I've just finished my first solo venture around daegu. tricia sent me off with a cheat sheet of korean phrases (basically how to get home in a taxi if I needed to) and I was set loose to wander and meander. It was lovely! I walked by the river for about an hour, listening to the shortbus soundtrack the whole way, walking toward the mountains, and it was divine. I honestly felt many, many things lifting off of me, like I was getting rid of a whole lot of baggage, just drinking in everything around me. I felt completely brand new. after walking by the river, I wandered around downtown for a couple of hours, getting lost accidentally-on-purpose so that I would have to work to find my way back. in the meantime, I passed this long row of guitar stores, and fell in love with at least two guitars. not that I need to buy one while I'm here, I have one sitting at home that I've yet to master, but who knows...we'll see. this might be the time that I have enough isolation to really focus on learning to play the damn thing if I buy one. I also saw many birds and puppies for sale...so sad to see those tiny puppies in cages, I wanted to take them all home, they were so adorable that I broke out into a huge grin just standing there on the street like a goof. also, there was a chipmunk running on a wheel just like a hamster.

it's weird, when I was in england, and even when I moved to new york to some extent, I had, at the beginning, a period of feeling completely small and lost and very, very far away from any true anchor. but I seem to have bypassed that here, and I'm just absorbing everything and enjoying it and zenning out any homesickness or culture shock. a lot of it has to do with tricia being here. she is the perfect person for me to be here with, too...she is extremely supportive, giving me all of the information that I need and everything...she's lending me money to get me through until I get paid...she's wonderful. and also, she has her own shit going on here, her own life established, and it is inspiring me to get out and do things on my own rather than just clinging to her coat tails. we've hung out a lot, and we're having a lot of fun, but after today I know I won't have a problem spending time outside the apartment by myself, either.

last night we went to sugar joe's, a bar that is owned by an american and his korean wife. we had bacon cheeseburgers and strawberry margaritas and played chess. patti smith was playing for a good portion of the night, which made me extremely happy. we had a long chat with a korean girl who works there, and it turns out she teaches korean to foreign teachers to supplement her income. we're going to take lessons with her starting monday, and she's only charging us half the normal fee. so perhaps I will come back knowing some korean after all!

tomorrow we might be going hiking in the mountains.

hmmm...it's difficult remembering how to use this thing since I'm seeing all the commands in korean...looks like I might have somehow disabled commenting...can't really tell.

I can't believe it's already friday. this week flew by. then again, I feel like I've been here for a while. it's that constant mystery of time I suppose, it's almost always that way.

last night I fell asleep without meaning to...tv on, lights on, maybe even glasses on. I must have been exhausted. but I'm not feeling the fatigue that plagued me the last few months in new york. I've managed to begin a habit of getting out of bed as soon as I wake up, rather than dozing for an extra hour or more...and I'm up by 8:30 every morning, I never have to set an alarm...it's nice.

I can't believe how quickly the days go by at school. I think it has to do with the fact that we teach in thirty minute blocks, so that eliminates the feeling of any particular class dragging on. There are things about the thirty minute blocks that I don't like, mainly the fact that if you have to spend time on any behavior problem you lose a good chunk of teaching time. the way the discipline is set up, we are never supposed to have to spend time on it. if a child acts up we are supposed to immediately send them to the office, where their lecture/punishment will be doled out in korean so that they fully understand it. it's hard for me to do that though, I'm so used to dealing with behavior problems on my own and having the intervention of a higher authority as the very last resort. I'm going to have to get over that though, because if I don't then I have a couple of classes where I'll have to spend the whole time dealing with one or two of the kids.

still, the bottom line is that I love these kids! they are amazing. most of them spend from 7am until at least 7pm, many of them later than that, in school. they go to regular school, then they come to us afterwards, and then many of them have other classes or lessons after they come to us. taking that into consideration, they are remarkably well-behaved. most of them are extremely eager to do well...I can't tell if it is motivation from within or just fear of failure and it's consequences that drives them...probably a combination of both. the downside is that they care more about having the "right" answer written down than they do about actually understanding concepts. I'm trying to work on the concept thing though. if there is a sentence that includes a difficult word or concept I make sure to check their understanding of it...often times they don't get it, so I'll do my best to explain with examples. yesterday I had a group of girls and one of their questions included the word "describe," which they didn't know. I told them that it meant to explain something in detail, and they stared blankly...then I told them that in order to describe something, you can pretend that someone is asking you many questions about the thing...what color is it? how does it feel? what do you do with it? I described for them the pen I was holding, and then had them describe crystal's coat. then as homework, I told them to describe their bedrooms. they still seemed pretty confused about the concept, so I wasn't sure if they'd understood. I ended up having them for another thirty minute block later that afternoon, and we covered some new pages in the book. then at the end of that class I reminded them of their homnework and said "who remembers what "describe means?" and crystal raised her hand and said "teacher's shirt is black and shiny!" not only did she understand, but she had applied the concept to something new all on her own...that was one of my favorite moments so far.
another favorite was during one of my larger (larger meaning about ten kids) classes yesterday, when we were talking about animals that would make good pets. I had them each come up and draw an animal on the board. the rest of the class had to guess what animal it was, and then we decided together whether it would make a good pet.

kids: ellyfahnt!
me: would an elephant make a good pet? would you want to have an elephant in your house?
kids laughing: nooo!
me: why?
kids stretching their arms out: biiig!

kids: dolfeen!
me: do you think you could have a dolphin in your house? where do dolphins usually live?
julia: beach!

sooo cute. so yes, in short, I love the teaching. the little kids are great, and the junior high kids are of course my favorite. the jr. high boys test me a lot, but I have a good rapport with them and when they're on we have good discussions and they crack me up. there are two seventh grade girls, emma and rose, and we've already had some really good discussions. I have to make sure I don't let them keep me off task though, I enjoy talking to them so much and learning how they think about things. they're very smart, quite fluent in english and know how to explain cultural differences, etc.

so yes, I look forward to going to work every day, which is very very nice.

that's been the bulk of my experience so far. the weekend starts today, so we'll see what that brings. I hear dinah might come into daegu, which would be awesome.

tricia is going to lend me a chunk of money to get me through until I get paid, which is phenomenally wonderful and generous of her. I could survive on what I've got, but this will make things a whole lot easier.

well, it's been effing ages since I've used this blog. but now I'm in korea, and for some reason the computer lab that I regularly use has a block on livejournal, but blogger is kosher so I figured why not just use this again.





things are going well. I'm really enjoying the teaching. the first couple of days were a bit rough, since I got very little orientation and just kind of jumped in without more than five minutes before each class for tricia to explain the material to me. but, after a couple of days I've got a good grasp on how to teach from these books, and yesterday I felt like I really was teaching, rather than just blindly groping, and it was a lot of fun. these kids are more self-motivated than american kids. even the ones with behavior problems are extremely eager not only to learn but to prove that they know their shit. So you'll have the same kid, within two minutes, crawling on the floor and then leaping up to throw his hand in the air and answer a question. they are hilarious, and I love the process of working through language barriers. I always have...I love listening to the ways that non-native speakers use english, and how many times it makes more sense than the actual english grammatical rules do. teaching ESL is something I definitely might consider looking into when I get back to the u.s. .





last night we went to an open mic at one of the english-friendly bars in town. it was interesting getting a peek at some of the ragtag group of westerners in daegu. all in all I wasn't that impressed. this girl who tricia already knew sat with us, and she was awesome, I'd definitely like to hang out with her some more. but the rest of them might as well have been in any given bar in new york...the same girls with their scripts that last about ten minutes before they have to start repeating themselves until they're drunk enough to go home with whatever dude has attached himself to them for the night. the same dudes doing their best to act smooth and not pulling it off very well. some tall, bespetacled, self proclaimed "social dungeons and dragons player " took it upon himself to warn me about the people teaching in korea, telling me that people are here for three reasons: either they are here for the money, they are here for new experiences, or they are running away from something. a fairly obvious observation. he presented it as though it was inside information, saying that you never know about anyone, never know what they're hiding. "You don't know what I'm hiding," he said (these words may not be exact but the general idea is there). "You don't know what I'm hiding either." I said. "You're right, fair enough," he said. then he told me that he was there that night to get his two friends laid. I said, "so you're playing wingman." he said, "no, not exactly wingman," and I said "so you're a pimp." he said "no, I'm not a pimp, I don't know any women," clearly not understanding that I meant that he was pimping out his friends. then he asked me what my "angle" was there that night, and I said "Dude, I'm just here to hang out, drink beer and listen to music." shortly after that he went away, and I was happy. that is why I don't generally talk to strangers in bars. it is, more often than not, a waste of breath. although that particular exchange provided some mildly amusing dialogue, I must admit.





I've begun a pattern of getting up around 8:30 every morning, which is fabulous because I don't work until 2:30, so I have all this time to get things done before work and to arrive fully awake, alert, and on top of my game. I can't believe that my first week of teaching is more than half over already, and that I've adjusted as quickly as I have. I expected a couple weeks of anxiety and discomfort, but apparently that is not to be.





and david bowie does my soul good, I tell you. mwah!