Hello and good evening from Gwangju!
Having a bigger fridge has been great. At the end of last week I was able to make a batch of a good soup [with major props going out to Matt and Kristin for donating some bullion to me … without which the whole thing would have not come together], and due to this new space, I was able to freeze about 2/3rds of what I made because, as you could probably guess if you've ever been around when I've made soup before, even though I had intended just "to make a little bit," I ended up filling both of the larger pots I have in my apartment. haha. At least it turned out well this time. I'm hoping to continue doing this from time to time and freezing the results because not only does this give me a justifiable excuse to buy more food storage containers, but it will of course actually give me some more food for the coming months. That being said, if you have a simple soup recipe that you'd like to share, please send it along to me -- I do occasionally get bored with my own cooking.
Also, I'm an official Alien now! Yes! Just yesterday Don gave me my Alien Registration Card, which I had expected to be a larger slip of paper that would be inconvenient to carry around and get in the way and everything else, but it turned out to be an ID card the same size as any other I have in my wallet. Also, here's something I didn't mention at the time, when we went to apply for the alien residency we had to turn in an application and give another passport-size photo for this card. I still had one of those pictures from when I got some in the States, and it was a shot that I actually liked (not that I usually am very bothered by any picture of me, though … I'm kind of ego-centric like that). When I affixed the picture to the application and gave it to the man working the counter, he quickly return it because the backdrop in the photo was not bone white … it was eggshell white or had some other off white tint. CVS, I shake my fist at you from Korea! So I had to get a new headshot, and conveniently enough, there was one such machine out in the lobby of this building. All the other teachers had to take their pictures as well, so I wasn't singled out or anything, but still … I took the picture, and I think it's one of the most emotionless pictures I've ever seen of myself. I feel that this is a foreshadowing of what my shade will look like. I've put a picture of it online … make sure you check it out … especially if you plan to outlive me because that way you'll know if I'm the one coming back to haunt you.
Korean studies update - things are progressing along pretty nicely, I think. As with anything that I study, I need to keep putting in the time and effort to actually remember the things that I'm learning. So far I have a list of about 120 vocabulary words (not really the most extensive of vocabularies, I'll admit) that all employ rather basic consonant/vowel constructions, and when I look at the flashcards from the Korean side, I can recite most of them … coming from the English first, my success rate drops a little more … and when I try to write them out (not simply reproducing the pronunciation), I lose even a little more confidence. haha. At this point in the textbook, though, I just made my last batch of straight vocabulary flashcards; now the book switches gears a bit and starts to focus on conversations and building sentences. On a tangential note, last week I had one of my best study sessions: I went to a local bar called the Dark Horse where I had gone one night with Matt and Kristin. This bar is within a couple minutes' walk, and according to Matt and Kristin, it's usually pretty dead. When I went in on Friday or Saturday evening, I was pretty surprised to see 7 other customers already there -- pleasantly surprised, mind you. So then while I studied I snacked on some little treats that they brought out as well as some meat kabobs and some a pitcher of strawberry soju. Soju is a pretty popular alcoholic drink around here. Even before I left the States, I had one friend warn me about this beverage because the alcohol content is pretty high compared to any beer and even some bottom-shelf wines (and apparently the hangovers are pretty rough as well -- my plan is to steer clear of that one, though, and I'll just take others at their word). Soju on its own doesn't taste so appealing, and there are even different flavors; I've only tried a Maple flavor, although I've heard that Lemon's pretty decent also. Even with those, though, it's a rough drink for me to put down -- until you mix it with ice and fruit juice. A couple times now I've gone out and had fruit soju. The first time I went with some other teachers to a different bar/restaurant, and that batch was made with (or at least had some) real strawberries; at the Dark Horse, however, there is simply a strawberry flavoring that goes along with the ice and soju. All in all I've been very pleased with the fruit soju, so if any of you comes to visit, be ready for this new flavor explosion. Needless to say, I'll probably be going back to the Dark Horse for another study session in the very near future.
Turning attention to school: a while back someone had asked about grading and tests and whatnot for students. From my perspective thus far, there isn't much that we end up doing -- other than sending home report cards. At Oedae I'll end up sending reports every other month, while at Haba I have to send reports quarterly for my Speaking Class and semi-annually for the rest of my classes. At Oedae, with my older students, the reports have boxes for a letter grade in categories like "Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking, Work Habits" and "Achievements." Some of these categories are broken down a little more specifically, but this is what we generally grade on. In addition, there are boxes for teacher comments -- from both me and the Korean teacher. I don't know how this report card is used internally (I'll be writing my first wave during September), but it is sent home to parents. At Haba, I have only so far seen the reports for the Speaking Class, and they are very simple only having 2 boxes for comments on a student's performance and what we've covered in class. I just realized that I haven't given much information about Speaking Class yet (even if I've mentioned it before). After the 6-period school day at Haba, some students stay longer to participate in extra classes that focus on more specific topics -- like speaking. In this class, I have a mix of 5 and 6-year olds, and we cover a different book than what the students use in their other classes. The goal here is, of course, more speaking practice for the students, so even though I've only had my current group for a few weeks now, I've tried to give them extra opportunities for using their English. This class is smaller than my other classes, so it's a little bit easier to have them say things, although it's still a stretch sometimes. And actually, with the half-year mark happening right now, my speaking class will be changing on Friday (I have this class M, W, F each week), so today (Wednesday) is my last day with this specific group of kids. I've already seen the roster for my next group, and I am losing some of the better students, but meh, that's the way it goes -- I have to get used to it sooner or later. And beyond this class changing, I have gained a student in 3 of my other classes -- Angel, Rainbow and my 3rd graders' class. Now I'll have to learn more names! haha. Beyond the report cards, we do have a scheduled time to meet with parents twice a year at Haba, which just so happened to fall during last week. On both Wednesday and Thursday, I spent about 10 minutes sitting in on a meeting with the parents of my 5 year old classes and Mrs. Mo (the school owner/operator), another foreign teacher and Jackie, my Korean coteacher. During these meetings, I simply ended up saying little more than, "My name is Ben; I'm from America; I'm teaching your kids; they are fun." haha. The rest of the presentation came from Jackie. On Saturday I had the conference for Edison, my intensive class, and that involved a little bit more. This time we met in the Edison classroom, and I actually walked through each of our textbooks and explained very briefly what we did with each. How much of that the parents understood? I don't know. But that's how it goes. They now know who I am, and according to feedback from Dianne, my coteacher for this class, the parents like me well enough.
Last week not only had those parent-teacher conferences, but we also had a big event for Oedae -- the Golden Bell competition and Spelling Bee. At some point in time, the students are told about certain books to read for Golden Bell and given a list of words for the Spelling Bee, and on last Friday we held the actual competitions and some extra games. The Golden Bell books were two Boxcar Children books for the 1st-3rd graders, while the 4th+ had some other book(s). For this part of the competition all the participating students literally sat down on the floor of the Haba gymnasium, used a laminated sheet of paper as a whiteboard and a dry erase marker and wrote down their answers to continue participating. In both Golden Bell and the Spelling Bee it was immediate elimination for anyone who made a mistake. This competition was pretty rough because many of the questions had to have rather specific answers, and a number of students were knocked out because they didn't write the correct thing. I was pretty impressed, though, because the final 2 in the 1st-3rd category were both my students, thus the winner was one of mine. Granted, because this competition relies on what students do outside of class, I played no part in helping him to win, but I was still stoked that David secured the victory and that Kevin was close behind. As a final note here, the last question that David answered did just so happen to be about Clara Barton and her nickname, "Angel of the Battlefield," which, of course, I knew from my last job. What up, Red Cross! The Spelling Bee was handled in a very similar manner, although kids were just packed into the gym for this part. Again, they used the whiteboards and markers to write down their answers. Whereas in during Golden Bell all the questions were read by foreigners, during the Spelling Bee we alternated the readings between foreign and Korean teachers. When a foreigner gave a word in English, the students had to write not only the English word but also the Korean equivalent. And when the Korean teachers gave a word in Korean, only an English word had to be written. Throughout this competition my detail-oriented side was annoyed from time to time, but we'll see if I can help out at all for the next time we run this competition to help smooth over some of the rough areas I saw. On Friday we didn't just have both of these competitions, but we did get to play some games as well between the two. We ended up breaking up all the teachers in to teams and staffing stations with little games for the students. At some stations students simply performed some physical feat, like throwing balls through a hole in a box or knocking over jugs of juice with little bean bags, but at others students had to perform some linguistic feat. I, along with another teacher, ran a game called, "Can you hear me?" (or something close to that) in which students received a little slip of paper with a Korean word on it, and they had to explain it to me using only English. I think the real game is Taboo? Most students did pretty well, although I found it a little funny because when I started, I had no idea what words might come up, but by the end, after we had gone through the list a time or two, I knew what word the student was probably trying to describe. I'm not sure when it was harder for the students -- at the time I truly had no idea what they were describing or the times when I did know but didn't give in until they had said what I wanted them to say. Meh. Either way, they had to practice their speaking and use it a little more creatively than they would in the classroom, I think. All in all, I found this to be a very enjoyable day, and I look forward to the next one … maybe in the Spring.
Alright. One more topic for this email, and then I'll call it good and get it out to you all tomorrow: hiking. Last Saturday, after the conference with my intensive class' parents, I finally hiked up the small mountain near my apartment. I ended up going right in the afternoon around 2pm, and I wasn't sure how good of an idea it might end up being because Saturday was pretty warm. Very quickly, though, It turned into a fantastic trip. Had I not stopped for a couple minutes on the way up, it would have taken me about 30 minutes to crest the taller peak, so really, this mountain is very small compared to others in this area or in other parts of the world. As I climbed up, the first 5 minutes are pretty rough for one who hasn't been hiking very often. After that, the rest of the climb was very pleasant, and by the time I reached the summit, I realized that there was a great cool breeze passing over everything. I ended up just sitting up there for 20-25 minutes before coming down -- not because I needed a rest, but simply because it was so nice. I'm hoping that now I'll be motivated to climb it more regularly, especially during the early morning or later evening to catch a sunrise or sunset from the top. Also, not only can one go for a hike up the mountain here, but one can also work out on the various equipment that's always waiting. On this mountain, and in various other places, you can find outdoor workout equipment that's simply available for use. Matt mentioned this to me before I saw it for myself, and I thought, "Huh. That's kind of cool." And now that I've actually used some of it myself, I must improve that initial thought: "That's really cool." haha. Both down at the bottom and up near one of the lower peaks you can find equipment on this mountain, and there's an array of different things: a curved dome thing used for stretching out one's back, elliptical-ish machines, benches for sit up and push ups, bars for dips and pull ups, machines for twisting, sitting pull down weight machines and at least a few others (notice my use of technical terms all throughout this part -- yeah, as you can tell, I generally spend a lot of time in a gym). Of course after I had walked for a while I wanted to try out the equipment, so I spent a little time using things that I understood, but then I noticed a guy using one machine that pivots left and right while he stood on it. It reminds me of a pendulum in a clock tower, such that a person steps onto the pendulum mechanism, and then it swings side to side. From my first vantage point (away from the machine), I thought it was something for stretching out one's waist/lower back region, so I naturally went over to take my turn. After I stepped up on the pendulum, though, I quickly realized that it wasn't really meant to do what I expected. So I swung back and forth a bit, and during this time some onlookers chuckled a little, and right as I was giving up a slightly older guy who'd been watching from another machine started talking to me. Through a quick exchange he explained that I was doing it wrong (yep, my guess was proven true), and that it was used for stretching/strengthening ankles. That's right. It had nothing to do with any part of my midsection. This machine (as with a number of them) happened to have an active spot on both sides, so the guy climbed on the opposite side and showed me what to do. I had to watch him a couple times to get it, but I finally figured it out, and it was much better than it had been before. And as it turned out, this guy is actually a physical trainer in the area, so who would have guessed that the time I try something new, there just so happens to be an expert nearby who can correct my mistakes and set me back on the straight and narrow? I know I wouldn't have, but I'm so glad that did work out.
Ok. That's enough for this update, I think. More to come next time … get ready to hear about more food, banking in Korea and whatever else I feel like writing about. haha. And here's one important new thing: I have finally started a Picasa account for all the photos thus far (if you can't get to Facebook … or just don't want to go there). At this point I've just dropped the lot of them in a single folder, and I'll include the link at the bottom of this message. Hopefully, hopefully I'll get Internet access at home by this weekend, then I'll be able to change/update these things much easier … because at this very moment, I'm actually sitting outside my school grabbing the wireless so that I can send my post. It was a little funny -- one night Don was leaving school around 9:30pm or so and saw me sitting here, and he seemed really shocked, so I quickly said I was just using the wireless since I don't have access at home and that I was fine. And his retort was something like, Koreans don't do this, and it seems very strange. At this I could only chuckle a bit and keep doing what I've been doing. So … until I write again,
Much love to you all.
pfn,
bg
ps- if you want to see the Picasa photo album, visit:
https://picasaweb.google.com/115494611185738572069/KoreanExploits?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCP-zrq_Ypp-f3QE&feat=directlink
or
if you want to see shots of my hike, visit:
or
if you want to see parts of the Golden Bell or Spelling Bee, visit:
or
if you want to see proof that I'm an Alien, visit:
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