Flurries

It's 1°C outside, or 34°F. The weather forecast on my phone changed to a picture of a cloud with grey circles falling from it. The caption says, "Flurries." The wind shook my windows, and I almost had a heart attack. Everyone says that tomorrow is supposed to snow. Dun dun dun.

My computer is finally fixed! The Dell technician came back for the 3rd time today. He replaced the hard drive, the mother board, the graphic card system, and the Operating System. Dell kept my old hard drive, which contained ALL of my unrecoverable documents and pictures. Luckily, I backed up those files on my external hard drive up until late October. Now all I need is a copy of Microsoft Office.

I found out today that if I DON'T go on the 2-day trip to Seoul with the teachers, then they will subtract 2 of my 14 vacation days. By contract, I am supposed to teach on the 22nd/23rd, but going on the trip will make up for those 6 hours (and the 15 hours that they are giving me off during the last week of December). It's really confusing how I am supposed to clock 60 hours per month, but some of those 60 hours conflict with annual holidays ... and yet we still have to fulfill the terms of the contract. Who cares? My incentive for not using the 2 vacations days would be for if I could tack them onto a later vacation period and go to Japan. Man this trip is going to be so boring, awkward, and cold. No. One. Speaks. Fluent. English. I'll probably just import 2 days worth of music onto my phone and tune everyone out.

I may have offended the principal today. No big deal. Here is our conversation from lunch:

Principal: When....visit.....you?

My face: *confused*
My thoughts: He wants to visit my apartment?
Me: What?

Principal: When....visit....you....home?

My face: *confused*
My thoughts: Maybe he wants to know if I am going home for the holidays....
Me: Huh?

Vice Principal: Principal want visit you home.....when?

Me: For what?

-Principal & Vice Principal don't understand what I just said-

Me: Why?

-They look at each other-

Principal: Home, no welcome?

Me: But there's nothing at my apartment ... Why?

Vice Principal: No welcome?

Me: My apartment is boring .... there is nothing to do ....

Principal: Welcome, no?

Me: ... But why?

I think we have an awkward understanding that I don't want visitors. But really. My apartment is cold. My television is sitting on the floor. There's nothing to do here. We obviously can't communicate. It's not happening. I got up to leave, but they made me stay until the principal finished eating for the first time ever. One teacher told me that the principal thinks of me like a daughter. Good luck with that.

Dell Technician Coming Today

Today I received a call from the Dell Service Center in Korea.

Guy: Dell Service Center 입니다 (This is the Dell Service Center)
Me: Dell Service Center?
Guy: Ye.
Me: Hello.
Guy: *KoreanKoreanKorean*
Me: 한국말 안되요 (hanguk mal an daeyo: "Korean language not working" -- yeah, my Korean isn't that great)
Guy: *KoreanKorean* address *Korean*
Me: Oh, uhhh, Dae-Myeong Officetel 2....
Guy: Sang-dong....
Me: Ne...Jeollanam-do, Mokpo
Guy: *KoreanKorean* Fix computer 11 o'clock
Me: Uhhh... 11 o'clock 옵서여 (not here)
Guy: Ohh....
Me: Uhhh...
Guy: Ummm...
Me: Errr....
Me: After 5:30pm? 5:30 in the evening?
Guy: 5:30?
Me: Ne.
Guy: *KoreanKoreanKoreanKoreanKorean*
Me: I don't know what you just said.
Guy: *KoreanKoreanKoreanKoreanKorean*
Me: Can I call you back?
Guy: *KoreanKoreanKoreanKoreanKorean*
Me: Uhhhh....
Guy: I call back.
Me: Ok.
Guy: Ne.

Someone else who spoke English called back, and we arranged for the technician to come at 6pm today. Once I get all the parts, all I will need are the Windows Vista and Microsoft Office installation disks to have a fully functioning computer.

------------------------------------------------

During lunch, I was told to go to the teachers' room at 12:30pm. I went in at 12:23pm right after lunch, and an administrator spoke to me about Open Classes. (Every semester we are required to hold one Open Class for teachers, parents, staff, etc to come in and observe.) Then I went up to my class to prepare for Kindergarten. At 12:34pm, I got a call telling me to go into the teachers' room. I guess that conversation I had with the administrator wasn't why I was called in there. The Vice Principal was hosting a meeting with 5-6 other teachers. It was all in Korean. I sat there for 10 minutes, then showed another teacher the time on my phone to indicate that I had class at 12:45pm. She said, "Open class....you understand?" and I said, "Ne, I understand." Yeah, I understand that I have open class, but I don't understand why I had to sit through that meeting if it was all in Korean!

The kindergarten kids were already seated in my English class when I arrived. Some of the kids were absent. The remaining half of them were coughing in every direction. Some of them looked like they were dying. One girl looked like she was either on her last breath or she was quickly falling into a coma. The boy next to her was slapping her in the forehead. I was like, "oh no! You're all sick!" I made a coughing gesture at the girls in the front row, and they nodded their heads in mid-cough. I decided that we would NOT be holding hands during the sing-a-long. Hells to the no.

I sang these songs half a dozen times today:

VIDEO: If You're Happy and You Know It

VIDEO: Rain Rain Go Away

Language Barrier Issues on the Rise

I spent last weekend (23-25 September) in Daegu with a bunch of friends from TaLK Orientation. Took the one-hour bus to Gwangju with Joanne and spent Friday night with our fellow G6er, Rebecca. For dinner, Joanne and I eagerly consumed a bowl of udon & sushi for only $5 followed by ice-cream from McDonald's. We give off the impression that we are deprived of food back in Mokpo, which is relatively true because we eat the same things everyday and then indulge ourselves on the weekend. The next morning, the three of us woke up early to catch the 3.5 hour bus to Daegu. Split a delicious coffee ice-cream patbingsu with Joanne at Paris Baguette. Met up with friends from Group 1 at Travelers Bar later in the evening. Ate lunch at a Western restaurant the next day called Lazy Diner. The customer service was definitely lazy; it took them ages to bring all of our meals out, and most of the people at our table just ordered eggs, sausage, and French toast / pancakes. I ordered a smoked salmon & caper sandwich on a bagel, and it came on a blueberry bagel with a vinaigrette dressing salad inside. Not the most ideal combination, but I was starving and ate the whole thing.

En route to Daegu

nom nom nom nom

Coffee ice-cream patbingsu

My other friends shared a fruit patbingsu

Chili Cheese Fries at Travelers Bar in Daegu

Smoked Salmon Bagel with Fries

In more recent news, I came down with a cold / flu 48 hours ago. Teaching sucked because I felt like my head was in a bubble, and I had a sore throat. Luckily the Pharmacy / Hospital chapter of my Korean phrase book covers those bases: "I think I have a cold" and "I have a sore throat."

When I am sick, I have little tolerance for things that I normally have a lot of patience for. In Korea, that would be the language barrier. I appreciate that the staff at school are doing their best to reach out to me or feed me Korean words, but I just wasn't feeling it this week. It takes 50x's as long for anyone to tell me anything that I could tell another person in a 5 second sentence.

YESTERDAY'S LANGUAGE BARRIER [mind you, I was really sick / tired]

INTERIOR CAR

Passenger: Tomorrow ....... early ...... take picture ....... you come ....... 10 o'clock

Me: Come early ..... at 10 o'clock?

Passenger: graduation ...... take a picture ...... all take a picture ......for graduation .... 10 o'clock

Me: Okay ...

Passenger: Go home ..... take picture ..... come before 10 o'clock

Me: Take a picture .....?

Driver: come at 10 o'clock

Me: Okay...

*The driver makes a phone call to my mentor teacher and hands me the phone*

Me: Hello?

Mentor Teacher: Hello Kristine. Tomorrow you come to school at 10 o'clock ...... take a picture.

Me: Ne (yes) okay...okay thank you....bye

Passenger: morning ..... you rise

Me: Ne (yes) .... I will go to school at 10 o'clock

Passenger: you rise .....morning ..... time

Me: oh, what time do I wake up?

Passenger: *nods*

Me: 9:30

Passenger: *nods*

And our conversations continue like that.

NEXT DAY

I show up before 10am, put my stuff in the English classroom, then go down to the main office at 10am. I approach the vice principal.

Me: Am I supposed to be doing something now?

VP: Please wait *gestures for me to sit down*

Me: Okay

VP: Take a picture ..... after ......you lunch

Me: Okay ... take a picture after lunch?

VP: Come here ...... take picture

Me: So come back later?

VP: after here ..... take picture .....

Me: So I should wait upstairs?

VP: here ..... after lunch ...... come here .... take picture

Me: Okay .... so take a picture after lunch? Huh?

VP: Follow me.

So she takes me to take my individual photo in one of the classrooms. Everyone was wearing their best suits and ties, and I dressed like a country girl with my red plaid shirt and my hair tied back. I clearly missed the memo where they wanted me to dress up. I thought that we were taking a group picture when the administrator said, "all take a picture .... for graduation," but now I know that he meant that everyone was taking a portrait photo for the yearbook.

Car Final Translation: You will be taking your yearbook picture at 10am, but come before then.

VP's Final Translation: After you come to my office, go take your yearbook picture, and have lunch afterwards.

So that's a typical day in my life. I've gotten into the habit of intentionally misinterpreting their English because it's fun to piss people off, and it's frustrating enough on my behalf to try answering the question. Let's look at today, for example.

TODAY'S LANGUAGE BARRIER [mind you, I am still sick and impatient]

LUNCH TABLE

Principal: Kristine Chong, *KoreanKorean*

Me: What ...... ? *looks at the VP*

VP: Why ...... you ..... Korea?

Me: Why Korea? 

VP: Why you ...... come Korea?

Me: Why did I come to Korea?

VP: Yes

Me: To teach English

VP: No ...... *thinking*

Principal: W-H-A-T

VP: What ..... you ..... Korea?

Me: What am I doing in Korea?

*blank stares*

Most of my conversations go just like this at lunch. After more prodding, I think the Principal and VP were asking how I felt about my life in Korea and if it was interesting *blank stare*

More language barrier issues:

- Today the Principal made an announcement over the loudspeaker. I never understand what he is saying, but they usually mean that he is informing the staff about a teachers' meeting after school. Today he told everyone to go home early (~4pm instead of 5pm). I missed that memo. I also missed my ride home, and no one came up to tell me that everyone was leaving early. I took the bus home.

- I have ventilation issues in my apartment. At least one of my neighbors smokes in their unit and the secondhand smoke filters into mine via the sink/shower drains in my bathroom. I close my bathroom door, so when I have to use the bathroom or take a shower, I basically walk into a transparent ashtray. I wanted to complain to the guy manning the office downstairs, but when he is in, I don't have a friend who can translate....and when I have a friend to translate, he isn't in. He also happens to be a smoker -- go figure. So I went on Google Images, found pictures of No Smoking signs in Korean, drew my own signs, and posted one by every door in my hall with a piece of chewing gum. Bastards.

Please do not smoke in this building.

No Smoking Propaganda

- I won tickets to the Hallyu Dream Concert, which is a huge Korean pop concert taking place on Monday evening in Gyeongju. This weekend is a 3-day weekend; however, Gyeongju is about 5 hours away, and the first bus out of Gyeongju won't get me back to Mokpo in time to teach on Tuesday. I asked an English-speaking teacher if she could ask my Mentor Teacher about using Tuesday as a vacation day. She spoke to him, but he never brought up the issue to the vice principal because he thought that I left early today (Wrong!) She told me that it might not be possible to take Tuesday off because I did not give 1-2 weeks notice, but it is not my fault because I just won the tickets 2 days ago. I decided to call my Mentor Teacher directly -- screw the language barrier -- and tried to ask if it was possible to take Tuesday off. He said that we already decided that my vacation days would be in December (this was all in broken English by the way -- I'm just speeding up the dialogue), but I pushed and asked if I could use one of those vacation days next week. He said that he would call the VP tomorrow (Saturday) and call me back. I am not a huge fan of K-Pop, but I know enough to say that going to this concert would be a huge cultural experience. The concert features Girl's Generation, 2PM, SHINee, GD&TOP, miss A, Sistar, T-ara, and a bunch of other artists that I haven't heard of (but everyone else has). The fact that I won tickets is huge, and I know other people who won, so it's not like I would be going by myself. I also have a spare ticket under my name, but I haven't decided who to invite yet. Read more about the concert here.

I won 2 tickets to the Hallyu Dream Concert via Facebook. I'm winner #47 !!

Busan, Seoul, Misc Updates

Busan was fun. I reunited with some friends from orientation and stayed with a friend on Yong-do Island. We spent a lot of time walking around, navigating the city, taking the subway from place to place, window shopping at a couple (massive) department stores, and checking out the beach at night. The weather was overcast & rainy during the day, so we couldn't fully experience the Busan beaches. However, Gwangalli Beach was gorgeous because it is in the shape of a huge half-circle and offers a nice view of the Diamond Bridge --lit up and everything-- and of the rest of the city twinkling around the shore. I want to return in a few weeks to attend the Busan International Fireworks Festival.

Busan at night

Overlooking the city in Seomyeong

Hello Kitty donut at Krispy Kreme yummm

View from Yongdo Island

This past weekend, I took a 4 hour bus up to Seoul to meet up with more friends from orientation. I traveled with one of my Mokpo buddies, Joanne.

Teaching is getting somewhat easier, but no less redundant. I teach my lessons 7 times: once for each grade and slightly harder as I go up from K-6. I have been teaching the alphabet & phonics for the second straight week and playing the same ABC Timebomb game over and over and over. I can hear the difference in the kids' pronunciation, which is reassuring, so hopefully I can move on by the start of next week.

Kindergarden sucks. I think the kids fall into a deep food coma or forget to take their A.D.D. meds before my 12:45pm class. Some of them have no attention span whatsoever. After two minutes, their heads are already on the desk or they're standing by their chairs (instead of sitting) or they're sitting in their chairs facing any and all directions but mine. What in the world is going through their minds????

I tried a different approach today and gave the kids a chance to stand up and interact rather than sit down for 30 minutes. I struggled to get the kids to stand in a circle. My translator didn't even get up to help me. She eventually convinced them to hold hands and that got them into a reasonable arrangement. Then I tried to explain that I wanted each kid to say one letter of the alphabet and go around the circle. My other grades figured it out, but kindergarten was a disaster. Before we were half way through the alphabet, the kids were pulling each others hands and falling on the floor. Then all of the kids started singing every letter of the alphabet in unison, which wasn't the point of the game at all. Meanwhile, my translator was still sitting there. The situation was ridiculous, and she wasn't even laughing. I think she was bored. I struggled to get the kids to start over, but they were lost, so I told them to sit down. I ended up doing the same exact PowerPoint presentation that I did for them yesterday, which was a drill on the letters A-J. For my closing activity, I put magnetic letters A-J on the board (in alphabetical order -- easy right?), split them into two teams, and called on two volunteers to slap the letter than I called out with a paper paddle. I first called the letter A. Neither of the kids could figure it out right away. Then I would have them recite the letter and the sound that it makes. I rotated kids and proceeded through the letter J (still in alphabetical order), and nobody caught onto the pattern. I think we're going to be doing the alphabet forever.....

With that said, kindergarten makes teaching the other kids seem easy. In all of my other classes, the kids get really excited, want to play my games several times, and shoot their hands up for a chance to recite the vocabulary every time I introduce a new word. I have also been drilling them with the alphabet and phonics, but I have been able to pinpoint their weaknesses and fine-tune their pronunciation: "L" vs "R"; "C" vs "G" vs "Z"; turning "epuh" into "F" and "A-chee" into "H." It's so redundant, but I can hear the kids getting better by the end of class.

Playing games with my 5th graders

I improvised a game where they could sit down because they were all over the place.

This also kept the noise level down (not really).

The weather is getting a bit chillier. As they would say on Game of Thrones, "Winter is coming."

I need to buy a multi-plug powerstrip because I can't watch my television without unplugging my refrigerator, something that I can only do for 30-60 minutes at a time. I have dozens of channels. Most are in Korean, and I probably wouldn't watch any of them even if they were in English. I don't find any of the variety shows the least bit entertaining. There are some stations that play American movies at night -- boring. And then there is CNN, which is the only station worth watching or listening to at any time of the day. The sound of an intellectual, fluent conversation in English stimulates all of the unused vocabulary in my brain. I'm growing a bit weary of thinking in and of ways to explain myself in broken, caveman English.

Tonight, I made an egg & kimchi sandwich. I made an omelet with kimchi and chopped garlic stems, then put that in a roll with more fresh kimchi. It was okay, but sounded better in theory that it did in practice. The kimchi omelet could do without the bread (and likewise).

Greetings from Gwangju!

Arrived in Gwangju not too long ago via 3 hour bus ride with the other scholars who will be teaching in the Jeonnam Province. We are in the middle of no-where. The sky is overcast, and it is humid because we are further south. I read that Jeonnam has the warmest weather in South Korea. There is no shortage of rolling hills covered in endles pine trees. It's like Christmas Land everywhere we go.

Lunchtime was overwhelming. They catered a huge buffet, and there was heaps of good food such as kimchi, kimchi pancakes, smoked salmon, 3 different soups, noodles, fresh watermelon / pineapple, etc. It was also my birthday, so everyone in the dining hall sang, and the program gave me a cute ice-cream cake from a local French bakery called Paris Baguette. I shared it with my friends, and then I had to run to get my luggage from where I left it in the basement onto the bus. Everyone's last good-byes were sweaty and rushed from all the bustling, and before I knew it, we were in Gwangju.

For the next few days, we will be attending more lectures and coming up with mock lessons. We are staying in what I think is a place designed for conferences. We are all living in pairs, dormitory-style with our own bathrooms. On Saturday, they organized a mixer where we will have the opportunity to meet our Korean TaLK Scholars (other college-aged people who will be helping us in the classroom a few days per week -- some of us do not have Korean TaLK Scholars which sucks....but luckily I do). We will also meet 4th, 5th, and 6th generation Jeonnam TaLK Scholars (I am 7th generation), who can answer our questions and give us advice. Then we depart on Tuesday and go our separate ways within this province.

Dinner is in less than half an hour, and I am starving. I wonder what the cafeteria here has to offer. Since it is my birthday, they also organized pizza, chicken, and cake later on in the evening. Yum.

All in all, it has been a very dynamic birthday and past few weeks. Orientation has definitely been a blast, and I feel very lucky to be in South Korea as a TaLK Scholar. Applying for this program was a pain in the ass, but all of those struggles were more than worth it. Just based on the orientation, I would highly recommend this program to friends who are interested in taking time off to teach abroad whether it be 6 months or 1 year.

In my spare time, I plan to teach my self how to read and write in hangul. I also want to be proficient in Korean because it sucks not knowing how to say anything besides "hi" and "thank you." It would also help to know what people were saying even if it's just numbers and money. Whenever I buy anything, I always have to look at the screen on the register because I don't know any numbers in Korean....

Till next time!