Willpower: 1. Creeping obesity: 0.

I consider it a personal triumph that for the past month and a half I have walked past Paris Baguette, our local bakery, on my walk to and from school but didn't give in until today.

I win!

Incidentally, the chocolate croissant was delicious.

Korean marketing gimmicks are brilliant.

Last night, several of the teachers at my school went out for an wine buffet.  For 15,000 won (which, right now, is $10.78), we drank as much wine as we liked.  It was EXCELLENT.  It was an evening of sparkling conversation, quality people, and copious amounts of the loveyness that red wine always brings.

On our way there, we passed a dancing coffee cup.  It was dancing to the Wonder Girls song "Nobody," which is popular here to an unholy degree.  Not to say that I don't enjoy it, because I totally do.  (I can't help it!  It's INFECTIOUS.)  The video I linked to takes two minutes to get to the actual song, but the backstory is kind of cute, too.

Anyway!  Dancing coffee cup: check.  Naturally, I stopped to take a picture and a video.

The best part is, I didn't know that Jess and Eric were going to start dancing with the coffee cup!  And they didn't know I was taking a video!  Perfect serendipity, no?  And when the coffee cup starts air-humping Eric (I mean, who can blame it?): simply priceless.

Then, we drank some wine!

It was lovely.  If you'd like to see more pictures--and there are lots of great ones--you can see them here.

After that, we went to a noraebang!  A noraebang is an establishment with private karaoke rooms, and it's a staple in Korean entertainment.  You pay 15,000 won (or so) for an hour, choose your songs, and make a fool of yourself in front of your friends.  It's really quite brilliant.

Jess and I did most of the heavy lifting when it came to singing.  Kyle mostly spectated, occasionally rolling around on the floor or pretending to sing (then getting angry when we changed the song).  Fun was had by all!  I'd post a video of Jess and I singing ABBA, but I like Jess too much to do that.

I WILL show you pictures, though!

Strangely wonderful.

A couple weeks ago, I had an interesting adventure.  Carla, the then-newest teacher, and I volunteered to have our pictures taken on a Saturday.  One of the Korean teachers knew someone who was a photographer and wanted a couple foreigners for a day trip photo shoot, so we woke up bright and early to get in a car with strangers for a couple hours.  :c)  The lady who arranged it turned out to be the grandmother of one of my students, the lovely and adorable Lilly.  (Incidentally, Lilly's grandmother escaped from North Korea at the beginning of the Korean War, when she was four years old.  Crazy!)  There were about six people, including the teacher, whose day job involves intelligence with the Seoul police force.  (How cool!)  They took us down to Daejeon, and we visited a military (and police and firefighter) cemetary; it's similar to Arlington Cemetary in the States.

Most of the pictures involved Carla and I standing solemnly in front of graves with or without the teacher, in his dress police uniform, pointing out various things on the graves.  After a couple hours of that, we went to a grassy area and set up a little picnic with milk and cookies, then another one with vitamin C-and-ginseng energy drinks.  We smiled and laughed gaily while the Koreans took pictures.  It was....strange.  We found out halfway through the energy drink picnic that the pictures were for two photo contests; the milk company and energy drink companies were looking for pictures for a new ad campaign, and the prize is a lifetime supply of that product.  (Sweet!)  So Carla and I just might be appearing in an ad...haha.  Unlikely, but who knows!

All the photographers were between the ages of 50ish and 75ish, which provided Carla and I with an interesting and informative experience.  I've been reading a lot about traditional Korean values and ways of thinking, but since all the Koreans we know are either kids or twentysomething teachers who've spent time abroad, I hadn't interacted heavily with anyone who carries the old-school Korean mindset.  This group of photographers, though, finally gave me some exposure to that.  For instance, Carla and I were treated like royalty.  We were honored guests, and the whole day they treated us with deference and respect.  It was a really long day; we woke up at 7:30 and didn't get home until about 8pm, and it was quite exhausting and strange to have our pictures taken and be so formal for that long.  But despite that, it was really edifying to have the opportunity to interact with an older generation of Koreans in such a meaningful way.  They were extremely gracious hosts, and I came away feeling like they considered us to be dear friends.  In fact, Lilly's grandmother called me today and invited us to her house for lunch next Saturday.

The experience was really...well, strange.  Nothing quite compares to being asked to drink things and emote exuberantly while several people clamber around snapping pictures.  It was also quite a mental exercise to stay alert for cues about how to conduct myself with propriety.  But being brought into these people's world with such candidness made the experience really special.  That day was bizarre, fulfilling, taxing, and edifying; in short, it was exactly what I came to Korea to experience.

I PROMISE I'm not bribing them to write this stuff.

I got another complimentary writing assignment today.  I realize that I look completely vain by posting TWO of these on my blog, but they kind of crack me up, so I don't care.  :c)  The assignment was to choose a topic, write a topic sentence, then write detail sentences.

Lori teacher is beautiful. She is beautifull because she have golden hair.  She has preety eyes. She has long hair. I like her very much. She has white skin. She looks likea butterfly.

I must admit that I'm kind of enjoying my boost in perceived attractiveness in Korea.  Because I have very fair skin, light-ish European-shaped eyes, and light-ish hair (well...in comparison to Asian black hair), I'm already at an advantage in the looks department.  I'm not gonna lie: it's a nice little ego boost that a couple strangers I've interacted with--cashiers, et al.--have commented that I am "very peautiful."  Again, I emphasize that 90% of that is because of my European features and coloring...but hey, a compliment is a compliment!  I'll take it.

Luna's laudatory writing assignment brought up one other interesting phenomenon in the life of Lori Teacher.  Several Koreans have mentioned my "blond," "yellow," or "gold" hair!  My hair is red.  If anything, it gets mistaken for brown hair, but definitely not blond.  But in the same way that it's often hard for a Westerner to tell different Asian ethnicities apart, I think it's just harder for Korean eyes to see the differences between blond, brown, and red hair.  And I'm sure it doesn't help that "red" hair looks nothing like a "red" crayon.

I tell you what, though.  I feel somehow vindicated that my extreme paleness is actually an attractive thing in Korea.  Score!  "She looks like a butterfly," "she have golden hair," "she is sweety smell"....hey, I'll take it all.

I am SO butter-up-able.

My second-least-favorite class is really small.  It had six students, but the best student switched hagwons two weeks ago, so now there are just five.  Unlike my first-least-favorite class, who I dislike because they're dreadfully lazy and never do their homework, my second-least-favorite class actually has pleasant students.  But with them, the trouble is that they're very shy, they have very quiet voices, and they're much lower-level than they should be.  I think these kids must have started out in bigger classes where they could shut their mouths and skate by because the teacher never heard how little they were capable of saying.  Of course, now that all the silent low-level kids are in my class together, I'm forced to cheerlead and play charades until they understand.  And once they understand, getting them to speak audibly is a whole other mountain to scale.  It's EXHAUSTING.

The most redeeming part of that class is one tiny, lovely first-grader named Lilly.  Lilly just joined the class in September, and she's the sweetest creature you'll ever meet.  Plus, she's one of those kids who adores school and adores her teachers, so her presence in my class definitely massages my ego.

To wit: Lilly's "first day of school" diary, which I just graded.  The assignment was to write about the first day of school, but Lilly seems not to have understood that.  I don't care, though.  She's a card-carrying member of the Lori Teacher Fan Club, so she can write about whatever she wants.

The First Day of School

I like favorite game.

I like my Lori teacher.

Because I give to special sticker.  [She meant "because she gives me special stickers."]

I like special sticker.

And I am on the strainacontest.  [That was supposed to be "I'm in the speech contest."]

Because the story long.

But I can do it.  ^.^

I am very on the stainacontest.

I am very love Lori teacher.

Because Lori teacher is sweety smell.

good buy ~ ~

- from -

- Lilly -

She followed me home.....can I keep her?

The line between solidarity and jingoism.

I just watched a really interesting documentary produced by Al-Jazeera about everyday life in North Korea.  I applaud Al-Jazeera for taking such an objective approach to the subject--at least, inasmuch as one can be objective.  I thought it was great how the documentary had no narration, but showed only snapshots of people and allowed the viewers to draw their own conclusions.  There's footage from a government boardroom, a factory fighting to make quota despite the frequent nationwide blackouts, and one family's apartment.  The most quietly shocking part, I thought, was in the last couple minutes, where an old man describes American bomb raids on his house and school...and the "kill the American dogs" sentiment he's taught his tiny granddaughter because of it.

Honestly, I can't really blame him.  He's had little to no outside news during the sixty years since the Korean War, and the government has fed him a steady diet of propaganda.  And...well, the Americans did kill his father, brother, and classmates.  In his situation, what would you believe?  And what would you teach your grandchildren?

* * * * * * * * * * *

That documentary got me thinking about a class I had a few weeks ago.  Somehow, Kim Jong Il came up.  A few kids said that he was a really bad man, but one girl was sympathetic to him.  "But he's still Korean," she said.  "He's still one of my people."  Despite his horrible actions, she couldn't completely condemn him; he shared the same blood and the same heritage.

When I told Margaret about that conversation, she made an obvious (and completely cogent) point: "Charles Manson was American, but does that earn him any sympathy in my mind?  Of course not!"  That disparity--between how Margaret thought of her evildoing countryman and how my student thought of hers--highlighted for me a unique quality of the Korean mindset.

In traditional Korea, family is of the utmost importance.  Following from that, loyalty to one's in-group is highly valued and expected; each person sticks by his or her family members, schoolmates, co-workers, and countrymen with all the Confucian fervor he or she can muster.  (I should, of course, offer the very large caveat that Korea is westernizing at a dizzying rate, and that the old Confucian values are followed to greater or lesser degrees from person to person.  What used to be quite universal is now anything but.)

As I discussed with Margaret, my student saw Kim Jong Il similarly to how a mother would see her son who had killed someone.  "I hate what he did," she might say.  "But he's still the son I raised, and I'll still go see him in prison.  You don't turn against your own family, no matter what they do."  From what I've read about the traditional Korean mindset, I have the impression that fellow Koreans are seen as extended family in a way that doesn't exist--or rarely exists--in the American mindset.

Korea has a long history of being conquered, oppressed, and abused.  Surrounded by China and Japan, Koreans call their country a shrimp among whales..."and when the whales play," they aphorize, "the shrimp gets its back broken."  Understandably, the economic and political boom South Korea experienced in the second half of the 20th century brought about a tidal wave of national pride.  As longtime victims who finally gained true autonomy, of course Koreans are proud, and of course they feel solidarity toward each other.

But is there a line?  Is my student's reticence to condemn Kim Jong Il too forgiving?  Granted, she's in third grade; at that age, probably 90% of her political opinions come from her parents.  Perhaps this particular example is not the best discussion point for the appropriateness of ethnic solidarity, given her age and the immaturity of her critical thinking skills.  Still, the broader question has gotten me thinking.

Like so many viewpoints I've experienced in Korea, I find myself questioning whether my distaste for the viewpoint is valid (and supported by ideals such as critical thinking and human equality), or whether my distaste is ethnocentric--and merely a product of my American-enculturated brain encountering something different (yet still "correct" and "valid").  Was my student showing an acceptable level of solidarity, or was she being jingoistic?

What do you all think?  Where's the line?

Adventures in grading, part 4ish.

I wish I had a scanner....I really do.

I was just grading some summaries for my third grade science class--the one I've written about a million times.  And Aiden, who's one of the two smartest (in a class full of smart cookies), had quite a bit of fun with his summary.

He wrote it on tiny paper; it's from a little spiral-bound pocket notebook.  I hate that, because the paper is so easy to lose.  But this time, he had two pieces of paper stapled together, and the top one had a little button drawn on it.  The button said "summary now start," and little arrows informed me that I should press the button to see his summary.  Sure enough, after I pressed the button (....and turned the page), his summary was there waiting for me.

I adore this class, as I've already said a million times.  A lot of it is because they're so high-level, which makes it easier to talk to them, as well as making things like humor possible.  (Joking around with first-graders who have been learning English for a year is a completely futile endeavor.)  But more than that, they actually enjoy being there.  They're friends with each other, and they approach the class like it's a fun part of their day.  That attitude means that they do their homework, they're in a good mood, and they actually get creative and have fun with their homework.

What a spiffy bunch of kids.    :c)

Bathroom demons and televisual bliss.

I've been living in my new apartment for a week now.

The highlights:

--Living with Kyle.  Kyle is awesome.

--Not living with a school administrator.  Kevin was a very courteous roommate, and he was super-helpful with the language and cultural barrier while I adjusted...but being roommates with one of the higher-ups at your job is a bit awkward.  Not that it kept me from being comfortable or anything; I just always had a slight feeling of "I need to be on my best behavior."  It's nice to be completely at ease when I'm at home.

--HAVING A TV WITH MORE THAN TWO CHANNELS.  AND A COUCH IN FRONT OF SAID TV.  Oh my lord...I mean, everyone knows I'm a TVaholic, but I didn't realize the extent of it until I moved into an apartment with, like, 70 channels after a long dry spell.  I've hardly been able to pry myself away.  It is glorious.  More on that in a minute.

The lowlight (only one):

--OUR BATHROOM.  It is......blargh.  Something inside me dies every time I think about it.  First of all, you must understand something about many Korean bathrooms: there is no specific shower or tub area.  There is only a shower head and a drain in the middle of the floor.  You shower in the whole bathroom.  And in the case of our own bathroom, the shower head is attached to the sink, and you turn a little dial to switch the water back and forth between the shower head and the faucet.  (An added bonus to this system: if someone uses the shower and forgets to switch the water back to the faucet, the next person comes along to use the sink and gets blasted in the chest by the shower head.  SWEET!)  Also, like many Korean bathrooms, ours contains the washing machine.  And again, as is the case with most Korean households, the washing machine drains out onto the floor instead of from a pipe directly into the sewer system.

So, to recap: our bathroom has a sink, a toilet, a washing machine, a shower head attached to the sink and hanging on the wall at stomach-height, and a drain in the middle of the floor.  When you take a shower or run the washing machine, the whole floor gets flooded, which means that walking in afterward (to go to the bathroom or hang up your wet laundry) gets your feet all wet, so you track muddy footprints into the rest of the apartment.  We have some designated bathroom flip-flops to help with the situation, but it's still disgusting.  And I'm someone with a high tolerance for filth.  Oh--and the height of the shower head holster-thingy means that you always have to hold the shower head while you're taking a shower.  Awesome!

Despite all the obnoxious qualities I've already mentioned, the worst one is still unspoken.

Y'all.  There's something screwy with the way our drain pipe is set up; Kyle says there's no S-curve (or whatever those things are called).  Because of that, the stank sewer gas below floats up into our bathroom, and there is a permanent stench.  It's hoooorrible.  Our two lines of defense against the smell are both flawed; we leave the window open--which makes the bathroom cold in the morning when you want to take a shower--and we leave the door closed--which means you never know for sure if someone is in there.  I know I'm being all Whiny McWhinypants about this, but if you had to use a similarly crappy bathroom, I'm sure you'd be cranky too.    :c)

This concludes my bathroom-related whining.  But I'm not finished!  The aforementioned televisual bliss must be shared!

Because I am feeling particularly list-y today, here is a rundown of the wonders I have discovered on Korean TV in the past three days.  All of them filled me with glee.  I may have squealed once or twice.  (Okay....maybe thrice.)

--CSI: Miami (this just in: David Caruso is still a terrible actor)

--Law & Order (YES YES YES YES.  Even though it's usually my least-favorite L&O flavor: the one with the dude from Sex and the City.  You know the one.)

--Mythbusters

--the movie Two Weeks Notice (one of my all-time favorites!)

--a Korean TV show named Franceska, whose titular character is disturbingly Morticia Addams-like and is involved in a complicated web of unrequited love (also involving her fake-husband, her daughter, and a schizophrenic pop star).  Oh, and she happens to be a vampire.  Of course.

--a commercial that informed me that BILLY JOEL WILL BE PLAYING IN SEOUL ON NOVEMBER 15TH.  OH MY LORD OH MY LORD OH MY LORD.  And may I repeat: OH.  MY.  LORD.

--America's Next Top Model!!!!  (Thankfully, no marathons; I love me some ANTM marathons, but they have swallowed entire weekends of my life.)

--The Office.  DUBBED OVER IN KOREAN.  When I stumbled upon that last night, I sprinted across the apartment, grabbed my laptop, frantically skyped Margaret (who, thank goodness, was online), and showed her about 5 minutes' worth with my webcam.  It was amazing.  And hilarious.  And a testimony to why best friends exist (clearly, it's so that you have someone to watch crazy TV with over a webcam).

 

My own little economic crisis.

I just read a friend's facebook status, and it mentioned the plummeting value of the Korean won.  Curious, I looked up the exchange rate....and received the first of many, many pieces of bad news.

When I left for Korea less than three months ago, one dollar was worth 1008 won.  Today, one dollar is worth 1269 won.  My first reaction upon reading this was frustration that the easy "lop off three zeroes and stick a dollar sign on it" price conversion no longer worked.  ("So, this movie ticket is 7,500 won.  That's....not $7.50 anymore.  It's....um.  Less than that.  Or more.  Definitely either less or more than $7.50.")

My second thought ran to my salary.  "Hey self," I said to myself, "we should pull out some math wizardry--cross-multiplying and solving for x, what-whaaaat!--and figure out how much our salary has changed.  In fact, just out of curiosity, let's see how much our current salary is worth today as compared to one year ago."  And Y'ALL.  I now make SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS AND THREE CENTS LESS EVERY MONTH THAN I WOULD HAVE MADE ONE YEAR AGO TODAY.  LET ME REPEAT: $600.03 LESS EVVVVERY MOOOOONTH.  THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CAPS LOCK KEYS IN THE WORLD TO CONVEY MY SHOCK AND DISMAY.

My poor, poor salary.  And here I'd been, all "ha HA, you dastardly Wall Street crash, you!  You can't get me over here in Korea!  Not too badly, anyway!  Nanny nanny boo boo!"  Meanwhile, the won was in the throes of sympathy pains, determined to suffer just as much as its American buddy.  Such compassion it has!  It's inspiring, really.  Someone buy the rights to that movie, STAT.

Would you like a visual aid?  No problem!  I am nothing if not accommodating.  (Also: aid-y.)

This lil ski slope represents the value of the won against the dollar over the past four months.  Just look at it, soaring to new heights!  Being all it can be!  Climbing Ev'ry Mountain! [Incidentally: why did the writers of The Sound of Music feel the need to apostrophize the word "every"?  It was already two syllables!  No apostrophe necessary!  Anyway.]

Even compared to the day I left for Korea--and again, that was less than three months ago--my salary is now worth $405.79 less each month.

Clearly, the won has been listening to far too much Tom Petty lately.

A resourceful little bugger.

Sorry for all the "kids say the darndest things" grading-related posts lately, but....well, grading has kind of been my life.  :c)  That said, here's another one.

In one of my classes, where the kids are in first grade, I've been having them write sentences with the vocabulary words for homework.  I just got to Andy's sentences, and I have a slight hunch he's been using an English phrasebook or something for help.  What do you think?

false:  Be false in word and deed.

welcome: I welcome your criticism.

hero: No man is a hero to his valet.

I mean, he TOTALLY could have come up with those sentences on his own!  Maybe I'm just not giving him enough credit....       :c)

A passel of telescope designers

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I adore my third-grade science class.  They're my highest-level class, and they're always full of energy and giggly and fun.  Here are a couple of their writing assignments; they're learning about telescopes, so their assignment was to draw and describe a telescope of the future.  (I wish I could show you their drawings too....they're awesome.)

My Future Telescope

by Aiden

My future telescope is the "Good magical Super Duper Telescope."  It is 60 centimeters long if you stretch it and 30 centimeters if you fold it.  It has a sponge inside that cleans the monicules ["molecules"] on the screen so we can see space very well like the Hubble Space Telescope.  The sponge's name is the "slave sponge".  Also, there is a sword's blade inside.  When there is an enemy, you had dig, you need to cut something, etc, you can press the {SWORD} button, the sharp blades comes out.  The last thing is, there is a monitor and some buttons.  There are the letters, numburs, and the arrow buttons.  You can also see the {Sword} button.  At the monitor, you can see the sky and it tells you the constellations and the imformation of the stars, meteors, planets, moons, etc.

My Future Telescope

by Bill

My future telescope's name will be A.F.S.I.T (Alien Finder Star Information Telescope).  A.F.S.I.T is a home telescope that has a little radio telescope in top of it and one on the leg.  This telescope has lazer blasters.  The lazer goes to space and hits a star.  Then the lazer comes back to the telescope with information.  The speaker tells the information, and you can see the star the lazer bounced off.  You could look at the star 1~3 minutes.  There are three buttons that says (1) (2) (3).  If you press a button, you can see the star the lazer bounced off for that much minutes.  Also, there is a reflector.  This reflects lazer when lazer hits the wrong place.  In one second, lazer moves 3 trillion miles.  There are three flashlights on A.F.S.I.T.  You can take these flashlights out.

My Future Telescope

by Jane

This is a telescope that can do 5 thing!  I will tell the 5 things all.  The (1) thing is that we can see the star very closely and we can see the space!  We can look at the sun closely.  The (2) good thing is that we have to send telescope and settlelight's to the space but it cost a lot and with a spacecraft.  The telescope makes the settlelights and the telescopes into the space.  When they go to the space they get pictures some mystery or speical thing and Some creature, they get the picture or take it to Earth.  And other is (3)!

The (3) good thing is cool!  It makes a light go to the planet and make the light come back it's the same thing as number (2)!

Last, the (4) is a little bit impossible because the telescope get's bigger and bigger gets to the space or a planet and put a little scientist robot and make it study.

I freaking love these kids.

Psychology...set to MUSIC. Ooooooh.

One of my lovely TIP students from last summer (hi, Mikayla!) sent me a facebook message with a link a few days ago.  I was in the middle of my end-of-the-month report-card-writing syllabus-making stress-inducing sleep-depriving forgetting-to-eating stupor, so I didn't get a chance to watching it until now.  (Okay, granted...I'm not really out of the aforementioned stupor just yet, but at least I slept last night!  Woohoo!)

Anyhoodle, I needed a break just now, so I finally watched the video she sent me.  And Y'ALL.  It's a SONG about PSYCHOLOGY.  Well, okay...not the whole discipline.  (That'd be a crazypants-long song....and probably in the frenetic montage style of "We Didn't Start the Fire."  [Note to self: WRITE THAT SONG.])  But it was about my favorite classic psychology experiment, the Milgram obedience experiment from 1961.  In the song, Dar Williams writes from the point of view of one of the subjects, who followed orders and inflicted pain (or so they thought) on other subjects.  If you're interested, I'd recommend checking out the previous links first, then listening to the song (and here are the lyrics).

It's a pretty awesome find if you're a total psychology dork.  (And even if you're not, I think it'd still be pretty compelling.)  Enjoy!