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!

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).

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..."

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?

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 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:

• Why do we still believe in group brainstorming?
• Meetings considered harmful
• You still want meetings, here's how to make them useful
• The best presentation is sometimes no presentation

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.