Super Sunday

Had a lovely day with Andy today. it rained nearly all day, but that didn't stop going out for lunch, or a walk in the park.

1) Sushi for lunch.

2) Nice walk in the park.

3) hot chocolate

4) I saw a cute guinea pig.

5) REALLY yummy BBQ for dinner :)

Quick Five things Saturday

Phew, I'm exhausted! I made it to the 63 building with Amy, and only got home at about 6.40pm. So, here's five things and some photos of Seoul. I'll write about it all on Monday :)

1) I have yummy salmon sushi for lunch

2) I got a seat on the train on the way in.

3) I didn't rain most of the time I was outside.

4) The 63 building was fun.

5) Amy was good fun too :)

The outside of the 63 building

Seal at the aquarium

Lunch

Han River

Sharing is caring Friday

Not sure why, but I think it's because I like to at least try to be a nice person, I've brought a cake to work to share with all the teachers this afternoon. Oh no, I know why. Because it was cluttering up my freezer, and I didn't want to eat it all and the easiest way to get rid of it, while collecting work brownie points, is to share it with the sugar crazed teachers at work. I'm hoping for a double win of getting rid of the cake AND making myself look good. Altruism is SO overrated :)

Anyway, today's five things:

1) No student was turned upside down, hit, or even picked up by Mr B during class today. Yesterday he straddled a boys head to demonstrate 'riding a bike'. I am 100% not kidding or exaggerating. He straddled a kids head. Even more amazing, the kid wasn't bothered at all. Totally normal.

2) Only 1 hour and 45 minutes until it's officially the weekend! 63 building, here I come!

3) I have spent the last hour and a half trying not to snort-laugh too loudly at the hilarious reviews of what sounds like a truly awful romance novel. I'd never heard of it, but apparently it's taking the world by storm.. well, it's taking women who want to read sexy books by storm. Only, I've read a lot of extract now and the books is written so badly I don't think I could even read it if I wanted to. Just because it's sexy doesn't mean the quality of the writing should suffer. The book is called '50 Shades of Grey', and while I haven't read it, so can't comment, this website can. Serious snort-laugh material.

4) There was a thunder storm last night and it was fun.

5) I slept well.

I will not complain about work Thursday

I will not complain about work. I will not complain about work. I will not complain about work. I will not complain about work. I will not complain about work. I will not complain about work. I will not complain about work. I will not complain about work.

I will not complain about work.

I will instead shut up and either work to fix the problem, or bear with it until the situation can be changed.

Step one: I have decided that I'm not chasing these stupid men around to get my stupid book signed every day. I will sign it and then I'll leave it on their desk and they can give it back to me when they're done. Minor problem = solved.

In other news, lunch today was roast pork! Awesome!

And I'm planning on cleaning my apartment this afternoon.

And I had one kick-ass home made fruit salad for breakfast.

And I ate delicious pizza for dinner last night (my first bread in over three months!).

Four different types of topping - and there was A LOT of topping, but I actually really enjoyed it!

And it turns out if I freeze a particular type of Korean rice cake, it turns out a little similar to ice cream mochi.

And it's now under two weeks until Andy and I go to Japan.

And Andy is awesome. He's also extremely good looking, which is a total bonus.

And I have great friends, even if most of them live in a different hemisphere.

And it's Thursday, which means tomorrow is... Friday, which is basically the weekend :)

And I bought a random dress from the market hoping it would fit, and it totally does.

And it's only two and a half hours until I can go home, clean my room, eat delicious Korean watermelon (seriously, it's amazing), and read my book on my comfy bed.

Bed makeover :)

Excellent :)

Born in the USA Wednesday

So yesterday took a turn for the weird after I'd finished blogging about nothing special happening. Mr B. was really frustrating me yesterday. Every time it was my turn to teach, he'd start talking. He'd talk over me, while the kids were doing activities, and then even while the listening exercises were playing. Obviously, the kid can't listen to the activity and to him. It was so rude and just bad teaching! What's more, he doesn't just talk while I'm teaching, he messes with the students. He hits them, throws things at them, makes them sit on the floor - all while I'm in the middle of speaking. I understand he feels he needs to discipline them, but could he at least wait until I've finished my sentence? The absolute worst one yesterday was while I was explaining a new activity, he walked over to a boy, dragged him out of his chair, picked him up, turned him over and hung him upside down and shook him. The kid didn't seem all that bothered, but it was so incredibly disruptive. I almost walked out of the classroom. It's like I need to send Mr B out into the corridor - he is WAY more disruptive than the kids.

Possibly even more annoying (though not quite) was that when I tried to tell Andy about my frustrations he started talking about how that's how it's done in Korea, and power hierarchies and stuff. I was just like "I don't care why! Sympathise with me!". Lesson learned: don't discuss frustrations with Korea with Koreans.

Anyway! Today is a new day. I had to sit through three classes of Mr B talking to the students in Korean. Again. I'm starting to think that even if this school can keep me, I might change jobs. I'm not sure the extra money and vacation time is worth my slowly fading will to live.

But! Something sort of exciting happened today! And, wonder of wonders, I knew about it before Mr B! A new boy is at school for two weeks, and he's from New York. This is his dad's old middle school, but the Kid was born and raised in America, so he's a native English speaker. We had a brief chat this morning, and he's over here with his family on holiday. He can speak Korean, but I think not SUPER fluently. Anyway, the poor kid has to come here to school for two weeks during his holiday, mix with a bunch of Korean kids and take part in this education system, which has got to look really strange to someone fully educated in the American system. What's more, he has to come to English class - which is just stupid! Anyway, Mr B. didn't know he was there or who he was, but the rest of the class told him. So, Mr B makes him get up and introduce himself in both English and Korean, only in true Mr B style, the instructions he gave were hopeless, so the kid didn't know what he wanted. He stumbled through it in the end, but I really felt for him. Also, resulted in this classic dialogue:

Me: So, how many students are in your school back home?

Mr B: 13? Yeah. 13?

Me: No, how many students...

Mr B: Oh, two days?

Me: No, this school has 160 students, how many does your's have, Josh?

Josh: Hmm, about 600.

Mr B. Oh.

Also, there's a sheet I now have to sign EVERY DAY to say I'm at work. I used to just have to fill it in and get it signed a couple of times a week, but the VP has decided I have to do it every day now. So he has to sign it and Mr B has to sign it. So I now have to chase them both down every fucking day. Today, the VP was in the office and not Mr B. The VP is harder to pin down, so I went to get him to sign off on today before getting Mr B's signature. Well, he would only sign it after Mr B had. Seriously, dude? It's to say I'm at work today. I'm standing right in front of you. At work. Why does it matter who signs first? Sign my sheet! But no. 

We must remember:

Anyway, I'm going for a big run/walk after work today - this frustration needs to go somewhere!

Today's five:

1) I brought one of my favourite movies to work today. Everyone is gone from the office (it's 2pm), so I'm going to watch it!

2) Curried chicken drumsticks for lunch. At last - real, recognisable meat! From a real animal!

3) Wednesday is nearly done (work-wise), so I'm over half way to the weekend!

4) I got a bunch of new pillows for my bed and reading is now ridiculously comfortable. 

5) That picture of the hyena on the t-shirt always makes me smile.

'recording' is a noun Tuesday

Pretty normal day today. I've been in three classes, but haven't taught at all. Mr B. has just talked to the class in Korean. I think he's doing something to do with some sort of homework project, but I don't know. I just sat there for the first two lots of 45 minutes, but this last one I brought my laptop to class, so I can at least have something to do. It's a change of scenery at least :)

Yeah, nothing very exciting or interesting to report today.

1) I've been using my time today to put together maps, money info, train info, and so on for Japan. I'm totally hoping they have some ice cream mochi over there. I asked Andy and he said it was really popular here a few years ago, but we can't find any now. I'm going to try freezing some of my favourite tteok from the market and see if that turns out in any way similar.

2) I want some spicy pork soup for dinner tonight!

3) I bought some bedding off a girl in my building who's going home. It's really nice, and I'm sort of relieved to get away from the fluro-green colour of my original sheets. Soft pink is much more calming. I'll put up a photo of my 'new' bed if I can remember.

4) The following dialogue (the word in question had no context, it was just a word on the page)
Mr B to the class: "is 'recording' a noun or a verb?"
Class: ".....?..."
Mr B: "Sam teacher - noun or verb?"
Me: "Well, it depen-"
Mr B "It's a noun"

In the choice between laughing and screaming, I'll choose to be amused.

5) Apparently it's going to rain tonight. I like variety :)

Monday update

Ok, I'm back!

Right, so Friday night Andy and I went to see the new Spider Man movie. I thought it was a continuation of the series, but it was actually kind of a remake of the original movie, but the characters were all in high school. I'm totally not sure why they did this, but it was an ok film. I thought Spider Man was a bit cocky and full of himself, but it wasn't too bad.

On Saturday we went into Seoul. We caught the bus to Gangnam and had lunch at a sushi train place. It was really good. They had heaps of sushi on a conveyor belt, but you could also order stuff using a touch screen at you table and they made it in the kitchen and then delivered it to you on a little electric train - haha, it was awesome. We ordered most of our stuff on the train - Andy because he thought it was fresher and he didn't really want food that had been going round and round passed all the little kids, and me because I just wanted my food to come on a train :-D

Andy with the sushi screen and conveyor belt

Sushi (below) and train (above)

Then, as we were walking there was a big building with a display/open home type thing for this new apartment complex that's being built, so we went in and looked at the open home. They had two apartments made up to look at - both 23 square meters. Man, that is SMALL! They were really cute, and very nicely displayed, but wow, so small! And Andy said they were at least $160,000.

After that we went to COEX and had a wander around. We spent ages in the book store looking at Japan travel guides, which was nice. Then we caught the bus home and went to a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan for dinner. I didn't really like the food - Korean-Chinese food is not really very good, in my opinion. It seems to consist of noodles with black sauce and a selection of deep fried stuff with sweet and spicy sauce all over it. Blegh. Anyway, after that we went to the park and Andy took me to see a music and light fountain show thingie. It was awesome! We sat on the edge of the fountain and got sprayed with water :) Here's a little video of it. It lasted 20 minutes and was really beautiful - the video doesn't really do it justice.

Dongtan Central Park

The fountain area

And then I didn't do too much on Sunday. Big walk and sunburn, like I said. Trip to the market for fruit and lunch. Then Andy cam over in the evening and we went for BBQ for dinner. Pretty good weekend!

Now, it's Monday again. Only just over two weeks until Japan :)

And maybe I'll get to teach today!

*        *          *
Yup, I did get to attend four whole classes, and read some stuff that the kids had to repeat. Some days this job sucks. I don't even get the opportunity to be a teacher.

1) I did some planning for Japan

2) I had a Baskin Robbins ice cream after work

3) My work day went quickly

4) I got some dark chocolate

5) Monday's done for another week!