New Schedule

Mark is back in Kara's 2 PM class. He must have had the worst case of chickenpox ever—he has marks everywhere; I'm afraid they might scar rather badly.

At 3 PM the listening exercise was to listen and write down the person's name, nationality, and occupation. Before we started I had to explain what those two long words meant and give plenty of examples. Kelt started singing under his breath, "America, America, du du du…" over and over again. Hey! You watch that TV show?! "Yes, teacher! America's Funniest Home Videos!" He acted surprised that I had seen it, too. We discussed it for a few minutes, since a couple of the other students had seen it, too. Words like "dorky" and "lousy jokes" were impossible for them to understand, so I said I liked the videos but not the man on the show. Tomas had never seen it, so asked what channel it was on and when. The kids told him what channel, but didn't know when it was on.

The schedule will change slightly starting Monday. I have the same number of teaching hours but will be at school an additional hour each week. One of my 2 PM classes that was just getting to a decent level and has only 6 students was taken away and instead I got Tanya's really low level class of 11 students, only half of which can read at all. It's only for 3 weeks, no sweat.

I spent the whole 4 PM break writing up new attendance sheets for my 17 classes while the Korean teachers who had the hour off talked with each other, ate an early dinner, or otherwise goofed off.

At 6 PM after Zach used the wrong word, I reviewed the difference between "clock" and "watch"—A watch is on your wrist; a clock is on the wall. Mr. Smartypants then asked, "What's a clock on the floor? What's a clock in the toilet?"

Blood Types

Somehow or other we started talking about blood in Miro's 5 PM class. AIDS has gained some notice in Korea after some hemophiliacs were infected from the tainted blood supply (like the USA and Canada in the 80's). I don't know how bad the problem is, but I wouldn't want to get a blood transfusion here. The kids were talking about blood donation and how old you have to be and how you get a choco pie to thank you for giving. Monica said something along the lines of it's dangerous to give blood because you might get AIDS. Where'd she hear that?! Giving blood doesn't seem to be common because of the Confucian thing of keeping your body intact; Korea doesn't need a whole generation of people afraid to give blood! Organ donation is rare for the same reason, according to my adults. However, it's no problem for them to accept an organ if they're sick and need it!

I told Monica that as long as the needle is clean there's no danger of getting AIDS from giving blood; in fact, I do it all the time at home (as I showed them the scar on my arm). I wondered what other misconceptions they had about AIDS. Yeah my job isn't health teacher, but although I'm paid to teach English I usually end up teaching a lot of other things—mostly American culture or world geography, but all kinds of things. I don't know what info they get at school and the average kid doesn't hear anything at home, so I dove into the topic. You guys know how you get AIDS, right? From dirty blood or . . . hmm . . . just what is appropriate to discuss in English class? It's a small class—two 8th grade girls, one 7th grade girl, and a 5th grade boy. I don't know how common it is for teenagers to have sex here, but the girls are getting to the age that they need to know the risks. As I hesitated, I could see from Monica's face that she knew—blushing and saying that the boy didn't know about that kind of thing. He acted clueless and asked her what she was talking about. Monica then covered his ears and started humming while she motioned for me to utter the taboo word. Luckily the girls didn't need an explanation of what the word meant!

We also talked about blood types, which got me wondering if the percentage of blood types are the same here as in the West. They didn't know what types were common in Korea, but they did say that O was "clean." Why? Because it's not mixed? In that class there was one of each blood type, and it being so small didn't help me determine anything, so in the next two classes I asked them their blood type. The results:

O—8
A—8
B—2
AB—1

The classes also told me that there was another blood type that only 2 people in Korea and 3 people in Japan had. I skeptically looked at them—are you sure? I don't think that's possible! I thought it was an urban legend, but they kept insisting it was true.

When I got home that night I did some research into blood types and found that while everyone has one of the 4 blood types, everyone also has a string of letters after the main blood type which further defines their blood. There are some rare combinations that tend to stick to certain ethnic groups.

My research also agreed with how the percentage of blood types differs around the world. In the USA it's:

O—45%
A—40%
B—11%
AB—4%

In Korea (adds up to 101%, I know, no explanation on the site):

O—28%
A—32%
B—31%
AB—10%

So my completely unscientific survey didn't coincide with the official figures. I guess I could try surveying all 150 of my students, but some of them can't understand English well enough. Or is it that the percentage is different in the (presumably) higher class (those rich enough to afford multiple academies)?

In the three classes every kid knew their blood type! How many adults in the West don't know their blood type?! It's the whole "blood type determines personality" thing. Only a few kids knew if their blood was + or -, though.

I spent perhaps an hour browsing various "bloody" sites; it was all quite interesting.

The Ice Cream Lady (aka the Statue of Liberty)

During the free conversation time at the beginning of class Jenny (3rd grade) came up to my desk and asked me to stand up. Why? "Just because! Please, teacher!" Okay, I'm standing up, now what? "Teacher! Teacher!" as she bent her neck to look up at me, "Teacher! What is tall, teacher or ice cream lady?" Thinking, thinking, ice cream lady? A-ha! Which is taller, me or the Statue of Liberty! Jenny, the Statue of Liberty is very big! "How big?" I went inside the Statue, along with lots of other people! It's as big as the 63 Building—maybe. It's very very big! And it's not ice cream, it's a torch with fire!!

Jessie's Mother

Jessie quit our academy. The reason? Her mom didn't like her grades. Actually, her mom was so upset that she ripped up the evaluation sheet. Jessie wrote about it on our class bulletin board—that she wanted to continue attending our academy, but she didn't think her mom would let her. Our grading scale has 5 letters—Excellent, Above Average, Normal, Poor, or Bad. As I best I remember, I gave Jessie A's for reading comprehension and pronunciation, N for speaking, and P for attitude/classroom behavior because she's constantly chatting with friends or looking out the window or otherwise not listening or working. Mona gave her N for presentations. Mona was a little upset about it, probably dreading calling the mother to discuss it.

Mona used the typical Korean teacher "she's fine in my class" line. Of course she is—she knows she'll get beaten if she misbehaves, or you'll call or her mother, plus with some kids they might hear negative things about foreigners at home (I'm not sure what causes it) so they treat foreigners like a circus side-show or a non-authority figure. I keep most of my students in line, but with some there's a huge difference between how they act in the foreign and Korean teachers' classes—huge. Because Jessie is only in the 3rd great it's not too bad—yet. However, I can see it starting—the way she looks at me when I tell her to do something, such disdain and defiance. The mother can try another academy, but it won't do any good until Jessie learns that foreign teachers deserve the same respect as Korean teachers. The bad thing is, her English has really been improving, despite the inattention. If she stops studying now, she'll forget everything she's learned.

The adult class was so nice this week with the new student and a couple of the older students back again. With 5 students Grace's annoying comments and incorrect answers are diluted. Before she would often correct the other students or they would ask her something and at first because of her age I was very careful about correcting her. Now I don't care about her age—if she says something wrong I bluntly correct her, correct her again, and continue correcting her until it finally sinks in. The new student's high English ability makes her the new expert. In fact, the other students are joking that Chris is the small teacher and I'm the big teacher. It's the same thing as "big father" (father's older brother) and "small father" (father's younger brother), I guess.

Thursday I got a bruise on the bus ride. It was nearing my stop so I was standing next to the door with my arm wrapped around a pole. The bus suddenly slowed down and then immediately sped up again. The motion sent me flying forward and then back, with my body slamming up against the pole and pinching my arm. It started turning colors almost immediately and the muscle was sore all day so I was worried it might be a pretty bad bruise, but it ended up being about the size of a dime, if a dime were oval. It's also healing quickly—red, purple, today yellowish-brown. Buses are dangerous!

Accumulation

Had a productive day, due to one of my yearly (sometimes twice a year) sudden loads of energy. I went through a lot of stuff deciding what to throw away, give away, put in the donation bin, or pack. I accumulated a lot in two years! Packing won't begin for another couple of weeks, though. I may be able to fit everything into my bags (and not have to mail things home); I'll have to wait and see. I put about a dozen shirts, a couple of pairs of pants, some towels, and winter clothes that I would never use at home into the donation bin stack, some books will go to church, others I'll scatter among friends or foreigner hangouts, others I'll pack. I pulled everything out of the closet and wiped down the floor and the luggage. Everything was really dusty, while mold was growing on two bags. I took a picture of the mess when everything was spread out all over--I couldn't help it. It's just too bad I haven't entered the digital age yet to let people see the chaos for themselves! The apartment is plenty big enough when everything is put away where it belongs, but today I couldn't walk more than a couple of steps without tripping over something.

Other things: washed the dishes, scrubbed the sink and gas range, wiped the counter, washed clothes, water-proofed the new tennis shoes, threw away a ton of miscellaneous papers, swept the floor, got the trash and recycling ready to take out, cut and repainted my fingernails, plucked my eyebrows, scrubbed the calluses off my heels and applied moisturizer; I think that about covers it. I haven't actually left the apartment today, although I did have a brief conversation with the gray cat across the way. The black one doesn't like foreigners.

The travel agent replied about available flights--it's going to be 845,000 won (a little over $700) for one-way. It would leave on 9/28 (Tuesday) when I finish work on 9/24 (Friday). That's fine, but because of the holiday I won't be able to go anywhere and all the foreigners will be off traveling, so it might be a boring few days. I need to have someone at work call and make sure the airport bus is running on Tuesday (that is Chuseok Day, after all), and then let the travel agent know it's okay and get the information for Mr. Kim to transfer the money to him.

House Wormy Party

Another couple of good yet tiring days. Lots of funny things to write about--tomorrow. For now, the latest from the student journals:

One student wrote about going to a "haose wormy party."

Another showed how homework in the lower grades isn't really teaching the kids anything:

l am homework homework kind is sports newpaper. l''''m wrighting. my mom is materials cut and paste that''''s board but monday is opening of shcool so Earnestness

Yet another student had mixed feelings about returning to school:

I am going to school tomorrow. I am happy about that. But I don`t like boys. because boys are afflict girls. I am miss my friends. And teacher too. I`m for got my set. In vacation I meet a lot of friends. I wait to go school tomorrow.

September!!

It's September already. I can't begin to explain the feeling when I sat down at my desk at work and ripped August off of the calendar, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the trash can. It's September! I mentioned that fact to Matt and he apparently read my mind, because he offered a high five to mark the occasion.

Shock--only 17 days of work left. How did that creep up on me?!

The day was fairly normal. Because the new books haven't arrived I've been playing more games than normal, but always teaching a little something, too. The elementary school kids went back to school today. Most of them were really tired from not getting to sleep early enough last night. Charlie was absent in the 8:30 class and I think Mina might have talked to the whole class about needing to study hard with me and respect me, etc. It was much better.

This morning I got a look at the stuff growing on the wall under my sink and behind my toilet. You're not supposed to leave apartments here particularly clean, but I figured I'd get rid of that nastiness. The bathroom has no windows, however, so even with the vent fan on I inhaled far too many bleach fumes. I left the bathroom door and the veranda window wide open when I went to work, and luckily by the time I got home the smell was gone.

A War Casualty

Apparently the military is cracking down on soldiers' blogs. Here's one casualty: MY WAR - Fear And Loathing In Iraq, who has discontinued his blog without specifically saying that he has or why or anything. The title changed to "Over and Out," though, and the only entry still there quotes some singer: "Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Cheated?" Even his archives have been deleted. A supervisor found out about the blog a couple of weeks before, but he was supposed to be able to continue blogging after the supervisor read it. I find the soldiers to be careful not to release anything that could put themselves in danger. The enemy can get plenty of info from the news! I guess the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to soldiers. I think hearing stuff straight from Iraq is helpful, especially for people with no military experience.

Over the weekend Norton caught two viruses (the same one) on my computer. How did they get there?? I don't download stuff, my firewall is up, what's wrong?

The first two days of the week were really good, perhaps because of my determination to have a positive attitude and enjoy my last month here. Even Joelle yelling across the room, "BETH! Pick student diaries!" like I was an animal didn't bother me. Less than 4 more weeks of her; I can make it.

Monday Jim came in briefly to get Mr. Kim to put his stamp on a housing form or something. Jim's been only doing privates this year (because he's gyopo he's got the good visa). After 5+ years in Ulsan he's moving to the Seoul area to see what kind of trouble he can stir up there!

The secretary was upset about something tonight. She's usually so cheerful, yet today was barely holding back tears. Did she get bad news? Did Mr. Kim yell at her? I felt so helpless--she doesn't speak much English. As I left I asked her if she was okay (yeah, great question when it's obvious she's not) and she tried to say yes in the "Hey, I don't really want to talk about it right now" embarrassed way. She looked like she needed to go home and have a good cry, but had to work for another hour or so. I felt bad leaving when she had to stay--let's trade places! I'll answer the phone and handle balancing the books--let's see parents' response to my horrible accent and awkward Korean!

Joshua's Book

There were SO MANY mistakes in Joshua's book! I discussed it with him today for about a half hour. He didn't seem at all phased, and even talked about writing a teacher's book to accompany that book. Nearly everything I criticized he had an explanation for. Now I don't imagine that writing a grammar book is easy, and I realize that it's not his first language, but I think if someone is going to write a book then they should have some handle on what they're doing. Most Koreans are better at writing than at speaking, but he's the opposite. His speaking is quite understandable, but his writing……..

He's been working on the book basically full-time for 4~6 months. It's totally disorganized and almost completely plagiarized. He's had about 4 different grammar books that he's been pulling bits and pieces from to create a completely disjointed book. It has all the marks of a plagiarized paper—writing style drastically changes, some sections are surprisingly good while others are horrid, word choice goes from lots of slang and overused idioms to university-level writing. Sometimes it's "airplane" and sometimes it's "air plane." Many times he put two sentences together by using a comma splice. I'm not claiming to write perfectly, but if you're writing a grammar book you should make some attempt to write it correctly! One whole chapter didn't make any sense. It had phrases like this:

When I called him, I couldn't hear him clearly.
Calling him, I couldn't hear him clearly.

If you have CD player, you can borrow my CDs.
Having CD player, you can borrow my CDs.

As I answered the phone, I watched TV.
Answering the phone, I watched TV.

I understood the point—that in English you can change the order of phrases and have it mean the same thing. However, those are not correct! When I questioned those phrases, he pulled up a (Korean) webpage that had, word for word, what was in his book in that chapter.

There were so many errors that the spell check and grammar check would have caught (typos, subject-verb agreement, etc.). There are lots of things that a computer can't check, but be courteous and make it easier on the people editing it!!

Each unit started with a dialogue. Some dialogues sounded like two intellectuals were talking; some sounded like a 2-year-old. Use some consistency! The vocabulary was too difficult for children. American children don't even use words like "metropolitan!" This is perhaps the second-worst dialogue in terms of, who talks like this?! (The worst one was slightly longer and went from "boxers" (??) to "cookies" to "babies" to "travel" in the same short conversation! The only people I know who might talk like that are my two nearly-deaf great aunts when they're talking to each other!

Davis: Where are you, mom? Are you still at the bank?

Mom: I'm at uncle Jim's now. But I will go home soon.

Davis: Can you buy some milk on your way home?

Mom: No problem. Did you have any call for me?

Davis: Sorry, I don't know because I was in bed until now.

Mom: There's some chips in the cupboard. Get some. bye-

Besides what should be, "Were there any calls for me," why is Mom telling the kid that was already in bed to eat some chips? Shouldn't Mom be telling him to go back to bed, or at least eat something more healthy? Is the bank open at night? Who's watching Davis while Mom is gone?

Other interesting phrases:

Her name is Jeanne d'Arc who is the heroin of France.

Since this is an English book, perhaps use her English name. Either this is a typo or it's one of the few non-plagiarized sections, because on another page heroine was spelled correctly. Is she still the heroine of France, or she was the heroine?

Wow, you eat a horse.

No, not usually. I prefer cows, but a little bit at a time. The whole thing is a little much. If you're going to use idioms, use them correctly!

He is very kindness.

He is every kindness? He is very kind?

My mom wants to loose her weight.

Yes, she probably wants to loose her weight but she probably wants to lose it even more. And people don't think of weight as belonging to them.

I wake it up very early.

What? Your cat? Dog? Horse to take you to work?

An Excellent Weekend

At some point during the weekend I figured out (maybe) that the problems Thursday~Friday were culture shock. It's partly work BS that you could have in any job, but certainly a large part related to the culture. So I largely neglected the work duties this weekend, doing approximately an hour on Saturday and two on Sunday, and instead immersed myself in having fun and interacting with people from all over the world, part of the reason why I work here.

Friday night I met about a dozen people from church to have a late dinner with Holly and Jody near the university. Holly and Jody went to Thailand and then to Canada; in all they were gone about a month, and were only in Ulsan for a couple of days to get some stuff before going back to the area near Seoul where they have a university job. Lucky them!

On Saturday I was the only student in Korean class, which felt a little weird, yet gave me some good practice with reading and I didn't feel as stupid asking what a word meant. After class I went to get a haircut, and while he was cutting my hair he asked about the highlights, as he almost always does. I explained, again, that I do them myself at home using a spray-on stuff and the hairdryer. He sounded very interested, and asked questions about where I got the stuff and what company it was (USA, and I don't remember). Then he asked if he could highlight my hair—"service"—Konglish for free. Why? I don't know if he wanted more practice with foreign hair (as my hair strands are rather thinner and silkier than Koreans') or if it was because I've been a regular customer for so long, or because I had to wait for 45 minutes, but I agreed. I must say I was somewhat nervous, knowing that he gave Sandra jet black hair one time when she asked for brown. He brought me a board with sample hair strands on it, and he suggested one that was entirely too light—I explained I didn't want anything too bright or crazy. I picked a somewhat conservative color, he suggested a lighter one, we decided on a shade between the two with lighter highlights. It took a little over an hour of two people working on me. They painted the strands and combed the dye through, let it sit a while, then painted the roots and let that sit (maybe used the blowdryer some) and then shampooed the hair. Then they did the highlights, blowdried that some and shampooed it again before drying and styling it. 10,000 won ($8)—pretty good deal.

As he was doing it he asked if it was the first time getting my hair colored in Korea. Yes. I didn't say that it was the first time getting my hair colored--ever! At the end he asked, somewhat concerned, if it was too bright. Actually it's not too different than the color it was before. It looks good, just a subtle difference. I reassured him that it was perfect and I liked it. At some point during the visit I told him that I was going home soon, but I didn't specify when. If I don't get there again before I go home, I'll email Sandra and ask her to tell him again that I liked his work. Otherwise I'm afraid he might think that I never came back because of what he did!

Only a couple of people even mentioned the haircut (which is slightly different than before). At work one class talked amongst themselves about me when I walked in, but didn't say anything to me.

Saturday night I met people at Java Coffee at 9 PM; we saw The Terminal. There were 10 of us—9 foreigners and 1 Korean, all English teachers. It was a hilarious movie and so applicable to our lives here—we've experienced a lot of the culture/language problems Tom Hanks did, and his English mistakes we've heard from our students. Some of the stuff obviously didn't translate well, as we were the only ones laughing in some sections, especially those about American culture or immigration procedures or English mistakes. Examples: Cher losing underwear on Virgin Airlines; Tom Hanks getting "cheat" and "shit" mixed up; the maze of forms and how strictly immigration laws are followed; some stuff just from how Tom Hanks said phrases with the Eastern European accent.

After the movie we went outside to talk (as inside was rather warm). It was perhaps 12:30 AM by that point. We were standing not too far from the door, and within 10 minutes a security guard came out, sort of shuffled around, cleared his throat, then hesitantly said, "Excuse me……" The message was pretty clear without any words—Get outta here! We moved farther away, yet still within the courtyard area. We stayed another hour goofing off and wondering if the guard would return. Nope. A group of dangerous foreigners standing near a door propped open into the main department store is much better than having them stand near the door to the still-open movie theater!

On Sunday there were tons of people at church, both old and new. Kendall was extremely funny with the announcements; it was a good atmosphere. Some people were going bowling in the afternoon but I went home to do a few productive things. Later I met everyone in old downtown to have a goodbye party for Bridget and Alex. We ate at a Chinese restaurant (owned by a Chinese guy). I haven't had that much meat at one meal in ages! Sweet and sour pork, garlic pork, honey chicken with cashews, a vegetable dish, sweet rolls, dumplings….everything was so good, and only 14,000 won each. We were stuffed. It's always so sad to say goodbye! They're headed to China and India for a few weeks of travel, and then to England. Because Alex's mother was born there, they can work there. They don't know what they'll do yet, but they want to do a little more crazy stuff before settling down in New Zealand.

Complaints about Friday

Friday was chaos. Not even organized chaos, but complete chaos. This was the first time that the foreign teachers had to proctor the tests, as the Korean teachers are so overworked. I mean, they only spend 2 hours socializing every day. They should be spending at least half of their hours at work doing nothing whatsoever. So anyway, I figured that when I'm instructed to watch the kids take a test, that I could do other paperwork or something, but no. In the first class, Ricky finished the test (including the listening portion) in EIGHTEEN minutes (of a 50-minute class). The slowest student took 25 minutes. That left me with an awful lot of time that I didn't have anything ready to occupy them. The next class finished the test in about 30 minutes, but I had some easy readers which they did fairly well at reading (except for Tomas, who tore the cover off his).

In the next period, usually my break, I wrote evaluations while the Korean teachers goofed off. Mr. Kim asked the foreign teachers to correct the books that Joshua (the laptop guy, he's adopted an English nickname now) has been writing. He even said we'd get paid extra (yeah, right, how much, is this hourly, when?). It's my last month, can't make waves, yeah, sure. Once I looked through the 2 books I was given (each 75 pages long) I saw how long it was going to take and I got upset because of all the work things that needed to get done on the weekend: evaluations, daily reports, student diaries (which I'd been putting off while I wrote the tests), and edit 2 books!

The next two classes were too silly/bad and I got a bad headache and felt sick. Then another test. Then in the last class they were incredibly stupid. I know Ken has a decent English ability because I had him in a previous class. But in this class, he barely says a word per class. I asked him a simple question: "What do you think happens next in the story?" and he wouldn't respond. I sent him outside to think about it, and it took 5 minutes before he finally came back in with an answer.

!!!!!

Joelle also bothered me, on top of everything else. She is not a good manager. She complained that the students couldn't hear my voice on one of the listening tests—made me go into the classroom to read it and then demanded that I tape it over again. Is it okay if I wait until next week when some of this other stuff is finished, Your Royal Highness?! When I made that tape 6 months ago we didn't have any decent tape players, thus the quality of the recording. But that doesn't matter—it was my voice on the tape, so thus it's my fault. Joelle made Tanya re-write lots of her evaluations because Tanya wrote her comment too low in the box. Who cares where it's written! The parents can't even read it!!

I'm Back to Writing

So it's been light blogging for a few days. Usually I respond to stress by writing, but I just didn't feel like it at all on Friday, and then the weekend was too busy to write and yesterday and today I've been incredibly tired. Following is at least the major details of the last 4 days or so.

Not Quite Free Access, But Better

I can access blogs.com and typepad.com sites now! Finally! After only 67 days! Mu.nu sites are still blocked, though.

A More Positive Attitude

So I stayed out as late as possible and am just now getting in . . . one day later. OK, not really. The weekend is going a lot better than I expected, though, with lots of fun both last night and tonight. For now, I need some sleep.