Oct 27-Nov 23 - Fast Forward

[I've decided to skip through the next three weeks in order to catch this blog up to the present, the past is past and I'm living in the future now.]

My first week of teaching was a trip, I had zero experience coming into this and it definitely showed my first day. It didn't help that I was given virtually no advice (at first) but was instead thrown into a classroom and observed the entire time by one of my Korean co-workers. But, after some much appreciated tips and personal adaptation, I improved rapidly. Now, three weeks in, I almost know what I'm doing.

Halloween was a crazy day. First, there was the school Halloween party, which was in itself pretty hilarious--dozens of costumed kids running around drunk on the idea that they'd be getting heaps of candy because...does it matter?
Halloween night was excellent. About forty foreigners (and a few locals) gathered at a bar called the Blue Agave and ripped it up. Everyone consumed an appalling amount of alcohol and was rendered totally senseless. A ripe nasty boozefest. Some great costumes. I was a zombie DJ.

[special note: bars have no last call in Korea, so leaving around 5am is "standard" and 2am is "early"]

Food - I've been to some great restaurants in the past few weeks: Indian, Chinese, Japanese and, of course, all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ (usually pork). It generally costs about 10 000won ($10) to eat somewhere nice, though cheaper is not unheard of. My main problem with food here is that I cannot find the ingredients I need to cook anything decent at home, nor can I go to most restaurants alone and order something myself, so, unless I go out with friends, I'm usually left hungry. Thankfully, my school provides free lunches, and they are okay.

Friday nights are the big party nights in Korea, while Saturdays are a mere echo--everyone's a bit hungover and tired from the previous nights romp, so Saturday night usually winds down around 2 or 3, if it gets started at all. Sundays are big activity days (or so I've heard, I've been too hungover to take advantage of Sundays potential thus far).

Friday November 14th was a pretty magical night. A crew of 15 people met down at Iho Beach for a bonfire in the sand under a full moon. With the squid fishing season coming to a close, there was a thin string of boats visible in the distance, their ring of bright lights (used to draw the creatures into their nets) encircling the entire island. There were walks on the beach, drunken expeditions to find firewood, and a (failed) attempt to break into a lighthouse. It was hard to believe that it was November.

School snippets:
I work for a hogwan (private school) teaching kindergarten in the morning and elementary in the afternoon. I'm one of two foreign teachers, (the other, also Canadian) and it is pretty laid back. We are free to wear pretty much whatever we want and introduce just about any game or activity to the class, as long as we get the assigned work done on time. This usually means about 2 pages of work, covering basic reading, listening and comprehension of English.

The students abilities vary greatly, from beginner to brilliant. One of the most interesting younger students is a boy who will sit and draw in his book the entire time and appear not to be paying attention at all, but when I ask him to do the work, he is able to complete it flawlessly in a matter of seconds, then he goes right back to drawing.

One of the kindergartners favorite games is to climb onto furniture and then leap off onto me. "Poo" is also a big hit.

It's not all fun and games though; one of the harshest realities I've ever witnessed is seeing a six year old girl breakdown because her parent's divorced and she "doesn't have a mom anymore."

On a brighter note, one of my "prodigy" students asked me on Friday, "there's History, but why no Herstory?" Wow!

I found a piece of paper folded up and stuffed in my back pocket the other day--I didn't put it there. When I opened it up I found it was a note from one of my students with a drawing of a smiling face that read, "NO sad. Happy time!"

On that note, I think I'll cut this post off right here and add random bits as they come to me. Until next time.