there was a small performance at the palace inside the fortress.
the 'king' walked about to theme music. (he entered through some poorly executed fog.)
11.01.2009
suwon.fortress.8
swon.bday.1
so, in many places people celebrate halloween on october 31st. i celebrate swon's birthday. we sat around in our pj's watching movies, and eating her mom's cooking. a nice low key night.
just.wednesday.1
after the excitement of the halloween party, we found out that one of our kindy students had h1n1. our school decided to close the kindy classes for three days. then all of us went in for testing.
i think it was a really good show, to make sure all the teachers are ok- since we still had elementary classes.
it must've been an interesting morning for the new teacher who arrived around midnight just before. but the day went on and on.
just.wednesday.2
waiting for our tests. i guess our numbers and masks made other people nervous. we saw a woman holding her breath in the elevator with us. good news: we all came back negative.
just.wednesday.5
the night ended in a noraebong- like it does. i feel like this blurry picture captures the noraebong atmosphere well. the lights, the singing, the flowing alcohol. . . .
brighton.halloween.1
the halloween trip to an english village. it was inside a large train station- not what i expected. the 'village' part was all decorated as a haunted house. we spent the day making crafts and playing games.
brighton.halloween.2
waiting in line for the haunted house. being the youngest class, we called in teacher reinforcements, one teacher for every two kids. thankfully the haunted house was a little more tame for them, otherwise there would've been way more tears.
i told them that if one of the ghouls scared them they should yell at them, 'don't do that!'
10.24.2009
take five
i’ve got dave brubeck playing in the background. . . and i couldn’t think of a better title for the upcoming ramblings.
it’s nearly 1am. . . saturday evening, and i’ve done very little today. well. . . i cleaned up my itunes and iphoto. . . uploaded to flickr. . . organized flickr a bit. . . blogged from flickr. it took hours, and there is still much more to do. . . but i didn’t actually go out and do anything.
i had a couch delivered. so the only soul i talked to today was the korean delivery man.
last weekend was a bit busier. i accompanied two co-workers into seoul. one of them was having computer problems and i wanted to see where and what it took to care for it. she ended up getting a new hard drive, but regrettably, she is still having problems.
in the early afternoon two of us split off and headed to insadong. i did a little shopping and showed the newer teacher around the insadong area. i also got a little lost, but now i have a much better idea of where to start for next time. :) i found a bunch of things i was looking for, and the street vendors still had figs. i didn’t have the biggest appetite, so i settled for just one fig the size of my fist.
after it got dark i suggested a trip to yongsan. i wanted to look through the dvd vendors- if they were still out. . . maybe check out the cinemas. . .and grab some dinner. the newer teacher was game, so i showed her around there as well.
as luck had it. . . the dvd vendors were still out! i made a few purchases. . .ahh. . . so much for keeping my dvd collection to a minimum.
we headed to i-park to check out the movie theatre. they were doing a lot of construction on the entire floor. a bunch of stores were closed and were reopening soon. sort of caught me off guard, and the cinema was set up differently as well. we didn’t see anything too interesting so we went to grab some dinner. we found a new thai place in i-park. . . and it was delicious. i took half mine home so i could keep room for a crepe on the way out. excellent noms.
in the courtyard area of i-park, there was a display set up all about little prince and antoine de saint exupery.
little prince is everywhere here. notebooks, pens, commercials, stickers, manga. i’ve seen several different re-toolings of the story and the artwork. there’s a town with a small resort area known as ‘petite france’, which has the artwork throughout. (i still haven’t gotten there yet.) did i miss some sort of massive anniversary involving little prince? is it seeing a resurgence state side as well?
kinda bizarre. . . but i like it.
anyway, the whole day really worked out in my favor. i got to everything before it closed, had some great food, good company. . . and even got a seat on the subway home.
in contrast, this weekend is for resting. i think next weekend will be busy. several possibilities on the horizon. halloween. . . swon’s birthday. . . a rugby match. . .
we have a halloween field trip on monday. i already have my costume. pics to follow.
not too much else terribly interesting. . . just didn’t want to let too much time to slip by without writing.
ps- plans for a trip home for christmas are in the works.
it’s nearly 1am. . . saturday evening, and i’ve done very little today. well. . . i cleaned up my itunes and iphoto. . . uploaded to flickr. . . organized flickr a bit. . . blogged from flickr. it took hours, and there is still much more to do. . . but i didn’t actually go out and do anything.
i had a couch delivered. so the only soul i talked to today was the korean delivery man.
last weekend was a bit busier. i accompanied two co-workers into seoul. one of them was having computer problems and i wanted to see where and what it took to care for it. she ended up getting a new hard drive, but regrettably, she is still having problems.
in the early afternoon two of us split off and headed to insadong. i did a little shopping and showed the newer teacher around the insadong area. i also got a little lost, but now i have a much better idea of where to start for next time. :) i found a bunch of things i was looking for, and the street vendors still had figs. i didn’t have the biggest appetite, so i settled for just one fig the size of my fist.
after it got dark i suggested a trip to yongsan. i wanted to look through the dvd vendors- if they were still out. . . maybe check out the cinemas. . .and grab some dinner. the newer teacher was game, so i showed her around there as well.
as luck had it. . . the dvd vendors were still out! i made a few purchases. . .ahh. . . so much for keeping my dvd collection to a minimum.
we headed to i-park to check out the movie theatre. they were doing a lot of construction on the entire floor. a bunch of stores were closed and were reopening soon. sort of caught me off guard, and the cinema was set up differently as well. we didn’t see anything too interesting so we went to grab some dinner. we found a new thai place in i-park. . . and it was delicious. i took half mine home so i could keep room for a crepe on the way out. excellent noms.
in the courtyard area of i-park, there was a display set up all about little prince and antoine de saint exupery.
little prince is everywhere here. notebooks, pens, commercials, stickers, manga. i’ve seen several different re-toolings of the story and the artwork. there’s a town with a small resort area known as ‘petite france’, which has the artwork throughout. (i still haven’t gotten there yet.) did i miss some sort of massive anniversary involving little prince? is it seeing a resurgence state side as well?
kinda bizarre. . . but i like it.
anyway, the whole day really worked out in my favor. i got to everything before it closed, had some great food, good company. . . and even got a seat on the subway home.
in contrast, this weekend is for resting. i think next weekend will be busy. several possibilities on the horizon. halloween. . . swon’s birthday. . . a rugby match. . .
we have a halloween field trip on monday. i already have my costume. pics to follow.
not too much else terribly interesting. . . just didn’t want to let too much time to slip by without writing.
ps- plans for a trip home for christmas are in the works.
lil.prince.4
little prince is everywhere here. i've bought a handful of cute things. :) i'll be making a set of similar things on my flickr.
kelly.bday.1
a large group of us showed for kelly teacher's birthday at a tgif. one of the main reasons for going there is pictured in the foreground. the cocktail goblets are about the size of your head.
brighton.food.3
i'm putting together a set of pictures of food from south korea. it will take a while. but here is the anchovy snack tub for my class. it would appear that my anchovies have a small case of the crabs.
cam.bday.12
a late entry on cam's birthday. the cake i made her. (carrot- it's her favorite.) several people helped conspired to pick up different items in itaewon to make it possible. i baked it in my toaster oven.
10.12.2009
just scratching the surface
i could make this post SO much longer. this isn’t the only incident of it’s kind, but i feel like posting some of the silliness i’ve seen in the past few days.
we’ve got some crazies in our midst. i work for a private hagwon. the parents pay a substantial tuition fee for their child to attend our school, and it makes for a sometimes awkward blend of education and business.
we often bend to the desires of the parents in ways that are undesirable and sometimes ridiculous.
i have a student in one of my kindy classes. she can be quite the brat. (on a side note- she has a fingernails on the chalkboard voice that i’m thinking of recording in order to use as my alarm.) on the bus she started a fight with an older boy. from what i understand, she hit him in the face, and his knee-jerk reaction resulted in him scratching her forehead.
not a gash. . . but a decent fingernail scratch. i didn’t actually see it dripping blood, but it was red and you could’ve blotted away blood. nothing big. or so you would think.
(which leads to a slight tangent- there have been three or four recent fingernail scratch incidents. i clipped the nails of one of my students who drew blood from another teacher while fooling around. a couple of teachers mentioned that we should send out a memo reminding the parents to check their kid’s nails. --the part that got under my skin is that these parents can be so meticulous about what is happening to their child in class, yet they glance over performing basic hygiene care on their kid. . . . priorities people.)
so, now this girl has a scratch on her forehead. it might not matter so much, but she’s kinda packing a ‘five-head’ so it might be more apparent than average. the school puts a bandage on it and notifies both sets of parents that there has been an altercation.
the boy has been in trouble before, and his mom is known to shrug it off. so, this could actually work well for us in the entertainment/ karmic way.
the boy’s mom blew off the first phone call, but after the girl’s family was notified her tone changed a bit. suddenly she was apologetic. to no avail. muhahahahahaha
we’ve dealt with this girl’s parents before. she showed up at school one morning with a couple large mosquito bites. i asked her about them and she told me and my teaching partner that she got them over the weekend. after she went home we got a call from her father demanding that we explain how we let her get mosquito bites at school, ‘why are the windows open? why aren’t there screens to keep the bugs out? why aren’t we properly protecting his daughter?’
we tried to tell him that she said she got them at home. we tried to tell him that the windows weren’t open because we were running the AC, but in the end the school could only apologized to appease him.
so, back to the day of the incident. . .
first her grandmother showed up. then her other grandmother. her aunt made an appearance. . . and her parents finally. they rushed out to buy her $50 skin rejuvenation cream. . . she was in and out of class meeting with family members and changing her bandage. after school they rushed her to a dermatologist to see if she would need PLASTIC SURGERY!
it is possible that her long term goals of being a forehead model are squashed.
the girl’s family gave the school a hard time, gave the bus teacher a hard time. . . and the boy’s family- well, it’s still not over. i believe they’ve written up a contract to ensure damages paid if she needs plastic surgery and they are trying to push for extra damages paid for their distress and shock.
the bandage she is wearing on her head is more attention getting than the actual scratch. so she’s upset that kids are making fun of her. neither my teaching partner or myself has heard anyone make fun of her. in fact, i’m pretty sure she’s really digging all the attention. but her parents think maybe she shouldn’t be in school because her feelings are getting hurt.
yeah, maybe she shouldn’t.
maybe she should live in a bubble and not interact with anyone directly. . . .ever.
it would be nice if this was an isolated incident. . . but it’s far from. FAR FROM.
--------------------
on another note- i just lost one of my favorite students because her mom feels she is too stressed out to be in our kindergarten.
she’s six years old and she’s taking seven classes outside of our kindy which lasts from 9:30-2. i don’t know what all the outside classes were, but one of them was chinese offered at our after school program. . . and she was in the midst of signing up for korean writing class at our after school program. suddenly the mom thought that the kindy homework was too much to deal with.
right.
i think scientists need to work on ‘common sense in a can’ . . . aerosol, beverage, whatever.
-------------------
mom, dad, remember when i petitioned to change my bedtime from 7:30 or 8pm/ to 9 or 9:30pm when i was in 6th grade- i was 12?
i made a colored bar graph of all the bedtimes of my friends to show how uncommon my early bedtime was.
in contrast i have ten year old students in my elementary classes that regularly go to bed at 11pm or 12am. and apparently, that is common across the board.
------------------
my head hurts. . . and i think it’s more than my annoying sinuses. nighty night.
we’ve got some crazies in our midst. i work for a private hagwon. the parents pay a substantial tuition fee for their child to attend our school, and it makes for a sometimes awkward blend of education and business.
we often bend to the desires of the parents in ways that are undesirable and sometimes ridiculous.
i have a student in one of my kindy classes. she can be quite the brat. (on a side note- she has a fingernails on the chalkboard voice that i’m thinking of recording in order to use as my alarm.) on the bus she started a fight with an older boy. from what i understand, she hit him in the face, and his knee-jerk reaction resulted in him scratching her forehead.
not a gash. . . but a decent fingernail scratch. i didn’t actually see it dripping blood, but it was red and you could’ve blotted away blood. nothing big. or so you would think.
(which leads to a slight tangent- there have been three or four recent fingernail scratch incidents. i clipped the nails of one of my students who drew blood from another teacher while fooling around. a couple of teachers mentioned that we should send out a memo reminding the parents to check their kid’s nails. --the part that got under my skin is that these parents can be so meticulous about what is happening to their child in class, yet they glance over performing basic hygiene care on their kid. . . . priorities people.)
so, now this girl has a scratch on her forehead. it might not matter so much, but she’s kinda packing a ‘five-head’ so it might be more apparent than average. the school puts a bandage on it and notifies both sets of parents that there has been an altercation.
the boy has been in trouble before, and his mom is known to shrug it off. so, this could actually work well for us in the entertainment/ karmic way.
the boy’s mom blew off the first phone call, but after the girl’s family was notified her tone changed a bit. suddenly she was apologetic. to no avail. muhahahahahaha
we’ve dealt with this girl’s parents before. she showed up at school one morning with a couple large mosquito bites. i asked her about them and she told me and my teaching partner that she got them over the weekend. after she went home we got a call from her father demanding that we explain how we let her get mosquito bites at school, ‘why are the windows open? why aren’t there screens to keep the bugs out? why aren’t we properly protecting his daughter?’
we tried to tell him that she said she got them at home. we tried to tell him that the windows weren’t open because we were running the AC, but in the end the school could only apologized to appease him.
so, back to the day of the incident. . .
first her grandmother showed up. then her other grandmother. her aunt made an appearance. . . and her parents finally. they rushed out to buy her $50 skin rejuvenation cream. . . she was in and out of class meeting with family members and changing her bandage. after school they rushed her to a dermatologist to see if she would need PLASTIC SURGERY!
it is possible that her long term goals of being a forehead model are squashed.
the girl’s family gave the school a hard time, gave the bus teacher a hard time. . . and the boy’s family- well, it’s still not over. i believe they’ve written up a contract to ensure damages paid if she needs plastic surgery and they are trying to push for extra damages paid for their distress and shock.
the bandage she is wearing on her head is more attention getting than the actual scratch. so she’s upset that kids are making fun of her. neither my teaching partner or myself has heard anyone make fun of her. in fact, i’m pretty sure she’s really digging all the attention. but her parents think maybe she shouldn’t be in school because her feelings are getting hurt.
yeah, maybe she shouldn’t.
maybe she should live in a bubble and not interact with anyone directly. . . .ever.
it would be nice if this was an isolated incident. . . but it’s far from. FAR FROM.
--------------------
on another note- i just lost one of my favorite students because her mom feels she is too stressed out to be in our kindergarten.
she’s six years old and she’s taking seven classes outside of our kindy which lasts from 9:30-2. i don’t know what all the outside classes were, but one of them was chinese offered at our after school program. . . and she was in the midst of signing up for korean writing class at our after school program. suddenly the mom thought that the kindy homework was too much to deal with.
right.
i think scientists need to work on ‘common sense in a can’ . . . aerosol, beverage, whatever.
-------------------
mom, dad, remember when i petitioned to change my bedtime from 7:30 or 8pm/ to 9 or 9:30pm when i was in 6th grade- i was 12?
i made a colored bar graph of all the bedtimes of my friends to show how uncommon my early bedtime was.
in contrast i have ten year old students in my elementary classes that regularly go to bed at 11pm or 12am. and apparently, that is common across the board.
------------------
my head hurts. . . and i think it’s more than my annoying sinuses. nighty night.
9.28.2009
when it rains it pours
about two weeks ago i meant to write something insightful and metaphorical.
lost steam.
something about how when trevor was in town i heard from not one, but two estranged friends through email. i got so excited to hear from them. it seemed that they were interested in reconnecting a bit. so i quickly sent messages back thinking we would all start this massive correspondence. . . immediately.
guess in the land of pulling a fast one, i would make a good ‘mark.’
i haven’t heard word one back. . . from either of them. . . it’s been two weeks.
wish i could retroactively unsend email.
wish my hasty replies didn’t make me look so desperate.
wish it didn’t bother me.
lost steam.
something about how when trevor was in town i heard from not one, but two estranged friends through email. i got so excited to hear from them. it seemed that they were interested in reconnecting a bit. so i quickly sent messages back thinking we would all start this massive correspondence. . . immediately.
guess in the land of pulling a fast one, i would make a good ‘mark.’
i haven’t heard word one back. . . from either of them. . . it’s been two weeks.
wish i could retroactively unsend email.
wish my hasty replies didn’t make me look so desperate.
wish it didn’t bother me.
9.23.2009
camille.bday.1
before celebrating in itaewon. . . kelly and i helped camille fulfill her dream of owning a dinosaur costume. she was so excited she tried it on during dinner in front of a crowd of diners.
camille.bday.2
a birthday celebration in itaewon for camille. first rugby (nz won!). . . then drinks, then dinner, then drinks, then drinks, then cake, then drinks. . . etc etc.
building.63.3
if you ever wanted to know what it was like to go to the can with floor to ceiling mirrors on either side of you. . . you can check it out in 'sky art' floor in the 63 building of yeouido. if you like doing your business in solitude. . . just the company of your reflection is a little unnerving.
care.package#6
look, it's like a care package of hours and hours of entertainment gold. thanks mom and dad :)
tah.rent.tah.rah.1
so trevor was in town for a couple of weeks with the rent tour. i don't think seoul was their favorite stop. . . they had a fantastic time in japan just before, and were headed home for a two week vacation after. . . so korea was a bit of a valley in between. . . but i thought it was pretty great to see him for a bit.
tah.rent.tah.rah.2
here we are, catching the train to or from yongsan. . . don't remember which for sure. we spent one morning walking around that electronics mecca, talking- looking for food, etc. . . then we visiting the 63 building in yeouido the next weekend. . . i caught the sunday afternoon performance both times. it was actually better the second time, but i was not converted or anything. in fact, during big moments in the show i still had, 'everyone has aids' from team america running through my head.
tah.rent.tah.rah.5
trevor had a really slick road/ work case set up for the obsession II. think it was calling it the 'taj'
tah.rent.tah.rah.7
a sad attempt at an awesome shot. my camera was fritzing. . and i hung it from a gate to get the three of us. the sign says, 'this space reserved for john hall.' rose, trevor, and i had a couple good giggles remembering those long ago barter days.
9.07.2009
spurting.love
don't roll your eyes like that. . . like you wouldn't have taken a picture of it in the store after giggling uncontrollably at it. . .
bruce.byebye.bbq.1
saturday was another rooftop bbq. this one was sort of a goodbye bbq for bruce. it's been a nice 6 months of steady teachers here, but contracts will be ending soon, and he's the first in a while.
nearly all the brighton teachers showed, and a couple of other friends. . . along with them came an unbelievable amount of food: brats, pizza, deviled eggs, crackers w/ cheese, two pasta salads, a chicken/ slaw salad, a green salad, grilled chicken, carnivore smores, bacon wrapped pineapple, grilled carrots, golbi. . . it kept going. we're still eating the left-overs.
bruce.byebye.bbq.2
bruce received a handful of gifts and many pictures were taken later. camille is handing him the korean flag that all the teachers signed to him.
bruce.byebye.bbq.4
one of the best parts of the bbq. . . swon had part of the day off and came out for some food. my friends at work finally got to see that she wasn't make believe. . .and she liked my grilled chicken. :)
flying.monkey.back
it was time for a large margarita. . . and our server had a flying monkey on his back.
i.don't.need
but i kinda want. look at how damn cute this big carrot pillow is. . . with that absurdly cute bitty bunny sticking out!
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