Sunday blog on a Tuesday

Yesterday Erin and I got our phones. We are super excited. Now we can communicate like normal people, instead of living through facebook, e-mail and other people’s phones. They’re pretty high tech phones too, well for me they are, I’ve never owned a cell phone before (wow, Grandma was years ahead of me on that one). For Korea it’s just an average phone, but it’s got a camera, it’s an MP3 player and a bunch of other stuff I can’t figure out. There’s like a 100 page instruction booklet…. but it’s in Korean.

I’m also pretty impressed with the internet here. We’ve been downloading stuff at 1MB per second. That’s about five times faster than the internet at home. Our friend Neal says it’s possible to download faster, but our computer wouldn’t be able to handle it. The crazy internet speed almost makes me want a really good computer, so I could play games over the internet, but that’s just the nerd in me coming out. I’ve heard people here say that Korea’s only two exports are brain power and technology. The memorization skills of the students have shown me their brain power, and now the phones and the internet have shown me their technology.

I enjoyed the Seomun Market. The market was how I pictured most of Korea would be, lots of people and lots of exotic goods. My Korean partner teacher (Jae Won) says Seomun is like old Korea, so it’s like how Korea used to be, he says that lots of Koreans now find Seomun dirty and skuzzy. He says lots of people prefer the cleanliness and convenience of places like E-mart. Though I’m glad all of Korea is not like Seomun, it was a good experience to see this side of the culture. We also now know where to get a giant octopus if we need one. The Market wasn’t all exotic goods, it also had allot of western things, there was a couple Christmas stores, lots of places selling art we all knew (from pictures of Jesus to African paintings), some toy stores, and lots of different clothing and accessory stores.

Teaching has been going pretty well. There are definitely some classes I like more than others. Sometimes I can’t wait to get to class, and sometimes I know the class will be a struggle. It’s not discipline issues, it’s just that some classes don’t like to talk or participate. They are the most frustrating; it will take some of them a full minute to answer a simple question. I think I have more of a fun style of teaching. I like to try and get them learning without them realizing it. That seems to be the best way to get the frustrating classes to participate. With this, I think the challenge will be keeping everyone in-line and on task while they are having fun. It’s the balance of being strict and fun that will be the challenge. I know I am already not as strict as the teacher I replaced, but he had a more regimental, less fun style. That style worked for him, and it kept the kids in line, but I think I need to have more fun.

The end of the month is the end of the public school year for the kids, so all the classes will get mixed up then. I’m disappointed because I’ve been told that it takes a month to get to know the kids and the system, but come January our classes will change (because all the kids will be moving up a grade), and the curriculum will change (our school is doing a big changeover in January), so we will just be getting settled and everything will switched.

There was no hockey on Sunday. I figured this out when I got to the parking lot we use and found it full of cars. Apparently there was testing at that school on Sunday, but they didn’t tell the new guy. It won’t happen again though. Now I have a phone!