Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Top Ten Reasons School is Better this Semester

10. The students aren't stressed out by midterms yet.
9. Two great, energetic new Korean English teachers outweighs one unenergetic new teacher.

8. The new English department head wants me to make the weekly teacher classes more intense so the teachers actually improve their English.
7. Weather: It's getting warmer instead of colder.

6. Less corporal punishment anguish: My desk got moved to the main teacher's office, and I don't have to hear students getting hit and students' crying two feet behind my desk on a daily basis.
5. New coteacher who doesn't hit her students.

4. Lunch: The teachers' food is self serve at lunch now. No more cutting students only to be served tons of food I will inevitably waste. And to the horror of a few teachers I'm not eating nearly as much rice at lunch, and instead, making peanut butter sandwiches at my desk after I get back from lunch.
3. I get to teach a basketball club class once a week. I'm pretty sure my middle school students would beat the high school students in town.

2. Soju Cred: I didn't hold back when the teachers had their beginning of the semester dinner and I now have "Soju cred" (like street cred) with the male teachers.
1. I still have every other Friday off!

Monday, March 27, 2006

V for Vendetta

I saw V for Vendetta yesterday. Like Andrew, it is now one of my favorite movies. I highly recommend it. Especially after I read things like this, about packaged news vs real news (via Alex).

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Dinner Conversation

When I was young, my brothers and I would sometimes argue with my mom before dinner. We wanted to watch TV, usually the Simpsons. She always resisted, like she resisted and fought many of the things we wanted to do as teenagers. The reason we couldn't watch TV was because we had "to learn how to make conversation." That reason never quite satisfied us. But before long, my younger brother and I were telling our youngest brother to stop watching TV at dinner.

Living with my host family has been very interesting. I don't ever judge, but occasionally I think about how I would act as the parent in a certain situation. Tonight we went to a restaurant for dinner. My host sister and I were the last ones to finish, maybe because we're slow eaters, or maybe because we talked the most at dinner (both true). My 15 year old host brother, Ji Hyun, got up and went somewhere. Ten minutes later I asked my host mother if he went to the bathroom.

She answered, "Oh no... haha... he went to car. TV."

My host family is rich and has TV's in the car. We went on to joke about how TV was Ji Hyun's hobby. I said, "Yes, I know..."

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Jordan XXI Part 2

I linked to the new Jordan video a while back, but here is a bigger resolution version I've been watching on dimemag.tv. I've heard it's being shown before movies, and I saw it on TV here in Korea, which means it must be big. People living in America?

Monday, March 20, 2006

The man in the suit at the gym

Stories from the cultural ambassador vault #1:

It was sometime early last fall when i was still an unsure and hesitant cultural ambassador. I was exercising at my gym on a Friday night, excited to leave my small city the next day, and almost done with my workout. Two ab exercises away in fact. I was lying on an exercise mat about to start flutter kicks where I always do them, in the open space near the owner's desk at my cosy (small) gym. And then the man in the suit walked in the door.

He was flanked on his left by an underling. He commanded immediate attention from the gym owner. Within a minute all the men in the gym (about seven, I said my gym was cosy) formed a circle just in front of me. I had just started the flutter kicks when the man in the suit started talking.

Of all the exercises to be doing at that moment. Anything other than abs and I would be safe behind the "foreigner" excuse. I would not be on the floor lying on my back looking up awkwardly at the man in the suit starting to make a speech while everyone else in the circle bowed their heads with their hands behind their backs. So I stopped, stood up, and joined the circle. He quickly finished his speech, which I couldn't understand, and then shook everyone's hand, mine included. I felt included. I wasn't sure in what.

After he left I finished my remaining minute and a half of exercise. The owner told me that the man in the suit was the deputy mayor of my city. Apparently some people who train at my gym were going to be competing somewhere soon, and he was there to wish them well and thank them for representing Gyeryong. I laughed with him. Of course, none of them were there on Friday in the late evening, so the owner just had everyone there come listen. No need to tell the senior official what was going on. Just listen to the senior.

And I had listened. But I also learned something whenever we made eye contact during the speech. He was just as unsure about what was going on as I was if not more so. The awkwardness at the gym that night and in similar experiences isn't me, you, the man in the suit, or anything one thing. It's everything, it's the situation, and when you can step outside of it and enjoy it- it's great.

Written at the homestay in Gyeryong, South Korea.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Thursday evening linkfest

How to tie your shoes 16(!) different ways. I don't know if I'll actually implement this, but it's good for keeping yourself on your toes and "rejecting the status quo." via Seth Godin

Fitness and health genius. Art De Vany's site is called Evolutionary Fitness and tackles exercise, health, his life, and living from an evolutionary perspective. He's almost 70 and has the body of a 32 year old. If you want to lose weight, get stronger, or just live healthier, check out the Evolutionary Fitness archives. Check out his essay (pdf format) for an introduction.

In honor of the Fulbright Jeju spring conference being two weeks away, and the fact that the big topic is how to improve the orientation for next year's Fulbright ETA's (our orientation had a TON of meetings), I thought I'd provide some thoughts about how to improve the efficiency of meetings:

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Recent Observations

1. My host grandmother ate dinner with us the past two nights. My host father also ate dinner with us. I can't remember the last time he had eaten dinner with us two consecutive nights. I'm wondering if it's a coincidence...

2. My first year students are too cute. I might be the first foreigner they've ever met. One kid today maybe wins for best first impression of a student in a class. He was very loud but not interruptive, said that he loved me several times, asked for my phone number because he "loves me," and acted like he was rapping into a microphone a few times, complete with hand gestures and the "oh yeah's!" After class my co-teacher said that student will be an entertainer because he sings and dances. I believe it, and I'm excited to see him on stage already.

3. Sometimes I think the students take on the tone of their regular English teacher. If the class is not energetic (or too afraid to be too energetic) I look at the teacher and their attitude makes sense.

4. Apple and CBS are offering "condensed versions" of the March Madness games on iTunes. I don't know what condensed versions means, and the resolution of the video won't be great, but I will probably buy it. All 63 games for $20? In Korea, I think it's either that or nothing. I have Duke, Gonzaga, BC, and UConn in the final four, with UConn beating Duke in the championship.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

What's better than a white Christmas?

A white White Day! It snowed last night in my town. Today is White Day, the day a month after Valentine's day on which boys give girls candy. Or just another excuse to promote cuteness and couples in Korea.

Monday, March 13, 2006

I went to Daegu last weekend and didn't do much

I went to Daegu last weekend and met up with Jes and Beth. It was fun and had a lot of those "oh, Korea" moments.

1. It took us a long time to find a motel. "In Korea??" you're thinking. I know! The first motel we found was closed. The second wouldn't allow us to stay there because we were three people of different sexes. Two women would have been fine. Three men would have been fine. One man and one woman would have been fine. But one man and two women? Take your business elsewhere?

2. Sunday we tried to go to a mountain so we could take a cable car up the mountain. When the bus came, the driver wouldn't let us get on it. We found out later there was a fire on the mountain.

3. I saw two foreign films "2046" (Chinese) and "Let's go to Seoul" (Korean) that just didn't make sense.

4. The temperature dropped 20 degrees between Saturday and Sunday. Today, it is now snowing.

Also today, I taught some of the new 1st year middle school students for the first time. They're so cute and so excited to meet the foreigner.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

My brother's birthday

My little brother Brad's birthday is on Saturday. He's going to be 15, and is a freshman in high school. I miss being there for these sorts of things, and because I went to college far away from home and now am in Korea I don't really get to see him grow up.

He's also trying to get a job at the grocery store where I started working. I had started working there in the fall of freshman year of high school, and I remember it was just as educating as parts of high school. Which got me thinking about how different it is to be a 15 year old high school boy in America and Korea. I would not want to be a Korean high school kid. Whenever I hear the about endless mindless studying, I kind of feel sad and remember the Mark Twain quote, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." In Korea, schooling is all education is. So I'm sad and happy my brother isn't here - I can't see him, but he isn't a Korean high school student. He has a chance to learn outside of the classroom... now if I could only give my students the same chance...

Friday, March 03, 2006

Sweet new air jordan commercial

Read about it on ESPN, and then watch it

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Opening Ceremony

A new school year has begun. This semester arriving at school I feel like a veteran. The chaos, wildness, lack of information, and the amount of English my students' have forgotten is thrilling. All the teachers are changing desks, getting new schedules, meeting new teachers, etc. I'm not alone. I have a new coteacher even though my old teacher is still teaching at the school. And my new coteacher is the one I would have picked. It's amazing.

Of course our opening ceremony was outside, and it was lightly snowing. The students had to be out there for more than an hour, while the teachers were out there for probably 15 - 20 minutes. I don't know exactly, I was daydreaming as usual.

I have moved to a new desk on the first floor in the main teachers' office. Right next to the vice principal! I have cleaned the desk and moved all my stuff from my old desk, but I'm not setting up shop yet. According to the Korean law of averages, I will probably have to move to a different desk later today, and then move once more next week. Why? I don't know. It's just the way things work.

Around 10am a new English teacher asked me if I was ready to teach.
"When?" I asked.
"mmmm... maybe 5 minutes later. Do you have a lesson plan for introductions?"
Smiling, I said "I do."
"So can you teach them? Maybe the class will only be 20 minutes today."
Laughing, "I'm sure I can think of something."

In class there was a new student who lived in America for two years. He can speak English well. After he said something the rest of the class cheered, and then proceeded to take 5 minutes to think about how to answer "What did you do during vacation?"

It's lunch time and it's time to be a rock star in the hallways once again.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

New semester new attitude

I just got back to my homestay Monday night. I have to start teaching tomorrow. I'm feeling kind of indifferent to start teaching again. My coteacher is sometimes hard to get along with, and because I feel like most of us are in a teaching situation where we can't be very effective. I spent February in Seoul, and I loved it. Mainly because it's not like Gyeryong. Seoul is big, and has people my age. It would be great to keep living in Seoul studying Korean... but unfortunately that's not what I'm here to do.

After talking with Annie though, we decided this semester is going to be much better than last semester. We know what to expect - not knowing what goes on at school, being ready for last minute changes that could easily have been explained to us in advance, and not being understood by many students. I'm going to try to change my lesson plans so that each class has a routine and hopefully interests the students more by continuing a story of my college roommate Gammby every week. The weather will get warmer as the semester goes on instead of colder. I'm eagerly awaiting cherry blossoms, playing basketball outside, tracksuit day, and not being kind of stuck in my homestay during the week.

This time around, we know the framework in which we're here... so basically we have 120 days left to rock and roll Korean style.