New Foreigner

There is a new foreign teacher at the middle school, which is just across the parking area from my school. She is from L.A. I met her at my demo lesson and have been doing my best to help her out and show her around. I've taken her around, gotten her a bus card, taken her to dinner, given her helpful websites and stuff. She's a very sassy kind of gal, which is exactly the kind of person I like to hang out with. She might be someone to draw me out of my self-imposed anti-foreigner isolation.

Crazed Koreans!

My teachers are all in a tizzy! For two weeks they've been running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They are preparing for an inspection/audit from the province office. As a result they have completely ignored their classes for two weeks. I haven't seen some of my co-teachers for two weeks (they're supposed to be in every class I teach) as they have been busy making documents all pretty. It's crazy. They have prepared the largest pile of the most anal retentive binders of documents that I have ever seen! Everything has been gussied up and printed on the color laser printer for the inspectors. The students have spent at least an hour each day scrubbing up the school. Usually it is cleaned in 20 minutes by the students. The school was powerwashed, windows cleaned, floor scrubbed, everything. It's pretty crazy.

I think it's so crazy that they seem to care more about appearances than actual content. I guess this is the Korean way. I get so turned off by the blatant superficiality of everything here sometimes. Usually I dismiss it as something frivilous and ignorable. These two weeks have really kicked the superficiality into hyperdrive! I'm just tired of it. I can't wait until this evaluation is over with so they can go back to being normal.

I do have to say that many of the teachers do not like this kind of activity. They all realise that it's frivilous. They know that what they're teaching and the students should be the most important thing and not these damned documents. They are exhausted, staying up until midnight to three in the morning to work on documents. You can see it in everyone. They're all tense, stressed, and tired. I am very thankful that I don't have to do things like this. Maybe one day the schools will revolt and just hand the province their regular old documents and not these extra shiny and special pretty documents. Guerilla education!

Last One!

Last Friday was a special day for me. The very last demo lesson that I will have to do in Korea. Thank God in Heaven! For a refresher, a demo lesson is a special fake "play" version of a class which is observed by other English teachers (Korean and navtive speakers) and someone from the province office. Anyway, the lesson was uneventful and boring as usual. Of course I taught the very best class I have in the school and we rehearsed the lesson before. Nothing is left to chance.

Anyway, after the lesson there is a feedback session with all of the people. First, my principal (the evil man) spoke for a very long time, in Korean. He talked for maybe 15 or 20 minutes. No one translated it. It is such a rude thing to sit through. Then everyone gave their impression of the lesson, in English. Of course everyone says the same things. The "compliment sandwich" approach, something nice, something negative, something nice.

Victoria was in my lesson. When the feedback session turned to her... she laid it all out. The emperor has no clothes! She said that it was obvious that I was a good teacher and that the students are very comfortable with me. You can't fake that. But then she mentioned the pink elephant in the room. She said that you can't learn anything from these lessons because everyone knows that they are staged and fake. She didn't say anything that everyone didn't know.

Anyway, no one really reacted to her truth telling. I didn't care either. Anyway, it's finished and I dont' have to do another one. Thank God it's all finished.

Missing In Action

This has happened a couple times to me recently. I was thinking "Hey, I haven't seen Andrew lately." He's one of my favorite students. I asked about him, and he's dropped out. It's very sad to me. We've had many students drop out lately. In Korea they are allowed to drop out when they reach high school, when they are 17 years old. I just hope that they are not making a huge mistake. I don't know what life is like for a high school drop-out in Korea. I just don't know. It makes me sad when I realise that these kids are gone.

Crazy Aussies!

I am good friends with a couple of Australians. Toni has been here for a few years. She had an opening at her school and managed to convince her best friend to come teach with her. The two of them together are lound and funny and just outrageous. They really are great fun. Unfortunately, they live down south, so we only see them maybe once a month when they come up to the Air Base are and get a hotel room and spend time hanging out, eating good food, and drinking. They are a lot of fun. So, this saturday I hung out with them for quite a while. Here is the end result.

These are some wonderful hats that they bought. It was a terribly cold day. The bunny was by far the best hat I've ever seen.

We found this crazy store that was going out of business. A clothing store. Everything in it was $1. The owner wasn't there, but he left his phone number, so we called him. He came by in 15 minutes. The store is absolutely crammed and piled with clothes of every kind. You really had to dig to find good stuff, but it was there. Sandra got a red suede jacket for $5. The owner kept singing a little song, the only words were "one dollar, one dollar, one dollar..." It was terribly repetitive. It was fun. Everyone got some great stuff. I think Victoria got 16 things. All I got were socks.

After the clothing shopping fest, we went to a bar to get out of the cold. We then went to a new German restaurant that is run by a German man and his Korean wife. It was a great time. After the restaurant it was off to the Bellagio bar where the girls enjoyed an endless supply of "dirty mothers" which is a cocktail made from kaluah, tequila, and milk. I had to leave early to get back to Anseong. Next time I'm going to get a hotel and stay with them, they're just too fun.

Here is a picture of Sandra, the birthday girl. She's been in Korea for about one month. Look how great my beard is coming in. This is after one month of growth.Here is Jude posing with Toni at the German restaurant.

Here is M.J., the owner of the Bellagio bar and the maker of the dirty mothers.

An Update

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. Not too much has been going on here in Korea. Everyday is the same thing really. School, which is always the same, home, dinner, school. On my weekends now I usually go to Songtan, where the U.S. Airbase is located. I have friends there and we eat some western food and hang out. So, here are some photos that I've taken over the last few weeks. I hope you enjoy.

A couple of weeks ago was the Anseong festival. My friend Jude came over to check it out. The festival was quite a dud. However, we went out that night. So here are some candid bar shots from Anseong. The one bar, Angler 9, has a central bar with a pyramid of beer. There is an ice trough around it and you just pull out the beer that you want and drink it. It's pretty nifty.

Thursday was my school's sports day. A whole day of sporting events for the kids. I was bored all day, but the kids had fun. Each class had a uniform shirt, which was kind of fun. Some of the more interesting things were an under-water breath holding competition that looked like Mr. Yoo was drowning the children!

Here is the gym teacher, fully in his element. Always with the track suit, sunglasses, and hat. He's a super nice guy.

This shirt on the front said "I'm a nice person." On the back it says "so what." The big letters in the middle spell "mwo" which means "what." I thought they were neat.

Foreigners

I don't know what is going on with me lately. I cannot stand to hang out with the foreigners here in Korea. By foreigners I mean the other teachers from the U.S., Canada, Australia, etc. It is becoming a real problem I think.

Lately I've been feeling the need to edit my life a bit. I mean that I'm now pulling my close friends closer and cutting loose those people that do nothing for me emotionally and spiritually. I have to say that the vast majority of the foreign teachers here flal into the latter category.

About 90% of the foreigners here tend to be completely superfluous. They talk and talk and talk but they don't say anything. They are acquaintences. I find them to be really disengenuous. Also, in my city they are very much like high school students. They talk about everyone behind their back and are constantly backstabbing. So, in order to save my own sanity I simply don't hang out with them. I won't do it. When I have to spend any time with them I get very stressed out. I'm sure they're nice people, but they are toxic to my wellbeing.

Anyway, my friend Jude experienced this first hand over the weekend. He was in Anseong for the Baudeogi Festival. He wanted to go to the bar where the foreigners go, Ouzo. I took him. The next table had a couple of foreigners and some Koreans all talking. Talking about nothing, but talking non-stop. After only 30 minutes of this Jude looked at me and said "get me the hell out of here!" He'd had enough. Needless to say, I will never go to this bar again.

I'm officially done with these foreigners. Keeping these "friendships" are draining emotionally and leave me feeling more lonely than if I were to just stay by myself. So I choose to keep in touch with the handful of foreigners who actually speak and have things to say. They contribute to my wellbeing. That's my life here as of late.

Breaking News: BEARDGATE '07

Today in my 2-3 class several students reacting interestingly to my beard. They had to touch it. So, like I was a dog, several students touched my beard and recoiled in disgust.

Beardgate. All the beard news that's fit to print.

A Chair Like No Other

I hate this story. Victoria loves it. She makes me tell it to every new person we meet. It's super embarassing for me, but if I can't laugh at myself then who can I laugh at?

Let's go back a year and a half ago. It was my first day at school in Korea. I go in, sit at my desk. The teachers start saying to me "Oh, your chair is too small." I tell them "No, it's fine." They keep reiterating that it's too small for me. I keep insisting that it's fine. I don't want them to do anything weird. It's fine. It's fine. Anyway, I left to go to my first class (which I wasn't really supposed to have but whatever). When I come back to my desk I'm in shock.

Ok, have you ever watched a talk show like Oprah or something and they have on the super obese people that weigh 900 pounds and Richard Simmons comes on the show? Well, on these episodes you look at the set and you say to yourself, "Self, the normal chair is gone. They've replaced the guest's chair with a bench for this large person." Well, my school did this to me, to an extent.

I came back into the office to my desk and this is what I found. Not a chair. Not a bench. It is the front bucket seat out of some automobile put on a metal rolling rack. Holy embarassed. There is no hiding the fact that it's a car seat. It has the map pocket in the back. It made me feel so incredibly ashamed.

This makes me ask a few questions. Where did they find this chair? It's not something they just rushed out to get when I got there. It must have been sitting around somewhere. Did they take it from a teacher's car? I don't know. Anyway, it's my cross to bear. Here are pics of my office "chair." Victoria loves this... I hate it. Oh, I don't hate the "chair" anymore, because there is back support and a head rest, so when I'm tired I can just put my head back. So that's the bonus. Here it is. My shame.

Update: BEARDGATE '07: Week 1

Here I am after a week of not shaving. Notice the satisfied look on my face as I stick it to the man, the man being my school that is poopy to me.