Merry Wednesday Good Gentlefolk!

Apparently a middle school student died recently in Cheongju after getting into a fight with another students/other students. Has anyone else heard anything about this? My co-teacher told me about it on Tuesday, after one of her homeroom students ended up in hospital with a possible broken rib after being punched in the chest by another student and finding it hard to breathe (he turned out to be ok). I think she said it was at Seo-Gyeong Middle School but I'm not sure - she might have said Seo-Gyo or Seo-Hyeon. Which brings to mind the stabbing incident at my school last year - I can't remember if I blogged about this or not (I certainly should have if I didn't), but last year after the movie "아저씨" ("Ajosshi" or in it's English title "The Man From Nowhere") came out which features a lot of violence, apparently it became popular amongst the second year boys to mimic the stuff done in the movie. To this end, one of them brought a knife to school (I think, or he could have been using his craft knife which all students quite ridiculously have and are allowed to carry around at all times, even when they aren't using them in any subjects, to semi-disastrous results) and was mock-stabbing his classmates. And of course, ended up actually stabbing one of them, sending the stabbed student to hospital for stitches and making the student who stabbed him have a panic attack and start crying because he genuinely thought he'd killed his friend. Which I guess was quite a smart move (although involuntary) because it made it harder to punish him for it since he was already mid-nervous breakdown. And then of course there was the incident with Jin-Seon. Don't get the wrong idea, it's not always the boys - the first year girls have been in trouble for going to visit their friends at other schools and starting scrag-fights there too, where apparently the go-to move is scratching up each other's faces. *Sigh* Teenagers.

Anyway, today is my last day of regular school before my winter camps start. I'm taking tomorrow and Friday off to use up my holiday days since they don't get paid out if I don't use them, and am overjoyed at the prospect of never having to teach my Thursday and Friday classes again (a jubilation that has lasted since last week). Hooray! Today I also only had one class with my favourite 1st graders - the "super-smart" class (my co-teacher's nickname for them). But unfortunately I completely stuffed up on that one - our timetables got changed so I had them first period instead of sixth (I normally wouldn't have class until 3rd period anyway), and wouldn't you know it, but I turned my phone off last night (so losing the alarm on it) and forgot to set my clock alarm, so I didn't wake up until 8.53am, 33 minutes AFTER I was supposed to be at school and 3 minutes AFTER my first class was supposed to start. On any other day it wouldn't have mattered but of course today... *double sigh* It's official - I'm a cotton-headed ninny muggins (I've been watching "Elf" with some of my students ㅋㅋ). Luckily my co-teacher knew that I wouldn't do something like that on purpose and wasn't angry - it's also her homeroom group so they were fine.

놈놈놈 (nom nom nom, haha^^)

I guess it's really a pretty typical way of ending my school year - violence and tardiness, although it's a nice change that it's me being late for once and not my students. If it was any other class than my good class I might still have wandered in 20 minutes late, just to be a jerk and interrupt their movie, since they do it to me all the time. Anyway, I better get going with finishing stuff for my winter camps! I have 20 hours of conversation class across the first two weeks, then 10 hours of a teacher's class and 10 hours of a students' class in the third week so I'll be pretty busy. And after last year, this time I know for sure not to be stupid enough to tell the VP or Principal about the class magazine/newspaper we're making, no matter how proud I am of my students :) Oh and it's 오징어덮밥 (ojing-eo deopbap, as in the picture above), which I love, with egg and vegetable soup (계란야채국) - which I also love! - and chocolate cake for lunch because it's Wednesday, so hooray!

Oh and one last reason to be happy: Ryan also has the day off on Friday! At least I hope so - if he doesn't I'm going to turn up at his hagwon, take a kitchen knife out of my bag and sit there glaring angrily at his boss while I stroke the knife blade for the whole day. A bit of a complicated story there that I won't go into, but it basically involves his boss dicking around and telling the Korean teachers that they had Friday off, then didn't, getting angry that they assumed they did, and then telling them that they DID have the day off and he was faking it to encourage them to work harder. Hi-LAR-ious, no?

Anyway, now that he apparently DOES actually have the day off, we can do what we had planned to do which is go to Deoksan to the Reesom Spa Castle, which is a warm water theme park, and then stay at this cute pension which has a jacuzzi in the room! How awesome is that?? Ryan originally tried to book us a place that had the in-room jacuzzi outside because he knows that I like outdoor spas, but since it will be the New Year's weekend places are pretty full up, so we couldn't find one that was free and also not horrendously expensive (like more than 400 000 won). And then I'm going down to Busan to meet up with my favourite ladies, including the Cheongju posse and my KBFF II, for what I'm sure will be an amazing NYE! So it will be a very exciting three day weekend ^_^

Oh and I'm meeting one of Ryan's sisters on Sunday for an early dinner/late lunch before she heads back to Seoul on the KTX and we go back to Cheongju, so wish me luck! I'm obviously going to have to go easy the night before so I don't look like I just fell out of a tree on Sunday when I meet her, haha :p

Anyway, happy Wednesday everyone! Hope you're having a delicious lunch today, if not a brilliant day :)

Happiness is a Hobbit!

Secret geek that I am, I was incredibly excited, then pissed off, to see the trailer for "The Hobbit". Excited because it looks AMAZING! (as everyone knows it will be) and pissed off because it's not being released until the 14th of December NEXT YEAR. What the hell Peter Jackson you tubby jerk! Why would you release the trailer a year before the movie is released??? So grr on that one. For anyone less than Martin Freeman in the title role and the fabulous Sir Ian Mackellan I would refuse to see it when it came out on principle.... Mind you, a year is quite a long time - by next December I'm sure I'd have conveniently forgotten that oath :)

Of course, there are those out there who it will be frankly wasted on, like this moron.

For those not in the know, this is the meme for 'not sure if ... or ...'. E.g. "Not sure if incredibly stupid or just trolling. Stupidly."

Apparently there is a bunch of behind the scenes photos etc on Facebook if you are into that kind of thing and have either the curiousity or the Facebook to see it.

Oh and weirdest yet of the conversations I've had with my weird first year girl's class, class 1-1. For some background, this is the class who fooled me into mis-pronouncing a bunch of K-pop groups' names wrong and sometimes randomly start singing in harmony with each other when I ask them questions. Anyway, today while two students were trying to get me to 'fess up about whether I had a boyfriend or not (I fooled them into thinking I was dating Rain for a while) and ordering me to "No joking! No lies!" I had another student stroking - yes, STROKING - my jumper (which while soft is not particularly so and doesn't have a particularly interesting weave or anything) and screaming in my other ear about how she'd killed her hamster from "too much stress" and showing me how she used to pet it and cuddle it.. with both hands.. The Dead Hamster girl is also the one who gurns at me from the back of the class, so sometimes I'll look up at her and find these faces staring back at me (amongst others), often in quick succession >

Sometimes it's really hard to keep a straight face :p Today's expression was her classic 'happy pyscho' face that looked something like these guys >

If you can imagine a 12 year old girl grinning widely and miming gripping a hamster so tightly and stroking it so heavily that it dies, you'll know what my morning was like.

Anyway, only 3 sleeps until Christmas! Woohoo! Can't wait to break into the Christmas goodies my lovely parents sent me :)

Saying goodbye to November and my sanity

Just had class with one of the terrible first year boys' classes - the one where there was almost murder once if you remember? Anyway, they're little ... idiots... in that class. In most classes, but particularly in that one because there are so many of them. Luckily there is one kid I really like in that class too, Jae-Gwan, and I love that his number is 1 and that my co-teacher for that class makes them sit by number because it means that I have him sitting right at the front with his eager beaver smile beaming up at me and it makes the rest of the class not seem so bad. Still bad, but not so very bad. And that's saying a lot because they're terrible. There are actually a few good kids in that class but they mostly get drowned out by the others. For example, one of the others, Jeong-Won, who is actually quite bright, always without fail gets sent to stand at the back (actually with that class it's pretty pointless because there are never less than five students standing as punishment and once there were as many as nine of them arrayed around the classroom which is a lot for a class of 29) and today was supposed to be kneeling quietly because the back of the room was full. I looked up at one point in the lesson and he was rolling on his back and holding his knees with his legs in the air, pulling faces and apparently trying to lick his own butt. Or he could have been trying to Marilyn Manson-esque it up. Anything's possible. Another kid that I dislike with extreme prejudice (on the grounds that he's an ADHD little meathead with no off switch) put the whole class in an uproar for five minutes by answering the question "what animal do you think this is?" with "SEX MONKEY! F***K YOU!" at the top of his voice. *sigh* Even my extremely unimpressed death glares of disapproval don't work on them and my co-teacher for that class is lovely but useless and does nothing, so it takes ages to restore order, especially since they're teenage boys and don't know how to listen. Just another reason I'll be glad to be going home in February. I've adamantly shot down the idea of having summer or winter camps for first grade this year on the grounds that they would be a waste of time and effort, and with examples like that I think you can see why.

Anyway, so that was my Monday. The rest of the day was ok though and I don't have any after school classes so that's ok. I think if I go home, get a bottle of wine (or a big cup of tea first, more likely), Skype to Franniken, watch a movie and then go to bellydancing slightly drunk, I'll feel a lot better. You are more than welcome to join me dear readers, in spirit if not in body :)

But I shouldn't be so down. I actually had quite a lovely weekend, which is perhaps why today was so sad, what with the downswing from it and all. First of all, my KBFF II, Christy (haha, don't worry Lara and Nat, you guys still retain respective KBFF 1 statuses!) came to visit pokey old Cheongju for a weekend of gossip, good food, wine, more gossip, more wine and general merriment. We discovered a new restaurant called JJ's Grill that had less opaque glass than we thought, had a Thanksgiving potluck with some friends (i.e. we all ate ourselves into a food coma) and hit up a noraebang. I miss Facebook for the photo sharing aspect so I'll just post a few choice pics.

 So it was a lovely Saturday ^_^ Sunday saw poor Christy off on her long trek home (3.5 hours on a bus and another hour or so on the subway), and me off to Seoul to do some shopping and see "In Time" with Mr Smiles (my code-name for the new boyfriend I can now mention publicly^^ - so called because he is a very smiley person). And lo and behold the movie actually turned out to be a good one! Most of the Western stuff that ends up being shown in Korea is generic Hollywood crap ("Immortals", "Columbiana" and "Skyline" anyone?) but once in a while something good gets through and luckily this one had Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in it to pass muster as popular enough to show in Korea because it was a good movie! Well, I thought so anyway :p If you haven't heard of it before, it's about a kind of dystopia where time is currency. Humans have been engineered to live to 25, at which point they both stop physically ageing and their body clock kicks in and they have a year left of time to both live and spend, meaning millionaires can live virtually forever and buy anything, while poor people scrape through day to day existences where seconds and minutes can make precious differences. The story kicks off when a guy from the ghetto (Justin Timberlake) ends up being gifted with 110 years from a millionaire sick of living and finally manages to break free of his 'time zone'.

Anyway, if you have the time and especially if you're in Korea and the choice is this or Breaking Dawn (Mr Smiles is, sadly, a Twilight fan ... *아웅*ㅠㅠ;;) I'd definitely recommend seeing this one. Both JT and Amanda Seyfried put in some good performances, as does Cillian Murphy, who plays the 'Timekeeper' (police) hounding our protagonists.
 

Oh and lol, yes, Korean men like shopping. I have a very cute blue fluffy Totoro doll for my cousin's baby daughter (hopefully she'll love it without questioning what it actually is for years to come) as a consequence :) After the movie, we went for dinner at La Grillia and I had real gnocchi in a real gorgonzola sauce! It was chestnut gnocchi, which I've seen but never had before, and the waiter was quite surprised that I ordered it and thought I should pick something else because it was quite heavy (not to say fattening). I'm guessing he's never seen a girl eat that dish before there, and was probably even more surprised when I not only finished the whole thing but also had dessert too. Hehe^^ Pictured is our vanilla ice-cream, almond and Earl Grey pannacotta, grapefruit wine jelly and blueberry yoghurt. Delish!

So anyway, here's hoping that the rest of the week improves from today. I have most of the rowdy classes under threat of making them do more work after exams rather than letting them watch a movie so fingers crossed that they all remember me telling them that last week. How about you, my lovelies? How's life out there in the Real World?

Filling in the mental blanks

So I realised something: without the handy excuse of Facebook, I've skipped write-ups or posts about certain things that have been happening or that I've discovered or enjoyed that really deserve some web time. Let's have a look at them now:

Tiff and Me with our lovely lashes

1. Eyelash extensions. They were awesome. Itchy, but by God my eyes looked beautiful for the three or four weeks it took for me to scratch them off. Perhaps if I wasn't such a consumate napper, they wouldn't have gotten so itchy. Also technically saved time in the mornings because I didn't have to spend as long curling and mascara-ing my eyelashes. We went to a hair salon downtown that had a beauty section and they cost w20 000 for the short ones (that I got which were more natural looking) or w30 000 for the longer more luxurious looking ones (like Tiffany got). Actually, I say 'we went' but really it was more like 'Tiffany went' and May and I impulsively decided to get them too. I was really annoyed that the lady took my eye makeup off though because I hadn't taken any more with me and thus felt very naked afterwards. Especially cos she didn't do the same for May and Tiffany after me!

2. Dakgalbi! If you haven't tried it, 닭갈비 is a delicious spicy broiled chicken dish, cooked with cabbage, sweet potato, onions, spring onions, garlic, enoki mushrooms (팽이 버섯), sesame leaves and lots and lots of chili sauce! The places that we go in our area also all have the absolutely mandatory (in my book) additions of cheese- and sweet pototo-filled ddeok or ricecakes. There's even one place that does pumpkin filled ones - my favourite! You fry the chicken in a massive iron dish at your table and eat it wrapped in lettuce or sesame leaves when it's done. You can either eat it with plain rice (if you find the chili a bit much to handle), or if you think you can stop eating early enough and restrain yourself, you can add rice and shredded seaweed etc at the end to make bokkumbap (fried rice). As well as the chicken, you usually get cold radish vinegar soup that serves to cool your mouth off and a bunch of side-dishes, depending on the quality of the place you go to.
 Dakgalbi is great for those chilly winter days when you just want to pig out on something spicy and filling and hearty. Or any time of year frankly, as long as you're ready to pig out ^_^

3. There is an awesome chocolate cafe in downtown Cheongju called 'De Chocolate Coffee' that I recently discovered with Michelle and Edithe. I know it's been there for a while but I've never been in before then, and am sad that I missed out for so long! Their Real Dark Hot Chocolate is w5300 (from memory, I think that's right) and totally worth it - delicious, smooth and rich. Apparently their Mochas (the same price) are just as good - after all, it is a chocolate coffee cafe - as are their truffles. I also tried a dark chocolate brownie from there and although it didn't ravish my tastebuds it was pretty good. A little dry and no nuts which I find essential in a good brownie, but still good. Sadly they don't really have any real food there beyond bagels so it's definitely a dessert-only place. However, there does appear to be free wifi, and it's up on the second floor so it's nice and peaceful there - good for an extended study or if you need somewhere quiet. Location wise I can only direct you there by landmarks - it's on the corner of the fashion street where all the shoe and clothes shops are and a side alley that runs by Pizza Hut to where the 서문 CGV is, on the second floor above S Shoes. It also stays open pretty late - we stayed one time until about 11 I think and we weren't the last ones there, but the staff didn't try and kick us out or anything - and the main barista guy who has been there both times I have speaks pretty good English and remembered who I was from the first time. It's a bit weird that the decor inside isn't more cosy, so it looks a bit industrial, but the drinks and chocolate stuff and quiet atmosphere more than make up for it.

2011

2010

  4. Halloween. So yes, it's an American thing and I still have problems adjusting to the fact that you don't actually have to wear something scary to be in Halloween spirit, but it's also a fun excuse to dress up. Costumes are pretty scarce in Korea though as Koreans also don't really celebrate it unless a) they're kids and know it means candy (usually because they have a foreign teacher somewhere who panders to this) or b) they're friends with North Americans and want to join in the fun. Last year I did myself up as a properly scary battered house-wife zombie, complete with fake blood running down my face and zombie eyes in all my photos, but since I also had problems getting a taxi and getting all the 'blood' (whiteboard marker cartridges and water) marks off my skin, I opted for something less scary and more in keeping with the North American tradition of "Slut-o-ween" instead by wearing a $7 dress from Tempt or something that I bought last time I was home (with this in mind) and going as a flight attendant. What do you think dear viewers? Which costume did you like more? 2010 or 2011? In my defence, I didn't slut it up as much as I could have this year and none of my underwear was visible through/under my dress.


5. Saw the beautiful Ms Sophia Ko and her lovely hubby Phil on Saturday for some delicious mushroom shabu-shabu in Yongsan, Seoul. It was great to catch up, as they live (mostly) in New York, but although I rarely get to see them, it always feels like we spring back to normal when I do and just continue chatting about our lives where we left off. Here's some photos of our delicious dinner and Phil being just plain weird with his mushrooms (they grow them in bottles and then you just cut them off into your shabu-shabu when you order). But then, we wouldn't have it any other way - he does it so well! Haha^^

Anyway, that's about it for updates so far. I feel like I should throw a funny in from my students though, just to keep to the usual tone of my blog. So we've been doing a chapter on 'Growing Up' and for 2nd grade I showed them the Pussycat Dolls "When I Grow Up" and got them to fill in the missing blanks in the lyrics. This was partly as a treat because I knew they'd like the song and partly because I knew it would make the noisy boys classes shut the hell up for once, guaranteed. And it did! If by 'shutting up' you also accept catcalls and cheering, which is still much less noisy than they normally are. Haha, it was really funny seeing which of them were more interested in the video and which were more interested in getting all the missing words ^_^ The girls also liked it, especially the 'power' dancing' and how much attitude they had and one or two started trying to dance along to the video, but the boys in class 2-5 had the best reaction - they actually applauded once it was over and one of them shouted out "I LOVE AMERICA!!!" and then used every speaking activity opportunity I gave them that lesson to tell me about how much he wanted to move to America and meet 'sexy girls'. So don't say I never give you guys good press! Haha^^