In the Shit, Part 1

As I sit in my classroom, children screaming bloody murder behind me, I bring to you my first real entry since I've been here.

Long story short, I'm enjoying my myself.

First off, what I'm here for technically: Teaching

I teach at two different schools, both of which are about an hour away from my apartment. Hanmaumn Elementary is near the south eastern coastal town of Pyosan, while Seongup Elementary is in, well...Seongup. Both schools are minutes away on the same road, so aside from the fact that they are a bit of a hike from my apartment, I guess that qualifies as some sort of minor convenience. I would tell you about my carpooling shenanigans, but instead I will just direct you to my previous blog entitled: Korean Karpool.

At both schools, I am teaching grades 1-6. When it boils down to it, I teach anywhere from 15-20 courses a week. Some classes I see multiple times a week (grades 3-6) and some I see only once (grades 1-2....good riddance.) Hanmaumn I am at Mon-Wed, and Seongup Thurs-Fri. While some of my fellow English teachers are serving their time here as English Robots, who are at the beckon and call of their students homeroom teachers masters, I roam the classroom landscape free as a bird. By that I mean, I have no help from other teachers and I plan things on my own. At first it seemed daunting and that I was getting a little screwed over, but in the long run, the other folks are the ones who got the short end of the stick. I'm actually getting the experience of planning and conducting my own courses completely on my own, which will be great for me once I go back home and continue to teach. I got thrown into the fire, thats for sure, but I've came out with only a few bumps and bruises so far, and it only gets better on the daily.

The Elementary Schools have a set curriculum, complete with terrible text books and cd-roms.

Exhibit A:


Imagine the thrill of having the kids repeat, "WAIT WAIT" and "I"M COMING," over and over and over again. Needless to say, for me the text books are just the framework of what I need to teach. I gather the key phrases from the chapter and make up my own way of teaching it to make it a lot more interesting. The books are helpful, thats for sure, but at times, pretty damn useless.

My grade 3 classes at both my schools are far and away my favorite. They are just getting excited to learn, and pick things up the quickest. There are excited about activities and always just have all sorts of great energy. The grade 1-2 kids I often just don't know what the hell to do it, and mostly just feel like a baby sitter sometimes, and the kids in grades 5-6 can just act like they are way to cool to do anything. It's really tough to get them excited about ANYTHING. Grade 4, is just an awkward transition period, and the text books I have to use for them, and the lesson ideas are by far the most vague and tough to teach.

Some days the kids are absolutely wonderful, and the joy I get out of seeing them actually pick something up and run with it, is unexplainable. The days they just get it, make me realize even more that his is indeed what I want to do, I really do enjoy it that much. Then there is those other days. The ones where you secretly wish the teachers were still using corporal punishment on their students. These kids are BAD. Unless your living some Dangerous Minds type scenario with inner city youth at your school back in the states, you haven't seen these types of behavioral issues in such large quantities. A.D.D. kids don't have shit on the madness of Korean school children. Kicking, punching, screaming, literally beating the shit out of each other. Running around, jumping on tables. On the days they are riled up, you are powerless. That is just how the day is going and you have to try and figure out how to deal with it. It's a group craziness. When one kid is like this, they are ALL like this, even the "good kids."

It's kind of like this. Nevermind, that's actually funny. It's more like this. Yeah, just like that, ALL DAY LONG.

I know there is a language barrier to blame for some of the frustrations that come from trying to get them to calm down and listen to me, but sometimes they just DON'T give two shits about listening, and either do their teachers. There are somethings in a classroom, and fucking life, that are just universal, ie. shut the hell up and don't scream unprovoked (especially in the classroom), don't beat the hell out of your friends (or stab them, yeah that happened already), and just other really simple things here and there that help prevent general chaos. The kids understand what I'm telling them to do, telling them to chill, they just choose to make it a game. Stop me if I'm being nieve here, but this is definitely part of the education system here that frustrates me. When the kids are chaotic, they generally could care less to stop them and just accept the fact that they probably ain't going to learn anything today. To me that is a little warped.

All that said. It's their culture. I'm here for a year. I'm not out to change who they are. And bottom line is I deal with it. It may be frustrating at times, but it's just how it goes.

And there is the fact that the kids are just so overwhelmingly cute. You become merciless.

Contrary to that slight rant. I am having the time of my life so far in the classroom and I can only see it getting better and better. Classes will sporadically get cancelled on a regular basis. Sometimes they tell me, sometimes they don't. You just really have to go with the flow here, and not get too uptight about it all.

I generally have a lot of time free in my afternoons to plan for my classes for the next day, and do just this, screw around on the internet. That said I never have to take any work home, so that is a major plus. All and all it's a pretty sweet gig.

This is getting long winded, so I'll cut it off here. But stay tuned for part 2: The Faculty / Staff / Parents.

Criterion is making me salivate....

I need a Blu-Ray player stat. All these being released soon by Criterion. My head just went POP.

Twisting Tongues on Terribly Boring Day

For the most part this week, I have not taught any classes. After a week long vacation, i'm feeling a bit rusty, and this is making it even worse. Preparations for field day are taking precedent over classes all week, preparations which include; synchronized "She's All That" type dancing, and eerie military like marching on the field. That said, I've spent all my free time on Monday with no class, planning for the whole week, all lesson which I now have not taught and are just going to be rolled over into next week. Oh the joys of being a teacher in Korea.

That said I decided to fine tune one of my lessons for the week, by throwing in some non-sensical tongue twisters to help kids practice their phonics.  I think you can tell by their escalation in weirdness that I'm getting a little bit delirious today. This week it's letters A-E, so ultimately I should have a whole alphabets worth of these to weird kids out with. I really want to do some illustrations for some of them as well.

A

Aardvarks always assume accurately

The apple aggressively ate another apples arm

Adventures alone aren't always all that awesome

The ape arranged an absurdly awesome outfit


B
Bicycles bound bouncily along the big black bricks
I bought brown bananas at a big blue barn
The baboon bakes big beautiful buns
The blue balloon is bigger than the brown bunny

C

The cat called the cranky crow a cruel name

I went camping in a canyon with a cool cat named Carl

The cold cookie and the crayon couldn’t clear customs

The caterpillar creeps calmly along side the crusty clown

D

The donkey dodged the dastardly dragon

The dog ducked to avoid the ducks drooping drapes

Ducks don’t dance on the day after a death

Dirt drenched dolphins don’t do drinks on days that contain the letter “d”

E 

Eager elephants eat evil elves

Everyday eggs are eaten an eel escapes from E-mart

Eagles have enormous, elegant, earthy ears

Every time emus run errands, Elmo escorts them

Korean Karpool

She picks me up on the morning after the typhoon "ravaged the land."

She smiles, nods, pushes aside her rainbow umbrella, and motions for me to sit in the back seat. A backseat completely void of safety restraints.

I'm 8 again. On the big yellow school bus, praying the bus driver isn't leading me to a firey death in which I'm ejected through the winshield

I creek onto the brittle macro-may seat covers, as she slides on her long, bone white, driving gloves. She places them, with authority, on her shimmering bedazzled steering wheel.

She releases the e-brake, nearly kills it, and stops a block later, and begins to feverishly check her cell phone.

Another teacher, "Mary," finally enters.

"Mary" tells me everyday "you look like boy."

"Mary" and "the driver," whose name I don't, and may never know converse sporadically.

Between the "bongs" and the "bops," I occasionally hear what sounds vaguely like "Tay-ler," and polite giggling follows.

"Mary" tells me the driver would like to speak with me, but she doesn't speak English much, or very well.

Smoke spews into the cabin, via the dash. We stop in the middle of traffic.

"The driver" gets out. Stares at the hood briefly. Does nothing, and then re-enters the car.

With her short gaze, she apparently cauterized the beast's wound. We were on our way.

After 45 minutes of pure silence, "the driver" breaks her English celibacy.

"You not here at 5:00...I leave you."

I exit the car, and saunter up my jungle road.

She releases her e-brake, spews smoke, and puts away.

Bon Voyage

Today is the day. I sit with you now broadcasting from the international terminal at Sea-Tac, getting my last taste of America. By that I mean, I'm enjoying the worlds finest pale ale (Sierra Nevada) a shot of well,...americas whiskey (Jack Daniels it was a sultry $3, damn does that waitress know how to upsell!) and a big beefy burger, with baked beans and potato salad. Mind you it is 11am. Save your judgement, I won't have these indulgences in a long while.

The separation from the folks was definitely tough. Even at the airport with my mom and dad we still bickered. Each telling me different directions to roam, which line to stand in and what I should put in what bag, and what have you. Their last gasp of parenting was endearing, but I had to tell them, I'm going to be facing a lot more adversity then figuring out an airport here pretty damn soon, I'm on my very own and no one will be there to help me. I love you guys so much and will miss you everyday.

Same goes for my friends, the last week or so has been spectacular. For the first time in ages I feel at peace with a lot of things that have troubled me in the past. Some relationships have been rocky, others amazing, but all and all in the end, I left everything on a good note and am very grateful for that. Some of you guys are just as much family to me as the real deal.

Somehow, all of this still has not set in. Will it ever? Do I need a heaping waft of spicy kimchi to wake me up to what I'm actually doing? Only time will till, but until then, I am still blissfully ignorant about the enormity of this change, and exponentially excited about it.

Down the hatch goes the Jack, and I'm on my way.

See you in Seoul.

Cheers.

Goodbye USA / Hello South Korea

As my blog is aptly titled, I'm just going to use it for my travels abroad while teaching. Stay tuned.

Playing catch up

Got myself a new iPod after almost a year of the other one half working. Before I was all concerned with getting all my music into one device, but really I think all that did was keep me from giving everything I had a good enough listen. Things would frequently just got lost in the fold of my 80GB beast. Going with the more modest 8GB iPod Touch this roll around (solely because it came free with my new computer), this little mini computer has given me the chance to catch up on some albums that have came out over the last few months (or year) and give um a good hearty listen.

The Hold Steady - Heaven is Whenever
With "Heaven is Whenever" it seems like The Hold Steady have crawled into a dark place. Without the pounding party keys of Franz Nicolay for the first time, the band has definitely found itself in a different realm of the mind. It's a darker place, sparse, reflective and hopeful; a place where the small child burgeoning inside of Craig Finn and his cast of characters have started to face adulthood. Sure their songs have been heavy handed in the past, but this album actually sounds the part, and I dig it. The album cover pretty much tells all, the band is reaching for something (or out of something) they haven't yet reached before, or weren't ready for until now. Craig Finn is, as always, is pure literary form though with his legendary monologues.
Listen to: The Weekenders

Male Bonding - Nothing Hurts
A lot of bands have embraced this "I wanna be Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr" fuzzy guitar sound over the last few years: No Age, Times New Viking, Japandroids, etc. Some of it works, some of it doesn't, some of Time New Vikings songs I would barely even consider music because the guitars are far TOO distorted. That said, I would have to say London's Male Bonding have made the first record of this recent trend that I can really sink my teeth into. I guess it's because their songs are just well crafted. Their a mix of heavy, messy Stooges punk, curiously adjoined with summer melodies of Surfer Blood. The best mix of these two descriptions? The track "Weird Feelings," which may or may not have a hijacked riff from The Beatles "Please Please Me." This is a fun, shreddin' summer album for the grungy kids.
Listen to: Weird Feelings

The Black Keys - Brothers
I'll be honest I completely skipped out on the Black Keys last album "Attack and Release." The fact that Danger Mouse produced it, really just turned me off at the time, and I never really had an desire to go back. The only other band that rocks this hard while repping, the grimy, bluesy roots oh so many people try to imitate these days, is The White Stripes. But Dan Auerbach has always had one step up on Jack White (and everyone else) in my opinion...he can actually sing the part. Sounding like a a mix of Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix, you would never guess hes a scrawny bearded white guy from Akron, Ohio. "Brothers" sounds like the Black Keys I learned to love on "Magic Potion" and "Rubber Factory," this type of music never gets old, especially when it is done so well.
Listen to: 10 Cent Pistol

Minus the Bear - OMNI
I guess I have never been as big of a fan Minus the Bear as I previously thought I was. Sure I absolutely love the clever, fun loving, easy going nature of "Highly Refined Pirates" and "Menos el Oso," but when "Planet of Ice" rolled around, I started to question my loyalties. That album really me ponder, "who the hell is this band" and "what the hell are they trying to do with themselves." That paired with the fact that I've witnessed a handful of piss poor live performances from them throughout the years, I can't really stay behind um anymore. Although I've only gave it one complete listen, OMNI just seems like more of the same awkward pandering to me. A attempt to recapture some of the glory of "Pirates" but suddenly getting all jam bandy on me. I'll definitely give it a couple more listens before I completely write it off, but it ain't looking great. All that said though I love the acoustic album they put out a while back!
Listen to: Secret Country

The new Moondoggies EP, Shook Ones, The Morning Benders, Tame Impala, Russian Circles, Unnatural Helpers, Madball and The Smiths (?!) still to come....