메리 크리스마스 Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Korea is missing something... Christmas trees, Christmas lights, wreaths, eggnog, presents, candy canes, gingerbread houses, and anything else that will remind you of Christmas. I guess you really can't expect all that from a country that isn't Christian. Neither one of my schools had a single Christmas decoration up. A lot of students would walk around saying "Merry Christmas," and even some of their English lessons were Christmas related. When I asked who had a Christmas tree at their house, none said yes. This was kind of depressing. No spirit at all. Village life without a doubt! I went up to Seoul the weekend before Christmas. I saw quite a bit of lights and decorations around. It was a nice change.

This Christmas was actually very good. I spent it with a good group of people and so many parts of the weekend reminded me of Christmas back at home. Our buddy Ben was able to get a cabin in Deogyusan National Park [Muju Resort] for the weekend. The cabin was pretty sick. It was a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom place with a small kitchen, living room and a loft upstairs. Plenty of room for all 10 or 11 of us.

Our weekend activities included a gift exchange, flaming shots of 151, a Christmas morning hike in below freezing temperatures, an occasional power outage, drinking games, and of course... tons of alcohol. Definitely made for a memorable time.

Happy Holidays from Korea, to the world!

오픈 클래스 --> Open Class

I was informed that I would have to do an "Open Class" at the beginning of the month. The school actually allowed me to pick what date I wanted to do it on. Of course I asked for the very last day of the month! I figured this would give me the most time to prepare for my class. Whoever knows me from my college days, might have already guessed that I indeed put all my planning on hold until the very last minute. I've been out of school for quite some time now, and I still have that tendency to procrastinate like crazy!

So the shelling from North Korea in Yeonpyeong Island earlier in the week was not about to stop me from trying to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. This is one of my favorite holidays, and I had to find a way to make the best of it in Korea. On Thursday I went out with the Parks and a couple of the teachers to eat oysters, live octopus, and beer. It was delicious, but all I could think about was grandma's amazing Thanksgiving meal. I was hella missing the flavors of American food along with some Honduran food on this holiday. On Friday, I decided to visit Jomel in his village. Two buses, one train, one high-speed train, one taxi, and 5 hours later, I finally made it to his place. His friends at the 'English Village' had prepared a great meal. I got there just in time for the late meal and the night's festivities! It was great to celebrate Thanksgiving with other foreigners. We were all just reminiscing on our Thanksgiving traditions and what not.

On Saturday we made our way to Daejeon to party it up once again. For some reason, I enjoy Daejeon a lot more than Seoul. Maybe because there is less to choose from as far as bars go. I don't mind this at all, because you know you're bound to find a lot of people where ever you decide to party at. Also, love motels and drinks tend to be a lot cheaper here. We started the night at VIP's. I think it's a Korean version of a Western-style salad and steakhouse. Dinner there was pretty good, but not good enough to convince me to buy a $45 steak.... especially when it's damn tiny. After VIP's we moved on to the Shisha House... a pretty cool hookah bar that just reopened. I don't care for hookah, but they have good beer there that they brew it themselves! The rest of the night led us to Yellow Taxi, and then to Sponge, where we partied until 6am. So far Daejeon has never let me down on a party weekend.

Once I got back to the village, I began to work on materials for my open class like crazy! I felt like I was under pressure... and like all other procrastinators out there, I felt like I was working under the best circumstances. Sure enough, I began to get tired at around 9pm. That's when I decided to call it quits. I was not about lose sleep over an open class.... well, at least not my first one! Monday comes, and I find out that my class has been moved to Tuesday! Nice-uh. This is typical Korean planning. They change everything at the last minute... and the Native English teacher is always the last one to find out. This time I was not complaining. It gave me a day, after a good night's sleep, to add any finishing touches to my materials.

The day of my open class, I started feeling a little nervous. I've had plenty of experience doing presentations in front of different groups/clubs and classes in college. I think a lot of it had to do with the way they set up my small classroom and because of the people that were going to attend. By 3pm, everyone was already in the classroom; Nakdong principal, vice-principal, head teacher, English co-teacher, 2nd grade teacher, Cheonbuk principal, and English co-teacher. Oh, and I also felt nervous because they set up a camera to record me. I did a lesson titled, "This is our house." I handed out some worksheets, went over new vocab using power point, did an activity where the students had so present in front of the class, and played a couple games. All in all, I think it went pretty well. I got quite a few laughs from my observers, and the students did great! After the 40 minute class, we had a 40 minute debrief session. They were all just talking back and forth and writing stuff down on their notepads and all over my worksheets and lesson plan. Every once in a while, one of my co-teachers would turn to me and translate a few things. The debrief was not as bad as I thought it would be... this is probably because I didn't understand most of it. After our session, we went out for a celebratory dinner. We went to a Korean restaurant that specialized in 아귀, angler fish. I had no idea what this was. They tried describing it to me, but I just couldn't imagine it. The fish was prepared in a very hearty soup. I t made me sweat. After a few bottles of soju on a school night, we called it quits and I got a ride home. The first thing I did was google 'angler fish.' Then I didn't know if this was a celebratory dinner, or more of a punishment. Whatever it was, it was a free dinner!!

Excitement

Looks like there is a bit of excitement going on. I was in class when two of my 5th graders ran into my classroom to tell me that NK was attacking. I had a little trouble understanding them at first, until they decided to draw on the white board what they were trying to say. It surprised me so much that they wanted to watch the news instead of finishing Madagascar 2.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/23/nkorea.skorea.military.fire/index.html?hpt=T1

The Parks - My adopted Korean family

A couple of weeks after I started working at Cheonbuk Elementary, one of the student's mothers came up to my classroom and asked if I was interested in tutoring her son, Jeong-min. Being the kind person that I am, I agreed. From then on, my time here in the village has been nothing but a blessing! Mr. Park and Mrs. Kim [not sure why their lasts names are different if they're married] only have one child, Jeong-min. He is in the 3rd grade. He's actually pretty cool and a good student.

So this tutoring 'job' did not go the traditional way. In fact, it's anything but a job. I find myself spending about 4 days a week with the Parks. We do anything from going out to dinner to shopping at HomePlus to hiking on the weekends. This family has welcomed me and now takes great care of me. I love home cooked Korean meals at their house. Mrs. Kim is always sending me home with tubs of kimchi, roasted seaweed, myulchi [fried dried anchovies], and other Korean side dishes. We also tend to eat out about 2 or 3 times per week. Whenever we go to the store, they'll pay for any item I place in the shopping cart. It's pretty crazy. Mrs. Kim works part time at Cheonbuk school. I'm not too sure what exactly she does, because she only works like 2 or 3 hours three days per week. She usually just comes to my classroom and sits there and then chit-chats with me when my classes are over. She brings Jeong-min and I snack all the time. When I work at Nakdong school, she goes and picks me up that way I don't have to ride the bus.

It's gone as far as me going with them to visit other family; aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents... everyone! Sometimes when we're riding in the car, I stop and take a minute to think about what's actually happening.... Mr. Park is driving, Mrs. Kim is singing and doing her make up in the front seat, and Jeong-min and I are in the back seat playing on the DS or watching a movie. That's when I'm like, DAMNNN.... I do feel like I'm part of this family LOL! Mrs. Kim calls me her adopted son. I really enjoy spending time with the Parks. I have a feeling I'm going to grow very attached to them, which will make my departure from Korea a bit harder than I ever imagined.

Update, Update!

Once again I have gotten pretty damn lazy with this blog thing. I don't know why I have a hard time keeping up. It's all for my benefit too... that way in a year from now I'll be able to still remember what it was that I did while I was in Korea. I have such a crappy memory, that I have already forgotten what happened last month. Here are some things I remember pretty well.

태풍 곤파스 ~ Typhoon Kompasu
This was my first experience with a typhoon and I hope it was also my last. I had no clue there was a typhoon on its way. None of my coworkers even mentioned it to me. At about 2am [Sept. 2nd] I woke up because the winds seemed to get a lot stronger than usual. It annoyed me because it was way past my bed time of 10pm. Being wide awake, I had nothing better to do than to go online and check my email/fb. I was talking to a couple friends online when all of a sudden the power went out.

The winds got stronger and stronger and I began to get pretty scared. I could hear aluminum roofs flying down the street. The windows in my houses were shaking so much. At around 4am I decided to make a video of what was going on. I was just walking around my house with my camera and a flashlight, trying to document what was going on. It was pretty damn loud, so I decided to close all the windows in the house. After a while, I realized that might not have been the best idea... the windows were rattling so much from all the wind hitting them. I sat in the corner of my bed, covering myself with my blanket, and thinking that the glass from the windows was going to shatter at any moment. Pretty crazy thought, if you can imagine it. I decided to open the windows again and just let all the wind go straight through the house.

With all the commotion, it was impossible to fall asleep. The strong winds did not stop until about 6am. At around 8am I got ready for work. I was a walking zombie. I showed up at the school and everyone was asking me if I felt the typhoon. OF COURSE I FELT IT! I LIVE NEXT DOOR TO THIS SCHOOL! Since we still had no power, they decided to let the students go home right before lunch. We drove 40 minutes to the nearest city with power to have lunch. On our way there, all I could see was destruction. Tons of crops ruined, rice patties flattened, and debris all over. One of our student's farm lost 2,000 chickens. The barn right across the street from my house fell. There was a chunk of siding from an exterior wall at my school that flew away. The covered eating area at the restaurant across the street from my house fell over. A large portion of the shingles on my roof also flew away. And I had 1 window that cracked.

This typhoon was pretty exciting. But hopefully it will be the only one I'll have to g o through. Apparently, it was the biggest typhoon to hit South Korea in 15 years. I'm ad ding this to the "Korea Hates Me" file.

Welcome to Korea, Ana:
Ana finally made it out to Korea!! I have been heading up to Seoul a lot recently to go hang out with Ana. Our first time meeting up was actually a bit tragic. I took a huge suitcase with me, because I was trying to pick up some stuff that I had left at my friend's place in Seoul right before I moved to the village. When I got to Yonsei, Ana's university, we immediately decided to go look for a hotel nearby. From my experience in Korea, I know that where eve r th ere is a bar/club area, a hotel area shou ld be just around the corner. Well, as we tried to find a hotel right by the university... we took the wrong turn.. and wrong it was! We ended up walking around Seoul in search of a damn hotel for about 3 hours. Yes, 3 damn hours in th e rain and in the dark. And the part that pissed me off was the we eventually found a hotel... about 3 blocks from whe re we initially began our journey. We were exhausted, but decided to celebrate our reunion by having a nice Korean meal at what might have been 2 in the morning.

The next day I got to play tour guide and we did about 9 hours of touring around some of the city. We covered a good amount, but no where near finished. Once again, tons of walking. That night we got ready to go out... all dressed up, hair did, cologne, and all... Ana got her make up and all... While I was looking up clubs to hit up, Ana decided to take a power nap. About 15 mins later I decided to join as well. Little did we know this was going to be the extent of our 'crazy' party night. That's right, we got ready just to hit the sack!

Since then, we've met up quite a few times and have actually enjoyed ourselves pretty well. Our most recent adventure was a trip to Jeju Island... the Hawaii of Korea! I'll post about that later.

"Alex 선생님" aka "Alex Teacher"
Alright, I think I should let you all know that I'm actually loving the job. There is one school [Nakdong] that I like more than the other [Cheonbuk]. But in the end, I like what I do at both schools. The students are fun. Sometimes I can get annoyed, but it's cool because all I have to do is get through a 40 minute class with that particular class, then on to the next class. I feel pretty busy most of the time, I am teaching 32 hours a week and so only 8 hours to 'lesson plan.' But I still manage to get it done. Sometimes I just think of stuff to do right on the spot. At times, I wish my class would be longer than just 40 minutes. I feel very fortunate to say that I'm loving this job. Probably the first time I can say that about any job I've had [with the exception of being a desk attendant at Bhood].
The picture on the left are my 3rd/4th graders at Cheonbuk. The picture on the right is of some of my 5th/6th graders at Nakdong! Awesome kids.

3 Things...

These are a few things I've been meaning to write about that make me chuckle a bit...

1. Facial Lotion

A few months ago, on Teacher's Day, I received some facial lotion from one of my students in Seoul. I've been using it regularly along with other facial lotion I already have. One of my new coworkers came over to my house last week to see how the move-in was going. I had all the bathroom products spread out right outside the door because I had been deep cleaning the bathroom. My coworker had this puzzled look to her face and she grabbed this lotion. Then she asked me why I was using a 'bleaching cream.' My first reaction was, "WTF Jienie!!" [the student who I received the gift from]. So I think this explains why I've noticed that I'm more pale than usual. Here I sat thinking it was because I had not gone on a tropical vacation this summer. I don't know if I should be mad at Jienie and her parents for trying to make me 'white' or if I should just think of it as a nice gesture. In Korea, 'lighter skin is better.'

2. "This area is famous for..."

One of my coworkers speaks English alright. She has been trying to show me around and explain the daily routine here. She has trouble expressing herself sometimes. She'll usually start on a thought, then I come in and try and finish what she was trying to say. She tends to use the phrase, "This area is famous for...." quite a bit. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense at all. But I just nod politely to let her know I understand. There were two instances when I kinda couldn't help it but to laugh when she used this phrase. The first time was when we were having lunch and a crap load of flies attacked our table. She instantly used the phrase and said, "This area is famous for flies." I didn't know how to really think of this quote. I know she didn't mean it in a way where please from all over the world come here just to be attacked by flies while trying to enjoy lunch. I'm pretty sure she meant to say something more along the lines of, "damn, so many flies in this joint." The second time she used this phrase and made me laugh was a day she came over to my house to check up on me. It was a hot/windy day and had just rained. The smell of manure from the cows across the street was pretty strong. I saw my coworker make a face of disgust followed by, "This are is famous for cows." I lulzed because I KNEW she wanted to say something like, "Damn it hella smells like shit!" Oh that Kim Hae-ran teacher is pretty funny.

3. Name Change
On my first day at Cheonbuk, I was pretty surprised to see how much power the principal actually had. Not gonna lie, just talking to him kinda intimidated me from the get go. He didn't seem like such a nice/caring person. But whatever, I just wanted to make a good first impression... I even wore my "Republic of Korea" t-shirt! As soon as I introduced myself, he said, "What??" I wasn't mad or anything and so I went ahead and introduced myself again. Apparently he still didn't get it. He said it would be too hard for the students to pronounce. I was like, WTF >__< So then I suggested he called me by my middle name. The conversation went like this...

ME: Hmmm. Ok, you can call me Alexander.
PRINCIPAL: Ehhh...Uhhh Allle??
ME: ALEXANDER! My name is Alexander.
PRINCIPAL: Alex-uh, ahhh yeh yehhh Alex-uh. OkOk yehhh. Alex-uh.
ME: *sigh* Hmm, yeah.... hello my name is Alex-uh.

The smell of manure lingers through my new home in the village.

New Location:Nakdong-ri, Boryeong-si, Chungcheongnam-do 355-810, South Korea <--- Google Map it!

So I've been living at my new location for a week and a half now. This place really is a village. It's nothing more than a farming community. Everywhere you look, there are rice patties and corn fields. And I know there are lots of cows around as well, even though I haven't seen them. No one can deny the existence of the unique smell of manure that seems to carelessly flow through the thick and humid air.

I live in this little place called Cheonbuk. As the recruiters were driving me here, all I could think about was, "What the hellllll?" While interviewing for this position, I was asked by 3 different people if I was ok with a 'rural area.' Of course I said yes for a couple reasons; 1 - I had been living at Jomel's place for 2 weeks... a rural town, but I thought it wasn't bad. It had multiple roads, community center, bus terminal, river, markets, etc. 2 - I needed a job, and really wanted this position because it was public school job. As we're driving, all of a sudden I accidentally blurted out what was on my mind, "Oh...myyyy..Goddd!!" Then I proceeded into an uncontrollable nervous laugh attack.

I'm pretty sure the two recruiters driving me were thinking the exact same thing, because immediately after they started laughing a lot. Of course they tried, in their broken English, reassuring me that everything would be alright in Cheonbuk.

I've got to admit, I really don't mind the incredibly small village feel. I'm slowly becoming a celebrity around here, being the only foreigner for miles. The people are pretty friendly once they know who I am and what I'm doing here. I have gotten good treatment at most of the restaurants I've been to in the area. In fact, one of the places across the street from my house always gives me more food/drink than what I order.

My coworker described the location of my house as "downtown" Cheonbuk. I chuckled a bit. I would say this so called downtown is made up of about 3 blocks worth of suff. There are a few restaurants, post office, bank, market [no vegetables], police station, clinic, and some other things which I don't know what they are. The nearest actual small town [lacks malls, movie theaters, etc.] is a 20-25 minute bus ride away. It's called Gwancheong. It has a farmer's market like place that sells lots of veggies and other miscelaneous crap. There is also a train station there that goes to Seoul.

One cool thing about this location in my proximity to the sea. One of the teachers drove me out the beach the other day. It is actually very nice. I could smell the salt in the air. Reminded me a lot of Seattle, minus the overly developed skyline. The beach itself is not sandy... it's actually made up of milllions of shells. Went to a seafood restaurant... oh man, so good! Everything was practically alive and there was a huge variety of stuff as well! I guess the village has it's ups and downs.

New House:

My new place is a huge upgrade from my small closet back in Seoul. I was given a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom house. The living room area is also very spacious. There is a large kitchen together with a dining area included. The house also has a separate laundry area. It's cool to have such a big place after that tiny whole-in-the-wall I used to have. I actually don't even know what to do with so much space. I think I spent my first 4 or 5 days at the house just cleaning the place... tackling one room at a time until I as satisfied with how clean it was.

I got internet installed [$30/month] and now cable tv [$120/year]. I really didn't need cable, but it's kinda cool since I get some English channels I really like [CNN, Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geographic, etc]. Man, I WISH I could get Univision hahahaha. The only thing that my house is missing now is some food in the kitchen. I really don't have much other than cereal, milk, yogurt, eggs, and some peaches.

My house is on the second floor of some unoccupied offices. And I don't have neighbors right next to me. This is great because I can turn up the volume on the music as high as I like. A lot of people in the village already know where I live. Some of my students will actually wait for me to come out of my house in the morning so we can all walk [150 steps] to school together.

New Job:

The new job is teaching English at two different elementary schools. One of the schools, like I mentioned, is only about 150 steps from my house. The second school is a 5 min bus ride away. Both schools seem to have really nice staff members. The principal at Nakdong is very motherly. She's always making sure I eat, have tea/coffee, and to keep the A/C on for me. She's hella nice. Right now it's summer vacation. We've been doing English Camp for the 5th and 6th graders. Last week and this week I just teach from about 9:30am-12:00pm, then it's lunch time! Usually we go out to some restaurant and the school pays, so I really like that part. Next week classes begin again in a normal school schedule. I haven't received my timetable yet, but all I know is I'll be teaching 1st-6th grade. I'm pretty excited about it. The kids I've worked with these two weeks are pretty nice and they bow to me hahaa. Their English level is a lot lower than the kindergarten kids I had back in Seoul. But I like this age group better... they don't require as much energy. I have yet to put a kid in time-out.