Spectacular!

I can't remember if we've mentioned it already, and I'm too lazy to go check for myself, but this past weekend, my dear departed eyeglasses of five years finally gave up the ghost. The scene was actually downright cartoonish, as I picked my glasses up off counter and, pop!, metal rent from metal, leaving the left lens to drop suddenly out of the frame. While my industrious and clever better half did manage a temporary fix with the aid of some electrical tape and ten fingers infinitely more graceful than my own, I was nonetheless forced to court disaster (see, I don't know, any recent post at all about us attempting to do just about anything) by going to the optometrist in our building and buying a new pair of glasses.

The good news: Though I'm not ready to write off the possibility of my new glasses spontaneously combusting or something like that, I was at least successful in getting a new prescription, new lenses, and new frames.

Now, the whole glasses-getting-experience here in Korea is pretty different from how it is in the States, which is to say it's not excruciating and expensive. First, there are optometrists everywhere. We have at least one in our building. There's one in the Homever. We pass two on our way to work every day. Second, everything is walk-in, the frames and lenses cost about half what they cost at home. Third, they're open late. Fourth, they keep tons of lenses in-stock and cut them for you in 30 minutes or less! Honestly, I was expected to be de-spectacled for at least a week, and these folks fill my order in as much time as it takes to deliver a pizza. Of course, the downside is that you don't get all the doctor stuff. But, still, that kind of service can't be beat.

On a related note, Nana is now extremely disoriented by my appearance. I hadn't quite realized that I'd been wearing the same glasses since before we met. The new ones aren't a huge departure, though--basically the same shape, but a half-frame--so I'm pretty sure this doesn't mean the deal is off.

By the way . . .

. . . after reading Leslie's infinitely more entertaining, infinitely
more informative, and infinitely more frequent blog (see the link at
right), I have unilaterally resolved to post more often, come heck or
high water (or unreliable broadband . . . or web filters . . .).

[Edit by Nana: Speak for yourself! My posts are entertaining, informative, and frequent! That's it, Leslie. It's on.]

Hopefully, though, figuring out this whole posting-by-e-mail thing
should help, so I can fire off brief missives from the classroom in
some of those rare free moments I steal during the day.

Daylight Savings

Just FYI, all you folks on the East Coast are now 14 hours behind us. Which fact I remembered in just enough time NOT to wake my folks up with a 5 AM phone call!

As for us, I'm pretty sure lack of daylight savings will actually make zero difference, since we're up and out of the house shortly after dawn anyway. Not so bad, though, compared to the kids, some of whom are busing in from two hours away.

Everyday is a holiday at Everland

Everland is a Korean amusement park - think more Disney than Cedar Point - whose slogan in "Everyday (sic) is a holiday at Everland!" In my limited experience - one day at Everland, which also happened to be a holiday, Halloween - this statement is one hundred percent true.

Instead of having a regular school day on Wednesday, APIS had a field trip to Everland. I think it had something to do with reconciling Christianity and Halloween, which apparently is difficult for some people, by avoiding the issue entirely. Personally, I think anti-Halloween parents are overreacting a bit, but then again, I have seen some pop star costumes on little girls that offend me, much less God. So to Everland we went.

I was quite concerned about the safety of the rides, but it was actually a high-quality amusement park. And I've never been to one in the fall, and I have to say that the cool day was much nicer than some of the scorchers I've been to at Cedar Point (although the water rides aren't quite so much fun). My seventh graders behaved impeccably. We did lose a couple of sixth graders for a while, and I had a crisis where the cafeteria lady said my lunch voucher was only valid for the acorn noodles, but all came together in the end. The kids got a kick out of seeing Justin in jeans.

What really amused me was the fact that on Thursday, back at school, all the kids seemed like they'd been steamrollered. I was pretty pooped, but I had to bounce back to teach, so I did. Aren't kids supposed to have faster recovery times? The difference probably came from Justin and my 8:30 bedtime. Amazing what eleven hours can do for you.

And on a last note- thanks so much for all the wonderful birthday wishes! We had a party last night at a fellow teacher's apartment and I baked cupcakes from care-package cupcake mix. No Korean birthday soup for me! Two students actually gave me small presents - a lavender aromatherapy pillow and a picture frame - which I thought was very sweet. And tonight, Justin took me into town for a birthday hamburger at TGI Friday's. Hooray birthdays!

The Land of Murphy's Law

I'm not really feeling "Land of the Morning Calm" for Korea these days, and I'm really leaning towards Murphy's Law as the defining characteristic of life here. For instance, our really anticipated outing today? Toast, due to slow breakfast service at McDonald's, constant transit problems, and directions to go to "Yongsan Post Office" when there are at least three post offices and the only one that shows up on the map is very evidently not the one where we were supposed to be. So we got up at 6:30 on a Sunday for absolutely nothing.

Really, it's been frustrating. I know you've seen our posts about how the Internet refuses to work (both at home and in our classrooms), about the fact that the recycling pickup is on Saturday mornings before 10 AM, about how I can't eat the food without getting sick, about the month-long delay in our shipment... it just seems like nothing will go right here, even the stuff that honestly shouldn't be that hard. And I know that once you get in a funk, you always pay attention to the negative and forget the stuff that's going right - for instance, my care packages from my mom have gotten here great, and the slingbox is working right now and has provided us with football and an amusing new show called Pushing Daisies on top of our beloved House. But even typing that, I want to point out how I can't use some of the stuff in the care package because we're the only school apartment without an oven and how the slingbox still cuts out for no reason, sometimes in the middle of shows.

Anyway, we were pretty bummed to miss that trip today for yet another stupid reason. I'm going to send an e-mail and see if we can get some refund or at least apply the money to a future trip.

Now, back to Slingboxed college football...

The Royal Dorkiatic Society

Last night, Nana and I went to our first-ever meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, an old and respected club of shameless dorks who want to learn more about Korea. We've had our eye on joining the Society for a while now, but not until yesterday could we muster up the time and the energy to trek all the way downtown for a lecture.

Thankfully, it looks like the RAS could be well worth the effort (and the 80,000-won membership fee--discounts for married couples! finally, my motives become clear!). While last night's lecture certainly didn't earn any style points--the speaker could barely speak English and was completely shackled to his hideous Powerpoint notes--the content was very interesting: a history of Korea's representation in Western cartography. (Apparently, we white folk took a good three centuries to notice that Korea is, in fact, a peninsula, not an island. But, hey! At least we knew by then that it existed!)

What's more, we signed up for a day trip to Ganghwa Island with the RAS this Sunday--Ganghwa-do being one of Korea's UNESCO World Heritage Sites, on the strength of its fortresses, its temples, and its prehistoric dolmen tombs. We've been wanting to visit Ganghwa since we learned about it, and sweet serendipity caused the RAS to reschedule the trip for precisely the weekend we're able to go. Plus, apparently we'll get to visit a certain RAS member's swanky Ganghwa-do pad. (Nana says: "Bonus for networking, eh?")

But the real news, I suppose, is that Nana and I are finally finding/making the time to get out and do something, other than sit around and work all the time. Slowly--very slowly--we're getting this school thing under control and carving out little pockets of dorky leisure. If only we could wrangle some Korean lessons somehow. Though that may have to wait for the summer.

Ah! It's too bad that we live so far out of town--the RAS adjourns for a round of ale after every meeting, but our long train ride back to Nowon gets us home pretty late. Though maybe we'll just have to suffer through some sleepy Wednesdays here and there.

In other news, Nana and I got to share our bus home with an utter lunatic tonight. Tourettes or schizophrenia or something. Shouting, flailing. Totally weird.

OMGHOLYCRAP Part II, or the continuing adventures of my name in romance novels

You may remember that about six weeks ago, I posted about Carla Kelly, one of my favorite romance novelists, deciding she liked my name and using it in a book. Well, today, I got an e-mail from her asking for formal permission to use my full name (duh!). In the event that I declined to give permission, she was willing to change the character's name to Nana Marlowe. Horrors!

She also gave me a bit of information on the character as well as the first chapter of the book. According to Ms. Kelly, "Nana is a delightful character" - how could she be anything but? - "and she gets an excellent man, a post captain in the royal navy named Oliver Worthy." In fact, she says, she had so much fun with the whole thing that she's hoping to do a trilogy around the Worthy family, so I may even reappear in the future! This has to be the first time ever that I've hoped for a gratuitous cameo by the protagonists of previous novels.

I did enjoy the first chapter, although I won't distribute it because that's probably not appropriate. You'll all appreciate the fact that Nana spends most of the first chapter looking for food. The neatest thing by far, though, is that Nana is her character's nickname, too, and her real name just happens to be Eleanor. Eleanor, for those of you who don't know, was the name of my maternal grandmother, a wonderful, brilliant woman who died just a couple of years ago. I did not tell Ms. Kelly this, although I did write back to let her know. It is just a lovely coincidence.

Now I need everybody to send positive vibes to Carla Kelly's editors: Buy this book! Love this book! Pay Carla Kelly all the money in the world for this book! Don't change the names of any characters in this book!

Gruesse aus... Seoul?

Yesterday we found ourselves downtown around dinnertime, so we decided to coddle my poor belly and take it out for some foreign food in Itaewon.

Itaewon is the foreign district in Seoul, historically, I believe, sprung up because it's right by the US Army base. It's not just American, though - all the expat communities hub around Itaewon (except, of course, the expats affiliated with APIS, because we live over an hour away). It's where you go for African hair stylists, Pakistani restaurants, international grocers and the like.

As we left the subway, Justin spotted sort of a shabby-looking ad for a restaurant called Chef Meili, which promised authentic Austrian food. (Amusingly, the picture on the review is of the dish Justin actually ordered - the beef roulade). I wasn't completely confident but I didn't have a better idea so I went along with it.

Nobody was in the restaurant when we got there, which added to me being nervous, but it turned out to be a huge success. The prices were a little high for Korea, which seems to be standard for foreign food, but I would say it was worth it. I had smoked salmon on a potato pancake, and we got a vanilla ice cream/berry sauce dessert that was really amazing.

None of that, though, was as awesome as talking in German to the Austrian chef. I think he got a kick out of it - he says he's only been here four months, and there are about 150 Austrians living in Seoul, so it was probably nice to talk to somebody new in his own language. But for me? It just felt good not to feel so stupid.

Being surrounded by these kids who speak Korean whenever our backs are turned and then coming home on a Korean bus with Korean speakers everywhere - well, it's not like I didn't expect that, coming to Korea, but it really does make me feel like an idiot not to have a clue what's going on. The school did promise us Korean lessons, but that hasn't started yet, and it'll take a long time to get anywhere with them. So we can certainly look forward to months of more cluelessness.

Anyway, I just felt a lot better about myself after a nice reminder that no, I'm not a language-deaf moron American - I just don't happen to speak this one.

PS. Put a hold on the optimism regarding having only one class with student failures. I forgot the one sixth grader getting a 42%. Which I suppose is fair, since by all indications he's forgotten about my class.

Short and mediocre post

Just pointing out that we're alive.

Highlights/lowlights:
1. The slingbox is down again, inexplicably.
2. The weather has been spectacular lately--very clear, very cool.
3. Visited a big info fair for foreigners down at City Hall and finally got in touch with the Royal Asiatic Society. Hopefully, we can rescue a weekend or two here or there from the clutches of schoolwork and actually get out and see some of this country!
4. There's a possibility we may finally be able to ditch our awful internet service provider.
5. I (Nana) now have only two students failing my class in all grades! Two students have reached the magical 60%! Grades are due a week from Monday and I will do everything in my power to keep that D- alive.
6. We miss our dog.

Observations

Hi all,

In the event that anybody has noticed that we haven't been posting as recently, I apologize. To the rest of you who didn't realize we were missing, carry on. There's nothing to see here.

It's been pretty hectic lately. We went into the school yesterday (Saturday) for four hours and Justin's entering hour six or seven of work today. The depressing cause of all of this is that our kids just don't seem to be able to write.

It's very odd. Yes, there's the whole ESL barrier problem, but it's more than that. Some kids whose English is just fine are totally incoherent on paper. The concept of "paragraph" does not seem to exist. After a heavily plagiarized assignment on Alexander the Great, I made all the seventh graders keep a research notebook as they worked on a project about Rome, but some of them have submitted a typed version of their notes in place of an essay. We can't figure out if they're honestly confused or if they don't actually think they need to bother.

On that note, I read a disheartening quote from a Korean mother in one of the English-language papers, where she essentially said that she condoned her high-school child buying papers online because homework wasn't as important to getting into college as his exam grades, so she wanted him to buy the papers and focus on studying for the tests. Of course, given some of the test scores we see, they're not doing that either. But can you believe it? I sincerely hope no parent at our school feels that way.

I hesitate to say TOO much about the Korean school system, seeing as everything I know about it is hearsay from our students who have been in it, fellow teachers who went through it, or from deductions based on experiences (students are constantly surprised when I ask them to stay awake in class.). But I guess I will say that American newspapers rhapsodize so much about the glories of the "Asian educational system" and stereotype the kids so heavily that I couldn't have helped but come here and be surprised.

Culture Quiz!

Culture quiz!

A Korean movie contains the following scene:
A man goes to the store and buys a container of seaweed soup. He then sits in his apartment alone eating the soup.

The reaction of Koreans in the audience: sobbing.

Why?

Ready for the answer?
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In the United States, we celebrate birthdays with cake. In Korea (and Japan, too) the birthday treat is a bowl of soup (this in and of itself might be enough to make me cry.) The Koreans in the audience were crying because they knew that it was the man's birthday, but he was all alone and had to buy himself the soup and eat it by himself in his apartment. In an American movie, the comparable scene would have the man perhaps lighting a candle on a cupcake, wearing a limp and crooked party hat, and singing a particularly tragic rendition of "Happy Birthday to Me." Oh, man, now I'm going to cry.

Tuna Surprise!

The other day, Nana and I had a hankering for sushi, and while we've had some pretty good stuff at the U9 (a chain Japanese-ish restaurant), they always insist on bringing weird stuff with the platter, too. So we thought we would check out what appeared to be another Japanese place in our building (the pictures of raw tuna on the sign were pretty promising)--especially since our lunchtime success at a little sandwich shop downstairs had left us emboldened to try something else new. (I swear, the cole slaw and sketchy beef patty made it taste VERY vaguely like Primanti's. Oh, how I would kill for Primanti's!)

Anyway, the restaurant. No picture menu, it turned out--in fact, not much of a menu at all. Our dinner choices consisted of tuna, tuna, or tuna, sliced and raw, in various portions (the cheapest of which was 18,000 won per person). But, hey! We chalked it up to cross-cultural experience, sat down, and opened our collective wallet wide.

Now, the good news is that the food was excellent. After an utterly inexplicable aperitif consisting of one shot of cold whole milk, we had several different cuts of several different kinds of tuna (ahi, yellowfin, albacore), all very high quality, and thanks to some gesture-laden instruction from the server, figured out that we were supposed to dunk the tuna in either salt oil or soy sauce before we laid it on a sheet of dried seaweed (with a dab of wasabi, of course). She did not, however, show us that we were supposed to eat the resulting contraption with our hands, and no doubt got a good laugh out of whitey fumbling needlessly with chopsticks. Bonus: the tuna came with a creamy roasted corn casserole of some sort and a really tasty salad.

When the corn casserole was scraped clean, then, and the last bit of tuna devoured, Nana and I, very satisfied (but very much $36 poorer), stood to pay the tab, at which point the waitress all but shoved us back into our seats. To our utter and lasting horror, she returned with another heaping plate of raw fish! Which means that the 1-person, 18,000-won portion would have been plenty for us, in fact not much more than dinner for two at the KBBQ! Curse you, Korea, and your ban on two people sharing one plate!

Video Links

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video clip of sequential images must be the equivalent of War and Peace. Okay, maybe just One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. It's more than this blog, at any rate.

These are Korean news clips on the opening of APIS. They're a little old (that's my fault for not getting them up here) but now you can finally check out what our school looks like on the inside! And even more excitement, continuing his Korean megastar trend, Justin shows up on camera in the second one. I have yet to have a star turn here, but I remain confident that great things are in store.

Clip #1

The APIS segment here goes from 3:00-5:35 and doesn't show either of us, although you will see Shelby the math teacher and Colleen the science teacher. For the record, our principal is much more articulate in person.

Clip #2

The second one is a little bit harder to find but it's totally worth it because that's the one where you can see Justin gettin' his English instruction on.

Basically, ignore all the Korean and go to the BOTTOM link - the last NBS orange box that says 8/21 and then some Korean.

You can see Justin in the frozen frame when the APIS segment starts, at about 4:24, and then there's clips of our opening ceremony and some other teachers until you see Justin again at 6:25 and, less flatteringly, his butt (he's facing the other way helping a student!) at 7:10. And once again, I promise you, our principal is actually a really articulate guy. Not sure why the camera did that to him.

So that's what our classrooms look like! That's what SMART boards are! That's who are students are! Exclamation point!

BONUS KONGLISH NOTE (from Justin): In that second video, right after you see me (Justin), but before you see my butt, you can totally hear the voice-over say "miguk ibee leeguh," which, of course, means "American Ivy League."

Konglish quiz!

Just so you can see what we're up against.
(link)

Note: Unlike Spanglish or Germisch, Konglish doesn't refer to English-speakers mangling Korean, but to Koreans . . . not mangling, but . . . appropriating English words into their native tongue. And many of these appropriations are complete fabrications, or at least a total stretch. Example: "skinship," which, as far as I can tell, is the middle-school equivalent of "friends-with-benefits." Let me tell you, I had students who were appalled to learn that I had no idea what that word meant.

Reasons Why Being Married to the Social Studies Teacher is Awesome

1) Collaborative projects.

Seriously, we're having the eighth grade start a current-events/research-skills/media-literacy mini-unit on the (sadly waning) uprising in Burma-Myanmar (has that been getting as much coverage in the States as it has here?), and we're setting the seventh grade out on a research-skills/proper-citiation mini-unit on the Roman Empire. Not only is this going to be really cool for the kids, it will make meeting some of my standards SO much easier! Plus, we'll get to synergize a lot with our work.

2) The social studies teacher totally cute.

Korean Style Watch: My Korean Haircut

Intrepid co-worker Colleen and I went to get our hair cut at Song Hair Salon on the first floor of my building (salon slogan, in English: Your Beauty and Dream).

Korean shampooing is where beauty salon products meet professional wrestler hands. And believe it or not, I mean this in a good way. We sit down to get shampooed, and these innocuous looking middle aged women proceed to tenderize our scalps like our heads are made out of modeling clay. These women have fingers like you wouldn't believe. Keyboards and push-button phones tremble at their approach, and pianos lie shattered in their wake.

Then, feeling pretty darn mellow, we sit down to get it cut, giving directions as best we can entirely by pantomiming snip-scissor fingers (although I did bring down the dictionary so Colleen could point to the word "trim"). This was hampered by the fact that whenever I brought my arms out from under that little cape you put on, some well-meaning salon employee would come extract the cape from behind my elbows and tuck me back under again.

Colleen has naturally curly hair, and by naturally curly, I mean corkscrew kind of curly, which proceeded to overwhelm her Korean stylist by bushing out like a puffer fish upon the application of a blow dryer. He then made matters worse by trying to brush out the poof, and finally, on the verge of serious emotional distress, settled for massive application of styling products. Let's face it, this is not the sort of hair they teach you about in Korean beauty school. I have, however, seen her since, when she hasn't blow-dried or brushed it, and it looks fantastic. So all due credit to the cutter.

And how did my haircut turn out? Well, you tell me!

Front view:



















Back view:



















Side view:





















I'm pretty pleased, actually, although I would have been fine with it even shorter in the back. And it only cost about ten dollars, which for a shampoo, scalp massage, and haircut is a ridiculous bargain. I'm getting my hair cut every week!

Justin Drinks Weird Stuff For Your Entertainment, Part 4

In today's episode: "Pine Bud Drink!"



Wow. That was definitely one of the weirder things I've had in a while . . . and I live in Korea! It was like drinking a delicate solution of Vick's Vaporub and Pine Sol. Not an experience I plan to repeat.

Also: I won't go into much detail, because it's gross, but if you were thinking of drinking bunch of Aloe juice because I said it was really tasty . . . don't!

Hiking, Take 2

As you may have heard (from us, probably), this week is Chusok in Korea--it's a combination harvest-festival Confucian-ancestor-worship shindig, a time when everyone heads back to their hometown and daughters-in-law freak out preparing meals for their families. Of course, since precisely no one is from Seoul, this means the city pretty much empties out for the week. Perfect time to go hiking! Especially if your last attempt at a hike was crushed under the feet of the North-Face-clad multitudes (get the full story here).

Anyway. This attempt started at about 10:00 AM with Nana's decision to stay home to rest, nurse a stomach ache, and prepare to host some friends for an afternoon of football, fried chicken, and beer. (Our giant new $420 flatscreen monitor helped make this totally sweet, by the way.) Then, a few minutes later, my hiking party showed up--minus one more, a colleague who mysteriously disappeared in the course of several Skype calls yesterday morning. However, undeterred by this appallingly high rate of attrition, we two remaining hikers set off through the streets of Nowon, navigating by sight to the foot of a small mountain nearby.




Now, you need to understand that we chose this hike because it was supposed to be relatively easy--the guidebook talks about a wide, sandy trail meandering its way up from street level, with some nice views and some rocks at the top. Well, apparently we took a wrong turn somewhere, because the trail we took was steep, narrow, deserted, and barely-marked at all! But after about an hour of hard climbing, we were finally rewarded with a nice view across Nowon, a short rest--and, of course, a glimpse of the aforementioned wide, sandy trail. A tiny helipad--yes, helipad--signaled that we were at the summit. We continued on, deciding to press forward to the Danggogae Metro stop rather than retrace our steps to the foot of the hill.



But at the summit we were not! After about 15 minutes on the sandy, windy footpath, we reached a rocky clearing and found ourselves looking straight up. (We also found the well-marked trail down to Danggogae, but seriously, how could you pass views like these up?) The last 20 minutes to the real summit were pretty wild--much more climbing than hiking, with long lines of ropes to help you up the rock face and some harrowing drops at the side of the trail.














But, hey! The views were well worth it. I could see my house from here!


And just to add a little more thigh-burning goodness to the day, the descent up at the top here was even tricker than the climb: we eventually figured out it was best to go down backwards, belay-style, but on more than one occasion we had to rely on the tried-and-true buttslide, plus a little help from our Korean guardian angel (some guy who adopted us for the day and made it his business to make sure we got to the bottom of the hill in one piece).

We did, of course, make it to the bottom in one piece, downed a few bottles of Pocari Sweat, and then geared up for an afternoon of sloth and gluttony--fried chicken and two NFL games. Sweet!

Pakistani, Pancakes, and Persimmon

Yesterday, Nana and I spent the first day of our Chusok break bumming around downtown--by which I mean blowing a whole afternoon at the War Memorial Museum, about which Nana will have much more to say. But bookending our gluttonous dorkiness was gluttony of an altogether different sort, and it's of that kind of gluttony I'd now like to tell.

Now, let me preface these remarks with the fact that Nana and I have been craving Indian food for weeks, after hearing tell of a decent, if pricey, lunch buffet at a place called Mughal in Itaewon. As it turns out, we would be disappointed by neither the decency nor the price. The restaurant is set back on the little hill behind the Hamilton Hotel, and the narrow alley you've got to climb seems to deter crowds, though that may just be a function of the Chusok holiday, which pretty nearly vacates Seoul. A pretty place, with a terrace we opted against (kind of cool yesterday, and drizzly), cloth napkins (rare here, as far as I can tell), and, most importantly, non-spicy food options that weren't as bland as bland can be, which was a big deal for Nana. Of course, there was plenty of spicy food, too--great lamb korma--to supplement the samosas and tandoori chicken, and piles of naan and basmati rice. (Bleached short-grain white rice gets pretty bland when it's the only starch in your diet for weeks!) At 18,000 won (about 19-20$), it wasn't cheap, but I think it was worth it. And coupled with the quirky basement Italian restaurant we found near Yonsei University earlier this week, Mughal means we're 2 for 2 on finding good, non-bank-busting foreign food in Seoul.

Yesterday's second food adventure, then, was a pancake dinner (hey, it would have been a pancake breakfast EST!) with some work friends here in Nowon. (Yet another attempt to gorge ourselves on something we've desperately craved.) Despite the outrageously expensive maple syrup--seriously, we're talking whiskey prices--and the stray whole kernels of corn lurking in the batter, the meal was a rousing success. And, of course, totally unnecessary, given how much we ate at lunch a scant 6 hours before.

But the highlight of the evening--with the exception of Nana playing "azimuths" on a triple-word-score (yes, even in Seoul, we're still incurable dorks)--was definitely the persimmon, which, despite all appearances, is not in fact an orange-ish tomato. (Nana's description: "Like a peach, but grapier.") My new goal: find persimmons in a small enough quantity that I can eat them before they go bad. Curse you bulk fruit stands! [shaking fist]

(Edit by Nana: It was a double-word score. But it was still a sweet word.)

All my t'ings about me

THE SHIPMENT CAME!!!

I feel like Maureen O'Hara, in The Quiet Man. I don't remember the exact scene, or if it's before or after the items in her dowry finally arrive at her new home. But in any case, she says something to the effect of how all a bride wants is to have "her own t'ings about her," with a hard "h" from her Irish accent.

I was so happy to see all our wedding presents and books and cooler-weather clothes and realize that nobody was fencing them on a street corner someplace. Having some of the nonperishable food we sent (Kraft Mac'n'cheese, Quaker Oats S'mores-flavor granola bars) has already made a huge morale difference and, I hope, may help my stomach out. Wedding dishes. Linens. Comfy chairs. Bookshelves. Dog hair that stuck to things while we were packing. It's all here.

I'll be honest and admit that when I opened some pillows and they smelled so much like home that I lost it and cried for a bit (although not as much, I suspect, as Thoreau would have cried over the fact that things could make me cry at all). I am enjoying teaching and I do like Korea, but yes, I get homesick. And for some reason, when nothing here was familiar, it didn't make quite so much of a difference, but when I was opening box after box of home things, I wanted to know where the rest of it was. Where's the box with comfy sofas from Justin's house in Pittsburgh? Where's the box that puts our friends on this continent and lets us go grab a beer with them? Where's the box with my mom in it? (Yeah, that image is unintentionally hilarious... but the sentiment is there).

Anyway, I'm glad it's here, even if it did make me homesick.

Off to revel in my squishy comforter and firm pillow!

Apple for the teacher

There is supposedly a way to post on Blogger when you're firewalled out of logging in to Blogger, which is to send an e-mail to a particular address. I have never tried it before but am trying it now, since the school has blocked it. And when you think about it, this whole paragraph is a waste of your time, because if I got it right, you don't care, and if I got it wrong, then you'll never know. But who said this blog wasn't about wasting your time?

Next week is Chusok, more or less the Korean Thanksgiving, except they get a whole week off of school instead of five days. Woo! And it is apprently a time of much gift-giving, and teachers are often recipients. Which brings me to what really is a nice thought, but leaving us in a bit of a quandary: a parent has given us a box of some 40-odd apples the size of softballs. Each. So between the two of us, Justin and I have eighty apples and, short of acquiring a potato gun, no idea what to do with them.

So I'm trolling for recipes now. I don't have an oven, but some teachers are thinking of getting together this weekend and doing a big apple bake. I can also do anything on a stovetop or in a microwave.

Apple pie. Apple bread. Apple cake. Apple butter. Apple dumplings. Apple anything. If you got it, hit me up with it! It's harvest time. Let the traditional panicked preservation of produce commence!

PS. The shipment people SWEAR it comes tonight at 6. Be braced for overwhelming joy or catastrophic depression by 6:30.

(Note: This post is actually from Nana, but it was sent from my address.)

Typhoon Lagoon

First of all, let's get something straight. I'm from the Midwest. I have a check-down list for tornado shelters that's eighteen qualifications long, but my options for severe ocean-borne weather boils down to about two: stay in town, or leave town. I don't know about the details, and I never bothered. If any hurricane made it all the way to Columbus, I would be much more concerned with the Four Horsemen accompanying it than I would be about a storm surge.

Hence my complete inability to understand how I should react to the news that Typhoon Wipha is headed for Shanghai and may knock us around after it goes by. I mean, I don't even know what a typhoon IS. I know it's a lot of fun to say, and was the name of the wave pool at Wyandot Lake when I was a kid, where Angelique Zeune got a three inch splinter through her foot on a sixth-grade back-to-school trip. But that's probably not the fault of a typhoon.

After some research (i.e., the textbook I teach geography from), I learned that we refuse to call the exact same weather the same word if it happens in different parts of the world. A typhoon would be a hurricane in the Atlantic, and the one that might get near us would be labeled Category 4.

In any case, for those of you (i.e., moms) who are panicking right now, calm down. Yes, Typhoon Wipha is a bad one. But it's aimed very far south of us, and even if it does loop back around to dump on Seoul, it will have shed a lot of strength going over land. We will probably get soaked, and we'll probably get some heavy wind, but Seoul's not about to turn into Katrina-land. Which is a shame, because I've been looking forward to looting the stores downstairs. (Oh, I went there. Yes, I did.)
In any case, do send good vibes to the Shanghainese. But don't panic for us. Not about typhoons, anyway. As far as lesson planning goes, panic all you like. I certainly do!

Nevermind. (Argh.) (Notice how half-hearted.)

The SlingBox is not, in fact, working. At least not anymore. (Though Nana did get an Ohio State game out of it this afternoon.)

I suppose I should get in the habit of never announcing any remotely tentative good news on this site, as it seems good news, too soon made public, can only lead to reversal and frustration. (See previous post on shipping.)

And on another note, I guess I should take down those silly School of ROK Quick Guides, since none of the advice contained therein has done us a single shred of good.

Beginning Korean and Victory over the Slingbox

I amazed myself by totally understanding a security guard last night, without actually understanding almost anything he said.

Nana and I were hanging out in the rooftop garden of a coworker's apartment building last night, indulging in some, ahem, beverages and burning some proverbial midnight oil. (We were there so late that the giant neon 2001 Outlet sign shut off!) When out strolls one of the ubiquitous upper-middle-aged security guards of whom every building seems to have at least one (and no more than two).

Now, you have to understand the utter terror that can come over you when you see a fifty-to-sixty-something Korean approaching with a set frown on his or her face. Apparently, such folks have made it the national mission of their generation to shoo disrespectful Americans from places where they're not supposed to sit. (Hint: if it's a level surface, and people aren't sitting there already, you're not supposed to sit there.) And we, troublemakers all, were alone on the roof, sitting on a structure that might or might not have been a bench. So I, for one, prepared for the inevitable apologetic smiles and confused shrugs.

But then, when the guard started talking, some ghost of comprehension welled up from the depths of my soul. Inspired, I told Josh, our host, to tell the man his room number. Success! And then, when the guard pointed disapprovingly to our beverages and then vaguely towards the stairway, I didn't panic. No, somehow I decided that the man wasn't wagging his finger at our preferred choice of thirst-quenchers (nobody drinks like the Koreans, especially in public, or in the morning, or in public in the morning for that matter), he just wanted to make sure we threw our things away before we left the roof! (And no one is quite as fanatical as Koreans about proper waste disposal.)

Of course, as luck would have it, I hadn't actually bought us too much time, since our reserves of both energy and drink were rapidly dwindling. But, hey! When you're dealing with Korean, any shred of comprehension is something to celebrate, no matter how inexplicable. (And no matter how completely independent of anything the speaker actually said.)

In other news: Thanks to some help from my intrepid father, we appear to have the SlingBox working (finally)! Just in time to watch Ohio State's 33-14 victory over Washington! And maybe even today's/tomorrow's Steelers game. (Am I a bad fan? I won't watch if they don't win.)

To the anonymous student who let one in my class on Friday . . .

. . . I am duly impressed.

And also worried that, come Monday, it'll still be there.

Happy Problems -1

Turns out our shipment isn't coming until next Friday. (Miscommunication.) What a tease!

Happy Problem the Seventh

Apparently, kids make you dumber: I've forgotten how to count. (link)

2 Happy Problems!(?)!!

Happy Problem the First: Even this far into September, we keep getting new students at APIS. This is a good thing because new students mean more funds for the school, and also because new students are usually a reflection of the good buzz we've generated so far. APIS has really taken off this year, moreso than a first-year school really ought to, and that's pretty cool. Although now some of the classes are running out of desks and books and stuff (the kindergarten is simply running out of space!), and as the year goes on, it's really tough to catch the new kids up (especially when they're ESL cases, whom we were supposed to stop admitting weeks ago). But, hey! At least this means our prospects look good for next year! And we've got more than enough empty classroom space to expand into.

Happy Problem the Second: Pretty much everything we've been waiting for at school has arrived . . . and it all arrived within about 40 minutes yesterday morning. Seriously. Grading software, admin software, website software, library books, core literature--everything. And when the truck driver with the books arrived, he decided that he wasn't staying any longer than five minutes, at which time he'd leave with whichever of our fifty boxes of books weren't off the truck. So, naturally, my 8th grade English class was suddenly transformed into PE, as our principal enlisted us to schlep all the books up to the library on the third floor. But at least we were rewarded with popsicles. And, of course, our core lit books are finally here!

And speaking of (possible) arrivals . . .

Happy Problem the Third: We think (hope!) that our shipment is arriving on Friday! (Notice: we hope. But we refuse to believe it's actually coming. Every single step of this shipping process has been so opaque and so sketchy--I mean, our stuff was here in Korea for two weeks without anyone on either side of the pacific contacting us!--that we dare not expect our stuff to show up.) But we haven't been able to figure out if we're getting the move-in service (which we paid for), or if a truck will just be showing up with our pallet and telling us to unload it ourselves in ten minutes, or the loot's gone. (See Happy Problem the, er, Previous.) So just in case, we're going to invite a bunch of people over for KBBQ and pick up the tab if they end up having to schlep our stuff for us. (Yes, we will warn them ahead of time. That is, if our shipment is actually coming. You see! I said "if"!)

GRUMP.

I had to play Mean Mr. Goff with one of my classes today. I hate that.

Take a Hike!

Nana and I had our first Korean hiking experience last weekend. Shorter than expected--due to a late start and my better half's burgeoning cold--but enough for a brief glimpse into the Korean hiking culture, at least at one of the most popular day-trip destinations on one of the most beautiful days of the year.

So! We arrived at the subway station about five stops north of where we live. The station is actually named for the mountain, Dobongsan, which probably should have been our first tip off that this was going to be a strange day. Our second tipoff should have been the huge clusters of pristinely-equipped Koreans flowing uphill from the station . . . but before any of that, we found this completely inexplicable field full of flowers across from the station exit. So, naturally, we frolicked.



Then and only then did we turn our feet downstream . . . which is to say uphill . . . with the tide of well-dressed trekkers. (Mixed metaphors are an early sign of encroaching bedtime.) At which point we discovered that the trailhead was still a 10-minute walk away, through a not-so-small village of gear shops, knockoff gear shops, and open-air eateries serving grilled stinkfish (that's what I call them, anyway) that you could watch in their aquariums, floating upside down, blissfully dead, near the top of the tank. Needless to say, we pressed on, and quickly--I didn't even get a picture!--figuring that pretty soon the shops and restaurants and stuff would give way to wilderness, and at least a few meters of open trail.

Well . . . in short, we were wrong. Even given the large number of Koreans who seem to get all dressed up (we're talking backpacks, walking sticks, even helmets) to hike all the long way to the restaurant furthest from the bus stop at the head of the trail (to consume stinkfish and soju, of course), the trails were utterly packed.

And we're talking packed, here. Not hippy-whining about seeing eight other people on a seven-mile trail packed. Amusement-park packed. I mean, the real challenge wasn't the hiking itself (we didn't get all the way up to the hard stuff), it was hiking at speed, in time with everyone else. You couldn't take time to find a new foothold before you stepped, because then the person behind you would bump into you. And you had to find a foothold while your foot was in the air, because you couldn't go back--the person behind you already had a foot in the foothold you just left. No wonder they need all that gear! The poles are clearly for whacking slowpokes, and the helmets for withstanding whacks.

And if you think the handful of hikers out there in high-heels (carrying parasols) made anything better . . . well, you'd be wrong.

Now, don't you fear--the day wasn't a total loss. We did see a chipmunk, over which everybody completely freaked out, and we did learn a valuable lesson, which is never to hike on a nice Sunday in September (absolute most crowded it gets, except for maybe a nice Sunday in late October), unless you like to hike like you drive. But on the whole, it was an experience I don't hope to repeat. So next time, it'll be a weekday or a Saturday (most Korean kids are in school on Saturdays), and not an incredibly nice one. Though the stinkfish (ah, the stinkfish!) I don't think we'll have a way to avoid.

What's cooking?

You would think that when eating in restaurants is cheaper than eating at home, life would be one big going-out-to-dinner party. Well, you'd think wrong. Korean food is good, but if you don't eat spicy food, there's very little variety in your non-spicy options. Also, Korean food is very short on fiber (processed flour noodles and plain rice are the carb staples) and if I've gotten any calcium in a restaurant, it's been accidental.

To clarify, eating in restaurants is SOMETIMES cheaper than eating at home. I'd say that depending on what we get, Justin and I feed ourselves on about 9,000 to 12,000 won, on average. The dumpling shop is a little less, barbecue is more (about 9,000 each). 9,000 won is about $10, so about $5 per person. It might be cheaper to live on sandwiches, but a) we wouldn't eat as well, b) we would have to schlepp groceries, cook, and clean, and c) stuff in the grocery store isn't as cheap as the restaurant prices seem to indicate they should be. Justin wrote about this before; our newest potential explanation for retail food being pricier than prepared food is a tax that hits retail but not wholesale. Could be.

To illustrate, tonight, we decided to spoil ourselves by eating pasta. Yes. Pasta in tomato sauce is now a pampering kind of meal. I had to go to two stores, because the first one only had Korean-style noodles and no pasta. (No pasta?! I twitch at the thought!) At the second store, in the "Foreign Foods" section, I got rotini and Ragu. I don't think I've ever eaten Ragu in the USA, but somehow it felt like a comfort food. All I needed, I thought, was some cheese, and we'd be good to go!

Well.

Cheese is exotic in Korea. How exotic, you ask? Well, let's put it this way: I have never before seen anybody shelve Velveeta in the wine section. For real. That, Borden, and an 11,000 won block of parmesan. I've never heard of anybody eating parmesan straight, let alone eating straight parmesan with WINE. What on earth goes with that?

In their defense, there was also some Brie and Camembert, but come on. Velveeta???

We ended up mixing some pretty good Feta into the sauce and accompanying it with monterey jack melted onto French bread slices. Pasta, garlic and tomato Ragu, bread, and two kinds of cheese, and it was the most expensive dinner we've had since we got here! Fortunately, there was tons, so we'll eat it tomorrow and halve the cost.

I apologize if this was completely incoherent. Korean schools are just as much of germ factories as American schools, and I'm coming down with a cold. My new discipline threat to the children will be to breathe on them.

English buddies!

So there really aren't many foreigners in our part of Seoul. Certainly few enough that two white kids walking down the street can turn some heads. So some of the neighbors have started to recognize us, which is nice--a more-sincere-than-usual anyunghasseyo, an extra smile and nod here or there. But a few of our neighbors have really gone over the top!

For instance: Nana and I were riding home on the bus the other night with a bus driver we'd seen several times before. (I've seen a grand total of about five different drivers on our route.) The bus can be a bit awkward sometimes--a lot of Korean spoken, and always the fear that we'll do something wrong and be left completely unable to understand the driver's directions. We're mostly just satisfied if we can get home without breaking our spines (these guys take those speed bumps hard!).

Anyway, the stop before ours, the bus empties. We're the last souls destined for Save Zone tonight. Then, at the last stoplight before our stop, the bus driver looks in his mirror and starts speaking--in English! Very good English, too. The exchange goes something like this.

Driver: mumble mumble
Justin: I'm sorry? (apologetic shrug I use when hangukoleur molumnida just won't come out>
Driver: You are getting off at Save Zone?
Nana: Yes, this is our stop.
Driver: Do you speak any Korean?
Justin: Not much!
Driver: Can you say "ahn-yung-hah-say-yo?"
Nana and Justin: "Anyunghasseyo!"
Justin: Yes, and "konggibap"! (bowl of rice)
Nana: "Dongaas!" (pork cutlet)
Driver: Ah! You can speak Korean!

And then! Not five minutes after we get off the bus, Nana and I are in the bakery downstairs, buying breakfasty things (which are surprisingly hard to come by at breakfast-time, oddly enough). And the manager, who definitely recognizes us by now, busts out in--you guessed it--excellent English! Good enough to ask us if we're English teachers (I had to specify that we're not ESL teachers--in Korea, that's an entirely different breed--but I can explain that later), and even persuade us to sign up for a point card. (We go to the bakery a lot.)

So, anyway, long story short, I ran this by Paul, our resident expert on being-whitey-in-Korea, and apparently this isn't uncommon. Many, many Koreans speak pretty good English, especially around Seoul . . . but they're terrified of using English in front of other Koreans. (If your English is bad, you look stupid, and if your English is good, you look like a smarty-pants.) But the second you get a Korean alone with English-speakers, out come the z's and the f's! (No z or f in Korean.)

And: we're helping the bakery guy with his English vocab. He now knows that "miles card" is only for airline rewards!

THE BIG SNIT!!!!

Caution: Non-Korea post

The defining film of my childhood is now available on YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvINxJFOcCU

I especially like the part where they're playing Scrabble and he has nothing but EEEs.


Edited to add: Okay, now I actually watched it again. Um... what the hell????? No wonder I'm so messed up.

Could it be?

Our recalcitrant shipping company has finally told us that our shipment has arrived in Seoul and is ready to clear customs. Since as recently as, oh, THIS MORNING we were wondering if they'd stolen the whole thing, we're hesitant to believe this news, but oh, how we want to! Especially since there's been a pretty intense cold front these last couple of days and most of our coats and sweaters and such are in the shipment. And I want the rest of my shoes.

Send more positive vibes! We're not out of the woods yet!

If you don't have anything to say...

Post anyway!

Only a few minutes and not much to say so it'll be a short post.

I discovered to my chagrin on Monday that the unit I just completed with my sixth graders (prehistoric man and early farming) was supposed to take me six weeks. What? I could barely keep two weeks interesting! Come on!

So now a mad slowdown in curriculum is taking place, with the exception of the sevens. This is annoying because my sevens are the only class that might actually be considered behind, since it's the only class still in unit 1 and unit 1 isn't even technically in my standards.

Fine. If I have to slow down later and spend three days in Egypt on the alphabet alone, I will do that. But I'll be damned if my sixth grade is going to have to spend any more time on the role of the plow in the formation of early cities. "The hell with the role of the plow in the formation of early cities, that's our motto!"

PS. Is that my air conditioner beeping? What the heck?

Historical Fiction

My sixth grade test included the section "Tell Me A Story!" I don't believe in posting bad things about any of my students here, but I think it's definitely appropriate to call out some of the really great responses I got.

The prompt was this picture:



and the directions: "This is a skeleton of a woman. At her feet is the skeleton of a baby. Tell me a story about this woman and her baby. Where did they live? What did the woman do in her daily life? How did they die? Why are they buried like this? Be creative but be accurate."


Some responses:
- Death in childbirth
- The woman was the Queen of Egypt. She and her baby were killed by an enemy.
- Killed by a burglar
- Thief killed by fellow townsfolk
- Disease
- Mother gave up unwanted baby but then changed her mind and went to the house where she'd given the baby up, where the foster mother had fought with her boyfriend and accidentally stepped on the baby and fell, killing the baby and herself, but the boyfriend didn't tell the mother what happened
- Many, many votes for death by volcano


So that section went well. But on the whole, a disappointing test. I think the kids really didn't study (my evidence for this is the number of kids who asked me at lunch "Do we have a test or something?" and the kids who looked stunned to come into the classroom and find a test). I did have some A's and a couple of B's, but the mode grade was an F.

I'm sending the test home with a letter that the parents have to sign saying that they looked at the test with their kids. Then I'm going to crack down in learning vocabulary. I hate flashcards, but it may be the only thing to do...

Any suggestions?

Justin Drinks Weird Stuff for Your Entertainment, Parts 2 and 3

Aloe Juice.

Actually, it's pretty good. Tastes a bit like the prickly-pear I had in Arizona, but sweetened. And with little chunks of aloe floating around, to boot!

Corn Tea

Yes, that's corn-flavored (or more like corn-scented green tea) in a can. And, yes, that's a garishly thin cartoon woman hugging a four-foot ear of corn.As for taste, results were mixed. It was incredibly strange, but not unpleasant. It basically was like tasting green tea while smelling roasted corn. (Or Bugles.) Not much of a corn taste really, just a corn smell. BONUS: In the vending machine, it was right next to the POCARI SWEAT.

A Little Catharsis

Just a short list of several annoying little things that aren't working according to plan.

Our internet connection. (Randomly shuts down every 5 minutes.)
Skype. (Horrible call quality, probably related to shoddy internet connection.)
SlingBox. (No idea. Should be working, as far as I can tell.)
Shipment. (Still not here yet. No idea why it's late.)
Garbage. (Can't figure it out. The recycling cans are only out Saturdays before 9AM?)
Taxis. (I'm about 1 for 30 on getting cab drivers to understand my sloppy Korean.)
Health care. (Apparently, most of our in-network doctors are almost an hour away.)
Chinese visas. (We're planning a trip to China, but the embassy has no weekend hours, closes at 5 and is 35 minutes away!)
Core reading books. (Still somewhere out on the high seas.)
Dog. (We have none. Oh, Kipper, I hope you're having fun in the Burgh!)

If you have any suggestions, send them our way!

Whew! What a week!

Sorry there haven't been any posts since Thursday. It's been one crazy week! Not only was Parents' Night pretty draining (I can give more details if you e-mail me, but for privacy reasons I can't really write much about it online), but some of the kids seem to have finally come out of their shells this week--and not in a good way! We actually had one kid, heretofore pretty quiet, sent to the principal's office five times in six hours yesterday (Friday). And while energy was pretty high in my literature circles, it was also a bit tough to keep the kids focused and on-task.

So, yes, while I totally intended to post before now, I spent most of yesterday simply surviving, and I spent most of today asleep. (Aside from a tasty lunch of dongaas--fried pork donkatsu--and buckwheat noodles in ice broth.) Which isn't bad, since it was a pretty dreary day today (cool and rainy), and we certainly weren't up to schlepping out to any museums in town.

Short Impressions of Korean Culture

I had a reader (actually, a cousin) ask me for a little bit more info about Korea in general--culture, weather, and the like. And while I don't consider myself an expert on the topic after only a few weeks, I think now is as good a time as ever to share a few first impressions of some more ephemeral things.

The first, and most amazing, and most amazingly boring insight is that, after about a month, Korea doesn't feel too foreign at all. Many of the core values at work in American society are at work in Korea, too--which is probably one of the reasons Korea and the US have become such close allies (though the military alliance is weakening these days, while the economic alliance is strengthening). It's a relatively Westernized economy, somewhere between American free-market capitalism and European sort-of-free-market socialism. There are some giant conglomerates with semi-official government backing (Hyundai and Lotte are the most ubiquitous), which gives certain aspects of the economy (i.e., limited consumer choice) a distinctly socialist flair. What I can't figure out about the economy, though, is the food. Basic economics suggests that prepared food in restaurants should be more expensive than bulk food from retail stores, but here the opposite is true: when the prices aren't the same, it's usually the restaurant food that's cheaper. How in the heck does that work?

So, let's see, that's the economy. How about the music? What little I've heard so far has been surprisingly groovy--lots of influence from American soul, with a little later Michael Jackson thrown in. Apparently, Korean pop culture is huge throughout East Asia right now--they call it hallyu, the "Korean Wave." The Japanese still rule the world of comics and animation, though. Our kids are extremely excited to be learning Japanese. (More on the Japanese later . . . the Koreans have this thing against the Japanese, what after they invaded Korea a century ago . . .)

Otherwise, there aren't too many glaring differences. The pace of life is pretty fast, but no faster than it was in D.C. People eat dinner late. But they eat with their families, which is kind of cool. (It can be very hard to order dinner for two in Korea, especially considering that most of the time one Korean serving can easily feed three.) The kids don't sleep enough. Most folks shop in giant box stores. (Homever = Target.) Even though Seoul has excellent public transit (and horrible traffic), people continue to drive around in their cars. The familiarity far outweighs the foreignness. Though there's certainly weird stuff. Like eating fish heads. I'll never understand that. (I don't normally like to eat things that can look me in the eye.)

Anyway, those are the first impressions so far. I'll try to make sure we add other "deep thoughts" from time to time, if only to keep us from getting too sucked into the school.!

Lit Circles: First Day

Had our first trial run with our literature circle meetings today. For the most part, they went better than expected, though one class (which will not be named) was a (near-)total wreck.

For those who aren't up on the lingo, literature circles are kind of like book clubs for the classroom. The kids have a lot of choice as to what they read, and they lead book-club-like discussion in small groups, ideally with minimal direction from the teacher. The idea is to teach kids to read like adult readers do: choose books that interest them (and learn how to choose books that interest them), respond to them, and discuss them with colleagues or friends. There's a lot of research out there these days suggesting that this is one of the best ways to turn kids into lifelong readers. It's also a great way to differentiate instruction--kids will generally pick books within their abilities--and give the instructor (me) more time to work one-on-one (or one-on-four) with the kids.

But, man, getting these suckers started is hard! Our kids are so unfamiliar with so-called "student-centered" learning that I already realize I'm going to have to spend at least a couple weeks on teaching students how to ask the kinds of questions insightful readers ask. And as of today, the kids are still terrified of disagreeing with one another, which is something that will have to go.

For the time being, though, I'm satisfied with what went on today. Students read a short story (in class) earlier this week, and at the very least, they're excited to choose their reading for Friday. If I get nothing else out of them this week, I'll consider that a success.

On another note . . . I'm pretty sure my lecture on plot yesterday rocked. We basically all wrote a silly story together (mountaintop, treasure chest, snarling beast) and talked about what all the parts were. We spun off about a dozen different variations at each turning point of the story, and we also discussed a funny secondary story, man vs. society, which involved Mr. Goff wanting to grow up to be a ballerina. Plenty of giggling, plenty of raised hands, plenty of note-taking. All stuff teacher loves to see!

Dis and Indiscretions

Just noticed this morning that Justin and I were riding the very-crowded bus into work merrily discussing our digestive systems' reactions to Korean food, secure in the knowledge that although the average Korean has at least a few useful words of English, digestive slang tends not to be among them. This is probably a habit we should get out of before coming home for Christmas.

My fifth graders made construction paper totem poles yesterday. Some of them really took to it, to the point of asking to take them home to have extra coloring time, and some of them drew a few squiggles in the vague shape of eyes and called it a day. Still, I'm excited to have at least some student work up on the bulletin board for Parent's Night tomorrow.

I give my first test tomorrow, 8th grade geography. I am quite nervous, although probably not as nervous as the kids! How many questions do I ask? How do I write them as language-neutral as possible? On the homework, for instance, even my best English 8s struggled with the section that said "The name of the lines running east-west across the map are called..." and yet nearly aced the section where they had to actually use latitude and longitude to plot on a map. No problem with the concept, then, but problem with the questions. And I absolutely do not want to give a test that so badly mismeasures what people know.

Dilemmas, dilemmas...

Cell phones and seollongtang

Got a cellphone the other day, through the tried and true method of asking someone who has some friends leaving town to score me a free phone. (South Korea uses a mobile phone protocol that's used by pretty much, oh, no one else in the world. In other words, Korean phones are useless outside of Korea.)

This is a big deal, because it can be really tough for foreigners to get phones here--or, more specifically, for foreigners to get phones they can use. You see, several of the big providers here require you to enter your national ID number to set up payment . . . and foreigners don't have a national ID. (No, we tried--alien registration card IDs don't work.) So foreigners either have to get a Korean friend to sign them up for a phone plan, or they have to get phones that are compatible with prepaid plans. . . . so getting a phone from a departing expat is a pretty safe way to go. Only problem is that I'm still getting the occasional text message from the guy's friends. And, his ringtones are awful. But, hey, as far as price goes, you can't beat free.

And, in other news, we've found another menu item that's not too spicy for Nana to eat: seollongtang, which is apparently the Korean equivalent of chicken noodle soup. Basically, a plain rice broth with some chives, a few veggies, and boiled beef. Whereas my latest culinary foray has been into the realm of jjigae, a spicy soup/stew (think spicy tortilla soup, with tofu and lots of cabbage). I can only be grateful that my tastebuds aren't terminally allergic to spice.

Coming soon: Parents' Night (aka, open house). Poor Nana's going to have to entertain the Saudi ambassador. Eek!

OMGHOLYCRAP

Okay, so this has nothing to do with teaching in Korea, but I am excited beyond all reckoning by this and I just had to share.

I am a huge fan of a romance novelist named Carla Kelly, who also happens to hold a master's in military history. Once upon a time, she posted on a message board about a journal article she'd written on sanitation in frontier military forts, and me being me, I told her I'd love to read it. We e-mailed, she sent me a copy of the article, I told her I really enjoyed it, and at some point during the exchange, she told me she liked my name and could she use it in a romance novel sometime? Well, um, let me think! I told her absolutely, and then kind of forgot about it as work ate my life.

Can you tell where this is going?

Yes. Today on the same message board where I first bumped into her, I saw the following post by Ms. Kelly herself:

In the novel I'm currently working on (due to the publisher Dec. 15), my heroine is named Nana Massie, after a reader. This novel takes place during the bad bad days of the blockade of England in 1808-1809, and is named Worthy.

And my head exploded.

Can you believe it?!!!! I am not only going to be a romance novel heroine, but I'm going to be a heroine for one of my absolutely favorite authors of all time!!!!

Of course, I'm bracing myself for the moment when the publisher says, "That name is a disaster... can't you go with something like Louise?" But come on. This is still the awesomest thing to happen to me, well, ever. Or at least since I married Justin :) (Insert "awww" here).

God bless the Internet!

POCARI SWEAT!

Not so bad. Like Powerade, but briny.

Jongmyo and Changgyeonggung

I promise this won't be as bloated as the last photo post, or at least I'll do my best! But Nana and I spent yesterday gadding about town (which for two dorks like us usually includes at least one UNESCO World Heritage Site) . . . and I thought that y'all might be interested. So here goes.

We started by taking the Metro to Jongo and entering the Jongmyo-Changgyeongung complex from the park side (you can also enter through the palace gate). Apparently, the park outside Jongmyo is the place for old Korean men (exclusively men) to hang out on a hot Saturday afternoon . . . and do nothing. Absolutely nothing. We found quite a few clusters of old men scattered around the Jongmyo grounds, too. They were apparently undeterred by the whopping 1000W ($1) admission fee. (Edit by Nana: I believe there is no fee for the over-65)

So, Jongmyo, yes. Jongmyo (aka "Chongmyo") is the ancestral shrine of the Joseon (aka "Choson") dynasty--i.e., the guys who ruled Korea for a really long time, ending in 1915 with the Japanese occupation. (These were the same folks responsible for Gyeongbokgung, and for those turtle boats, too.)
At Jongmyo, the ruling king and (the men of) his royal family would gather for elaborate ceremonies honoring the family's deceased kings and queens--which not only included actual kings and queens, but often also any non-royal grandparents of any kings, who were made kings and queens posthumously. As you might have guessed, then, the place is huge. In fact, my sourced tell me (read: I found it on Wikipedia), the main hall at Jongmyo is the longest traditional building in Korea. (Edit by Nana: While he was taking these pictures, I was reading the signs, and the sign said that it's the longest)



And it's pretty big, in a way that these photos can't quite capture. The top photo at left is about 1/2 of the hall, and those kids are about 1/2 of the distance between the camera and the hall. In the bottom photo, I'm standing about at about 1/2 of the way to about 1/5 of the hall.





The rites, as described by a small exhibit and a video (thankfully) subtitled in English, are pretty complicated affairs, and are still performed once yearly by the descendants of the Joseon royal clan. They basically involve offering a full feast, including booze, to the spirit tablets of the deceased, which reside in the hall year-round. (Two other halls--an annex for posthumous royals and another for distinguished retainers--also house spirit-tablet shrines.) Unclear what happens to the food after the ceremony--though during the ceremony, some of it is burned. At right are just a few of the 40-odd ritual utensils laid out before each of the 100-some shrines at Jongmyo for the ceremonies each year. (These are the jars for the booze.)


After Jongmyo, then, we crossed over a footbridge into Changgyeonggung, the adjacent palace used as a summer home by Goryeo and Joseon kings. (Though why anyone would want to spend their summers in such a brightly-lit palace is beyond me.) On the way, though, we had a moment of confusion. Hills, ravines, out-of-control vegetation . . . wait, how did we get back to Pittsburgh? Witness my confusion. This will not be the last time you see this look on my face.


And, yes, Changgyeonggung. Itself sort of a humdrum palace (we wanted to cross into Changdeokgung, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it appeared to be closed), Changgyeonggung does offer some signature views of Seoul, such as at right, with the palace rooftops in the foreground and N'Seoul Tower in the back. (N'Seoul Tower = project for another day.) Alternately, you've got more palace rooftops fronting cityscape at left.













Finally, last but not least, the signature Seoul experience--turning your back on a bunch of skyscrapers and being suddenly reminded that you're surrounded by mountains. Yes, Seoul sits on just about the biggest stretch of flat land in the entire country, with maybe one exception in the southeast. The rest is all jagged peaks, not terribly high, but terribly steep. Can't wait to get up to some of them and hike around a bit. (Nana can wait, though.)
That's it for now. Time for a good, long day of lesson planning (with maybe another post thrown in). Anyung!

VICTORY!

The wireless router is working! Nana and I now have complete intarwebs access, unfettered and free!