For family and friends I don't talk to that often:
1. I'm teaching at Hamtae Elementary School, grades 1-6. There are only 90 students in the school, so I have small class, the biggest being 17 kids. Depending on the week I teach 20-22 classes. Thats 22 hours actually teaching. I "work" 40 hours a week. Yes, I spend way too much time online. At least I can stay current on all my television shows.
The teaching I do is pretty simple. 3-6 grades have a book to work with. So far, with those classes, the Korean teacher runs the show, with me standing there and repeating lines from the book when he/she wants me to. The 6th grade teacher is the worst at that. Today I stood in front of the 6th graders for 40 minutes, and repeated one line. Because of that, here is a picture of the 6th grade teacher from last Thursday night. He was not happy I took this picture.
I do have after school classes that I have complete control of, and those have been pretty fun so far. Most of the time they just turn into playing some type of game with the classes though. As long as they are speaking English I think everyone is ok with that.
That's my 1st grade after school class. See that kid's hat in the back left? I want that hat. I asked him for it. He said no. Little punk.
2. I've enjoyed most of the food I've eaten here. Just this past weekend I enjoyed a lot of raw fish and squid. Raw squid is fun because the suction cups on the tentacles will grab at your tounge if you keep it in your mouth without chewing long enough. If you eat a large enough tentacle, I've been told it fights back against going down your throat. Fun times.
3. I live on the 2nd floor of an ex-congressman house. It's a nice place. Lots of space. I can see my school from my front door, so my morning commute is short. I do live pretty far from downtown, which is inconvenient at times, but not having to travel 30+ minutes to school in the morning is a pretty good trade off.
For everyone else:
1. The basketball coaching thing hasn't gone anywhere yet. I think the swine flu might have something to do with that. I keep hearing about all the other schools in Taebaek getting shut down for a week because of the swine flu, but nothing cool like that has happened at Hamtae. Stupid Hamtae kids able to stay healthy. What's wrong with them!?
2. This past weekend I went with some friends up to Gangneung, which is on the east coast. Lots of fireworks were set off and even more fresh shellfish were enjoyed at 4am. You enjoy your late night Taco Bell. I'll take fresh shellfish.
3. The other part of the trip was to a Unification Museum on the DMZ. That's right, I saw North Korea. My mom already freaked out a little bit about that, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. It felt more surreal than unsafe. All the military present might have had something to do with that. It was kind of cool realizing that lots of barbed wire and fences along the beach and a long empty road was all that was seperating me and this guy:
Again, scary huh?
Look at this picture!
See that? Theres's North Korea. Exciting, right? Looks pretty communist-y doesn't it?
Obvious Question: Hey Brian, wouldn't it have been a good idea to take a picture of yourself with that behind you?
Obvious Answer: Hey, we can't all be as smart as you, jackass.
4. Some of the students in my 5th and 6th grade after school class used some of the words I taught them last week in the game we were playing in class today. Am I actually teaching these kids something, or were they looking at the vocab sheet I gave them earlier? Don't answer that.
5. If you are reading this, and I hope that you are, I'm sorry I was a jackass this weekend.
Alright, that's all I have. I'll have more on the DMZ trip later. Until then, enjoy.
Fin.
1 comments:
I want squid. It sounds DELISH! Maybe that and a side of eel. Did you get to see the naval battle while you were at the DMZ. I heard the South kicked the north's ass. I bet alot of people in the south of the USA wished it was them.
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