Teaching is an ongoing process, some days are exhausting but rewarding and other days are just exhausting. With the new year, comes new students and a new class dynamic. I have some large disparities of english levels in my 5th and 6th grade classes, some students go to Hagwons and have a high level; others in the same class struggle with the alphabet and low level vocabulary. I am not sure how to best tackle this, it will be a big challenge.
I am steadily convinced that I do as much teaching (if not more) outside of my classes than I do during. I only teach about 15-20% of the students in my school, but nearly all the students have a quick conversation with me when I am walking down the hall, or to lunch. Even walking to the store or train station I often see students, I guess I strive to make myself as approachable for conversation to them since I know that 80 min of class each week is not nearly enough to make a significant dent.
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| None of these girls are actually enrolled in my classes, they just run amok in between lunch and after school class. |
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| Same here. These 5th graders come and clean my room some days, constantly remarking on how dirty it is. |
The ultimate frisbee league I joined has really been a ton of fun. We aren't very good, but we get along great and always have a good time. Over St. Patties day weekend we had a set of games in Busan, we played right on the beach, what a cool time. The weather was a perfect as we could have hoped, we did manage to find some time to have a Guinness and a few green beers as well. After our games on sunday we hobbled our broken bodies over to Jalgachi fish market and had a feast of seafood, so fresh and so delicious!
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| A day of frisbee on Haeundae Beach. |
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| So much fresh food, so good. |
Next weekend we have games of two days in Gyeoungju, I am looking forward to it immensely. It is happening the same time as the city's cherry blossom festival so there will be much to see.
The rest of March is filled in with my mundane day to day activity... Going to the gym/sauna, playing piano at my doughnut cafe, doing a little screen golf now and then, learning a bit more korean. Pretty normal stuff, but it keeps me busy. However, the mundane took a break this past weekend and let crazy take charge for a while. It was my birthday weekend, no frisbee games, and with a week of nice weather Daegu was calling my name for a night out...
I had a pretty boring friday planned (Saturday was my "party"). I went to the gym, soaked in the sauna and gave an impromptu english lesson to a overly talkative kid in the steam room, and went to go jam on piano at the coffee shop. The coffee shop was empty except for me and the two owners, I adore them and they like to chat as well. They found out it was my birthday and they insisted to take me out for fried chicken and draft beer after they closed shop. They told me I would be home by midnight, and it would not be a late night... Right. We drove to Gumi to the restaurant which is owned by one of their friends. I had met the owner once before at an open mic show a few weeks before, she found out I was coming and that is was my birthday so she gave me a bottle of wine! Nice.
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| Delicious chicken with the doughnut ladies! |
We had only just finished the chicken before the owner shuffled me to her car and said we were going to another place for makgeolli (rice wine). It is a beautiful thing how food and drink can bring together people and overcome the language barrier, as well as a good exercise in my practical korean skills. This is an aspect of Korean Culture that is universal and beautiful, more on this friendliness later.
as the clock struck midnight and it was officially my birthday the table sang me happy birthday... three hours later I made it back into my apt, so much for a relaxing friday night!
The next morning I met two frisbee friends downtown for a little game of golf and a par 3 course in my city. After 18 holes we got some soup and decided that I didn't need a shower or to change clothes before going to Daegu for dinner and a night out with friends so we just played Korean Billiards until the train. Nice x2.
We gathered at a restaurant for pre-dinner and conversation. Moved to a Japanese grill place, had skewers and traditional beverages. Jin got me a cake, and the night took off from there. It was a success, I'm not a huge fan of cameras on nights like these but the pictures do an okay job of story-boarding what happened.
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| Birthday Drink. |
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| Concerned. |
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| Still concerned, but entertained. |
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| Wat. |
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| Dave and I on the wall. |
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| Friendly Korean Culture... |
At the place with the fire show, I met a brother and sister. The older brother was visiting his sister because he is in the Korean Air Force, he spoke pretty good english but he wanted to have me talk to his sister because she had never talked with a native english speaker before. I found out she is a pianist! So we talked about music, Brahms, Saxophone, Chopin. It was fantastic! We met another group of Koreans (a flaming fire show is a good way to bring attention to yourself at a bar, I guess), one was an English teacher so we rolled out together and exchanged info to meet up again. This just solidifies in my mind what a friendly culture they have in Korea.
It seems like I just finished thinking about extending my contract for the 1st time, but it is time again to ponder the possibilities and weigh my options. Living in the present is important, but some planning and foresight is needed from time to time. Sigh.
The Guide's wisdom always puts things into perspective...
"You live and learn. At any rate, you live." D. Adams
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