Korea gets a bit of flack from expats for being so proud of it's 'four seasons'. A really common questions, after 'where are you from', 'how old are you', and 'do you like kimchi', is 'does your country have four seasons'. It sometimes seems like Koreans believe that no other country has four seasons. However, they might be onto something, at least in regards to New Zealand. Now, New Zealand has four seasons, but after having been in Korea for 3 out of four seasons, NZ's are really not well defined. In Korea you really know what season it is, and the changes are rapid and drastic. In in it just kind if gets more or less rainy, and slightly warmer and colder. I'm quite enjoying the 'four seasons of Korea' :D
It's another beautiful day, and I'm once again stuck in the stuffy teacher's room with nothing to do. My neighbours Internet connection went down last night, prompting me to try and get my own fixed - AGAIN. Mr B. says someone might come round tonight to 'fix' it. Really, I don't know that it needs fixing so much as upgrading. Oh well, we will see. If this works, great. If not, tomorrow I will insist on getting a new, fast plan.
I booked some accommodation in Busan for the long weekend at the end of May. I'm planning on hanging out at the beach and eating ice-cream for a couple of days. If it stays at this temperature or gets warmer, it should be perfect! All I have to do now is book the train tickets to get down there. The website won't let me book more than a month in advance, so I'm going to do it as soon as I'm able. Long weekends here get insane and everything gets totally booked out. Though, I've heard that no one's interested in the beach unless it's the middle of August, so there's some slight chance that it won't be too manic. As long as I can get an ice-cream and find a spot on the beach to laze on, I'll be happy :)
In other news, my uncle Mark, who lives in Phuket, has invited me to stay with him when my contract finishes in Korea. That'll be awesome! I'm a sucker for warm weather and sunshine.
* * * (Written Friday morning)
All I ever seem to do these days is complain! I can't seem to help myself... there's so much to complain about, and sometimes, once I've written it down on here, it kind of gets out of my system. So, here are two more of my 'frustrations in Korea' from Thursday.
The first one comes from the lesson plan I did for the open class. As you know, I gave it to Mr B. the other day and asked him to read it over and let me know if he wanted anything changed. Well, yesterday, he again wouldn't let me teach, but asked me to come and explain the lesson plan to the class we're going to do it with. I assumed he's read through it and was happy. So, I explain it to the class, and then he explains it in Korean, only as he's doing so, it becomes clear it's the first time he's even looked at it. I've got 10 minutes set aside for a 'test' (really just a worksheet), and he told the students it's be small, like one or two questions. I gave him copies of all the materials, and it's more like 15 questions (but they're EASY fill in the blank things). So, he turns to me in front of the class, during class time and starts telling me that that's too long, it should only be 5 minutes, and the game should be longer. Then he asked which activity was the game, and blah blah blah. I was just like "well, what if I call it a 'worksheet' and not a 'test'? Is it ok then?". He said we'd talk about it later, haha. I seriously doubt that. So, I'm just going to leave things as they are. If he isn't going to read it over and discuss it with me, I'm going to go ahead and do my own thing. If he wants a collaborative plan, he needs to collaborate. If he wants to have things his way, HE can plan the damn thing. Seriously, how hard is it to check over the lesson plan before telling me to present it to the class?
The second one is my screwy internet. My awesome neighbours' connection is down again, so I have to use my own, which sucks. I can't play or even skype well on it. So, once again I went to Mr B. and asked him about he. He seems super reluctant to let me change providers. So, he calls someone, and then tells me someone will call me in the evening to come around and fix it. I asked if they'd speak English. He was like "no, sorry". Lol, so I get this phone call from a guy who seriously speaks no English, somehow work out he's coming round. So he does, he clicks around my network settings (turning my wireless on and off appeared to be the majority of the clicking), and then swaps my ethernet cable for a shorter one, then says he's done. I asked him to wait a sec. I logged into Starwars and showed him the massive lag that makes it unplayable. He said, well motioned, that he didn't know what the problem was, sorry, and left. Sooooo, I need new internet! But, it's Friday and I don't want to go totally without a connection all weekend, so I'm going to tell (not ask) Mr. B. to cancel my internet on Monday and then call the company that has an English help desk and get the 'fast' plan from them. Once again, what is the common frustrating denominator in this equation of Korean inefficacy? Yeah, Mr. B.
Ok, my complaining is done for now.
Here's five things from Thursday that made me happy:
1) Sun!
2) I started reading the Hunger Games books. They actually aren't very good in my opinion, it feels like the author's been really lazy, the pacing is a bit off (what was supposedly weeks in the book read like it was about 4-5 days), and a lot of really interesting avenues have been left totally unexplored. But, they are an easy and entertaining read and made my day quite pleasant.
3) Some of the second grade girls came and talked to me at lunch time. They were really sweet and said they liked me teaching them and stuff. It was nice :)
4) The blossoms are still out and they're beautiful.
5) I went out for dinner with Courtney, Nyasha, and some of Nyasha's workmates. The food was good, as was (most of) the company :)
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