Winter

Life without air conditioning has been an up and down battle thus far. The lack of AC is not a Korean trend. Quite the contrary, it is just I who lacks powered climate control. In fact, I have been in one other apartment in this complex/area and their apt. was incredibly heated. However, two blankets and being fully clothed has kept me pretty snuggly. The problem isn't sleeping; it's waking up that kills me. It is so hard to get up and out of bed in the morning. Leaving my safe haven calls into question whether I realllly need a shower (don't fret everyone, I usually drag myself outta bed and take one!).

On a random aside -- I put the finishing touches on preparation for my last immersion class tomorrow. I dropped some serious cash to fill their stockings. I have made the firm decision that If they will not give me their love I will buy their love. All kidding aside, two classes down a Korean teacher helped them make balloon animals so I naturally had to up the ante if I wanted to be the cool kid on the block!!

Seoul Snow Jam!!

This past Saturday I went down to Seoul with my friends Carmine and Joe. After a long afternoon of Christmas shopping, and in my more frugal and calculating ways, Christmas prospecting, we walked a few blocks down from Insadong (where we were shopping) to where some friends were getting ready to go ice skating. As it turns out, the rink was closing down but the latter portion of a snowboarding tournament was just getting going. We were probably there for about an hour or so. It was pretty fun. I think I had more fun being around all the people, many of whom were really into it, rather than actually watching the snowboarding. They replayed highlights from earlier in the day and the skiing ones actually looked great!! I snagged a few photos before we left which I put on facebook. It was definitely nice to see the lights out around Seoul. It is not always easy to grasp the American vacations here but Christmas seems to be coming along quite nicely! I heard that about 1/3rd of Koreans celebrate Christmas. Here are a few photos I took with absolutely no description to go along with them!!

Mmmmm Cashmere

it fits great, it's warm and I am still falling in love with my new pea coat. My cousin Steve pointed it out but David Letterman sure was right when he or whoever was writing on his behalf penned the note "you do good job" on Manchester Tailors' celebrity autograph board. What a word smith!

Random tid bits

• I forgot to mention an odd story on the way back home from Seoul this past Saturday. I was a little gloomy because at this point I came to the realization that I sealed my fate on the whole sickness thing. The cab ride definitely cheered me up though!! I had a cab driver who spoke English fantastically. After he narrowed down that 2 out of 3 of his passengers were from Texas (Sophia and myself, along with our 3rd Joe from LA), he proceeded to name off a few of the cities he had been to. He started with Houston (of course, even in Korea, everyone is from Houston) to which we nodded and then tacked on Dallas to which we nodded again. Then he dropped a bomb; Brooh-own-sville. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? It's hard to find a Texan who has been to Brownsville, much, much, much less a Korean.
• Keeping up with my American habits, I have spent a solid % of my money on eating out. However, today might be a deciding reversal in the war against dining out. This is because today is the day I finally finished gathering all the ingredients for spaghetti. There were some casualties in this battle; I was forced to forego parmesean cheese. PC is my right hand man when it comes to the spaghett's. I thought it would be difficult to get ahold of salt too, but the stars aligned as I finally managed to (a) remember to look for it BEFORE going into the store rather than after and (b) have enough time to look for it rather than being in a rush. Shaping and educating kids' lives in Korea has been great but let it be known that the highlight of December 7th was spaghetti. Booyakasha!

Alright - Forget It

I have spent far too much time trying to edit He-Man so he would take up less space on that last post. Alas, I have given up seeing that my will can not surpass his. If I was working on a PC I would have no troubles but I still can't figure out seemingly simple tasks on this Mac sometimes! On that note, I am still very, very grateful to Brock for selling me his computer days before I left for Korea!!

About that Pea Coat

So it turns out I am sick for the 2nd time since living in Korea. My He-Man, take-no-prisoners, never-get-sick persona has been completely decimated. On Saturday I ventured out to Seoul to pick up my newly purchased coat - which I was very much excited for!! I gambled a bit, being the logical creature that I am, by arguing that I shouldn't wear a coat to go get a coat. I took a thermal and a hoodie and sallied forth. Turns out the coat was not ready (another gem lost in translation) and I was there for a final fitting of sorts. It should be shipped to me this coming Friday after school. At least I won't have to pick it up. I spent the rest of the day with Steve jumping around parts of Seoul and picking up lunch at the "All-American Diner." It was totes delish. (Totally delicious for the old timers). I really wasn't too cold that whole day, or at least I didn't feel like it but I guess I was wrong. There were certainly times where it was COLD but mostly it was an enjoyable cold that didn't get into your bones. I actually managed to jump home and take a hot shower before heading back to Seoul for the night to see some friends who came in from both Busan and Gwangju. However, my earlier poor decision was surpassed by the one I made that night to fully partake in the festivities. These decisions cost me and have thus stripped away my self-image (pictured above). I thought my new and healthy Korean diet could overpower the cold's of old that used to get to me far more often than most men. Apparently not - I lose again!!

However, the silver lining is that I will be assured to be in good health when the family and girlfriend arrive in a little less than two weeks. This has been the prime factor keeping me in as good a spirit as I can muster.

:: Currently reading ::

Was jumping between Guns, Germs & Steel and John Adams. Will probably set both of those down briefly after picking up (per Steve's recommendation) Life of Pi. I needed a little easier reading in both content and weight. Seriously, it can be a major drag carrying around 800 page nonfiction books on the subway when you have about 10-20 minutes per session. Much happier now!

Vacancies Vacancies!!

I found out today that after Matt and Blair, two of my English coworkers at Hae Song, leave at the end of December, there aren't two set people to come in and replace them. This means that the English Camps that begin towards the beginning of January will be run by the English director and me. In fact, we are so far from being set on two replacements that Ms. Lim has asked me (for some reason she's in charge of this search when she already has about a billion things to do!) to ask any of my friends if they want to come take their place!!

So if you are reading this and you know me or reading this and you know someone interested, there are two vacant positions at Hae Song opening up on January 1st'ish. I wish I could be more specific with the job details but because they will be hired directly through Hae Song and not the EPIK program like I was, I am not completely clear on all the details. My understanding is that they would want them here at the beginning of January or ASAP after that for a 1 year contract. I don't know the pay but I would assume it is somewhere in the realm of mine, perhaps better, which will mean that if you spend money somewhat reasonably (see Pea Coat post for my spending habits!) you should be able to save some considerable money. I am assuming, though am not sure, that they will pay for your flight to Korea and am positive they will set you up with living arrangements. The only specific requirement I know of is that you have to be a college graduate. Like I said, since it's a specific hire, there should be less hoops to jump through rather than going through a program. There will be no training period, but you will have me!! I mean I'm totes the best teacher in the world and if I can't run you through it I don't know who can (see Royal Rites of Brag..etc. etc.).

This is pretty abrupt, and I have my doubts that Hae Song's next hire will come through me but I am just throwing it out there. Two vacant positions! You can come as a tandem for all those in relationships!

I wish I could get some of the WW kids out here, but I don't know if they can look the part of a 20'something college grad!

The Royal Rite of Bragitudiousness

I had completely forgotten about this!! Throughout last week we had our annual "Golden Bell" challenge, an English test at Hae Song conducted by my coteacher Ms. Lim and myself. The 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades participated. Each grade went on a different day, and they all got markerboards and would write their answers and raise them in the air; last one standing wins. The questions ranged from spelling, "what am I?" riddles, and some true or false questions.

If any of you remember my schedule, I teach and see everyone from the 3rd grade up but I also run my immersion classes and have a group of about 5-10 students from each grade that I see 4 times a week. Initially, I was not happy about this class. The curriculum is still a little dry, but these are my babies and the classes that I enjoy the most now. It was just a matter of making the curriculum fit what I wanted to do - it has definitely improved with time!

Anyhoo.. I have to say I couldn't be more excited about how the immersion kids did. I tried to keep a loose eye on them throughout the Golden Bell Challenge and from what I saw I thought they did great. In fact, out of about 100 kids per grade (roughly), I maybe have 5% of them in my immersion class. I am happy to say that the 3rd and 4th grade winners were both members of my immersion class!! The 3rd grader, Julia, has actually lived in the States for the majority of her life so I wasn't flabbergasted to see her win. My 4th grader, Jason, has learned all his English here though. It was very exciting. Generally speaking, I usually had one of the immersion kids in the top 5 or so in each class.

Sometimes it feels as if my teaching style is throwing a bunch at a wall and hoping some of it sticks. Some days it feels great, rewarding, and fulfilling. Some days it feels slightly less than that. I am happy to say that those rewarding days where I actively see them learning are beginning to outnumber the days where I feel I have fallen on my face. As long as they have fun, which feels like most of the time, I am happy though!

That's all to report from Hae Song. Other than that, school is going great!!

THE Pea Coat

This past Saturday I made the trek to Seoul to invest in a new coat. I needed something a little heavier than I own now. I had been looking forward to this for a while now because this was the first time I'd be seeing a tailor and having something custom made for me!! I can report that it went fantastically.

After walking by a handfull of shops with some potential, my friends and I ran into a guy who seemed to know what's what. He ushered me into his shop downstairs and proceeded to pour on the honey talk. I must say, he was probably the best salesman who's ever made a pitch to me. Generally speaking, I am pretty good at backing out of purchases. Sure, there has been a time or two (as Daniel, Alex and Gus can attest to) where I have been lectured by a salesman for upwards of an hour, looking desperately at anyone who could me away from them. When my nicer, "I'll hear you out" side clash with my frugal nature, frugality saves the day. I like to sit and think about a purchase for a few days and THEN go back and get it. Not the case this time around. He could have signed me up to buy 5 coats and I probably would have been down.

His English was great, and from my limited knowledge he really seemed to know what he was doing. He had some celebrity photos that he had made clothing for. Nothing much stood out except for Kobe Bryant. If you see KB tell him he now knows somebody who knows somebody who knows you. He gave me the "English teacher" price, as opposed to what he called the "professional athlete" price. This Saturday I will be heading up to Seoul to pick up my new, double breasted, cashmere navy pea coat!! Complete with my name stitched inside. No worries, I resisted the urge to request "E-Money".

T-Giving

Thanksgiving Day!! It came and went and for the most part my friends and I tried to do it right. We had a potluck dinner! At first a potluck seemed like a scary proposition since we were running heavy and volunteers for napkins, bread and wine and a little lighter on things like FOOD. It worked out in the long run though. I showed up with 2 pizzas and 2 bottles of wine. We had sweet potatoes wrapped in bacon with rosemary (thank you Patrick), baked chicken (Ryan), cake and salad (Carmine), TURKEY BURGERS (Joe), and marinara sauce to put on whatever it is we were supposed to put it on (thanks Sophia!). Sophia was actually our lovely host! We had 6 Americans and 6 Koreans throughout most of the night. We maintained the tradition of going around and saying what we were thankful.

In all seriousness, other things got me thinking about what I was thankful for in Korea but our T-giving dinner really cemented it for me. I, along with the rest of the A-team (our affectionate and 100% innocently motivated self-tagged group name), have been really lucky to find eachother. I referred to them as my family for a year, and I very much mean it. It is hard to believe I have only known them for 3 months and some change. We have been having a great time!!

On another note, I CAN'T wait to get my family up here. As most of you know, my parents and my girlfriend Emily will be coming up here in a little bit less than 3 weeks. I can't wait to share the past 3 months of my life with them. Pictures certainly help, but some things just have to be seen!!

Hope all is well with my faithful readers!! Happy Holidays!!