Live, from the 5 car, it's Tuesday morning!

In the red corner standing at 6-foot even, coming out of the Seocho station, working stiff number one.

And... in the blue corner, standing in at 5-foot ten-inches, transferring in at Seoul University station, the umbrella carrying working man number 2.

You're  referee for this event will be a tiny grandmother measuring in at 5'4".

"Gentleman you're dressed for work so let's make this a clean fight.  Now, let's GET IT ON!"

If you haven't guessed it from my tongue in cheek introduction, there was a gentleman's brawl this morning on the metro.  I was on the other side of the car, and the two gentlemen were speaking in Korean, so I don't know all of the particulars.  I was reading my book, so I didn't notice the incident right away, but when between stops people were readjusting (something unusual), I began to take notice.  

There were two gentlemen speaking rather tersely to each other by the door and the rest of the spectators were giving them a wide berth.  This went on for about ten seconds when one man slapped the other.  The slapped man responded by pushing the first man back against the door.  This instigated a response of the first man pushing the second back into the crowded subway car (This really confused me because the crowded car just acted as cushioning for him).  The last, but certainly not least move, was an epic response as the guy rebounds off the crowd, grabs the first guys tie, and slam checks him into the subway car door.  At this point, there was a huge suck of breath from everyone in the car and this little old lady comes in between these two guys and pushes them away and points her finger in both of their faces and starts yelling at both of them.

I don't know what the disagreement was about, and I don't care because it definitely brought an element of excitement to my morning commute.

Early Beginning of Rainy Season

My students informed me that rainy season was started a little earlier this year.  They said today is the start.  I however didn't bring an umbrella to work today, however luckily the clouds stayed closed for business.  :-)

They keep telling me that last year's rainy season was mild compared to seasons in the past, either way it is different for somebody that is used to a 2-4 month drought in Texas during the summer.

UPDATE :  I actually made it home, to the grocery store and back without a drop of rain touching me.  It wasn't until I was working on dinner and grading papers in my apartment that the skies opened up and released the cats and dogs on us.  

Relax, Don't Stress

Korean students stress.  Korean students stress a lot.  It's the pressure from their parents, the pressure from their society and the pressure from themselves.  There was a student who missed the review for our midterm due to being in the hospital for a brief stay.  She came for the midterm and took it and scored the lowest score in the class, but  even that wasn't anything remarkably bad.  So today when I passed out the midterms right before lunch, I stepped back into the classroom during lunch and called her to the teacher's area and I was like "don't stress, don't worry.  Relax.  You're still going to finish with an A with all of your other grades."  Her reaction was "how did you know I was worried?"  I told her I knew that Korean mentality, and I figured that she'd be worried.  It's just a different world when students wear that much stress in themselves after they get an 85.

New Geico Commercials

While I always enjoyed the Geico gecko commercials I'm glad they've moved on to explore different advertising alternatives that don't include cavemen.

The two comedian set up with the one guy on the mandolin and the other on the guitar is nice and has a different folk feel to it.

I like the one-liners that come from it:

"Happier than a Slinkie on an escalator"  Awesome.

UD's Core

So yesterday me and the other guy I work with were talking about books for the next session and I was telling him about what books I was probably going to introduce and do units with the students.  Then we were talking about loves of reading.  He was saying that he didn't really enjoy reading until later.  I admitted that I didn't really start loving reading again until recently.   He asked what turned me off of reading.  And I was telling him that I never stopped reading, I just was no longer reading at my level.  Reading illustrated classics and comic books would fill my literacy time. 

We then got talking about college texts and I was telling him that either the Odyssey or Beowulf were my favorite books from my freshman semester.  He was intrigued and so I showed him the reading list for literary traditions fall semester or freshman year and his reaction was "well that's one way to welcome students to college." 

I had to laugh thinking about the Iliad and the pages that had these "highlighter tails" as I would later name them from drifting off mid sentence highlighter still pressed to the paper. 

BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS, HELP!!!

I need the help of other brilliant minds.  I'm looking for a challenging book for my upper level students to add to the curriculum for next term.  I want to move the current level 5 book to level 6, but the problem is one of the students that is in level 5 will be returning for level 6.  There lies the problem.  I love my current level 6 book, but I think with just a fraction of adjustment in the amount of depth that we dive into it, it could easily be done at a level 4 or 5 which is my plan.  

What I'm looking for is a decent book of about 200 to 300 pages.   I'm thinking of a biography or an autobiography for a change in genre if that helps anyone.  I would love to do one of my favorite books, In Dubious Battle, with the students, however I don't think migrant workers in southern California during the Great Depression is an easy setting for them to connect with on a personal level.

That being said, I just finished another good read and god the plan done for that book, and I found a Louis L'Amour book for 50 cents that will be my next book.  The hilarious thing about this book is it doesn't even have a barcode, which I'm going to take into class and show the students because they've been using their Galaxies and iPhones to scan the barcodes of books, and it instantly  gives them the proper citation for that book.  I think modern technology is awesome, but I've been stressing and testing them about learning how to do it by hand, so if they aren't near a computer, the computer does it wrong, or like in this case the book doesn't have a barcode, they're not stranding on a creek without a paddle.

Tonight's large batch of sauce

So last week it was a cajun cream sauce that I've got two yummy containers full of in the fridge for future weeks.  This week I made a roasted bell pepper sauce that's quite yummy! It's got red and orange bell peppers in it which explains the almost yellow color.

All the peppers used for this one were street peppers again bought from a different farmer, but this one was nice with brightly colored vegetables with beautiful smells to them.

Flower Garden

When I was at the Dongdaemun gate, there was a city flower garden nearby that I enjoyed finishing another book in, as well as looking at the flowers.  There wasn't a huge diversity in coloras, a lot of typical yellows and simple whites.  However, there were several of these very bright lillies or irises.  There colors definitely made up for the lack elsewhere, at least as far as creating a pleasant reading environment was concerned.

Thursday off of Work

Thursday was Memorial Day here in Korea, which means I got a day off.  I have say that having a holiday on a Thursday and having to work on Friday sucks.  But, I did make the best of it and toured several of the gates of ancient Seoul.  There used to be 4 large gates and 4 minor gates.  Now there are only three of each.  On Thursday I visited two of them, plus the main gate of the largest palace in Seoul.

The first gate just had reconstruction finished last month after a disgruntled government employee set fire to it several years ago.  They did the complete reconstruction only using tools that would have been available during the time period it was originally built.

The second gate is the main gate of the palace I was talking about.

The final gate is in the eastern part of Seoul. And is known as Dongdaemun (the great east gate).  It is closed and when I did some googling I found out that the roof had been structurally damaged due to rain and hail.

Finally there is a picture of a statue of this famous admiral from the Korean navy who designed this great boat and killed a large part of the Japanese during their battles.  The statue is cool because it is also surrounded by dancing water fountains that had tons of kids playing it them on the warm summer holiday.

Cool Pic of the Yeouido Skyline

On my walk today this jumped out at me and I thought it made an awesome picture,  especially in black&white.  This is the skyline of the island inside Seoul metropolitan area on the Han River.   The tall building on the lefthand side is known as the 63 Building.  The other cool thing that I like about this skyline is if you look at the buildings in the middle,  there's one that looks as if it has an odd awning on top.  It's actually several large trees on the roof of the building.  I think that's awesome.

I also included the original and the cropped.

The past couple of walks have got me thinking of going on a mission around Seoul and taking pictures of the beautiful architecture around the city.

I've seen a couple specific ones that I want to take pictures of in the future.

Walking Trail

I found a walking trail in a park near Ichon neighborhood.   It's a little mind blowing to think of a city with over 10 million people and you can find a spot like this on a beautiful day and be able to take a picture with almost no people. 

Note : shortly after this picture was taken there were swarms of people walking and biking, but for this brief moment this trail was virtually mine.

It reminded me a lot of the trail in Georgetown that starts down by the damn and curves back up tp the Country Club.

Giving Up the Power

In my highest level today we were discussing Skipping Christmas, and one of Luther Krank's coworkers, Yank Slader, is jealous of his plan, but he explains that his wife would never go for it. We then began discussing this as a class because one of the students said that he was a weak character, and then another said that he wasn't weak, but that his wife just held the power. Then the discussion turned to amidst a marriage of equals, why would a husband give the power (notice that we were discussing power, not respect which we separated during the discussion). I let the discussion just run its course with them debating amongst themselves when they came to a conclusion of 3 reasons: Emotions, food, and sex. I asked one of the two male students why there was a clarification of a marriage of equals. He stated that if the woman is richer or the woman is smarter then she can obviously have the power without any disagreement. Thought that this 15 minute discussion took a very odd turn from what I had originally planned on discussing, but it was an invited change and a very philosophical way to look at a character in a book that outside of this class probably doesn't get a second thought.

Walking and Reading

I’ve been walking more.  I’ve been bewildered as of lately because my knees seem to hurt more from walking than I do from running.  I’m not stopping, just taking it slower.  I’ve enjoyed just getting out with my iPod and just enjoying the randomness of walking around, window browsing, looking at the selection of fruits and vegetables that are offered in the street stalls.  It’s also given me a chance to find little hidden gems that I’ve always skipped over in my playlists.  It’s funny that I’m texting James telling him who I’m listening to and enjoying, and low and behold they’re probably people he’s been rocking out to from cds and live shows for years.  I also relish in finding hidden gems in the city like a nice park with lots of families.  Enjoying the sun and the release from the stress is an enjoyed benefit as well. 

I’ve also been reading more.  There’s a little cute used bookstore that’s just down the road that I picked up a book the other day that wasn’t even read.  I got it for 2 dollars and couldn’t put it down until I finished it.  I’ve talked with my academic manager and it’s going to be one of the academic texts next term.  It also was helpful for helping me work through some head drama that I had swirling around my busy mind.  A few days later I found a book that I’ve read before and had planned several months worth of lesson plans around.  So for the dollar that it cost me for a book without a broken spine, I’ve got another addition to our curriculum here that will help to build and prepare them.  Plus each session I get to reread one of my favorite books.  It’s been a while since I enjoyed reading like this, but I’m enjoying this feeling.  This social weaning off of the teat of television and movies.  This warm embrace of stories and characters and becoming so thrilled by finding out 

The Finished Product

Cooking cajun peppers and pasta product at chopping stage, at cooking stage and eating at work stage.

Vegetable Street Finds

The gorgeous deliciousness that I scored this weekend.

Saturday! Books! No Costco! Tomatoes!

So Saturday I didnt have anything exactly planned so I was just going to get some groceries and walk around.  Well after my morning run I got on the subway and made my way to the neighborhood with a Costco.   After walking around for some exercise and enjoying the weather,  I went to go in but I couldnt find my card in my wallet.  Ok no big deal.  I decided to just read for a while in the park.  Then I went for a good walk and was looking at all the fruits and vegetables in the market stalls.  I found some delicious tomatoes.  Anyways,  I get bzck to my apartment only to finally remember that a couple months ago I had moved my Costco card into my bag, which I had been carrying around.  It was a good thing though because if I had gone to Costco I would've missex out on those tomatoes.