I had a request for the blog title, and it is true in the sense that Gunsan and the surrounding area are considered the breadbowl of Korea. Although if you drive five minutes from the city you will find either a mountain or the ocean, and there aren't more pigs than people. There are just a lot of people.
I must say that I had a productive Friday. I got to school, in the snow, and enjoyed the snow out the window while I painted my nails. Then I enjoyed the snow while I watched some TV on my computer. Then I enjoyed the snow while I knitted a hat and listened to an audio book on my iPod. Then I continued to enjoy the snow while I chatted with Laura Gibbons my roommate. Then I got to enjoy both the chat and the snow while I ate a whole sweet potato, freshly cooked who knows where and handed to me in a plastic bag. Now I am enjoying the snow while typing this blog post and will likely enjoy the snow while I finish a TV show and then enjoy it as I walk in its midst to the bus stop.
Next week will likely be more of the same, although I can't say for sure about the snow, or the sweet potato (I never realized that sweet potatoes are in fact sweet), and likely my nails will not need to be painted until at least the end of the week.
It sure is rough being an English teacher in Korea.
Comments
"It sure is rough being an English teacher in Korea:" depends.
Today I taught all of my classes alone. With no warning. Third period I was walking to class with my co-teacher and she vanished and I never saw her again and I had to teach alone with no plan, but still preparing my students for the test next week. And I wrote test questions, and planned for my extra classes, and taught a teachers' class, and revised the tests for the other grades, and planned my special Christmas lesson for next week (which I will teach alone). And there was no snow.
However, I did get two of those fresh-cooked sweet potatoes about a month ago (on the day when I got an absurd amount of food) and I cannot overstate my agreement with your assessment: they are absurdly, brilliantly, crazily, dangerously, extravagantly, and all-of-the-other-adverbs-from-f-to-z-ly delicious.
Also, the school lunch today was fantastic. If you ever get a dish with ham and mysterious white, black, and green vegetables cut into long, thin slices, don't hesitate to eat it. That lunch was definitely the best part of my day.
Coteachers
If my coteachers disappear, then I don't go to class. Problem solved.
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Have you ever actually done that? It's just not within my capacity, particularly since my classes at Chungju MS had the lowest scores on the midterm. Before that test the Korean teachers just gave them IST (Independent Study Time), which of course they used to throw things and hit each other. If they don't have someone in the class to direct their attention they're not going to retain anything (I mean, they won't anyway, but at least they might pass the test, which is the point of education in Korea), so this time around I've made a vocab/grammar list and I'm trying to do "review activities" to keep them thinking. I'm sure that I'm going about it all wrong and their scores will actually decrease... although actually I wrote part of the test, so I am cunningly stressing certain bits of language and doing lots of "here's the answer, what's the question?" quiz games. ;-)
Thinking back, maybe I could have left a class alone before I knew my students. Knowing 'em doesn't make me like 'em, but I do feel responsible for 'em.
donguri, the iowa of korea... my new favorite quote
I'm so excited to see you actually did it! :) It took me until now to catch up though. Why exactly did we come up with that again?? And I have to say, I'm pretty excited that I made it onto the blog too. How special.