The River

Back to Wednesday morning's dream:

I had this dream two times that I remember, perhaps three. I usually don't dream often, perhaps once a month. This time I dreamed in the hour or so before I woke up, so the dream took place in the world between deep sleep and wakefulness, thus why I remember it so well.

As I dreamed I became aware that I was dreaming, largely because I had had the dream before. Once I realized it was a dream, I heightened my senses to take in all of the dream that I could, hoping to make better sense of it.

This time the dream started later than before and ended a bit later. I was on a bridge with a person I never clearly saw. The bridge was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style with wooden slats and a hardly-moving river below. However, it wasn't nearly as sturdy as the bridge in the movie because the sides were single ropes that were unconnected to the bridge. This resulted in the part of the bridge that we stood on tipping wildly back and forth as we ran across it. I don't know how we got on the bridge or why we were there, but it seemed as if we were both running away from something. It also felt as if we were competing with each other and perhaps even enemies.

We stumbled along, running, running. I was out of breath and my side hurt. My shoes kept catching on the boards and pitching me forwards; my hands grasped at the sides and I felt pain as the ropes cut into my hands. As the bridge dipped in the middle, I grabbed on to the sides more frequently but found the single ropes unable to support me. I continued stumbling along, sometimes in front of the other person, sometimes behind, but always propelled forward as if shot out of a gun.

At one point when I was behind, the bridge tipped and I fell off while holding on to the rope on the side. I went down a bit but was able to pull myself back up onto the bridge, feeling the strength in my arms. I wiped the sweat off my brow and continued. Running, running.

A little later the same thing happened again, but this time the rope lowered me all of the long way into the water. The other person also fell into the water, just ahead of me. We clung to the rope, trying to pull ourselves back up onto the bridge. No alligators came to swallow us up, but we were in a big hurry to get to the other side. Again, I wasn't sure why. The first time I had the dream, it seemed that we continued to compete even while we struggled in the river. This time, though, it seemed that perhaps we were cooperating.

We tried to get back up onto the bridge, but it was impossible. Pain was shooting through my arms; I had no strength left. Yet, the person and I were able to use the rope to pull ourselves across the river at a high speed, practically skiing on the surface of the water. Again, I felt an urgency. I had to continue; I had to get across. I didn't feel fear at what may have been chasing me or panic at what would happen when I reached the solid rock wall on the other side of the river; I simply felt an urgency to get across. Pulling, pulling.

While I was dreaming my logic wasn't turned on, but now that I analyze things more fully, there was a highway bridge crossing the river less than 100 feet away—why weren't we using that to cross the river instead of this pathetic excuse for a footbridge?!

As I got closer to the rock wall on the other side of the river, the other person was no longer there. Had I passed the person? He/she had been ahead of me but was suddenly no longer there. The closer I got to the wall, the fuzzier things got. It wasn't a fog or anything, but my sight grew worse and worse, like I was suddenly very nearsighted. Things had a ring around them like after you've been in a highly chlorinated swimming pool all day. Despite my distorted vision, I thought I saw a break in what was previously a solid wall. Was it a beach with people swimming and children playing? Was it a cave? What was it?! I peered ahead, squinting, straining to see what lay ahead of me. I woke up.

Having dreams like that, no wonder I'm so tired when I wake up! Thinking about it more, the river was definitely the Taehwa River. The setting was a cross between the river at the Sam Ho Bridge, where it's wide and slow-moving, and the smaller part of the river at Standing Rock, where it's swifter, perhaps deeper, and with huge cliffs on one side. The river in my dream is much, much, wider than either of those places, though, almost like the ocean, but with no waves. It's weird how our brains take settings we know and mix them together and make crazy dreams out of them.

I thought about this dream a lot. Usually I don't think dreams are important, but in Korea I've had more frequent, vivid, and strange dreams than ever before. A couple of them have also come true. When I have a dream more than once I can't help but wonder why.

What does this dream mean? It was so important to get across the river, but what was on the other side? Where am I going? Why am I in a hurry to get there? Who's competing with me? Or does it only seem that we're competing? There was more than one way to get across, yet I was on the more dangerous path—what does that mean? There's more than one path to where I'm going, so choose carefully before setting out? Or do both paths have their share of danger so it doesn't matter which path I choose? Some paths have visible dangers and some have dangers that you can't know until you try them? As I got closer to the other side things became less clear. Is that anywhere along the lines of how we have to make decisions and then have things become less clear as we wonder if that was the right decision or not?

I'm nearing the end of my time in Korea. I do have a lot of questions as to what's next, and things certainly aren't becoming any clearer as time goes on. Could this dream be my worries about the future?

Back in June I wrote a paragraph to remind myself of decisions or things coming up. Of the four major things, two have already been taken care of, and pretty easily. Granted the other two are more complicated, but perhaps they'll be just as easy as the first ones? Maybe? Perhaps the smallest chance?

Yeah, yeah, it was just a dream. But it was a very real dream, and it felt like it meant something, or that I was supposed to learn something from it. What?

A Restful Saturday

I was rather lazy today. Slept late, went on a long walk (no hiking, I didn't want to go on that long of a walk!), and did some computer stuff, including some correspondence, grading the students' online journals, and finding some new blogs--a few good ones and a thousand bad ones. There are some weird movies on TV tonight, so I had to settle for reruns of America's Funniest Home Videos.

A 5th-grader's Philosophy

I loved Randy's response in his homework. They were supposed to practice the idioms by filling in the blanks. He wrote, "I'm fed up with nothing because life is fun." What a positive outlook! Of course he's only in the 5th grade, but people should strive to have that attitude more often.

In the 7 PM class they were particularly loud so I got rather strict with them. Apparently they thought I was stressed, because Charlie showed me a way for "stress to fly away" involving twiddling of the thumbs and each of the fingers 10 times on each finger. If you're doing it in a quiet room instead of in a room full of rambunctious kids, it might work.

Edward was bugging me for money so I gave them each a penny and we talked about American vs. Korean money a bit before moving on to other topics. They do such a good job with conversation that I hate to stop them, but we have to cover a certain amount of the book each class.

Another weekend already. Mrs. Yoon called Tuesday night to tell me Korean class was cancelled this week. I considered going to Busan or a hike up Munsu Mountain, but I'll see how I feel tomorrow before deciding.

Solve this Problem!

At work the first class was terrible but the next class was fantastic--go figure. Tomas had a much better attitude today and worked really hard. The "take a break" page in their book was a mind puzzle, I don't know what else to call it. It was a rectangle with an "X" through the middle. You're supposed to figure a way to connect all of the lines without lifting your pencil or going over any lines more than once. They understood the directions perfectly, but couldn't figure out the solution. It had been a while since I'd taught that book so I couldn't remember the answer, aside from it being a somewhat tricky solution. The problem is, someone decided that since the teacher's books weren't valuable to her, then we should get rid of them. Guesses as to who that might be?! Since we no longer have the teacher's books, I'm left with a bunch of perplexed kids who want the answer to the puzzle! Any ideas?



Connect all of the lines without lifting your pencil or going over any line more than once.

Kerry Opposes Troop Withdrawal

At work I read the following in the Korea Herald (there's no link because I didn't see it on their online site):

Kerry Opposes Troop Withdrawal from S. Korea
CINCINNATI, Ohio (AFP)

Democratic White House hopeful Senator John Kerry warned Wednesday that
President George W. Bush's plan to withdraw 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia
would hinder the war on terrorism and embolden North Korea.

"Nobody wants to bring troops home more than those of us who have fought in
foreign wars, but it needs to be done at the right time and in a sensible
way. This is not that time or that way," Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War
veteran, said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

I thought Kerry wanted the troops to come home? (I don't have anything in writing about that, but that's just what I remember.) The press likes to throw around that phrase "decorated Vietnam War veteran," huh? Is Kerry the only "decorated Vietnam War veteran" worth listening to?

"This hastily announced plan raises more doubts about our intentions and
our commitments than it provides real answers," Kerry told the organization,
which groups some 2.6 million members at about 9,000 posts worldwide.

What "hasty" plan? They've been talking about this for awhile now.

Kerry, a senator from the state of Massachusetts, argued that reducing U.S.
forces from South Korea would reduce Washington's leverage with Pyongyang in
talks to defuse the crisis over the Stalinist state's nuclear programs.

"Why are we unilaterally withdrawing 12,000 troops from the Korean
Peninsula at the very time we are negotiating with North Korea--a country that
really has nuclear weapons?

"North Korea has probably never been more dangerous than any time since the
end of the Korean War. This is clearly the wrong signal to send at the
wrong time," said Kerry.

Kerry is so clueless. Come on! 12,000 troops against the North's over a million is nothing. 12,000 troops against nuclear weapons is nothing. I know appearances can be a big thing, but the U.S. troops aren't disappearing, they're just moving around a bit and some are going to other countries. They're not backing down at all from the North; they're not underestimating the threat of the North.

Matt saw me at the copy machine copying the article and he stuck his nose in where it doesn't belong and we got in an argument about Kerry. Just because you hate Bush doesn't mean you should blindly defend the other guy!! I am not at all fond of Bush, but he's better than Kerry. Matt said it well as he bowed out of the argument--"Well you have a vote and I don't." EXACTLY! And stop criticizing a country that's not yours!!!!

Name Confusion

How insane is this: Tom's name is 홍영택. He's in my and Miro's 6 PM class. There's another Tom in that class, too, 이창한. The first Tom's (홍영택) younger brother's English nickname is also Tom. That Tom (the younger brother) is in my and Miro's 4 PM class. His name: 홍형택. Why would a parent name kids like that?! It's not quite the same thing as American parents do with naming kids starting with the same letter or rhyming or something. The Korean teachers are getting the two boys confused all the time. Hong Young Taek, Hong Hyung Taek--they're so similar!

Touch, Hit, Shake

I challenged the adults quite a bit today with all of my questions about current events. I'm just not satisfied with what I read about Korean politics in the English language newspaper because I feel like they're leaving things out or not explaining things well enough for a foreigner (who doesn't know all of the background info) to understand. I saw on the front page of the newspaper that the Uri party chairman was resigning because his father had collaborated with the Japanese during the colonial period (pre-1945). The students had quite a hard time explaining everything to me, but reading the newspaper later and hearing Matt's explanation of things helped.

At first I thought that the chairman was being forced to resign simply because of what his father had done. I asked the students if they thought that was fair, and they said that yes, it was. Grace talked about her parents living under the Japanese police, and while she didn't go into detail, it was obvious that it was not a good part of their lives. Later I learned that it's not just who the chairman's father was that's an issue, but that he hid his father's past for so many years, and that for the last little bit he's been leading a witchhunt to expand the definition of a "Japanese collaborator" and prosecute those people, despite it being 60 years after it happened. It's quite an emotional issue; I understood a little more of it from Grace's reaction, but Professor Cho's statement back at the retreat has stayed with me. He said he attended primary school under the Japanese, and that "the Japanese treated us like slaves." There was such emotion in his voice as he said it.

I have a more objective view, having had a couple of Japanese friends. What's in the past is in the past--shouldn't they give the younger generation a break? Yet I also understand that when such horrible things happen, it's good to remember what happened to prevent such things from happening again. It's one of those issues where neither side is completely right.

I also asked them what they thought about the Koguryo issue and China. They thought it was bad about China distorting history, but hadn't heard the conspiracy theory that if North Korea fails in the next 10~20 years, then China wants it firmly established in their history books that the North historically belongs to them. That way the Chinese can keep North Korea as a buffer state between them and the capitalist South. (Or try to take control of the entire peninsula?) Of course anytime there's a regime change it's potentially dangerous, but if/when the North falls, things could get really interesting in this part of the world!

The day was good, with lots of laughter, yet I stayed in control of my classes. They thought Andre Agassi's name was hilarious, because his last name sounds like the Korean word for "miss." I had to keep reminding Billy and Andy to use their "inside voices," as my parents used to call it. They were speaking English--good. They were speaking it as loudly as possible--bad.

Kane and Brad were funny. The kids are always hitting each other for some reason or other, it's just what they do. Well, Brad went beyond hitting so Kane asked, "Why you touch me?" I told Kane that the word wasn't "touch," it was "shake" and I demonstrated the difference. Then to show that he understood what I was saying, Brad demonstrated the difference between "touch," "hit," and "shake," on Kane, several times, as he chanted, "Touch, hit, shake, touch, hit, shake!" Then Kane had to show that he, too, understood what the words meant as he used Brad as his demonstration subject. "Touch, hit, shake! Touch, hit, shake!" Then it turned into a rather girly slapping match until I reminded them why we were in the classroom--TO STUDY!

Joelle needs to chill and treat us like adults capable of teaching without her constant supervision. Nothing more has been said about the missing daily reports in the computer. I would not be at all surprised if she approaches me some day and demands to know why I haven't fixed them. I have my answer all ready. "Joelle, you never told us to do anything, I simply found a piece of paper with a bunch of random class numbers (many of them not mine) and dates (most of them before we started using the computer system) on my desk. What did you expect me to do with that piece of paper?"

I've been asking for a couple of weeks; we finally found out today that our session test is next Friday. I had already discussed with Tanya about the listening tests that we need to make, but Joelle, being the all-knowing and all-powerful manager that she is, felt the need to assign who should make what test: "Matt, you do HHH4, Beth, you do HHH6, Tanya, you do HHH1." Uh, we already have a HHH6 test made from last time, but we don't have a HHH2 test. How about let us handle what tests need to be made, since we know what we have/need?!

This time we have to proctor the tests in the classes that we'd usually have on that day, while in the past the Korean teachers took care of things and we hung out in the teachers' room and wrote evaluations. OK, sure. However, I'm sure it's because the Korean teachers complained about having extra work. What do they do with all of the time that they're not teaching??? We teach nearly twice as many classes as they do!!! It's just one day every three months! I asked Joelle to tell the Korean teachers to at least go into the classroom and explain the test to the students. The kids get really nervous when they hear the word "test" when they don't understand the directions 100% because the foreign teacher is explaining. I am SURE some of the teachers will "forget" about going into the classroom, or conveniently make themselves scarce when they're needed, or act like it's a big deal to spend two minutes making the kids comfortable with taking the test.

The other big Joelle thing today was that the level progression has changed slightly at the intermediate level. Matt and I had discussed that the CYBI 1 book would fit better between the second and third Impact book. But that was a private conversation, and without asking any of the foreign teachers, Joelle changed the progression so that the first CYBI book comes after the first Impact book. It's not horrible, but it's not the best, either.

With the new level progression, the Pink level kids will stop writing English diaries and instead will start using a diary book (published by our school, so thus filled with mistakes but an additional 10,000 won per session per student). Within two minutes of thumbing through it I found a mistake!! "I live with my parents, old sister, and young brother." Sue (the b****--sorry, some people warrant strong words), Natalie, and Nathan made the book. Sue thinks she speaks good English (nowhere near it), Natalie is pretty good, Nathan is a native speaker but has too much to do. They couldn't even get the biography page right! Natalie is listed as having been a "teacher's assistantship" at some school in Canada. With Western textbooks, the books are written, edited, checked again; very few errors get through. These books.....oh my!

The logistics of how we'll be able to check the new books will be a nightmare--they're supposed to do two units a week (they're only writing once a week now) so are we supposed to check it twice a week, too? The older students will also start doing a book published by the school, in addition to all of the books that they're doing now. Is Mr. Kim trying to drive all of the students away by overworking them?? No idea yet if we'll be expected to teach/correct those, too. There simply isn't enough time in class to teach anything else!!

As Joelle told us about the new books, I couldn't help but be thankful that I'll be gone in 6 weeks. There's certainly BS in other jobs, too, but hopefully not as much as there is in Korean academies!! I've mostly enjoyed my time here, but I don't know if I'd ever want to come back to a place where my opinion means so little and I'm treated like I am (besides things changing so frequently and with so little notice). I'd like to get some real responsibility at some point, some input into decision making, etc. I had more of both of those in the jobs I had in high school and university!

At Pet Supermarket I was trusted with a whole lot of money, handling lots of management functions (don't tell anyone, the corporate office wouldn't like it!), training new employees, hanging around to help find mistakes when things wouldn't balance, staying late the night before a district manager's visit to make sure everything was as close to perfect as possible, etc. When an employee meeting was held, the manager often asked me ahead of time if I had anything that I thought should be discussed at the meeting. It was truly a team where while a few people had the official power over the others, that power wasn't flaunted but the management treated everyone like the integral part of the company that they were (with the exception of a certain district manager). People want to feel important and if you treat them like the dung on the bottom of your shoe or an inept kindergartener, then they're not going to be happy, regardless of what continent they're on!

A "Smart" Canadian

I read about this from the Marmot's Hole and it's so great--the Canadians at work are definitely hearing this one tomorrow! A Canadian in Seoul was meeting some friends to go hiking but he was worried that they wouldn't be able to find the right subway exit. His solution was to sprinkle coffee creamer from the subway train to the exit. An alert Seoulite called the police and before long a vehicle from the chemical, biological and radiological warfare unit showed up, closed down the subway station, and arrested him. After about four hours, tests on the powder came back and he was released. Foreigners and the trouble they can get into!

Water in the Hall

As I stepped out of my apartment this morning I stepped into a puddle of water about an inch deep. No, it wasn't my upstairs neighbor. At least I don't think so. When I got up this morning the water sound had stopped and my water pressure was down to practically nothing. Tonight it's a little better. The cause of the water was Typhoon Maegi (in Korean, 메기, or catfish). What an odd name for a storm! The windows in the hall are kept open and apparently enough rain blew in through them to create a puddle. The halls and stairs were completely wet.

I didn't know it was a typhoon until I got to work--they just don't do storm warnings in the same way here as at home! I just thought it was a really bad thunderstorm or something--it poured all night, with a raging wind. By the time I left for work, the rain had stopped and the wind was a little weaker, but still with 30-40 MPH gusts (my estimate based on the Beaufort Wind Scale). Large branches were definitely in motion and umbrellas used with difficulty (25-31 MPH); whole trees were in motion but it was only slightly inconvenient to walk against the wind (32-38 MPH). However, twigs were breaking from the trees, too (39-47 MPH).

A Great Day

Today was one of the best days I've had in a long time. I mean a really, really, really great day!!!! Nothing in particular, just everything worked together well. In the first class Tomas was disrespectful so I kept him after class. He studied well with me one-on-one, so I let him go when I went to my next class. Eric continues to respond to any command I give them with, "Yes, sir!" I continue to ask him, "Am I a man?" He says yes. It's become quite a joke in that class. Eric also started them on replying to nearly any question with, "I don't know. We don't know. They don't know. He don't know......" Yesterday I made a big deal out of making sure that they at least use the right grammar if they're going to be silly. I was glad to see that Joseph remembered that it's "He doesn't know."

In the 5 PM class the girls told me that many male drivers think that women are bad drivers. Sally said that when her father gets behind a slow or bad driver that he always assumes it's a woman. If a man and a woman get in a traffic accident, the man assumes the woman is at fault and yells at her that she should stay home and cook rice. They are so sexist here!! I told the students (both boys and girls) that I don't think women should only stay home and cook, and that perhaps women aren't as good of drivers because they don't get as much practice.

In the next class I thought we were all going to die from laughing too much. Not a fake or half-hearted kind of laughing, but the guffawing that makes your eyes water and your sides split and you can't stop laughing no matter how hard you try. There were only 5 students, yet there were 7 parts in the story we read. The first time we read it Steven played the parts of both the man and the woman (who were talking with each other in one scene). He read them in a monotone voice and went straight from one character to the other with no change. I stopped him and told him that he needed to use a different voice for each character. He asked me how, so I demonstrated in an overly dramatic way, then he made a pathetic attempt at imitating me. We read the story several times, and anytime someone had two parts the other students made sure they read the parts with different voices. It was a great class.

After that hilarity, I noticed Tanya's shirt said "I am Canadian." I asked her about it, thinking it was some kind of political statement. It sort of is, but is also an advertisement for a beer. She and Matt told me about some of the commercials made by that company, which left us all laughing, despite their anti-American slant.

Because we were having such fun, I was a couple of minutes late to my next class. Some students pick up on things I say quickly, so asked me, "Why are you late?" Sorry! I was talking with the other teachers! Mary said that Paul acted the same as her 7-year-old brother; another student said that Paul had a goldfish I.Q. He certainly was silly today! When I asked why Ivan was absent, Blake gave me the "Ivan's a summer bear" line again, as he said that Ivan was home sleeping. In other words, he doesn't know.

The next class (now up to eleven middle school students) was remarkably well-behaved and receptive to learning. They asked for a game, but we ran out of time. Certainly on Friday--they deserve it.

Lastly for today, dreams. Living in Korea I've had more strange dreams than I've ever had before. I don't know if it's the spicy food or the different surroundings or the always experiencing new things or the strange sleep patterns. I still don't dream often, but the dreams are more vivid and memorable here than at home. When I dream something once (assuming I remember it when I wake up) it's not such a big deal, but when I dream something multiple times I can't help but wonder what it means. It's getting late so I'll continue tomorrow.

(I have the dream written down so I don't forget; I just have to write it better so that it makes sense to a person who wasn't there. I've been thinking about it all day, considering the possibilities, searching for reasons why my subconscious mind would be working how it is. No clear answers.)

Neighbors

At one point do you call your landlord or the police to report that something might have happened to your upstairs neighbor? What if you're in foreign country--tell your boss that something odd might be going on and risk it being nothing?

I like my apartment. It's a one room, but a good size for me, bug-free (now, not when I moved in), new, quite satisfactory. The walls are solid concrete so usually sound isn't an issue. The doors, however, are quite thin and might as well not be there. One neighbor likes to pretend he's an opera singer (although he sounds like a dying cat), another likes to have loud arguments with a boyfriend at all hours, another has occasional late-night soju parties. Some of the female residents clomp up the stairs late at night with their high heels, slamming the door as they enter their apartment. The doors aren't too big an issue, though.

The bathroom, on the other hand, is worse. Somehow the vent system is connected so that both sounds and smells are shared. If my next-door neighbor is smoking or cooking a particularly strong chiggae, then the smell permeates my apartment as well. Sometimes smells come up through the drain. If I'm in the bathroom and the next-door neighbor turns on the water or closes their cabinet door, I can hear it. Likewise, if the upstairs neighbor is taking a shower, I can hear it, too.

Well, from the sound of things, the upstairs neighbor has been taking a shower for the last 24 hours. Yes, it's hot, but no one can take that many showers in a 24 hour period! Every time I've been in the bathroom the water upstairs has been running. On Wednesdays I'm home a lot later than on other days, too. So the question is, what's going on up there?

Because mostly students live in this building, my first thought was that someone came home drunk (yes, mid-week, getting drunk is fine anytime here!) and took a shower to try to wake up but passed out and/or died with the water still running. Yes, I have an over-active imagination. Second possibility: the resident decided to do a midnight run and left all the lights and water on to make the bills higher for the boss. (There are supposedly 4 other foreigners in this 15-unit building, although I've only met one of them.) Third possibility: with the water problem that every now and then the water slows to just a trickle, perhaps leaving the water on all day keeps the water from slowing down again. (I don't know how these things work! It might be possible!) Fourth, and perhaps the most reasonable possibility that I've just thought of: the unit is either vacant or the resident is away, and something broke so water is always running. As long as the drain continues to work, it should be OK. However, standing in the bathroom wondering if the ceiling is going to collapse on me is not a pleasant thought!

Partial Revenge

Last night I was particularly tired and out of it, so rather inadvertently partially got back at Matt for all of the anti-American jabs he's always making. I was talking about a former co-worker who was from Canada and he asked what part of Canada. Not remembering where she was from, I answered, "the Canada part." Then feeling bad that I worked with her for 3~4 months and couldn't remember where she was from, I thought harder and said, "You know, one of the normal provinces." As he started laughing in a "I can't believe you insulted my province (New Brunswick) like that" way, I continued, "You know, one of the ones in the middle with a lot of people. Maybe Ontario." Tanya helped me clarify, "Oh, you mean one of the provinces with the majority of the population." Yeah, sure, as I reveled in Matt being on the receiving end of criticism about his home! For all of his criticisms, I still owe him, though. I've got to think of something really good before I leave!

Sometimes I wish I had an inconspicuous camera--either the camera phone or otherwise. On the bus the other day a teenage boy had a lovely pink and purple floral shirt on. He was very self-confident, no problem with wearing it. Yesterday Rooky (4th grade boy) had tiny flowers painted on his fingernails. It looked like a salon job, not something he did himself. Today the flowers were still there. When gender roles in regards to who's the boss or what job a person should have are so firm, it's surprising to see the guys wearing such feminine fashions. (Not to mention the purse-things the guys carry!)

The adults continue to amuse, confuse, and annoy me. Yesterday Grace talked about how there's stagflation in Korea now (a stagnant economy with high unemployment and inflation). I didn't even know that word; how did she learn it?! Start with the easy words and basic sentences before moving on to the difficult words and weird idioms that you never use correctly!!!! Then suddenly she was talking about how neckties are wider and skirts are shorter these days. Uh, are those topics related to the stagflation??? According to her, yes. So if the economy gets better ties will get narrower and skirts will get longer??? No response from her.

Mary (4 PM) is back from a month in the Philippines. She supposedly went there to study English, but she seems to speak less English now than before. She stayed in a hotel while she was there, apparently under the supervision of middle school girls (I assume Korean). So when she wasn't in class, she was speaking Korean the whole time that she was there. Her parents spent how much money for her to go?!

At 5 PM I walked into class and heard some awful sounds. Sally had the radio tuned to traditional Korean music, and it was turned louder than I could stand. The moaning music makes me think of the whine of bagpipes--just terrible! The only place it fits, at a low volume, is at a Buddhist temple--then it's OK. Not great, just OK.

In the CYBI class we read a story about a man who played his stereo so loud that after repeated complaints from his neighbors and warnings from the police the police came and took his radio and smashed it on a public street. (Of course, broken up into more than one sentence, but that's the basic point!) I asked them what a public street was, and Zach pointed outside, "There!" Yes, a public street is where anyone can see or go. Zach thought he'd be funny and asked if anyone can see into a public toilet, too. Sometimes the kids know English a little too well.

The special class had only Suzi there today, which was fine with me. We were able to do the capitalization worksheet and read the story a couple of times together. School will be starting back soon (middle school next week) so I guess the kids are enjoying their last bit of vacation.

Hurricane Charley

Hurricane Charley ended up being a category 4 storm, but spared Tampa Bay, where the storm surge would have been disastrous. Punta Gorda, where the storm came ashore, had a much smaller population, which led to less damage and fewer casualties than would have occurred in Tampa Bay. However, the damage was still immense.

Lakeland missed most of the worst weather. Our neighborhood has a lot of leaves and small branches in the streets, but that's it. Dad estimated that the winds were around 70 MPH. At one point he wondered if some of our trees would come down, as the trees were bent so that the branches nearly touched the ground. The storm missed the Palatka house, which Dad had also readied.

Some people in south Lakeland might be without power for several days. Anything south of Bartow was pretty bad, especially near Lake Wales--trees on top of houses and blocking roads, downed power lines, roofs ripped off. Whole mobile home parks were flattened, but flooding was minimal. Some communities, including Polk, have curfews to prevent looting, while in addition to power outages that may last for weeks, some people have to boil water for drinking. There's no public school in Polk County for a week! They have to repair the schools, clear the roads, restore power to the east part of the county, etc. Gas is running low at the gas stations with power; ice is precious.


A map of Polk County for reference. It's in the very center of Florida, with Tampa to the west and Orlando northeast of Kissimmee (along I-4). It takes roughly 1~2 hours to drive from my parents' home in Lakeland to Lake Wales. Despite the physical size of the county, only half a million people live there. It's mostly orange groves and cows, especially in the southeast.

The death toll is at 13....15....17 so far, with several due to traffic accidents. (The number kept changing while I was searching for a particular piece of info that refuses to be found! Search engines aren't perfect.) It sounds like there may be some more from mobile home residents who refused to leave, but nothing official yet.


Charley looks pretty calm from space.


A destroyed house.

Liberation Day

The weekend has been a particularly lazy one. I didn't feel at all like studying Korean yesterday, so I went downtown for a late lunch and shopping instead. I also spent a couple of hours correcting the students' journals on the school website. Today I was really tired and sore (from carrying everything home yesterday), so stayed home to rest. I called Mom and Dad to make sure everything was OK there and went for a late-afternoon walk, but otherwise not much. I noticed the Korean flags out everywhere, so thought it must be another holiday. Yep, today is Liberation Day, celebrating the August 15, 1945 independence from Japan and the August 15, 1948 founding of the modern-day Korean government.