Actual names my students have requested to be called, male edition:
Wonder Woman
Raccoon
Mr. Kim
Superman
Dog Baby
Also, I have a student whose name is – no joke – Yoo Suk.
The English teacher dinner meeting tonight was held at a Japanese restaurant – I guess the fact that every English teacher has seen the Powerpoint slide that says “Hillary’s favorite Korean food is raw fish!” has finally sunk in. Not that I was dropping hints or anything. At dinner, I started telling them about my pipe-dream extracurricular – an a cappella English singing group – and they all got really excited. The Korean Lori Hartmann-Mahmud even asked me if I had seen “Freedom Writers” and told me I reminded her of Hilary Swank’s character. If she only knew. It seems to be a bit of a hasty judgment if you ask me, especially given the fact that, despite my vow to abandon Korean in the classroom, I ended up screaming, “Iyagiheyo? Fun OPSOYO!” (lit. “Talking? Fun DOES NOT EXIST!”) to a classroom of rowdy low-level eighth-grade boys. But it is flattering. I’m just not sure how to explain that it’s not that I’m actually a good, passionate teacher; it’s just that I’ve seen Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit five too many times.
I’m going to ask my students about it tomorrow, but I’m not banking on anything. That wasn’t even my original plan, honestly; my first goal was to have some sort of English newspaper or drama or something, but the one thing that my students seem to be unified in is their love of “POP SONG!” (One girl even wrote on her paper that her favorite place in Korea was “Super Junior’s house.” It seemed irrelevant to remind her that because there are maybe thirteen people in Super Junior, it is highly doubtful that they all live in one place.) I can’t even get them to shut up, so I doubt I can get them to voluntarily write about stuff. I might, however, be able to convince them to sing, although not having any choral conducting experience, and not having been in any sort of choir for the past five years, it won’t be easy. I just want my students to do something fun. But half of them go to hagwon (supplementary academy – like Sylvan Learning Center, but for everyone, not just kids who need special help) directly after school anyway. I guess I can dream, right?
Yesterday’s teaching was terrible, honestly. Today’s went much better, but I ended up crying at a teahouse with three of the other English teachers anyway, because they asked me about my plan for the semester and I tried to explain it and they all got this sort of look on their face like “Weeeellllllll…” I felt a lot less frustrated today with my students, but I’m still really aggravated – reading other blogs, I know that a lot of other ETAs have students coming up to them saying they are beautiful and have small face and blah blah blah. My students absolutely, positively do not care. My job is to make them care, of course – not that I have a small face (I don’t, anyway), but enough to pay attention in class, to want to learn English, to not leave me up there alone and pouring sweat in a room with no air conditioning. If I don’t want to be alone, I have to take them with me. And my co-teachers keep giving me advice, but I have no idea if it’s good or not – they have a lot of experience, but at the same time the Korean educational system is very different from the one I’ve learned, and so my instinctive reaction to a lot of their suggestions is, “Are you sure about that?”
Andy says it’s culture shock. It might be. I hope so, because it’s too early to let this get me down.
Happy Pig
Teck Ki (Tacky?)
Cute Girl
Sexy Geir
Cow
Pooh
Beautiful House
Banana
(x) No, please.
The idea of going back to my classes tomorrow is already disheartening, which is a definite sign that something about my lessons needs to change. Right now I feel like a cog in a giant education factory, kind of like the cheese factory in “Mouse Hunt,” if you’ve ever seen that Nathan Lane gem. I think the major problems are as follows:
a) my students may or may not understand me
b) I have no real way of knowing if my students understand me
c) I don’t know anything about my students
d) They have heard all the stuff I am teaching them before
e) I have to stand up there and deliver a PowerPoint about myself, and I don’t like PowerPoint much, and I know about myself
Tomorrow, lesson modification: they have to fill out worksheets answering the same questions they ask about me. This should make my teaching more interesting, at least. If I can get my hands on some string I might have the kids on Tuesday make nametags. The hammer, however, is not going anywhere. The hammer is the only thing standing in between me and classroom anarchy. I would like to think that this would not be the case if I were teaching in a classroom where I knew for sure that the kids understood what I was saying, but I sort of doubt that such is the case.
Tomorrow I am also cooking for my host family; what, exactly, depends on what I can find at E-Mart. They have requested Italian. I am debating gnocchi. I know for sure that E-Mart will have the ingredients for gnocchi. I also know for sure that I’ve never cooked it before and that it’s a whole lot of work. I hope it goes okay. At least they can’t eat until around 8 PM, because my host sister is doing some sort of extra extra extra school thing, in addition to her actual school and hagwon – something about an at-home math test, or maybe math tutoring. I’m never really sure of anything around here. You know.
Yesterday, after a scooter-buying adventure that almost but did not quite end in Tom buying a possibly stolen moped, the Jeju-sians headed out to Seogwipo, where the beach is beautiful but it does occasionally rain. And by “occasionally,” I obviously mean, as you might guess, “yesterday.” We got a good hour of beach time in before spending another hour wandering around, trying to collect everyone’s soggy stuff, and losing a drunk Drew, who ended up in a hotel lobby with his bottle of Carlo Rossi. Having polished off a fair amount of wine myself, and having forgotten to charge my cell phone, I wasn’t much help. We finally ended up outside of the Seogwipo E-Mart (of course), where I had to buy new clothes so I didn’t look quite so much like a lost street urchin, and meeting Tony for chicken. I like the beach. I like Seogwipo, although not as well as Jeju-si. I like Jeju-do.
- “Praise You,” Fatboy Slim
- “Satellite,” Dave Matthews Band
- the entirety of Sufjan Stevens’ “Michigan” album
- Ralph Stanley
To be fair, the first two stemmed from the fact that Host Brother was working on his English vocab, and two of the words just happened to be “praise” and “satellite.” Also the fact that I will use any excuse. I played Sufjan when we returned home from seeing “D-War” on Saturday night and I was eating instant udon with my host brother and sister, and my host sister requested “soft” music. (My host mom, or omoni, liked it so well that I made her a CD. Incidentally.) As for the bluegrass…well, that’s what I brought them, so. I don’t speak Korean, so this will have to do.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about compromise, and not compromising. I am so happy to be on Jeju with these ETAs, specifically. I am. And I cannot wait to see them. But – at the same time – I am very happy here, happy to be settling in, to continue to get to know my host family, to befriend my teachers, to know the beaches. I miss my friends in other cities, but I’m not leaving Facebook wall posting for everyone I see. I think I’ll be okay for the next six weeks, in other words. But I can’t help but wonder: is this wrong? Is the absence of dependence just a masquerade for the absence of connection? I am content here, at least so far. I know I shouldn’t be doubting myself. But I am.
Last night I also watched an episode of “Scrubs” with HB, who seemed to think it was funny, probably because of Fat Albert’s double cameo appearances. At the part where Dr. Cox explains, “Kelso’s not just some harmless guy pushing my buttons, Carla. He’s a pod person,” I found myself laughing out loud for no particular reason. I seem to be prone to inappropriate displays of emotion lately; for example, right now I am thinking about Coldplay’s song “Yellow” and Joanna Doiron’s house, two things which have no obvious connection, and even though I am lying in a room filled with giant yellow flowers on the walls, I’m in, as they say, a glass case of emotion.
Filed under: life in Chuncheon, lists, not cool, okay seriously Korea, orientation
- spend a weekend drinking a lot and sleeping a little
- wake up on Monday with sore throat/fatigue
- use illness as excuse to skip tae kwon do
- have no one believe you, because everyone knows you are lazy
- start coughing on Thursday
- go to E-Mart pharmacy on Friday
- describe symptoms for apparently Anglophone pharmacist
- receive suspiciously small supply of medication
- keep coughing hysterically
- run out of medication
- realize that medication was not working anyway
- buy cough syrup at another pharmacy with rationale that if coughs are physically suppressed with something that is designed to suppress them, maybe throat will have chance to recover
- take cough syrup (or sip, if you will)
- cough anyway
- have everyone around you sort of edge away
- go to the DMZ on a humid and rainy day
- pet some otters*
- realize that a) you are still coughing, and b) there is still some sort of gunk in your lungs, which is why you are coughing in the first place
- go to E-Mart pharmacy AGAIN and explain situation
- try to buy expectorant, cough drops; end up with expectorant, something that is supposed to be a cough drop but resembles a Tums
- keep coughing anyway
- go to hospital to see doctor
- realize doctor is at lunch
- cross town to go to other doctor
- that doctor is also at lunch
- finally see doctor
- allow doctor to laugh at you and ask why on earth you bought all of that medicine, then prescribe fourth set of pills
I’m still not sure exactly what went wrong, but I do know that I have to pack and whatever they gave me is making me sleepy. This is good practice for not being able to communicate with people for the rest of the year. This is good practice. This is good practice. This. Is. Good. Practice.
*actually, I recommend petting the otters.
Filed under: how we roll, life in Chuncheon, lists, okay seriously Korea, orientation, poetry
Exciting news(es) first:
1. I’m being published! For real! Doubleplusgood. I received word a few days ago confirming that Mixed Up Productions, a group dedicated to publishing hapa art and work, has accepted a few of the photographs and poems I submitted for their latest chapbook. This is all thanks to my former poetry professor and total BFFL Patrick Rosal, who suggested that I submit to them. (And Kundiman, which didn’t work out quite as well. Better luck next year?) Part of me is afraid that I’m going to look back on this later and be like, “I asked them to publish that?” But for now I’m just trying to stay excited that someone besides a school I attend wants to accept my stuff.
1a. I think we’re going to try to start a writer’s group here? That would be fun. I’m trying to focus on nonfiction as of right now. I believe we’re having our first meeting Friday, over beer.
2. TheScoop08 has asked me to be its International Coordinator! This is akin to an editorial job, and I’m really excited to not only get further into journalism, but also to be working with this group. I strongly encourage you to check out their website, and to let me know if you’re interested in applying for a correspondent position.
3. Placement ceremony Wednesday. I don’t even care where I go anymore – a lot of my friends here requested Jeju-do, which is an island at the bottom of Korea that has a teddy bear museum (hm. Bradenton), and I did too, but at this point I just want to knoooooooow.
4. I have letters in progress to: Yigit Menguc, Shanna Sanders, Kia Brill, Annie Maggard. More are coming.
5. I got a birthday package from my sister and it is the BEST PACKAGE EVER, in that it contained a sketch of the manse being constructed next to us (I think it could also fairly go by “grange” or, my personal favorite, “the house of Usher”), a copy of Joan Didion’s We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, and an awesome letter. A quote:
I spent the last two days at Sam’s because we thought we were going to go to a “field party.” We didn’t. Instead, we went to see Transformers.
6. I bought pineapple and croissants at E-Mart.
Now. I’ve started and stopped this entry three or four times, so I’m just going to write, in hopes that I can document what I can remember now and then maybe start updating more frequently.
Context: Here is my daily schedule.
- 9 AM – 1 PM Korean language class
- I’m in the remedial class. This is not an exaggeration. We have to have special daily quizzes because we all keep failing our weekly tests.
- Ten minute breaks every hour for soda or coffee – I am partial to Demi-Soda Apple, which, according to the label, has 11% apple juice
- 1 PM – 2 PM lunch
- ick
- this is why I spend all my money, because I keep going out
- even though a good lunch (like kimbap, which is sort of sushi esque) is only 1000 won, or about a dollar
- 2 PM – 4 PM workshops, teaching at Camp Program, free time
- 5 PM – 6 PM tae kwon do
- 7 PM – 9 PM extracurriculars (cooking, paper art, etc.) or KEY Club
- 9 PM – bed, homework, or going out
SO. Today: extracurricular was a traditional tea ceremony. At most of our extra stuff, the people are generally understanding about our complete inability to function. At dado, however, the woman kept physically repositioning us, berated us for using the wrong “thank you” (I gave the general thank you, gamsa hamnida, instead of the more specific “thank you for helping us” thank you), and, in my personal favorite move, rotated the lid of the teapot, because apparently we had it on wrong, even though the lid itself is round and her move had no discernible effect except to make us feel bad. I did it with my friends Glypie and Megan; Megan has survived attempted terrorist attacks as a Peace Corps member in Bangladesh, and even she found herself challenged. Also, the handout they gave us (on the subject of the tea ceremony) spent about a paragraph dissing Japan, which I’m starting to suspect is pretty much par for the course.
Yesterday: I went to KEY Club and I ended up in a discussion group led by the one Korean student I really, actively do not like. KEY Club background: They hold it every night of the week, and the first forty minutes are devoted to a discussion on a given topic. Then a KEY Club member gives a speech in English on some other topic. (Past topics have included Edward Norton, Lucky Numbers, and How To Seem Taller.) Then, usually, people disperse for an hour and reconvene to go drink and do noraebang. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, whatever. Anyway: so I found myself with the one girl who is not nice, this girl who gives us really bizarre statements like “Chocolate is my reason for living.” She usually has a scrunchie (old school) sort of halfway down her hair, and her “American” name, inexplicably, is Eddie. So we had our discussion today, which was on “love deficiency syndrome” (or: why do people have problems with love? – which is a difficult question to discuss when English is your native tongue, so I don’t know what made the KEY Club think this was a good idea). I said something about it being a difficult (i.e. shitty) topic, and it turned out, of course, that Eddie had come up with it. Whatever. The only good things were that I ended up sitting next to my language partner Sunny, who is still pathologically shy but now writes me notes that say “I like you <3″, and that we acted out the term “wingman” for the benefit of the males in the group. Then this other girl gave a speech about how to overcome psychological complexes (again, why is this a good idea?), and during the Q&A that followed, Mean Girl was like, “So, what’s your worst memory? What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?” It was great, as long as the definition of great is “supremely uncomfortable.”
FINALLY for tonight: tae kwon do. This is the most cardio I’ve done in about eight years, in all seriousness. Perhaps some of you may remember my disastrous foray onto the Polo Fields swim team – I was the fourteen-year-old practicing with the fourth graders. I’m running laps every day. LAPS. Fortunately, I sweat a whole lot in the humidity regardless, so what I look like when I get there is more or less what I look like when I leave.
As always, for next time:
- placement, probably
- Kentucky friends
- pictures (I know I keep promising these)
- mountain livin’/convenience store friends
- Sarah Vowell
Also, check out GoldDigger’s post on Planet Hiltron. Then go thank Raabia, immediately.
Gifts and educational materials I bought at Target and the dollar store:
- Bicycle brand playing cards
- these are apparently v. popular in Korea, but they have to be Bicycle
- a book of word searches
- gum
- Bubblicious
- Doublemint
- Winterfresh
- Extra (watermelon flavor)
- Apples to Apples
- Us magazine
- In Touch magazine
- People magazine
- Pez
- My Melody
- Buzz Lightyear (2)
- Nemo
- fuzzy dice
I have a lot of plans for these things. Gift giving is apparently highly valued in Korean culture, and the orientation handbook suggests bringing things that represent your region or America, things that are in high demand in Korea, or anything with an Ivy League logo. (I think they’re going to be disappointed when they find out what my school was like.) Since there are logistical issues with bringing moonshine and cars on cinder blocks, I bought a few bluegrass CDs, some UK pennants (the word “college” doesn’t carry much weight, I guess, so I had to go to a nearby school to get respectable souvenirs), a jar of Henry Bain sauce, etc. I’m going to tell my host family that everyone in America puts fuzzy dice in their car windows. The ones I bought are hot pink and lime green, respectively.
The Pez dispensers are part of a larger plan to eventually become a Korean candy entrepreneur; I plan to translate the name as “candy birth machines.” My friend Yigit says that this won’t work because Pez is too labor-intensive to be truly enjoyable, but I think the wonder outstrips both the work and the chalky flavor.
By the way, a Google Image search for “fuzzy dice” brings up the following:
God bless America.
