Trivia Masters

I have been playing trivia for the last couple months with some EPIK friends in Central Incheon. It is held every Thursday night and the team that won the previous week hosts the next. Each person has to pay 2 dollars to play and it runs in teams of 5 (winner takes all the entry money). Usually it amounts to about 80 dollars for the winning team split 5 ways. This past Thursday my team and I won for the 2nd time in 3 tries. In fact, they had won a few times before I joined up. I won, hosted the following week, and won again. Now it is up to me come up with my questions for next week's topic!! The last time I hosted my questions focused on Lord of the Rings and Zombie Trivia. This time around I might get a little brainier.

All in all, it's a lot of fun and now get excited for every Thursday's coming!

One More Note on Book Reports

One last thing!!

Today, like I mentioned, was Library day and Book Report day. We took both our 1st grade classes and our 3rd graders. For the 1st graders I mostly read with/to them. I did this with most of the class (including my coteacher's, (Mrs. Lim), daughter!). Anyway, I got through about half of "The Seals on the Bus" with one of my students named Bailey before I realized this book was supposed to be sung to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus." I certainly thought it was odd that everything rhymed but I only paid it a passing glance. Also, this was the elongated version of the song. When she brought me the book I was initially excited because usually they choose really short books. This one turned out to have like 15 verses and run into the upwards of 20 pages. It was terrible because I had to read, over and over, phrases like "The sheeps on the bus go Bah bah bah, bah bah bah, bah bah bah. The sheeps on the bus go bah bah bah, all the something something or other." I paraphrased that last part. I think I covered the whole ecosystem.

Prank of the Day

I think most of the people who read this know me well enough to know how much of a goofball I am. If you don't know me well enough to know that, then get off my blog!! Seriously though, one of the things I love about teaching in an Elementary school is the wonderful outlet it provides for my goofiness.

Case in Point (Prank of the Day):
For book reports my 3rd graders got to choose their favorite picture in the book and draw it after briefly describing what they read. John, one of my star pupils, chose some book about cookies and drew about .. wait for it .. cookies. Anyway, he got up to do something or other and I quickly grabbed his book report, erased part of the cookie, and drew in bite marks and a 70% completed cookie. I wrote "Evan Teacher was Hungry - Mashisoyo" which means "It was delicious." Bam! prank of the day!

I am honestly not happy unless I am stealing something, taking something and putting it somewhere else or generally partaking in random hi-jinks about once every 5-10 minutes or so. Elementary school makes this behavior acceptable, nay, encouragable! Spell Check is telling me encouragable is not a word. Is this true??

Anyway, that probably was not the prank of the day but that was the incident where I decided I'd blog about it so there you go. The great thing about Korean elementary schools is that the students' ages run the gauntlet enough to keep me entertained in all ways. I split my efforts about 50-50 between incredibly silly and enjoying dry and sarcastic humor. In Korean schools, the 6th graders are old enough where this works out well. It was one of the main reasons I loved Westwood!! I was able to start with younger kids and work my way all the up to the 15 and 16 year-olds everyday.

Winter Camp started this past Monday. I will update you guys on my PE and Cooking classes in my next post but know that I am loving it.

By the way, if any of my WW swimmers are reading this, know that I miss you every single day!!

Random Notes

Watched Blade Runner tonight. Going into it I briefly forgot it was a Stanley Kubrick movie so it will probably be something I need to re-watch a few times. I enjoyed it though!!

Why I love college football :: A Year in review ::

College Football Decade Images



Trying to get a game of Dungeons and Dragons going now that I am here in Korea. Now to get my hands on a 20-sided die

Hey All

Really enjoying Matthew and Blair's classes as it turns out. There is still a good chunk of me that would rather watch LOTR with actor's commentary and Korean movies all day (my original schedule), but I have adjusted thusly and am making a go of it. I start winter camps tomorrow. It should be interesting. Being the wily veteran of Hae Song (longest tenured among the English Camps) I was able to finagle P.E. and Cooking as my two main lesson plans. At first the cooking was giong to be centered around spaghetti which is certainly a strong suit. Now it seems we have switched to muffins so that has hurt my confidence but I won't be alone for it. I should survive without blowing anything up. The P.E. classes (freeze tag and capture the flag) will take me back to the dry land portions of working at Westwood so that should be fun too.

I am sick for the 3rd time in 1 month. The really terrible part is that of all 3 times I have gotten sick, I have ridden that line where I might get sick / might not and have made.. less than wise decisions as to how to take care of myself. Two were defensible (friends from Busan up the first time and being with Emily the second). This time it came down to having to carry a load on finishing JB - bleh!! By the way, I believe there was a severe misprint because on the side it said that a Colonel James Beam was born in 1804 and lived until 1947 putting him at just over 140. They say 140 is the new 90 though so what do I know.

Songs I'm listening to:
- These Days by Nico
- Staralfur by Sigur Ros
- Here With Me by Dido
Currently Reading:
Catch 22

Places I most want to visit from Where the He!! is Matt (video below):
Mumbai, India
Paro & Thimpu, Bhutan (Paro is my overall number 1)
Lisse, The Netherlands
Christmas Island, Australia
Madrid, Spain
Lancelin, Australia
Zanzibar
Alemania
Tel Aviv, Israel
Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
All of South/Latin America

I love this video - I've used it with my students in any class I've ever taught related to culture.
**
Where The He!! Is Matt 2008

Korean Movies

Korea is an excellent place to stumble into if you happen to a be a big film person. I just finished watching Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (Taegukgi) tonight. It is SK's cross of The Deer Hunter and Saving Private Ryan. It's stage is the Korean War and focuses on two brothers. I highly recommend it.
I also saw Old Boy recently. It is really great too. The plot is pretty intense - a heads up for those of you who might read this and go out and rent these movies! It is part of a trilogy that deals with revenge. This one had a pretty extensive international showing so some of you have might actually seen it or the two others in the chain (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, the first and third in the chain respectively) The plots don't hinge upon one another so you could watch it in any order!
I have been lucky enough to come to a country with fantastic movies. When I head to the technology market I usually just ask my guy to pick out a few good Korean movies for me. He hasn't steered me wrong thus far!

Photos

New photos are up on facebook detailing my family's and Emily's time in Korea. I set my mom up with photos so she will be posting soon too if you are friends with her. Hers might be a tad delayed as she got sick on the last day of the trip and is not feeling good. In fact, the only downside of the trip is that all 4 of us got sick at one point or another. Emily and my Mom's came at the tail end or when they first got home while my Dad's came in the middle and me at the beginning.

photos ::

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=2797918&id=7935602

Quick Note on my Posting

Sorry to any frustrated, faithful readers out there who have been wondering where I have been the past 2 or 3 weeks. Though I doubt anyone would be frustrated by a lack in Evan news. I went without posting with both my parents and Emily in Korea for the past 2 weeks. This is probably my 3rd apology and I know that I have posted sporadically at best, but I hope you will forgive me for wanting to spend most of my time with them and not quite as much writing!! My recent posts and the ones to follow in the next few days are far from chronologically correct, and I will only make a brief attempt to cover all the things that happened over my Winter vacation. There was just too much!!

I should have some pictures up and a post on some of the big stuff that happened over the past 2 weeks.

I Will be a Great ESL Teacher Whether I Choose to or Not

Finished teaching today with a few more surprises. It turns out that rather than filling in for a week and teaching the English Zone's curriculum and classes it will be spread out to a month. I actually just wrapped up an hour and fifteen minute lesson in which only two of six students showed up. I managed to change the majority of the lesson on the fly. This is not a self-congratulatory post as much as it is a "Look what they have done to me!!" kind of rant. My constantly changing schedule has brought this about in me. Example: It seems for now that the last two weeks of January my in-class teaching hours will jump from fifteen to twenty-nine. This will put me heavy into overtime so I am almost expecting this to change by the time the 18th rolls around because the bank shall not break. My schedule has been changed too many times and on too short of notice at this point to even bother me anymore. These circumstances used to elicit anger and copious amounts of emails to my parents, Emily and my cousin Steve. Now it comes with a melancholic guffaw. More a chuckle than guffaw - I was just that desperate to use "guffaw". Anyhoo.. It seems as though I will be the baddest, raddest ESL teacher in the world even though the odds are high this will come against my will. I am at least grateful that I am out of panic mode when they do this.

A Quick Transcript from my Journal

* written 4 January 2010 * (meant to be posted yesterday)

I think the ink in my pen is frozen. Sadly, it seems as though I will not have the opportunity to thank Matt & Blair - they leave tomorrow and I don't foresee a visit with them.
About a foot of snow today. Many coworkers (co-EPIK'ers) had the day off. I literally had the opposite of a snow day. I went to school expecting a quiet, classless week to find they gave me M/B's classes for the week. I was given little notice as per Korean standard and caught both unprepared and unshowered (my water was off for 2 days to pipe freezing). Hoping to get wa-wa back today.
Far less upset about lack of notice this time than others, guess I'm coming around.

Quick Updates ::
1. I was able to see Matt and Blair today at school. Happy to say goodbye to them and maintain communications as much as I can with them as they slowly make their way back home.
2. I got my water back. Showered, shaved and happy!
3. I keep a journal now. What a forward thinking man I have become, one might say. It was just one of the fantastic Christmas presents I got this holiday season!