Nary A Flat Surface

Photos:
1-Trying to look intimidating for my Foreigner Registration Card.
2-Racism Fail?
3-Mrs. Lee.
4-Lucy.
5-An innocent victim of the dreaded "Asian L/R Confusion."

Greetings...

The title of today's blog is in reference to Korea's apparent inability to produce a flat surface. Of course, I'm exaggerating but there is enough evidence to at least make this claim, even in jest. Over 70% of the entire country has some sort of topography and I think they've designed everything else to honor this amazing statistic. Exhibit A: my bathroom--I have a sink but no counter and trying to balance a can of shaving cream, my razor, a bar of soap or anything at all is practically impossible. Exhibit B: the kitchen--there are indeed flat surfaces here but none that are big enough to actually accommodate anything. Exhibit C: my apartment in general--before I got my desk (smallish though it is), I struggled to find a place to put ANYTHING! Keys, chain, my wallet, etc. have ended up on top of the fridge. Exhibit D: the sidewalks (also the main reason to bring all this up)--so far, more than a month "in country," the sidewalks of Korea have constantly been under construction. On my main street, on either or both sides of the street, there is ALWAYS a good stretch of sidewalk that is being redone. I appreciate their efforts to improve the quality of their sidewalks but they use bricks instead of cement which is just begging for inconsistencies. Now, I walk by, around and through this construction process daily so I feel confident in my assessments. I have witnessed the process and I can safely say that these are amateur sidewalk constructors, using nothing but their God-given eyes and intuition to make "symmetrical" and "level" sidewalks.

I'm actually not complaining because the sidewalks they haven't gotten to yet are dreadful. It is almost impossible to take your eyes off of it because you will most definitely catch your shoe on a bump, crevice or outcropping of asphalt and go a-tumblin' down. I've been walking to and from school lately and I must seem like a stereotypically rude and self-centered American as I traverse the streets without making eye contact. Little do the locals know that I am just trying not to fall on my face.

Here's some more videos:
-At the driving range
-School Speeches

http://www.youtube.com/user/solertia33

Some thoughts on my students...

When I first started, like the first two weeks, I was convinced that the 6th graders were hellspawn and that the 3rd and 4th graders were cherubs sent straight from heaven. Now, I think they're all evil. My theory is that they have to behave themselves so well in their homerooms that when they finally get some parole in the form of English class, they act like monkeys at feeding time. It is so taxing trying to maintain order and attention spans with these kids. An added frustration is not being able to communicate with them. I'm always just putting my finger up to my lips in the international "shh" gesture. Sometimes, I'll wag a finger at them or show them my palm and say, "STOP." This might seem like enough but there are many times when I've got a lot more to say to these wretched younglings and I can't. Last week, we had a surprise: we got to babysit the ENTIRE 5th grade while their parents were in their homerooms with their teachers. Remember my prison riot analogy from an earlier post? Well, imagine 80+ hellions enacting this scenario "to the T" (minus the stabbings of course). But, two boys did get into it right in front of me. They were trying to share one chair (we simply can't accommodate this amount of kids) and they got into a disagreement over whose butt cheek was hanging off more and their initial dirty looks and shoves turned into a UFC death match. They coiled around each other like dueling anacondas, each getting an arm around the neck and grabbing a handfull of hair. I needed the Jaws of Life to pry these guys apart and when I finally did, I saw a few strands of hair in the kid's hand. Jiminy Christmas!

Now, I don't mean to paint this picture straight from Dante's Inferno. There is plenty of sweetness to offset the sour. No racial stereotypes intended but it really is a ying and yang thing with these kids. I'm starting to get hugs here and there and my "Beatles on Ed Sullivan" celebrity status has yet to wain. But sometimes, they just don't care about English class and it's hard trying to jump start 100+ students throughout the day. Here's another story: two days ago, I'm walking to school and one girl who is always super happy to see me runs over and gives me a hug, say's hi and runs back to her friends. Later, she's in class and say's something to me like "fan." It sounds a bit like "friend" to me so I ask her if that's what she's saying. She shakes her head "no" and makes a hoop with her arms, does the obvious motion for "belly" and says to me: "Fat." Oh. I drew fake tears going down my cheeks and walked away. She laughed. I suppose it's a good thing--all this ego-inflating has gotta be checked somehow.

Yesterday, I had my first after-school English class. This consists of 15 of the most advanced English speakers in a setting a bit more lax in subject matter compared to following the textbook word for word during the regular classes. I was really looking forward to this because it's more "my class"--Mrs. Lee is there to help but I'm much more involved in the lesson planning and execution. For our first lesson, I xeroxed a short story about Perseus and Medusa, gave them copies and read to them. We went over some advanced vocab before and after. Tomorrow, I'll have them take turns reading the story themselves and we'll take a little comprehension quiz I created. It's tough trying to explain things but it's actually kinda fun racking the brain for the best way to explain "sprouting."

We sent out a little informational sheet with a sign up form for the students to take home and let their parents give permission. Out of 200+ students, we only got about 25 requests. Mrs. Lee was concerned both about the amount of students (too much) and their various English levels so we gave them a test to weed out the less proficient. I was disappointed that we had to cut 10 kids from the class before it even began--so was Mrs. Lee so she asked the Principal and he agreed to pay me overtime to teach another, lower-level class on Wed./Fri. So, today, we had the first lower-level class--this one didn't go so well. I tried to do the same thing (copy a Greek myth book and read it) but there was a much bigger discrepancy in their abilities. I'm glad Mrs. Lee decided to weed them out because I can tell now they would've slowed down the process a great deal.

Koreans Lettin' Loose...
So, last Friday, we finally had our first "school dinner." Rob's had a few already but this was my first. The Principal, Vice-Principal and all the teachers went out to eat Korean style sashimi. We sat on the floor of course, the sushi was okay and I had my first experience with soju. I'm not a drinker and tasting soju didn't bring me any closer to becoming one. It wasn't gross but it really does taste like it should be cleansing a wound rather than be ingested on purpose. We were warned in training that there's often "that one guy" who goes around does shots of soju with everyone. This 4th grade teacher who I'd only see a handful of times around school was suddenly my red-faced best friend. He plopped down next to me, knocked salad bowls into his lap, spilled soju on my pants and jokingly traded insults with the other teachers. It was actually pretty fun. Later, he was so drunk, he spent 10 minutes scanning the shelves looking for his shoes among the others. He had to be taken home. Then we went to Noribong(Karaoke). We piled into this room with couches and a big table, they brought in more drinks, snacks and tambourines for added interactivity. I knew they were going to make me sing so I just didn't think about it too much. About half way into the session, I got up and sang a pathetic and monotone version of Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark." Later, I decided to redeem myself with a simpler song that I actually knew the lyrics to: "Yellow Submarine." It was fun to see all these usually uptight and respectful adults get down with their bad selves. Much like the students in my English class, these Korean adults will take any opportunity to let loose and throw propriety to the wind.

Rob's got a good rundown of our adventures last weekend so rather than be redundant, I'll just let you read about it there.

http://kimchikoontz.blogspot.com/2009/03/best-kimchi-ever.html

That's it for now. It's almost midnight and I did NOT want to stay up late tonight.

Stay tuned...

-Brent

p.s. If anyone ever asks me if I've eaten hard-boiled quail eggs, I would be lying if I said "no."