5. Happy New Year
I am now at the end of the third day of a glorious 4 day weekend. It's Chinese New Year, so we've gotten a little time off. Unfortunately, this weekend has come before I've been paid and right in the middle of one of my annual bouts of bronchitis. Fortunately, one of the best things you can do for bronchitis is to rest and sleep, and so that's pretty much what I've spent this weekend doing. That and taking the antibiotics that I finally managed to get from the doctor. I was on some sort of medication for 5 days that I had thought was antibiotics and couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting better. When I went back to the doctor for the third time on Friday (after spending the day with difficulty and feeling pain when breathing) she said "Well, I'm going to change your medication and put you on antibiotics." To which I responded "What on earth have I been taking all this time?" Turns out I had been taking (and paying for) cold symptom medication... which frustrates me because I had brought some stuff with me from Canada and really can't yet afford to be spending money on stuff I already have. Anyway, I'm trying to not be angry about it anymore... it's not really anyone's fault. The doctor's English is pretty good, but my Korean is pretty much non-existent, and I simply hadn't understood her when she had told me what she was prescribing.
In other news, I had a complete computer meltdown about a week ago, which I managed to fix all by myself... a fact that I am rather proud of! I almost lost all my data, files... everything. The general consensus of what probably happened is that I got hacked... Apparently that's a huge problem over here, so I have since put in a firewall and other stuff on my computer and it's been working fine since then. It was pretty frustrating though.
Last weekend I went to Seoul to get together with Clara and her parents... had a great time! We went to an amazing show called Nanta, which is kind of like Stomp, but with a story line about cooking or something. It was loads of fun, and I took lots of pictures, including pictures of the cast... and then proceeded to leave my camera in the taxi I took home. I realized I'd left it seconds after I got out of the taxi, but it was already gone. VERY frustrating. I called the taxi company, but again... my non-existent Korean didn't help me very much. Fortunately I brought 2 cameras with me. I'm just sad that I lost those pictures.
My second camera came in really handy when I showed up at school on Friday almost all the kids had come to school in traditional Korean clothing... absolutely beautiful stuff! They spent two periods learning how to bow properly (something not taught by us foreign teacher's obviously, so we got a weird 2 hour break in the morning) for New Years. I went home, grabbed my camera and took loads of pictures of them, so here you go.
Here is Kiersten in her outfit... adorable!
Little Ashley, who I have since discovered I seriously misjudged. The Monday after I wrote that blog entry about her ignoring me, she ran and greeted me with a huge hug. It turns out she's just way too little to be in school -- at least that's my assessment. She falls out of her chair about 5 times a day. Not because she's leaning back or something, she's just too little to be sitting in a chair for an extended period of time. And when she raises her hand, she does it with such enthusiasm that it lifts her right of her chair (and usually dumps her on the ground) -- it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. I think I'll set up a camera one day just to catch that moment.
Sally... spends most of the day with her arms around Shawn, whom she calls her 'baby'.
Mathew, Justin, Grace and Kiersten, sitting in the gym for their bowing lessons.
The Cookie Monster girls up on stage.
This is Mathew with his... uh, what I'm going simply call his toy. They all made these. They are coins wrapped in some sort of tissue paper.
Kiersten with her toy.
Justin with his toy.
This is the Tweety class playing with the toys on stage. The objective is to try and kick it in the air more than once... kind of like hackey sack.
This is one of the other teachers, David, wearing clothing that the school provided. He looked quite dashing in his pink pants! Actually, over the weekend I've seen several Korean men walking around in pink pants, so it's probably traditional... but no one has bothered to explain it to us. David and I have bonded over our love of the new Battlestar Galactica. He actually grew up with one of the actresses from that show, which is kind of neat. I like all of the foreign staff, actually, which is really nice. The newest girl (Anita) and I bonded in the car on the way to get our "Alien registration cards". Then there's Martin, who is one of the sweetest men to ever walk the earth and spends most of his time telling horrific puns. Really, really terrible! But he's just super nice, so I try to ignore it. And finally there is Suzanne, who I haven't really spoken to very much yet, but she seems very nice. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of anyone but David (well, you can sort of see Anita in the background here so, there's one down).
This is Cookie Monster (my class) getting ready to give me a New Year's Bow.
And here it is, my New Year's Bow. I think it's rather ironic that the only one not bowing to me is Justin (my problem child)!
I also remembered to take some pictures of my afternoon class (4:30-6:00)
This is the best picture I could get of Angela... who is intensely camera shy. Not shy in any other way though.
Terry -- affectionately known as Teddy Bear... an absolutely hilarious kid.
And finally Robert -- a kid who I, for some reason, want to hug all the time... especially after his psychotic "episode" in my class the other day. Terry had, unbeknownst to me, hidden one of Robert's homework books, and when Robert couldn't find it, he just lost it. He started punching Terry, really punching him. He takes martial arts lessons and I could tell the punches he was landing were really hurting Terry. He was also screaming in Korean and drooling all over the place (which later on allowed me to teach the class the words spit and saliva). It lasted all of about 6 seconds (the time it took me to get in between them), but it was really freaky. Robert then sat down, and I just continued the class as normal (I didn't know what else to do), or semi normal. It's normally a really fun class (my favourite time of day actually) and we laugh a lot, but at this point in time things were deadly serious. When Robert was ready (which was about 5 minutes later) he just joined in and was completely normal. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it. I know these kids are under extraordinary pressure. Robert, I know, also goes to Chinese school and of course, his martial arts lessons... but I would bet good money that he takes other classes as well, outside of his regular school. Education here is more competitive than anything I've ever seen, even at the kindergarten level. And it gets worse the older they get. Mr. Lee, the director of my school, has said that he plans to move to Canada or the US when his kids are in their teens because he doesn't want them to go through it.
Anyway, I think that's it for news. One more day of rest! Yay! I'm feeling much better than I have in a while, and the rest tomorrow can only help.
Love to you all!
In other news, I had a complete computer meltdown about a week ago, which I managed to fix all by myself... a fact that I am rather proud of! I almost lost all my data, files... everything. The general consensus of what probably happened is that I got hacked... Apparently that's a huge problem over here, so I have since put in a firewall and other stuff on my computer and it's been working fine since then. It was pretty frustrating though.
Last weekend I went to Seoul to get together with Clara and her parents... had a great time! We went to an amazing show called Nanta, which is kind of like Stomp, but with a story line about cooking or something. It was loads of fun, and I took lots of pictures, including pictures of the cast... and then proceeded to leave my camera in the taxi I took home. I realized I'd left it seconds after I got out of the taxi, but it was already gone. VERY frustrating. I called the taxi company, but again... my non-existent Korean didn't help me very much. Fortunately I brought 2 cameras with me. I'm just sad that I lost those pictures.
My second camera came in really handy when I showed up at school on Friday almost all the kids had come to school in traditional Korean clothing... absolutely beautiful stuff! They spent two periods learning how to bow properly (something not taught by us foreign teacher's obviously, so we got a weird 2 hour break in the morning) for New Years. I went home, grabbed my camera and took loads of pictures of them, so here you go.
Here is Kiersten in her outfit... adorable!
Little Ashley, who I have since discovered I seriously misjudged. The Monday after I wrote that blog entry about her ignoring me, she ran and greeted me with a huge hug. It turns out she's just way too little to be in school -- at least that's my assessment. She falls out of her chair about 5 times a day. Not because she's leaning back or something, she's just too little to be sitting in a chair for an extended period of time. And when she raises her hand, she does it with such enthusiasm that it lifts her right of her chair (and usually dumps her on the ground) -- it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. I think I'll set up a camera one day just to catch that moment. 
Sally... spends most of the day with her arms around Shawn, whom she calls her 'baby'. 
Mathew, Justin, Grace and Kiersten, sitting in the gym for their bowing lessons. 
The Cookie Monster girls up on stage.
This is Mathew with his... uh, what I'm going simply call his toy. They all made these. They are coins wrapped in some sort of tissue paper.
Kiersten with her toy.
Justin with his toy. 
This is the Tweety class playing with the toys on stage. The objective is to try and kick it in the air more than once... kind of like hackey sack. 
This is one of the other teachers, David, wearing clothing that the school provided. He looked quite dashing in his pink pants! Actually, over the weekend I've seen several Korean men walking around in pink pants, so it's probably traditional... but no one has bothered to explain it to us. David and I have bonded over our love of the new Battlestar Galactica. He actually grew up with one of the actresses from that show, which is kind of neat. I like all of the foreign staff, actually, which is really nice. The newest girl (Anita) and I bonded in the car on the way to get our "Alien registration cards". Then there's Martin, who is one of the sweetest men to ever walk the earth and spends most of his time telling horrific puns. Really, really terrible! But he's just super nice, so I try to ignore it. And finally there is Suzanne, who I haven't really spoken to very much yet, but she seems very nice. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of anyone but David (well, you can sort of see Anita in the background here so, there's one down). 
This is Cookie Monster (my class) getting ready to give me a New Year's Bow.
And here it is, my New Year's Bow. I think it's rather ironic that the only one not bowing to me is Justin (my problem child)!I also remembered to take some pictures of my afternoon class (4:30-6:00)
This is the best picture I could get of Angela... who is intensely camera shy. Not shy in any other way though.
Terry -- affectionately known as Teddy Bear... an absolutely hilarious kid. 
And finally Robert -- a kid who I, for some reason, want to hug all the time... especially after his psychotic "episode" in my class the other day. Terry had, unbeknownst to me, hidden one of Robert's homework books, and when Robert couldn't find it, he just lost it. He started punching Terry, really punching him. He takes martial arts lessons and I could tell the punches he was landing were really hurting Terry. He was also screaming in Korean and drooling all over the place (which later on allowed me to teach the class the words spit and saliva). It lasted all of about 6 seconds (the time it took me to get in between them), but it was really freaky. Robert then sat down, and I just continued the class as normal (I didn't know what else to do), or semi normal. It's normally a really fun class (my favourite time of day actually) and we laugh a lot, but at this point in time things were deadly serious. When Robert was ready (which was about 5 minutes later) he just joined in and was completely normal. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it. I know these kids are under extraordinary pressure. Robert, I know, also goes to Chinese school and of course, his martial arts lessons... but I would bet good money that he takes other classes as well, outside of his regular school. Education here is more competitive than anything I've ever seen, even at the kindergarten level. And it gets worse the older they get. Mr. Lee, the director of my school, has said that he plans to move to Canada or the US when his kids are in their teens because he doesn't want them to go through it. Anyway, I think that's it for news. One more day of rest! Yay! I'm feeling much better than I have in a while, and the rest tomorrow can only help.
Love to you all!
posted by JJ at 5:31 AM
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