That was the week that was

I’ve been a shitty blogger, since this was intensive week, I’ve been house hunting, and I’ve been struggling with my stupid New Year’s resolution.

Schedule
The classes were all pretty good, but all but one of them were new to me and one was new to PBU. This was the TESL class, which is teaching theory and theory-application to Korean elementary school teachers. The students were very good, although they complained about how much work was given them (a very Korean thing in my experience). The odd thing about that complaint was that no matter how we tried to dial them back on specific assignments the crazier they seemed to get. You could say “I only want you to discuss how to teach using multiple learning styles – just a discussion,” and you would be completely un-comprehended. They would get in their groups and go absolutely mad creating theoretical frameworks, lesson plans, physical props, and assignments of all stripes. We just couldn’t get them to NOT do this. And the work was just outstanding. In both writing classes we gave perfect scores to ALL groups. I mean they took the assignments out behind the shed, strapped them to a pole and beat them until they gave everything up. Then they made them tea, slapped on some bactine, an made them beautiful for presentation. Given this student approach (an offshoot, I think, of the BKF’s “what the fuck” theory of Korean behaviour) I think that dialing back the assignments was all we could do.

Schadenfreude – the only Freudian thing worth a shite.
The last assignment in this class was a Writing Storm and I asked my students to write about their experiences in the class. This resulted in something unexpected. I came out fine, but the students absolutely unloaded on the “Games” instructor. In very un-Korean form several named her by name, the rest mentioned “a instructor” and if words could kill she’d be under a lovely bit of turf and marble right now with Jesus shining her up for use as a sunbeam. It was brutal. John and I read them together and giggled like schoolgirls (albeit fat male schoolgirls in our 50s) that someone else had gotten it. This may not be very adult, but it sure was fun.

Chilluns
I also got two chilluns classes, which I have historically hated, but these were good. I was a bit consterned when I arrived at my “(CAMP NAME REDACTED) 2” to discover that the 2 did not mean 2^nd grade, in fact pretty much meant nothing. I had two sixth grade boys, but it was for only an hour a day, MWF, and only for this week. I pulled out some old lesson plans and showed some videos. That was that. The other class is twice a week with a handful of 7-year olds, but they are the best-behaved little suckers ever, and just as prone to short videos as any other class.

Academic Writing.
I got to this class and there was only one student in it, an extremely Pointdexter-ish male high-school senior. For the entire first class, every time I spoke he jerked visibly and then slowly subsided into lesser spasms, tremors and twitches. Still, as it turns out, he put himself in this class, not his parents. I assumed it was his parents and was confirmed in this assumption when, with the first class ending, he asked where the homework was. “So,” thought I, “if he doesn’t show his parents homework, they won’t be satisfied with how much work he is doing.”

Second class comes and I hand out the homework and ask him if I need to mark it in any way to impress his parents. After he stops his little impersonation of jello on a hot waffle griddle, he figures out what I am asking and says.. “Homework? No show parents. Homework is for ME.” So, you know, I was wrong about that whole domineering parent thing. Turns out he’s just a kid with a plan. Must have been the twitching that confused me.

Anyway, next week gets lighter and easier…

Home is anywhere, that you hang your head
The Korean listing habit, at least for houses listed on foreigner boards, is to list them when they become available; as available immediately. And Koreans expect something called “key money” or Jeonse (젼새 I’m guessing), which is a substantial down-payment (in fact, if you put enough down you don’t pay rent, the landlord just gets to invest your money. This strikes me as a risky thing, but I guess it works). Consequently I’ve watched two places I would have really liked, in, say, 6 weeks, go away. Oh well, I look at a place tomorrow.

My stupid resolution
When I got to Korea I swore I’d start running again. As I was an jelly-filled fat fuck (with an order of extra jelly), there was no way I could start immediately. So I set a weight that I would hit and then start running. I got to that particular weight and celebrated by sitting down. Didn’t quite start running. So, to jumpstart the whole thing, I resolved that in January I would just run one lap of the local field for the number of each day. One on the 1^st, ywo on the 2^nd, three on the 3^rd, etc. Of course on New Year’s day I was hung-over. Day after I was lazy. I started on day three with already 6 laps to do, which was not quite my brilliant plan. Then I realized that if I was going up to Seoul on Saturday (the 10^th, so ten laps) I’d have to get ahead a few laps as I wouldn’t run that day. Suffice it to say that I’m dizzy from running in circles, but will be able to take tomorrow off and still go into the truly daunting part of this whole scheme a couple laps ahead of schedule.

Next week should be a bit lighter, then one more week and I’m going back to Cali.

Sweet!