Some more videos

Here are a few more videos for you to enjoy. Follow the URL links to youtube.com.

Tommy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5_OuYjh7ts
Minsu and Grace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5V49hc9tiw
What teaching English is like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v4ET1TzvyA

These are all taken from my school and hopefully they will give you a better understanding of what I'm doing here.

David Beckham comes to town

Last Saturday I was able to catch a soccer match between Seoul FC and the LA Galaxy. For those who don't know, David Beckham now plays for the LA Galaxy so it was kind of a big deal for him to come all the way to South Korea. The game was held at World Cup Stadium, which was built some nine or ten years ago when South Korea hosted the World Cup. Since kickoff wasn't until 4:30pm a few of us decided to head in a bit early for some other activities, namely riding scooters. I headed in with my friends Casey and Henry and we were able to ride around some kids for about fifteen minutes before the novelty wore off. After we met up with about twelve other friends from Gimpo who also wanted to see the game. It's kind of nice having a community of friends to do things with. The game itself wasn't all that exciting but I'm glad I went. It was actually the first professional soccer game I've attended. However it was only an exhibition game and as the pictures show there wasn't a sellout crowd. It was a good day though.
In other news, I have officially started a new work schedule that should stay in place the remainder of my stay here in Korea. I no longer have any kindergarten in the mornings but I do teach them science on Tuesday and Friday, and gym on Wednesday afternoon. These classes are pretty easy as I get to play with magnets and teach the kids 'duck, duck, goose.' My afternoon classes are a bit different. Many of my classes have changed which means getting to know new students all over again. It took my about two months to really settle into my work routine so it feels like I have to start all over again. However this time around will be much easier since I know what I'm doing. I have a lot more students in most classes but I also have a class with only student. Another difference is the time I'm working. Instead of starting in the morning, my first class begins at 2:00pm and the last ends at 9:00pm. It's a little hectic right now but I think in a few weeks I'll be just fine. I'm actually looking forward to this schedule as it give me more freedom in the morning and late at night.
I'll finish this blog with an observation I've had since coming to South Korea. Nowhere in my life have I ever witnessed more public fights and drunkenness than here. Korea's national alcohol is known as soju (pronounced so-jew) which is like a chemically created vodka. It is potent and Korean's drink over 1 billion bottles of it every year. Public drunkenness is not frowned upon either and it's not uncommon to see random men passed out on the street any day of the week. When an argument erupts it's also quick to come to blows, and most people just stand by and let the event run it's course. I've never felt in danger though. In fact I'm quite amused by it all. From what I have seen Koreans are a very reserved people, but when they start drinking there is no backing down from an argument. I'll try to snap some pictures sometime for you to get some idea of what I'm talking about.

February news

Not a whole lot has happened in February, but now that the month is almost over I'll share a bit of what I've been doing. The second week of February was Chinese New Year in Korea, which meant five days of vacation. But before I could enjoy my time off we had to teach the children at school about their traditions. As you can see from the pictures the children are wearing their traditional Korean garments. As part of their custom, children bow to their parents on New Years as a sign of respect. Once vacation started, I spent most of my time relaxing in Gimpo and Seoul. But I did take one day to go snowboarding with some friends. This was an early day, we had to get up at 6:00am to catch the 6:30 bus. We then took a free shuttle to the hill, rented our gear, and hit the slopes around 10:00am. From what I had heard the ski resorts in Korea are supposed to be packed with people. However since it was the holiday there were hardly any people there. That was good for me since it was only my second attempt at snowboarding and I was able to learn without running into anyone.
After the break it was back to work. We have a lot to do since the new school year begins in March, which means we will get a new bunch of kindergartens and other afternoon classes will be changing. I'm a little sad to say goodbye to my kindergarten class, but they have also realized that they're leaving and haven't been that cooperative the last few weeks. I also received a new work schedule and although it isn't set in stone, most likely I won't have a kindergarten class for the rest of my time here. I'll be focusing more on the elementary students that come in the afternoon. This means I'll probably start work around 2:00pm instead of 11:30am, and work until 9:00pm instead of 7:30pm. Another reason for the change is that my roommate, Michael is going back home to the United States. Originally we believed he was going to stay another month or two but apparently that's not the case. We had quite the shock last Friday when we heard the news. It will be sad to see him leave because he's been a good friend out here for me. From what I understand the new teacher is a woman from Los Angeles and she will most likely be my new roommate. I really don't have a say in who I live with since the school only owns two, two-bedroom apartments and there are three women and one man working for them. March will definitely bring change.

English Festival

Wow this month sure flew by. I mean it seems like my birthday was just a couple of days ago. Work has been really busy and it's only now that I have the time and energy to sit and reflect on the last thirty days. As most of you already know, Korea is an education-obsessed nation. Why else would there be so many jobs for English teachers? Ironically, this obsession is increased during public school vacation. Korea takes two months for school vacation: January and August. At these times parents seem to think that their children now have the time to take intensive studies. So of course our school (and most other schools) cater to this demand and offer extra classes. Instead of students learning English for an hour and a half, three days a week, they can be in school for as much as three hours, five days a week. I have students who also take intensive classes at special science and math schools as well. All of these extra classes of course turns into extra work for me, which is one of the reasons January has been so busy for me. The other reason was preparing for English Festival with my kindergarten class. Basically, English Festival is an event our school organizes for parents to come and hear their children speak English. Our job as teachers is to make this event as interesting as possible, for both parents and students. Fortunately our school hired out a separate company called Musical English to take care of half the load. This company taught the students two short musicals, "The Jungle Book" and "Beauty and the Beast" for the students to perform. This was actually really adorable and it was awesome to watch the students act and sing in their costumes. It was apparent a lot of time and effort was put into the production, about four months if I'm not mistaken. The stressful part for us teachers came two weeks before the festival. Our director told us to add another twenty-minutes to the production for each of our classes. This turned into extra songs and speeches and memorizing. To put this into perspective, the students had four months to memorize a twenty-minute musical, and two weeks to memorize another twenty-minutes of material. Needless to say we didn't do anything else in class for two weeks, and my students DESPISED every minute of it. I will forever have burned in my mind the whine of "Ahhhhh, teeeeaaacheeerrrrrr!" every time I told to students to get out their scripts. All of us foreign teachers felt the burden of this added work and we were quite frustrated that we had not been informed earlier what was expected. My school has not done a good job of planning ahead for things and we are always scrambling to complete a task in a short period of time. I'm not saying I can't roll with the punches that are thrown my way, but I don't have to like it. All in all the performance was pretty much a success and I'm sure glad it's over. It was also nice after the show to meet my student's parents and take pictures with them. Although my students rarely show their appreciation (and my director never does), it was apparent that the parents were very grateful for the education I provide for their children and that felt good. So that's where I've been for January and I apologize for the lack of posts. Thank you for checking and I promise there is more to come....I've still got many months to go.

Free Dance Recital

It's time for a little Korean culture. Ann, one of the Korean teachers I work with, invited a few of us to her seven-year old daughter's dance recital at the Cultural Centre in Seoul on January 5th. At first I thought it was going to be similar to an elementary school performance, but then she showed us the advertising pamphlet and the tickets and I knew that it was going to be much more professional. The hall itself was quite nice and there were of course many parents there to see their children perform. I think that Erin, Kristina, Michael and I were the only white people there. The recital itself consisted of a wide range of styles (from traditional Korean to classical ballet) and age-groups as well as group and individual dances. I was most taken by the Korean dances for a number of reasons. First, each girl looked so much more graceful and sophisticated compared to the ballet style. The Korean costumes were also much more colourful and interesting as the cloth would flow beautifully with each movement. Many individual dancers also had a special prop to work with such as hand fans, small lanterns, and even a drum. To me this style of dance is much more appealing because it seems so much more natural and soothing. I later learned from Ann that her daughter practices at the dance company two hours and day, five days a week! Keep in mind that the majority of the girls in these pictures range from five to ten years old. After the recital Ann invited us all to eat with her husband and the rest of her family which was really nice. As you can see from the picture of her daughter that even the make-up for the performance was professionally done. It just goes to show you that Koreans are very serious about everything that they do.