Chiaksan!

We just had a hiking/adventure/unexpected snowfall on mountains weekend at Chiaksan National Park. I wrote a description of the trip over on the Shutterfly page. This may be followed up with a longer piece on Korean hiking culture and some of the more tangental and memorable moments of the trip. For now, you get the the basics. And photos:

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"All dead"; Kate teaches elementary students

A typical day in Kate's advanced elementary class:

Who else would use an ESL lesson plan with the terms "failed miserably," "symbol," "cultures and religions," "secretary general," and "conference"?

This class is filled with the brightest of our cohort (best is debatable). I had them for two weeks until Kate maliciously stole them from me. I looked forward to this class so much at the end of the day! Now my last class has been replaced with the "My name is Tyren, you die" crowd.

Kate lost her voice (again) today. She's showing the kinders YouTube videos of Feist singing on Sesame Street.

"my name is Tyren. you die."

Oh, the joys of children. I snatched this away from a student a couple of weeks ago. Tyren is a big 11/12 year old who doesn't quite fit into the kindergarten-sized chairs and tables of my classroom. These older kids tend to deal with this ergonomic insult either by completely spacing out or occupying themselves with vocations like the one shown above.

This eloquent and concise statement wasn't directed at me, or anybody else in particular. It's just one of the many broken English phrases that get thrown around everyday in our classrooms. It's the kind of stuff that would send an American public school into lock-down or bomb-scare mode. It would also get students expelled. But here the attitude is, "meh." It's a bit of a different situation (though not very severe) if the transgression is written or spoken in Korean. But Teacher doesn't know Korean, so another common refrain I here from students (pointing at the alleged transgressor): "Ohhh, Teacher. Bad Korean speaking!"

A few more common phrases that should be included in the English-Korean-English Phrasebook for Hogwans:


"Teacher, pinnishwea!!"
translation: "Teacher, I have finished my assignment and cannot contain the urge to inform you of this repeatedly until you acknowledge my accomplishment."

"Teacher, (generic English name assigned to student) crazy."
translation: "Teacher, my classmate is acting erratically and I would like to consipre with him/her in the act by drawing your attention to it."

"Oh my God, oh my God!:
translation (several definitions): 1) "Teacher, I cannot contain my excitement for saying in English that which I cannot effectively say in English." 2) "Teacher, that is unsatisfactory." 3) "Teacher, I cannot contain my feelings of suspense as you reveal the numeral behind the flashcard during this game of BAAM!" 4) "Teacher, I am bored."

Pinoppio
definition: A beloved children's tale character who transcends the wooden fiber of his body to become a real boy.

"Teacher, wha?" (Often annotated to, "ahUH?"
translation: "Teacher, I have no clue what you just said"; or "Teacher, the score you just recorded for the previous round of BAAM! is inaccurate."

"Teacher, No!"; or "No"
translation: The most versatile Korean-English phrase. Can be used to express just about any sentiment from "Teacher, I will not do that," to "Teacher, I have no idea what you just said," to "Teacher, I have no idea how to answer that question," to "Teacher, it is unclear to me whether you just asked me a question or whether you want me to repeat what you just said."

"Teacher my! Teacher my!"
translation: "Teacher, please select me to answer that question/choose the next letter in hangman/select a flashcard for BAAM!" One of the most common Korean English phrases; will be heard dozens of time during each class period. More disciplined Korean students will have the forethought to raise a hand in the air before competing vocally with their classmates.

Photos (and Seoul [long])

Kate and I have been taking turns being sick as hell ever since we got back from Seoul. I lost my voice and had a sore throat on Friday, but I thought I had recovered over the weekend. Monday proved me wrong. Then Kate woke up with the same problem yesterday. No fun. Kate recovered quickly, but I'm still losing a lot of weight through my nose.

Anyway. Kate covered one of my Kindergarten classes today and our boss insisted on covering my others for me, so I was free to do what I would have done had I stayed home from work: edit photos.

This is an album of our first few weeks in Yeoju, including shots from out and about the town:
http://nandkinkorea.shutterfly.com/855

And here's the big batch of photos from Seoul, with a longer description of the trip. It's not quite Kate's timestamped blow-by-blow (not sure if she'll get around to writing that out) but it's still probably more information than most folks care to know:
http://nandkinkorea.shutterfly.com/901

Here are some previews:

For the whole shebang, visit our Shutterfly homepage:
http://nandkinkorea.shutterfly.com/

Farewell.

*UPDATE!

I just figured out how to embed Shutterfly features into blogger. Here you go:

Click here to view these pictures larger

Click here to view these pictures larger

Also, this

Seoul (short)

Kate and I spent early Saturday morning to Sunday evening in Seoul. It was our "if we only had two days in Seoul for the rest of our lives, what would we do?"/basic orientation trip. Kate took exhaustive notes, so I'll leave the full details to her for a later post. And I'll post photos as I edit.

I the meantime though, here are a couple of perspectives on Seoul (short exposure/long exposure) taken from Namsan peak, in the middle of the city.

Sneow-ju

We got a few inches of snow mid-week last week. It started on Tuesday night as Kate and I went into town to go bowling with some other teachers here and it stopped at around 9am on Weds morning. It must not have snowed all night though, because we got two inches at the most.

I got up early on Wednesday to go for a walk down to the river.