Day 47: Show Me The Money!

So money is one of the few things in life that stress me out, and I'm always in a constant battle not to think about it too much. For the last few years, before coming to Korea, I had pretty much been living paycheque to paycheque. Because I lived in crazy-expensive Vancouver, every penny had to be carefully managed. 40% of all my earnings just went to rent (in slower months closer to 50%!) and the rest was split between food, bills, student loan payments, and of course, attempting to maintain an active social life! Well things have certainly changed since coming to Korea. I don't pay rent. I don't pay bills (well, as in hydro or cable or internet bills). All I pay for is my own food. And the rest is all for me to do with as I please. This has been a HUGE WEIGHT lifted off of my shoulders, as now, for the first time in my life, I have a substantial flow of cash coming in, without all of it being so quickly diverted into the seemingly bottomless coffers of all my debts before I even had a chance to see it. This new financial situation feels much, much better, I can tell you that much!

But it certainly hasn't been without its frustrations here! My boss has been paying me, but because money has been tight this month at the school, with the new semester starting and all, they've only been able to afford to pay me in little chunks here and there instead of getting it all in one lump sum. This has been kind of a pain in the ass, as I'm not used to finances being handled so informally. Apparently Korean hagwons (private language schools) are notorious for trying to cheap their teachers out of their proper earnings, and that has always been a fear of mine, but fortunately I'm not quite in that sort of situation. I have been getting paid, it's just been taking longer than what I thought it would be, and it's been in spurts of cash to me here and there. I've been trying hard not to let this stress me out either! My boss is quite possibly the most honest man I've ever met so I have complete faith that I will get paid, in full, eventually. We've had talks about the current system, and he's uncomfortable with it as well. Luckily things are supposed to change next month and that's when regular, formal payments will begin, with me getting paid bi-weekly. That will be so much better and easier for me!!!

Steven and I went and opened my Korean bank account here today - FINALLY!! This was the last major bureaucratic formality that I had to take care of, and now it's complete. I have a bank account, with an ATM card, a bank book, and even know how to do money transfers back to my account in Canada which is actually very simple to do. Ahhhh...let's all breathe a sigh of relief together, shall we? Now I can appease the evil demons known as American Express, as well as silence the quieter-yet-equally-greedy Visa, MasterCard, and oh yeah, those student loan thingies as well! Hooray - I'm a university graduate who's actually able to afford to pay off his debts now! Write that one in the history books!!! ;-)

Day 46: A Present From China

Every so often during the year Korea receives a little present from China. Well, it's actually a fairly large present - Yellow Sand. Yellow Sand is a strange phenomenon that I had yet to encounter before moving here to Asia, and I'm still getting used to seeing it. What is it, you may ask?

Well, Yellow Sand is just exactly that - yellow sand. Massive windstorms sweep up billions upon billions of tiny grains of yellow sand from China's Gobi Desert, suck it up into the atmosphere, blow it all the way across China and the West Sea...and dump it on Korea. You'll wake up and go outside and everything will be covered in a very light dusting of yellow sand. It looks almost like pollen, but duller in colour and obviously much coarser. And man does it do wonders for Korea's air problems! (And by 'wonders', I mean exasperate the severe problem even more!) Between creating it's own air pollution via massive industry, power generation, and the private automobile, Yellow Sand just makes it a thousand times worse. Somedays I'll walk to work and it'll be crystal clear outside and the skies will be SO BLUE! And then the next day I can't even see a few hundred metres down the road because of all the smog and sand in the air - such extremes here! Sometimes the sand will fall during the night so when you wake up the skies will be clear, but everything will be covered in a light yellow dusting. So strange!

As a Canadian I've seen just about every other kind of precipitation that you can imagine, but sand from the sky is definitely a new thing for me. It's kinda cool to look at, but it's pretty gross to be outside in when it's in the air. It's hard to breathe and apparently is really quite destructive on your lung tissue over long-term exposure. (Luckily I'm only here for a year, eh?) I keep wanting to collect some of it to save, but such a fine layer falls that you can't really 'scoop it up into a jar' as I'd like to. Next time we get a major dumping of yellow sand I'll try and take some photos to show you guys! Just another unique marvel here in Asia...

Day 45: All Grown Up

Every once in a while I get the occasional reminder that I'm not a kid anymore, that yes, I'm an "adult". All grown up. And heaven forbid, getting..."older"......with each passing day. What's that all about? I don't get it! haha! I'm only 25, and I'm being silly here, but in all honesty I do sometimes get these little 'metaphorical post-it notes' letting me know, that yes, time is indeed passing.

And I just got a big ass post-it note the other day...

MY BABY SISTER HAS MOVED OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!

What the hell!!!???

Actually it's no surprise at all. I knew this day was coming. Heck I even helped her and Jeff (her boyfriend) find their new apartment in Vancouver. But still, it was only this week, when I realized that she was on the road with all her stuff driving out to the West Coast, that she really has left the nest.

Part of me says "Finally! It's about time! She's 22-almost-23 - time for her to make it on her own!" but the vast majority of me (or at least the loudest of the two voices) screams out "Holy shit! Your baby sister is not a baby anymore! She's moving out of the house and is going to be living with her...BOYFRIEND!!????????? Whoa...."

It's definitely a reality check for me. She's not my baby sister anymore. She's a grown-up adult too, and, like me, she's left the comfort and security of home to go out and discover the world and pursue her dreams. Still, I always think of her as my 'baby sister' that I gotta look out for. The little girl who I used to play Cabbage Patch dolls with, who I used to wrestle with after dinner every night, who used to shit in the bathtub when I was in it with her, who I used to spend endless hours tobogganing at Grandma's farm with racing down off the shed roof or into The Pit at Mach 7, who I used to play hide-and-go-seek or sardines or capture the flag out at camp with Jennifer and the Adams boys, who would dance and sing with me to all our favourite pop songs (Roxette! Billy Ocean! Madonna! Janet Jackson! Ace of Base!) , who I used to build forts and obstacle courses for our hamsters with, who's Barbie house I used to knock down in 'sudden earthquakes' (gotta watch out for those active fault lines running under your bedroom Janelle!), who's skull I accidentally bit open when we collided while playing tag one day, who used to play hangman and doodle with me on those long long family road trips across Canada and the US, who used to wake me up at the crack of dawn every Christmas to open presents (and still does today.) She's the still the same girl, but just all grown up now. Wow. Time really has gone by so quickly....

AND I'M SO PROUD OF HER!!! I think that her and Jeff are going to love living in Vancouver. It's such an amazing city and I think this experience will really open their eyes to a lot of things in life. It's kinda funny if you think about it - Vancouver just lost an Erdman child, but this week it's gained another.
Now it's my sister who lives there, and it's me who's the guest in town. A total reversal of roles! I wish I could be there in the city with them to help them get settled, see how their new amazing apartment is coming together (they have a breathtaking view on the 19th floor that's gotta be seen to be believed!) and would love just to spend time with both of them. It's a shame that the timing was a bit off and we never got the chance to live together in the same city, but ahhh well, c'est la vie, and I'll be coming back that way eventually anyways.

Until then, good luck Janelle. Your big brother is proud of ya! I have every faith and confidence that you and Jeffy are gonna just love it there, and that success will be yours! I miss you guys, but know that you're doing well in your new home. Vancouver's an amazing city - live it up every moment, be bold and be crazy and explore absolutely everything. And be sure to 'represent' us Erdmans! I'm passing the torch to you! (but be prepared to give it back in a few years when I return to BC - hey I got there first, after all! I'm gonna want my throne back eventually...hehe!)

Day 44: Rockin' Out In Church

Brad, Andrea and I slept in sooo late today! We woke up at 11:30am feeling refreshed and recharged - after yesterday's busy day we really needed the long sleep! I had to quickly dash back to Shihung City, so I showered, packed up, and said my goodbyes to my friends. I was meeting up with Steven and his family and didn't want to be late.

I got home just before 2pm, and about 15 minutes later there was a knock on my door - time to go! Steven's nephew plays drums in a church band every Sunday and so I had been invited to come along to church to see him perform. Yes, you heard right, Scott Erdman went to church voluntarily!!! :-) It was a cute little Presbyterian church just up the road and actually reminded me a lot of my own church back in Thunder Bay. It was really quiet in there and there were maybe only about 20 people or less at this Sunday afternoon service.

Eric, Steven's nephew was up at the front along with the other band members. The service started shortly after and the first hour consisted mainly of the band performing songs while everyone sang along.
Luckily for me the songs are all in Korean so I had a valid excuse for not singing along! But I have to say that I was impressed with the music. Besides having Eric on drums, there was also a guitar-player, someone on piano, a mixer, and 2 backup singers along with the Minister on main vocals. The music was lively and entertaining and dare I say I was...having fun...*big shock*! :-) Wow, who knew things could be so rockin' at church?

After the music stopped, the Minister had noticed that I was there (no surprise there, a foreign stranger is NOT gonna just blend in in a crowd of only 20 Koreans!) and started speaking to me...of course I had no idea what he was saying. Steven translated for me, saying that he was welcoming me to the church, and to Korea, and that he wanted me to say hello to everyone. So, I stood up in front of the church, gave my best "annyong haseyo" (means hello) and was rewarded with...applause....from the rest of the church!?? Too funny! The second hour was all talk and blah blah blah from the bible, none of which, obviously, I understood, so that part was pretty boring. All in all it wasn't that bad I guess.

After church we were all invited over to Steven's sister's house for food and conversation. They live nearby and we spent pretty much the rest of the day there eating and chatting and listening to music (the kids brought out Westlife for me to listen to...haha...I should have guessed!) We talked, us adults, about a variety of things, from NoKo-SoKo politics to the unbelievable size of Canada to how they respect my near vegetarian diet. Good times.

They even invited me to spend some holiday time with them this summer. That could be a lot of fun, but at the same time spending that much time with pretty much non-English speakers could get a little lonely after a while. I mean they always make efforts to speak to me, but during 'conversations' 90% of the time I just sit there and daydream, having no idea what they're talking about. It's a bit isolating, but I've gotten used to that here in Korea. It's like you're there but you're not. I'm not criticizing it or anything, it's nobody's fault. Hell their English vocabulary is a million times larger than my Korean one! It just feels a bit sometimes like you're....a ghost...a silent observer of things. I've gotten used to it, but again, I don't know if I could handle that for a whole week or something while on vacation with them. An evening is usually enough for me! I guess we'll see...

Day 43: The DMZ

I woke up today to hear Brad stirring around the room - which, by the way, was *at least* 450 C! He groggily announced that it was 6:30am - only 40 minutes 'til departure time!!! Oh shit time to get ready!!! The 4 of us had the fastest showers ever and got our bags all packed up for a day outside of Seoul. This was my first time travelling outside the city since arriving and I was quite excited about it! We were all sooooo tired though when we got to the USO tour office just around the corner from our hotel - it was just after 7am and we all only had about 5 hours of sleep.

Our tour that day consisted of 2 busses of all foreigners (mostly Americans) and we headed out towards the DMZ caravan-style. Our tour guide was pretty cool but his English was a little hard to understand. The DMZ, it turns out, is A LOT closer to Seoul than I thought it was. It was only 45 minutes into our bus ride when our tour guide announced that North Korea was already in plain view. We were driving on the Freedom Highway (the highway that South Korea has built right up to the border of North Korea in the hopes that one day when unification happens it will become the principle artery connecting the two halves) and right across the river was the legendary North Korea. The North Koreans have stripped all the hills along the river of their trees and so the landscape in NoKo looks barren, forboding and lifeless - strangely appropriate for a poverty-stricken, occasionally-aggressive, Communist state. We were forbidden to take any photos from the bus at this time and were told that our cameras would be confiscated if we tried. Actually for most of the day we were in militarily-sensitive territory so we were not able to take photos very often.

Here's a brief explanation of what we were driving into. The DMZ is a 4 km-wide buffer zone in between the two Koreas, stretching all the way across from the West Sea to the East Sea. It was established at the end of the Korean War back in 1953 and is an area of 'neutral territory' where neither side is allowed to enter with military weapons or machines - it is a carefully-established and heavily-monitored Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with the hopes of minimizing conflict and violence between the two nations by placing a large pristine tract of wilderness inbetween two of the largest armies on Earth. It is maintained and monitored by the United Nations Command, but still the North Koreans stare out across towards the South Korean and American military forces....

Camp Bonifas is the American base right at the edge of the DMZ and it was here that we had to transfer to a UN bus. Before boarding this bus, however, we were given a 15-minute presentation on why the DMZ exists and what purpose it serves. It was very informative and slightly chilling actually, with its brief but gruesome summary of the horrors that took place during the Korean War. It also highlighted several of the small 'skirmishes' or occasinal outbreaks of violence that have broken out between the two nations since the border was established. What really brought it home for me was how after the presentation we all had to sign waivers which would effectively remove the UN from all liability for our lives if, by slim chance, North Korea happened to decide to invade at the moment our tour was right in the middle and we were all blown to kindgom come. LOVELY!!! Hey, at least we were given nifty "United Nations Guest" passes to wear which were super cool. (Our group of 7, who had the giggles for most of the day, often would walk around, point to our tags, and say "I'm with the UN!" - hey we all thought we were really cool anyways!!)

We then boarded the special UN bus and headed into the DMZ. Because the DMZ has been relatively untouched over the last 50 years it is a very beautiful area - plenty of grassy fields, thick forests, and lots of waterfowl and other animals inhabit the area. The road through the DMZ was full of anti-tank devices, and the bush on both sides of the road was full of minefields - I guess these forests aren't quite as pristine as I imagined! Numerous watch towers and guard posts throughout the DMZ watch over the area towards North Korea - constant careful monitoring in case the North becomes violent again. We went to a building complex that is situated RIGHT ON THE EDGE of the SoKo side of the DMZ where peace talks are occasionally held between the two sides. Soldiers from both sides stand on guard, cold and emotionless, staring each other down from their respective sides, only mere metres away....

What was really amazing was that we were actually allowed to enter the room where the actual peace talks are held and look around and take photos! This room sits *exactly* on the border - half is in South Korea, and half is in North Korea. In this room a ROK (Republic of Korea) guard stands in this special particularly-intimidating pose to thwart off any potential aggression from the North. He literally just stands perfectly still and looks almost like a mannequin! We were allowed to go up to him and take photos but could not touch him or interfere with his 'military stance.' At this point we were actually standing across the border, on the side belonging to the North...so yes, technically I can say that I have been to North Korea and I would not be lying!!! Eerily fascinating....

Near this area is a brand new highway and railway that leads right up to the border, and then just....disappears. SoKo is still waiting for NoKo to finish their half, and has even given them 5-billion Won worth of construction equipment to help them out, but NoKo has yet to even come close to connecting their half... And so this lonely, empty highway just sits and waits, waiting for the day when the two sides will overcome their differences and reunite. Progress has been made slowly in recent peace talks, but I still think that it's going to be a long time before this happens, sadly.

After this we went to another building up this hill that had a magnificent sweeping view of North Korea - barren hills and cities in the distance... What was right in front of us though, in plain view, was NoKo's Propaganda Village. It's actually called Gijong, but it's a town built on the border of North Korea where absolutely no one lives. All of the buildings are empty, and many in fact are simply wooden cutouts of structures. In the middle stands one of the tallest flag poles in the world with an absolutely massive NoKo flag. (side note: SoKo had built a flag pole first on their side, but then, in 'retaliation' NoKo had to build a flag pole almost twice as tall, just to 'one-up' SoKo.) Throughout this ghost town and the fields surrounding it are super giant loud speakers, which blast out propaganda at incredibly loud volumes 6-12 hours a day at the South Koreans. The propaganda praises NoKo's president and attempts to encourage South Koreans to defect to the North. Massive signs sit atop the hills, all facing towards SoKo, all with messages of praise for the North and its president. One sign, translated, even reads "Yankees Go Home." SoKo doesn't have the propaganda speakers, but it does have super giant electric signs on its hills with messages advertising the 'freedom' and 'prosperity' that can be found in the South. Seriously, it's right out of George Orwell's 1984 and is freaky when you think about it too much.

Panmunjoem is a South Korean village that has the misfortune of being the only settlement (well, inhabited one!) in the DMZ. About 200 farmers live here in subsidized, tax-free homes where they grow rice in massive fields surrounding the town. These villagers are financially well-off thanks to the government, but are supervised 24 hours a day by armed guards, even when they are out in their fields farming, and have an 11pm curfew that they are forbidden to break. Again, a very Orwellian-like village - quite creepy and the tension in the air surrounding this area is so thick and heavy. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in this village, so close to an enemy that so badly wants to destroy you.

If you think that is scary, you'll never believe what we saw after lunch!! After our not-so-yummy military buffet lunch, we took a bus to visit the Third Tunnel. Since the establishment of the DMZ, the South Koreans have discovered four tunnels that the North Koreans have built, under the DMZ, and right into South Korea!!! Some of these tunnels are large enough that tanks could drive through in the event of a sneak attack.... If these tunnels aren't evidence of North Korea's continuing aggression then I don't know what is! The most recent of these tunnels was discovered in 1990 and apparently experts think that there are probably at least another 20 tunnels or so under the border that have yet to be found... When asked about the tunnels, the North Koreans either claim that they don't know of their existence, or accuse South Korea of building them. Sometimes they've even come up with lame excuses, claiming that the tunnels are either 'natural cavities' under the Earth, or are 'abandoned coal mines'. They've even gone as far to paint the rock inside the tunnel black to make it look like coal when it's so clearly granite!!! SO FUCKING SCARY!!!

The Third Tunnel, discovered in 1978, has now been stabilized and cleared of all dynamite and mines. It's also been fortified and blockaded so that the North Koreans can't use it in the event of an attack. You can actually ride a small, rollercoaster-like train *down into the tunnel*! It was fun yet scary at the same time as the access train tunnel is BARELY wider than the train itself so you have to wear helmets cause in a few places the roof is extremely low. The train takes you 300 metres below the Earth's surface down to the Third Tunnel, where we could walk along for several hundred metres. The tunnel is dark and yet and is VERY LOW (I'd say no higher than 5'6") and I had to really duck for the entire time I was in there. This tunnel is definitely not the place to be if you're claustophobic!! We walked along right up to the blockade that separates us from the North Koreans - WOW!!! Apparently they have collapsed the portion of the tunnel on their side to try and cover up that they have built it though....

After the tunnel it was time to head back on our regular bus back to Seoul. It was a fascinating yet scary tour and one that I'll remember for always. To think that all of this hostility and aggression and tension exists only an hour away from the capital!! Wow! After we got back into the city, Amy, Emily, and Kelsey went back home while Steve, Andrea, Brad and I went and got ice cream from a nearby Baskin Robbins. After that Steve went home and the three of us decided that since we were still in the city we'd do some more sightseeing.

We took a taxi over to Yeouido Island to visit the 63 Building, where I had been walking around a few weeks ago. This time we actually went into Korea's tallest building, and took an elevator up to the observation deck up on the 60th floor. THE VIEW WAS ASTOUNDING!!! It was evening time when we were up there so the golden light of the sun was perfect for illuminating the whole city without being too blinding. We spent a good hour enjoying the breathtaking vistas of the sprawling megalopolis down below - giant freeways clogged full of traffic, the many bridges crossing the Han River, rows upon rows of identical high rise apartments, and mountains surrounding the city on several sides. So beautiful!!!

After that we went for a bit of a walk around the island just enjoying the sunny weather. We came across this outdoor ampitheatre where several hundred screaming teenage girls were gathered. Up on stage was some Korean pop boy band singing autographs, and these girls were going NUTS just waiting in line for their turn! It was quite funny! We then took a taxi back across the river and decided to grab some dinner at this really fabulous Indian buffet restaurant. (A day full of buffets, it seems!) We decided that none of us were ready to go home yet, and that we wanted to spend another night in the city. Brad suggested we get another hotel room and then go and check out Dondaemun Market - an all-night shopping centre!!!

We went and got another cheap hotel room (Wow! A night in a hotel room two nights in a row? I should be so lucky!!!) We had showers, watched To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar (cheesy but very funny) and then headed out for some shopping around midnight or so. The shopping area of Dondaemun was just around the corner from our hotel and it was really amazing! Picture several giant department stores covered completely in neon - flashing colours ten-stories tall, dancing before your very eyes. And the streets are packed!!! It was like 1am and yet the streets were full of people out shopping - so cool!!! We spent a good 2 hours just wandering around, taking it all in. One thing note-worthy is that Korean sales people are EXTREMELY PUSHY! Seriously, if you even stop just to *look* a shirt (never mind pick it up) and they will honestly *run* over and be like "You want to buy? Good price! Shirt you like?" and be right in your face about it. It's quite intimidating actually and you learn quickly not to linger at any clothing stand for longer than half a second, and to NOT EVER make eye contact with one of the sales staff!!!

By 2am we were all really starting to crash (we had been up for almost 20 hours!) and so we headed back to the hotel room. We crashed and slept like the dead! After such a busy day it's no surprise though! WOW! ANOTHER REALLY AMAZING DAY IN KOREA!!! THIS COUNTRY ROCKS!!!! If Canadians knew how cool Korea really was, and what a great lifestyle you can lead over here on the income they give you, there'd be a line-up at the airport for potential teachers to come here. Moving to Seoul was one of the best decisions I ever made and today really illustrated that. It feels really great to be here - I'm lovin' it! (insert McDonald's theme song here, if it pleases you.)

:-)

Day 42: Physical Attraction

Another easy-going day today. We're still singing the Christian pop song in class, but, rather funnily, this has proved to be *not* popular with the kids! They don't like singing the song!! I doubt it's for the same reasons why I don't like it, but they groan and whine everytime I put it on. Maybe it's too mellow and boring even for their tastes. The kids are REALLY into the Westlife songs and hell I'll listen to My Love a million times in a row over one listen of the painfully boring and cheesy and poorly-choreographed Power Of Your Love! Either way I have to confess that I kinda smirk everytime the kids resist singing the song. We still have to practice it everyday and I enforce that, but I'm glad I'm not the only one that doesn't enjoy this song. When their next dance practice is for the Power Of Your Love, I haven't heard anything...

Still no barnyard furry friends in school today...that makes me very happy! :-)

So I've been feeling a bit sick all week, having come under a bit of a cold since the weekend. I had been fighting it quite well all week long but today it seemed to have caught up with me. By the time the end of the day came I was SO TIRED and was just feeling really achy and headachy. I just wanted to relax at home after work and go to bed early, but couldn't because I was heading into the city to meet up with Brad and the gang. We're going on a tour of the DMZ tomorrow (the buffer zone in between North and South Korea!!!) and because the tour starts so damn early we're getting a hotel room tonight. I packed up my overnight bag and then watched a bit of TV before leaving. Yesterday in the mail arrived another package from Barb - FOUR (4!) videotapes full of my fave shows, plus some Easter candy, including the much-coveted Cadbury Mini-Eggs!!!! BARB YOU'RE THE BEST!!!!!! Ahhh....there's nothing like laying on your bed, watching Survivor, and eating your most favourite chocolate in the whole wide world!

I took the train into central Seoul and met up with everyone - Brad, Andrea, Amy, Steve, and 2 new girls - Kelsey and Emily. The girls had booked 2 hotel rooms near our pick-up spot for the tour and I was excited about staying overnight in a hotel. I LOVE STAYING IN HOTELS!!! I've always been like that, not sure why. I get so excited to stay in a hotel, doesn't matter where or how nice or shitty the room is. And when you're with a big group of friends it's even more fun. The 7 of us went out for a drink at a bar across the street from the hotel, and then it was time to hit the hay. I CAN'T WAIT FOR TOMORROW!!! To think I'm going to get to see a corner of the globe that hardly anyone ever gets to see - one of the most hostile borders in the world - a place where the Cold War still burns fiercely. It's gonna be amazing!

Oh, before I forget, there's a website that you *HAVE* to check out! It's called match.com and it's one of those many silly online dating websites, but I discovered it thanks to a friend of mine who had mentioned about taking The Physical Attraction Test which can be found on this website. I took the test and it was so much fun! It's a very in-depth test where you are shown various pictures of people and you have to choose who you find the most attractive. Later you're given comparitive photos and diagrams of various head, face, profile, and body-type shots and you have to do the same thing. What this test does is scientifically figure out *exactly* what kind of appearances you are physically attracted to. It's extremely thorough and when you're finished it gives you a very detailed report of all the specifics that, for whatever reasons, seem to turn your crank. It's really fun and fascinating because my report described me to a 'T'!!! It was like this test found a way to get INSIDE MY BRAIN and discovered exactly what I go for. One of the many things that it told me was that I fall into the "Extremely Picky" category - a group of people that are so small (or so damn picky!) when it comes to picking mates that they make up only 1% of the total population!!! WOW! This explains why I've been single since before time began!!! Anyways you should take the test for sure, it's really cool! Just make sure that before beginning the test you have a good half hour to an hour to kill cause it takes that long to go through the test and then read all your results (I told you it was thorough!!!) To take The Physical Attraction Test, visit:

www.match.com

and you'll find it there on the main page. Let me know how you liked the test!!! :-)

Day 41: Slacker

Today was a really mellow, relaxed day! I came back to work from lunch in the afternoon, but was told by Steven at the start of my 1:30pm class (the dreaded Grade 1's) that I could go and 'rest in the office' instead of teaching. Wow, cool! Turns out that because I had been left to teach all the afternoon classes the two days prior, (which I really don't mind,) Steven was feeling a bit guilty or just wanted to do something nice for me. So, he actually gave me the whole afternoon off!! HE TAUGHT ALL FOUR OF MY AFTERNOON CLASSES FOR ME!!! Yippee!! He insisted that I sit and relax in the office, and he and Susan fed me coffee and strawberries all afternoon while I sat and read my Lonely Planet: SE Asia On A Shoestring!
I ended up just sitting on my ass and reading from 1:30pm all the way until the end of the day - 6pm. It was really nice, but I felt like such a slacker! But hey if they're insisting on paying me to sit and read all day I'm not going to fight it! Man I've got a great job!!! :-)

So I was pleased today to not hear any 'cheep-cheeps' at all this afternoon. Neither of the two students brought in their chicks, so I don't know if that means that left them at home, or that they're dead. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter, but I didn't want to ask and find out so I just left it at that. I'm really hoping that this whole chick thing is done now and that'll be the end of it, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one. Spring is still just beginning and I'm sure this won't be the last time that I have to deal with baby animals in my classroom. I'm going to try and find some solution anyways, and will keep on trying to educate the kids on how to treat the animals better. Wish me luck on that one!!!

I went into Itaewon tonight and met up with my friend Michael for dinner. If you remember Michael was the really nice guy who drove me around Seoul on a little sight-seeing tour of the city back in my first week here in Korea (he's the guy who's met Craig.) Anyways I hadn't seen him since then as he's been busy switching jobs and moving into a new apartment. He now has a great little apartment right in Itaewon half a block from all the good clubs (awesome for me - a place to crash on weekends?) :-) We went for dinner to this really yummy Indian restaurant called Maharaja. The food was cheap and awesome and it was my first non-Korean and non-Western food since arriving here. SO GOOD!!!

Michael is a super cool guy and I really like hanging out with him - he's fun and friendly and has the same interests as I do. We made some tentative plans to do some hiking and exploring of Korea this summer and I think that will be great fun. After dinner we went to this really funky lounge down the street where we paid we had 2 ridiculously-overpriced after-dinner drinks. Michael had a tea and I had a hot chocolate and the bill came to the same amount as what we paid for dinner!!! What the...??? The lounge had a great atmosphere and was a really cool space but hell I'm not gonna pay $9.00 CDN for a god-damn watery luke-warm fake-whipped cream hot cocoa again!!! ;-) Haha!!

It was then time for me catch the train back home. While on the bus back to Shihung I was sitting at the very back and these two middle-aged guys came on and made their way to where I was sitting. They were both absolutely shittered and one of them could barely stand! One of them sat down on the seat next to me while his buddy stood and swayed with the rocking of the bus. Anyways the drunk guy who sat next to me ended up passing out and sleeping on me!! And I don't just mean near me, I mean *ON ME!* It was like he put his head on my shoulder and leaned his whole body in and just started...cuddling? I wasn't quite sure what to do - I mean the poor guy was so pissed drunk that I didn't want to just shove him off, but it was still kinda weird to have a drunk stranger using me as a pillow. His buddy meanwhile thought the whole thing was quite funny (as did I) and just watched and laughed. Their stop was the one before mine so I got to ride like this pretty much all the way home.... I figured that I'd just be a good sport and let the guy sleep on me. I mean let's admit it, we've all had our moments where we've had a few too many drinks and end up making an ass of ourselves in public, right? I figured I'd show some support and be like "It's cool buddy, I've been where you are, I got your back, no worries man!" Let's just call it 'Drunk Karma' - it all comes back to ya!!! ;-)

Day 40: A Sad Sight

So I got my alien registration card today - YAH!!! It took a full week to process and Steven picked it up for me this morning from the Immigration Office. This now means that I can *finally* open up a bank account and start transferring $$$ back to my account in Canada. (Gotta pay off those lovely student loans somehow!) I'm gonna try to open an account before the weekend, but since I'll need Steven to come with me to translate, it probably won't be until sometime next week... Have patience, Scott...have patience...

So the chick was back today. The same boy who brought his new pet/toy to school yesterday brought it in again today. And it was a really sad sight, let me tell you. It was the same chick, but at the same time it wasn't. In just 24 hours this poor little bird has gone from a cute little energetic chirpy fluffy chick, to a quiet, dirty, ruffled and faded little creature that can no longer stand properly, but instead just hobbles around. Most of the time the poor thing can't even stand up and just sorta...rolls...around in its box. I assume that it's because he's been squashed or smothered a few too many times by the kids. It really is a heart-breaking sight. It honestly looks like the bird is dying and I'd be surprised if it makes it to the end of the week.

While watching the kids watch the chick today in class, I was saddened to hear more chirping...coming from the hallway... Yes, another kid had brought in another chick. One of my female students, this time a Grade 1 student, had a cardboard box with a little yellow ball of fluff not-unlike the boy's new treasure that was introduced to our school yesterday. Of all kids though, she's one of the least I'd like to see responsible for an animal's well-being. She was being really rough with the bird and constantly picking the terrified creature up and showing it to all her friends. This bird did not have a second of peace in its box. And half the time when she picked it up, she would grab it by either one of its wings or its downy fur and dangle it in the air. I even caught her squishing the chick into the sides of the box to try and get the bird to chirp more. I tried really hard not to get upset with her (she is only 7 after all) and tried to show her the proper way to handle a baby animal. I also tried to encourage her to give it some peace and let it sleep/be alone for a while, but all of that was to no avail. This student understands very little English, and she's notorious for completely ignoring instructions (as she constantly does in class). It was like everything I was trying to tell her just did not absorb at all cause I'd look back 30 seconds later and she'd be doing exactly what I had just told her not to do. It was really upsetting for me to watch this poor helpless creature being treated so poorly.

THESE CHILDREN ARE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE PETS!!!

They are far too young to be responsible enough to look after an animal, but at my school I seem to be the only one who thinks so. Trying not to be harsh or judgemental or overly critical, I politely inquired about this unusual phenomenon of very young Korean children coming into possession of these baby animals. Steven told me how vendors will set up shop with a box of bunnies or chicks right in front of elementary schools knowing full well who their market is. I find this behaviour disgusting!!! Steven did not seem to be concerned with it at all, and I watched how all the other Korean teachers reacted at the childrens' behaviour towards the birds. It seemed like they could not care less. This was really disheartening for me. I consider myself to be an animal rights activist and I find myself in an awkward position. I can't just sit and let these kids man-handle these animals to death, but at the same time I'm trying not to be the judgemental foreigner who doesn't always understand the behaviour of the Koreans that surround him. I've been trying to encourage the kids to treat the animals better, and have been giving lessons and demonstrations on what's best for the chick, but the kids just don't seem to listen at all. As I mentioned earlier, I really feel that these kids are just too young to have these animals as pets. I really don't know what to do.

Day 39: Cheep-Cheep for Cheap-Cheap

I was on my own for the entire day today, as Steven was busy at the regional educational office doing whatever it is he does there on his ever-crazy busy days. I actually kinda like the days when I'm all on my own cause that means I get to set the agenda and decide what we're gonna learn about/discuss/play today.

Overall it was a really good day, and most of my students were well-behaved today. However, I still had a few challenges to deal with though, including my (not-so) favourite Grade 1 pulling a random tamper-tantrum during the singing of BINGO and ripping down all the newspaper covering a broken window in the classroom. (He was later disciplined by Susan and had to kneel down on the floor, head down, butt in the air, arms stretched out, and stay like that in silence for 15 minutes - quite an unusual punishment if I ever saw one, but hey it seemed to work!)

And later one of my younger students fell off the table and landed quite hard on the floor. She cried, seriously, for like A FULL HALF HOUR STRAIGHT!!! Like we're talking non-stop bawling here, which is a long fucking time to cry, believe you me! I had little sympathy for her as I've told her a million times not to climb on top of the tables because it's dangerous, but I still felt bad for her, of course. I deal with crying students on a fairly regular basis due to a variety of causes - a stolen cookie, hair-pulling or biting, or harsh words exchanged amongst the young Koreans - and so am fairly familiar with having to comfort crying children and rectifying whatever situation caused it. Hell, many a times in a week does a student get a ball in the head, or falls down from the very top of the jungle-gym or something, but usually they cry for like 3 minutes or less and then they're fine. But his chick, holy fuck, she would NOT STOP CRYING!! She had no broken bones or sprains, no cuts, broken skin, or bleeding anywhere, so she wasn't critically injured or anything. But with the volume and duration of her screaming and crying you'd swear she just had her whole leg chewed off by a velociraptor!

As much fun as all that was, the most memorable thing that happened today was during my one-hour coffee break in the afternoon. I was sitting in the office reading, like I always do, when out of nowhere I heard this "Cheep! Cheep!" coming from the hallway... It sounded like...a bird??? I poked my head out into the hall and saw one of my students, with a plastic box in his hands. And inside this box, surrounded by a cushion of ripped-up newspaper, was a little yellow baby chick! Oh boy I thought....

My friend Gavin (who's place I crashed at Saturday night) had warned me about how the coming spring would mean my students would soon start bringing baby animals to school. Apparently a popular trick is for children to be bought a baby chick or bunny as a pet, who then bring it to school every day to show their friends. (Actually he said most of the time they buy the animal themselves as they cost about the same amount as buying a chocolate bar!) But, he also said, they invariably always only last a few days as the kids don't take very good care of them, in fact they treat the baby animals like toys, and the pet ends up having an untimely premature death.

I didn't really believe him at first, but it's happening already. This baby chick is probably just the beginning. I shouldn't be surprised at all - just the other day in the subway I saw this old lady sitting on the stairwell with a basket of bunnies in her lap. I passed her and thought "Oh dear God I hope she's selling them as pets and not as meat!" (in Korea you just never know!) Now it's all too clear what she was selling - temporary pets to young Korean children - a trend that sweeps across the nation every single spring here.

As cute as the baby chick was, the kids completely swarmed it as everybody *HAD* to pet it! And no, they can't wait their turn, they all have to pet it NOW! I lectured them a few times about treating the baby chick better, and told them "Don't yell - the baby's sleeping!" and this actually seemed to help them in treating the chick more carefully. I definitely don't want to see this baby chick getting smothered or crushed or neglected to death, but I keep thinking "What the hell is this kid gonna do with this chick if it actually does survive the next few weeks and grows up? Are his parents gonna be cool with having a full-grown CHICKEN running around their little high-rise apartment?" This must happen once in a while - the baby animal survives into adulthood. Do they still keep it as a pet or do they give it away, or...cook it for dinner? I have no idea, but am nervous to find out...

Day 38: Power Of Your Love

So today I was introduced to the full-length video and lyrics of the song that the kids are going to be doing the choreographed dance to...and it was NOT what I was expecting! I was expecting some upbeat, energetic fun well-known pop song. Is that what the kids are going to be dancing to? Nope, it's not only a slow cheesy ballad, but it's a Christian pop ballad!!! Yep, the song is called "Power Of Your Love" and it's totally for kids who are 'all about the Lord.' A big disappointment! What a let down after the fun we've been having with Westlife! I sorta float in between atheism and agnostism, and on a good day you might catch me labelling myself as 'openly spirtitual', in other words I often gain my strength from my faith in the power of the universe, but this is definitely non-denominational, and more vague than anything. My 'spirituality' could be a whole essay of a blog entry, but I won't go there today.

So we've been practicing the song in class, several times over and over, and each time I have to speak each line of the song to my kids, who repeat it back to me, so that they become familiar with the phonics of all the lyrics before actually having to sing it alone themselves. I cringe inside every time I have to do it. I'm not a Christian and definitely don't enjoy having to sing about 'my love for God', but this is part of my job so I just swallow my own pride and silly complicated pretenses and pretend to be enthusiastic about it. It's not so much the song that bothers me, it's the fact that the whole class is having to sing a Christian song in school that makes me uncomfortable. No, the school that I teach at is not Catholic or religious by any means, so there's no explanation there. I just don't like the assumption that is made that all the students are Christian and that all will be okay with singing a Christian song. Yes, there are a lot of Christians in Korea (according to my Lonely Planet about 25% of the population is, but from my experiences so far I'd say it's actually much closer to 50%) but anyways the point is that not all Koreans are Christian.

I'm trying not to be judgemental or over-critical or sensitive about this but it's been difficult for me. I grew up in Canada, and can actually remember when the mandatory recital of The Lord's Prayer was removed from our elementary school routine. I don't know if this event occurred simultaneously across all of Canada or maybe was just a Lakehead Board of Education decision, but I remember feeling quite happy in school when we no longer had to say it every single morning. I assumed that this decision was made in order to be sensitive to children who came from families of other religions. Canada, unlike Korea, is a multi-cultural society with families from every religion one can imagine live together in our cities - Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, the list goes on and on... It's no longer considered PC (politically-correct) in Canada to force religion down the throats of children in public schools, and I'm proud that I'm from a nation that respects (and encourages) this beautiful diversity. Korea is one of the most uni-cultural countries in the world - you'd be hard-pressed to find another nation where the vast majority of the population thinks/acts/believes all the same things. (No I'm not saying they're all clones of each other, but you get the point.) Korea's society, at times, really seems like it lives in a bubble, impervious to cultural influence from the outside world.

I've always been a big supporter of the separation between church and state. I don't believe that religion belongs in the classrooms of public schools - that's why you have specifically Catholic schools! (and other religions too.) This way, if you choose, you can send your child to an institution where they will receive their education in a religious environment exactly as you see appropriate. Now here comes the catch - technically REI is not a public school - it's actually a private business, well a school in a larger chain of REI's all across Korea. So I guess, in theory, the owners/CEO's/Head Director Dudes of REI can choose any curriculam that they see fit for educating the young minds of their students/customers. However, in my theory, since REI is not specifically labelled or advertised as a "Christian School", then religion should not belong anywhere in our classroom. A discussion of ideas regarding various religions would certainly be appropriate and rather educational and enjoyable, I think, but not making all your students sing a song praising the head deity of a specific religion.

But, again, that's just my own personal politically-correct, left-leaning, critical-thinking, over-sensitive opinion.

Day 37: September 11th

Oh us humans are a silly species...

We drink ourselves silly for no logical reason whatsover, wake up the following morning feeling like we've been runover by a bulldozer - 12 times over - and swear that we'll never drink again, only to 'forget' about our promise to ourselves, and repeat the whole damn thing over a few weeks later (or a few days in some people's cases!) ... how we've lasted this long on this planet without killing ourselves off via hangovers is a miracle in itself!

I woke up today at Gavin's with a bitch of a headache and feeling sore ALL OVER (a combination of yesterday's aggressive yoga, many hours of dancing, and sleeping on a paper thin mat on a hard bedroom floor...ugh!) I got to meet Gavin's really cool roomie though, Ryan, and he nursed me back to health with chamomile tea....yum! :-) We all just hung out and chatted for a while, and then I headed back to Shihung. I was doing completely fine on the trains and all and was almost home when all of a sudden it just got *really* crowded and REALLY HOT on the train and I knew I was gonna pass out if I didn't either sit down or get off the train *immediately*. Being that the train was packed, my only option was to get off at an earlier stop, get some fresh air, and peel off some layers. It was so warm today! Has spring finally sprung? (or is this sweatiness just a result of my stupid self-inflicted dehyration?) Whatever...I was glad to get home and relax. Actually, I didn't even relax. For some strange reason whenever I'm hung over I seem to *really enjoy* doing housework. I have no idea why, it makes absolutely no sense at all, but I always do the most cleaning in my apartment the morning after I've had a few too many drinks. So I did laundry and washed all my dishes and cleaned my kitchen - what a productive boy I was! ;-)

So, onto a new topic... I see a lot of reminders about September 11th all the time here, or mostly, just images of the Twin Towers, which automatically makes me think "Oh my god! September 11th! They're gone!!!" In fact, I see the World Trade Centre every single Monday to Friday. At the top of the stairs, when I'm walking into work, is a poster for REI. Well my school and the staircase leading there is full of REI posters, but this one stands out. Being that the name of my school is REI: American Language School it's no surprise that my school is full of American imagery - the stars and stripes, The Statue of Liberty, and lots of posters of happy-faced white kids embraced with equally-happy-faced Korean kids. However, at the top of this stairs is this one poster that you just can't miss - a young Korean boy and girl standing next to a Caucasian male and female teacher and a Korean male 'director(?)'...and rising up behind them is the skyline of Lower Manhattan....Twin Towers front and centre of the poster. It catches my eye every single day and is a constant reminder of something that is no longer there. Whether this is just an outdated poster or what, I'm not sure, cause obviously the Koreans are aware of the Towers' demise.

The REI poster is excusable, but I often see another reminder of the Twin Towers that I find puzzling and inexplicable. At one of the subway stations I use frequently to transfer lines, there is a large, bright poster for one of Korea's major banks. The bulk of this poster is the face of the Statue of Liberty, staring out over the harbour, but in behind her, in fully clear and obvious view, again, is the WTC rising high out above the forest of New York skyscrapers. Now this is a modern, contemporary, RECENT poster released by the bank. It's not outdated (ie: printed before September 11, 2001) so I'm definitely confused as to why the graphic designers/big bank marketing team decided to place such a controversial image in their ad campaign.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not 'bothered' or 'disturbed' or 'upset' by it. I'm not one of those ridiculously over-sensitive people who thinks that we should outlaw and erase every single image of the Twin Towers that exists so that we don't 'offend' Americans or whoever might freak out by seeing a photo of the late New York icons. I'm just puzzled as to why the Koreans continue to place these well-recognized towers in contemporary media. They're obviously aware that they're gone - do they just not care or maybe they want to 'always remember' or maybe they're just using them because they are a well-recognized American icon that they (whatever particular company is using them in their ad) want to associate their product with American ideologies? (I'm assuming that these 'ideologies' would be freedom, power, and an obsession with consumption?) It's an excellent example, anyways, of proof that the events surrounding September 11th affected different nations in varying ways. I'm coming from North America where that day made our world completely stop and has affected mass culture so much. Obviously it had a much lesser effect on Korean popular culture. I mean, you would NEVER see CIBC or Bank of America come out with a poster like that - Oh My God could you imagine the screams of complaints that would flow in???

Later that night before going to bed I was just channel -urfing and came across Die Hard 2. I remember watching this movie over and over years ago and absolutely loving it. It was like one of my faves for such a long time, no surprise given the fact that I've always had a penchant for action movies containing scenes of mass destruction and plane disasters. Anyways watching it again tonight I realized how....lame and cheesy (like in a bad way - the lines in this movie really are terrible) and OUTDATED this movie is!!! It's set circa 1993 and in the movie they're talking about the 'amazing wonders' of 'incredibly advanced technology' such as cell phones (the size of large blocks of cheddar) and fax machines and computers that look to weigh about 67 pounds each! Anyways this movie reminded me again of September 11th, cause in the movie Dulles Int'l Airport is completely taken over about as easily as it would be for me to overtake a 6-year old's lemonade stand! SO MANY things happen in that movie that made me shout out to the TV "That would SO NEVER be able to happen now!!!" given the current state of obsessive security, tight restrictions, and military-like grip the government has over America's major airports and airlines. Yes, Die Hard 2 is just a cheesy meaningless action flick that was completely unrealistic, even for 1993, but even then it just goes to show how much things have changed in just ten short years in our world...

Day 36: Dance Dance Dance

Ahhh the weekend - gotta love it! I had a full agenda for today, but almost all of my 'scheduled appointments' would be completely changed by the end of the day! I was supposed to hang out in the afternoon with this guy James - a friend of my friend Joanne back in Canada - who was gonna show me around Shihung a bit - but alas, he had been out partying the night before and slept in too late. No wories, this gave me a free afternoon to relax at home, catch up on email, and just chill out. Today's events definitely had a theme (totally coincidental as well) - DANCE!

4pm came round and I was due at REI for some interesting events - be prepared to laugh at me! ;-) Apparently in addition to performing My Love and Uptown Girl at an upcoming recital in May, the elementary classes will also be doing a choreographed dance routine! This will be absolutely hilarious I'm sure!
Between all the singing and now dancing, I'm uncertain these days as to whether my boss is more interested in teaching these kids English, or preparing them for Korean Idol! Hell, between all the miming and the singing and the dancing and other stunts I've performed for the kids I feel like I could apply for Fame Academy now!! I make fun of it but I must admit that I actually kinda like it - it beats just reading out of a textbook everyday!

So we were meeting up with a 'Jazz Dance Instructor' at 4pm who was gonna teach the kids the dance routine (which I have yet to even see.) The dancing is for the kids only, but the instructor encouraged me (and Susan) to join in to help encourage the kids. The first half hour proved to be a pretty rigorous yoga session to get everyone all stretched out and used to moving a certain way. This proved to be especially challenging and embarrassing for me as I am *NOT* flexible at all! So here I am, in a room with 15 7-10 year olds who have absolutely no problem touching their toes, or bending themselves into some contorted pretzel, or whatever acrobatic position the jazz instructor wanted them to be in, while I struggle helplessly to bend and twist and keep up with the rest of them. It's not fair! What 8-year old can't touch their toes? - I'd like to see these kids try it when they're 25 and 6'3" - it's a long ways down to my toes!!! :-) Anyways I provided much comedic relief for the kids who giggled and laughed while watching the instructor trying to guide and physically push me into whatever masochistic tantric position she was trying to get me into!!!

The last half hour was much more fun. The instructor (who looks like a Korean Debbie Gibson by the way - giant poofy hair and all) put on this really cheesy tape of pop songs from the 90's to get us motivated and energized. We practiced various moves of jumping and bending and shaking our booties and doing these really campy sharp head turns to make our hair flip back and forth. (Is this the kind of training that Britney Spears had to go through?) She taught us some ballet moves too - the whole 'pliet' thing (incorrectly spelled, I know) and moving our arms around while standing on our tippy-toes. I didn't do very well at this portion either, but hey it was still fun.

After the dance session was over, I hopped onto the subway and headed into the city. Brad has phoned me the day before and had invited me to attend a breakdancing competition that was happening at one of the Olympic stadiums in Seoul. He was going with Andrea, Steve, and Amy and I thought it would be fun to tag along and check it out! I tried phoning Brad's cell to find out the exact stadium and when approximately they were all gonna be down there, but there was no answer...hmmm....

So Seoul's Olympic stadiums are split into two different parks, about a few kilometres from each other, and each park has at least 5 or 6 stadiums. Not knowing which park nor which stadium was holding the breakdancing event, I picked the park that has "The Olympic Stadium" - the massive stadium that held the opening and closing ceremonies when Seoul hosted the Summer Olympics in 88 (?) I tried to phone Brad again but still no answer. I walked out to the stadiums, hoping that I would just be able to find the event by walking around, but the park was dark and empty. It's a massive park and each stadium is so large it takes like 15 minutes just to walk from one to the other...I wandered in search of my friends, but alas, there was no Brad, no breakdancing to be found! I was obviously at the wrong park, but at this point it was dark and late and I didn't feel like wandering around the other Olympic Park so I just threw in the towel! No breakdancing for me that night!

Instead I took the train to Itaewon to have some dinner, and then meet up with a few friends for drinks. I met up with my friend Gavin - an English Teacher from Wales that I chatted with online a few times before coming to Korea. He was really nice and introduced to me to some other British teacher-friends of his, including his friend Debbie who is an absolute riot, as well as a bunch of Korean buddies. We all had a great night having drinks at the various lounges, and then doing some serious dancing at the nearby clubs! Everyone was in great spirits and more than a little drunk, so we had our own dance competition in one of the clubs while grooving along to "Dirrty" and "Lade Marmelade"! Good cheesy fun!!! We ended up partying until 4am and at that point I was definitely crashing and was all danced out. We crashed at Gavin's friend Ryan's place and I went to sleep, with Christina, Britney, and Madonna dancing in my head...

Day 35: Birthday Celebrations

Today was a fairly relaxed and mellow day at work - quite enjoyable indeed! It was also a special day at work because it was the birthday of one of my students. Lina, one of my kindergartens, turned six today. So, the school had prepared a little celebration in her honour that the whole class got to participate in. They had bought her a birthday cake and even a present! All the kindergartens gathered around to sing 'Happy Birthday' to her, and then they all had to leave except for her class who got to stay and enjoy the cake (including me!) No teaching today, no lessons - just a chance to sit and eat cake and watch the kids play! I thought it was really sweet that my boss and the other teachers made such a big deal for Lina! Assuming they do this for every student, there'll be another 15 or so birthday parties like this coming in the next year! Fine by me!!!

It's always great to have a big fuss made when you're little and it's your birthday. Hell, it's great to have a big fuss made when you're 25 and it's your birthday! :-) I remember back when I was in elementary school that all the students always got 'birthday bumps' in class from the teacher on the day that it was their birthday. (for those of you who aren't familiar with birthday bumps, they're little 'fun spankings' given to the birthday boy/girl on the teacher's lap on their birthday - one 'bump' for every year they are old. The birthday boy/girl 'reluctantly' gets spanked - even though they actually love the attention and are laughing the whole time - while the rest of the class screams out in ecstacy and dances around at watching one of their peers get spanked!) This was always a very fun and exciting spectacle for all the students - not just the one whose birthday it was. (side note: I wonder if schools still do this? I would imagine that we've gotten so 'politically-correct' and paranoid about touching students, unfortunately, that this time-honoured tradition is probably no longer allowed. Quite sad actually, as it was something that all students looked forward to having.)

Anyways my birthday is in August, when school is out for the summer, so I never got to experience the birthday bumps in school. I remember being so sad about this! Every time it was a student's birthday in class and they got the bumps, I was always a bit saddened by it cause I knew I was never going to have my turn. Ahhh well - 'suck it up, Scott!' you say, but hey it was quite tragic for a young innocent sweet 6-year old like me! Was the birthday bumps just a Sherbrooke or Thunder Bay phenomenon? Did other children in other schools in other cities get to enjoy the same rite of passage? I'm quite curious...

Day 34: The Name Game

It's really interesting how names work here in Korea. When someone introduces themselves, they always give their last name first. Last names are always one syllable only, and first names are always two names hypenated together. For example, my boss' name is Park Jonge-Oh, and his daughters are Park Yae-Na and Park Yae-Lin. Apparently close to 40% of Koreans have either their last name as Lee, Park or Kim!!! (Side note: when searching for potential partners, its considered inappropriate to marry someone with the same last name, even if they're not related to you. This makes the 'dating pool' really small for people with one of those names! Also, married women keep their maiden names for life - I think that's cool!)

Now when it comes to their English names, that's a whole different story! Many Koreans have an English name, on top of their real Korean name. They either get to pick their own English name themselves (which I think would be fun - imagine how cool it would be if you could just pick any name for yourself?), or if they're young like the kids I teach, their names are picked for them by either their parents or their teacher. Almost all of my students have an English name, and this has made it a lot easier for me to learn everyone's name.

I've always been really good at remembering people's names, and so far this has held up quite well at work. When I first started teaching I had like thirty names of kids to remember, and so far I have done quite well with this. In the past I've most often used physical appearances to remember people's names (ie: hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, etc.) but that hasn't been very useful here in Korea! (all my kids have black hair and brown eyes! haha!)

It's kinda funny, some of the names that their parents choose for their kids. A lot of times they will just pick an English word that 'sounds nice' to give to their kids as their English name. Consequently, I have students with names like Cherry, Candy, and Grapes (food seems to be a popular theme...) and have heard of other teachers with student names like Apple, Ferry, and Cloudy. The problem with English names arise when the kids are quite young, like still in their kindergarten years. At this stage in their lives they have not had an English name very long, so a lot of time you call out to them but they don't respond just because they're simply not used to being addressed with that name. Also, their parents can sometimes change their names on a whim if they feel like 'picking a better name' for their child. This has proved to be rather confusing for me when all of a sudden a student I've known for a month suddenly has a new name! A few examples - Mini became Lina, Thomas became Daniel, etc. I have one new student who just started this week and he's had a different name almost every day this week! On Monday he was Peter, on Wednesday he was Joseph, and today he was Tom. Who knows what he'll be tomorrow?

If you're curious as to how I'm addressed at work, well I thought that it was going to be "Mr. Erdman" as it would have been most likely if I was teaching in North America, but our school seems to be fairly casual about that sorta thing. I am addressed by either "Teacher", "Scott", or most often "Scott-Teacher" which I think is rather cute! I guess it's about as self-explanatory as it can get - it's both my personal name and my relation to the students all wrapped into one name that can be shouted out loudly at their leisure. It was a little strange at first, but I actually quite like it now. :-)

Day 33: I'm An Alien

"I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York." ~Sting

Ummm....no Sting....actually I'm a Canadian in Seoul, but yes I am a legal alien.

Today was a big step in getting closer to finishing all the necessary Korean bureaucracies for me to have a 'normal' life here, as a foreigner. Steven took me down to the Incheon Immigration Office and I filled out all the paperwork so that I can receive my Alien Registration Card. This card is very important, as it allows me to open a bank account, counts as official residency status, and helps keep the Korean immigration officials from kicking me out after 90 days here in town! I won't actually get the card until next week, but I was approved and everything went through and it was a big relief to have that taken care of. One less hoop to jump through... It can be a bit tricky living in a foreign country, with all the rules and bureaucracies surrounding immigration and work visas and passports and taxation laws and all that other fun stuff, but I always remind myself that I'm certainly not the first Canadian guy to come over and teach English here, so there is always a way around whatever 'roadblocks' come along. It's kinda fun though to say "Hi, I'm Scott, I'm an alien!" and be completely telling the truth! (cause I have the identification to back it up! haha!)

I was invited up for a big family dinner with the Parks tonight. Today was the four year anniversary of Steven's father's passing, so him and all his relatives always get together on this day to remember him. I got to meet his siblings and nephews and nieces and many other relatives which was really cool, but it was on such sad terms. When I came up for dinner they had just started their praying (they're a very Christian family) and everyone was just so sad, you could *feel* the mourning in the room.... They read from their bibles and sang a few songs, and most of them were crying by the end of it. I felt a little awkward being right in the middle, not knowing what they were saying, and feeling a little uncomfortable with all the open emotion around me. At the same time though I felt honoured for being there, because this was obviously a very personal, important family affair and just the fact that I was invited to participate shows how welcoming this family is.

After the prayer session dinner was served, and the mood lightened up tremendously. That awkward silence that was just hanging in the room was broken as people began to engage in 'everyday' conversations again, and I was formally introduced to all the family. Only two other relatives spoke English, but they were all very friendly to me. Dinner was delicious (more chicken - yah!) and the family was very curious to hear about what I thought about Korea, what life was like in Canada, and what my own personal interests and hobbies are. One of the relatives was Steven's 16-year old nephew and he was very friendly to me. His English is quite good actually and I enjoyed talking to him about music, sports, the weather, and a variety of other topics. He plays drums at his church during ceremonies, and I was invited to watch him perform this Sunday at his church. I'm not religious by any means, and normally feel uncomfortable in church settings, but I think it would be cool to go and check it out and see him 'do his thing' with the drums. I'll let you know how all that pans out!

Day 32: A Critical Eye On Korea

My whole point with this blog has been to observe and experience as much as I can. I try to be as open-minded as possible and to avoid judgement. I often make comparisons, but that's only human nature, and I don't think it can be avoided (there is not hot if you don't know what cold is, or as the Koreans firmly believe, there is no ying without the yang.) I think a balance of views is important as well, so here is a list of things that I've noticed with Korea that are less than pleasant.

1) Pollution - Korea is a stunningly beautiful country, but, at times, the Koreans do not treat their landscapes very well. Pollution in the form of smoggy air, litter all over the place, piles of garbage in random places, and especially with polluted waterways has been very evident. Korea has experienced rapid industrial development in the last few decades, and I think that this has been the unfortunate side effect. Economic gains in exchange for Mother Nature's pains. The Han River, for example, is absolutely disgusting in places and you would never want to swim in it. And most creek or smaller river that I have seen has appeared to double as a garbage dump for locals. It's quite sad actually. I've also recently found out that Bukhansan National Park (where I was hiking just his past weekend) is about to become under threat by some new developments. A massive ring road freeway is currently under construction, being built to circumnavigate Metro Seoul. Unfortunately, a section of this ring road is slated to go right through the middle of Bukhansan. It will be terribly sad if this does in fact go through because it's such a beautiful park and it would be a shame to have its peace and solitute destroyed by this highway. Let's hope they decide to either move the highway to outside park boundaries, or tunnel through the park instead.

2) Political Instability - You may have already heard this, but just last week Korea's President was impeached by his own parliament. I'm not even certain of the details of this, or why it happened, but apparently this is a fairly common thing here? Political parties and leaders seem to come and go like the wind, and the media is constantly filled with stories of Scandal! and Corruption! with the Korean government. It has apparently been very frustrating for Koreans as, at times, the political future of their nation can be very uncertain, and national economic/social/political/environmental policies seem to come and go, depending on who happens to be in power at the moment. Here's hoping that the Koreans get the stability that they so strongly wish for in the near future.

3) Drivers! OMG are Korean drivers insane!!! haha! I remember reading in my Lonely Planet: Seoul book before coming over here that Korea is, in general, a very safe country, but that the greatest risk to a person was in crossing the street. I thought that the author was just being sarcastic, but it really is the truth! Korean drivers really are quite crazy, and I feel fairly confident in saying that local traffic rules and regulations are 'mere suggestions' rather than laws! Speed limits are rarely adhered to, nobody ever signals, people will drive into oncoming traffic to pass other drivers, they'll park just about anywhere they damn well feel like it, and 'pedestrian-only' zones are only a dream! I've seen vehicles driving in places that you just can't imagine - apparently some people prefer not to use the road here? They can't be blamed entirely though - Seoul has seen a massive population explosion in recent decades, and as a result the number of vehicles on the road has increased exponentially. They're building roads and bridges and highways at a frantic pace, but infrastructure development for the private automobile just can't keep up with growth. I guess this ginormous increase in traffic has caused the locals to use 'creative driving methods' to get from A to B. Either way, crossing the street can be very dangerous here as drivers will often go through red lights without skipping a beat, or drive right over pedestrian crosswalks if they don't feel like waiting. I've certainly learned to look both ways, several times, before crossing the street here. No day-dreaming while using the crosswalks here, that's for sure!

Day 31: A Critical Eye On Canada

So I can't believe that I've been here a month already!!! Wow!!! That first week here was soooooo long and now 4 have flown by! One month down, only eleven more to go? Man this year is gonna go by so fast! I definitely gotta make the most of it...especially now that the weather has warmed up a bit and we've all defrosted from the weeks of cold weather that we had. Bring on spring I say!

So I've been able to make a lot of observations while I've been here in Korea. I've been doing a lot of comparing between Canada and Korea and have come up with some interesting questions/points to ponder/curiosities. I love my home country so much, and do miss it quite a bit, but there's a few things about life in Canada that I never really noticed until I came here. And they're not very pleasant. Here's some food for thought:

1) Obesity - I've read a thousand studies and heard a million times in the media about how North Americans are alarmingly overweight, and how the percentage of obese persons in Canada and the USA has just skyrocketed over the last few decades, but I never really paid attention much to it. Now that I've been here in Korea a month, I've really noticed it. The amount of overweight people that I've seen in Korea I can count on one or two hands. Why is that? Do the Koreans have a healthier diet or lifestyle than we do? Do they eat less fast food? Do they just have really good genes that predispose them to slimmer waistlines? I'm really curious about this, because Koreans are like Canadians in that the majority of them live in cities, eat out a lot, and don't often get a lot of exercise (or so I've been told, I could be wrong) so why is there such a sharp difference?

2) Homelessness - Now this is something that I definitely noticed while living in Vancouver (a city notorious for its problems with homelessness.) I don't think I have seen a single homeless person at all anywhere here in Seoul. In a city of 20 million you'd think there would be THOUSANDS, as all the major North American cities seem to be a magnet for homeless people. Why not here in Korea? Do they not have any? Or are they just really well-hidden? Do they have better social nets that protect people from having to live on the streets here? Do all the would-be homeless people just live with their relatives in those common multi-generation family homes? Again, a question in which I don't have any answers, but it was something that I was really surprised about here in Korea.

3) Transit - It is SO WONDERFUL to live in a city that has an efficient (and inexpensive) transit system. Seoul's subway system has eleven lines with hundreds of stations, stretching across hundreds of kilometres across this gigantic metropolis. Busses run absolutely everywhere here, and I've never had to wait longer than 2 minutes (during the day) for a bus. And several more new subway lines are being constructed/planned to connect even more neighbourhoods of the city. Add on a high-speed express subway that will connect the airport to downtown, opening in 2006, (sound familiar? can we say RAV line?) and you have the makings of an excellent and thorough transit system. And the best part is, to ride from end of the city of the other (which would take at least 3-4 hours cause it's so damn big) would never cost me more than about $1.50 CDN. WOW! I don't know if mass transit and infrastructure in Korea comes under municipal, provincial, or federal responsibility, but whoever is running (and building it) is doing a fantastic job! (now if only it was open a little later...oh well.) Either way, as an urban planning student, it's thrilling to be in a city where transit is so efficient and so...massive. In Vancouver people scream and whine about not wanting more rapid transit lines in the city, because 'the construction will disrupt my lovely 3-hour morning commute to work and might make the road too bumpy causing me to spill my soy latte' or 'why are we wasting our taxpayers dollars on rapid transit that only the riff-raff will use - I'm rich and love my suburban cul-de-sac monster home and am addicted to my gas-guzzling SUV! I want more roads - lets build more freeways!' Meanwhile, our governments bicker back and forth about who's going to pay for these lines that should have been built 30 years ago. Toronto and Montreal have similar woes with their transit system - the need is there, but where is the money for it? Canada really needs to do some major reprioritizing when it comes to how it manages and constructs mass urban transit.

Anyways, there's a lot more that I could go on and rant and rave about, but I think that's good enough for now. (And besides, I get too dizzy if I stand up on my soapbox for too long...hehe! But I must admit the view *is* awfully nice from way up here...) Expect sequels on this kind of stuff in the future, and 'A Critical Eye On Korea' in tomorrow's edition of the internationally renowned S2H World Tour blog. :-)

Day 30: In Love With Korea

Today was Day Two of 'the best weekend ever in Korea.' Brad and I slept in fairly late, and then Andrea, Steve, and their other friend Pauline came by (Amy had other plans.) The five of us decided to go for a little hike so we got our day-bags packed up and took the bus to Bukhansan National Park. Seoul is blessed enough to be surrounded by some pretty spectacular mountains, most of which are contained in several stunning national and provincial parks. Bukhansan is one of the larger parks and is located right inbetween Ilsandong and the city centre. Hiking is very popular in Korea, and so the parks are unbelievably packed with hikers on the weekends.

This particular Sunday was very busy, but not nearly as bad as it could be (or so I'm told.) Bukhansan is an amazing park - stunning jagged brown-coloured granite peaks rising high above forested valleys, with incredible views of the sprawling city below. We chose a shorter hike that was took us on a less-popular trail only part-way up the mountain. At the top of this trail is a small Buddhist temple with a very large statue of Buddha, arms gesturing out towards the city way in the distance. It was a little strange to see a large Buddha statue in the middle of a forest on a mountain, but hey we're in Asia right? We contined on past Buddha and came to these smooth, bare granite slopes. We sat and rested and enjoyed the view - stunning jagged peaks, a thick forest of Asian pine trees, the Buddhist temple off to our left poking out between the trees, and we could even hear the sound of Buddhist monks chanting from down below in the valley... An absolutely amazing moment and it just felt about as perfectly 'Asian' as a moment could be.

We walked around on the slopes for a while, which was a strange experience in itself... The slopes are at least a 45-degree angle, but the surface is very rough (almost like sandpaper) and so your boots stick to it - a perfect friction allowing you to walk up, down, and across these crazy slopes with ease- it was like defying gravity! More silly photos on the slopes naturally ensued. After that we meandered back down to the valley below, where we sat in a dry riverbed and had another picnic lunch. A warm beautiful day in a spectacular setting! It's wonderful to have such an oasis of nature right next to such a busy and chaotic megacity.

It was late afternoon at this point, and Brad, Andrea, and Pauline were feeling tired so they decided to head back home. Steve and I were still feeling energetic so we headed back into Seoul to check out some more sights. We made a b-line back to Gonjeongjong Palace, and made it in time before it closed. This turned out to be probably the most amazing part of my weekend. This palace is so stunning and incredible and mystifying it's hard to describe in words... It's a gigantic ancient palace located right in the heart of Seoul - a many-century old royal home surrounded by modern-day crazy-shaped skyscrapers with neon and giant big-screen TV's the sizes of houses hanging off them - such a strange juxtaposition!

Like most of Korea's great monuments, this palace was partially destroyed by the Japanese when they invaded, (some from wars with Japan centuries ago, and some burned during the more-recent Korean War) but has since been rebuilt and restored. Walking through the palace grounds really does feel like stepping back into time. The buildings are so large and so graceful - massive curved, peaked rooves, with the underlying wooden supports painted in the most ornate and vivid colours that you can imagine. The courtyards are made up of perfectly crafted stones, and there are gardens, ponds, moats, giant rock pillars, trees, and statues spread out amongst the perfectly-designed grounds. Every single building and tree and pond in this whole complex (the size of a small town) were laid down following the rules of geomancy, to harness the flow of the universe, and just to walk through them is like a spiritual experience in itself. Absolutely breaktaking!

It was one of the moments that I wish I could snap my fingers and have all my family and friends from back home right there with me. You guys would have absolutely loved this - you would have been blown away with the beauty of this ancient palace and I wish I could have shared that moment with you all. I took several photos and will pass them along when I get them developed, but believe me when I say that they won't do it justice! I AM SO LUCKY TO BE HERE IN KOREA SEEING SUCH INCREDIBLE SIGHTS!!! I'll never forget it as long as I live. And what's even more amazing is that there's supposed to be like another three or four other ancient royal palaces in Seoul, just as amazing as this one. I can't wait to see those ones!!!

After Gonjeongjong Palace Steve took me over to Insadong - this is a very popular street in Seoul where locals and tourists come to browse through hundreds of stores selling uniquely Korean crafts and artwork. There are stores selling paper products, lanterns, candles, statues, tea sets, clothing, and all other kinds of beautiful art and crafts hand-made my Koreans. It's the kind of place where one could spend a whole day just wandering and browsing. It's definitely where I'll find the cool gifts to send friends and family back home a little piece of Korea! Steve and I took a break in one of Insadong's famous tea shops - these little hideaway cafes that sell only tea, but the most unique and rich flavours in a beautiful ambience. We both had 'jujube tea' which was made from dates - hard to explain, but very warm and so tasty. Mmmmmm.....

After that it was quite late and Steve had to be getting home so he ventured off to catch the bus while I explored around a little more. I had some dinner and then was excited when I came across Musicland - one of the largest music stores in Korea and one of the places that I had been searching for last week when I failed to find Tower Records (which I found out has actually closed! No wonder I couldn't find it!) I browsed through Musicland and ended up buying myself a CD - Travis' The Invisible Band and man is it ever good!

I'm sitting at home listening to it now and just recounting all the great times I had this weekend. I was only gone one night but it felt like I was gone for several days! Well I guess with all the stuff we packed in - prison tours, hiking in national parks, dinners out, long rides on busses and the subway, shopping in Insandong, browsing through massive bookstores, silly random photos, and of course The Gun Of Love, it's no wonder! It was definitely my best weekend yet in Korea and I had so much fun and got to see so much! There's so much to explore in this country!!! Korea offers such a wide variety of activities, I don't think I'll ever run out of things to discover here. I really am lucky to have such a great opportunity to really see so much of a foreign country - I am feeling particularly blessed these days. And I don't ever want to take a minute of this experience for granted. (please kick me if I do!) :-)

Day 29: The Gun Of Love

I just had the best weekend ever!!!!! I LOVE KOREA!!!!!!!! :-)

I got up early on Saturday morning to pack up my overnight bag and make the great trek over to Brad's place. Brad lives in just about the furthest place in Seoul from me. I live in the SW corner, and he lives in the NW corner, but he lives at the very end of the one of the longest subway lines in the city and it took FOREVER to get to his place! All the subway lines lead into the central city so I actually had to travel *away* from him for a while before getting on the line that goes to his neighbourhood. Two hours, four trains, and 32 stops later, I arrived in Ilsandong - the 'new town' that Brad lives in.

It was really cool to see Brad after so many years. I actually saw him once, about two years ago, at Coyote's bar in Thunder Bay, but it was loud and dark and I didn't really get the chance to talk to him that night. So, in essence, this was really the first time I've seen him since high school. Brad is still good ol' Brad - laid-back, relaxed, easy-going, and probably the most amazing artist that I have ever met in my life. We hung out at his place and caught up on what we had each been doing since high school - wow has six and a half years just *flown* by....! A few of his friends came by later, and I got to meet Andrea, Amy, and Steve. All of them are Canadian English teachers from various cities across Canada and work at the same school. Even stranger, Brad, Andrea, and Steve all went to Lakehead University! It was SO WEIRD to sit and talk about Thunder Bay with people who had actually lived there at some point...rather surreal. It's a small, small world I tell ya!

The five of us decided to head back into the city to play tourist for a while. Brad, Andrea, Amy, and Steve are by far the nicest, coolest people that I've met so far in Korea. They've all been here quite a while and not only are a blast to hang out with, but really know their way around town as well! We decided to go and check out Soedaemun Prison, located in Seoul's Independence Park. Soedaemun was the prison where all the Korean freedom fighters were locked away, and often tortured and killed, during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Much of it was torn down after Korea regained independence, but a few key buildings still remain, and a few others have been restored. It was a fascinating, yet very somber, place to visit. We got to visit the massive buildings that contained row after row of prison cells, saw a few underground cells where the females were locked away in darkness, and a special house where all the prisoners with leprosy and other incurable diseases were locked away to rot. Many of the cells were specifically designed so that a person could only stand up perfectly straight and not move at all (like a vertical coffin...) and even the 'larger' cells were so tiny that the prisoners could not even stand up or lie down. They even had a building just for where they tortured prisoners, and this museum has re-created many of these methods with explicit models and displays. Very morbid, very dark and eerie, and very sobering. It was really interesting to see such a vivid piece of Korean history and we all learned a lot about that horrible period in Korea's history.

During most of our wandering around the prison grounds we were split in two groups. Amy and I ventured off together and came across some very friendly Koreans. The first time was right outside the Lepers' House (during which time I could not get Nana's "Leprosy Song" out of my head...thanks a lot Nana!!!) There were four of them and they were very excited when they saw us foreigners. They asked if they could have their photo taken with us and Amy and I had no qualms about it. Later on, in the main prison cell building, we ran into them again. They were even more excited to see us a second time, and asked again if they could have their picture taken with us. This time though, they asked us to do a specific pose, and this is when Amy and I were introduced to "the gun of love!"

One of the Korean girls asked us to stand in this particular pose, and they showed us exactly how to do it. The Gun Of Love is a very fun cheesy silly pose where you stand up, but sorta lean back, knees bent a little, and make your hands looks like two guns, pointing out away from you. "Oh, you mean like in Charlie's Angels?" we asked the Koreans. "No, it's the gun of love!" they exclaimed, thrilled to have introduced us to something new. So, Amy and I stood their, fingers pointing out, with the cheesiest facial expressions that we could contort our faces into, while the Koreans surrounded us imitating the pose. It was absolutely hilarious!

When Amy and I eventually ran into the rest of the gang we jumped out from a corner, pointed our fingers at Brad, Andrea, and Steve in our new favourite pose, and shouted out "The Gun of Love!!!" Naturally those three had no idea what we were doing and the looks on their faces were priceless! We explained to them the significance and the history of The Gun Of Love, and that was it - it's been a hit ever since. All weekend long, all across Seoul, the five of us have been doing The Gun Of Love at random moments in random places. You gotta love pure and utter silliness!!! :-)

After Independence Park we ventured over to Genjeongjeon - one of the great massive ancient palaces found right in the heart of Seoul. Unfortunately it had just closed by the time we arrived, so we wandered around the grounds on the outside of the palace. Still riding high from our Gun Of Love silliness escapades at the prison, we decided to take several more ultra-cheesy photos outside the palace. We found a row of five phone booths and these provided a perfect 'stage' for us to perform for the Koreans with our silliness. Andrea had brought her digital camera and we got some Korean passerby to take the photos for us. They're absolutely hilarious and Andrea has promised to email them to me sometime soon. As soon as I get them I'll be sure to let you know and pass them on. We took a break from our "Monkees-esque" photo shoot by having a picnic of baguette, cheese, oranges, and chocolate on the beautiful palace grounds. Quite possibly the most beautiful place that I've had a picnic in.

After our little picnic we wandered over to Kyobo Bookstore, which is one of the largest bookstores in Korea. They have a massive 'foreign' section of the bookstore and the five of us spent a good hour plus just wandering around the store, browsing through the great selection of English books. Four of us ended up buying books and I'm excited to read my purchases. I bought two books, both of which were highly reccommended to me by good friends back in Canada. I bought "The Little Prince" (my dear friend Jaki's absolute most favourite book in the whole wide world) and "Life of Pi" (several friends of mine, including Jin, have told me that this book is amazing.) I love reading and love buying books - I'll be back at this bookstore again sometime soon for sure.

It was then dark and starting to get cold, so we decided to head back to Ilsandong. We stopped off at this giant outdoor mall in the city they live in called La Festa and had a very lovely Thai dinner at one of the local restaurants. After that we went and hung out at their friend Jeremy's high-rise apartment, just chillin' out, enjoying the view of Ilsandong at night from high above the city, and just watching some TV. We then went back home and Brad and I stayed up late chatting and sharing our own philosophies regarding life, why we came to Korea, and what our future plans are. Brad's an awesome guy and even though he's only in Korea for another three months I think we'll become really good friends during that time. His friends are a blast and I look forward to getting to know them too. Finally - some new friends who are fun, well-rounded, and normal!!! hehe!

It was such a good day! :-)

Day 28: The End Of Me

My weeks are going by faster and faster these days...this whole week just seemed to fly by, and overall was a very good week. (albeit rather quiet, but still enjoyable!) My students have been great (for the most part) and the new curriculam is working out really well in the classrooms. Still, it's Friday, and I'm happy that the weekend is here!

I really do enjoy teaching all of my classes, with the exception of one...

I teach three blocks of kindergarten in the morning - a block of 5-year olds, a block of 6's, and a block of 7's (each block is a half hour long.) The kids are shy, adorable and sweet, and the lessons *VERY* simple (ABC's, 123's, colouring, matching objects, puzzles, cut and paste, that kind of stuff.) The mornings always whip by and then next thing I know it's lunch time. In the afternoons I teach elementary - a block of Grade 1's, a block of Grade 2's, a block of Grade 3/4's, and a block of Grade 4/5/6's (each block is about 45 minutes long.) The Grade 2-6's are older and have a much larger vocabulary, so it's fun with them cause you can actually interact with them and play games that are a little more complex. They're very well-behaved and are naturally inquisitive about me, about learning English, and about the world.

The Grade 1's, on the other hand, are a whole other ball game...they are the only class that I DO NOT enjoy teaching!!! They're at that lovely age where they've lost the shyness that keeps the kindergartens in line, but have yet to learn the respect for elders and teachers that the older kids are so good at following. They are loud, disruptive, and do not listen at all! They can never speak to me or each other, everything has to be SCREAMED, they love to throw things, they can't sit in their seat for longer than 2 minutes, and they fight with each other all the time. Hair-pulling, pinching, and the stealing of precious markers are all daily dramas. At this age they still know very little English, so speaking/yelling at them is very difficult because they don't understand much of what I say. This makes it *very easy* for them to tune me out... All of this would be 'handleable', except for the fact that only is this the only class of the day that I have to teach alone (no Korean teacher on hand to translate to help keep them in line), and this particular class is a FULL HOUR LONG. It's the longest hour of the day, by far!!!

I have to keep reminding myself during this hour, every single day, what my Auntie always told me - "patience is a virtue!" MY GOD DOES ONE NEED A LOT OF PATIENCE TO SURVIVE THIS HOUR!!! Most of the kids in this class are actually quite polite, intelligent, and well-behaved, but there's 2 or 3 that are not, and they seem to enjoy getting the other kids riled up. Two of them, especially, are extremely disruptive. One of them is very smart, but I swear he has A.D.D., and honestly has to SCREAM OUT AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS all of his answers. Even him I can handle...it's this one student in this class that is my biggest challenge. He is extremely rude, never has any interest in his schoolwork, likes to pick on other students (especially his female peers), and is *very defiant* of adult authority. I can honestly yell at him to stay in his seat (and I hate to raise my voice, but sometimes it's the only way the kids will pay attention) and he'll just look me right in the eye and laugh... Ohhhh.... Seriously, this kid is going to bring about the end of me. I try not to let him under my skin, but somedays he just knows exactly what buttons to push. Today was one of those days...! I had a splitting headache by the end of that class and tried very hard to not let it ruin the rest of my day, which normally I enjoy very much.

Some kind of solution has to come about with this one god-awful hour from hell because I can't last a whole year being alone with those Grade 1's. Honestly, if it was any other grade I'd be perfectly able and well-equipped to handle those students. The easiest solution would be to have a Korean teacher in the class with me, as the Grade 1's seem to respect them a lot more than they do me. Unforunately, that hour seems to be one of our busiest at the school - I'm pretty sure that all the other teachers are occupied with their own students, and because my boss Steven is so incredibly busy all the time, he's usually attending to some dire matter regarding running the school during that time. I'm not sure what else to suggest, but I definitely need to talk to my boss about this and work something out. Let's just say that I have a new, MASSIVE respect for my friends Henry and Jason back in Vancouver, both of whom are teachers who've had entire classrooms of 'difficult problem' children. I don't know how you guys survive!!!!

ANY SUGGESTIONS??? :-)

This weekend should be awesome and I can't wait! I got a hold of my friend Brad Harris, who is actually from my hometown, who is teaching here also in Korea. Him and I went to elementary and high school together, and I remember playing at his house as a child - his house was just two crescents over from mine. I haven't seen him in YEARS and I think it will be cool to hang out with someone that I knew from when I was a child/teenager. We hadn't had the chance to hang out prior to this weekend as we pretty much live on opposite corners of Seoul from each other. I'm going out to the area he lives in tomorrow AM to hang with him and some of his friends, and it'll probably take me at least two hours on the subway to get there, if not more. Regardless of this on-coming super-commute I'm looking forward to seeing Brad, meeting some new people, and doing something fun (we're debating between going hiking or visiting some museums or galleries or something.) Should be a great weekend!!!