Saturday, August 26, 2006

CRAZINESS

So I definitely have not updates in a long time.
Jessie and I are in a PC bang right now, killing the last few hours before our plane. Some of you may be thinking "Shouldn't you be sightseeing?", but you should just shut right the hell up, because it is HOT here!
This week was insane. We arrived back from Mongolia on Sunday night (that will be blogged about when we get to Canada) and went to bed.
We were awoken on Monday morning by a phone call from Jessie's coteacher telling us that we had to have all the furniture ready to be moved out by Wednesday. This was after weeks of being told that we had to remain in Yeongam until the end of our contract. We would also have the option of staying in our apartment with no furniture or moving to Samho, which for all the North Bay-ites out there would be equivalent to moving a Korean who spoke no English from Callander to Powassan.
So we demanded that we be allowed to stay until Thursday at least, and they said that that would be alright.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were rushed days to pack.
I got a phone from Mr Lee on Monday night, and he won his speech competition! I am very proud of him, and he is definitely pretty proud of himself. He has been having interviews all week and every time I see him, even though I don't understand what he is saying, I know that he is dropping to people that he won, because I hear them say congratulations and he says thank you. It was a really good speech, and I knew he would do well, but I was very surprised to hear that he had won! It was a national competition for teachers, and even though he worked very hard, I knew he would be up against some stiff competition. But he won, and I am really happy for him.
Anyways, we told him about the moving situation, and about how it would make banking difficult if I got payed on Friday (as we would have to leave town earlier). I asked if I could be payed earlier like Jessie was told she would be, on Wednesday. He said he would call and find out, and then call back.
He called the county supervisor at eleven o'clock at night! I got payed the next morning.
Tuesday night he took us out for dinner with the Ryus, and they gave us a beautiful lamp. Dinner was nice, but the Ryus were shy to speak English with us in front of Mr Lee, so we didn't get to chat much.
He came by the next day to pick up all the stuff I was leaving in Korea, which turned out to be a LOT! I had a big black duffel, plus two boxes and some other loose stuff that could not be boxed. I felt bad to give him so much. If I had been leaving, I would have just thrown it all out, but since I was coming back, there was no point in buying spices and things again, and my cheap winter coat and stuff could all stay too. And why bring all my winter clothes home if I don't have to?
Thursday monring we woke up at 9:40, and lay in bed for a while. The staff came to inspect and move our stuff at ten! I was a little emabarassed to open the door to all the office ladies in my pyjamas, but that's just how it worked out. haha.
We left after a while, because it was pretty stressful with them moving all of our stuff out. We had to return out router to the internet building and wire our money home. Surprise surprise, Jessie had not received her money yet! We wired home what she had, and yesterday she got the rest. Well, in bits. Her pay and severance were deposited, then withdrawn, then deposited again 600000 won short! We were freaking out, and we were told when Jessie called her coteacher that the money was taken off because our contract ended on August 20th, so we should not be payed for the last five days!
We argued, and I drafted some nasty e-mails (but never sent them!).... I'll finish later, we're going to head to the airport now!

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Starting off six weeks of vacation in a grand fashion.

Last night was the start of six weeks (or so) vacation. I finished my camp in Bucheon with a stunning round of interviews.
I had to do interviews with the students as part of their final evaluation. For many of them, it was the first time I had heard them speak in two weeks! Then I found out why.
The interviews were only supposed to be three minutes or so long, but because I hadn't heard them speak before, I just let them go once they hit their stride. As a result, it took me almost three hours to finish their interviews! But some of them were so interesting, and I just wanted to learn about these faces I had been seeing for two weeks. Some were disappointing, especially one of the best participators in class, who in one-to-one conversation relied on charades and waiting for me to fill in the blanks for him.
There was this woman at the camp, she was an art teacher, I think. She was so cool! On top of being stunning (and one of the few women here who do not cake on make-up and wears her freckles proudly) she was a traveller, and had taken time off to go to film school. She definitely stood out in the crowd of other Koreans I have met, because she had "independent thought". Last night, while out with Steve and Crystal's friends Ryan and Kristin, Ryan said that his coteacher had once said to her class that one of the worst things (or downsides) to living in the city of Seoul (she had to help because the kids could only come up with pollution) was the amount of independent thought. Shocking!
Anyways, there were a lot of pretty cool teachers, and a few that I am hoping to stay in touch with. There were a few in the advanced class that I hope write to me, and a few in the general classes, especially a guitar player in the general class. I was trying to hammer home the idea that the English on their t-shirts is sometiems nonsense, and in some cases things that can be offensive to them or the people who see it. It seemed really strange to me that a teache, who had some English knowledge could buy a t-shirt with English on it and be totally unconcerned with what it said. I tried to emphasize the idea that the words are ideas, and that they should try to figure out what they are saying to people by wearing those ideas. The advanced and older general class got it, but the younger class really didn't care. How can they not care?! How are they not even curious about what they are saying to people? I actually get a little angry about it.
Anyway, the guitar player was wearing a Slayer t-shirt, so I asked him is he liked slayer, and it turned into a huge conversation yesterday about different guitar players yesterday, which made a bunch of the other teachers chuckle, because the guy's pronunciation is so bad and we were doing impressions of different songs and such... it was funny. anyway...
Once the interviews were over, I had to slot everyone into this ridiculous belled marking scheme where the lowest mark possible was a 24/30, and I was marking them on fluency, accuracy, pronunciation, vocabulary and understanding of the questions. No-one deserved perfects across the board, but the lowest mark I was able to give for some was a three out of five on one factor just to make it fit. Same with participation, no-one was allowed to get a mark lower than five out of ten. So people who never ever spoke got fives, and deserved zeros. brutal!
Once the work was over, we headed back to the goshiwon and into the PC bang. I wond up taking a nap, because I was a little exhausted. Aziz came to pay us at around 7:30, which made for a tight trip tot he train station for Rodrigo to catch his 8:25 train. Mr Lee, the organizer/recruiter for the camp wanted to take us out for dinner, but didn't tell us that he wanted it to be after seven, so we backed out, because Rodrigo wanted to go home, and I had to "get ready for Mongolia". wink wink.
I actually went to Hongik (a university/bar area in Seoul) to meet with Steve and Crystal and their friends. What a night! On several occasions we laughed until we cried, it was awesome. We went to "U2 Bar", which a fabulous little place, and where I had my first tequila, ever. It's good! It makes me pretty rowdy though.
After that we headed to a bongo bar where they usually have music, and everyone sits around on the floor and plays the bongos along to the music. But last ngiht they had really slow music with a guy singing along to a tape, so we left early, because it was not so fun. Great to chill out, but not very fun.
We ended at a hookah bar, another first for me. That was so relaxing. And it's not harsh, like other smokeables. We just sat around and laughed and talked and drank expensive drinks. The hookah was on me, because I made $2000 extra this month! woohoo! It was so nice, and it made your head swim just enough to make it unnecessary to buy a ton of really expensive drinks.
Well, it was a great start to my longest vacation yet. In life!
Have a good one everybody! I'm off to Mongolia in five hours!!!

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

random notes

Considering how much time I have spent in a PC bang in the last two weeks, I have done startlingly little in the way of updating my blog.
So, this week has been full of ups and downs. We have been taking it really easy. Just sitting around. It is SO hot here. You have no idea. I've been hot in Canada, but never hot like this. When you step outside, it's actually like opening an oven. Not just saying that, it actually is, I promise. The wind does not help, it's like trying to cool yourself by open-mouthed heavy breathing on yourself.
The frustrating class continued to be frustrating and difficult to motivate. They finally talked to Rodrigo though about what they wanted, and it was more group activities. They will talk to eachother, but they are too shy to talk to the teachers. So last night Rodrigo and I put together a big shopping/running errands roleplay. It went well! We are cutting out curriculum (now that we have written the test) to make time for more interesting activities and practice. The marks don't matter, so really it doesn't matter if everything gets covered, as long as the important things for their test are covered, so they can show their principals a mark. Of course, it'll be a good mark.
Why, of course? Because we're marking out of thirty, and the requested mark distribution is 30 - 1, 29 - 2, 28 - 4, 27 - 6, 26 - 4, 25 - 2, 24 - 1. So their marks mean nothing. BUT, we have to doctor things so that they fit that distribution. It sucks. It also sucks that no-one can do poorly, because there are a bunch of people who just sat and occupied seats, and do not deserve a mark above 80. It also cheapens the marks for those who made effort.
Not much else to report yet. It's not even sunk in yet that I'm going to Mongolia... in three days. I have so much to do, and so much else to think about. I hope that when I get there I can really be in the moment, and not be distracted.
Well, that's all for now... back to online poker, which I'm playing now. For funsies only, of course.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Numerous updates

DOG
So, the dog thing is on hold. Have I mentioned this already? I'm only going home for three weeks right now, and I think it would be really unfair to take a dog on such a long flight after such a short "getting to know you" phase. So maybe I will get a dog while I am here, but maybe I will just wait, because maybe I didn't think enough about it. I know I could handle a dog, I just don't know if Korea could handle me with a dog.

CONTRACT
I signed my contract with Munhwa on Saturday morning. The contract is a little nebulous, but I'm not too worried. I have a good personal reference, I really like the head teacher, and the director asked me the right kind of questions in the interview, and seems like a decent man. So, that's exciting. I met with Harley, the head teacher on Saturday to go over the contract, and then it was done.

CAMP
Camp continues this week. It was pretty good last week, the only frustration is that you are dealing with teachers who don't seem to want to be taught to, at least in one class. Koreans seem to have this crazy idea that they can learn a language by quietly memorizing things, and somehow even the teachers are buying into this. Harley and I talked about it... there's no synthesis, just memorization. But, the older teachers are a lot better, and on most days they make up for the frustrations of the younger, feed-me-English crowd.

BUSY WEEKEND
I had a super busy weekend. I travelled back to Yeongam on Friday afternoon/evening, a three hour train ride, followed by an hour on a bus. Got home, and had to do laundry, so that I could pack for both camp and Mongolia, as I'm heading to Mongolia straight from Seoul this weekend. I wound up carrying a bag full of wet laundry back to Seoul, in spite of the fact that I left the air conditioner blowing on it the whole night. Oh well.
Jessie and I hopped on a bus, met Harley, signed the contract, and then took a train to Seoul from Gwangju. We got about an hour from Seoul when the train stopped and didn't start again. We just hung out, we actually had a pretty good time buring the delay. Since we waited for so long, I figured there would be some sort of reimbursement, but I didn't know how to ask. I figured if we followed the crowd when we got off, eventually they would lead us to the money. They went one better, and a young woman helped us by running to ask all of our questions of a local steward. So, we wound up finding out that we were entitled to free tickets! Sweet!
We went to our hotel, and I hung up all of my clothes. We went to Itaewon for subs, which was awesome. We had them for breakfast too, but they weren't so good cold.
We took the airport limo bus from the hotel to the airport, and wandered around trying to find out where to check in. There was no apparent line, so we just got into one for the Mongolian airline and asked at the counter "Where do we check in for flight 308?". The guy said "Ticket!" and we gave him Jessie's ticket. He said "passort!" and we gave him Jessie's passport. Two minutes later a boarding pass was produced, and he pointed and circled as he talked.
"The flight boards gate 45 (or whatever) and is nine hours delayed." and waved for the next person in line.
Nine hours delayed! So we wound up coming back into the city, playing some computer games at a PC bang, getting a pizza, and watching a really sad Korean movie. It was really good though, it was about a group of minstrels who go to the big city of Seoul and wind up playing for the king. But of course, tragedies occur.
We left at about quarter to seven to get her on a bus back to Incheon. We went to Sosa station, which is where the bus dropped us when we came back. We were nervous, because we don't know the schedule, and decided that we should go back into town to catch the bus from where we had before. We got back onto the subway platform, and then Jessie thought better of it... the timing would be pretty tight, so we wound up walking out and finding the bus again. Pretty exciting no? It felt silly.
She got off safely, and there was some interesting miming through the bus window going back and forth that ended with me chasing after some guy... we're weird people, there's no denying.
I just got another e-mail from her saying her flight was further delayed until 10:55 tonight... that's about ten and a half hours total. Brutal!

Little visitors
I keep forgetting to mention, but the week before last, on Friday, Jessie and I ran into some students on the way home from arranging our pension reimbursement. Specifically, my "one way lover" and one of her little friends. They had asked before if they could come visit sometime. That night, they wound up inviting themselves for breakfast the next day.
They showed up just after ten with some frozen food, and I went to work cooking for them. They are pretty sweet little girls, and it was a really nice visit. I killed the food they brought (we don't have a deep-frying pan, or enough oil to cook what they brought) but it only looked bad, it tasted alright.
It was super-nice.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

GUITAR SMASH!

We got together after work today with Steve and Crystal.
We went to this awesome barbecue place where we had a feast for the low low price of $5. AFter that we wandered around aimlessly for a while before settling on walking in the direction of a starbucks.
We were walking and talking and reminiscing and planning when we noticed a guitar sitting on the ground next to a garbage bag leaning against a tree. It appeared to be abandoned with the trash, so we took a look.
It was pretty shitty, and only had two strings, although it did have two halves of what was once one string. I was going to just leave it there, but Steve reminded me of how often you actually get to smash a guitar. Noting the logic, I threw it over my shoulder.
So then the hunt was on to find appropriate means of destroying the guitar. We were on the lookout for a T-money stop. I'm here for two weeks, so it makes sense to get one of the T-money cards, which can be used to pay for subway and bus rides. So that was a good opportunity to let the guitar body get caught by the closing doors as we walked into convenience stores. Then there was the telephone poles that it was smashed into as I excitedly looked around at the big city sights.
We must have done it for about half an hour, and then we finally arrived at Steve's apartment area. We sat for a while tryign to decide the final fate of the guitar, and it ruined the moment. There was too much pressure to make a great scene with it.
We settled on taking it into the front of the building and running with it so that it slammed into things as we ran by.

Seriously, you can't understand how much fun it was. It was unnatural.

CAMP!

I'm in Bucheon right now, for the camp that Aziz set me up with (Aziz is the father of one of Steve's students). The thing started off as a bit of a gong show.
We arrived and met with Aziz right away, and he gave us the material so that we could prepare for our classes. Unfortunately, even he didn't know how to read the scedule we were given. The schedule seemed to show us teaching way too little, and only for two classes, somehow, when there were three of us, and another schedule seemed to conflict with what we were given. We had two books, but none of us could figure out why.
We are spending our time here in Bucheon staying at a "goshiwon". I was a little worried when Aziz described it, but it is awesome! It's about $120 for fifteen days or any number less. That's a good deal, when many other cheap options, like love motels are up to $30 a night! There was a bit of a kerfuffle regarding the cost of the place, because as I've said before, Koreans tend to mix up numbers. They don't think in thousands, they think in ten thousands, so when they translate to English, they tend to mix their numbers up in our system. So when three foreigners ask about the price (expecting a nightly fee) and are told 11000 won, we get a little weird when one of us has to pay 110 000 won for nine days... but we finally worked it out.
We get a tiny little room that is about the size of the bathroom of our apartment in Yeongam. The cot goes under the desk, most of which is covered with a TV. Basically the room is only for sleeping, but that's fine. There's a great PC bang right downstairs, and lots to do otherwise.
When we arrived at work yesterday (one half hour early, to give lots of time for talking about the schedule) we were very much alone. There was no-one there. No students even! Turns out that we were not supposed to be there until ten (an hour and a half after when we thought we had to arrive) so we had a lot of time to kill. It took about half an hour for the schedule to be communicated, because the woman telling us about it made it sound like two of us would be in the same place and no teacher in the other, but we finally got it worked out.
The reason for the second book that no-one could explain was that there was a general and an advanced class. So poor Rodrigo had the advanced class first, with no preparation, because there had been no warning that we would have to prepare from the second book.
So we had six classes yesterday and six classes today. The camp is largely unremarkable, it's just teachers, and many of them are pretty shy. They participate if you tell them to, often immediately, but getting volunteers is like pulling teeth. No complaints when they are "voluntold" though.
Well, that's really all the news. I've got nothing else.

But I'll post more later.