a lot of change....in a nutshell

Hey all,
Well, it's been 3 weeks now and i'm pretty much settled in at my new school. It has it's good points and it's bad points. One one hand, it's way less stress, less structure and more freedom of choice as to how I teach. On the other hand, I'm the only foreign teacher amongst 3 Korean English teachers and 2 Korean Math teachers. I don't talk very much. I get talked about though! I find it so dumb how they think, after 4 months of being in a country, I havn't picked up on a FEW words. Besides, I know they speak fast, but it's pretty easy to pick out "blah blah blah Canada blah blah Waeygook (foreigner) blah blah blah" and their random glances my way help as well. I just ignore it now. It's become second nature to ignore stares and rude comments really.

I'm also having a hard time remembering all of my students names. I have 6 classes. In total, I myself have 41 students. The thing is though, I only see my own students on Mondays and Fridays. Since I'm the only foreign teacher I have to make appearances in each of the Korean teachers classes to make sure they're saying everything right and that their pronunciations ok. So, on Tuesdays I teach Serena's classes and she teaches mine, on Wednesdays I teach Kim's classes and on Thursdays I teach Kevin's. So, in reality, I teach every single student at Buksam Prime School. That's about 140 kids. That's not even the worst part. My own classes have absolutely no stability. They get taught by 4 different teachers a week. Since I only see them on Monday/Friday it's also pretty hard to make up lesson plans. I can make them up, but I don't know if they actually understood the material from the previous day, so I don't know if we should move on, or review. It's annoying. Our schools supposed to have 2 foreign teachers, but we're a little short of those at the moment. All the kids are really great though. I've got maybe half of their names down, which I don't think is too bad considering I've only seen some of them 3 times.

Well, that's just school, I do have some sort of a life outside of it. Thank God. A few weeks ago Jenn came up to visit me. We had a pretty low key weekend. Went to a temple (Jikjisa), it was nice. One of the prettier temples I've been to. But, still a temple, still pretty much the same as the last one. This month was also Budda's Birthday. Devon and I went to a temple here in downtown Gumi. I bought a really nice jade bracelet and we got some free tea. Again, it was a temple, except there were a million more Koreans and lanterns everywhere. It was still neat to see the Korean's dressed up in their traditional outfits and I saw a lot more Monks than I usually do.

On the 18th we had the day off from school. Devon and I took a trip to Busan, Korea's second largest city for the day. Busan is awesome, I love it. It's right on the ocean, parts of it really remind me of White Rock. It's hard to believe how much I miss the ocean. Even living in Abbotsford at least I knew if I wanted to I could go. Here it's way harder. The ocean was my relaxer, if I was stressed, that's where I went. I could really use some ocean during my "I hate Korea with a passion and I want to go home" days. We went to the UN Cemetary for men who fell during the Korean War. It was good, I never realized so many countries fought in that War. It's crazy. So many people died. Actually, Gumi, where I'm from, was levelled during the war, but you'd never know it today. South Korea has built up remarkably well.

We also went to the Busan Aquarium. This is an awesome aquarium. It lacks the whales that the Vancouver Aquarium has, but it's still really well done. The coolest part about it though has to be that it's all underground! It goes down 3 story's. Pretty crazy, but Korea's so crowded that sometimes building up and out just isn't an option. I saw some fish that I had never seen before, although I don't remember what they're called. I also saw some really cute penguins and otters! I'm a sucker for the cute little animals.

Well, those are my travels, now for some news from the homefront. I'm moving!

My roommate Marnie just left Korea. She's moving to Wales to be with her boyfriend. Julie, another Prime teacher, who lived down the hall, also just left. So, I'm in an apartment alone and Kathi, Julie's roommate, is in an apartment alone. The powers that be have decided to sell my apartment (which kind of worries me, because then it doesn't seem like they'll be hiring any new teachers) so I'm moving down the hall in with Kathi. I also bought Marnie's hand phone (cell phone...I think it's dumb to call them hand phones, but it's the Korean way!) and her scooter. I know how to ride the scooter, but I'll definetly be only riding on the back roads around my place for awhile before taking to the street. Driving rules in Korea exist I'm sure, but their enforcements are far and few between. Apparently in Canada we underuse our horns. I wasn't aware until arriving here that the horn is something that you should use at least 5 times during an average car trip across town. Also, red lights don't mean a thing. If there is no one coming, then go. If there IS someone coming, but you're sure you can squeeze through before they hit you, then go. If you think they may hit you, but you're not sure, then go anyways, they'll stop.

Anyways, I'll be fine, it's all about knowing what you're doing and watching out for the other idiots.

That's about all folks. I'll be sending out a mass e-mail with the new contact information. I'd put it on here, but well, it's the internet. I'd prefer not to have any drunk Korean men showing up at my door.

Take Care!