I wanna be a R.O.K. Star

Summer Camp

2010-08-09T17:34:00.003+09:00

It's on like donkey kong son. I'm back from my vacation in the States. It was nice but I think it was the right length of time. 11 days or so, I never got tired of my Mom cause she's my mom. But by the end of my time and after I saw my friends I was ready to go. Mostly because I knew that I would have to be punished with jetlag. I was, it took me 4 days to get over it but by Monday morning I was ready to go no problem. Other than camp starting and me knowing nothing about what was going on. Anyway back at it. Camp is now a week and a day old, the kids are fun and things are going good. Also Summer is super hot in Korea. It's not so much stupid hot like North Carolina which was reaching the mid 90's by noon while I was there but it's always so humid. Walking to work in the morning when it's around 75-80 I find myself sweating bullets by the end of my 15 minute walk.

What we are

2010-07-19T04:31:00.004+09:00

One day at Tokyo Narita International I had a chat with a friend who is smarter than me and she really nailed the expirence in Korea for me personally and for her from the way she was speaking. Basically she said that us, as the Native English Teacher, are pretty easily the least integrated into affairs of anyone at school with regards to everyday life. Many of us don't have the Korean language ability to slide right in and things to be peachy.

On the flip side, some of us when we come over don't exactly land in spots where there are a bunch of other teachers around, also we spend 40 hours at school and at many schools the we don't know about other teachers who can speak English there until some freak occurrence. Like I know my VP can speak English but there are probably 10-15 other teachers at my school who are Home Room teachers with really solid English skills. At the same time these people who we cannot or don't talk to are part of this very important net that we have. We want to be a part of the community, personally thats what I crave, the kids are great but you know I would like to chat with some co-workers. So we have no connection but need and want all the connection that we can get. Anyway I think it's interesting, the relationship between Native English Teachers and our Korean counterparts should be studued by someone. Not me I'm busy trying to learn Korean

I'm back (but not really)

2010-07-19T04:17:00.002+09:00

Hello Four months later. I'm sitting in my bedroom in my Moms house in grandold Charlotte, NC no my vacation. I've been home since this past Tuesday after a remarkable da of travel and I will be here until the 27th when I get on a plane to return and do Summer Camp.

So what happens when I return? More Summer Camp as I said and then my contract is up, that's pretty much it. Also I'm renewing for another at the same school with the same great kids and co-teachers. Also I've got exciting news. I work harder, teach way more and better I think (and according to my coteachers if they aren't just flattering me) and things are just better. Funner a little easier. I really think that I've fought through tough times had a really great conversation about who we are and what we are trying to accomplish in Narita in Tokyo with a friend during a layover and I want to keep going cause I think that this year I can make a serious push towards a more stable future. You can catch all the excitement with at least 3 posts a week and with more pictures maybe. We'll see. bye-bye!

Changes

2010-03-02T14:31:00.003+09:00

Toady was the first day of the Spring semester. Classes didn't start today (for me) and probably won't start for another day or two. But the changes are already obvious including things I knew and things I didn't know.

1. Since I was given the chance to choose my own destiny basically and pick schools I choose Samyang. I like the kids and I like my co-workers that I actually work with here. My Co-teacher at Jukhyang was at the end of her time there and is moved to a different school, the Principal at Jukhyang retired. Combine that with the fact that I haev already told my Co-teacher at Samyang that I would like to stay and the Principal here is as awesome as the known quantity at Jukhyang was AND he's staying and it's easy.

2. Since I have only one school now I get to teach more grades. This comes at the price of potentially loosing some of my students from Winter Camp because they opened a new school close to mine and split the student population. I don't get to teach those kids because the Office of Education got 4 new teachers. 3 of which are in newly created position replacing no one.

3. The teacher for 5th grade has changed. This was a little surprising. I didn't know Mrs. Kim had to change schools and had assumed that she was staying with the other 2 teachers. I also figured that I would be teaching 3rd, 4th and 6th grade ENglish now because we have a TALK scholar who was teaching the 5th grade with Mrs. Kim. But nope she is gone so now the face at the desk across from me is a.different and b. actually at the desk. Mrs. Kim liked to spend most of her time in the classroom and it's possible that the new teacher will do the same. I should probably learn her name and start talking to her since we'll be teaching a class together now. Also I should ask about my schedule.

4. Half the kids are at a differen't school. Also the main Teachers office that I sit and work in is different. THere are new people in new places and some people gone and moved into what I can only assume is their own permanent classrooms. Bully to them! Every teacher should have their own classroom.

Anyway these are just some of the obvious changes that I notice at the moment. I still haven't actually met any of the new Teachers though I think I saw one on the street yesterday after I got back into town and was walking to the bank to pay rent. Also they moved desks and are currently standing over me and choosing new furniture for the newly open space behind where I sit. They did not pick an exciting color. This is slightly dissapointnig.

Cambodia

2010-02-25T20:32:00.002+09:00

I'm in Cambodia, right now. Vacation is awesome if not a little isolating. Got to hang out with some other teachers from Korea for a few days. Anyway I'm in Siem Reap, the location of the magnificant Angkor Wat Temples. I think I've taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 pictures so when I get back I will have to sort thru them and post the really good ones here. They bulk will end up on Facebook because thats a picture dumping ground. Not a lot of drinking done on vacation. Partly cause of the location, partly of because of all the walking around you do here but mostly because of the staggering heat. This is probably as hot and heavy as I've felt heat all my life. My hostels computers our outside and I'm in a pretty profuse sweat typing this.

I leave Cambodia the morning of the 27th to get back to Bangkok for my flight. I will recount all the gripping details of the trip upon return and will share photos.

P.S. - I miss my kids

Vacation

2010-02-16T20:52:00.002+09:00

Tomorrow I start vacation. Well about 24 hours and 25 minutes from now. Tomorrow I leave for Seoul at 3, then I catch a bus to Incheon and the airport. Not to sure how long it takes but I'm just going to play it safe. I could take a bus straight to the airport but I don't want any potential delays although that might change, between now and then. Anyway tomorrow I'll wake up and call home, let Mom know whats going on and that I'll be fine fun times

There they go...

2010-02-11T21:25:00.006+09:00

It's done. My 6th graders are now no longer 6th graders. Starting next month they are 1st grade middle school. I got to go to their graduation today. So I wrote 5 notes. 4 were to some kids that came to English Camp so I got to know them much better plus their English is great.

The other note was to the little girl in Pink here.

Why her? Because before I set foot in the classroom she gave me a note and was an absolute angel. She isn't the best speaker but she is apparently great at dictation(she got high marks on the exams) but like I said she was really nice to from the get go. Shes also smaller than most of the kids but like I said very nice.

I also got some news from my co-teacher about the next semester. Let me give you a little info about Korea. They like to build up. You see these high rise apartments. Thats basically a subdivision or neighborhood back home. There aren't any of that stuff like we think of it.

I live in a tiny town. There are 3 or 4 buildings overthere and the school is right there, in Daejeon the city next to us one friend I have lives next to 3 schools, literally 2 Middle Schools and an Elementary School. We were driving in her car once and I asked about one of the schools, she said it was a middle school, then I asked is that the one your daughter goes to? Nope! The school was a 5 minute walk from their apartment. There is a middle school that is closer!!!!!!!!!!! That is INSANITY!!!!! They might be building schools on top of schools at this point. My point is there is another school that is opening near my main school. As far as I know I'm the only teacher at the school on that side of town. This mean that according to my co-teacher I may move from my rural school to this one. Also this school will split the population of my school. I am torn about all of this to say the least.

The Next Week

2010-02-07T21:42:00.003+09:00

My vacation starts on the 17th. That is a fact that doesn't matter right now. For the next 5 days I am going to be an absolute emotional trainwreck. I already am now just thinking about it and knowing that it is here. I love the kids I teach. They are so smart and so ambitious. I know that they can and will do things that will amaze and surprise people for many many years to come. That's why I wish they didn't have to go. For the past 6 months they have been what I live for, I have tried to give them everything I got, for better or worse. Now here we are My Sixth graders are going to graduate to Middle School and I won't even be able to be at the ceremony because I'll be at my second school saying "Good-bye" to My OTHER kids. I know that the rising 6th graders will be awesome and fun and just as mind blowing to me, but that doesn't matter right now because I'm loosing the divine inspiration for my life here. They are moving up and I will be left behind.

All the years in school growing up, I never once considered how my elementary school teachers felt about us going on to the next grade. I don't know if this impending sense of greif is what they get but if it is they are immensly stonger than I am because like I said I'm going to lose it at least once this week. Well I should say at school because I've already lost it. These first 15 classes of the week will be the hardest and longest and worst moment in my entire life so far. I just hope I can articulate to them in a way for them to understand how much they mean to me, as my first class of students

Music

2010-01-27T20:51:00.003+09:00

My tastes in music are evolving. Being here and having been through English Camp where after class some girls would stay around and listen to music on the computer I got to here alot of heartthrob boy band stuff. I can say very easily that in America I hated boy bands, but I think Justin Timberlake is great. Maybe it's the SNL stuff and him not being to great to try and occasionally suck at acting but I find him and his music way more tolerable now than I did when he was in N'Sync or the other one. So anyway I was at an open mic night here with one of my fellow Okcheonian teachers who was playing and we were talking about the music scene here.

I don't know he mentioned how at a dinner with some of my co-teachers they talked about music and how it was for them in school or should I say University and the name Park Jin-Young came up. I was like "holy crap I know that guy" I knew him not as a singer but as a producer cause he does some of the bigger acts of Korea including one of the girls favorite groups, 2 P.M.. His entertainment company is actually called JYP Entertainment. He chooses the Western way of doing that and also goes by those initials as opposed to you know, PJY. I guess JYP flows better. Anyway apparenly this guy was a sex symbol back in the day. When he was in his mid to late 20's now he's 38 and still going and I'm listening to his music and other Korean things as well.

-I went to a Korean Punk concert a few weeks ago. Let's just say it was interesting. First thing it made me appriciate English language music. I may think it's trash but it's only cause I understand what they are saying. GRRRRR, If I would have stayed up front I would have know but I was a wuss on so many levels. This band was interesting though they used accordian and flute. I'd go again and I would stand near the front.

-Went to Seoul last week and saw an art exhibit of Andy Worhal's work and I don't mean to be an art critic or overly critical but a bit of the stuff there was like "C'mon, what were people doing back then? Oh, right lots of acid, lsd and pot, carry on then"

-We were supposed to go to the Kimchi Museum in Seoul but we were too late. It's on the south side of the city. So now I'm going to lead an expidition of at least 2 and probably more back to Seoul for the sole purpose of seeing the museum. I have some other plans after that but that weekend is oh, 6 weeks away. Why in Gods name would I plan something so far ahead you ask??? Am I a control freak?? Is there someone I'm trying to impress?? Do I have some sinister plan???? Yes. Yes. No. And mostly because for the next 5 weeks stuff is going on. Friday-Saturday I get to do something where I'm hanging out with Koreans, FINALLY. All it took was a church retreat and their desperation to have me do things. The next weekend might be spent skiing. Then the next weekend is Korean New Years and I might end up in Busan. Then I go on vacation and am gone for 2 Sundays then I get back work a week and WOOOO Kimchi Museum and more.

Ready for Vacation

2010-01-26T12:09:00.003+09:00

So here I am. January 26 about 22 days from my vacation. Today I bought my ticket to Bangkok. But the actual vacation is in Cambodia cause I don't want to be some weirdo wandering around Thailand by myself. Also I don't want to think while I'm on vacation so I'm basically going to let others think for me. If I could just switch off my brain and sleep for 10 days I would but this seems like a good alternative.

I'm not sure of how the school calender works here so I don't know when Summer Break is but I do know that by taking vacation in February at the last possible moment I open myself up to a shorter second half of the year. My vacation will fall one day before exactly 6 months after departure from the States (if that makes sense). Other people were taking vacation in December which kind of blew my mind. The job can be rough but unless you were in some sort of hellish situation all you've been doin this winter is Winter Camp, which is funner than regular school in just about every situation, sitting at your desk 8 hours a day and surfing the internet or sitting in your apartment for 11 working days. It should be noted that those day aren'counting against the vacation if they let you have them and you can travel the country if you want to. Speaking of which I think I might have lost my co-teacher. I sent her a text with a question about my vacation and she hasn't responded which leads me to believe shes outta here. I probably should have asked her. Anyway I'm going to meet 3people in Siem Reap, Cambodia on like the 18th or 19th.

So since I've started why don't I just start from the "top". Feb. 17, I go to Incheon to catch a plane that leaves at 9:25pm. It should arrive in Bangkok at 1:20am. I'll stumble around the Bangkok airport for an hour or two then go to the train station to catch the 5:55am train to the Cambodian border. That arrives around 1pm and then I have to get a visa, if choose not to get the online one, and cross on foot or bus I'm not really sure. Either way cross take a taxi to the first town then take another taxi or a bus for a 3-5 hour bus ride to Siem Reap from there I pass out and stop thinking let the thinkers think and plan just follow.

Of course before any of this I have 2 weeks of school including the graduation of my 6th graders which will be a sad event. I will miss them alot.

Camp is done...

2010-01-18T23:36:00.005+09:00

... and I am having a good time. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I'm not sure how I went this long, thought I had posted more recently but apparently not. I am in the middle of getting ready to buy my ticket to Thailand from where I will take a train and bus to Cambodia. Meet up with a couple people and kick around Cambodia for a week until it's time to head back.
Camp was fun here are some pictures. I got to meet and talk to many awesome kids, the best part I actually got to learn some of my sixth graders names and then I really got to learn some of my future kids names. The rising sixth graders are awesome.

This is outside on our soccer field. We are lucky to have what appears to be a new gym and very new-ish soccer field and track at the school. Several days we went outside and played "Pigu" which is Korean dodgeball. It's different from American dodgeball in that when you are hit you just go to the other side and throw at the other team from there back so basically it's more active. The 2 girls in the forground are 6th graders the boy they are taking aim at is a 4th grader.

This picture is interesting because I am a tourist attraction in it. It should be noted that I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pictures from this 4 week event and I probably only took half of them. The kid were good and I think they did take some very nice pictures.

These 5th grade girls were particularly hard to crack. I'm not sure how they made it into my class, the top class in the cause they did almost nothing. I look forward to bribing them to be active with candy and punishment in the future.

No real point of this picture I just like this kids shirt.

This is from our cooking class day. I wanted to make rice krispie treats but my co-teacher told me she couldn't find marshmellows. Me and the other teachers went out and found them in a local grocery store. We ended up making cookies it was fun.

Anyway I've got one week to spend as little money as possible in an effort to save as much as possible so I can pay my bills and still run to Cambodia with $300 or so. I'll probably make it easily but it'll be nice to push myself this week. Also I should mention that I'm not actually going to work now, there is nothing for me to do and they said I can stay home until Feb 1 the only thing they said was I couldn't leave the country. Easy enough

Happy New Year!!

2010-01-01T19:27:00.005+09:00

Happy New Year to you and yours! While many people went up to Seoul last night I went with the other locals to Daejeon to party with other locals. It was fun. So much fun that I took like 200 pictures. Too bad facebook is being kind of a dick and not letting me upload them except one at a time and it's taking forever. So we got back to Okcheon at apparently 5-5:30. Mind you that's not anything special here cause bars and clubs are always open and beers and soju is always flowing. Anyway I feel like crap I've been inside most of the day but I'm going back out in 2 hours because tomorrow is Saturday and we don't exactly get a bunch of 3 day weekends thrown at us so you gotta take advantage.

Winter Camp is on!!!

2009-12-29T21:19:00.004+09:00

Here we are. I'm a week and a half into winter camp and I love it. I get the best kids in the school. I love it, absolutley love it. It's still the same thing, no co-teacher, in the room by myself with the kids but these kids speak English and want to learn. They want to learn!!!! Just today I let my class out on time at 3:20, then I sit down and start to do my post class work. Roll, teaching diary, cleaning up my desk, 3 girls just hung out and talked to me a really good 6th grader, a really good 5th grader and an obviously amazing 3rd grader. Now, just because they are in the highest class doesn't mean that they are perfectly fluent. The 5th & 6th graders can understand me and answer usually in a bit of a stilted sentence but they are making sentences. The 3rd grader is just so cute, the vocab she hasn't learned because she's still in 3rd grade is huge but she obviously understands quite a bit. The kids had to take a placement test and about 37-40 kids got to be in the top class. There was some vocab and sentence structure stuff she nailed it. Only 3rd grader in either of my classes. When we were all talking she would mostly speak in Korean and the 6th grader would translate, talked about their home life, after school life are they enjoying my classes and most important I found out they are in fact learning. Mission Accomplished!!

These Days....

2009-12-21T20:57:00.002+09:00

These days are crippling. I don't know if it was from partying this weekend or just what was going on for me but I feel like a train wreck when I'm not doing something. Anything really. It could very easily have been seeing old friends or just anything but the silence is killing me. Not being in North Carolina is killing me I don't know what's going on or how just about anyone is. I'm going to make an effort to call home more but I don't know how that'll effect me. Will talking to Mom for 30 minutes be a good thing or bad thing. I've come so far and feel like this is going to be probably the hardest stretch so far because I get off of work at 3:30 so now there is more time. More time to fill sitting in my apartment doing nothing sitting around. Staring at facebook for hours on end. That may be what does it the most I see how everyone is doing back home and wonder how come I couldn't have that there? Laziness? Probably, for now though I think it will be back to rather early bedtimes for me as for whatever reason I'm just really feeling heavy today.

A message about the Korean Language

2009-12-19T08:36:00.003+09:00

Hello,

Today I come to educate. The Korean Language has been a cruel and elusive mistress to me, almost as cruel as English itself. But today with the help of some creative explenations and away from all those "Learning Korean" websites I want to help you learn some Korean. At least how to read, because once you can read the whole world is your book. At least Korea anyway. Let's start(oh and did I mention that I can't type Korean on my computer)

Today I will try to explain sounds that look like English letters ( I seriously almost called them "American letters" wtf). If you see what you think is a "F" but it's facing the other way then it's Korean and it makes a "K" sound. If you see an "E" upper case then don't think "mEE" try "Tea" cause "E"s get the "T" sound. If you see a box and that box is closed then thats an "M" like you'd find in "geM". If the side of the box aren't on the edges of the and are also not touching the top line then that's a "P" sound. This takes more out of me than I thought also I'm hungry more later this week.

Surprise!!!

2009-12-13T11:46:00.006+09:00

I got to go on my first Korean Field Trip or Picnic as they called it in English this past Friday. I don't have any pictures because I didn't take my camera because I thought I wasn't going to go as soon as 30 minutes before they left and I was walking to school. But as I got to the school there they were, 4 buses to take the 4 sixth grade classes to Yong-in, and the Korean Folk Village. That's it's name. Seriously, wikipedia that it's there. I didn't believe it but it is what it is The Korean Folk Village. I got tot ride on the second bus with class 2 and at the beginning I was worried cause my Co-teacher, the one who you know teaches English with me at this school wasn't going on the trip. So I get on this bus with the class and they may not have been the best English speaking class but they probably had the best English speaking 6th grade teacher. Funny thing about talking to Korean and probably anyone else in a second language (self included) is that you're never really sure how much of what you've just said they've understood. I mean sometimes I'm at a store or trying to figure out something and I'll ask a Korean and they start speaking in Korean and not using gestures and I just decide to shut it down and shake my head "Yes".

Anyway she seemed to be able to keep up and explain things to me correctly, I know cause I was reading the English on the signs before she could translate the Korean, and it was fun talking in English to a Korean and having it not be just about school. Just about everyone commutes to town to work and she was no exception as she said she drives 40 minutes from Daejeon to get to school, she studies English and one day wants to take over as the Korean English Teacher at a school. It kind of makes you wonder what the difference in pay rate is for regular homeroom teacher and specialty English teacher is since they are so big on learning the language. But she was talking about how on the ride to work she listens to English Education Radio in the car and tries to learn more and then as soon as she steps out of the car she forgets it. Normal for everyone I guess.

We were walking down the "Yellow Road" and a group of 11 girls caught up to up and we ended up walking with them for the rest of the trip around the village. We went into a Haunted House and that was fun because who doesn't like 11 thirteen year-old girls pushing them into a dark hallway to lead the way. That was especially memorable because as we got to the exit they all come piling out behind me except for one girl and the teacher. We had to wait for like 5 minutes for them to come out and listining to their screams was hilarious. I tried to ask why they were so far behind but I don't think she understood. We crossed a narrow footbridge and she almost peed her pants she looked so scared. Good times had by all. Anyway at the end at (one of) the gift shop(s) I bought a fan which is what I do now. I don't just want fans though I want them to have awesome stuff on them. Also I want them to be huge, I could have gotten a huge one but it was like 35000won and for that kind of coin I would have like it to be bigger. Oh well lesson learned, "Always bring your camera."

Okcheon on the rise

2009-12-04T19:55:00.006+09:00

When I got here I thought it was nice. Not clean. Not new. But it's very nice and I like Okcheon. The Geum is the 3rd longest river in South Korea it runs through Okcheon. I mean I thought it was a pretty important waterway when I got here even though it's rather shallow. I attribute that to the inflated sense of worth that I attach to everything around me cause I'm an egomaniac. But then I saw a sign that is literally across the street from Samyang, my main school. It's the Geum River and it's sort of a big deal.

So after I got here and after some walking around I thought that this river split the town up and created an island that housed the main section, like Samyang Elementary. Well one of the teachers who got here in March told me a bit later that they basically built the left section of the river in the time since they arrived. This is the view towards where the two side meet from the side they just built over the last ohh, 7 months or so.

Now I had no clue that this was just built. I kinda figured that as I said before this was a natural formation. This next picture is looking up the old leg of the river. This was back when I first got here.

Now they are adding even more. These dolphins, I can't even explain it. If real dolphins tried to get to Okcheon the would die so fast it's not even funny. Ok maybe a little funny. Point is this is a shallow river, really shallow like, a dolphin wouldn't need to worry about coming up for air as much as they would have to worry about getting down for food. But they are bronze, they have hoses and I assume that sometime in Spring or even later this winter if they are crazy, these babies will be spouting water into the are at a regular interval.

This is a pedestrian bridge that was built in about a month, it spans the new section of the stream.

Hopefully I'll see tremendous progress in all this and be able to document it here

Winter Camp is coming

2009-12-02T21:49:00.003+09:00

We have Winter Camp starting December 21st. That is more info to try and pound that into my head. December 21st. December 21st. 12/21. Most people have to do some Camp when school is not normally in session. But for some unknow reason to me Samyang Elementary does it big. 4 weeks long. Yesterday my co-teacher told me I get to teach the highest level of students *fist pump*. Also the kids will take a level test *double fist pump*. I will have the most awesomest kids in my school. Of course now that means we have to do some orienteering or however you would say it. We have orientation Saturday, damnit! I was planning to go and see people in Incheon which is next to Seoul, so it could have ended up being a night or 2 in Seoul. But now it might be an evening at a friends place in a small town a couple hours away via bus. Not really sure but I am excited about doing my Advanced class lesson. It's on Russia. I know nothing about the Motherland other than what I learned from HS social studies. I looked at the wikipedia page but that was no help. Too much info, history I couldn't do it justice to a bunch of 12 and 13 year old girls that don't really understand what I'm saying. So instead I'm showing a bunch of pictures of Red Square, some marching St. Basil's Cathedral, and some dancing Russian military. Should be fun. Also after 5 days of thinking I finally came up with/found one on the internet. Also one last note, I am going to put my Korean skills to use by translating the kids coming to the camps names. I am going to apoligize to the kids in advance for forever screwing them in the future on their romanized names. My bad kiddies

Thanksgiving Weekend

2009-11-29T19:29:00.007+09:00

So no real Thanksgiving in Korea at least for Americans. Obviously we're not in America. Anyway I had a nice full weekend. On Saturday(Korea time) I climbed a mountain, ok it may be a hill but it was my first in Korea or really ever for that matter. The first picture is the mountain itself, hey I didn't say this was the Rockies it's plenty tall for a nice stroll in the afternoon

There were step to start the climb. Actually when I think about it the climb started way before the steps. You just start going up hill gradually turn left and start the climb walking up the side walk then you get to the stairs. After the stairs you see this sign. I have no clue what it says but I think it's telling me where the trails are. Not the greatest help for a non-Korean speaker

Thia is Okcheon from the start of the climb proper, you can't see it all cause of those apartments, also it's a pretty sprawling town you couldn't take a picture of it unless you had a fisheye lens.

These are stacked rocks. Koreans believe that if you can stack a new rock on top you get to make a wish and it will come true, fail and a rock monster will crush you.

Could it be the top??!?! No it went up more not much more but it was a bit of a downer I thought I was done but nay more climbing.

But it was ok, it took about 20 minutes to climb but I'm out of shape. I hope to cut the time in half and go up 300m in 10 minutes or less. Also I'd like to figure out how far it is cause that would help.

View from the top.

More on Thanksgiving weekend tomorrow or this afternoon for those of you in America. It involves fried chicken, basketball, apple pie and church.
Edit: and most importantly an answeres prayer

Photo-post #1

2009-11-24T19:49:00.006+09:00

I go to Seoul alot. It seems like almost every weekend I find myself there. Well I'm gonna have a hard time slowing down when I get to take pictuers like this.

This was in the most trendy area of Seoul Myeong-dong, there are shops with western sized clothes and it's really upscale. Those are 2 things I never thought I'd say. I mean I don't particularly care for clothes or what I'm wearing, until I get into a class full of children then I want to dress like the Pope for some reason. So I may end up back there this weekend but only to buy a winter coat. Or a Pea coat to be more percise, why I don't know I saw one that I liked in a store, I'm going to go to Daejeon tomorrow first cause there is a store there that I'll check. Also while in Seoul and in Myeong-dong I found this.

It was just as glorious as back home and I'm afraid that this alone may drag me back to Seoul. It was in the bottom of the Lotte Hotel and Department store which is this grand and opulent, and beautiful for that matter, building mostly because it has this.

I was also in Itawon, the hole in Seoul that is the foreigner district. I don't mean to be so down but the other places in Seoul really are nicer. But I havent seen a DVD selection as varied as this since I moved out of my Wolf Vilage apartment.

Anyway being here no is cool but it makes me appriciate Thanksgiving even more than ever. Not for missing family and friends, but for missing the frame that it provides for the Holiday Season. It has already begun here. So I'll leave on this kind of a downer note before some Christmas light pictures. My co-teacher, Hyunsuk, is sick. She's an absolute angel but she has basically been barely able to come to work for going on a week now. If she does come in she makes it up to the class room for maybe 2 lessons(to make sure I'm covering the right material) then she goes back down stairs to the office and leaves. There is really nothing you can do I just thought I'd tell someone cause it sure as hell gets me down. So now, happy pictures.

Future Thoughts

2009-11-19T19:54:00.002+09:00

So here we are, Wednesday night and I'm watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 on the INTERWEBS. I just watched the end of Star Trek. I really don'r have a lot to add. Classes are going. Some are smoother than others. I won't lie my main school is a bit tougher cause my Co-teacher isn't always in the classroom with me. The kids are smart but not that smart and neither am I. I am often frustrated but I feel pretty good knowing that the other English teachers, who are Koreans, know how hard it is on me and the previous Teacher who left after one year. Her boyfriend stayed and I don't know what to think of that. Maybe she just really only wanted to do one year and had a job lined up or maybe she felt pushed to the limit. Either way I am slightly worried by what the future might hold although if this is the deep end I can take it.

At my second school, I think I may have mentioned this but my co-teacher is leaving in January. She's super nice and sweet but I get to expect the unexpected at the start of the next school year, in February I think so it will be interesting, which I believe is starting to a theme on here.

I love my Location

2009-11-15T19:54:00.003+09:00

I went shopping today. I left for Daejeon and by the way it was snowing. Before I left I talked to 2 people back home. First Jackie, we video chatted and she showed me her new apartment. Then I showed her my room and I went to open the back to to shoe the view and lo and behold snow flurries were coming down. We probably talked for 15 minutes but most of it was showing the places. After I got off the line with her I called my Mom and talked for an hour. It was good to hear how shes doing. I also found out that the temperature difference if about 20-30 degrees, high temp today was about 42 in Okcheon and it's supposed to be in high 60's in Charlotte, so you all should consider yourself lucky. I spoke with some Korean friends and they were like "this is nothing, wait til real winter", I can't wait(spoken with sarcasm layed on thick).

Anyway, just because it was only 40 degrees out doesn't mean the sexy short skirt dance girls can't be out selling things for the man. I don't know why but the LG store by Seodaejeon Station had two women out there on a platform, one would constantly dance, the other had a mic and would talk then join in the dancing. I cannot stress enough that it was 40 degrees, sure they had on leg warmers but they also had on short skirts. Across the street from that is where I went exploring today. The Say Department Store. Don't let the name fool you, in Korea all most all stores are Department stores that have everything including in this one 2 food courts, a massive parking garage, a GS 25 Supermarket and the big prize Western fast food. Last week I had gone in and found a Burger King in the space between the "Say" and "Say Two", and yes they are technically 2 stores that are seperate but are connected in basically one large building. Today I found a Popeyes Chicken, Holy Cow, I was floored because basically that and Bojangles were like the last 2 things I would have ecpected to see here, I better start looking for that Bojangles. I will go back next week and take pictures to prove that I'm not some horrible liar.

Hmmm

2009-11-12T19:01:00.003+09:00

Hey!

Almost a week later, sorry I promise I'll start writing more regularly to whomever read this. So this week has been pretty standard, although I did start teaching multicultural lessons to 6th grade classes. It's no so much a multi cultural lesson as much as it's supposed to be about me but I think that would also be boring for the kids so I tried to have the 2 classes do surveys. I don't want to bore them but I have to say I gotta kinda write these lessons and the kids off because after December and English camps I will probably never see any of these kids again. 6th grade is the end of the Elementary school line and I don't really see them poping in to visit cause I've only seen 3 middle schoolers in the school at anytime afterwards anyway, I don't want to sound cold cause there are really good kids there but I'd like to make it really interesting for the kids who start 6th grade after the winter break.

P.S. Winter Break in Korea is like 4-7 weeks

Big day today

2009-11-06T20:45:00.002+09:00

Today was AWESOME!!!!! I got to talk to the other two Korean English Teachers a ton today and they are hilarious. The 3rd and 4th grade teacher I talked to the most we had a demo class that people could come and sit in on and we got together and practiced for a hour before hand. After our walk through we just talked, she probably isn't the best English of the bunch I have but she expresses herself the most. We talked about Korean culture and how much she doesn't enjoy some of it. She has to cook... alot, and she doesn't really enjoy it cause ya know, she has a full time job. She told me about ceremonies for dead ancestors on her Husbands side only, and how because he is the oldest son she has to do the cooking for the events. Her mother-in-law chips in a ton though but she had funa and was asking my opinion on alot of it. She also talked about how men don't cook here. Asked me how it is in America and marveled at the fact that some men do cook and some actually do all the cooking, that's pretty much unheard of here.

After class we went to the gym where there was a ceremony for our big day. 3 classes of kids did dances, one Thai, one Philippine and one Korean. All I'm gonna say is they were like 3rd or 4th graders and they broke out the smoke and bubble machines for it. Then we heard speaches. I've never laughed so hard on the inside and stayed so still on the outside. The other teacher is the 5th grade teacher and her and the 3/4 teacher were just like "uhhh why won't this end". They hated every moment of every speech and often would turn to me and say "aren't you bored?" to which I would reply "I can't understand so I cannot be bored" Which is true for me. I just sat there tried to spell some stuff in Korean and listened. Then at the end the Superintendent of Chungbuk-do, which is the province that I'm in that is a "State" to those of you in the States. He apparently said that I did a good job for the class that I did, he went as far to say my name, my full name. I laughed out loud, not very loud but it was audible. Good times.

After all this we went to a dinner my first dinner with the or either school. This is what I read about although it was still like only an hour I enjoyed every minute of today.

2 posts in one day, how dare I

2009-11-04T18:06:00.003+09:00

Back again because I forgot to mention something in the first long and rambling post of the day. My main school decided that it would be a good idea to close down for Tuesday thru Thrusday because it was supposed to be so cold. Needless to say it was about as cold on Monday as it's gotten since I've been here and Tuesday was also cold but today(Wednesday) hasn't been bad and Thursday isn't looking so bad either. School closings here are just like teacher work days back home, if the teachers back home just sit on their asses all day and surf the internet. It's not to say that I didn't get any work or planning done. It's just that it only takes so long then you're done.

Anyway early this afternoon I got word that my Thursday/Friday school might be doing the same thing on the days I was supposed to be there this week and it was confirmed midafternoon. So tomorrow I'll go back to the Main school and sit a desk tomorrow and try to plan while on Friday we have an Open day which means that we start at 8:30 instead of 9 and random important people get to come in and judge us as teachers and people based on one class. Nay not even one class but maybe 3-5 minutes of one class which is most likely a special lesson that I've planned for a month and done with the other 3rd graders.

Since Halloween

2009-11-04T10:32:00.005+09:00

Back again on a Wednesday, I promise that I'm going to start writing more as things have calmed down and now I feel like I know what I can do and when I should try to do it. Halloween was fun, if you want to se pictures facebook me. I could use the slight boost in friends. Went as Harvey Dent, the Billy Dee WIlliams one from the first Tim Burton Batma and had a great time. We were literally out all night as we were at bars from 10:30 til 4 and then we went to a Nore-bangh for like 2 hours or something like that, probably closer to 90 minutes but I'm just not sure. Also we may have been at the bars for longer and Nore-bangh(which is Korean singing room aka private karaoke) shorter either way it ended up being fun and lots of songs were sung at the nore-bangh, drinks were had at the bars and we split up and returned to the place that we were from at around 6:30am after McDonalds for breakfast.

I got home at 7am Sunday morning and was seriously worried about being able to sleep and still wake up before 1pm. On the cab ride from Daejeon to Okcheon I texted my friend who I hang out with her and her family on Sundays afternoons and speak English and try to speak Korean. I tried to explain that I might be late for th meeting. I went to sleep as soon as I got home at 7am and was awake and eating breakfast at 11am. I thought I was going to die at church but I survived service, cause the pastor like any good pastor tells jokes and even though they were translated I still enjoyed them. After the service we have Fellowship, Koreans are still slightly strange to me in some small and inconsequential ways, when you answer a phone and you know who it is and say "Hello" most will say "I'm so and so". That comes down to mostly a translation thing think, at fellowship I was talking to one of the High School kids who other than the adults are the only people who usually talk to me and then some one brings up this woman, and the introduction went like this:
Person A: "Hello Bernard"
Me: "Hi"
Person A: "This is Person B, She is 23, I hear you are 24. Friends?!?!"
Me: "Sure"

While "friends" is being said there is a hand jester going on to signal that we should talk. Then Person A walks away and I start talking to Person B, I don't even think I got her name but I do know she is a University student at a school in a town like 30-40 minute bus ride away from Daejeon, she is studying Tourism and Recreation (yea they've got that here too) and she speaks really good English. We talked like 15 minutes who know if we will ever have another conversation again, probably, but they may end up being of the how was your week variety. We'll see.

Anyway turning towards the much more boring professional life I'm carving here, class is gonig OK. I've made the unthinkable decision to not play a game every single class that I am given total control. First reason is I can't think of but so many games and I don't want the kids to get tired of the same stupid card games, the second is I just don't se what they can get out of the games that wouldn't be better served by me taking more time on the actual lesson stuff and then ending the class with a tip or a correction of popular yet wrong phrases they use here. Example, my last 2 or three classes on Monday instead of playing a hastily prepared game, I exlpained the difference between "Nice to meet you" and "Good to see you" If you walk around a school for more than 2 weeks you will eventually get tired of "Nice to meet you" and I had so it was time to put my foot down and actually start teaching them things to fix mistakes that they are maknig and that I know they are making. The best part was that my co-teacher was there and she didn't hate the idea and hasn't really mentioned anything about it so it must be ok with her. And that's a good thing

Wednesdays

2009-10-28T11:41:00.002+09:00

Everyone always complains about "Mondays". "Monday this, Monday that", personally I love Monadays because it means I get to see my three favorite classes at my main school. Wednesdays are the day of horrors for me not because of something anyones done or the way kids act, I have one class on Wednesday, and it's at 9am. I sit around in the office from 9:40 until 5pm in a mind-numbing state of boreodm and all I can do is look at my computer screen and do nothing. This stinks.

The Bet

2009-10-27T19:15:00.002+09:00

So here I am sitting in South Korea, 7:16pm on a Tuesday night. Listining to a group called Wonder Girls and their single "Nobody". I have 5 weeks to learn it. I have a group of kids that are gonna sing a Backstreet Boys song on the 17th of December it's "As long as you love me". The songs are about comperable in terms of duration, you will not be able to say the same thing about the level of embarassment between the two performers. I take on this challange not because it is easy but because it is difficult, I think this is a worthy cause if it will encourage the kids to speak or in this case sing more English.

Another thing probably not balanced is the actual lyrics of the songs. You may not know this but uhh the Backstreet Boys never really realeased a Korean single. Not a single word of it. Whereas every popular song here has at least one english word or sound that is familiar to English speakers in it. Add in the fact that the word is probably repeated 1000000 times in the song and it becomes slightly easier to sing. My method for learning it is to look at romanized lyrics since I still cannot really read Korean yet. The second part of this evil plan is to listen to the song over and over while reading those very same lyrics. Like I said the song is so loaded with English that if I can learn it quick enough I want to learn a second song, also I want to learn "He's singing in Korean" from The Colbert Report cause that's a classy song to sing to 5th and 6th graders

Still here

2009-10-23T17:59:00.002+09:00

66 Days in and here comes the crazy. Tomorrow is my birthday (hooray) birthdays are the one time of year when it should be all about you right? Sure why not. Well my crazy has arrived in that I made a face book group only 4 others said they would come whateve's it's just facebook not everone checks their stuff all the time plus it's in Seoul and next week is Halloween I get it. I get it i get it. So now here I sit on the eve of my birthday and I want to go to Seoul but no one else will be there tonight and I don't want to just spend a night in Seoul alone so now I don;t know what to do because the plan was go up tomorrow morning but now I really don't know what to do or when too go and I've told 2 people who still say they are going that I may go up tonight but that would be really depressing and also I can't cancel the hostel reservation I made for 5 people so now I'm going to pay for 4 people and have the brave soul who is still maybe probably coming with me and staying with me(2 others also) pay for himself cause he didn't come to pay for their way and I made the reservation but anyway I can't cancel because they don't speak english and now they won't answer the phone when I call so I just have to eat it. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together.

The Week

2009-10-14T20:02:00.003+09:00

Today was the Principals birthday. I was sitting at the computer when my co-teacher asked if I wanted to do something with them later in the afternoon and I said "sure" because I'm literally dying to do some things with the co-workers. So she said pizza, I was fine with that, sounds fun. So Koreans are big into puzzle and games and we do this thing with a maze and numbers and at the bottom exposed to you are numbers. An amount you will pay. 10000, 5000, 2000. A couple of "free" spaces and maybe even a 1000 spot or 2. I picked number 7 cause it only went to 9 and at my other school my number is 7 as in Teacher: "I to 7"; Students: "Bernard!"

So I think "finally" cause my school is so big that 1.) Too many teachers to get together, 2.) Many of the teachers live in Daejeon which is about a 20 minute ride to the east and closest side of the city and it's a pretty big city. 3.) Many of the teachers are older, married and may have kids. Like there are probably 55-80 staff and teachers I would say 90 percent of them have families. I can really only positively identify one person other than myself. I only know about her cause a week after I paid my gas bill for the first time, she had to pay her gas bill for the first time and asked my co-teacher for help. My coteacher turned to me and said "Bernard how long did it take you to pay your bill?" "5 minutes" Then she looked back at her and was just like walk to the bank it's easy. (edit: everything with banking is easy here, you know how I pay rent, I take my bank book or ATM card put it in the machine and there is a "transfer" option. Hit that select the bank put in the persons account number and the amount confirm and take a receipt. Unbelievable)

Anyway I find out that this is actually for cake and pizza for the Principal. I like the guy don't get me wrong but you know tell me what we are doing. 1) I can keep a secret, 2) I don't speak Korean and he doesn't really speak a lot of English so I couldn't tell him if I tried. Anyway, I only taught 6 classes this week at Samyang because it was big time test week. The kids took test in Math, Korean, English, Music and some other thing that my favorite student counldn't remember the English name for. She said she did good in everything except the one she couldn't remember otherwise she said it was good. I think I'm going to leave it at that because it ends with a student who gave me a thumbs up and a smile before she left.

Settled in

2009-10-11T19:57:00.004+09:00

I really do not know what to say right now. It may seem dumd but I really don't know what to talk about. School has been fun, but so has everything else. It's interesting to be here since I was writing so much before but now I'm just into it now. But alas my birthday and halloween are on the way. There are always things to complain about and I promise you that I will find them

Return of the Countdown Clock!!!!!

2009-10-08T03:00:00.001+09:00

Or the debut of the countup clock. I'm not counting down to anyhting just trying to keep in mind how many days I've been away from home as I said in the last post, blah, blah, blah read it yourself.

Make your own Countdown Clocks

Also as this is posted I'm sleeping now. Just wanted to see if those of you on the East coast are paying attention.

Sill kickin in the Honeymoon

2009-10-06T19:53:00.003+09:00

I think that it's safe to say that I'm still sitting in the "Honeymoon Phase" of my stay in Korea. They say that it is off different length for everyone and I've been here about 7 weeks and working for a month and 4 days. I think that keeping things in perspective helps to extend this period. I Hope that this extends and is such a soft time for me that I never hit the anger stage.

I would like to point out that I do miss home everyday that I'm away. I miss my family and friends, a bunch and each for different reasons. I miss that I can't go home and have my mom ask me how it was and then tell her it was ok or just "meh" when it probably really sucked. I miss my nieces and nephews even though they fight me tooth and nail on everything. My sisters, brother and brothers-in-law because they are the people who I know will always act in support from the beginning, not that mom won't just it takes her time to warm up to an idea this big.

My friends, oh how I miss thee. Jackie, I miss showing up to Jacks, sitting down and watching you and all those other weirdos sing while I keep saying "I can't find a song" or whatever lie I can think of. Phil, I miss talking about what films suck, what we should see and how we would change the movie industry. Joe, I miss you buying hot dogs from the vendors at 2:10am on Sunday mornings, you are also excellent conversation. Bob, Adam, Grant, Zach, Kaitlin, Anner anyone and everyone else I miss you. Even if I hate you I miss you, I wish I could hate you here but I have other stuff to do. So eat it jerk.

Anyway, as I may have mentioned earlier, I'm still having a good time and the job is still fun a month into it and I can cope.

Seoul, now with photos

2009-10-04T10:54:00.006+09:00

So I'm not saying that this is some sort of message or how the weekend went. This was in the I'Park Mall at Yongsan Station in Seoul. It's a fantastical place and this was a fantastical piece of "Fake Art". When I saw the sign which I didn't take a picture of I laughed. Now that I see it I think "Hmmm if you make it, how can it be fake." Then I look at this picture that I took

Good clean fun. I think not. T-rex attacks on the Metro lines in Seoul kill 350 people a month. Won't you give me money so I can stop this prehistoric menace.

So we walked around and got to take these pictures with the camera I bought this last weekend and I think they are pretty sweet. But lets look at some more amazing technology that we saw for sale. OMG!!! Pikachu N64, I'll take 5. I don't know how much it was because I knew that no matter how little they were asking I wouldn't buy it unless they or someone nearby had GoldenEye... Luckily no one did.

This is the sunset we saw as we were walking out of the electronics market we were there for a long long time. Anyway it looks nice and so here it is.

We went to N. Seoul Tower which really isn't in north Seoul. So it's very confusing. It's on top of one of the big hills in Seoul of which there are like 5-8 I guess. For the most part these hills are totally pristine. They don't build into or up them so the City has a lot of green space which is nice and I'd like to explore more. Anyway that's a wire man next to the tower. They have 5 of them there but this is the only one who is standing up the others are lying down.

This is just what all the exit signs on Korea look like. I don't know why but I imagine that this little green man is moving faster then the man in Americas exit signs.(when there is one)

This is just a section of Seoul. Those of you who have been to Seoul tower know that it's just to damn big. Like any modern city, it would have been cool if this was built a was away but it's still very neat. Also very high.

This is the Cheonggyecheon. It's a 6k(3+mile) long stream that runs through downtown Seoul. It was just rebuilt 4-5 years ago after having been destroyed and covered for transit space.

I didn't know it but they have rapids in Seoul, that's pretty extreme. It's a very peaceful place not that Seoul has the loudness and hustle and bustle of an American city but this was extra relaxing setting.

What stream would be complete without fountains. They really do add something to the environment without taking away from the natural setting that we were in. I think I'll go back and walk it all myself if I have to but one way or another I'll cover the full 6k.

OK that was Seoul this weekend. Maybe I'll have some more mountain pictures from Okcheon by next weekend's end.

Seoul Saturday-Sunday

2009-09-29T08:26:00.004+09:00

Seoul was fun as I will count this weekend trip as my first time since it was the first time I 1.Drank and 2. passed out in the nations capital. Also this trip was enlightining. I'm not gonna pull any punches we were at a place called Hooker Hill when we started the drinking as one of us is formerly a member of the Army who was stationed in Seoul for 6 years I believe. This was the place for them to go. It was quite crowded at the top at less hookery places but the middle section of the hill(note: this really is a hill and it sucks to go up or down) there was a proposterous number of prostitutes standing infront of their "Bars" where I wonder aloud now at work, "could you even get a drink at one of those places?"

It akso made me question English education in this country as one girl approached the oldest gentleman in our group took his arm and tried to coax him into some shady room in this dark ally of a street. I didn't hear her but I assume she could speak enough English to get her point across which probably puts her in the top 30% if only because she is willing to even speak it. It seems hard to get Koreans to fess up to knowing English cause they are afraid of making a mistake and looking dumb. Little do they realize that people like me come from across the planet in an attempt to teach them and in the process we look tremendously foolish for basically the whole time. I think I've seen 4 non prostitute, non English teacher Koreans speaking or at least trying to speak English. My main Pizza guy, probably mid to late 30's, the head teacher at my school, a very very nice woman in her late 50's had a very nice conversation with her even though she swears her English is terrible, it's not. My Vice Principal, he also speaks very well but we haven't spoken a lot since my first week. And the last one is the funniest but this man in Seoul we met while standing outside of a hotel trying to find a room he came up asked us where we were from was making jokes and singing songs all in English then he tried to help us find a room by talking to a couple of hotels we called he was probably also mid to late 50's like the VP. I guess the point of this is that many Koreans know functional English or at least the polite words but are like frozen solid against usuing them. Which is differnt from me cause I only know polite words, hello, goodby, here and there. So yeah

Anyway I don't have any pictures of anything of my own from Seoul cause we got cameras at the end of the trip instead of the beginning because we are idiots. So far I've just taken some pictures from here in Okcheon and I will post them soon so that everyone can see how awesome of a place this is.

Edit: I think that I'm gonig to buy pizzas for my schools because I should probably do something for them before they start to think I'm an inconsiderate jerk. Oh Kay off to teach the first class of the day!

Week's over.

2009-09-25T20:31:00.003+09:00

Oh hello there and thanks for stopping by. Please have a seat as I have amazing news.

Ready??

I GOT MY FIRST PAYCHECK TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was on time and delivered as promised. TOnight I don't celebrate because tomorrow morning bright and early I get onto a train to Seoul to meet some friends from Orientation and we gonna party!!!! I think. This trip has no mission statement unlike the trip that produced the photo of my on the side of the blog. Although I guess the first order of busisness is to find and buy the greatest digital camera of all time because I need pictures. For this and for myself. I went to my second school and the kids were a absolute dream just the way to end the week. Their level is probably a step or so behind Samyang but the kids are absolute angels. I love 'em. Next week is Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving. The actual day is Saturday but they give us Friday off as well, which is nice because I don't have to work Thursday either cause it's Founders day at Jukhyang. What better way to celebrate the founding of school then by not showing up to the wretched place at all. I love Korea!!!!!

Toughest Day Yet

2009-09-21T15:21:00.006+09:00

Today was bad and hopefully it's over. I woke up and it was raining, not bad just enough to have to use an umbrella. So I get to school early so that I can print and laminate some stuff for class and that goes well enough. I have to go buy the sheets after school cause I didn't know that you needed them and thought the machine just did it. It feels hard to explain now I'm a little tired, anyway, the first class was interesting cause it was the first time with the new lesson plan and things are never as they appear in teaching. I mean I had an idea but trying to do it is always so eye opening. It wasn't as expected but the Co-teacher was ever present. She continued to suggest changes and I continued to tweak the lesson on my on then she left and came back. She really lets me have the class when I'm teaching here, sometimes to the point of frustration. If you know me then you know I don't speak Korean. I can say 'hello', 'goodbye', 'here', 'there' and 'thank you'. Basically most of the kids probably only get half of what I'm saying, well it would be half if they would listen. This is where the troubles begin today.

After lunch I only have 2 classes. They were real bastards today. Thus I had to be a bastard right back at them. They were loud, I was louder, they continued to screw around, I made them stand up. Keep dicking around and the next person hast to stand in a corner. This just kept escalating until I had 2 kids outside of the room. At another point I had 3 girls standing in the corners. One time I had the back row stand up and put their hands on their heads and read stuff from the board. Eventually on of the entire classes had to stand up and I lectured them about shutting their faces while I talk. Other than that I'm ready to go home, think of a better way to get through tomorrow and come out swinging. These children will not get the better of me!!!!

Weapons Grade Cute

2009-09-15T19:19:00.004+09:00

Today was an important day. I finally went to Daejeon and applied for my Alien Registration Card(ARC), once I get this I will be able to get internet and tv in my home and leave the country. Not that I'm in any particular hurry to leave Korea, quite the contrary. I'm loving every moment in Okcheon, my adopted hometown of 55,000 souls. I love the look on little kids faces when they see me. It's either sheer joy or sheer terror. Then I say "Hi" and they either run away or respond in kind. Also since I went into town today I got off of work early. I was walking down the street with groceries and some high school kids actually said "Hi" as opposed to just staring or avoiding eye contact. In this town of 55,000 there are about 8 government contracted teachers here, who knows how many privates and who cares really. Anyway there are 8 of us who stick out like thumbs, 3 of us stick out like sore thumbs thanks to being black. I wouldn't want to be anyplace else on the face of the earth right now, I'm learning something about myself and everything around me everyday. The kids are tough but the job is rewarding.

I'm planning on going to Seoul for the first time with some people I met at orientation. Right now we have the 26th set as the date but it's still tentative to me cause we are supposed to get out first paycheck on the 25th. Normal Korean teachers here get paid the 17th so hopefully the worse case scenario for me is they accidentally pay me a week in advance then just say sit on it cause it too much work to take it back and then give it back one week later. So I may meet some people
on the train or in Seoul either way it'll be fun

I cannot stress this enough, most of the children here have been uncontrollably cute. Everyone of my 6th & 5th graders are are older then my oldest niece and she has nothing on them in cuteness right now(sorry Maddie). They are secret walking cute factories, producing weapons grade cute and then testing it on the undesirables in the northern provinces of Iraq while the United States silently nods because this is a fight against extremist. They are that cute.

Week 2

2009-09-14T16:18:00.003+09:00

Back at work just finished giving my own lessons. It went meh. It'll be interesting to see how the kids test on this stuff which I won't really know of until they tell me something went horribly, horribly wrong and they all failed. Or not. Anyway it's kind of a rainy day and just an overall crappy way to start the week especially after such a great weekenf. Did I mention that I'm now an Hanwha Eagles fan 4 life. Gonna have to make road trips to other cities during the rest of this season and the start of next years season. I feel good about them man, they've sucked so long they gotta be due right?

Take me out to the Ball game

2009-09-13T09:05:00.004+09:00

Went to a Hanwha Eagles game last night and if anyone comes to visit, we might have to go to one too. I had the time of my life. The tickets were free, the retired a guys number and oh yeah the home team managed to pull it all of in the bottom of the 9th. Let me fill you in on some details, the Eagles, ok they suck most of the time. I went in to the game knowing this. The KBO(Korean Baseball Organization) is an 8 team league and the Eagles are bringin' up the rears at a fat 32 games behind first and 9.5 games behind 7th. They are bad. But last night was a clash of the titans as the 6th place Seoul Heroes were in town. Fahd and I two of the new comers bought 10000 won shirts that just happened to have like the best players numbers on them so we were pumped. His guy had his own song that would play and the crowd would sing every time he came up to bat, it was pretty badass. My guy was the Babe Ruth of the team, not so much on the talent end more in the gut. Anyway we walk in and are handed towels that say "Ace 23" and we're like "that's cool" cause free stuff is where it's at.

There was a big "35" in center field and an equal sized white sheet covering up the number 23 next to it so it was pretty obvious what we were going to see. So the game starts and it's boring as hell. I'm kinda wondering how there in last place cause for the first 3 innings there is one combined hit and like 4 walks. Then the 4th inning rolls in and the Eagles pitcher losses his shit. Base hit, walk, walk, GRAND SLAM. Did not expect to see that. 2 batters later, 2 run home run. Where the hell am I? I thought they played small ball over here, but these guys are up 6 in the blink of an eye. They get out of it and I'm thinking "thank God that's over" but it's not. They give up 3 more in the top of the 5th all while remaining hit less themselves and down a staggering 9-0.

Then it happened, slap single to right, single to left Lee Bum-ho # 7 the best player on the team comes up and crushes one to the vendors area in left center field. There were like no manufactured runs here. I think maybe 2 guys feigned bunting but never put bat to ball. In the mean time they Eagles had scored like 4 more runs and all of a sudden it was 9-7 and they had a chance. Well not for a while anyway.

After the 6th inning everything stopped and we had the retirement ceremony for Ace 23 the man who led the Eagles to their only KBO Championship in 1999, they showed video and Jeong Min-Chul. He looked pretty impressive in the video and he was not so old probably close to or tipping 40 he started his career in '92. There was a long draw out ceremony and then he gave a speech and like 25 minutes later the team ran out tossed him in the air a couple of times and then put him in a BMW for a lap around the field and then the game restarted. They might as well have skipped to the 9th cause that's basically what ended up happening, there would be a chance and a strike out or ground out.

The 9th worked perfectly though we had the top of the order up. The first guy grounded weakly to second but he's the lead off man so he can fly, he beat a bad throw and made it to second base during the ensuing chaos, the second man up struck out or some ting and them it was Lee Bum-ho's time to shine, a single to left field and he did his part it was a one run game with the tying run at the plate my guy the big boy, Kim Tae-Kyun # 52. He walked which was cool but they had already put in a pinch runner for Bum-ho and so the big boy was gonna run for himself. Or jog the guy after him comes up and crushes the first pitch over the left center field wall. Pandemonium I'd never been so happy in my life. In the words of Homer, "This makes up for everything that's ever gone wrong in my life – or ever will!" pure joy. I couldn't sleep for a while after I got home from the excitement... or maybe it was the mountain dew

Daejeon... or Taejeon, if you please

2009-09-06T10:40:00.000+09:00

So a few days ago I did something stupid that I don't plan on doing alot of while I'm here. I went out drinking on a worknight and not with co-workers just with the awesome people we've met in Okcheon, other teachers. So we went to the city of Daejeon, pronounced Taejeon, for dinner at, wait for it, T.G.I. Fridays. America never tasted so good and a TGI Fridays wait staff probably never looked as good either. Anywho they took us to the main area like shit goes down at this place and even on a Thursday night it was lit up just not full of people. Went to a bar called Sponge and sat and had some drinks talked about living there and what to do. I think I'm going to lie low until I atleast get my settlement allowance or the entrance allowance which may not come until my regular pay day on the 25th which may also not come right on time because it'll be my first payday and the kinks will still have to be worked out. But when I do get either my settlement, entrance, or regular paycheck I'll probably see if anyone wants to head to Seoul, I got stuff I need to buy, like a camera for picture for you people so I can stop with the terrible descriptions of things and I can just say look pictures, leave me alone!!

School is Awesome

2009-09-05T09:34:00.003+09:00

I don't mean to shit on everyone else's EPIK experience but so far I have to say that I'm the luckiest kid in Korea right now. When they told me I was teaching in Elementary school I was a little apprehensive but I paid for the plane ticket and new the rules of the game.

When I finally got to school everyone was nice, the kids while they stared didn't lose their shit and jump me. I got some handshakes some short English conversations and many "hello's" in Korean. The teachers have been really nice, even though I'm only going to teach 6th graders at this school, I've had a chance to talk to the 3rd & 4th grade English teacher and the 5th grade English teacher, I'm going to do some after school classes with her so I'll get to see them.

On the first day after school was done and most everyone was gone or leaving I was standing on the stairs on the breezeway between the buildings and an older lady stopped and we talked for probably 10 minutes, she kept trying to tell me her English is no good but I was like "well we're having a pretty substantial conversation so you must know something". She's a 2nd grade teacher so I probably won't get to teach her kids or see her again until teacher meetings on Tuesdays.

Speaking of meetings this Tuesday, I have to introduce myself and give a short speech, which my co-teacher asked my to write so she could translate it to those who don't speak English. Then on Monday off to teach the first class of 6th graders. While I was sitting doing my eternal nothing yesterday a girl came in and stood between my co-teacher and I(we sit next to each other turned towards the center) she said something to my co-teacher and then turns to me and hands me a piece of paper all folded up. It was a note "To Teacher" I asked if she was in 6th grade, cause she's kinda small, but I should have known from how good her handwriting was and also how well put together the note was, grammatically speaking. Then I got to the end of the actual note, which was like 4-6 questions and a statement and saw that she had just written "love" over and over again. I think they may need to be taught how exactly the word works but that's for another day and I can do that with "Handsome" and "Beautiful", cause every foreigner apparently gets called those depending on the sex of the teacher they're talking to, so they use the partially correctly.

Off to the Okcheon street vendors to buy stuff!!

Day 1

2009-09-03T16:39:00.003+09:00

Here I am sitting in the main teachers/staff room here at beautiful Samyang Elementary school. This is apparently the largest Elementary school and probably school in general in Okcheon. Korean schools breakdown in a very similar way as American schools, 6 years of Elementary, 3 years of middle school and 3 years of High school, also and this is as an aside and a preemptive strike, the keyboard here at my school feels like the keys are about 3/4 scale of a regular American keyboard so for a while as long as I post from school there will probably be some errors. I just can't be this perfect when I may have a class to go to. Also I'm lucky in that I have a dedicated English teacher. She's dedicated in everysense of the word but I mean in two cases here. 1)She only teaches English and only to the 6th graders, so 11 classes worth. We heard all about people who get teachers who are homeroom teachers and they have to be jacks of all trades. It's like elementary in America where the teacher you have teaches all the core classes then there is still a seperate music teacher and an art class. 2) is she's really good at what she does so shes super prepared.

We also have our own English village which I didn't think we would get. Just becaue I figured that not everyone could be winners but so far I've heard of more people getting "villages" then not. All they are is dedicated rooms to and for English, it's hard to explain but what it does mean is the kids come to us not the other way around. It means the world to teachers who have been here and started with no english room.

The staff at the school has been nice. It's a pitty I can't remember any of their names. I'm just terrible like that. If we didn't have nametags on all the time at orientation I would have known the names of like 2 people. So I'll have to make a seating chart of the office that I'm in so that I don't go around mumbling and pretending to say these poor folks names. Also nametags should be mandatory for everyone in the world at all times. Just go ahead and tatoo it to everyones faces. Good day though

Let me show you how it's done. Korean-style

2009-08-31T21:01:00.003+09:00

No! This isn't about stealing thing a la James Carville on that one episode of 30 Rock. This is about laundry. Right now it's about 9pm and I'm doing laundry. What makes Korean style so different you ask. The washer and dryer are on the roof of the hotel and they have given me access to them.

I don't know how long I will be here but if it is much past this week I will make sure to bring my co-teacher to the roof of the building and kindly ask, "how does this thing work?" cause right now I'm flying, and washing, my underwear and only my underwear cause I can't read Korean and I don't want everything to run together in some sort of cultural disaster of, well for lack of a better term, epik, proportions. I don't even know what I would do if my clothes were lost or damaged I probably have enough money to make it to the first paycheck but spending most of that on clothes would be bad. So here I am sitting on the 5 floor of the Okcheon Tourist Hotel with my dirty underwear in a strange machine with writing on it that is alien to me on the roof, spinning, spinning always spinning towards the future.

So Much!!!

2009-08-30T20:43:00.003+09:00

So my Supervisor is pretty awesome. A couple days ago he dropped this gem on us during an informal get together; "Last night we had a party, I drank, (pause for dramatic effect) sooo much."

That has pretty buch been the oreder of the past couple of days for us not in the actual drinking part of it but in the joke department. We are having a good time as the 3 new foreigners in town but I'd like to break out and know my co-workers a bit more. I know of other people whoo have met the staff and some who have already been out with theirs but I still have only met my co-teacher, who is awesome, and taken a 45 minute ride from the Capital of the Province to this ciry. Just to give you a little background I'm one of those teachers who lucked out super hard. My Co-teacher speaks immpecable English, she got her Master's from a school in London and she's just perfect in everyway.

Anyway I've been past my main school twice once in a car and once walking the cool thing about walking there is I believe that I can basically take the river walk and get to it from where I'm at now which is the Okcheon Tourist Hotel, quaint little place, probably already said this but they serve us breakfast, lunch and dinner. We requested breakfast be western and lunch and dinner be Korean. Western breakfast means eggs, either scrambled or over easy, salad and french fries with something else. It's pretty darn tasty and hits the spot. Really no complaints here other than no laundry mat and the fact that I can't go to work tomorrow. I'd love to start but we are still in quarantine until this Wednesday then they let all the Chungbuk teachers out of the cage.

I have arrived!!

2009-08-28T18:32:00.002+09:00

Hey everybody what's up?

It is a beautiful afternoon here in Okcheon, South Korea where I will be spending the next year of my life at least. I literally had the fastest 2 hour bus ride of all time getting to the Provincal capital, Cheonju, then met my awesome Co-teacher. She's great speaks near perfect english if you ask me couldn't ask for a nicer more helpful lady. Anyway we got a couple of things going on, first of all me and the two other english teachers who are just arriving are in quarantine, until September 3 just like the other teachers in our Province. Unlike them (possibly) we are all staying in a hotel as our permanent residence is not yet ready. So here I sit in front of a flatscreen TV that's probably 3.5-4ft wide with internet anc cable hooked up to it, just a typing away, tippity tap, tappity tip. So yeah dinner is here at 7:30 then I think I'll turn in early-ish tonight just because I've spent all day in black slacks and a tie.

Unfaithful

2009-08-26T13:25:00.003+09:00

So if you've been keeping up you know that I haven't been updating much. Now that's not because I don't like writing anymore or cause I all of a sudden fell off the faace of the earth. It's just that for right now I'm surrounded by hundreds of others in the same situation as me.

New country, new job, new field. Not alot of people have taught and I'm among those masses. Basically we've had class at a rate of 4 a day from 9am until 5:30 with 30 minutes in between and classes and lunch at 12:30. After that we have dinner at ~5:30 and then optional Korean survival classes, which I took every single one of, from 7pm-8pm followed by free time. Most people have spent their free time taking advantage of no open container laws here in South Korea and buying from the 7-11 or GS 25 mart and drinking on the patios they have set up. It's all very nice.

Last night I went to downtown Jeonju's shopping district, it's basically a brightly lit 4 block by 4block area with everything you could imagine for stores. I even saw a FUBU.

Anyway back to the title of this entry. I have been unfaithful to my blog and once I am settled into my apartment next week and hopefully have internet set up shortly thereafter I will be back into blogging beast mode. I will try to keep this updated as often as possible until then but I can make no garuntees since tomorrow is the big day when we meet with our Provincial Offices of Education(POE).

The past few days

2009-08-24T13:17:00.002+09:00

Wow, time flies in a very strange when you are spending most of your time trying to get acclimated to a new place and just settled in in general. I'm still at the Orientation site and we have a few more days to go but it's still been really fun. Yesterday(Sunday) we took a field trip to a temple and then to historical village both located in the city of Jeonju. The Buddhist temple was amazing and situated in a really amazing valley. There was an amazing 11 meter tall gold statue of Buddah, and I once cared about converting that but now not so much.

All in all it was a good day I think I'll walk down to the store and see if I can pick up som hangers

By the way I've arrived

2009-08-21T08:36:00.003+09:00

So I'm in Korea now and finally feel good enough to pound out a post. Not that I was sick before just really, really tired. I touched down at Incheon International Airport at 7:30pm and didn't get to the Orientation site at Jeonju University until 2:15am. Not to say that the bus ride and interactions I've had so far were a nuisance, quite the opposite I've loved every minute of it. The staff has been just as good giving us everything we ask for.

I was (am) just having some trouble shaking this jet lag. Be cause of the way we flew to get here, west over Canada and the Pacific the sun was up and bright the entire trip from 7-7:30am on the way to Greensboro to catch the first flight up until 7:30-8pm here in Korea so I was suffering from sleep deprivation. Slept 90minutes the first night here and this past night(it's 8:45 am as I type) I slept from 7:45pm -4am then tried to call home back to be at 5 and slept all the way up til 7am. I feel much better and like I'm coming around to the time change. Oh well Off to class

The Final Countdown is on

2009-08-18T00:05:00.003+09:00

This is it. I'm less than a day away. I know that odds are on the other side of the planet, and I'm talking Australia and New Zealand who are leaving for a much shorter flight and those who have already touched down. They don't have to worry about the jet lag. For them it's like going from Brazil to Toronto and probably not even as big of a weather change.

As for the weather I've been following it everyday from all my points of departure, Greensboro, Washington, D.C. and Tokyo. It's pretty solid Tokyo has a 40% chance of rain, thats the most of any location. As for the trajectory of the flight I don't know anything about speed but the great circle route says we should fly almost due north from Washington, D.C.. Most of the time will be spent over Canada, Alaska and Non-Soviet Russia so little blue or black seas to watch. I don't know when I'll post again cause I'm probably gonna turn in early and obviously wake up very early to get to the airport at about 2-2.5 hours before the flight.

It's BACON!!!

2009-08-16T08:29:00.004+09:00

So Saturday is there and Adam, Bob, Grant and Zach had left to do their own things. Phil, Joe, Kaitlin, Joe's girlfriend and I ho to the pool and drink more beers starting probably around 2 in the afternoon until Joe has to go to work, which sucks cause we decide to go to a Chinese buffet and possibly engage in a eating contest, if there was ever horse for a course it was Joe for eating contest with us as his competitors. He eats us alive, then to death.

So Bob gets back from meeting with another friend and we stay at the pool until 3:30ish. Adam, Grant and Zach arrive and shortly thereafter we departed. Dinner was good, if nothing else it was another notch in the belt for gluttony. Nothing special except the Ice Cream machine which somehow managed to get the best of 4 adults, all of whom graduated from College. The only problem was that it was spewing out the ice cream "too fast" not that I know what that is when it comes to ice cream. We left and went back to their apartment and well went drinking again. Nothing memorable but Bob spilling part of my first beer on me. We went to a pizza place that serves beer and pizza the latter until 3am.

Oh by the way to end this beautiful entry I must note that Phil didn't make it out cause he didn't nap directly after returning from buffet like all us other smart kids. Remember kids if you're gonna party all weekend you have to manage your time correctly

3 Days

2009-08-15T23:28:00.006+09:00

I've got 3 full days left in the Country so I better get on tasks that I've been meaning to do. Look at this amazing car.

You may be familiar with this car if you've seen this piece of cinematic glory, I consider this the greatest commercial in the history of the world starring 2 professional athletes. At any time where I maybe homesick I will watch this and all will be well. Also the packing is going good. I think. I was packed but then basically had to unpack for the trip to Raleigh and High Point. So I go back washed all those clothes and got an email that basically said "don't plan on taking both of your suitcases to Orientation and also you'll probably only need one pair of formal clothes. Which reminds me that I need to get out my dress shoes still. Either way I had my clothes separated into casual and formal/semi-formal. Now I know to mash'em up which is what I'll do right after my shower I promise!!!!

Countdown Clock: Because at this point I've lost track of how many days are left

2009-08-13T01:51:00.002+09:00

Make your own Countdown Clocks

1/2 Pound of Bacon, Please

2009-08-13T00:51:00.005+09:00

So I just had the funnest and most body damaging weekend in my life. I showed up in Raleigh and the festivities basically commenced immediately. Met Bob off campus and went to Harris Teeter. Then to Phil & Joe's place. They were both at work but left a key. Actually they both left keys, but Phil hid his so well that when Joe left he didn't see it. Me and Bob started drinking at around 4:15 and Joe was back within about an hour. I'm not gonna lie, this was an awesome weekend and it was a Friday to Monday event. Problem is that this would be the most epic post ever so I'll just break down the highlights:

Me and Bob watched this ridiculous movie called Lucker the Necrophagous about a man who murders and rapes women... in that order after about 4 weeks, needless to say that was the joke of the weekend.

Later we went to eat at a place called Chubbies had some tacos they were good went out and drank a little. We met Adam, Grant, Zach and some people he knows at Lucky B's and the Hibernian. Good night.

The next day we woke up at 9 or 9:30 we are not late sleepers and so we sat around and watched TV, crappy TV. Because they have so many movies and the internet is so awesome Phil and Joe don't have cable. Either way there is still a show we all enjoy watching that pits local High School age students in a trivia game. Always a good time.

Alright another post will entertain you with more stories of horrible eating habits, if only they are for 4 days

The Weekend and days ahead

2009-08-07T11:31:00.002+09:00

This weekend marks the first weekend that I have had off to do all that I want in like 4 months. There probably aren't going to be a ton of posts because I'll be in Raleigh for one last weekend of debauchery with friends. I will leave Raleigh Monday morning and go to High Point to spend the majority of the week with my sister and her family.
On next Thursday I will return to Charlotte after helping my brother move in to his dorm. Once I'm back home next Thursday, since it's looking like I won't be going out tonight, I'll go do Karaoke one last time here before doing who knows what with the Mother and other Sister and her baby scene here earlier, you know ninja baby, before either going up to Greensboro on the 17th or getting up early and making the 90-105 minute drive on the 18th and pay the ridiculous baggage fees for the for possibly three bags!!!!!

Carowinds Day part the Third

2009-08-06T21:35:00.014+09:00

So I hadn't really thought this through but for some reason I thought that Jackie would like the chance to ride rides alone like the weirdos that work at Carowinds do once they get off of work. Alas it's not that she was against it as much as she said well I don't mind going along and also we ate at Cici's Pizza while we were out. I don't even think I had ever eaten at Cici's before but if I did I had vaguely bad memories of it. But this one was good, I had like like 5 or six little slices of Italian meat pizza and then a slice of sausage and pepperoni . There was some deal I got for being a Carowinds employee that I didn't know but I had to take out my ID card to get to the debit card and the guy saw that. I'll take it. Needless to say like just about every other contest we had on the day (barring the hotness contest which I'm willing to concede) I ate the most pizza. Then we hustled to uptown Charlotte then over to my moms job, we picked her up, stopped at the grocery store and dropped her off at home to continue on our merry way.

Once we got back we made the mistake of going on Rip Roarin' Rapids a ride that boasts "Caution: You will get wet, you may get soaked". Whelp I figure there's not that great of a chance so we get on which we had decided to do before we left, and of the six people on the raft I got it the worst. Jackie got it the second worst and those other 4 didn't get anything. Worst part was I was the only person wearing socks and shoes, damn you hippies, but I did clip her flip flops a couple of times getting into and out of rides.

After taking the time to squeeze the water out of my socks and shirt we went and got our faces painted. I was only willing to get as much done as Jackie who was going first, if she got something that was full faced I would have as well but then she got this:

Blows the mind huh, only problem is the T-Rex looks more depressed then fierce or at least just really unsure about her future. It's pink so I think it's safe to assume it's a lady. As for me it was a little more difficult to choose one. There was a baseball but that was just to much as far as how much face is takin up by it, like I said Jackie got the T-Rex so I was looking for something that could take up a similar amount of space. All I really had going for me was this:

As you can see there are unfortunately some downsides to being black, mostly in the face/body painting arena, this isn't the first time I've been disappointed. Settle in kids story time. Back in my Freshman year at State me and the guys I lived with on my floor decided to get painted up for a Thursday night game against Clemson. Just about everyone else was white or light skinned and we wanted to spell out "Go NC State Wolfpack", lets just say we had to pick up two random guys to finish but we got it done. Anyway, once we slapped the paint on me I quickly noticed that I was turning orange not red, did I mention we were playing Clemson, you should google Clemson Tigers and see what comes up. Anyway I know that most likely this Dragon of awesome power would not show up all that well and he didn't. You can't even see the fire he was spitting over my left eye.

So anyway we go strutting off from the face painting lady and the stares come but really who cares, those losers wouldn't know cool if it slapped them in the face. We went back towards Vortex but we didn't ride instead we went to Ricochet. I had only ridden it once before and I think that twice is enough. It's not high or steep, it's built for kids but it has sharp turns and pretty good drops but yeah it is exciting just not for me or apparently Jackie either. Then we went to the Hurler again it was rougher this time. I actually got thrown around this time and down the first hill and around the turn I may have hit Jackie, with my elbow, to the back of her neck. We basically doubled back and rode everything else again.

In Scooby's Haunted Mansion, I won again. But it was closer, from the back seat I was much worse or Jackie was just that much better. I was more equal so I think sitting in the front makes a difference. We rode T-Road again 2 times in a row then went up to After Burn again where my friend Derek was working, Here's Derek and Me:

I guess I should say "was working" I was shocked and saddened to learn that basically on the next day he was fired along with someone else I worked with. But it was good to see Derek cause since he was working at a different ride I didn't see him basically at all. We rode After Burn probably 3-4 times until someone was in our line then we skidaddle back to Kiddie land, which I have to admit as a guest in the park it is surprisingly fun.

We went and got some water and waited in line for the Phantom Flyers and took this picture:

It's sad T-Rex getting a drink of water and I'm not quite sure whats wrong with Jackie... constipation??..concentration?? I can never get a full read on the girl. The Flyers seemed, surprisingly enough, just as dangerous and therefore fun as the first time. Then we rode the Merry-Go-Round.

I jumped on a black stallion that was named (by me) "Peanut" because it was awesome and it happened to be next to the one Jackie was on.

Good times were had by all at the merry go round but the best ride for taking pictures on while going was the Flying Dutchmans revenge Featuring a whole lot of us. For the sake of brevity,(brevity? you've had two complete posts and now this monstrosity of a post why stop now) I'm just gonna dump the rest of the pics at the end of the post. Anyway by this time in the day it was 7:30 and we wanted to go out at least riding semi grown up rides so we jumped on Thunder Road for another 2-3 trips then the Yo-yo a swing like ride that flings you around, before wrapping up on the Bumper Cars. I was called back into service to push the cars and end the day then we left bought a cork gun, then I dropped Jackie off at her car and we went our separate ways. I went home and it was probably at least an hour until I washed my face and the dragon was gone. After that straight to bed. Good Day.

Also it's slightly hard to tell and I didn't know it until Jackie told me but we were in fact both wearing orange shirts. A fact I didn't know until we had this conversation.
Jackie: "I'm glad I got the memo to wear orange"
Bernard: "Who else has a bunch of orange on?"
Jackie: "Uhh, you do"
Bernard looks at shirt
Bernard: "I guess I do."

Edging closer to the cliff

2009-08-06T21:35:00.000+09:00

As I come back to the site I met eyes with the Countdown Clock in the last post. When I wake up tomorrow it will be closer to ticking under 12 full days and as far as I'm concerned once you roll over that's all that all. I'm at 12 days 16 hours now but I just see the 12 days. When I begin my little whirlwind state wide tour this Friday, I will be closer to a single week than 2 in my eyes.

So, as I stride closer to the edge nerves start to settle in.

"Am I sure I want to do this?"

"Do I have the money(to last the first month)?"

"How will I survive with almost no one to talk to face to face?"

These questions and more will be answered in 3 weeks, when I take my place in beautiful Chungbuk-do.

Return of the Clock of Count

2009-08-05T23:30:00.000+09:00

Hey everybody, today I'm taking a break from story time to update the non just fun portion of my life. In work news I'm done. I told Carowinds that I would be done today but on the schedule they have me off today and on tomorrow I will not work tomorrow I let them know they said bye-bye, but I did buy a couple pairs of Khakis for a total of $30 so that's pretty solid. Anyway on to the Countdown Clock.

Make your own Countdown Clocks

Also the 10:30 post is done. I'm home and after this they may come fast and furiously or at a trickle.

The 10:30 Post #16: Carowinds featuring no good pictures part 2!!

2009-08-04T23:30:00.000+09:00

Hello again, I think I'll just pick up from where I left off which is now walking towards the area with Thunder Road and After Burn (formerly Top Gun). We considered playing a game cause they had those huge prizes for climbing the rope ladder but I was just not feeling it. Plus it was drizzly and overcast, which is better for keeping the people away and lines short is just a downer until you start moving at great speeds and then that rain is smacking you in the face at 40-50mph. Anyway we moseyed on over to Scooby's Haunted Mansion and went front seat, back seat and play against each other. I crushed Jackie. It wasn't even close but fun. My right hand was over 1000 points and the left was at like 500. Jackie said her guns didn't work so we decided on a rematch later in the day where we would flip and she would sit in the front seat.

So we left and I was fist pumping and we went over towards the bumper cars and rode those good time hit a lot of other people not just Jackie, talked to some of the people that I work with then went up and rode Thunder Road. I kept trying to tell Jackie that the Silver side is way rougher then the Hurler, which it is. Unfortunately only the Blue side was open so no racing and no checking out the roughest ride in the park. We still got a car that was plenty rough and she was impressed. She was upset that one of the trains didn't go backwards but I think it was still fun, I mean I like it so I always have a good time. After we rode that we went to After Burn which she swore was now her favorite ride since they changed Thunder Road and we rode that. It's always fun but I don't know why but it felt faster or maybe it was the constant humidity that made riding it, a sit down dangle your feet style coaster, like pushing through cotton the entire ride it just felt heavy. So that was an interesting sensation.

We ventured to Kiddie Land afterwords and rode something that I had wanted to ride for a while, the Phantom Flyers, these are hard to explain so I'll just show a picture.

This is a bad kind of picture from later in the day when we went back. The first time we rode in the same little car because, we were standing in line behind a group of four and the person working was like "I got 2" I was like sweet and we walked out and there was only one left. So we jumped in. We got high, really really high. We were over the station like above it, the wires were acting a little crazy and there were trees that Jackie wished that they would have cut cause let's be honest they were kind of close. Needless to say I don't really think the ride was built to take a relatively large male or the equivalent of that 2 pygmy adults that weigh like a combined 270. It was a pretty scary ride for adults, probably the funnest one in the park. Plus Jackie admitted to being scared and I was the one driving so I scared her. Good times, we rode the Fairly Odd coaster and Runaway Reptar and Jackie got a Frozen Lemonadem which is apparently her favorite food/drink ever and we rode Sky Tower and then went to lunch at Cici's Pizza. This was the beginning of our mid day break at around 2:40 that included a trip into Charlotte to pick my mom up from work.

The 10:30 Post #15: Carowinds, the one without the pictures

2009-08-03T23:30:00.001+09:00

Went to Carowinds yesterday and it was da' bomb as the kids say. I had one extra ticket so Jackie tagged along this post will cover the first half of the day which as the post title implicates, has no pictures.

So we had agreed to arrive at 10:30, a half hour after the park opens. We were to meet at a gas station and then go to a park and ride. Jackie was gonna jump in my car cause parking is $10 and I don't have to pay so you get the point. Needless to say as tradition goes Jackie was late only 10 minutes though, so I went and sat in the Park and ride and she called and eventually we were there. We get in the park and the first thing we ride is the "Vortex" we had considered riding "Nighthawk" but the line was already pretty long and no other rides had lines so we skipped that for the day, which is fine cause I've ridden it once and it wasn't that great. It's a laying down roller coaster so everyone thinks it's the shit but not really. Vortex was however no line and totally awesome. Very fun as always and a good way to start the day. After that we headed to the far end of the park that I kind of imagined we wouldn't spend a lot of time in, the side with the "Hurler", it's the other wooden roller coaster in the park and it was fun. Jackie commented on how much it beats you up and I said the silver side of thunder road is rougher which it is, not to say the Hurler was slow and a easy ride but Silver side of Thunder Road is quicker and rougher.

After that we strolled towards the center and I asked if she wanted to ride "Scream Weaver", which is like a ferris wheel on steroids. She declined so we went on "Carolina Cyclone", big blue if you will, two loops and two other inversions in a horizontal helix setup very fun a good time was had by all. Then we went to "Goldrusher" the oldest coaster in the park and Jackie was excited because the driver was semi-enthused and was saying "choo-choo" as the train was leaving the station for the train before us. He did it when they came back in and I thought it was pretty funny cause as someone who does that I could feel the resignation and sarcasm in his voice. He did it for us and again a good time was had by all.

Then we went to the new ride "Carolina Cobra", Jackie was bummed that Thunder Road doesn't go backwards anymore but I tried to convince it was just as good. As we watched it a walking up to it she was kind of impressed and it was actually funnier as we were on it at the top cause we rode at the back, you're probably up around 130ft before they drop you back through the station and she was kind of giddy. It was entertaining since I'm now immune to roller coasters and don't scream unless I want to. So to see the look in her face and eyes at the top and then again at the end was priceless. This was also the first coaster with a camera that was open so we got to see our pictures for the first time while somewhat panicked. Hee-Larious friend.

You know what this is a lot longer then I thought it was going to be so it's probably going to be 3 posts, two without pictures and the final with cause everything that has happened has happened before around Noon or 1pm and we were there for quite a few hours after that with a trip to uptown Charlotte mixed in.

The 10:30 Post #14: Carowinds

2009-08-02T23:30:00.000+09:00

Today I go to Carowinds with my good friend Jackie, Hi Jackie, you should be reading. Anyway fun long day today gonna get out and ride on. That's the Carowinds catch phrase this year Ride on. Very original, I know. Anyway we're gonna ride as many ride and as often as we can hopefully short lines since it's a very overcast day with chances of rain all day. Ta-ta

Th 10:30 Post #13: The one I thought I wouldn't write in time

2009-08-01T23:30:00.001+09:00

What up you?!?! This is a pleasant surprise for me cause I had no plans of waking up before 10:30 this morning to write because when I woke up to take my Mom to work I didn't think I'd make it back from her job awake. But here I am woke up at 10 so I can beat the imaginary deadline that I put in my head.

Anyway here is what I came to post about today, Photography. I kind of have a background in photography except for me it's the moving type so really I have none. But I doubt I'm gonna buy a really nice video camera and make short movies especially when they would mostly be of the landscape. So I'll try to save up a couple of paychecks and boom get a decent to nice digital camera while I'm there to take awesome pictures and share with you all.

Happy August!

The 10:30 Post #12

2009-07-31T23:30:00.000+09:00

Another week has been knocked off the calender and I'm just that much closer to getting away. It's not like life here sucks but lets be real, I'm probably gonna work some non-spectacular job for the rest of my life when this little segment is over, now I'm not resigned to a dull life after this, I'm gonna try and live an awesome life full of adventure when I get beck but it just doesn't seem likely.

Radio stations are being combined and consolidated all over the country so the opportunities to get in are much, much harder then say 5 to 10 years ago. But I wouldn't trade this opportunity for a million dollars, now for a million dollars a year for the rest of my life sure, but a one time payment of million dollars no way. You know what would be awesome to get a radio job in Korea at an English station because if I learned anything from College it's that I have almost no chance of learning a 3rd language, I'd have to make space in my mind, like a lot of space

The 10:30 Post #11: Friends

2009-07-30T23:30:00.000+09:00

I don't really want to leave my friends but I suppose to expand my world it necessary, and not just for me but for everyone. If you don't travel alone once to a strange land whats the point in living. More on this subject later

The 10:30 Post #10: A series of reasons I'd rather not go

2009-07-29T23:30:00.000+09:00

Now with these two I'm sure your wondering what's going on. No I'm not particularly miss the hardwood floors, although I did install them with my brother-in-law. But nay these pictures were taken by my nephew last night when he was supposed to be asleep but he wouldn't go down.

He is like a baby ninja when it comes to actually getting a picture of him. Very shifty and not often in one spot for very long and you basically have to grab him and hold him in one spot to get a clear picture of him

This is the best I've got so far but I hope to have some more with more travels on the horizon.(Around the state obviously)

Countdown Clock

2009-07-29T09:02:00.000+09:00

Make your own Countdown Clocks

The 10:30 Post #9: Miscellaneous

2009-07-28T23:30:00.000+09:00

Today is a day off from work and so I think I'll do some reflecting. I'm ready to leave my job here and take the time off to hang out in Raleigh, High Point and then back here in Charlotte. No offense but when you take a job obviously you don't usually get to choose who you work with so from time to time you can have problems amongst co-workers. We are there people, it only took 4 months for me to hate nearly everyone. So that is that.

I picked out my seats on my three flights to Korea over the past couple of weeks because there was a problem where I could pick one but then wouldn't be able to see the other two plane layouts. But as I said it is done now I'm going to be sitting in row 7 on the little first plane up to D.C.. Then in two big planes 777's I've got seats deep in the Economy class on the very long flight from D.C. to Tokyo, row 38 window seat so that I may look down over the country from sea to shining sea, and what the hell over Canada, Alaska and Russia. I've never been to Alaska so I'll just go ahead and count this flight as a trip to Alaska. I wonder if I'll be allowed to take a couple shots at some moose on the way by.

The 10:30 Post #8: After Korea

2009-07-27T23:30:00.002+09:00

I do not know how long I plan on being in Korea right now it's one year and play it by ear. But I do know what I want to do afterwards, I would like to take a trip to France and bike around the south of the country and, this is key, ride up Mont Ventoux and Alpe d'Huez, those two oh so famous mountain top finishes of Le Tour. I know, I know, why am I so fixated with the event it's just some dudes riding bikes around France. But I would say it's much more than just that. Hopefully while in Korea I can do a little cross training of cycling and running. The good thing about this is I already know I'm a better runner than Lance Armstrong was, and he's completed a marathon since this footage.

I tried to post the video but the thing is being stupid so click here it's funny cause it's an athlete SNL not a crappy actor one, why are the athletes always the best. Oh well off to watch the Peyton Manning United Way ad.

I think we are still currently about equal in terms of swimming ability

The 10:30 Post #7: Work & Money

2009-07-26T23:30:00.000+09:00

Alright, I got another day off unexpectedly, although this was supposed to be a day off anyway I really wanted to work since I really like money and I'll need all I can to make it that first month in Korea. I don't know what I'll do that first month in Korea but I can promise you that it will be cheap. I may not have internet in my apartment or even a cell phone for the first month.

That will be a good thing as it will force me to one of two things that I will need quite a bit of in the first few weeks sleep and exercise. The exercise is because my doctor told me to start doing it and because I'm too lazy to start now. The sleep is obviously for the jet lag that I will have to overcome. Either way now I have about 6 days of working left then I'll take off to Raleigh for a weekend of parting with friends and shopping because that's the tax free weekend and I need khakis and they are expensive so the best time to buy stuff is when there is no tax. Duh!

The 10:30 Post #6: The Government

2009-07-25T23:30:00.001+09:00

The Republic of Korea is a Semi-Presidential Republic. Don't ask me what that means I only took an American Government, but from what I gleaned from wikipedia it's a fancy way of saying they have basically all the parts of republic governments. President? Check. Prime Minister? Check. An orderly and deliberative National Assembly. Well you be the judge, look, I'm not saying that I'm not worried about this but the only time I see this kind of stuff if in other countries or in cartoons when a chair is thrown. I wholly look forward to going to my first National Assembly Brawl. Why can't our politicians be this awesome!!

The 10:30 Post #5: Packing

2009-07-24T23:30:00.000+09:00

So back to it. As I mentioned before I went out and bought a new 5 piece luggage set for this trip. What I may not have mentioned is that I've never made a trip like this before. The biggest thing I've done as far as moves is to and from College. Obviously the only limitation there is how many cars you can take. It took one to get me moved in and like 3 to move me back home so I had collected some stuff.

This is obviously different though since I'm moving around the world and by the way I'm gonna have to figure out a way to pack a ton of clothes into those two large bags find the right sequence of pants and shirts to pack into the garment bag then stuff like deodorant, toothpaste, etc. to put into the duffel bag. It's going to be tough but I've got over 3 weeks left and think I can whittle it down then I'll just have to pack the new clothe I buy on the weekend of the 7th-9th of August(Tax Free Weekend, oh another topic

The 10:30 Post #4: Orientation

2009-07-23T23:30:00.000+09:00

Hey-ho. This post isn't about my orientation it's about my little brothers College orientation. As a bit of full disclosure although this is the 10:30 Post it is being written at 10:50 pm on Wednesday.

My Mother & I are heading up to Greensboro to take my brother to his orientation. He's going to A&T so we are just going to check it out. In other news I got some good news from my recruiters Footprints, well it's not so much good news as much as it is just something else for me to read. Also they adjusted how much they recommended that we bring from $1000-$1500, down to $500-800, which is much more doable. Happy times are here again people.

The 10:30 Post #3: Luggage

2009-07-22T23:30:00.003+09:00

So last night I went out shopping for luggage because I have none of my own, I started out on the internet and looked at places like Macys, JC Penney's and Dillards at the local mall for me, Northlake. Needless to say they had some pretty trendy and high class stuff... for ridiculous prices. Lets say I wanted to buy 3 bags a big 28" bag, a 19-25" bag and then a duffel for carrying on. I probably could have spent $250-300. That's more than a third of my plane ticket. I would have to an extra two weeks to make that (more now that they are shutting down the hours). There were some pretty trendy looking brands like Swiss Army, American Tourister and other ones.

Whelp, I left the mall and went to Wal-Mart because they have everything for cheap. I like cheap. After getting some help finding the luggage aisle I saw something that looked kind of frail and cheap I think it was called "Protege" and they had like a 3 piece set for $40, that's pretty sweet but once again I don't want my luggage to fall apart. Next in line was American Tourister which I was surprised to see but happy. Very, very happy. So they had a couple of things, a four piece set with the star being a 25 inch suitcase with "spinner" wheels for $74. Then there was a 5 piece set with the center piece being a 28 inch case with regular wheels and the second case is a 24incher. $94. Winner! I consulted home base then promptly purchased it.

Next up: Packing for a year long trip a Month in advance of leaving

The 10:30 Post #2: Of Flags and Sports

2009-07-21T23:30:00.004+09:00

One of my favorite things in the worlds is sports. As someone who wishes to be a sports broadcaster, I love to listen to guys talk and converse about the games and events they are calling so I will probably be bitterly disappointed for a while until I can pick up some simple sports Korean.

One of my favorite sporting events all around for commentators and the event itself is closing in on the finish, the Tour de France. There's just something about getting up relatively early and sitting in my pajamas and watching men do ridiculous amounts of exercise to get someplace they could get to in cars 1000 times easier, but I digress. It is still one of the worlds great test of man weather your doping or not, obviously more of a test if your not. But during the time I'll be in Korea my whole sporting world will be turned upside down. How will I watch live sports in America from Korea. The answer pretty early in the morning and possibly over the internet. But one other thing I've seen is a lot of Australia in this tour not because they are winning but because they are crazy. I mean if your gonna fly halfway around the world do it for a winner people. Plus lets be real, if America has an Olympic rival now it's probably them, well at least Summer Olympics, they suck at winter sports. But back to the point I think that the flag that I've seen a ton in France should be adopted as the new national flag

If this doesn't scream Australia I don't know what does, the only thing that would fit better is if there was a drunk Australian rules football fan fighting the kangaroo. Now that I would pay to see.

Quitting day change

2009-07-21T10:56:00.002+09:00

Just got back from work and they put up a new schedule for the rest of the month. Funny thing we didn't have a schedule until the end of the first week and now we have a revised one that, wait for it, cuts down on everyones hours for the rest of the month. We used to get just 2 days off a week and now we get a third day off. Hurrah! or not. It also means that I'll be quitting one day sooner than planned because they gave me Thursdays off now. I can deal with that because it's just one day closer. One less day and not just one day but two more days because it's atleast two extra days and could be more depending on what the do for the first 5 days of August but that's it for tonight I'll chat you up in the morning with the 10:30 post

The 10:30 Post #1

2009-07-20T23:25:00.000+09:00

So the 10:30 posts begin in earnest here. It isn't even 10am today and I already feel like I've done quite a bit. I took Mom to work this morning then drove across town to get the second part of my physical done, the blood work. I spent all day Sunday drinking bottle after bottle of water to pump myself up and swell the veins in my arm for this one and it worked. Well more like I got the really good nurse this time. I told her about how they tried 3 different veins and kept moving around in my arm last time and she was like "I don't do that, I find a vein and I don't move". Lo and behold she did it and even made it nearly painless. Also while I was there I had them look at my ear because since I last visited them I couldn't hear anything with my left ear. Turns out it was just earwax on my ear drum so they flushed out my ear and sent me on my way. I can hear everything now it is glorious. Gross yes but you don't know how many times I thought I was sick or catching something that would derail the trip just about a month outside of it happening

As far as thoughts on South Korea and the whole program go all I can say is I wish that there was a forum or just online community like ITIL for EPIK teachers and people because the visceral negativity that oozes from Dave's ESL Cafe is so tough there isn't like one troll it's more like everyones either a troll or a newbie. ITIL is much more comfy.

In other news today is the 40th Anniversary of Man landing on the Moon. Why haven't we gone back or further? I don't know but we should look into that.

The FInal Countdown

2009-07-19T22:18:00.001+09:00

Make your own Countdown Clocks

Suprise!!

2009-07-19T21:37:00.003+09:00

I was gonna start posting everyday at around 10:30am starting yesterday one month or 31 days from when I leave North Carolina, the East Coast, and the United States to head to South Korea. Then it happened as I was sitting around waiting for work to start my Brother-in-law called and said we're at the hospital. My Sister was having labor times and it was time for the baby to come. This conversation was at 8:34 am. Slightly more than 2 hours later got another call back and the she was here. Sydney Jean. Or I assume they choose that spelling of Sydney since that seems more popular. And even though I wasn't there through the magic of technology I know what the little one looks like a bundle of joy.

So I have another little one that I will be able to watch and play with. Although this one will be for a much shorter amount of time(try 3 days) I will treasure the time and take a ton of pictures since I won't see her for a year. But yes now there will be 30 consecutive days of writing until I get on that plane and fly away. I plan on talking about everything. Emailing people for help, the contract, shopping for luggage or using the same old stuff, and just the nerves that I'm feeling which is high but not much on the "I don't want to go" side but are very high on the "God I wish it would be closer so I could quit my stupid job and just go party in Raleigh for a few days". Also there maybe a few days in August that I don't post. No need to worry it's all part of the plan.

Super In!!!!

2009-07-11T00:41:00.004+09:00

HAHAHA!!! Yes There is nothing in the way but time now. I got a note from the Post Office yesterday after work that said they had tried to deliver my Passport yesterday but no one was here (I had to take the bus in so I left around 10:50am 40 minutes before they came by). So I went to the Post Office this morning at 8:30 and picked it u. There was still a bit of apprehension but I ripped the envelope open and there it was on page 9 my Visa from the Consulate. What did I do after that? Went out and spent $715 on a plane ticket to Korea. I go from Greensboro to Washington D.C. to Tokyo to Seoul. I was a little shaky about taking this because I wasn't quite sure what kind of plane I was going to be on for the first leg but I looked it up and it isn't a turbo prop or anything super old so I felt better. Other than that big planes and long flights at least the middle part. I would much rather have the one really long segment to take me all the way to Asia then having to cross the continent then cross the Pacific Ocean then stop in someplace not Seoul. I guess what I'm trying to say is two stops is better than three.

I'm in!!!! Giggity Giggity Giggity!!!!

2009-06-27T00:47:00.003+09:00

Yesterday morning it finally arrived!!! My EPIK contract to teach is here and now all I have to do is apply for my visa. As I sit and type I am 6 and 1/2 weeks away from quitting my job and then spending a few days in Raleigh, High Point and then back here in Charlotte with my Mom before I head overseas for at least a year. I'm going to be placed in Chungcheongbuk-do or Chungbuk Province which is smack dab in the center of Korea, so I will be about equidistant from all sides of the country. My last day in America is going to be either the 17th of August or the 18th and then I might go dark for a bit until I can really get set up over there. Soooo excited to finally have the waiting over with now all I have to do is wait until then and keep my head down and keep working cause I kinda sorta need all the money I can get

Finally!

2009-06-22T02:35:00.002+09:00

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting to hear anything from my recruiter. I even broke an unofficial rule and emailed EPIK (why would they not want e-mails, they have an e-mail address) but regardless, my recruiters much to their credit have answered all my questions in reasonable time for living on the west coast. What would usually happen is that I would think of a question on the weekend and then shoot them an e-mail and Monday after work I would have a response. I won't say who they are now but once I'm closer to going over or actually there, I don't want to sound like a shill especially since they aren't giving me money.(Yes I will shamelessly sell out for cash, have you seen the economy). But either way back to the point, when I woke up this morning at 6:00am thanks to the neighbors yapping lapdog and then I came out to the loft and laid down on the couch said "Hey" to my Mom right before she left for work, the last thing I expected to see was an email with more information or anything for that matter since these things take time... lots of time. So I saw the e-mail and thought nothing of it. I opened it and it was my guy saying "Hey EPIK doesn't like when you e-mail them and oh by the way we have Notice of Appointment and we are gonna send it out on Monday, and I'll shoot you another e-mail then." That was a huge moment I can't wait to go to work tomorrow then come back and check my e-mail. I demand details!!!!

Dreaming

2009-06-05T08:27:00.002+09:00

So last night I slept really really well. While I was sleeping for some indeterminate amount of time I had a dream that I actually remember. It was brief, but I was sitting where I am now at my computer and the doorbell rang. My mom answered the door and it was the FedEx man and lo-and-behold it was my Notice of Appointment and Official Contract from a school in Korea. Needless to say I woke up shortly afterwords and cursed myself for having the dream and thus making me more antsy.

Getting Approval

2009-05-22T07:28:00.002+09:00

No not from South Korea although that is really important, I'm talking about from my Mom. Now I'm not gonna lie I would be going even if she said no but I'm sentimental like that. I'm not one for big shows and trying to convince my mother of anything so I just kinda told her and fought off any questions she might have had. Once again I just wasn't into trying to convince her I knew Korea was safe it's super safe like ridiculously safe when compared to America but moms are moms and I guess that she just assumed that any place that doesn't speak English is a hell hole.

This all changed a few weeks ago, my mom got back from work one afternoon and just started to tell me about one co-worker who has a nephew living in Seoul. Her co-worker told her how his nephew was doing and having a good time and that is when she started to change, now, it seems that whenever shes on the phone with relatives or friends she says I'm going to Korea just to let them know or just to spread the word. Just wish it would have been this easy from the beginning, not that its all sunshine and lollipops now.

Vicious Circle

2009-05-16T10:06:00.002+09:00

Work in the real world stinks. But this isn't even real world work it's high school summer work but I will do it and it will pay me. This is the money that will pay for a trip to Korea, I hope that I will be able to save enough to make it that first month before the first pay check. If I got a ticket now I could get one for about $750. Of course I'm waiting for the go ahead on something that I already know but don't want to jump the gun, plus this just in I don't have that kind of money, oh well the vicious circle begins

Things to do before you abandon your current life

2009-05-15T05:48:00.003+09:00

Ah yes, What will I do until August, I will wait. Also I have a job and I'm gonna spend as much time with my family as possible. I have 2 nephews and a niece that once I go I won't be seeing for 12 months so I'm gonna try to get on their good side for a while until I leave. My Niece and one of the boys are 8 & 6. We are going to Carowinds in a couple of weeks. Shes probably tall enough to ride everything and I know that he won't be able to ride the big ones but he probably won't want to anyway.

Other things I plan to do during the summer is get back to Raleigh slightly more often, still good and maybe even decent people up there. I'd like to go and hang out with some of the people doing summer school at the radio station maybe drop in on some of the faculty and staff also.

I'll take the time and space here to reiterate how not cool it is to have to sit around and wait for anything while at the same time knowing that the chance is something I cherish and want so very very much.

The Process

2009-05-13T00:32:00.000+09:00

I decided that I was going to apply to teach in Korea after a minor failure applying to Japan and finding out that I wasn't a total reject as a candidate on my own merits. When I applied I called home and asked my Mother to find my birth certificate. She couldn't so I ordered a new one from the State of New York online. They sent it to my house and I hastily had my Mom fax it to Raleigh and I sent it to the Japanese Embassy in DC to be considered. Well long story short my number wasn't on the list so I moved on slowly at first but then with more pace. I ordered another birth certificate so I could get a passport and when it arrived I actually looked at it and saw that it was a transcript and not an actual copy.

So all that happened in the last quarter, except the getting a new certificate and passport thing which was around February/March of this year and it was coming up on recruiting and application time for teaching abroad since most everyone starts in August. I contacted a recruiter and they took me and said I was in their program and they would help me find a job, well I turned in an application and got an interview a few weeks later knocked that out and at the end of it they offered me a job where I requested, Chungcheongnam-do, which will be referred to as Chungnam from now on in this blog.

RIght now, I am in a big league holding pattern, as I said I sent my documents to the ROK. I had to get some things done to do this like go to Raleigh and visit the Secretary of States office but also a chance to see some friends which is always nice. I also bought a handful of Transcripts from the school that I needed to send in my packet and also to the Consulate in Atlanta to get a visa. Anyway back to the original point of this paragraph, my recruiter says that I shouldn't expect to hear anything for "a couple of months". That was 2 weeks ago but I haven't heard anything and oh by the way that 2 weeks has felt like 2 months, I've kinda got a job that is awesome but wearing me out. I'm ready to go I just wish it wasn't still 14 weeks and oh 2 days or so until I could possibly step on a plane then the 18-30 hours of travel and arrive in Incheon for orientation.

I truly get giddy thinking about it and even my brother-in-law keeps saying "it'll be here before I know it", which would be true if I could sleep walk my way through the next 3 1/2 months.

Oh well.

But Bernard how will you get along?

2009-05-12T12:12:00.006+09:00

I know zero Korean. I'm trying to to learn by myself online stuff, I don't want to pay for rosetta stone and I cannot find a class here in Charlotte so I do what I can, or at least I tell myself that. I think that once I arrive and have no choice I'll be much better about it but for now I'll try to build an infrastructure for learning the language through immersion which I'm sure many people say they'll do and don't, and I know I probably wont either but I won't let that deter me.

You might also say, "but Bernard do you even know anyone in Korea?" The answer is yes, I have one friend from school. She's from Korea and went back this January. We've talked through facebook messages before and for a while and shes cool so that's one person I can ask questions to and talk too. Then there are people from I think I'm Lost, which is a forum for the JET program and Japan. They have forums for other teaching jobs but mostly in Japan. Either through my incessant nagging or other peoples desire to do the same thing that I'm doing, which is really just getting away, so odds are that none of them speak Korean either but hey they are great people to talk to and hang out with on long weekends and such.

Other than that I don't really have a ton of people to go to other than my family and other friends who may read this which is where the commenters come in.

Hurray commenters!!1!11!one1!1

First Post

2009-05-12T03:04:00.000+09:00

Hello and welcome to my new blog! For those of you who know me from school and other places I hope that I will have your attention for the duration of my time doing this here. For those of you who don't let me introduce myself.

My name is Bernard although everyone calls me B(or Bee), I graduated from North Carolina State University this past December with a degree in Communication-Media,I'm 23 years old and I will be going to the Republic of Korea, better known as South Korea, to teach English for at least a year starting in August. I hope to, on this blog, convey my feelings, emotions and thoughts about the lead up to and actual journey that I am ready to embark on.

I would start now with this post but I like my blog openings to be neat and tidy so I thank you for stopping in, encourage everyone to comment and tell me what you think as well as asking questions about anything from my state of mind to how it can be done.