So after work on Thursday we drove out
to Gwanju a bigger city that's about 45 minutes away, an hour during
rainy season, in order to see the newest Batman. I say “we drove”
but really our new grammar teacher and front desk manager drove four
of us. It was a cozy fit, but still exponentially more comfortable
than the snowboarding trip. Was Batman playing in Suncheon? Yes,
but we thought that the movie mandated a viewing on an IMAX screen.
We were right. The funny thing is the boss man brought his whole
family, mother included, to a 12:45am showing. Fun times. Reminded
me of mom and dad going with me to the midnight showing of Iron Man
II. Gwanju has lots of cuties. Just an observation. The movie
theater is also home to a lot of little shops, which were closed by
the time we got there, but we became super excited to see that the
Burger King light was still on. WRONG. It was 12:07 and they
stopped serving at 12. I'm sorry, but if you're a burger shop
operating right across the walkway from a theater in a country where
you can bring your own food and beer into the theater wouldn't you
think that you'd want to stay open til at least the last show starts.
That being said, 7 minutes? We even offered to buy the easiest
things. No such luck. Then we went the opposite direction and
offered to buy $25 worth a food a piece. I was a little upset, but
then I thought back to my Quiznos days and when people would come in
at 8:55 and order like 12 subs. Was I happy, absolutely because I
liked making food, but was I in a pleasant mood when they ate one of
them there. Not so much. So we hit up a gas station for a gas
station burger, so ramyen, a good variety of chips and enough beer to
feel dandy.
My youngest kids just wrapped up a
Beatles project which was the highlight of my month. I think I could
win the lottery, but seeing the kids having fun listening to the fab
four and reading song titles was too awesome. We started the week
with writing a paragraph about the Beatles. I had them choose what
to call them [rock band, musical group, band, etc] and gave them
liberty over where to say they were from [Liverpool, the UK, the
United Kingdom, England, Britain, etc] and then I had them pick 5
songs out of a large list that I typed up for them. I was pleasantly
surprised that not all the students picked the shortest song titles.
Some of them recognized that there were longer titles that they knew
all the words in it and it would be easy to read. Then on the last
day of the project I had them walking around the room looking for
information on discography posters that I had scattered around the
room. They then created their own #1 album plaques. Those will
definitely stay in my classroom on the wall for quite some time.
Speaking of my classroom, I finally got
my projector back. My youngest class can now be back in there, which
is good because the other classroom that we had been using is a
little darker and so one of the students has a hard time staying
awake during class. In my room with the ample amount of sunlight, it
isn't as easy to catch a nap.
With one of my older classes last night
(Friday) we laughed for probably 20 minutes straight about Koreans
and their pronunciations of their language. I'm trying to speak the
language and use it whenever I can and not be one of those honkeys
(as Heana says he friends call “us”) that just gets by on
charades and pointing. Anyways, on a couple of occasions I'll give
directions to the taxi driver and he'll just have this blank look on
his face, and then a Korean will help out and ask me where I want to
go and I tell him again (in Korean) and he turns to the taxi driver
and says the EXACT same words but with the ever slightest of
inflections. It's not even the difference between Mexia and Mex-ia.
This is the difference of Jory and Joreeeee or so it sounds like to
me. Maybe there's a secret wink or foot tap that I'm supposed to
throw in too. But, my students do it to. My students will ask about
my family and I'll tell them I've got family up in Pyeongtaek. I'll
get the most puzzled look, and then I'll be like here's Seoul and
here's Daejeon and then Cheonan and then bam Pyeongtaek. And then
they all go OH Pyeongtaaaek or something like that and I'm like oh my
gosh yes. And so this went on with goofy silliness for 20 minutes
and a couple of the girls found it so funny that they were crying.
One of the crying girls showed me a
disgusted look later. I brought back one of my favorite projects
that I've been doing since I was a student teacher:Trading Cards. The
topic was Columbus and whether or not he deserved a day memorializing
him. So I premade the titles on a few cards to fan the fire and
hopefully get some creative juices flowing from the students. I did
the usual ones you'd expect like King Sejong and Admiral Yi Sun-Sin
or something like that. I then Googled searched for key historical
Koreans. I should've specified South because one of the ones that I
ended up making was actually a Northerner (ok so Byron got docked a
couple of cool points for that one, but that didn't even warrant the
disgusted look). Then I also included cards for Park Tae Hwan (the
Korean swimmer) and then my girlfriend Kim Yu Na (my mom probably
thinks of her as an ice skater, but too me she's the Hite Beer Girl).
My girls in my classes always talk about their favorite K-Pop boy
bands so I thought that would get some of the quieter girls involved
if I threw out some names onto cards of the lead boy singers.
Evidently that's where I went wrong, not putting a North Korean, but
picking ugly boys to give holidays or trading cards. I got a good
laugh out of it.
The students also got a laugh because
every single time I said the name Admiral Yi Sun-Sin I felt it was
absolutely necessary to strike the Admiral Yi Sun-Sin pose. I think
I could really start something here kind of like “everyone's got a
little Captain in them” or planking. Maybe I'll start a photo
album of spontaneous Admiral poses in public. :-)
On Saturday I headed up to Pyeongtaaaaaek (as my students would pronounce it) to see Scott and Heana. I barely missed the 7:00 train due to difficulty getting a cab and just lights not going my way (I know leave earlier) and so I waited at the train station for the 9:00 train. When I arrived I was going to get a locker and leave my bag in it while we ate lunch at this megacenter that was a shopping center/food court/train station. I couldn't get the locker machine to work (instructions written in English too for honkeys like me). I became frustrated and was like whatever and so I was listening to music while I was waiting and noticed that four sets of Koreans couldn't get the lockers to work either. Yay, it wasn't a language barrier issue. Either we're all incompetent or it's broken.
I've been killing it Italiano style
lately (maybe a future teaching destination?). I made some amazing
meatballs, which should come as no surprise to mom and grandma
because I still get grief for the only adjective that could come to
mind after visiting Europe was “amazing”. I also made these
pan-seared mushrooms like were crusted in garlic and herbs. When I
took them out, there was a lot of garlic, herbs and oil left in the
pan and it would've been such a waste so I was contemplating what to
do with it. I decided on a risotto and it was a fantastic choice.
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