2nd vlog - marykoh visits korea!

Here is a collection of some videos I took while my Japanese friend Marykoh was visiting me for a few days. Kind of random. Some hip hop dancers outside, living octopus at a restraunt, Marykoh giving us the finger, and a crazy taxi ride (yes, you can hear the Taxi driver whistling)... Sorry that it's not in Quicktime format, I put this together on a PC in an internet cafe, and PCs like to use AVI, I hope people can view it that way. The AVI format made the video look worse and made the audio more fuzzy. These are the moments though.

first vlog - in a park

This is the "Hello world" video post. The start. The first entry. This is my jump into the world of videoblogging. From a dark park near my house. Not much to see, not a sparkly entry. But it's a start. I like the soft darkness of it.I think that neon crosses are quintessential South Korea. So this is a great start. Listen to my randomness. More to come.

welcome

This is the "first" post. All blogs have those. The little dirty backend useless "hello world" kind of posts. The crazy thing is I haven't decided to use blogger again. I'm just posting here so that I can use it again if I decide to. Yeah. Hows that for wild?

melancholy

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server. The original post was dated the 20th, same date as my hello world post in this blog. For sake of clarity, I will mark this as the 19th.

I'm starting to get melancholy. Soon, very soon, I'll be moving off to another place and I wont see my cute/funny little students anymore. It's sad! I miss them all already and I haven't even gone anywhere yet. Tonight I spent hours making a quiz for one of my classes, I hope they like it. It's hard! But I want them to get interactive with English... so I made it like animated, so it'll be a computer quiz. Freaky me!

Korea is becoming really cold. I have woke up a few times with a runny nose (from the cold) so I need to use more blankets or start turning on the heat or something. Hows that for a useless comment? peace.

birthday blues

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=== Birthday Blues ===
Yeah. So I'm also a year older.
It's been making me grumpy I guess.
Well, it's more complicated than that.
But I've been a grumpy idiot recently.

I need to cheer up.

Tomorrow, or I guess that is today, is National Foundation Day. The day when some guy 4000 plus years ago is said to have founded the Nation of Korea. Wowsers. I wonder what they will do. My birthday (one of them, being that I have two) was on the foundation of Korea. Interesting.

Sky blue limits dont hold me back.
DAAG

being a teacher

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

===Why its good/bad to be a teacher===

*bad*
* students dont listen sometimes
* they are too noisy, they scream (kids)
* you take hours to make something they dont like
* sometimes no matter how hard you try, no one "gets it"
* if you have to teach something you dont agree with (the sexism in one of my current books being an example "He's a fireman. He's a policeman. She's a homemaker." WHAT?)
* moments of no respect

*good*
* when everyone does that they are supposed to
* the light in someones eyes when they "get it"
* when your students go out of their way to show you they care (two memories spring to mind: teaching aptitude test in my Teaching English as a Second Language class.. I was a Teacher's Assistant in a class full of punky young Japanese kids. They never listened, always made word puns with English sounding like body parts in Japanese, talking in Japanese, throwing papers, (these are college age students, mind you) and they were generally hard to manage. But on the day my teacher came to check on my skills, they were quiet, they lined up and sat at their desks, they answered all my questions, and were basically perfect students. it was so brilliant it almost brought tears to my eyes. the other time that comes to mind is recently when my kids and me were having a "finish book party" and were talking about what kind of snacks should people bring, and someone asked me and i said kind of randomly, "I dont know, I really like orange juice, something like that" and on the day of the book party, the first student opened his bag and pulled out a bottle of orange juice, the next student smiled, pulled out the same, the third laughed and also pulled out orange and eventually all five students revealed they had brought orange juice too. Awww!)
* when my students teach me something. as a teacher i am always learning, and i like to learn from my students too.
* sometimes I get respect from my students. totally cool.

I'm sure I forgot some of the bad, and some of the good. but thats what comes to mind right now!

conversations

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

Or I guess it just turned the 15 on this side of the world. Here are a few moments captured:

My new room mate looking at a poster I made:
Roomie: Whats that say?
Me: uhm.. something like, Simply living makes me happy or something.
Roomie: Really? I'll ask my girlfriend and we'll see if you're right!
Me: huh? Oh? You're girlfriend is Japanese?
Roomie: No! Why?
Me: oh! She can read Japanese? cool...
Roomie: Oh.. that's not Korean? Its Japanese?

Kids say the craziest things. One of my students... about 12... we have an hour class, with only the two of us, so we often have short conversations, this is a real one:

Student: I'm Jesus.
Me: Oh, You're a god???
Student: No... I'm Jesus person.
Me: Ohhh! You're Christian?
Student: Uhh yes. I'm Christian.
Me: Do you pray in English or Korean?
Student: (Korean thinking word) I pray in Korean, all Koreans do. But Jesus is American. I don't know why we pray in Korean.

That's all for the moment. SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI

shocking shower

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Ohmygod. This is a true story. At our house the shower is small. Imagine a closet, put in an old toilet with a broken seat, and then hang a small cracked mirror on the wall, with a small window looking out at a brickwall, and you have the basic idea of the shower room I use. It often gets a little smelly in there, and too steamy, so its common practice for me and my room mate to take a shower with the window open, and since it opens up facing a brick wall, there shouldnt be any harm in that. Right? So a few days ago I was taking a shower, I was about finished, I turn around and glance out the window to see if it will rain (should I bring an umbrella to work?) and I see an old man sitting about two feet from the window (on the fire escape?)... WATCHING ME. Just staring at me with a mean cold glare. Me totally naked, not a single piece of clothing touching my skin, him staring staring. I kind of get shocked, and gasp "what the hell are you doing?" in Japanese (I often speak Japanese when surprised) and this was even more creepy, he didn't move, just kept watching me. I shut the window. It was very very creepy. I think I'm scared of my neighbors now. ^O^;

In more "normal" news... its time to decide. My contract here in Korea ends in early December. I have to decide whats next. More Korea? Over to Hong Kong? Back to Japan? I can't decide! But I need to plan, so I need to make up my mind. Any ideas? Aaah! It's so hard to decide. DAAG

three-day weekend

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Well, its just barely the 13 since its early in the morning just past 12:00 at night. Work is going good... most of my classes have finally started working with me, smooth as silk, easy going, as the word goes.
In Korea, this is a three-day weekend, in the words of one of my lower level students "Korea Japan stop Korea day" ... If you are saying "What?" let me explain. I think this is one of the many holidays associated with when Japan was an evil empire, and when they pulled out of Korea. Now Korea is on her own, the way Korea wants to be. If only both parts of Korea can be united, maybe Korea can slowly become whole-spirited again. That would be cool I guess.

I had things to say, but I'll write them next time, they aren't coming to mind now. DAAG!

denmark memories

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server. For this specific entry there was no date listed on my post for this entry. Date is approximate.



My memories of my trip to Denmark are doing what most of my thoughts do: fade. I'm writing them here in an attempt to keep them in some sort of captured state.

On the airplane to Denmark I didn't sleep at all, for two reasons. First, I was sitting next to two talkative siblings and Second.... well, I have something to confess. I love airplane food. I know a lot of people will be screaming in shock and disbelief, because I've met so many people who hate airplane food. But I guess its like how some Japanese people are crazy about [http://www.ekiben.or.jp|/ekiben/] (I kind of lunchbox you can buy near or on trains) However you explain it, I love getting the little packages of burned food, wrapped in endless plastic with a beautiful mix of food from where you are coming and where you are going. So how could anyone sleep? If you do, you might miss the airplane food!

As we got close to Denmark, I opened my window and I could see the shadow of the long airplane on the clouds below us. As the plane moved back down toward Earth the shadow, and the clouds, rushed up to meet us... growing and then we smashed into the thick clouds, cutting through them and rushing into the air above the city of Københvn. It was about 8:30 at night, and the sun was just starting to glide down a bright warm sunset glittering on a huge harbor below us, and then thousands of little buildings with red tile roofs, in strange patterns of squares and rows. The plane made a big swoop around the harbor and then we were on the ground hardly before I had a chance to realize it.

I walked through the airport, finally found the exit... and there were no customs officers, no one putting my bags through an xray machine. Nothing. I waited, and several people just walked out the exit, still that seemed to easy. What was going on? Finally someone came out of a backdoor and waved me forword through the exit. I'm not sure why, but that was the easyest entry into any country I've ever been to. It felt like going to Denmark from Korea was like being in America going from Washington to the next state over or something.

My friend from college, Diana, met me at the airport, and we went to the train station. She lives with her Denmark family (she is their nanny) on the island of Fyn. The train was bigger and more impressive than ones I'd rode in Japan or Korea, it seemed heavy. Right away I noticed that neon signs and technology wasnt as common as I was used to. Eventually I would notice that technology seemed to be as deeply prevalent in day to day life, but in a background sort of way instead of a foreground kind of way... atleast this was my impression.

The next day we went to the Hans Christian Anderson Kid's Musuem and stuff like that around the area she lived. The city Diana lives in is oddly named "Belinghe" which is close to my college town of "Bellingham"... Anyway, it was wet and rainy but not so cold.

The next day was about the same, just seeing the local area, visiting a shopping mall, and enjoying some local food (hotdogs come in bread-tubes, with the sauce inside) and walking around the total countryside near the house. In the evening I helped the family make some [korean food]. We made kimbap and korean style BBQ... and also some Korean silkworm bugs from a can (eaten by old korean people) it was fun to introduce this style of food to some friendly Danish people, although it didn't end up being perfectly like what I have to eat here.

The next day brought me and Diana into Københvn to meet her Korean-Danish friend Hye Jin (I forgot her Danish name, I have a bad memory) She was adopted to Denmark, but she has recently tried to learn some Korean and has been to Korea to try to connect with her birth family. After meeting her Diana got tired of hanging out with me so she went home. I didn't know where to find a cheap youth hostel, so I went to the airport to wait for my airplane the next day.

All in all, I had a fun trip and this LONG summary doesnt really capture all my thoughts but hopefully it will help me remember those moments. SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI

international weirdness

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

Thinking about international weirdness. The camera I bought (Konica minolta) was made in Korea, and then shipped to it's parent company in Japan and then imported to Korea and sold to me. Weirdness.
More international weirdness. My mom emailed to tell me she has started learning Japanese. Her lessons decided to teach her pronunciation by teaching her borrowed English words, so she's learning English in Japanese, and she's having a hard time losing her English accent. So she's speaking English words in Japanese with an English accent. It's our international world.

frustration

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

This weekend I was kind of frustrated about personal issues, and called Young-min. He was also having a few problems, so he agreed to meet me and help me buy my new camera. We went and got it (a nice and ugly red Konica Minolta 5 megapixel brute, but didn't get the Olympus so no more complaining~) and then we decided to go hang out at his campus. His college is in the countryside, in the state below Seoul state so it took awhile to get out there. In his computer lab we met his classmate Sam, from Pakistan, and talked about life in Korea. Young-min lives a million miles from me, so he offered to let me sleep at his house with his room mate (two guys sharing a small one room house, so they each only have to pay like US$150, not bad!) and so I crashed there. Next day, I got some awesome spicy Bulgulgi with him, and then went back "downtown." I called Suah because I wanted to talk to someone, and she invited me to see a movie with her and her friend Sunny. We saw Island. Hollywood movie. There I told you the plot with two words. That was another day. Number 8693. (Oh, In case you're new to this, I'll be uploading photos into the [http://neonvirus.schtuff.com/?q=tag:pictures|picture stream], so go look for those.)



DAAG