communicate really well with them!
3. I can leave my shoes on in the house.
4. My real mom won't remake my bed everyday.
5. Fixed showerhead!
6. Applesauce and Mexican food
7. Basketball!

This week teaching has been nice - I tell the kids about Christmas cards, give them a piece of paper, and then all I have to do is walk around. I make sure they're not writing in Korean, not making fun of the girls who should be in a special education center on their card, and not giving Santa private parts. And I play Christmas music. I've never listened to this much Christmas music before in my life. And I love it.

It's been fun Korea... and it'll be even better next semester.

The Gammby

You need to read this. If you know my roommate from college, Gammby, or even if you don't know him, it's hilarious.

Not crazy, just from New England

Like many schools in South Korea, my school doesn't have central heating. Not a problem for me, because the teacher's offices, classrooms, and cafeteria are all heated. I can deal with a cool walk whenever I have to go anywhere.

I think the teachers are worried though, because some have asked me if I'm cold. They point to my button down shirts (the same shirts I was wearing when it was very hot) and make hand signals to indicate how thin they are and how thick their jacket is. I tell them, yes, I do own a jacket, but I'm just not cold right now. I appreciate the concern, but the teacher's office is really hot, and if I kept my jacket on in there I might pass out. We could have a tropical Jeju island party in here. I'm surprised some of the Soju loving male teachers haven't thought of this before.

What do you anticipate?

Have I mentioned that (most people in) South Korea is(are) a little(extremely) image conscious?

I was doing a fun lesson that involved playing the song "You can't hurry love" (a hit with most classes) and having the kids put mixed up lyrics in the right order. I taught the word 'anticipate' because it's in the song, and had the kids make up sentences. Many answers were along the lines of 'I am anticipating Christmas (or winter vacation).' But here different kinds of answers:

1. I am anticipating losing weight. (She really doesn't need to.)
2. Moo Hyun is anticipating plastic surgery. (Don't know who Moo Hyun is, but you're in middle school, kids)

Snow in South Korea

Today/last night was our first snowfall of the season! My host mom told me to look outside when I woke up. That's the view from our apartment. Lots of concrete, exciting.

In other news, I only have to teach 8 hours (I think) this week! Which will be nice after teaching a lot last week. And I get to plan for the winter camp I have to teach in January.

Thanks to Mathiew's suggestion, I now have found a great place to take language classes in Seoul in February. So (maybe) after that my Korean will be good enough to get back conversationally. I sure hope so, I elected to stay in Gyeryong this weekend, and since the kids had to study for tests, I was pretty bored...

My host mom was worried when I told her I would find a hasukjip (small study room/apartment popular with college students), and asked if I wanted one... haha, I think I'll be fine on my own for a month in Seoul... MAYBE (as we like to say in South Korea), even more than fine.

If you're an NBA fan...

Then you'll love this article by Bill Simmons. I know there aren't many NBA fans out there, but it's good. Here's one of my favorite parts:

Every year, Duncan and the Spurs fly to Boston and beat the absolute crap out of the Celtics. And every year, my Dad comes home from the game, calls me and says, "They toyed with us, they absolutely toyed with us. What a great team. I remember when we used to toy with teams like that."

Spam attack

I got this email in my inbox, found it hilarious, and compared it to some of the unusual sentences my students write. I bolded my favorite parts, so enjoy.

Salutations,
As a worthy purchaser we grant you as occasions offer with information and renews.

Our records indicate that you may be in need of a refill. On the strength of jottings we have, it is obvious that you may demand an extra copy.

We apologize and hope you will take a jaundiced view at medicaments we sell. We beg your pardon and would like to propose you again a set of the most popular medicines online at reduced prices. Again, let us introduce our drugs at attractive prices which may be urgent needed.

We also offer you impeccable customer care. Please, visit our web site at:
http://www.rudimeni.thaneiter.com

In good faith, Emerson Talmadge Sale support department
Babur Nishimoto

Today I still feel like dancing

I hadn't been dancing in a while, but last weekend in Seoul I went out both friday and saturday night and danced. It was great, and the Koreans girls loved it (from afar). I thought I would be good for awhile, but then...

My co teacher and I had a little spat today I think. We were doing the second half of a shopping lesson. She wanted to take half the class out in the hall to punish them for not still having their dialogues in their notebooks. Some of the kids had changed notebooks, since the last time I saw them was two weeks ago. This would have caused problems for two reasons. One, she wouldn't have been in the classroom, and I couldn't explain what we were going to do in English. Second, on the way to the classroom I had explained that with this lesson we needed to make good use of time. and if she took time to punish the students, then my lesson doesn't get done. So I told her not to punish them now, and called the students back into the room. I could tell she wasn't happy, but I'm not happy when she decides to go nuts on kids every three classes. I tried to tell the kids to copy the dialogue from someone else in the room, thinking co teacher would translate, but no luck. She was not into helping for the rest of class. It's okay though, we'll have a little chat soon enough.

Then after lunch I had two very low level classes, where we don't really accomplish much other than the fact that the kids are at least exposed to English for 45 minutes. So today was one of those days where I feel like we'd all be better off if I just brought music into class and danced for the kids. I would have a lot more fun, the kids would have a lot more fun, and so would the Korean teacher in the room with me. Maybe the last week that's what we'll do. I can picture it now... Merry Christmas kids!

Aside -
I had three fried eggs, a plate of spaghetti, two kiwis, and yogurt for breakfast. Delicious. Thank you host mom

New pictures

This was on the board when I walked into class, and then the kids sang happy birthday. Very cute. They thought maybe I would leave it on the board and just play a game... almost.

I have a plus account with 23hq.com now, so here are more pictures from the birthday and almost all my good pictures from my time in Korea. I will update the picture site whenever I get new pictures.

School English Examples

When I taught the conditional (didn't use the word though) I had the kids make example sentences using if. I gave them most of the if statement's and they had to write the then statement. Here are some good ones:

"If Korea celebrated Halloween then I would be _______"
Answers: scream; [friend's name]; power ranger; gollum; and my favorite answer, from one of my basketball boys: small monster because scary.
I now know him as "small monster."

"If Korea won the world cup then I would_____"
Answers: much pride; SCREAM!!; not watch because not like soccer

"If I was older then I would ____"
Answers (You can guess which ones the girls wrote and which ones the boys wrote!): travel with husband; marry a husband; cooking well; buy cigarettes; go to love motel; be better at basketball.

Jeju Island Trip Recap

I've been really busy the past few days for a change, which has actually been nice, so it's taken me a little while to post about my weekend trip to Jeju. But here goes.

I went to the airport without my passport. It wasn't an international flight, and to me it was just another weekend trip. Luckily they let me through security with a US driver's license, a Fulbright ID, and a "sorry! won't do it again!" or two. When I got off the plane in Jeju it was cold and rainy. Come on! I thought.

Friday night I stayed with Shoni, another ETA, and tried to cheer him up a little bit. He's going through a little (understatement) culture shock. I did bring him some Peppero since it was Peppero day though. (Peppero day is a holiday for giving Peppero, little chocolate sticks, instituted recently by the company who makes Peppero) Not sure that he fully appreciated it.

Saturday I met up with the other ETA's on the island - Lauren, Henry, Laura, and Lindsay. One of the English teachers from Lindsay's school took us on a little tour of Jeju City all day and night. It was fantastic. I picked a really good weekend to go. Some quick highlights:

1. the mixture of smells at the 5 day fish market, fish, pets, produce, worms, and really anything that could be sold at a market
2. Rolling on the mysterious road - I was a little skeptical, but on the right spot of this famous road it looks like you're rolling uphill if you're in a car and put it in neutral. Natural optical illusion. So MYSTERIOUS...
3. Traditional tea ceremony - besides working on sitting on the floor for a while, I tried some new teas, learned how to properly sip tea the korean way, and got a new nickname from a Korean guy - Strong Breast.
4. Eating sand at dinner - it was a seafood stew and the creature I dug out of a shell still had some sand in him. Not really a highlight.
5. Loveland - a sex museum in Korea. I know, Korea! Innocent, prude, little Korea. It's in Jeju city and has a lot of statues of naked people in various poses. Lindsay's English teacher was thought it would be a funny stop, and he was right.
6. Trying to eat a Jeju tangerine for every waking hour I was in Jeju do. I almost made it - 23 little oranges for 25 hours.

The saturday tour was really awesome, easily one of the cultural experience kind of times I've had since I've been here, thanks to the other ETAs (esp Lindsay and her extremely nice English teacher) for making it happen.

Tomorrow's my Birthday!

I'll be 23! That's crazy. I don't know what I'll be doing or if many people here in Gyeryong will remember. Birthdays aren't as big of a deal in Korea as in the states, so we'll see. I do know that you're supposed to eat seaweed soup on your birthday. It's not bad, but it's no birthday cake.

Seoul with Beth and Mike

Sat afternoon I met up with Beth and Mike in Seoul and we set out to paint the town red. First we went to the COEX mall, which we discovered has a better English book selection than Kyobo, so ETA's, make a mental note. The mall also has an apple store which is always fun.

Next we ventured out to the tallest building in Korea - "Building 63." It has 63 floors, although 3 of them are underground. From the top, you can get a nice view of the city in exchange for buying a $7 beer.

On Sunday I saw the weirdest (worst?) movie of my life. It was called Drawing Restrain 9 and it was a "modern art" movie. Apply what you know/think about the kind of modern art that looks like a 3 year old could make it and then draw it out over a weird plot for 2 and a half hours. Let's just say my only thoughts after the end were not only did about 100 people just sit through that, but we paid for it! Hilariously ironic.

As Beth and I were enjoying a dunkin donuts dessert on sunday and about ready to leave, we saw Dr. Larson (2nd in charge of Fulbright program, and is an absolute character) and his wife stroll by outside! We finished up quickly and ran outside to catch them but they had disappeared.

I've seen several people wearing a shirt that says "absence makes the heart grow fonder." I want one.

Eight year old Korean genius enters university

An eight year old boy is starting college because he's a physics genius and wants to build flying cars. Maybe it's something in the water?

I also find it amazing that he passed his elementary, middle school, and high school tests in 9 months because those are not easy in Korea.

Blog redesign

So as you can tell I redesigned the old blog. I still have a few things to work out, such as centering the page in the browser screen, and trying to get rid of the blogger bar at the top. But let me know what you think.

update: I think I have it working. If you have firefox the site looks good.

Cheongju Party

I hadn't seen any other ETA's in three weeks, so last weekend was good. I went to Cheongju and saw Annie, Mandy, Henry, Sarah, Jes, Forest, Esther, and my friend Tom. Friday night we learned an important lesson - don't go into restaurants that have no one in them. We did. We got some drinks, and snacks, because you have to buy them too in most bars in Korea. After eating half of the nuts, beans, etc we found maggots crawling in them!

In Korea, 'service' means free. Some ETA's get a lot of service when they go out. I hadn't really experienced it until Friday night. We went to a small tent restaurant and got double the rice wine and food we ordered. Service!

Saturday we walked around and saw Annie's homestay family. She lives in a really small town that doesn't even have the high rise apartments. She gets her own little apartment! Kind of jealous. Sat night we helped with a halloween party. One of Annie's Korean friends is a teacher at an English academy, so we played with 100 elementary school kids and helped them with their English. A fun sat night. I don't get much exposure to the elementary school kids so it was fun to see them going crazy. I'm glad I don't have to teach them though.

Me and Mandy and some friends for the picture

Cheongju's official mascot. The hair spells Cheongju in Korean. It's all over the city. Not kidding, and no it's not just for the Olympics or something

Forest makes his entrance just like he does in the classroom

Me on a bridge briefly contemplating the fact I've been here for 4 months

Umsa Festival

Yesterday and today have been my school's annual festival. It's a chance for the kids to show what they've been working on this year and just have fun. Some of the students' artwork is incredible. The paintings and cartoons look professionally done. There were skits yesterday from each foreign language club - english, german, french, arabic, chinese, japanese, and spanish. You can guess the only one I understood. My host sister made an introduction speech for the English play, she did very well. I hope her nervousness from that was what has been eating her the past few weeks. More on that later.

Also in the morning, there were performances by some kids, mostly dancing. The popular skits involved cross dressing, toy guns, and monsters. For some reason, boys dressing like girls was a hit. I was laughing a lot. I also tried to picture kids from my middle school doing that. I couldn't really see it happening, how about you? And American middle schools just aren't cool with the toy guns either.

At night, a stage was set up on the field outside school. One of my favorite students started off the night by doing a Michael Jackson routine, and he was pretty good. All the students who danced on stage were very good. The students practice their dance moves a lot before they perform. I did the Napoleon dynamite dance plus a few other moves to fill out the song, and I think the students liked it. I got a lot of "ohhhh ben! dance - good!" I was happy to do it for them. Then to close the night the 3rd grader rock band played. Chun Yong is the bassist and I know most of the members, so it was fun to see them, and they were good.

Today was the sports part of the festival. Our school played the rival middle school in soccer, and lost... then all the students had to complete a 3K 'marathon' which I ran too. At the end I did a little SGT Davis and tried to cheer on all the students who were almost finishing. There was also a 3 point shootout, class jump rump, and my favorite, the relay race. For some reason watching all the classes in each grade race was pretty exciting. I guess that's what happens when I don't watch football all season, I think middle school relay races are exciting.

So, the festival was two days without teaching, kids having fun at school and running around, not as much beating, and sports and dancing. Teaching won't be nearly as fun tomorrow.

Also, coming soon: blog layout redesign.

Some tidbits about everyday life

Tomorrow is my friend Amal's birthday! So happy birthday Amal. In her honor, I'm going to try to write this post in her style. (Let me know I do)

Dear friends,

Maybe you're curious about my everyday life. Maybe you're not. Here are some random observations about my life in Korea:

1. American Chinese food = Americanized. Korean Chinese food = Koreanized. Oh how I miss real Chinese food...

2. My host mom does my laundry, cleans the bathroom, and cooks for me. I'm not complaining.

3. But she won't let me do anything to help out. She even REMAKES my bed everyday! Come on I'm 22!

4. My host brother has the hardest time getting up in the morning. It takes 15 minutes of host mom yelling to get him up. He has to be at school in 20 minutes? Doesn't matter.

5. I teach a lot of kids (931!) so many so that last week I taught two classes for only the third time yet this semester due to scheduling conflicts. Do you think they missed me? I got a standing ovation when I walked in.

6. I finally was able to put MP3s on my cell phone. After a month and a half. It's still in Korean. Oh, joy.

7. It was my grandmother's 85th birthday yesterday! You go Grandma!

8. Next week my school has their annual festival. No class on Tuesday and Wednesday (or Friday). I will be doing the Napoleon Dynamite dance for the school (and the teachers and parents). Lovely.

That is all.

Love, Ben

The Seoul of Clones

A good article about why South Korea is the leader in stem cell research, with some highlights of differences between Korean and American society.

Seorak San Weekend with Michael Jeter

Last Friday I went to Seoul to see Mike Jeter, who is now a hagwon English teacher in South Korea. A hagwon is an extra academy that students can go to after regular school. So Mike has to teach until 9 on Friday nights, which makes my schedule seem pretty good. I took the high speed KTX train to Seoul for the first time, and it is fast. Also a little expensive. We met in a subway station near his apartment. Luckily it wasn't too hard for us to spot each other.

Saturday morning we went to Seorak san(mountain), a very popular mountain in Korea. We arrived in the afternoon and found a cheap motel. We were looking on some side streets for a motel, and found several abandoned places. We were walking by one with lots of overgrown grass on its front walkway, when a Korean guy with work gloves asked us how much we would pay. We said $30 and he then took us to a motel on the main street, but there was no one there. So he hopped behind the counter, got a key, and showed us a room. We weren't sure if he really worked there, but we decided to take the room anyway.

The closer we got to Seoraksan the more we noticed the leaves hadn't actually changed. Seeing mostly green was a little disappointing, but saturday and sunday were both beautiful weather-wise so it was okay. Sat afternoon we did some exploring of the rock basin at the bottom of Seoraksan and then had a nice little Korean dinner. There were other ETAs in Seoraksan but they didn't want to meet up with us. Pretty lame. Maybe they were afraid of two WM kids together.

On sunday we hiked part of the mountain and it was beautiful. After a post mountain meal of Chinese food (koreanized though, like Chinese food in America is amercanized) we said our goodbyes and each headed to our buses home. The weekend with Mike was a lot of fun. We of course reminisced about WM, but it was fun to experience Korea with someone else from back home. I'm sure it was the first of many weekends together.

The traffic was bad on the way back. I didn't get into Daejon until 10:30pm, so I just missed the last bus back to Gyeryong. I had to take a taxi. My host family called while I was waiting, and I told them. And they weren't worried! Sweet. I think my host family actually thinks of me as an adult.

Check out some pictures of Seoraksan:

Picnic

Yesterday our school had field trips. Each grade went somewhere different. I was told 1st grade was going to the science expo in Daejon, 2nd grade was going to a temple, and 3rd grade was going to a park to have a picnic. Not much of a field trip, I know, but I chose to go with the 3rd grade because this way I could sleep an hour later, and some third graders can speak enough English to communicate. I went to the park with my host brother, who couldn't get out of bed as usual so we were late. Every day, Host mom consistently yells at him off and on for at least 10 minutes before he gets up. "Ji-hyun-a!! Ji-hyun-a!!" That day I think it took a half hour! Maybe he shouldn't stay up so late watching... just an idea.

The picnic was nice. The kids were supposed to write 5 line acronym poems in Korean using the syllables from Umsa Middle School. Some did, some didn't. Basically the kids just got to hang out. There really wasn't anything to do so we came back early. But that didn't take away from the day. The weather was beautiful, and the kids got to wear normal clothes, run around, listen to music, the teachers weren't beating them, and the stress from studying every night for the midterm was gone. The atmosphere was carefree; things seemed right.

Also, my host sister got a haircut and a new hair style. I've recently been trying to see if my host brother and sister interact socially (I don't think they do), so I asked host brother what he thought. He had to think for a minute. Later I asked host sister if her brother liked her haircut. That's just one small example. New goal for the year: get host siblings to interact. This could be even tougher than learning Korean.

Not sure what I'm doing this weekend. Maybe Seoul, Seoraksan or Songnisan.

Jeter has landed

Mike Jeter (Pop ups) is now in Korea. It's only a matter of time before we hang out and show some Koreans what tribe pride is all about. He's over in South Korea teaching English (surprise surprise) at an academy. If only the karoake rooms had the alma mater song.

Busan Internation Film Festival

Last weekend most schools had midterm exams. In South Korea those are serious tests, and many students had been studying for them for a month. Yes, not just the night before the test, but weeks of staying up late studying. The midterms last three days at my middle school, and I didn't have to go into school! So I went to Busan to see a film festival.

I could have taken a train from Daejon to Busan, but I decided to go for the "excellent" bus. It takes longer than a train, sure, and it's slightly more expensive than a regular train, but I've become a big fan. The seats are about as big as first class airplane seats. And the bus is hardly ever even half full. So I get to read, study Korean, sleep, listen to music for 3 and a half hours. Not bad traveling.

When I got to Busan I met up with Rachel, Rose, Becky, Liz, Kathleen, and Linda. Side note about Linda - she's a W&M grad! She graduated in 2004 and was over here last year as an ETA and she liked it so much she decided to extend for another year. Friday night we saw Parzania, a movie inspired by true events, about a massacre in India in the mid nineties. At the center of the movie are the age old struggles between religions, extremism and reason, violence and peace, etc. If you have a chance to see this movie do it, it's that good. After the movie, the director and lead actress talked to the audience and took questions. We weren't expecting it but that made the event even sweeter.

The next morning we got up pretty early and stood in line to see if we could get tickets to some films that were almost sold out. We got tickets to Paradise Now, a film about suicide bombers in the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Also a great movie, one that I had to think about. Again highly recommended. We couldn't get tickets to Broken Flowers, so we went to Nine Emotions. Not bad, but pretty weird. I feel asleep during the movie so after that it was naptime.

Our night movie was called Queens. It was a Spanish comedy about five gay guys about to be married and their mothers. It was pretty funny and I'd recommend it. I had wanted to see the Hamburg Cell about the 9/11 terrorists but everyone else wanted a comedy. It was probably better that way, I ended the film festival on a high note instead of after another intense movie. We met up with another ETA named Jason for that movie, so after the movie we went to hang out and drink at a "Mexican" restaurant. It was pretty Korean though. The decor Mexican, and there was one nacho dish, but NO TACOS! or quesadillas, burritos, etc. It was fun hanging out and comparing experiences.

Some people got up early the next morning to check out the fish market. If you're ever in Busan, they recommend it. I chose to sleep in. The "excellent" bus back to Daejon was even more excellent than the first one - the bus televised the England vs Austria soccer match.

Hot links: dancing and campaigning

By popular demand, here are some entertaining links:

The video of me doing the Napoleon Dynamite dance during orientation. It's a large file, 200MB, so you should have broadband if you want to see it...

The website for the famous Baldwin Devereaux 2004 campaign for the presidency and vice presidency of W&M, which shook William and Mary to its core. Not really, but it was fun. And the explanation about why we dropped out of the race. Can you guess which reason is the real one? Number 3.

Long post about ETA Fall Conference!

Last weekend was the ETA fall conference, so I saw all the ETA's for the first time since we left in August. It was a chance to see everyone, talk about our experiences, and compare notes on teaching. It was fun from beginning to end. Sarah and I met in Daejon to take an express bus to Gyeongju, and it was a good thing I met her in Daejon because the bus I was taking to Daejon got stuck in traffic and she had to hold the express bus a minute or two for me.

The hotel we stayed at was very nice. There were four twin beds in every room so we didn't have to share, a real shower, western food at breakfast, and random live jazz music at night sometimes. We were right next to a lake so we could hang out by the water at night.

Saturday started too early with some talks by fellow ETAs. Some were interesting, but were often too long to keep the majority of people's interest because everyone's teaching situation is so different. I led a little discussion about teaching low level students, and we had a few good ideas. I think we managed to avoid people feeling too futile about teaching low level students. I think one of the keys is extraordinary patience, which is possible to develop over time... Saturday was kind of a long day, but I'm sure our students feel like that every day.

Some quote highlights:
"If you can stomach it, picking up smoking is a great way to bond with the male teachers. They smoke in between classes all day long." - Roger
"What do you do if your host family has a 5 foot long statue of a bloody jesus on the cross hanging above your bed??" - Shoni (who happens to be Jewish)

On Sunday we went sightseeing. We had to get up early, and I admit I fell victim to the seen-one-temple-seen-them-all mentality for the first stop. But at our second site, something incredible happened. When we walked through the entrance, another ETA named David said he wanted to introduce me to a friend. I knew all the ETAs so I'm wondering what's going on. David brings me over to Jae! our friend from orientation in Chuncheon. We hadn't seen each other since orientation and had no idea the other was going to be here. He was on a rollerblading trip around Korea, camping out in the forest overnight. And he happened to rollerblade to the exact same spot that we were going to at the same time! The next day he was going to rollerblade for 13 hours on the way to another city!

So it was interesting to see some of the Gyeongju sights, especially watching the pottery making. The potter starts with a small block of clay, shapes it and thins it out while spinning it a circular table that he's moving with his leg, and after about 10 minutes has a pot. I can now see why one of the ETAs, Beth, said hanging out with the potter in her town is fun.

Monday morning I said goodbye to the other ETAs and then took a bus back to Gyeryong. I feel energized and ready to be a better teacher. The motivation is back in full force... so watch out kids.

Almost 3 months

Tomorrow I'll leave for Gyeongju, the 'museum without walls' city in Korea. I'm going to the ETA fall conference, so I'll get to see all the other ETA's again, most for the first time since we left Seoul and went to our own little corners of Korea. So next week I should have some exciting pictures, stories, etc.

I'm excited. This also means that I've been in Korea for nearly 3 months. Wow, time has flown by. I'm definitely feeling somewhere in between the US and Korea. I could go back and see friends and family and I think it would feel like the last time I talked to some of them was yesterday. But I feel adjusted to parts of Korean life, like the food, crazy middle school students, unexpected English phrases from anyone, and in general just not knowing what will happen next.

Homestay Pictures

Here are some photos from my homestay experience in Gyeryong. The first one is me with my first host family at a temple in Gyeryong-san, a famous mountain in Korea. I swear they were happy to be there with me.

Saw Yong and Chun Yong actually looking happy.

My permanent homestay family and I at a cultural musuem on the monday of the Chusok holiday weekend, minus my homestay sister. She studied all day. She's only in the first grade of middle school, and the midterm she wanted to study for wasn't for another 3 weeks. That's just a small example of how intense education is in Korea, and why I'm really happy I didn't grow up having to go to Korean schools. From L - R: my host brother Ji Hyun, me, host mom, and host father

The two cousins, Ji Hee and Ji Hay looking cute as ever during Chusok

Cousin always looking cute

Hotel California or Tom's Apartment

Last week I went out to dinner thinking it would be like any dinner other I go to with my host parents - I meet some of their friends, we speak some broken English, I try a few Korean phrases, and then I say it was so nice to meet you at the end. But this time it was just my host mom and four of her girlfriends, and during dinner they asked me if I had anything else to do that night because they wanted to go to karaoke with me. After dinner I went to karaoke with them, and singing "hotel california" wasn't enough, they wanted to dance the whole time. So we danced and sang. Luckily two of the husbands came after about 20 minutes so I had some guys to hang out with. But imagine singing and dancing with some middle aged Korean women who you don't really know that well and can't really have a conversation with. At times, a little awkward. But I was thinking if it was awkward for me, maybe it was awkward for them too. Maybe they were doing it because they wanted me to have fun, and that's what young Korean adults do. So if that was the case, I did appreciate. Among other things, it was a good bonding experience... At least now my host mom got her wish and got to see me dance.

Last weekend I went to Cheongju and saw Tom again, and we also met up with Forest and Annie for some night life fun. Sat night = So much fun. It's just really nice to be able to relax and freely communicate with friends, and not have to worry about how fast I'm talking.

Tom is an English teacher in Korea with another program, and he gets his own apartment instead of a homestay. Sure, there are pros and cons to both, but right now I liking that fact that I have a homestay. It's always fun to mess with little siblings. And my host mom is such a good cook. Tom and I also played basketball saturday afternoon at a university near his apartment. I hadn't really played a real game since Chuncheon (over a month!) It was a perfect day for ball, and I found some Koreans who are good at basketball.

Next weekend we have an ETA conference, so all of us English teachers will get together and marvel at how fast time has flown (we all left for our placements almost a month and a half ago!) I only got to know the other ETA's for six weeks, but I do miss them (most of them).

Chusok Wrap up

I experienced one of the most important Korean holidays last weekend with my host family. During Chusok, Koreans go to visit their family and pay tribute to their deceased ancestors. Food is prepared and blessed for the ancestors and then laid out on the table. When I heard things about ancestor worship rituals, and practically of all Korea participates in this holiday, I didn't know what to expect.

Luckily since my host dad is the oldest brother the family came to his house. I think since I am living with the family they did something a little different this year and didn't travel... but I'm not sure. Or maybe since they now have three apartments they could fit everyone in Gyeryong. Friday night I met one of my host father's younger brothers. He's a general surgeon and lives in Gongju, so anytime I visit Sarah I'll have a place to stay. He also said he likes to drink every night. Not sure if that was to impress me, or to worry me about him being a surgeon.

My host family's cousins were soooo cute. Little kids running around being little kids. Using the few words of english they knew with me. Running by my room screaming "BEEEEN! SO NICE TO MEET YOU!" The extended family was really nice. The whole Chusok holiday seemed kind of anticlimactic. There had been a lot of build up about the holiday, so I was kind of expecting something really crazy. But it was relaxed. No pressure to be uber polite and formal to the family, no crazy ceremonies... just a nice time.

Sunday morning we got up a little early and did the jesa ceremony, bowing and laying food out to your ancestors. The men went first and then the women bowed. I talked to some of the teachers at school, and it seems like the traditional aspect of male-dominated korean society comes out at chusok. The women work all day saturday making food, while the men lounge around see their friends.

It was raining Sunday morning, so we didn't go see the family's tombs (a Chusok tradition), and instead the young uncles my age and the little kids and I went to see a movie! It was in Korean so I couldn't really understand it. On Monday I did get to go see some traditional Korean tombs. I will post pictures later today. My host family also took my around to some other cities, Nonsan and Buryeo, to see some Korean culture. My host sister didn't come because she spent all day studying (she's only 13!) and my host brother was in one of his not talking moods, but it was good bonding time with the host mom and dad.

In conclusion, a nice relaxing weekend...

More posts coming soon

I'll try to post a little more frequently in the future. I seem to always realize almost a week has gone by since my last post. Time is kind of flying here.

I wasn't go into school last Friday because I didn't have to teach any classes. But at 9am my co-teacher called. The principal wanted to give me a gift for Chusok. Sure, I'd be able to come to school I said. I talked to my host mother, and she gave me two handkerchiefs to give to the principal and vice-principal as Chusok gifts. So I went in, and the principal gave me a gift (socks!) and then asked me if I was still feeling sick. Ohhhhh I thought, maybe my coteacher told him I was sick and that's why I wasn't in school... I thought she said the schedule change was okay. Interesting...

Later on Friday I found some basketball courts in Daejon where I think there are pickup games. Kind of far from my homestay (almost an hour by bus!) but I need to play.

No class tomorrow!

Something lucky happened to me. On Tuesday when I got to school my coteacher handed me the day's schedule of classes. I have been dealing with a "temporary" schedule since I started, but most of the classes fell on the same day, just during different periods. But Tuesday's schedule had me teaching a class I had taught the day before. I asked my coteacher where the schedule came from and how I was teaching the same class... As usual, when we really need to communicate about something it was tough, but after a while she said "maybe (she starts out a lot of sentences with maybe) this schedule isn't good for you, maybe you can pick your own schedule."

By maybe, she meant Yes, go ahead, pick your own schedule. Music to my ears. Since I rotate around to the other 5 English teachers' classes and teach with a heavy emphasis on speaking, I guess it really doesn't matter when exactly I teach, as long as I hit each class. It was a little tricky, but I managed to make the schedule so that I now have every other Friday off!

Tomorrow I'll go into Daejon. I need to get out a little bit and explore a big city. I need to find somewhere to play basketball... When my host family heard I was planning to take the bus alone to Daejon tomorrow and explore the city, they got worried. All of a sudden my host mom needs to go shopping in the morning in Daejon.

This weekend is the Korean holiday Chusok. It's translated to mean Thanksgiving, but I don't think it's much like American Thanksgiving. I can eat like it's Thanksgiving every night with the amount of good food my host mom makes me. Chusok is one of the most important holidays, and I'll be spending it with my host family. Their extended family will come to Gyeryong to visit us, and what we'll do for three days and three nights I don't know yet. I'm sure I'll be expected to drink with the relatives and entertain the kids, two things I can do well. I'm excited to see what'll happen, but I won't hold my breath for turkey.

Cheonan and Gongju

Weekend update: Last Saturday morning I left for Cheonan. I met my Tom and Hannah at a bus station in Cheonan. A different bus station than the one I arrived at, which created a little trouble. I got out of my bus station, and of course everything is in Korean. So I tried to take a taxi to their bus station. But the driver just pointed behind me, not at my bus station, but at one down the street. Why are there two different bus stations a hundred meters away from each seperated by a department store? I don't know, but I'm past being embarrassed when things like that happen, so I thought it was my lucky day I was so close.

Besides seeing Tom, who I haven't seen in more than a year, I got to several other ETAs too. That afternoon we hung out at a coffee shop, went to a mall, and did karaoke. For dinner we went to Karen's homestay and her homestay mom made a great meal. Then we went out to a bar and clubbing, which was fun because I haven't really done that in Gyeryong.

Sunday Tom and I slept in. Then we went our seperate ways at the bus station and I went to Gongju to see Sarah! She was waiting for me across from the bus station in a grass sports field! Apparently some actually do exist here. Almost any other field I've seen here has been dirt, and grass is usually off limits, so I'm a little jealous of her city. I got more stares in her city than I usually do... people are intrigued by what's different I guess (my skin and hair!) Sarah's homestay mom is a great cook and made a delicious dinner.

I think I made a good impression by bringing a gift. I've been getting into the gift giving that is such a big part of the Korean culture. Fruit is a really good gift because it's consumable, more expensive than in the US, and a nice gesture. So Sarah's homestay family got some grapes. I also got some grapes on the way home for my homestay family. Apparently ETA's have ended up on the homestay family's bad side for not thinking of their homestay family (by bringing home a gift) when they go away for the weekend. My family is very relaxed, but I'm playing it safe. And I just end up eating most of the grapes anyway.

Tom and I enjoy a french fry

Girls, ice cream, and animal costumes. Hard to imagine a better time

Jimin and I singing karaoke; Liezl entertained

Sarah and I under a balloon arch. Thank you clothing sale

Are you hungry for dreams too?

How do you pronounce progress...

This week I started my third lesson. It was a 'Hi how are you?' lesson because all the kids ever say is 'fine thank you.' It wasn't supposed to be too hard and was supposed to be a chance for most to practice their english. But, some low level students don't have that much english under their belt no matter where their class is in the textbook. So... some classes were interesting. For the first grade students, it was their turn to work on pronunciation. You would love to see me teaching them. Some things I've now said twenty times and will say another ten times next week:
"Okay class, make the L sound with me - la la la la la la la"
As I walk around to each student "say Lock Rock"

Tomorrow I'm off to Cheonan and Cheongju to see my friend Tom from the Explo days. It will be a good time. Today I went into Daejon on the bus for the first time. Basically I just found the bus terminal I'll go to tomorrow.

In other news, Gyeryong really isn't that small. When I first heard I was coming here, I was worried. But I think I was misinformed. Gyeryong is not "out in the boonies." It has 100+ small restaurants, at least 30 high rise apartment buildings, golf courses, a bowling alley, and some bars. Tonight I went out with my friend Baum Sheik (my host brother's tutor) and it was a really good time. He thinks next time we play basketball he'll win (Last time I let him get out to an 8-3 lead before I started really trying and then won the game). When I came back home, I thought I would be able to go to bed. But when I came in the door, my host parents were entertaining some guests. So I had to drink some more.

Tonight at dinner my host sister asked me what I thought of Japan. I've encountered many people who say they "hate Japan" or "hate Japanese" people. This bugs me, since Korean is already really homogeneous, and needs to embrace diversity instead of perpetuate stereotypes. So even though my host sister doesn't speak a ton on English, I had a little discussion about the past, governments, prejudices, and why she probably doesn't hate Japanese people but instead disagrees with some of Japan's government's actions. I don't know if I reached her, but I have a whole year to make sure she doesn't hate the Japanese just because one of her elementary school teachers said bad things about the Japanses. If it's one thing the world doesn't need it's another small up an coming nation with a racial chip on its shoulder.

If I was in America, I don't know what I would say about Katrina. So I won't start. The NFL started tonight, it's 40th season. The Patriots have a chance to try to win 3 super bowls in a row, and started off okay with a win against the Raiders tonight. If only life was as simple as football plays X's and O's.

Big news

I got my cell phone! Fulbright made us get cell phones, but I probably would have bought one anyway, since it's hard to live in South Korea without one. Mine has an MP3 player and camera, but I don't really know how to use either. Not only is it my first cell phone but all the menu's are in Korean. My host sister has been teaching me a few things every night.

Weekend trip to Seoul

My coteacher helped me buy a ticket to get to Seoul this last weekend. She didn't recommend the bus or the high speed train, so I went on the regular train. Assigned seats, just like the movie theaters. She's done so much for me because I can't speak Korean, and at the same time has more responsibility in school because she was put in charge of the first grade teachers. Rides home from school, trying to find me Korean teachers, it's been really nice. The train ride to Seoul was about 2 hours, and I met Annie in the English bookstore.

Annie and I had dinner at a small Korean restaurant that I thought would be good. At a lot of Korean restaurants the meat is cooked right at your table on a small gas stove. This restaurant had those grills, so I thought, sure, they'll have sangiapsal (grilled pieces of pork that you wrap in lettuce with vegetables). One thing about a lot of meat in Korea is that it's a lot fattier than the meat I'm used to in the States. So the waitress put two kinds of meat on the stove and cooked it. One was a really good, lean beef kind of meat. The other was pretty much pieces of fat. Annie said the waitress gave us an unhappy look when we asked to pay without having eaten most of the fat. Sorry!

On Saturday I saw my first Korean movie (the name of the movie is translated to mean "A bittersweet life." The Korean movie was a lot bloodier, and its themes (like loneliness, love, despair, life philosophy) were more poignant than the typical American action movie. American movies usually have a guy gets the girl theme, this Korean one did not. Both movies have the seemingly bulletproof hero and the never emptying gun clips.

We also went to a palace, where we randomly ran into fellow ETAs Jen and Evan. Pretty random, and also funny because I think both pairs had the question, "so... are you two a couple?" But neither of us asked.

We also went to Itaewon, the foreigner district, which was kind of nutty, and the war memorial museum. The war museum was about the Korean military's history, not just the Korean war. The fountain monument was very cool. The museum part was somewhat interesting, but didn't go into real detail about anything the way military history books do. It didn't exactly glorify war, but there weren't many negative parts to the museum. Maybe because military service is mandatory for men in South Korea?

It was nice to get away. Next weekend I want to visit my friend Tom in Cheongju, but I think I might spend friday night with my host family because I think they missed me this weekend. Happy labor day America...

Running around

The basketball court at school is finished. It's pretty nice, the best outdoor one I've seen in korea yet... except that the dirt field that surrounds the court means a lot of dirt gets on the court. In Korea, pretty much all soccer fields are dirt. There isn't much grass here. Two students invited me to go play at the end of the day. So I told my co teacher I didn't need a ride home, I was going to play with the kids.

I took off the tie and headed out to the court. I said I was just going to watch because I didn't have sneakers, but the kids wouldn't have that. I had to play. So I played with the middle schoolers. Some are actually decent for the age. Don't worry though, I didn't play my hardest. At one point some of the kids said "play fast" because I hadn't really been running or jumping. After a minute of playing fast they were okay with me just coasting along.

I finally went for a run tonight. The first one since I've been in Gyeryong. I found a nice little one lane road just a few blocks that winds into the farmland and the mountains. Pretty lucky considering I just stumbled upon it and don't know my way around the city/town very well at all. I'll take it as just another sign that someone (fate maybe?) has plans for me in Gyeryong.

If you don't use Skype yet, what are you waiting for? Free calls to other people using it(like me!)! I got to talk to Kishor tonight while he "did work" at his office job, it was nice to hear him. Johan will be leaving from New York to go back to Sweden for a while. Don't let the Swedish girls keep you there forever Johan, we'll miss you. I'll miss the little NYC get together, but I'll be there in spirit guys. I know I don't have to ask you to give Gammby a hard time, you'll do that already, but someone make fun of his wall street powers for me.

This weekend I'm going to Seoul with Annie! My host family is worried about me being on my own, they're so nice and very concerned for me. I think I'll be okay though. My host mom was pretty skeptical until I showed that I had figured out how to get to Daejon, which has a bus terminal that will go to Seoul. Also, I'm not sure if this helped, but Michael Jackson's Billy Jean was playing. She doesn't know much English, but she knows her Michael Jackson.

Dong Ah Apartments

That's the name of my new homestay apartment. Last monday night, after staying with a really nice family for the first five days in Gyeryong, I moved in with my permanent homestay family, who is also very nice. I can't communicate that well with this family, because their English is limited and my Korean is almost nonexistent, but we get along well and they are so nice. I can't wait until I can talk to them in Korean and also understand what they are saying about me. From my host mom especially I always hear "sonsangnim korean korean korean sonsangnim (teacher in Korean) korean korean."

I have a host brother who is in ninth grade (last year of middle school) named Ji Hyun, and a host sister in her first year of middle school (seventh grade) named Ji Sung. My host father is an accountant is does very well. He is renting another apartment two floors down, and he and his wife moved out of their master bedroom into the new apartment to give me the master bedroom! I wish I could have told them not to go to so much trouble. They've been so kind. And now and then a their grandma pops into the apartment. Neither of us can understand the other so we smile at each other while I eat. My host mom prepares so much food for me, and it's delicious. I don't have to worry about losing weight in South Korea anymore.

I've joined a gym, and today I played bball with a new Korean friend Baum Sheik. I don't think we'll be able to get many 5 on 5 games with good competition, but I think as I get used to the area I'll be able to find some eventually in Daejon, about 30 minutes to 1 hour away. I've updated my new webshots with pictures from orientation! Take a look.

So my host brother and his friend went to the movies today. When the came back they started building Gundam figures(Iike transformers I think). I asked them a few questions and then went back to studying Korean. Later when I came out for dinner, there was a cute girl with them! I went out with Baum Sheik for some beers, and when I got back they were still building their Gundam figures, while the girl was bored and chatting with friends on my host brothers computer. Apparently I have some work to do when it comes to teaching them about girls. I asked them at dinner if they had ever heard of a middle school dance (they're in middle school)... but nothing. We'll see what I can do this year at school.

Teacher Ben

As I went to my first class with another English teacher today, he exclaimed "tgif!" I thought it was another case where I couldn't really understand the Korean english teacher, but no, he was really saying TGIF. It was great - it was just how I felt. I'm definitely looking forward to relaxing this weekend.

I started teaching on Tuesday. I didn't think I was going to have to teach, but not much surprises me anymore, so when my co teacher asked if I was ready to teach second period, and yes she meant today, I said sure why not. My first lesson was going to basically be an intro lesson where the kids can ask me questions and then they write a little index card about themselves. Unfortunately I didn't realize how much of beginners they are... so I had a little trouble telling them things since I can't speak Korean. But every day since Tuesday has gotten better since I am getting used to their level and changing the lesson plan a little each day. I also don't see any classes more than once a week, so that is really nice.

People at my school, Umsa Middle School, have been really nice. I was worried about not being formal enough with people and mistakenly offending someone by not doing a Korean tradition, but the atmosphere is very relaxed. I'll keep up the formal bows with morning greetings and end of the day goodbyes, but it really seems like the teachers don't care. So I can relax a little bit. My coteacher, Mrs. Park, is very nice, and today helped me to pick out a cell phone online. Yesterday she helped me open a bank account. And she gives me little snacks everyday. The other English teachers are very nice too, and the kids treat me kind of like a movie star, always saying "hello! hello! nice to meet you!" in the hallways.

The school's cafeteria also isn't too bad. It's definitely better than the Kangwon university one where it was sometimes a struggle to get more of the main course. At Umsa? The lunch ladies see me and I have to convince them not to give me too much. Today in class I taught some students "basketball court." That's because they asked me my hobby, and after I told them, I said I would be very happy when the school's new outdoor basketball court is finished.

On my own

I'm now in my placement city where I'll be teaching for the next year. I'm not staying with my homestay family yet, because they're still visiting America, but I'm staying with a really nice family for a few days. I'm not sure when I'm moving in with my permanent homestay family or when I'm starting to teach... sometime early next week but the language barrier prevented me from learning exactly when.

So yesterday was our last day together during orientation. It's been nice having a group of 60 Americans to talk to, some more than others. To meet our school principals, we went into the auditorium where they were having a workshop about "how to treat an ETA." We lined up around the front of the auditorium, and when our name was called we would raise our hand, and bow to our principal. We were told to make a full 90 degree bow. This was a formal occasion and no one wanted to make a bad first impression, so the pressure was on. But it turned out not to be too serious. The principals were eager to meet us, and one even jumped out of his seat, ran over to his new ETA (Jackie), and popped some silly string and shouted how excited he was. One ETA made the bow, but then fell on the stage as she was backing up. During the wait, both the ETA's and the principal's were thinking "Who am I going to get?"

I got a nice principal who was there with another English teacher. Luckily they could speak some English, so the 3 and a half hour car ride wasn't too awkward or too silent. It was tough to stay awake the whole time, and I almost fell alseep several times. But we finally made it to Gyeryong, and I met my surrogate host family.

Gyeryong isn't as small as I thought it would be. So that's comforting. I took a bike ride around today, and tomorrow I'll go to Daejon with my family to see a movie. We might see Stealth. I might prefer a Korean movie even if I can't understand it.

Seoul Searching

Yesterday morning we left Chuncheon and headed to Seoul. I slept most of the bus ride. Thanks to Sravan for sharing a bus seat next to me, and to my roommate Conor for reminding me not to forget a pair of shoes in our dorm. My first day in Seoul was pretty nice.

We're now staying at Yonsei university, a very prestigious university in Seoul. The dorm room is really nice, the campus is kind of pretty, BUT we have a curfew of midnight or else we can't get into our dorms until 5:30am, and boys can't go into girl dorms, and vice versa. I haven't been too excited about that.

Yesterday Shoni and I had a great afternoon and evening in the city. First we went to a huge bookstore that has a large selection of English books, and stocked up for our homestays. I'll be reading The Da Vinci Code and The Guns of August sometime when I'm bored at my homestay.

Next we went to the Coex mall. I was looking for a couple of things. We went to the Apple store there, but they didn't have the video connectors I need to connect my laptop to my future middle school TVs. I did find recordable CDs at an office supplies store. I found the Seoul funk while I watched some Korean breakdancers do their thing in the mall, and hung out and had a good time. We also found a cool salon. Haircuts in a Korean salon were interesting because of the language barrier. I ended up with a decent haircut, a little shorter than I'd like, but pretty good. It was also probably the first time I've had a shampoo with a haircut in at least 10 years.

There are so many western restaurants I didn't feel bad going to one, or two. For dinner, we went to an Italian style restaurant, and while the spaghetti was very delicious, there just weren't American sized portions. So after that we got a bucket of KFC for the subway ride back.

The subway in Seoul is huge, and very easy to use. We got back with 20 minutes to spare before our curfew. We considered going back out with people, but not being able to go to sleep until 5:30am killed that idea.

Leaving Chucheon in style

We're now in Seoul. Monday morning we left Chuncheon, saying our sad goodbyes to our great RA's Wie Tae and Hyun Duk, all of our other Korean friends, and the campus in general. I will definitely miss the stadium where David and I played a lot of basketball with Korean students. Some quick highlights:

1. Thursday night we went out for Rachel's birthday - it was also the day we finally finished our language classes - so it was a ton of fun and we stayed out late etc. We went to a hip hop club, and the DJ keep it going. I was really surprised by how good he was - he just kept the party going.

2. Friday morning - after staying out very late Thurs night, I had to get up early and practice my speech. I was one of 4 students who had "volunteered" to give a speech Friday morning during our final ceremony. In Korean of course. I think my teacher just wanted me to do it because she knew she could get me to make it funny. It was exaggerated and not entirely true, but I thought it would be funny. So the story went something like this:
I met a beautiful Korean girl at the gym, and we went out for Popingsu (Korean dessert). I wanted to ask her if she had a boyfriend, but I couldn't do that in Korean. Luckily in class we learned how, and then when I did ask her, she said yes, she did have a boyfriend. I was sad. But then she introduced me to her roommate!
The Korean teachers and Fulbright staff loved it.

3. Friday afternoon - We had a talent show. A fun one. I did the Napoleon dynamite dance. I even added some moves of my own onto the end - so I danced for the entire song, and did the Napoleon dance pretty well. It was awesome. Hopefully someday I'll be able to put the video of it online. Or you can IM me and I'll send it to you...

4. The weekend was pretty much packing, hanging out with people, getting ready to go. Sunday night was a big party because our English club language partners were celebrating their sports day victory over other English clubs, and the next day (Monday) was Korean independence day from Japan. It's not a holiday like the 4th of July, it's more somber and not many stores are closed.

5. Monday we went to Seoul to stay for three nights until we go to our placements on Thursday. I'm not too tired yet so I'll post about that shortly.

Winding down in Chuncheon

Today we had our Korean language final. I think it went okay. I wasn't too concerned about it. Unlike after some tests, I'll keep studying Korean, because I'm here for a year.

After lunch we had a cultural workshop. One of the topics was how to build relationships with the people at your school and in the community. It was really eye opening. Some suggestions were "say hi" "talk to people" "spend time them" and even "share meals with them." So I'm oversimplifying, but seriously, "common sense" was probably the only thing I needed to hear. I did learn some useful things from the workshop though, which do highlight some cultural differences between America and Korea, including:

1. When you meet someone senior than you, don't shake their hand. Wait for them to initiate the shake. Bow without making eye contact and give greetings.


2. Don't leave a room with your back to people. I think this one will take some practice before it's halfway normal.


3. Don't trip... see above


4. Don't forget to take off shoes before you enter someone's house, school, some restaurants, pretty much anywhere.


5. Stand up to bow when senior teachers come in. It's okay, I'm in the Army, so I'm used to this one.


6. And my favorite one - bring a toothbrush to school because after lunch sometimes the teachers get together and brush their teeth! Now this I'm excited about.

There's a talent show on Friday. I'll probably be in several acts. If you were here, you might see me 1) do the Napoleon Dynamite dance with Conor, Sravan, and Adam; 2)Participate in (win, although Shoni has a big stomach) a dumpling eating contest; 3)Perform in a modern dance interpretation of a typical day during orientation, choreographed by the talented Jackie; 4)maybe something else

On Monday we go to Seoul for 4 days before we head off to our placements. It's almost game time

Beach Day

Today was a free day, so Annie, Sarah, and I decided to go to a Korean beach! We agreed it was probably the first time we intentionally went anywhere that wasn't in a guide book. None of us speak Korean, and the bus we took from Chuncheon to Gangneung City dropped us off in the middle of a small city with no beach in sight. But somehow we asked a Korean woman selling stuff and she directed us to the right bus, and eventually when everyone got off the bus at the final stop it was the beach! The beach was 3 hours away but well worth it.

Some beach sights:

1. People buried in the sand to avoid the sun.


2. Come on beer! men with mini kegs on their back. People went around selling lots of other food like pizza and popingsu, taking beach bum to a whole new level.

3. Just being at the beach!

4. There was some sort of festival happening. There was great dance music blasting all day, some free product giveaways (I got free packets of olive oil after playing a dart game to see which kind of olive oil I would win!), and pretty Korean girls with bunny ears. I think if we stayed later we would have been able to see a concert, but we decided to get back since we had no idea about bus schedules.

5. Sarah, me, Annie

I already met my host brother!

One of the Fulbright camp instructors, Liza, just finished a great year at the school I'm going to. So she's been telling some great things about it. The people are nice, and the school is new. You can visit the website to check it out for yourself, although it's in Korean. Unfortunately I'll have to teach with a co-teacher in the room... which didn't excite me because I want to be in charge of my classroom and I feel like I can handle discipline just fine. I'll see if I can convince her that I'm able enough to teach alone.

But anyway, Liza and I were having lunch and one of her teacher friends from the school called, and told Liza who my host family is. And coincidentally I already have met my host brother, Ji Hyun, because he's going to the camp and I've already taught him in one of the classes. CRAZY! I'll have a little host sister too.

I might even have to chance to meet the family tomorrow when they pick up Ji Hyun. I don't think I'll mention that I'll be their staying with them... I'll probably just say it was nice to teach Ji Hyun and that he's a good kid. It might get awkward if I ask them if my room is ready yet...

Other recent highlights:
1. Played dodgeball again with the sports club on Thursday - you know how I love dodgeball. I think I've inspired the kids who've played it here too. I've got too new nicknames from the sports club. One is Spalding, because I wore my spalding tshirt a couple times, and two, dodgeball master, and you can guess how I earned that one.

2. Mariah's birthday party Thursday night - after cake at a little bakery it was 18 girls and I doing karaoke! My biggest hit was singing and dancing MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This, the e x t e n d e d version... so I was up there for a while. But I think the girls enjoyed it.

3. Went for a run Wednesday night - the first time distance running since the middle of June! It's okay though Army, I've been playing soccer and bball to keep in shape.

4. We have to take a Korean language final on Wednesday. Apparently if we don't pass there's still a chance we could get sent home. So the pressure's on for some people! For some reason that threat has been thrown around a lot by the orientation leaders recently... I think maybe some people in last year's group didn't live up to Fulbright's standards. But we're a good group. So there's no need to keep up with what I think are idle threats. There's more positive ways to motivate us to learn Korean.

5. NBA offseason is heating up. Check out this article for a funny comparison of quotes from the movie Anchorman and the NBA offseason.

First dance party with Korean middle schoolers

Every afternoon at the camp the kids get an hour of kind of free time to do any activity they want. Today was the first day I was assigned to work this "rec time," and so I thought I'd give the kids something fun. I decided to have a little dance party/dance lesson for anyone who was interested. I had about 10 kids who said they would come, but then one of the directors announced that the kids could do nap time since everyone was tired today. So our numbers dwindled. We still had 3 or so campers and enough ETA's so that we had a good dance circle. We had to start somewhere.

Yes, I finally changed the colors of my blog - they're a little more my style now.

The NBA's big day

Today the NBA Signing moratorium ends - in case you haven't been keeping up to date on NBA news, and I know not many people who read this have, today is the first day that NBA teams could sign/trade players since the summer started. The new collective bargaining agreement will keep the NBA lockout free for at least another 6 years, but among other things adds an age restriction (19 years old or one year after high school graduation) to the draft. So teams can finally sign their free agents, which should make the next few days pretty exciting.

The east is not looking quite as week anymore, with the Pacers and Nets having a good offseason. The pacers should be there with the heat in the conference finals. My celtics didn't screw anything up in the offseason yet, and had a great draft, so while this year won't be their year, there's hope for the future. With the Joe Johnson sign and trade, I like what Phoenix has done. I think Nate Robinson would have been an excellent fit for the team, but Kurt Thomas brings size and defense, and we found out again what wins championships.

Next year should be exciting because Amare will be more Shaqlike, my main man Dwayne Wade will be more Jordanesque, and Artest will be Artest. After the dust settles from free agency and trades I'll see if I decide to make a preseason pick for the champ.

I'm going to Gyeryong

So it's final. I got my placement and I will be going to a coed middle school in Gyeryong, a small town about 40 minutes outside of Daejon. Now I'll admit I wasn't too happy about the placement at first, because I wanted a big city and watched as 10 other ETA's were placed in the cities I requested. The commute to language classes in Daejon will be rough because I hate commuting, and I might not be able to find many people to play basketball with, but life will go on.

I have talked to someone who taught at the middle school last year and she had a great time. So at least the school will be a positive part of my experience. I'll still be a little nervous about just how small the town is until I get there, but I'll make the most of the situation. I will be traveling a lot, so the other ETA's should get ready for visitors.

I also don't really how know to pronounce my town's name yet.

American football, pizza, and dancing

Yesterday was sports day with the Fulbright camp. Although we didn't actually do many sports, the kids had fun doing team building activities and relay races and other fun games. I taught some kids how to throw a football (a little vortex one) and even did some relay races with my team because one of the students was on crutches.

I could even remember a few of the kids' names. I have trouble remembering the Korean names, and I feel bad asking kids over and over what their names are, because I get a lot of "Hello Ben"'s throughout the day. I think the hardest thing to do when I get to my school will be to remember names.

Friday night I had pizza and beer. I really do miss Italian food. Sometimes we'll start talking about what we like while we're eating in the cafeteria, but then stop quickly because it's not a good idea when we're staring at Korean cafeteria food. So I'll stop thinking about it right now. But I am excited to have good Korean food once I get to my homestay.

And last week we had our first little dance party out at a karaoke bar. It was fun, but it was no W&M dance party. For one of the camp's night events, we might have a dance for the kids. I don't know if it'll happen, but I think I'm ready to show some dance moves to the Korean middle school students.

New Focus

We found a great place for going out on the weekends. I called the New Focus, and is a really chill bar and karaoke place. On a rooftop. We can sit inside or outside, and we pretty much have the place to ourselves. It's my new hotspot.

After a rough second hour of Korean language class today, my roommate Conor said probably the best thing he could have during our break. He didn't realize before he went to the bathroom during the break, but he forgot to put on underwear this morning.

Monday I turned in my school placement preference form. We were told not to pick a certain city and to get our hopes up, but I ended up doing that anyway while I looked through the guide books for Korea. I would really like to go to Daejon, a city in the center of South Korea. I think we find out where we will be placed next tuesday...

I'm also trying to study Korean more. Even though we've only been learning it for two and a half weeks, I'm beginning to think it would be a good idea to be able to form coherent sentences when my Principal and Vice Principal pick me up in Seoul to take me to the homestay. Otherwise, it could be a slightly awkward train or bus ride.

This week was good

I enjoyed this week. We had a Korean quiz, I worked out three times, played basketball and soccer, decided what I want to preference for my homestay location, and generally had fun.

Tuesday we had our first real quiz. And when I say quiz, I only mean quiz. Like 10 questions, probably took about 5 minutes. But it was going to be graded. So even though we're not going to receive final grades or anything for the Korean class we're taking, all of a sudden monday night it was like we were back in high school or college. The stereotypical overachievers feel the need to stay up late studying. I did study that night, but I wasn't going to lose sleep over it, so it was kind of funny to see people stressing out like that again. Wednesday night one of the girls in the program asked me why I wanted to study wednesday night. I said because I want to learn Korean. She asked where the motivation was if there wasn't going to be another test until next week. I reminded her the classes aren't for grades...

Tuesday night we went out to a bar to "have a few beers" to celebrate taking our first quiz. But that turned into a lot of Soju, because, well, we're in South Korea so we have to drink that, and more than a few beers. Getting up for class the next day was rough for some people.

But class we sure worth it. At one point our teacher asked us if we were all tired. We said yes. Then she asked us if we had time. We weren't sure what she meant - some people got excited - was she going to let us out early? No! but even better. She invited us to go to Karaoke with her Friday night! I was the first one to realize she was serious. So let's get the party started.

Then today in class we learned that Koreans don't say "my house" they only say "our house." So I said well then we have to sing our house tonight at Karaoke. The joke was really under-appreciated.

We also found out more about the Fulbright English camp that starts on Sunday that we'll be helping run for the next two weeks. Much more of a time commitment than we were anticipating, but we'll get our first chance to interact with Korean middle school students and actually teach English. Some other stuff has probably happened, but this post is long enough. Oh and if you know and see Keith tell him congratulations, he got his first job! Hope you all have a smashing good time this weekend. I'm going to dinner, and yes I will be eating rice.

Weekend Photos

Here are some photos from the weekend:

The golden Buddha.

Some refreshing mountain water.

Sravan, Forest, and me at the top. Not much of a view, but still cool.

If there are any formatting issues with the photos I'll fix them the next time I post pictures to the blog!

Mountain weekend highlights

Yesterday we got back from a weekend at Songnisan - a famous mountain city in Korea. The name means break from mundane chores, And it was a really nice break after a long 4 days of class. Some highlights in no particular order:

1. Seeing a buddhism religious service at a temple. I had never seen one before so I enjoyed the chance to meditate and reflect on being in Korea. The temple had a really tall standing buddha. As the sun was setting monks began to chant and then started drumming and ringing a huge bell. It was a nice atmosphere and I realized it would be nice to know more about buddhism because I know very little right now.

2. Not getting up at 3am! There was another monk service at 3 am for which some people woke up/stayed up. I didn't need to do that. But it's interesting to consider that the monks do that every day.

3. Western breakfasts. We had to sleep on little blankets on the floor at the hotel (it's a Korean tradition!) but the breakfasts had western food like eggs and sausage and bacon. I love food, so this makes the highlight reel. I ate a lot.

4. Climbing a mountain. Saturday some friends and I set out to climb the mountain in the park. The trails were steep at times and I didn't have on hiking shoes. The climb up took about 3 hours. Liezl, Sravan, Forest and I were sweat-soaked and bug-bitten but glad to be on top and able to enjoy a misty view of the mountains and valleys around us.

5. A lot of hardcore climbers from a Korean "Climbing mania club" passed us on the way down, practically running down the mountain.

6. Drinking fresh mountain stream water. I've been used to not drinking tap water here, so being able to drink from a mountain stream while hiking was great. I felt really at home with nature.

7. Beef is expensive. The waitress at the restaurant four of us went to had to call her english speaking friend on her cell phone because she wasn't sure what we were ordering. We ordered a beef dish, which was good, but cost $60! I think I'll get chicken next time. I was also dreaming of going to an Outback steakhouse in Seoul, but I'm rethinking that.

So life is busy here... the food is still... okay. This week we have teaching workshops, which is good because soon enough we'll actually be teaching english!

I'm a student again!

Language classes have started - Korean is hard. I read the Hangul (korean alphabet) very slowly so tonight's reading homework will take a looong time if I do as much as my teacher suggested. I've had 5 hours of Korean class each each of the past two days, and I've needed to do something active afterwards. Luckily there's a funny story for each day.

Monday I joined the university gym. It's a nice facility with a cardio room and a weight room. Bad thing - I had to bring different shoes to wear in the gym than the ones I wore to the gym. Good thing - I think I found free shirts and short shorts at the gym that I can change into there and they'll be washed. So I was the only American in the gym, and the first thing I do when I get into the weight room is almost kill someone. I took one of the 20 kg (44 lbs) weights off a barbell on a bench. Big mistake. I didn't notice the bar weighed less than the typical US one, and the barbell flipped up and landed on the next bench. Luckily it hit the weight there and didn't hit the Korean guy doing bench press. The rest of the workout went without incident expect a nice old man told me there were no shoes allowed on the stretching mat.

Tuesday doesn't really have a funny story that would come across on the blog. Sorry. I played ping pong this afternoon and lost several close games. My excuse was the equipment, the paddles are different than US paddles. Then I played basketball and on my way back to the dorm scared of one the girls because I had sweat so much.

So what's a flight to South Korea like?

It's pretty long. I flew from Boston to LA in six hours, and then from LA to Seoul in what was about 14 hours. After the getting off the Boston flight I met some of the other ETAs (english teaching assistant) and they are quality people. We are going to have some good times during the orientation. While we were waiting in LA to get on our plane, we did some jumping jacks and stretching to get the blood flowing since we would be sitting for a long time. One nice thing about flying internationally and not being able to understand what the gate agents are saying is that you can board the plane whenever you want.

After I got settled in the middle seat, I met the people who would be traveling with me - some nice Korean people who didn't like to get up to let me out when I needed to go to the bathroom, so I became good at climbing over the seats. The in flight movies were really bad, so I didn't watch them - instead I read Bill Bryson's 'A walk in the woods.' I thought of you Freiberger - out there on the trail battling bears and boredom. The plane food was delicious and would be my last american style meal for a long time. The flight attendants were very attractive, a plus for the flight. I later found out that South Korea doesn't have as many anti discrimination laws as the states, so when they lose their looks, they lose their job... remind me never to become a flight attendant on a Korean airline.

Safe and sound in South Korea

Well, I have made it South Korea. The program is starting off very well except for the kim chi. I wish that was a joke. I arrived yesterday morning at 5am Korean time (South Korea is 13 hours ahead of the US - EST) and have met a lot of the other sixty people on the program, and they're nice. I have a roommate named Conor who went to Holy Cross and knows three people I went to high school with. Small world.

Last night I played basketball with some of the other Fulbright guys and some Koreans - so you know I'm doing well if I can play bball here on the first day. The court is pretty rustic and the rims have no nets so my shot was off. It is located inside a sort of small coliseum that also has a dirt soccer field. It was fun to dodge defenders and errant soccer balls and to think that maybe on the weekends the Koreans all pile in to watch gladiator events.

I just took my placement test for the Korean language class we'll be taking for the next six weeks. Since I am a beginner it took about 1 minute. Yesterday at the opening meeting the head of the program mentioned that we'd have to take a final for our classes and that we'd also have quizzes. You could tell that some of the other people were nervous all of a sudden at the mention of tests. I think it'll be okay guys - I doubt we're going to get sent home if we make an effort to learn some Korean.

And I went to bed early last night and slept for about 10 hours. Take that jet lag.

thanks for the thanks!

One of my roommates from last year, Matt, still has one year left at the College (of William and Mary). He works for the phonathon and calls people to try to get them to donate to the College. Apparently, since I "donated" to our senior class gift, I was on a list of people to thank. Now I didn't actually give money to the class gift outright. I bought a W&M beach towel, which my class officers were selling in order to persuade people to give, because, well, it isn't easy to persuade college students to voluntarily give money back to their school when they're about to graduate. I don't know, something about how tuition was really really expensive.

I'm on vacation in South Carolina with my family right now so I didn't get the privelege of receiving Matt's call. I learned that he did this by email. Now which it more ridiculous: 1) that I was thanked for donating $8 to our senior class gift when I was really buying a beach towel OR 2) that Matt doesn't know how to spell my name correctly after living with me for an entire year? It's Bennett with two T's. I don't really care, but I just found it funny. It's also funny out of all 5 of the other roommates you were the first one I happened to bring up in the blog. That's staying power Wetty.

New Blog! New Shoes! New Adventures next year!

I leave for South Korea in less than a week. I'll be over there for a year to teach English on a Fulbright scholarship. So this little ole Blog is how you can keep track of my adventures when I leave the states.

I'm in Hilton Head on vacation right now, staying with my family at our time share in Shipyard plantation. Unfortunately this week we have had more rain than any other time we've vacationed here. So not as much laying at the beach as I planned on. I've still been biking like crazy and had enough time to play both my younger brothers in tennis and discover something that's really not a surprise - I'm not the natural athlete I once was. Both of my younger brothers (ages 19 and 14, I'm 22) beat me handily. Well at least I know how to keep score now in a tennis game now.

With the rain I've been doing plenty of last minute shopping. I had been endlessly searching for a backpack with a special laptop padding section that was big enough, functional enough, and also didn't look like crap. Today I found it. Also, I smashed my previous sneaker buying record of 2 at once by purchasing 4(!) pairs of sneakers from the Reebok outlet. The funny thing is I probably won't take any to South Korea, so they'll sit in my closet for a while. But they were cheap - $90 for 4 pairs - I know how to shop; they look good - I found a sweet white, green, and yellow (W&M colors people) Allen Iverson bball shoe that I will be rocking at any sort of W&M homecoming or get together in the near future; and I bought a pair of G-unit shoes.

At this point, I would like to point out that most of friends and family would just shake their head and say something like, that Ben, he loves his stuff. What can I say, I'm picky about my shoes, unless it's something Army related (I'm going into active duty in the US Army after my Fulbright scholarship to South Korea), but that's a story for another day.