Reservation at AA

The 3rd week of December was a heavy one.  

Heavy handed with the drinking.  

How my liver and myself are alive is a question that I can't answer but leaves me ever so thankful to have properly working enzymes.

~~~

First there were drinks Tuesday night (12/18) to celebrate that the following day was both a National Holiday* and James' 30th birthday!

I was meant to be on a budget.  

I was meant to only have two drinks and get the subway home.  

Instead I had a ton of drinks and was out till nearly 5 in the morning.  

~~~

Then there was a little Christmas dinner and drink get together with Rachel and Michael in Nampo Friday night (12/21).

I had lessons to teach the next day.

It was meant to be just a few casual drinks and an early night.  

Instead it was drinks, shots and then a bottle of Jager shared amongst friends and a brain that went black to try and protect itself.

~~~

Then it was Christmas Eve.  And since we aren't home with our families - dressing up and heading off to church - some of us choose to go out for dinner and a few drinks.

I was definitely meant to be on a budget.

It was meant to be a fun night celebrating Christmas.

Instead it was another night of drinks and too many shots.  A few rounds of me behind the bar bar(pre)tending and next thing I know I don't remember all of the night.

~~~

And next up is New Year's. 

God save me and my liver!

*Elections in Korea merit a day off!! And the 19th just happened to be the big election - the presidential election - so all civil service workers got the day off!

Shoop Shoop

Such an amazing weekend.

It was fantastic!  

It was brilliant! 

It was so good, that even when shitty skiers/snowboarders got in the way - they only added to the fun by increasing the challenge of the already excellently laid out runs.  It was so great, that even when I fell - I was still smiling.

It was that great to be back out on skis, shoop shooping down the mountainside!

We had some bumps and setbacks getting to High 1 Ski Resort, but no matter!!  

Once it was all worked out and the skis were on, nothing could upset me!  

I was going skiing!!  

Conditions at the top of the mountain on Saturday weren't the best.  Visibility was limited to about 20ft in front of you.

Thankfully, the snow was thick with moisture which made it great for carving your skis into it and cutting your way back and forth across the slopes.
And it made the few falls I had a lot easier to take as well. ^^

I didn't care.  I was skiing!  Having the best day ever!!

Andy, Alex, Chris, Martin, me, Jay, and John

sorry for the shoddy videography it was a bit difficult to keep a steady hand, while cruising down the slope, but you can get an idea for what it was like ^^

Sunday, Alex and I got up at 9 to have a few more runs before we headed back to Busan. 

And I'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy we did. 

 The skies were prefect at the top of the mountain!  You could see out over the entire resort.  

We quickly called Andy and told him he had to join us.  And then we were off!! 

Over night, the snow had turned to ice crystals, which made for some unfriendly turns.  But it was all part of the challenge - master the snow and survive the Advanced Intermediate runs that Alex was taking us on!!  Oh man.  My nerves were freaking out a little!!

The last time I went skiing was (1) in Ohio and (2) back in 2008 when I got home from Africa!!!!

I was a little rusty.
But I was still holding my own.  Enough to keep up with Andy and Alex!!
So I went for it.   I told myself the only way to finish was to go down so I pushed off and… shooop shoooooop.  

Had the best weekend ever!!

Updated:

I signed my third contract today.  I'm staying another year.

Fact

Last night Michael, Mallory and myself found ourselves back at Thursday Party Nampo* because of some undesirable circumstances.

Drinks were needed and it was the perfect place to go!  

You know how in the theme song to Cheers "Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.  Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came"?  That's us and this place.  It's a second home.**

So we went and we started drinking.  And who knew that Sundays are GREAT nights in Thursday Party Nampo!!

We put some alcohol in our bodies and started to forget the bad stuff.  

We hung out with our friends who work there.  

Listened to great music.  

And just let the night carry on.

And then we met a lot of new people!!!

One of the new people we met was Korean-American.  So I asked him, maybe a beer-or-2-fueled, if his last name was Kim.

He said racist.  I said fact.

And it actually is factual.  I know, I've already looked this up for a past post!  Plus I'm not racist. 

That's another fact.

Here's the facts of family names in Korea.   From the most reliable source on the internet - Wikipedia!

And perhaps you are thinking - What does Wikipedia know?  Well, they know a lot!!  I checked Wiki's facts against the Korean teachers at my school.

***

AND!! I counted myself in the total number of teachers at Daepyung and since I am NOT Korean I don't count in the name game, so the percentage at my school is even higher!!  

48.84% have the last name Kim, Park or Lee (I didn't even count the Choi's or the Jung's)

Boom.  

Fact.

* You have to say which Thursday Party it is, because there are 12 of them now! 

** Second home not because we booze endlessly, but because of the staff/our friends who work there. 

*** Kevin Kim, Jay Park and Arlen all work at Thursday Party Nampo.  The staff there didn't conform to the facts, but as stated there are some of the common last names there and the rest of them are just the outliers.  ^^

Pampering

I think I might have said it a few times already, but…

Asia is really pret-ty amazing!! 

For many, many thing!!  But especially for their love for cosmetics and personal care items AND for selling them cheap!

Grant it I don't buy many - really hardly any - cosmetic or personal care items from Korea.  I'm too worried about hidden bleaching agents.  But there are some products that I do use and some that I see and want to try.  Usually I don't buy them; either am too nervous or I'm worried I won't understand how to use them.  It might be cheap, but discounted items that you can't/don't use are still a waste and that's something I hate doing.

So for this particular item, after months of seeing it in stores, I decided it was time to properly check it out.

I stopped into the store a few times (each time a different shop) looking at the pictures on the back and acting like I understood the Korean instructions.

I texted my Korean friend about how to use it.  And then, with her guidance, I finally went ahead and bought it!!  (Best part was it was half off its already cheap price!  Yay!!)

What is it?  

It's a foot peeling kit from The Face Shop.*  

Haha I know it just sounds gross, but it's supposed to do great things!!

What is it/do?  It's two packets of special foot peeling solution and two plastic booties that you have to wear around like a dork for 90mins in order to make your feet get all nasty and peely - so that they can be all nice and smooth.

I don't know.  Cow wasn't so sure either.  But we'll see how things turn out in 4-6 days.  

Where in the World

I don't mean to play favorites, but it would appear that I do.

And my favorites seem to be my 5th graders, which is surprising and shocking and frankly miraculous because some of those kids are the biggest little shits there are!  But on the whole - I like them.

Really, I like all the grades at my school (*notice I said "grades" and not "students".  I definitely don't prefer all my students); but the 5th graders are the ones that either (A) have the best subject material/topics that allow for creative activities (B) the students themselves are more willing and eager to do creative activities or (C) I just like them more.  And the answer is…

I dunno.

But whichever one it is, maybe a bit of them all, we do fun(er) activities in my 5th grade classes.

And despite the fact that the year is officially coming to an end for textbook lessons, I thought I'd pull out one more big project before we moved into the free-for-all that will start next week and go all the way until the term ends in February.


Our last lesson was 'Where are you from?'.

Not a challenging lesson.  Not even something they had to learn.  They already knew the countries, how to answer, even how to identify whose flag was whose!  My work was basically - make a worksheet, make a PPT, make a bomb game, and come up with something that didn't have them wanting to stab pencils into their little eyeballs.

Thankfully, they don't mind doing the fundamentals on a obligatory worksheet, the PPT was fine because I Googled pictures that pushed the known landmarks/images and found ones that even got me excited, and this is Asia - these kids go mad for a bomb game even if they play one everyday!

So all that was left to keep the pencils a safe distance from their eyeballs was to come up with a project.
**And let me state beforehand that this project is not new, I didn't create it, I'm sure every kid in the cultivated world has probably done something like this at one point in their lives!  But the difference is that my kids had to do it in their second language!

So what did we do?  

We made country posters.  

(See I told you it wasn't new)

Working in groups of 4-5 students they: picked a country, researched 5 facts using FactMonster and created a poster.

Simple and easy.  Or so I thought.  Again - my kids were doing all this in their second language.  I should have remembered that when I was planning out the time allowance!  No matter, we don't need to review for the final when we have posters to make!!!

The extra day really was needed.   Group work, internet searching AND using their second language - all proved to be a bit too much for one 40min period, so without the second day there would have been only 2/20 posters finished.  Which would have been a bit of a fail.  And we couldn't have that for the students or for me!

So the extra day was given...

               

 

               

 

               

 

               

 

               

 

and the posters came out great!!

Fa La La La La

I know some people have cracked early and I don't blame them.  There really might not be anything better. 

However, I have been strong.  I have held out.  

But tonight, I broke. 

I dug out the stocking my mom sent me last year and hung it by the chimney door with care.

I have lights somewhere, but Cow has hit puberty and become quite the destructive monster so I think it's best not to electrocute my darling little fur ball and leave the lights down this year.

So other than that, I don't have a whole lot I can do to get ready for the holiday season.  Except download a few a holly jolly Christmas movies and begin counting down the days till the big guy arrives.  

Which in my case will be a bill from Chase credit card services, since the fat man is treating me to ticket to the Philippines!  

This holiday season is looking great indeed!

Updated:

I'm clean.  If you had any doubts.  Which you shouldn't!!   

My body and fluids were ran through the gauntlet today and all test came back winning!

No drugs.

No HIV.

Normal blood pressure.

Sharp eyes (should be!)

Height - tall

Chest - small (why they need this one is beyond me :-/)

It was all good.  Now I'm just sitting pretty until the 10th of December when I'll go in and make it all official.

3rd Times a Charm

The documents came for our contract renewal the other week.

But saying that is a bit of a lie.  We got an email, letting us know that the contracts would be coming and that "many changes" were in order.

Attachment:

Just over an hour after we had received that email, another one came…

Except we hadn't gotten our contract.  We had nothing to look over.  We just had word it was time to re-sign and a stack of items were due in one week.

One week isn't very much time to get all the needed paperwork together.  It especially isn't a lot of time when that week is cut down to 4 days due to delays getting the actual contract out! 

But as I have said many and many times before, Mrs. Jang is amazing and she pulled my paperwork together in no time and we got everything submitted by the deadline.*

Then it was just a waiting game.  Waiting to see who would "pass" stage 1 of the renewal process. 

Thankfully, the wait wasn't too long and I heard back today that I passed stage 1 and will be staying in Korea for another year!  But don't pop the champagne just yet.  I have two days, yes only two, to find time in my work schedule to have a medical done so that I can have the results back in time to submit for stage 2.  

How things get done around here with timeframes and deadlines like these I have no idea!  But I'm off first thing tomorrow morning to pee in a cup and do all that fun stuff. 

Once the medical is in hand, I'll make the trip to the head office (12/10) to turn in all the hard copies and sign on the line.

Contractually binding me to my third year in Korea.  

*Mrs. Jang filled out my paperwork so well that she earned our school a 1million won (just under $1,000) bonus!  She is soooo amazing!!

Teaching Teachers

Tonight wrapped up the end of another (two week long) teachers' English training course.

This was the 4th or 5th one I'd been lucky enough to be asked to do; but no matter how many times the Busan Education Training Institute (BETI) offers me these opportunities, I'm always nervous going into them.

They have been different each time I've done them to be fair.  

The first one I did was a "how-to" camp on teaching Content Based Instruction (CBI).  Since I had been doing that from the moment I got to Korea, it wasn't too much of a stretch for me.  I just took a lesson and "taught" it to the teachers.

The second time I was a lecturer it was just a conversation class.  So I was only responsible for coming up with little gimmick activities that would, as you can probably guess, get the teachers to talk.

The next one I presented at I also had to attend.  It was a bit strange, but Mrs. Jang was talking and she asked me to join her.  We spoke about "effective co-teaching" - which I'm very confident we do most successfully!

The one after that was a doozie!  (You may remember I had to prepare a twenty-some-odd page manuscript.)  I was one of 4 lecturers who was presenting on a set topic.  I was fortunate and unfortunate to get the topic of "Opinion".  Sounds easy, right?  We all have our opinions and most times we like to share them.  I just needed to create activities that would give us the groundwork to share our opinions.   For the most part it went well.  Until my second to last lesson, which had me wanting to run away crying.  But I didn't cry and soon it was over.

And that brings us to this one.  My 5th.

When the director asked us what topics we wanted, you can believe I emailed her immediately to let her know that it would be most desirable if I did NOT have opinion again.  She was nice to go along with my request and I was assigned "Real Life English".  However, this time I didn't have to prepare the materials.  Aoife did that - she works at BETI and was also going to be teaching this course/topic, but at another location - I just had to make the materials and ppts.

This course was a dream!

I was nervous at the start of it - unsure if I had done an adequate job preparing materials: activities, warmups, etc.  But despite being told I talk too fast (fail), it was the best one I've ever done.

The teachers in the course were amazing!  Some of them I had had before in previous courses!!  It was great to see them again and continue to help in their English development and passion.

They were so active and involved.  It was really wonderful to be a part of.

And they were some of the nicest people I've met!  

They gave me a Korean name.

We went out for dinner as a group.

And tonight, on our last night, we had a little goodbye party full of snacks, games and topped off by ending an hour early.

*

Truly the best teachers' training course I've ever done!!  And we're all going to meet up and hangout again!!  Cool group this one was! ^^

*the pictures are from a game activity we did.  Each person in the class provided a characteristic (for us: long hair, braces, big lips, thick eyebrows, hairy, looks smart, glamorous body) and then using those words, each person drew their own interpretation. 

Updated:

Yunjoo won!!  

She came up to my desk the other day and told me, "Meagan, I won!".

At first I had NO idea what she was talking about, but thankfully she then went on to mention the storytelling competition and I was back on track with our conversation.  

I was so excited!!  She won!!  That's fantastic!

My excitement was slightly decreased when she filled in the rest of the information and said she got 3rd place.  But I'm still so proud and happy for her!!  What an amazing accomplishment!  She really is fantastic!!

Double 0CD

What started as a simple conversation has turned into an overwhelming - in an I'm not sure if it's good or bad - obsession.

The conversation went a little something like this:

Me:  (as we were walking past the Nampo theatre) Michael let's see 'Skyfall' 

Michael:  I already saw it.

Me:  So.  Didn't you like it?  Don't you want to see it again?!

Michael:  Yes, but I just saw it.

Me:  Please!  I want to see it!

Michael:  I'll see it with you another day.

Me:  No. Now. Plleasseeee!!!  I want to see it!!

Michael:  (walks away.  Bastard.)

Me:  (pouting)

Michael:  You don't even know enough about Bond to really enjoy it.

Me:  I know Daniel Craig is hot.

Michael:  …Bond speak… Bond speak… Moneypenny… Bond speak…

Me:  Ok, I don't know enough.  

After that I went home and started downloading.  

But as Michael correctly pointed out, I didn't know a lot about Bond - and there are a lot of Bond movies.  So I started off trying just a sampling.  A little here and there, picking one randomly from every Bond there's ever been.  

That proved to be not so helpful.  Because as I came to learn they all not only build on each other, but they make little references to things that have happened in past movies and then I didn't get those lines and I had to watch more and still more... because like I said there are a lot!

So I gave up.  Not on Bond, but on the random sampling and have started again from - where all things probably should start - the top.

Here's how I'm getting along.

1. Dr. No (1962-Sean Connery)
2. From Russia With Love (1963-Sean Connery)
3. Goldfinger (1964-Sean Connery)
4. Thunderball (1965-Sean Connery)
5. You Only Live Twice (1967-Sean Connery)
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969-George Lazenby)
7. Diamonds Are Forever (1971-Sean Connery)
8. Live and Let Die (1973-Roger Moore)
9. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974-Roger Moore)
10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977-Roger Moore)
11. Moonraker (1979-Roger Moore)
12. For Your Eyes Only (1981-Roger Moore)
13. Octopussy (1983-Roger Moore)
14. A View to a Kill (1985-Roger Moore)
15. The Living Daylights (1987-Timothy Dalton)
16. Licence to Kill (1989-Timothy Dalton)
17. GoldenEye (1995-Pierce Brosnan)
18. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997-Pierce Brosnan)
19. The World is Not Enough (1999-Pierce Brosnan)
20. Die Another Day (2002-Pierce Brosnan)
21. Casino Royale (2006-Daniel Craig)
22. Quantum of Solace (2008-Daniel Craig)
23. Skyfall (2012-Daniel Craig)

I still have some work to do, but with an OCD habit like mine, Asia's disregard for downloading laws and a connection to the fastest internet in the world - I'm sure to have seen them all by Christmas.

Come on into the water!

Usually it's hard to get out of the wasted Saturday habit.

Not that I'm wasted on Saturdays, but more so that I just don't do anything on Saturdays.   However, that was not the case this past weekend.  Today we took it to a whole new level.


We took it to a level 15m deep filled with freezing water, hundreds of fish, large groupers and herds of sharks.

It was ridiculous.  

It was amazing!

Michael, Keith, Zac and I had planned to go diving with sharks back in April (around the boys birthdays), but my eyes were still healing from having lasers dance across them, so we had to delay the swim.  Things were delayed a bit longer than we planned, but the wait was worth it.

The dive was a truly great experience.  

I wish I could say that I was nervous about the sharks.  I think that would sound more rational, more normal.  Sharks are natural hunters and do on occasions bite, even eat, people; so it would have made sense to be worried about the 20+ predators that would be swimming around me.  But I wasn't.  As we've seen in the past with me (elephants, tigers, bungee jumping, tattoos)  I'm not too worried about the rational things.

I was, however, worried, afraid, nearly-about-to-back-out because of the scuba diving part.

Three problems were standing in the way of me and the fish tank.

First off, that shit is heavy.  I could barely stand up right with the tank and the extra weights.  I'm surprised I didn't fall over backwards.  My scuba failure could have been a youtube hit!  But somehow I managed to waddle to the training pool without becoming an overturned turtle.

And that's where the biggest problems came in - the training pool.

My second problem was that I hate, HATE, small spaces.  I become very uncomfortable with the idea that I could become trapped.  Not like I was going to get trapped in water - especially water that I could stand up in, but the feeling of unease set in nonetheless.

This then led to my third problem.  Because I felt trapped, I started feeling like I couldn't breathe.  I had my tank on, my regulator in; but my lungs felt empty.  I wasn't quite panicking, but I was starting to seriously worry I wouldn't be able to do the dive.

But I had to.  Not only because I paid the non-refundable amount, but I wanted to!  So I told my inner self to shut up! and I went on with the training.

And I made it through!!  But there was one more problem.  A problem that I wasn't expecting, but one that became very clear by the end of the training.

Wetsuits are not made for pear-shaped bodies.

The top of my wetsuit was like a loose bag around my arms and torso, which made it all too easy for the freezing water to get in next to my skin.  I was suffering, but I had just made it through the training - I wasn't going to stop because of hypothermia!  I took a quick break from the training pool, put on an extra wetsuit vest thing, grabbed a quick hot shower, and was back in the pool ready to face off with some sharks!

There were no face offs.  None of the sharks or groupers got too close to us.  The Korean onlookers were more of a threat than the animals, but it was a really fantastic time!   

Here's a little look at a video Zac took while we were down in the big tank.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=379110908841192

If you have a spare day and don't mind dropping some won, you should definitely come down to the Busan Aquarium and take a swim!  

Isn't that creative

It's a sad fact you learn when you teach in Korea, that Korean kids don't really get to be kids.

Life if full of pressures that no child should have to face until… well, I don't know when they should face them.  Probably never.   The amount of pressure that kids, teens, adults - everyone - faces here is something that surpasses my mind's ability to understand and that my compassion aches over.

When I ask my students what they do after school, 9 times out of 10 they will say they go to academy.

When I ask them if they have time to play, they simply say no.  

No time to play?!  

What?!

And although they are amazing students, they get amazing test results and usually best me in every activity we do together; they lack the imagination and creativity that playing gives children.

They don't have to think up fantasy lands and fight off villains, or rescue princesses from a cardboard fort, or jump from stone to stone because the grass is lava that could kill them instantly just by the smallest touch.

They don't do any of that, because when they do get a chance to play - they play in a 2D world that glues to them to the TV or computer and has their little hands clicking away and their cerebral function zoned in on Angry Birds and World of Warcraft.


So I'm always a bit leery when I come up with a creative activity for my students to do.  When I say "be creative" or "use your imagination", the best most of them do is to copy their neighbor.  Awesome work there guys.

However, that wasn't the case when my 5th graders did a drawing activity for our lesson about describing people.

I told them they could draw, color, create whatever they wanted!  

And thankfully, some of them did!! ^^

              

                      

         *           

*hahahaha I know, I know not the most imaginative drawing, but I love this little guy for some reason.  Looks like a young Mr. Rogers!

Updated:

I'm going to be closing things down over on my Posterous site.  It's exactly the same - content wise, although they do a better job (I think) of grouping pictures to make the post physically shorter -  but for whatever reason, probably my ever expanding obsession with blogs, I've outgrown the look of it and have finally become more settled here at Blogger.

The *dish will still be up over at Posterous, I won't be deleting it; but I also won't be continuing to add things here and there.

Thank you for following, reading, commenting there.  Please continue to do so at the *dish's new home on Blogger! ^^

Guest Blogger - Tours and Fireworks

At 3:30 AM, a series of three knocks (not Sheldon knocking on Penny's door.), a chorus of "I'm sorry"s and Plan B took effect (I was supposed to sleep in the extra bed in Bernie's room, but in my drunken state I couldn't work the key to unlock the door!!  Biggest fail. Ever!). Meagan got three hours sleep, and felt worse for wear but she did get her hotel breakfast.

We were off and running to her apartment for clean clothes (I did their laundry - I'm a good daughter) and to feed Cow and all was good. Although Meagan has had better mornings (I was dying!!!!), she never complained and soldiered on!

First stop, Busan City Culture and History Bus Tour. Initial impression; massive fail as our guide talked endlessly in Korean and briefly in English. Lost in translation? The Bokcheon Museum had displays of the 4th and 5th Centuries of a warrior culture that buried their dead in tombs. The museum is on the site of the tombs but our tour did not include them.

Next stop Geumgang Mountain and the cable cars to the top. The views on the way up were great but the ones from the top were blocked by the trees. Still very impressive.

Our last stop was Beomeosa Temple and our guide made up for everything here by devoting herself to us.

The pictures tell the story better than I can.

                         

We had lunch at Meagan's 'home' restaurant (my kimbap/bibimbap weekly stop - Cham's) and then went back to our hotel for a nap and church. Church was a fail as mass was at 7 PM, not 4 PM as advertised but Bernie said it counted.

Meagan and Debbie were successful at their naps however, and fully charged for the evening's activities. 

The monsoon on Saturday had washed out the Fireworks Festival and it was conveniently rescheduled for today, Sunday, so we got on the subway with every other person in Busan and went to Gwangali Beach for the  Busan International Fireworks Festival; 80 minutes of incredible explosions which we watched from her friend, Mallory's apartment.

Back on the subway with everybody from Busan, a quick meal at a Korean BBQ restaurant, and it was time for the hardest part of the trip. No dry eyes here.

I do have to say that we had every parent's fears about their child being fourteen time zones away, literally half way around the world BUT, having visited Meagan, and seen her in her environment and element, our fears have been allayed. She is happy, she is safe, and she is good at what she does. In real time, not her father looking back, she signed for a third year on 10 December 2012. And we are okay with that, really.