Monday, October 27, 2008

Land of Morning Calm

Two facts- There is a high school across the street from my building. Korea is called "Land of the morning calm." For the most part, morning calm is a good description. Korea is a late night kind of country, at least here in Incheon. You can't get a cup of coffee at 8 a.m., but you can get one at 2 a.m. The bars and clubs don't slow down until 3 a.m. and if you stay up till or wake up at 5 a.m you can see the bleary eyed customers stumbling out into the cold light of day. If you wait till 6 a.m. all is quiet. But.

If you happen, like I did, to walk to the PC room at 8 a.m. "land of the morning calm" will not be the phrase that immediately leaps to mind. A mini horde of rampaging high school students almost late for school caromed around the corner and dashed in the gate just in time. I noticed a single rose tenaciously blooming by the fence.

Work is a lot more fun right now. Everyone is starting to relax a bit and joke around. We are sharing ideas and helping each other more. Even my students are getting more active (in a good way). Although it is the end of the month, and I have to get tests and evaluations done. Still, I'm looking forward to going.

In Taek kong mu sul class we learned one of the routines. I felt so bad for my teacher, who valiantly and patiently tried to explain the difference between left and right. I tried unsuccessfully to explain that I didn't know it in English, and besides I only have left feet.
And so it goes.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

sorry

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. No, I'm not dead, sick or injured. Actually I'm pretty happy right at the moment.
It is 9:30 Monday morning, and the Irish would call the day "soft" there isn't a bright sun, or a harsh wind. Just a gentle haze around the sun and a soft breeze. Although the breeze is carrying hints of winter, they are just hints.
The trees in my park across from my building are starting to turn. Mostly yellow with a few dashes of red thrown in.

My head teacher is no longer with us. She left on Tuesday, and I feel happy, but I didn't realized just how stressed I was until now. I'm starting to get my energy back, but last week I felt so tired. I slept until 2pm on Saturday!

Sunday was a bit like Christmas, because I got my new bedding. Now my room doesn't look like an unfortunately pink hotel room. I got four big pillows, three middle sized pillows and a blanket/quilt all in dark green. The green is even prettier on the bed than in the picture (something that doesn't happen very often). I've put my bed against the wall, and threw the pillows around it so it looks more like a sofa than a bed. The people at the shop were very nice. First, I was able to get everything only one week after I ordered it, then the owner of the shop carried the bags to the taxi stand and made sure I got a taxi, and the taxi driver helped me with them when I got home. Customer service here rocks.

It was my friends birthday on Saturday, so Sunday night I took him to the place with the great duck. He loved it as much as I did. I slept pretty good, and now I'm actually looking forward to going to work again. Life is good.
And so it goes.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Drama and Trauma

There is a lot of drama and trauma at work, and since I'm not supposed to know about it, I can't blog about it. I will say this much, I am not traumatized myself.

In other news, I really need to get back into shape since I missed so much taek kong mu sul. But the class was still fun, and I stayed on my feet the whole time.

Life.. gotta love it.
And so it goes.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Good times

Friday night I just crashed and burned. I went to bed early, didn't go to martial arts, didn't go out. But it was good to get some rest.
Saturday I didn't get up nearly as early as I had planned, but I did manage to get to Seoul and meet up with a friend of mine and my co-workers in Kybo. We picked out two books to study grammar (starting Monday) and then went to dinner at the bulgogi place I went to with Kristen Tom and Todd. The food was even better at night. We had some great kim'chi, a mushroom stew, and of course bulgogi. Then we went to Insadong, the old quarter of Seoul. I bought some cool earrings from a jewelery artist? I guess that is what to call him. I talked to him a bit, and I definitely want to go back to the area for shopping! I found the lamps I want (right now I only have the overhead florescent lights and they are way to bright most evenings) and some other things to make the apartment beautiful.

We then went to a beautiful little coffee shop/tea house, but they didn't quite get the coffee part, and put caramel on my mocha. It still tasted good, so no complaints.

Later that night my friend wanted to find the "boys" town, and he didn't want to go alone, so we went in search of "boys" clubs. We found two, after getting lost twice. They were in a back alley, and one was really nice, with flowers on the walls and these beautiful flower lamps. It was quiet and cozy, but I think I scared a few of the customers off. We then asked about the other place my friend wanted to go to. The bartender was very surprised. He kept looking at me, and then looking at my friend. I think it confused him a bit. We were going to have one more drink, but we decided not to because we didn't want to scare anyone else off.

The next place was a bit busier, and the bartender spoke English. The bartender thought we didn't know what kind of place it was, but then I explained I was just a friend. We had some Junebugs, a sweet drink with Midori, and hung out for a few hours. The place wasn't hopping but it was busy enough. I think my friend will be back there soon.

I didn't get home until four a.m. The bars here don't close at 2, like in the States, they stay open until the last customer leaves. This was the second time I stayed way way past my bedtime. I woke up again at 2 pm. I met up with Todd and we went to the bedding shop, I had to call the tourist translation line (they have that now!) and was able to get the bedding I wanted special order. My apartment is going to be so cool. We also bought some more plants, and Todd laughed at me, but I love my mini-jungle so I don't care.
And so it goes.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Look on the bright side of life

Work is not making me happy. I can no longer work at HQ, and that is not good. If I wanted to only be a teacher, the high schools here offer a much much better deal. However I can deal, even with the weekly obscure grammar point tests, the petty punishments, the daily rudeness. It is only for nine more months. I'm disappointed of course, I didn't want to waste a year, but that is life.

I've decided that work is work, I'll go in, do my job, and collect my paycheck. I think they are foolish, because I know I have a lot of energy and good ideas, but that is on them. I have a lot of good things in life: I have some great friends (both foreign and Korean) I have a great martial arts teacher, and I have a fantastic Korean teacher. I am going to concentrate on the things I love and enjoy. Start going back to Toastmasters, climb a few mountains, get my apartment flash. ( I already have a mini jungle)

There is so much to do here, and so much that is good, I am going to concentrate on those things.
And so it goes.

I hope this works

I've been having trouble with blogger, so I'm testing, testing: one two three.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

quite ugly one morning

Sigh.
It just gets worse. Monday I brought the digital voice recorder to work. I let my boss know I had it because I didn't want to be accused of going behind her back. I just wanted to record my classes to prove that I am a good teacher. Her accusations are both unfounded and to be honest a bit over the top. She is still complaining that I don't follow RT procedures, and when I ask for an example she still gives the one time a month and a half ago where I forgot a journal prompt.

So I thought I would record my classes and have someone at HQ listen and give me feedback.
She was so angry it wasn't funny. I think her anger at me is all out of proportion to what is going on. Steve the New Yorker's classes are so out of control they spill out of the classroom and I can hear the kids shouting from my classroom, and honey drips from my bosses mouth when she talks to him. It isn't really his fault because he doesn't have any teaching experience. She should be guiding him. Instead she is harping on me.
But. that is not the ugly.

Tuesday the big boss called me in. He had one of the other teachers translate for me. He said he understood, he knows about my boss's lack of communication skill and he assured me she won't fire me. He then told me because I am older and more experienced than the other teachers it was more important for me to follow my boss. I agreed, and gave some concrete examples of how I really really try. The end result, I had to apologize to my boss.
So.
I went in front of everyone, bowed to her, and said "I'm sorry" -- She said "Is it sincere?"
She used her snottiest teacher voice. I was so angry. I couldn't believe she would throw my apology back at me like that.

But this is the woman who said "Your wine isn't high quality" when Steve the New Yorker brought some to her house warming.

But I swallowed my pride and said yes, and even invited her for coffee afterwards. I still don't trust her at all. I'd quit this campus but I really like the other teachers, I like the program I work with, and I like the big boss.

The bright spot, I can still work at HQ on the books I'm revising, but I shouldn't talk to anyone there about our campus. And all the tests and evaluations are done, and my kids did really well. I'm so happy with them.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

I have no energy today

It is Monday morning. I didn't wake up with the alarm. I should be well rested and happy, but I still feel a bit -blah- and tired.
Friday was a good day, and Friday night two girlfriends came over. We ordered fried chicken, which is almost exactly the same as in America, the only difference is that one side has ordinary fried chicken and the other side has fried chicken with, you guessed it, a spicy sauce. They wound up staying much longer than orignally planned, but we had a great time.

Saturday I went to Seoul with the giant. He is new to Korea but has traveled a lot in Central America. He is pretty tall, so he towers over everyone here. I'm sure he has no problems controlling the kids. We met up with my friend from KC and her friend at Kybo, the biggest bookstore ever.

We were all hungry so decided to try to find a good place to eat. We found an awesome place to eat down one alley and a small trail. The entry way had a cool well with a stone basin, and we went in and had bulgogi, but they really went all out on the side dishes. There was a boiled eggplant, fried zucchini, these small fish with the heads still on, a vegetable stew, potato salad with apples, two kinds of kim'chi, odan ( a kind of fish but it doesn't look or taste like fish), rice in a stone pot that was still very hot. We took the rice out of the pot then put a broth in, and after we ate we had rice soup. The rice was really good too, with red beans, ginger, ginseng, and sweet potato cooked in.

We went walking and near Kybo is a great park area with a river and they were having a festival so we wandered around there, then decided to walk to Sincheon. Sincheon is a great little area of Seoul with lots of shops, coffee shops and restaurants. We started walking and it was quite a hike. We got a little lost, but I was able to save the day with my Korean. We also found the nicest movie theater. The place looked more like an opera house, and I decided that I have to see something there. When we finally got to Sincheon we had a couple of drinks at the foreigner bar, then went home.

Sunday I left the house twice.
And so it goes.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

I need some quiet time

Well, things are busy here in my universe. Wendsday night Mr. Lee, the owner of our school, took the whole school to Shabu Shabu. Shabu Shabu is a kind of Japanese food (with a Korean twist) - there is a spicy soup with mushrooms and green onions that is cooked at the table, and then several kinds of very thinly sliced raw meat is put in, and you then eat it. After the meat they brought seafood, then there was noodles and then rice was added -- you finish each course first, and by the end I was decidedly uncomfortably full. During this time we drank soju and beer. I didn't want to drink too much because I had a class with the bouncy girls on Thursday.

After Shabu Shabu we went to a beer hof. I decided I really like Mr. Lee. He is politically liberal and actually very kind. Since I am not married he offered to set me up on several blind dates with his friends who also are not married. I declined but I thought the offer was nice.

Thursday Cindy had a house warming party. She has a new apartment and the school minus Mr. Lee all went to her place. We had bulgogi (the beef with soy and onions and vegetables) and chicken and wine and Kahlua. This morning I woke up a bit late.

Today I didn't do so well on my word test for my Korean teacher. She said I will have to get used to drinking because here it is a kind of work. She was basically understanding. She also found a good place to get a facial and we are going next week. I really love my Korean class, and she is a very good teacher. She is also a little strict, so she keeps me from getting very distracted.
And so it goes