Teacher's pet or domestic slave?

Dear, sweet Andy--one of the kids in my Monday/Wednesday/Friday first grade class--once wrote his weekly "picture diary" about helping his mom clear the table and wash dishes after dinner.  I told him it was really nice of him to help out his mom like that.

That was about two months ago.  Since then, all of Andy's picture diaries have involved manual labor and the sheer glee it brings him.  I figure either he's kissing up to me because of my erstwhile praise....or he's a modern-day Cinderella.  Or Cinderfeller.

Picture Diary

Andy,   12/12/08

After I finished my homework I fold the laundry.  I fold the towel, underwear and panties.  It was very fun.

No laundry-folding until you finish your homework, and I MEAN IT!

Stupid snot-faced kids.

I forget if I mentioned this on my blog, but a couple months ago my boss was really riding me for about three or four weeks.  One of my classes happened to have a high concentration of parents who Really Care A Lot About Their Children's Supplementary English Education....and observed classes and commented ALL the time.  I only started teaching these wee-wahs in September, but apparently they've nitpicked every teacher they've had at my school, asking for little tweaks and complaining about curriculum changes until the counselor--the Korean who serves as an ambassador between the teachers and parents--quits.  Seriously, there have been three or four counselors who have quit in recent months, and they've all had this one class.  The kids are totally fine; it's just the parents who are.....involved.  Ahem.

Anyway, for a while there my boss was talking to me every single day about little things she wanted me to change.  She started observing my classes, requesting changes in my syllabi, and all that.  It all ended okay; after a while, she was satisfied and moved on to some other poor teacher.  She has a habit of doing this; she'll focus on one foreign teacher at a time, heap criticism on them until they're drowning, and then move on.  The majority of her advice and requests are legitimate and helpful; it's just the quantity and frequency--and often, the style of delivery--that can make being in her hotseat so unpleasant.  Poor Roommate Kyle is currently in the hotseat.  I make him lots of cups of sympathy tea when we get home.

Anyway, the heat is off of me for now, and I haven't heard a peep from the parents of this one class in weeks.  Woohoo!  I'm writing about them now because I just graded a spelling and vocabulary test I gave them.  For being in first grade, they're pretty advanced in their English ability.  They're certainly nowhere close to native speakers, but they do pretty well.  Plus, they actually do their homework.  I can't tell you how much easier that makes my job.

For their weekly spelling-and-vocab tests, they have twenty words they have to spell, and they have to match definitions with eight of those words.  Plus, I'm a complete stickler for capitalization and punctuation; if there's a dash missing or a lowercase letter where there should be an uppercase letter, I take off half a point.  On this particular test, they had words like leather, brighter, Indian reservation, the Rocky Mountains, and--the piece de resistance--the Mississippi River.  (It was mentioned in one of our textbooks.)

And do you know what?  Out of seven first-graders, ONE missed that word.  She forgot one of the "iss"es.  The rest of them nailed it--capitalization and all.  In fact, with two bonus words, my little rockstars had an average grade of 100.

WHO ARE THESE MUTANT CHILDREN???

New pictures (with stories!) on facebook!

Go look!  You don't need to have a facebook account.

BILLY JOEL CONCERT AAAAAH!!!!!!!

On Saturday, I went to see Billy Joel in Seoul.  It was EPIC.  And I really should type out the whole story for y'all, but honestly, I don't feel like it.  Sorry!  HOWEVER, I put up pictures on facebook and captioned them copiously, so you should check out that album.  You can look at the pictures even if you don't have a facebook account.  I hope you'll go check them out!  It truly was an amazing experience, and I have some really fun pictures from it.

Enjoy!

Adventures in Grading: part epic punishment.

Picture Diary

by Polly

Today my family sat on the sofa.  We watched on TV.  It was very fun.  I was looking for it many hours.  I watched and watched.  Then my father came with my younger brother.  I said that I had to watch on TV.  My mother was angry to me.  "Polly, you must be nice to your father!"  I was so scared.  I had to go out of the house.  I walked slowly outside.  Tac... Tac... Tac...  I cried and thought, 'I don't know how to do.'  2 minutes went by.  I jumped 5 times on the ground.  My nose was cold, and my ears were cold too.  I wanted to go in.  Soon the door was opened and my mother said that I could come in to the house.  I was so sad in that time.

Sympathy for Korea's high school seniors.

Today is the college entrance exam.  High school seniors all around the country take this exam, which determines which college they will get into, which determines what jobs they'll get, which determines their quality of life for the next....oh, seventy years.  Korea puts a LOT of stock in credentials, and this test is one of the most pivotal things that a Korean citizen does in his or her entire life.

An excellent post on Roboseyo details the exam and its impact on society.  There's also an embedded video by SeoulGlow, wherein Michael Hurt, a celebrity blogger in Seoul, interviews high schoolers about their feelings on the exam.  The post and the video are quite compelling; I hope you'll take a look and let me know what you think in the comments.

Korea is trying to kill me.

A few weeks ago I had pinkeye.  A little over a week ago I caught a cold that made me hoarse and hack-y and snotty, and I'm STILL coughing so much at night that it keeps me awake for an hour.  Then, on Friday, I ate some pizza at Costco and got a wicked case of food poisoning.  I'll spare you the details, except to say that my body turned itself inside out trying to get rid of whatever was in that pizza.  I spent almost the whole weekend shuttling back and forth between the couch and the bathroom.

I'm pretty sure Korea's trying to kill me.

It's a good thing my immune system is so committed to its job, because I have Big Things coming up.  Well, one Big Thing in particular: BILLY JOEL.  I'm going to a Billy Joel concert (in Seoul!!!) on Saturday!  I forget how much I've told you all about that whole situation, so in case I'm being redundant, here's the short(ish) summary.

1)  Tickets were kind of expensive.

2)  I couldn't find anyone who liked Billy Joel enough to pay 88,000 won for the cheap seats.

3)  I did a search for people who like Billy Joel on facebook.

4)  I sent a bunch of people messages, asking if they were interested in going to the concert.

5)  Several of them replied ecstatically and wired me 88,000 won.

6)  I now hold tickets for me and 12 strangers to go see Billy Joel on Saturday.

How awesome is that???  It's a bit of a social experiment; I hope these people turn out to be as cool as they seem from their facebook messages.    :c)

Adventures in Grading, part Creep-tastic

Picture Diary

by Polly

Today I washed my mother's feet.First I'd like to wash my younger brother's feet, but my mom said "Polly, please wash my feet."  I didn't want to do it but I did it.  My mother's feet feet were beautiful but too big.  I want to have big and beautiful feet as my mother.  I will drink milk and do exercise to be like my mother's feet.  I want to go to the park after my feet are changed.I also want to swim in the river after my feet are big!

What the poo?!  I showed this to Kyle, who was seriously disturbed by it.  I pointed out that this was probably part of a foot-washing ceremony at church, but then Kyle noted that the picture that goes with the journal is definitely of a bathroom, complete with toothbrushes and a shower.  So Polly indeed seems to have been required to wash her mother and brother's feet.  But hey....if she's lucky, at least she'll end up with giant flipper feet when she's grown up!

....?!?!

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!

Kim Jong Il is the new Chuck Norris.

Check out this AWESOME (and historical!) video from North Korea.

Of course, they left out the part about how the tsunami a couple years ago was caused by Kim Jong Il farting and sneezing at the same time.  (It's a bit of an embarrassment to the Dear Leader.)

Ironic toilet paper.

I've never been able to find paper towels in Korea.  Not anywhere--and I've looked.  Instead, Koreans use toilet paper (well....they call it "tissue") for everything: as toilet paper (duh), as napkins, as paper towels...everything.  In our bathrooms at school, there's even a big roll of toilet paper for you to dry your hands with.  And that works REALLY well, of course...as long as you don't mind little bits of wet toilet paper clinging to your hands.

Yesterday, we were running out of toilet paper in the apartment.  I mean, we were getting REALLY close to the end of the last roll.  I'd been avoiding buying it because I bought the last pack, but I didn't want to be caught without toilet paper, so I went out and bought some.  And a couple hours later, the next time nature called, I opened my new pack of toilet paper--AND IT WAS PAPER TOWELS.  They were even the short, half-sheet kind!  My favorite!

Of COURSE: when I finally find paper towels in Korea, what I really want is toilet paper.  Figures.

Adventures in Grading, part....3? 4?

Around school these days, the hulking, insidious figure of the Kangnam Speech Contest is looming before us.  Every student has to prepare something: the most upper-level students will write essays, the babiest of the babies will answer interview questions and talk about their current storybook, and there are various gradations in between.  When I wrote my September syllabi, I didn't know the speech contest was imminent, so the last week or so has been a super-fun (.....) omelet of rearranged schedules and overstuffed class periods.

My third-grade science class, which is one of my favorites, prepared the first part of their speeches and turned them in to me on Friday.  I was just grading one of them--Christopher's--when I had a laugh-out-loud grading moment.  I've reproduced it exactly; homeboy did a bang-up job.  I'm not gonna tell you which part made me laugh, though; see if you can guess.   ;)

Hello, my name is [redacted, yo].  my English name is Christopher.  I am in third grade.  I have been studying English for four years.  I went to the US with my family.  [ed. note: I just found out--like, a week ago--that he lived in Chapel Hill last year.  An hour and a half from me!  Crazy!  Anyway...onward.]  I learned English a lot there and made American friends.

My hobby is reading books.  I always read books when it is rest time.  One of my favorite book is Series of unfortunate events by Lemony Snicket.I like it because it is adventurous, risky and odd.  If you want to be unfortunate, read this book but you will have fun.

Time: so noted.

            Every year since I was about 13 or so, I've been marking three particular days in my mind.  It's become a bit of a private ritual for me, and it helps me perceive a bit of perspective and rhythm in the passing of time.  On each of those days, I get a bit reflective and appreciative.  For me, the rest of the year pivots around those three anchors; they keep me mindful and re-engage me in the meta-experience of life.

* * * Spring * * *

            The first of those special days usually falls in late February--at least, it does in Atlanta: it's the first day the daffodils bloom.  I've adored daffodils since I was a little kid, and for several very good reasons.  I love that they're the very first vestige of spring.  The weather begins to warm, but you don't think about it.  It seems like just another temperature fluctuation, and you don't recognize the weather's springward vector.  Then one day you leave the house, and WHAM--it's the daffodils' opening day!  That moment, for me, feels like an army of four-year-olds rushing at me and hugging my knees in a fit of rapturous abandon.  GORGEOUS.

            Some years, I happen to notice the buds poking out of the ground a few days before the big moment.  In some ways, it disappoints me; it takes away some of the magic of the big reveal.  But at the same time, it provides me with a different kind of warm-and-fuzziness.  It's like sitting in the audience five minutes before the lights go down and catching a glimpse of the little kids you've come to see stealing nervous glances around the side of the curtain.  When the buds reveal themselves to me prematurely, I feel like I've been made privy to a thrilling secret by an excited little kid who--let's face it--didn't have a prayer of keeping the secret much longer anyway.  It charms me to the core.

            Whether or not the buds spoil the surprise, the first day the daffodils bloom is absolutely magical to me.  And the very best part is that there are more of them every year!  You plant some bulbs once, and every successive year, even more beatific little cups-and-saucers appear, as if ready for a tea party.  They require no maintenance; they're just thrilled to show up to work each spring, and they'll stand there grinning and waving at you for weeks.  Supposedly that proverb about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb came from the locations of Leo and Aries at that time of year, but I don't care.  In my mind, the proverbial March lion has an exuberant six-pointed mane and a trumpeted orange snout.

            Good LORD, how I love daffodils.

* * * Summer * * *

            The second day every year that stands out for me is the first day I see fireflies.  Where I come from, those drunken little lanterns start stumbling around on Mother's Day, plus or minus a week, and they too signal the turning of the season.  But they also ride in on the breeze of another equally magical change: twilight.  Have you ever noticed that?  You never see the first fireflies of the season at night; it's always at twilight.  At that time of year, the weather has been warmish for a couple weeks, but you haven't gotten to enjoy most of the best parts of the summer.  It's not hot enough to swim yet, the school year is still in its stressful final throes, and vacation seems like a privilege that--for drones like you--exists only in fantasies.  But oooh, those summer evenings, with their zaftig twilight.

            The planet plods steadily along its orbit, and by the time the fireflies have fully slept off last year's hangover, the vernal equinox is six weeks in our past.  Six weeks!  Somehow, daylight has been trumping darkness for six weeks already; maybe it's just been too rainy for us to notice.  But sure enough, as the earth chaînés toward the summer solstice, the days grow longer, and a curious thing befalls us.  Well...it befalls me, at least.  And it never fails.

            Sometime during the winter, the sunset becomes my productivity Zeitgeber.  Every day, I'll spend the late afternoon slacking off...but inevitably, my dull-as-a-dishrag supervisor, sunset, comes sniffing around my cubicle.  And begrudgingly, like most disgruntled employees, I decide that gainful employment (well...in my case, it's education) is something I probably ought to hang onto.  So I heave a pained sigh and resign myself to my work.  Such is my pattern all winter.

            But long about March, my supervisor-slash-slavedriver begins to make his rounds a little bit later every day.  Accordingly, I enjoy a couple more minutes of procrastination each day before darkness and his shrewish wife, cold, show up to ruin my fun.  But soon enough, there comes a day when I notice that--how did that happen??--suddenly it's 8pm, and I haven't even thought about that paper due tomorrow.  Whoopsie!  While I wasn't paying attention, my dull supervisor has morphed into a cranky toddler.  And that toddler...well.  Her bedtime is An Event.  The ritual begins later every night, and it it lasts longer, too.

            By the time we flip the calendar page to May, sunset has become its very own segment of the day.  No longer a discrete barrier between daylight and darkness, sunset is now best characterized by the romantic (and completely diva-licious) term twilight.  We've taken three-quarters of a perisolar journey since summer, and we've forgotten just how lovely twilight can be.  To wit: inspired by the mild temperature and pleasant heaviness of the air when they arrive home from work, people do silly, antiquated things like eating dinner on their porches (gasp!) and taking evening walks with their families (egad!!).  It's then--somewhere near the halfway point between equinox and solstice--when the cold and the day-swallowing darkness finally admit their defeat and allow themselves to be stuffed into trunks in the attic.  For a few months, anyway.  The only thing is, when the last chill is over and we're in the home stretch toward summer, I never seem to notice it.

            But you know who does notice it, of course.

            The fireflies.

            That's why the first fireflies of the year thrill me like they do.  For the most part, all the things that make spring spring and summer summer bleed into each other so seamlessly that I don't even perceive the balance shift.  But when those long-dormant fireflies rub their eyes, smack their sleep-sticky lips, and lift drowsily into the air--right then is when the passage of time becomes salient.  That's when summer becomes imminent.

            When the fireflies first take to the air, most of the festivities that make summer so deliriously delicious are still a few weeks off.  "But"--with a nod to a felicitous treatise by history's greatest philosophers, Olsson and Zuko--"oh, those summer nights."  In most people's schemas of "summer," the most prominent characteristics are probably the highly photographable ones: vacations, fireworks, pool parties, and so on.  But whence cometh the joie de vivre required to finance such photogenic frolicking?

            I contend that it comes from lovely, syrupy summer twilight.  And lest we be too busy or stressed or cranky to notice the glamorous yearly makeover of twilight, there are whole herds of arthropods with glowing butts who are there to herald it.  How painfully wonderful is that?

* * * Fall * * *

            My third anchor day--the third day each year when the passage of time is pungently salient to me--happens in late September.  September might be my very favorite month, as it's saturated with all kinds of good things: playgrounds, birthday parties, fresh starts, nostalgic endings, bouquets of freshly-sharpened pencils.  But my favorite thing about September is its sense of promise and anticipation.  Nineteen years as a professional student have molded my life into a permanent circannual rhythm that begins when the school year begins; consequently, the ninth month feels much more like the first month than the first month does.  From my current perch, September 28th, I can see for miles ahead of me.  There's something about the limitlessness of that future that makes me overflow with contentment.  You know what I'm talking about...that sitting on the front porch, glass of lemonade, watching the sunset kind of contentment.

            September holds all kinds of promise, and that's enticing enough.  But beyond that, it also happens to straddle my two favorite seasons.  If I had my way, every month would begin in the summer and end in the fall; it's really quite a perfect arrangement, don't you think?  And that exact moment when summer reclines into fall, as I'm sure you've guessed, is my third little anchor.

            It's probably the smell of rotting leaves; I don't know for sure.  I suppose it's a bit macabre that the smell of death fills me with such bliss.  But whatever the actual molecule is, the first time it alights on my nose's chemoreceptors, I nearly pee my pants with excitement.  The smell of fall!  The smell of swingsets and trick-or-treating and fireplaces and pumpkin pie and back-to-school sales!  That smell is like the soundtrack (smelltrack?) to my favorite movie: it's the plot, the characters, and the setting that I fell in love with, but it's been boiled down and concentrated until it's so potent that the tiniest hint is all I need (and, under the right circumstances, it's almost all I can bear).  It's so potent that for a split second, it commands all my attention.  Every year there's a particular day when it first smells like fall, yet every year, the experience almost knocks me off my feet.  For me, that first fall smell--and the crisp wind that brings it--are the perfect harbingers of fall and its attendant excitement.

            So far this year, two of my three time fulcrums have come and gone. I don't know if fall in Seoul will have the same smell to it--there are far fewer trees here than anywhere else I've lived, and they're of different varieties--but I'm anxious to find out.
            Two days ago, we had the first chilly morning since I've been here, and it arrived quite suddenly. It was one of those mornings where you open your front door, say "good lord!" and retreat inside for a costume change. (Well...that's hyperbole. But it was quite surprising nonetheless.) And today, I spent the remarkably beautiful afternoon outside grading papers...but by the time the sun set, my beflip-flopped toes and holey-jeans-clad legs were screaming at me to go inside already. Y'all, it was COLD! I hope that familiar smell of fall comes to Seoul, and I hope it comes soon. There's a swingset I've had my eye on for weeks, and decaying foliage filling my nose would provide the perfect circumstances for trying it out.

* * * Winter * * *

            In case you were wondering, there is no prototypical moment that I mark for winter.  The reason is probably a combination of the insidiousness of its onset and, of course, its utter lack of redeeming qualities. (Another potential reason: my vitriolic hatred of winter and its stupid, stupid cold weather. That might be related...)

* * * * * *

            Time is inevitable and adamant in its progress, of course.  (Bob Dylan told me so.)  I can't fully understand the scale of time, let alone control it.  But despite that, three times a year, I'm blindsided by a wonderful opportunity: the opportunity to be boosted out of my myopic vantage point and glimpse the passage of time on a grander scale.

            The first day the daffodils bloom, the first day I see fireflies, and the first day it smells like fall have become little treasures I collect each year.  Those particular days are sentimental for me, but I don't think their selection is entirely idiosyncratic.  Change is acutely tangible on those three days.  They lie tangent to the march of time.

            I gain a bit of perspective on those three days, and that perspective becomes richer with each additional year that I undertake this little mind exercise.  Being mindful of those days somehow makes me feel centered.  It invites me to pause for a minute and just observe...observe and connect.  And that mindfulness has taught me to be more appreciative of the beautiful little moments that bloom in the cracks of daily life.  

My lovely walk to school

I'm moving this weekend...hopefully.  I've got syllabi and report cards to write (I LOVE the end of the month!  PSYCH), plus various other things to do, so I may not have time to move until this coming week.  But no matter when I get around to it, I'll soon be leaving my temporary apartment and settling into my new place.  Woohoo!

I'm looking forward to living with Kyle; we're two peas in the same dorky pod.  I've written about him before...he's the one whose nerdiness is strikingly similar to my own nerdiness.  And it'll be nice to be settled in for the year so I can start putting up pictures on the walls and generally domesticating my living space.  That said, I'll also miss my current apartment.  It's a .3-mile walk to school (as opposed to maybe .6 miles--OH THE HUMANITY), but the biggest reason involves the things I see on my walk to and from school everyday.

About two-thirds of my walk involves winding my way through my complex of high-rise apartment buildings.  Due to the amount of foot traffic, people set up booths and sell things almost every day.  I've seen furniture, produce, socks (a whole booth full of them!), shoes, bedding, raw seafood, clothes, and cooked meals.  As I mentioned recently, it's really quite delightful to step out of my building and find out what's for sale today.

Since I'm moving soon, I realized that I needed to take a video soon of the daily mini-market.  I'd been contemplating how or whether to capture it, since I didn't want to be that rude person who walks by video-taping you.  As a trade-off between that concern and wanting to share that lovely slice of morning with you all, I took a short video with my camera held near my belly-button as I walked.  It's a bit shaky and poorly-aimed, but I hope you can get the idea.  There's more market-ness further along, but I just got the first part.

Enjoy!  :c)

I'm going to Estonia in my mind....

I woke up from quite a vivid dream this morning.  I don't often remember my dreams, so remembering it at all was an event in and of itself...but oooh, there was so much more to it!  In my dream, I had been on my way somewhere (I can't remember if I was flying or taking a train or what), and I woke up and was in this old raggedy city built onto a hill.  I thought "I THINK I was going to Estonia....right?  This must be Estonia.  I think.  Or maybe Bulgaria?  But I think Estonia."

So I'm wandering around the street, trying to figure out where I am and what I should do next.  And I run into this other native English-speaker who's talking really loudly (as native English-speakers in foreign countries are wont to do) and he says he'll help me out.  I don't actually remember what we talked about, but there was this apartment thing with gold steps (!) across the street, and we were sitting on a little covered walkway in front of a building next to some giant kettle thing.  Then this lady came over holding a giant smoldering coal in some tongs, and she reached over me with it (eek!) and stuck it into a lantern hanging on the wall.  She went around the rest of the street lighting the lanterns that same way.

A little bit later, we got up (for reasons I can't remember) and started walking down the street and down the hill.  And we passed ANOTHER house with gold steps!  I'd thought that the first one must belong to the prime minister or something, but apparently the occasional person in Estonia-or-maybe-Bulgaria just happens to have gold steps.  And there was a wooden door to the alcove/porch thing of the house, and everyone who passed knocked a couple times on the door.  Oh--and all of us were walking down the hill, by the way.  So we get to the end of the street and there's a set of stairs, and we go down those...and it turns out we're going down to the sea!  Aah...that explains the steep hill.  On the second-to-last step, the letters ESTONIA are painted in white.  So that solves that mystery!  Thanks, totally unnecessary painted step!

Then, someone said that we all needed to wade across this shallow cove to the opposite shore, although I'm not sure why.  And it was cold, yo!  And I was wearing sneakers, which were going to get all wet!  But I did it, and when I was almost all the way across there was a sudden drop-off, and I was in up to my chest.  My giant orange purse had been unzipped, and all my stuff dumped out of it into the murky water--aack!  But my native English-speaker friend helped me collect the purse, most of the contents of which were still inside, and we spread it out on a rock to see if it was all there.  My passport was there (although I'm a safety queen and always wear a money belt...unless I'm dreaming, apparently), as was my digital camera (still works!) and my laptop (also still works--but again, why the poo was I carrying it in my purse in a foreign country?!)  But my wallet was missing!  OH NO!  Plus, my new friend said that he didn't see my "very favorite possession in the world," which I had apparently showed him earlier, though I couldn't remember what it was.  So I started frantically searching the cold, murky water for my wallet and my very favorite possession....and then I woke up!

WHAT THE POO?

(Incidentally, I have heard positively glowing reviews of Estonia from several friends who went there a few years ago.  It's supposed to be extremely friendly, extremely beautiful, and extremely cheap to travel in.  Yet in my dream, it was extremely gray, extremely depressing, and extremely foreign.  Go figure.)

Star Wars Episode III: Backstroke of the West

I came across a story about some deliciously bad subtitles on a Chinese pirated DVD and I just HAD to pass it along to you.

People who will especially love it:

--fans of Engrish

--fans of Star Wars

--fans of anything amusing

People who will not love it:

--people who cannot read

--people who don't speak English

--sourpusses

Please click accordingly.   :c)

So you want to teach English in Korea?

A friend of a friend e-mailed me this morning to ask about teaching in Korea.  She's thinking about coming here and was asking for my expertise.  (And o, how extensive that expertise is!  For I have spent two whole months here.  I pretty much know everything there is to know about this place.  Except, you know, the language.)

Anyway!  I thought it might be useful to post my reply to her on my blog.  When I was researching Korea and TEFL, I happened upon several blogs that had useful information.  So for anyone who happens to...um...happen upon my blog in their quest for knowledge, I thought I might offer up a little advice.  Plus, it might be interesting to my loyal readers back home to know how my thoughts about this job market are running these days.  Or not.  But maybe!  Or maybe not.  We'll see.

For the purposes of Google searches, I shall now say many meaningless things that might make this entry more find-able for someone who could use it: teaching English in Korea, what to pack for Korea, things to bring with you to Korea, TEFL in Korea, TESL in Korea, advice on living in Seoul, teaching abroad, thinking about teaching abroad, teaching ESL in Korea, teaching EFL in Korea.  Ok, there...done!

Here's the e-mail.  Enjoy!  Or maybe don't.     :c)

Hi!

How exciting that you’re looking into coming to Korea!  It is quite an interesting place, for sure.  I have a lot of work to do this morning before I teach (it’s 10:19am right now), but I wanted to at least give you a quick reply while I was thinking about it.  I’d be more than happy to have a longer conversation(s) with you about it, though. 

Some thoughts.....


     My reasons for coming here were sort of similar to yours.  I’d studied abroad (in Germany) and loved it, so I wanted to travel again on a grand scale.  Teaching English is a good way to finance that, and Korea has lots and lots of jobs with good pay and pretty decent benefits.  Plus, I’d also never been to Asia, so Korea fit my dual criteria of “kind of far-flung and different” yet “unlikely to force me to dodge bullets on a daily basis or import basic food supplies from the States.”  That was the initial attraction, but once I put my ear to the ground about Korea, I started learning about how it’s in such an interesting position right now.  It’s hugely modern in a lot of ways—home internet access, global business, robot-like cell phones and skyscrapers are all ubiquitous—but it’s also a very, very old culture (the second-oldest continuous civilization on earth, in fact), so those two faces of Korea often intersect in strange and interesting ways.  For instance, business relationships are highly Confucian-based, with lots of formality and hierarchy and deference, but the pop culture is really really sugary and seizure-inducing.  Korea’s only existed as a democracy for about 15 years, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds...but there are also some not-so-awesome vestiges of the past.  Like extreme national pride bordering on jingoism and an ugly amount of racism.  (I wrote a blog entry about that.)  So at times I adore Korea, at times it frustrates me, and at times it’s normal and comfortable...but it’s always interesting and edifying.

     A couple “before you come” ideas.  There are some great books out there that I’d recommend, especially “Learning to Think Korean” by L. Robert Kohls.  I’m actually partway through it right now, and it’s been fascinating and extremely useful to me.  He talks about the way Koreans think, contrasts that with the way Americans think, and recommends ways of conducting yourself (particularly in a business situation) that will give you the most success in Korea.  The insights are absolutely invaluable.  It was published in 2001, and much of the author’s experience with Korea is from several decades ago, so I sometimes get a sense that modern Koreans have traveled quite a bit further on the Western trajectory than he describes them, but the insights are useful nonetheless.  (I’m also working with lots of people who have studied or lived abroad, so that probably gives me a skewed sense of how Westernized the average Korean is.)  A couple other indispensable resources for me were some podcasts.  (If you don’t listen to podcasts now, they’re easy to get and free; just search for them in iTunes.  You can listen on your computer or on an iPod.)  I listened to Seoul Survivors for about a year before I came; it’s discontinued now, but it was a great podcast where two or three English teachers in Seoul would get together and chat about teaching, living in Korea, and the Koreans.  It was frequently funny and always useful.  Now, two of the Seoul Survivors alumni are doing a podcast called (creatively) Seoul Podcast; I haven’t listened to that one much, but it seems to be less teaching-focused and more life-in-Korea-focused.  I’d highly recommend both of them; they’re great (and free!) sources of information on Korea as it stands right now—and it’s truly a moving target, so any book more than a few years old will be at least a bit out of date.  Oh, and speaking of which....don’t spend too much time on Dave’s ESL Café (known as “Dave’s Negative Circle-jerk” by one of the costs of the Seoul Podcast).  The expat community in Korea can be really complain-y, and the forums on Dave’s tend to make teaching in Korea sound like the worst decision you could ever make.  It’s true that some people have bad experiences, but there are far more people who have good experiences...you just won’t hear from them nearly as often on those forums.  So take everything with a grain of salt, or else don’t use that website as a source of information at all.

     Oh man—I gotta wrap this up!  Ok, as for things you need to bring with you: the main thing everyone says is deodorant.  Koreans don’t wear it, so it’s hard to find; before I came, everyone told me to bring several sticks of it.  As for other toiletries, you’ll have no problem whatsoever finding them here, and probably in the brand you use at home, so don’t waste a lot of suitcase space on stockpiles of shampoo and eyeliner.  (Incidentally, someone told me that Korean tampons are weird, but I haven’t had to buy them yet, so I don't know.  There’s always Costco, though; you can get lots of stuff there that you’re used to, and memberships are cheap.)  I’ve found it useful to have a couple of those seven-pocket accordion file things at school for teaching, so you might want to bring a couple—you can get them at Target—though they’re by no means necessary.  I’m also really glad that I brought a ton of stickers, because they’re great for keeping my kids motivated in class.  I got a box of 2000 stickers at the dollar store, and the kids love them because they can’t get those exact stickers in Korea; I’d recommend bringing some stickers with you if you’re gonna teach, but don’t waste your money on fancy ones.  Hit up the dollar store if you want to bring some.  Movies are also good; I brought a CD sleeve thingy full of DVDs.  And books!  I’d plan on bringing about 5 books you haven’t read yet.  There are some good English bookstores here (though you might have to travel a bit to get to them), but the prices are elevated.  Check out the websites for What The Book, Bandi & Luni’s and Kyobo to get an idea of the prices of English books and decide how many you want to bring with you.  Definitely don’t plan on buying a digital camera or computer here; everyone thinks they’ll be so cheap since Korea makes a ton of electronics, but for whatever reason, they’re not.  You’ll get a better deal back home.  And once you get a job, ask about what people typically wear to teach.  I brought too many clothes, especially dressy clothes; I usually teach in jeans and a t-shirt or casual cotton top.  Skirts are good, though, for hot days; I can’t wear shorts to work, so it’s nice to have a couple skirts when it’s particularly hot.  Your school’s dress code may differ, but again, just ask.  I thought I’d have a hard time finding clothes in my size (I’m a size 8 jeans and a medium shirt), but apparently Koreans aren’t as tiny as Chinese people are; I haven’t really had trouble.  Plus sizes are really hard to find, I hear, but standard small-medium-large kinds of sizes aren’t really a problem.  Koreans DO have smaller feet, though; I wear an 8.5, and I’ve been able to buy sandals that are a bit short but okay (probably a size 8 American--it was a 250 Korean), but that was the largest size available.  I’ve only bought shoes in subway stations—subway shoe-shopping is one of my favorite things about Korea—but it’s possible that larger sizes are available in actual shoe stores.  Itaewon is the international area of town, and they have the most selection for larger American sizes of clothes and shoes, but if you wear a large-ish size in either thing, it might be wise to pack accordingly.

    Ok, I need to run.  (Well, I needed to run about 45 minutes ago, but I’m hopelessly long-winded.)  Feel free to add me as a friend on facebook, Skype me, and/or send me your phone number so I can call you sometime.  I hope this has been helpful!  Let me know if I can answer any other questions for you.   :c)

--Lori


P.S.  Oh oh—one more thing!  Calling the States from Korea (and vice-versa) is way cheaper than you’d think, which might be useful information to have before you come.  You can get a monthly Unlimited U.S. subscription with Skype for $5.95/month that will let you call any US phone for free....and with that, you get voicemail and a SkypeIn number, which is a US number that someone can call and it’ll ring your Skype.  Mine’s 678 [REDACTED--way to go me, being smart!], so someone in Atlanta can call that, and I can answer on my Skype...and it’s free for me, and like a local call for them.  Also, I have a Korean pre-paid cell phone (I got the cheap one for $40, plus about $10 of pre-paid minutes every three weeks or so), and I set up Skype to forward to my cell phone if I don’t answer within ten seconds.  It costs me 2 cents per minute for call forwarding, but it makes it so that my friends and family can call 678[redacted AGAIN!] and talk to me on my cell phone, halfway around the world, for free (for them) and 2 cents/minute (for me).  You can’t find a better deal than that!  You can also pretty much plan on getting a cell phone here; everyone has them, and the general consensus is that pre-paid is the best way to go for foreigners.  If you end up in Seoul, just go to Technomart (in Gangnam); it’s easy to get one. 

Your daily Engrish, part...3? or so?

Oh man....I wish I could have gotten a picture of some shoes I saw today.  As I've mentioned before, there are often market-like booths set up along my walk to school, and they sell different things every day.  One day it'll be produce, the next day it'll be handbags, and the next day it'll be flowers.  It's become a small pleasure for me to find out what's on offer every morning.

I've gotten some of my most classic Engrish products at this one booth that seems to rotate between women's clothes, handbags, and shoes.  (My 5,000 won "I [heart] CRAP" shirt was from there, and it's also where I found those "romantic pussy" shorts.)  Today, I was poking around the shoes and noticed one with a particularly interesting brand.  You know how the brand names of shoes are often written inside, where your heel goes?  Well.  I saw a pretty little pink and white sandal with the brand name BigStank on the heel.

For realsies.

I almost peed myself, I was so excited.  What a find!  I would have whipped out my camera right there, but the proprietress was eyeing me pleasantly, waiting for me to inquire about her wares.  I could have taken a quick picture and slinked off, but I didn't wanna be That Person.  So y'all will just have to use your imaginations.

Incidentally, I think that whomever sells that lady and her husband their merchandise must speak English fluently and be pulling the best prank ever, because some of the Engrish on that stuff is too good to be accidental.  How I wish I could find that person and shake his or her hand.....

HEATWAVE! This is my island in the sun [oi oi]

Sunday is Chusok, a Thankgsiving-like holiday when everyone in Korea takes to the roads and the air to visit their families.  Seeing as how my own family is on the other side of the planet, I'm going on vacation instead!  I'm headed to Jeju Island, which has been called the Hawaii of Korea.  It's down on the south end, and it's got a big ol volcano and other cool stuff.  I'm hoping it'll be warm enough to go to the beach, too!  I'm going with my friend and fellow teacher Amanda, and it should be an awesome time.

Gotta finish packing....eek!  Happy Chusok, everyone....be back Tuesday night!      :c)