Saturday, January 31, 2009
Picture Of The Week (Jan. 28)
While on a random night for dinner, A couple of my friends decided to perform a segment of their favorite kung-fu movie. . . This is the end result. . .
Monday, January 19, 2009
Random Conversation: American Students vs. Korean Students
Part of a conversation I had with a Korean teacher about differences in middle school students and elementary school students today:
Me – “When the students at my school go to sleep, I yell by their ear and wake them up.”
Korean Teacher – “You should be careful, there has been an issue with students hitting teachers here.”
Me – “That doesn’t worry me.”
Korean Teacher – “Why?”
Me – “In America, students have been known to pull guns and shoot up schools. Hitting is the least of my worries.”
Not to say Korean kids cant' be annoying. . . . . Trust me; kids will always be kids. But at least this country has very strict gun laws. (It also doesn't hurt that I'm bigger than they are but quite a bit.). One of my friends used to be a teacher in one of the rougher districts in Atlanta and she saw more things with younger kids than I would want to admit to. I can only wonder what will happen when the day comes that I go back home and become a certified teacher back home.
Me – “When the students at my school go to sleep, I yell by their ear and wake them up.”
Korean Teacher – “You should be careful, there has been an issue with students hitting teachers here.”
Me – “That doesn’t worry me.”
Korean Teacher – “Why?”
Me – “In America, students have been known to pull guns and shoot up schools. Hitting is the least of my worries.”
Not to say Korean kids cant' be annoying. . . . . Trust me; kids will always be kids. But at least this country has very strict gun laws. (It also doesn't hurt that I'm bigger than they are but quite a bit.). One of my friends used to be a teacher in one of the rougher districts in Atlanta and she saw more things with younger kids than I would want to admit to. I can only wonder what will happen when the day comes that I go back home and become a certified teacher back home.
Walking Around In Circles
I started my last English camp for the winter break today, and it was pretty straightforward. I didn’t realize how much my last camp spoiled me. The kids at my last camp were much more responsive than this group, but then still aren’t bad. The younger kids are still the more fun ones because they don’t have inhibitions. The older ones are apathetic and humorous even when I want to ring their necks.
Still, the start of this camp did not go well for me. For starters, I was about 15 minutes late due to odd directions I received. Instead of being able to map quest a place and drive there ( Map Quest I miss you!!!!), I had to get directions from the Teachers at the school. So I was giving a tiny map to the school. . . . . . In KOREAN. Now, consider the fact that during the school year, my trip from my school to my apartment is 5 minutes. This English camp’s location is remotely close to the next to the last stop on the Eastern subway line. . . . . roughly 10-12 stops from me. . who lives on the West line. Now the kicker of this whole debacle is that when I got off the train, I suddenly realized two things
A) I didn’t have a copy of the map and had to go by memory.
B) I also forgot the paper with the name of the school written in Korean: no taking a cab for me.
I took what I assumed would be the right path; going the opposite way of the train because that’s what it looked like on the map when I got it. This guess turned out to be totally wrong. As I realized I was going the wrong way (roughly 10 blocks later), I mentally turned the shoddy map around in my head and went. . . “Oh.”
So I trudged back in the opposite direction knowing that if I ran into another train station that I totally went too far. I trotted along, looking up for some sort of landmark. . that was when I realized something. .
The map only had three: the train stations, the mart where the corner was and the school itself.
Let me also give you a little in-site on Korean directions. No one actually uses street names here. Streets are marked with names or some sort of system, I’ve seen the signs. But No one uses them. I haven’t figured out if this is the norm or not; I have this strange feeling that we westerners are considered too dumb to read Korean street signs and thus never given the street directions. Regardless, I ended up going down another wrong street before being called by the teachers at the school.
Did I mention that said forgotten slip of paper with the school name also had the school phone number? FUN!!!
I finally found the right street with the right mart on the corner, but I was dog tired by then. No matter the fact that I have been in this country for about five months now; you can’t match Koreans and walking because they have done it their whole lives. Me and my fat, lazy American self was more than a little tired by the time the one of the teachers found me on the street. I’m sure it was a humorous site to see me walking in the door softly trying to catch my breath.
Korean walking 1, Me 0. . . . curse you, walking around as transportation!!!!
I taught my first lesson shortly after, which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t terribly interesting. . . even to me. I tried with my power points and pictures but it only work so much. I was talking about hobbies: how much can you talk about hobbies when you have a limited understanding of language. It’s fine, doing the Time lesson is always better and more fun for me. . last time the kids like it as well. I’ll have to take some pictures and post them.
Still, the start of this camp did not go well for me. For starters, I was about 15 minutes late due to odd directions I received. Instead of being able to map quest a place and drive there ( Map Quest I miss you!!!!), I had to get directions from the Teachers at the school. So I was giving a tiny map to the school. . . . . . In KOREAN. Now, consider the fact that during the school year, my trip from my school to my apartment is 5 minutes. This English camp’s location is remotely close to the next to the last stop on the Eastern subway line. . . . . roughly 10-12 stops from me. . who lives on the West line. Now the kicker of this whole debacle is that when I got off the train, I suddenly realized two things
A) I didn’t have a copy of the map and had to go by memory.
B) I also forgot the paper with the name of the school written in Korean: no taking a cab for me.
I took what I assumed would be the right path; going the opposite way of the train because that’s what it looked like on the map when I got it. This guess turned out to be totally wrong. As I realized I was going the wrong way (roughly 10 blocks later), I mentally turned the shoddy map around in my head and went. . . “Oh.”
So I trudged back in the opposite direction knowing that if I ran into another train station that I totally went too far. I trotted along, looking up for some sort of landmark. . that was when I realized something. .
The map only had three: the train stations, the mart where the corner was and the school itself.
Let me also give you a little in-site on Korean directions. No one actually uses street names here. Streets are marked with names or some sort of system, I’ve seen the signs. But No one uses them. I haven’t figured out if this is the norm or not; I have this strange feeling that we westerners are considered too dumb to read Korean street signs and thus never given the street directions. Regardless, I ended up going down another wrong street before being called by the teachers at the school.
Did I mention that said forgotten slip of paper with the school name also had the school phone number? FUN!!!
I finally found the right street with the right mart on the corner, but I was dog tired by then. No matter the fact that I have been in this country for about five months now; you can’t match Koreans and walking because they have done it their whole lives. Me and my fat, lazy American self was more than a little tired by the time the one of the teachers found me on the street. I’m sure it was a humorous site to see me walking in the door softly trying to catch my breath.
Korean walking 1, Me 0. . . . curse you, walking around as transportation!!!!
I taught my first lesson shortly after, which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t terribly interesting. . . even to me. I tried with my power points and pictures but it only work so much. I was talking about hobbies: how much can you talk about hobbies when you have a limited understanding of language. It’s fine, doing the Time lesson is always better and more fun for me. . last time the kids like it as well. I’ll have to take some pictures and post them.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Music Overview: Jan. 5, 2009
Just finished picking apart Common's "Universal Mind Control." I'm not as impressed as I would like to be. It's not a bad album. . . I just think it could be better.
Best part of my hip hop listening habits have been my rediscovery of Little Brother. If you are a Hip-Hop fan, PLEASE listen to these guys. They are throw backs, but they are so much fun to listen to.
I also went thru a few days of listening to a lot of Japanese Rock. Mostly it's stuff from Anime but I got to say I love Sambomaster. Talk about a band that's not pretty. The lead singer can belt it out, but he's SO NOT the typical front man for a Rock band. Watching the video for one of my fave songs looks like he's singing and stumbling drunk. God Bless the Japanese.
This sadly made me think about how the lack of unique music here in good ole Korea. Here, everyone listens to the same music, the same songs and it's mostly pre-packaged Pop that imatates mainstream Pop, R&B and Rap back home. Which means almost NO groups write their own music. Doesn't mean there aren't a few. Only ones I seem to find that have some merit is Epik High. For some reason, these guys impress me and from my understanding they have a lot of creative control over their stuff. But it doesn't hurt that they manage to make videos that get banned from TV:
Either way, that's all when it comes to music for now. If you got any reccomendations, please feel free to speak up.
Today was the start of my week long English camp. It was odd being in a room of kids younger than 6th grade. They were a little different. Unlike normal school, I'm in the room by myself. That freaked me out a bit because I'm not used to that. It wasn't horrid and in some ways it's kind of fun. The kids were mostly good, but I don't know if that's because it's that it was new to them.
I kind of like the energy of the younger kids. Generally they were better behaved than my usual middle school kids. What was odd was that I could give instructions in English and they mostly got it. That NEVER happens with the older kids. But from my understanding, the kids in the camp were picked because they are BETTER at English than usual.
Either way, 4 days to go.
Because it was such a short day, I was downtown around 1pm and I was shocked at the number of elderly folk. They are EVERYWHERE!! I was in the mall above Banwoldang Station and they were just sitting on every bench. I have seen random old people just sitting in this country but it's odd to see the massive numbers of them out and about. They generally do nothing. . . just sit in groups or on benches and talk to each other. That is odd compared to back home.
Because I'm so used to being at school during the day, It's a little odd to suddenly have time on my hands. I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself because I think it's a waste to go home and sit in my apartment. I pretty much just came home after doing some light exploring and went to sleep. . . . untlil 11 at night! THAT'S JUST SICK!
I kind of like the energy of the younger kids. Generally they were better behaved than my usual middle school kids. What was odd was that I could give instructions in English and they mostly got it. That NEVER happens with the older kids. But from my understanding, the kids in the camp were picked because they are BETTER at English than usual.
Either way, 4 days to go.
Because it was such a short day, I was downtown around 1pm and I was shocked at the number of elderly folk. They are EVERYWHERE!! I was in the mall above Banwoldang Station and they were just sitting on every bench. I have seen random old people just sitting in this country but it's odd to see the massive numbers of them out and about. They generally do nothing. . . just sit in groups or on benches and talk to each other. That is odd compared to back home.
Because I'm so used to being at school during the day, It's a little odd to suddenly have time on my hands. I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself because I think it's a waste to go home and sit in my apartment. I pretty much just came home after doing some light exploring and went to sleep. . . . untlil 11 at night! THAT'S JUST SICK!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Loc Box
Unlike most weekends, I've locked myself away in my apartment and I've slowly been trying to rid myself of this damned cold that won't seem to go away. After several bottles of orange juice, sitting on laying on the heated floor for two days and a box of Korean Meds (including some bags of stuff the pharmacy gave me that tastes like pure nasty), I'm finally starting to feel better.
It seems several of my friends treked off to Seoul for the weekend. I opted to skip flight club Sat. because I wanted to stay out of the cold air as much as possible.
I haven't had much entertainment other than some random TV and anime I've downloaded to the computer, so it's been pretty boring.
I honestly think I'm going to be very lowkey the rest of this month. I want to see how much money i can keep from spending and possibly hold on to. My goal is to hold onto 75,000-100,000 won (you can go do the exchange rate to see how much it is. . . www.xe.com) before my next check. If i can do that for the next few months, I hope to have some to blow on myself for my birthday.
I hate that I have to send so much damned money home each month. It wouldn't be so bad with exchange rate. . . BUT i can at least look on the bright side and say that it has started to show signs of going back up. I must admit that I'm a bit jealous of my friends who have disposable income and are taking this winter break to go travel. I honestly can't see how some of them afford it. I keep forgetting I'm on average 4-5 years older than most of the people i know here. Many are a year or two removed from college and they haven't done some of the stupid stuff I have done (oh credit cards. . . I hate you. it won't be much longer now until I will nuke you in a firely blaze of hell. . . the joy, oh the joy). Reguardless, I'm having to be extra careful about my spending and I will have to find other ways to entertain myself. I really need to find something constructive to do to keep myself preoccupited.
Either way, it all equals up to no trips to Japan (sigh) in the near future. I promised myself that if I was good for the next few months, I'll reward myself for my birthday at the end of March. It all will depend on just how much I want to reward myself. Japan or PS3 (yes, it's that damn serious to me. I miss my gaming habits damn it!!!)
It seems several of my friends treked off to Seoul for the weekend. I opted to skip flight club Sat. because I wanted to stay out of the cold air as much as possible.
I haven't had much entertainment other than some random TV and anime I've downloaded to the computer, so it's been pretty boring.
I honestly think I'm going to be very lowkey the rest of this month. I want to see how much money i can keep from spending and possibly hold on to. My goal is to hold onto 75,000-100,000 won (you can go do the exchange rate to see how much it is. . . www.xe.com) before my next check. If i can do that for the next few months, I hope to have some to blow on myself for my birthday.
I hate that I have to send so much damned money home each month. It wouldn't be so bad with exchange rate. . . BUT i can at least look on the bright side and say that it has started to show signs of going back up. I must admit that I'm a bit jealous of my friends who have disposable income and are taking this winter break to go travel. I honestly can't see how some of them afford it. I keep forgetting I'm on average 4-5 years older than most of the people i know here. Many are a year or two removed from college and they haven't done some of the stupid stuff I have done (oh credit cards. . . I hate you. it won't be much longer now until I will nuke you in a firely blaze of hell. . . the joy, oh the joy). Reguardless, I'm having to be extra careful about my spending and I will have to find other ways to entertain myself. I really need to find something constructive to do to keep myself preoccupited.
Either way, it all equals up to no trips to Japan (sigh) in the near future. I promised myself that if I was good for the next few months, I'll reward myself for my birthday at the end of March. It all will depend on just how much I want to reward myself. Japan or PS3 (yes, it's that damn serious to me. I miss my gaming habits damn it!!!)
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