Teachers' Day

Today is teachers' day. How good is that?

I received several gifts including: shower gel, hand lotion, assorted vitamins, bubble bath (strange for a country devoid of baths) a mug.. with a lid, candy, several flowers and cards and, best of all, a W50,000 department store voucher.

And of course I left resenting the kids that didn't get me anything. Cheapskates. 

My haul

Naming Kids

When I signed up for this year I did some research into the hagwon education system. By research I mean I read some blogs similar to this one. One thing that stuck out was the fact that these teachers were at regular intervals given the opportunity to give their students English nicknames. Great, I thought, and began drawing up a mental list of potential names. I'll admit this first list contained names such as Bing, Michael Jr and Bjork. 

When I arrived it was mid-term so no new kids were immediately forthcoming. Several months later, though, still nothing. The teacher that started at the same time as me, Sean, had by this point bestowed names on around twenty kids, and didn't hesitate in reminding everybody of this fact. Hourly. So at the end of February the new batch of kindergarten babies started and I assumed there'd be swathes of Korean 6 year olds for me to anglicise the shit out of. Nope. Not one. 

I came close a couple of times. Another teacher taught a brand new afternoon class once - eight kids, named them all - then the very next lesson the schedule changed and I took over. I had a kid come up to me and say "my name's JK," as in the initials of his Korean name Jin Kyung or something. I told him balls to that, you're Kurt. His mother was having none of it, so JK's still JK. Another kid turned up, excited about getting an English nickname, a feeling shared by me, and we settled on Leslie, after my dad. He liked it, and went home with it all over his books. Next day he came in with stickers covering the name I'd given him. His mother had renamed him Leo, because it was more Catholic. Gah. What about Pope Leslie?

This never happens to other bastard teachers. Sean even named a kid Bowie and it stuck. Bowie! Which, to be fair though, is unspeakably awesome. 

Post

I've been receiving enquiries, complaints and death threats regarding my bloglessness, so I thought I should post something to placate my baying hoardes of readers. All four of you. Hi!

The new kindergarten kids have settled down pretty well. I'm mainly teaching the kids that were here last year, but I still get to see the others. There are plenty of characters, but clearly owing to the unavoidable sentimentality I harbour for my babies from last year, it's just not the same. Teaching is still fun though. There's another open day at the end of May (see the beginning of November 2008) so I'm practising for that. I was lucky in that I'm teaching the two most advanced classes - for one class we're learning about the seven wonders of the ancient world, meaning I'm drilling into them basic classical history and Greek mythology and having them remember several historical dates along with names and concepts like Mausoleum of Maussollus at Halicarnassus, Antipater of Sidon, King Nebuchadnezzar II, Herostratic fame and incestuous monarchism, though I may leave that last one out. And they're coping fine! And they're speaking a second language! And they're six! All this when my co-workers are struggling with "this is a square. What colour is the square? Is it a big square?" Ha!

At the same time though, I'm counting the working days till the end of my contract (37!). For reasons I won't go into (for now) on a public webblog, working for YBM ECC has its drawbacks, major drawbacks. Now I've concluded that, because I like living in Korea, it's easy, good money and fun, and also as I have nothing much better on my plate, I'm staying on in the country for a second year. I'll steer clear of the whole hagwon thing though - I've applied to work in a public school, the grass on whose playing field appears incandescently greener than the mucky sespool (sic)  I find myself wallowing in at present.

I'll try to post again before I leave!

Academies, sandwiches, wine, The Sandwich and Wine Academy

A few months ago I listed a few things I miss from home. Two more you could add to that: sandwiches and wine. Aside from Little Jakob's, which I've really gone off, sandwiches are scarce. They're sold here and there, but they taste weird, really weird. Wet, and regardless of their purported content, fishy. Making your own is fraught with hindrances too, given the lack of real bread in this country, as well as the fact that cheese is either processed or exorbitantly priced. Bread is the major concern though. No bread no sandwiches, and sandwiches, as everybody knows, are the best food in the world.

Wine. Wine, like cheese, is way overpriced - consider that you can get enough soju to send you to hospital for under a tenner, wine doesn't have much a market here. I had my first bottle a couple of weeks ago. The cheapest bottle in the supermarket was six quid and it was a struggle to get through it. Nasty.

Academies. Academies or hagwons are where parents send their offspring when school isn't happening. That means any time from 3pm or so til well, dawn. Well, maybe not, but on weeknights there are buses outside my window at 1am picking up middle/high school kids. There's probably stuff going on til later. Academies cater for any subject you can think of. Around here there are billions of English academies but my kids have told me about their various other extracurricular work, ranging from the normal: maths, science, Korean, to the artistic: piano, guitar, painting, to the leftfield: robots, DJing, lego. That's right. Lego. It's just down the street.

So, considering all this, imagine my intrigue when last November travelling in the schoolbus on a field trip I saw a neon sign flash by for.. wait for it.. a Sandwich and Wine Academy. I've spent the last five months searching for it. I was convinced I'd dreamt it. Then, last week as I was coming home on my bike, I spotted it. Sadly though it wasn't a hagwon, it was just a restaurant. But hey, potentially the greatest restaurant ever! 

Today Chris and I biked down to Hyewha and had a sandwich and a glass of red wine and it was lovely. Real bread, real wine, and some bacon. Cheap too. Fantastic.

I'm cycled somewhere in the vicinity of 80km this weekend. I'm insane. I'm also exhausted. Bed.

Snow

Following my assertion last Thursday that summer had arrived in Seoul, I should've known that meteorology would have taken note and gone out of its way to prove me wrong. Saturday was beautiful, 20+ degrees - I biked to a teacher training course in Jongno in just a t-shirt - and Sunday was passable. As I'm typing though, Tuesday evening, 5.30, it's fucking snowing. Snowing!

Stupid country.

Exercise

The only exercise I got in my first seven months here was walking up and down the copious steps all over the place and occasionally jumping around like an idiot trying to entertain 5 year olds. My diet was such that I didn't become all fat and that, but I wasn't feeling particularly great.

That's starting to change. I started going on long exploratory walks when the weather was clement. Then I noticed the big chunk of mountain right next to where I live and discovered hiking. Last weekend I bought a bike, and Seoul got a bit smaller. Tonight I'm going to cycle the few miles to Hyehwa and back. Granted we're going there for a curry, but still, I'm exercising! Plus I'll save a few thousand won in taxi fare.

Summer appears to be back, too - just as it happened in the autumn, the weather changed overnight. We went from freezing - it was insanely cold at the weekend - to 20 degrees this week. I went to work in just a shirt today. This is welcome news after the bleakest winter ever. Very welcome. 

Institutionalised Alcoholism

I saw in the English expat magazine recently an advert for a teacher recruitment website. It listed the features and benefits they offered, and showed a picture of a large group of westerners who may or may not have been recruited through the site, in a bar, downing shots.

Now, in my opinion that's a bit wrong. You wouldn't advertise any other job with a picture of your current employees getting trashed. It's not professional. It's certainly true, though, that a lot of teachers view their year in Korea as a paid jolly, seeing nothing wrong in spending unconscionable amounts of time and money on hedonistic pursuits.

Now, like most people, I enjoy a few drinks - but not during the week, at least not excessively. I know of teachers who've rolled in in the morning, unshowered, wearing clothes from the night before, having had little or no sleep, smelling of soju. I can't fathom how this can be done: teaching dozens of screaming under sixes with a hangover? No thanks. I've done it before, in previous jobs, jobs where I can sit behind a checkout or answer phones for eight hours, jobs where I don't have to use my brain, but not when I'm working with kids - it's not fair to them, or to their parents who've paid hundreds of thousands of won to send their kids to our hagwon.

And it reflects badly on other teachers. And I had to get that off my chest.

Last Video

A video that shows why Jasmine's so adorable.

I have no idea why she's laughing.

Goodbye Cambridge 1

Having been given our new, savagely mangled and extended schedule for the next four months, lectured on how our school is going to shit and it's nobody's fault but ours, and braced ourselves for the mess that will be the first day of the new school year tomorrow, we, we being all the teachers, both Korean and foreign, are feeling a bit deflated. One Korean teacher even quit. With immediate effect. (That means more sub classes for the rest of us. Mmmmmmmm.)

More on that though once it's up and running, or at least up and floundering. Now is a time for reflection on the last eight months. My sadly disbanded homeroom class, Cambridge 1, have all been sent off to elementary school. Most, as I said, are coming back for afternoon classes as of tomorrow, but I won't get to teach them. Bastard Chris teacher will, and he's not displaying the relevant emotions, namely those akin to finding an oasis in a desert of piss: relief and tempered joy. 

When I first arrived here I wasn't their biggest fans. They were loud and uncontrollable, they spoke far too much Korean, and they didn't seem to take to me either. Gradually, though, as we progressed through the neverendingly repetitive Wake Up series of English books, preceded by a daily phonics lesson, I fell in love with them. Here's a tribute.

Eunice

Eunice, loud, bossy, uncompromising, was the early leader of the class as far as I could see. She had been placed, wrongly, in the more advanced MIT class but moved down to Cambridge when she couldn't cope. At first I thought she was a bit bored with the work, but as time progressed realised she was just lazy, and a lot of her potential wasn't reached because she failed to put in anywhere near enough effort. Her tests may have needed improvement, but when she wrote 'I love you teacher' on every page, how can you hate her? While her spelling and writing remained on a low improvement arc, her speaking ability, already pretty good, was getting ever better, and... 

Most memorable moment: When I found out we were going to perform a play for graduation, there was only one lead. Eunice, as the mean Princess Miserella, a role that could've been written for her, was awesome. It's a shame she's quit ECC outright now, she'll never be back.

Nathan

Nathan was quiet and a bit dim last summer; now, he's a bit less dim and a bit more of a troublemaker. He's a troublemaker in that he actively looks to start fights with anyone close to him - it's not a mischievous thing, I think he likes causing controversy. It started to become a real problem around the beginning of the year, and I really began to dislike the kid. To give him credit though, after some repetitive but stern words from me and the manager he sorted it out. Plus I've never seen anybody so happy to receive a Christmas present - as you can see from the picture, it was a god damn triangle.

Most memorable moment: Trying to work out the answer to 8 plus 5. The video to which is here.

Eric

Eric was the smartest kid in the class and he undoubtedly needed to be learning at a higher level, but did he ever know it. Often suffering from big fish in a small pond syndrome, (if that's a thing, it might be) he was regularly dismissive of his classmates' abilities while striving to show his own relative superior knowledge at every given opportunity, which meant everyone else ended up resenting and ostracising him. It was only through the resurgence of another student (see below) that he ended up showing more humility and, later, having more fun. Still, an excellent student to have in the class for obvious reasons, also on Valentines' day he gave me some soap. And I mean good soap.

Most memorable moment: Setting me Korean homework off his own back, then giving me a sticker when I got eveything right.

Paulie

Paulie began life under my tenure as a rowdy, sulky, spoilt bitch. He's good friends with Jack and together they wrought havoc on my early lessons. Paulie was the brains of the operation, if not in his grades, his ability to sense an opportunity to create mischief was inspired. Even his name - initially just Paul but suffixed with an -ie in line with his Korean surname, Lee, to differentiate from the Paul in Cambridge 2 - conjures up images of Italian American gangsters. Paulie's misbehaviour, though, was refined. He was able to mastermind great crimes, such as calling the teacher 'poo poo gas' or stealing Nathan's eraser, with sincere affection. Paulie was probably the second most affectionate student in the class, playful and constantly declarative of his love for his students and teachers. He endeared himself to me equally with his affection and his already well developed sense of cunning. He's damn photogenic too.

Most memorable moment: When, through his silver tongue and powers of persuasion, he managed to take 70% of all the big, famous 'soccer player stickers' I had sent from England from other kids throughout the kindergarten.

Jack

The other half of the Paulie and Jack crime duo, Jack was less affectionate and more thuggish, the brawn to Paulie's brains, but still, he had his moments. After my last lesson, totally out of character, I received a crumpled piece of A4 paper, upon which was scrawled: To Michael Teacher. I like you. So, I like you. From Jack. Jack's feelings are usually kept under wraps, so this was a nice surprise. He was sporadic in his classwork: at times he really couldn't be bothered, at others he'd come from nowhere to win the spelling game (where points are awarded for letters) with words like "fishbowls" or "playgrounds." His final exam marks weren't the best, though, so I hope he can cope with the step up to elementary school. He's there with Paulie, so he will at least have a partner in crime.

Most memorable moment: Bit of a crude one, but memorable. One day in October he shat himself. He carried himself quite well afterwards.

Heather

Heather left ECC just before Christmas to go to America, though she came back for the graduation last weekend. Heather was a great student: smart, loveable, friendly, but quiet and hardworking. Around November, Heather was involved in a bit of a love triangle, or possibly square or pentagon. Paulie and Jack were both became a bit besotted with her. Eric had always been friends with her as she'd been one of the smarter ones in the group and Eric could relate, but those nascent kindergarten feelings of love both seemed to hit Paulie and Jack at once, and soon they were falling over themselves to offer her erasers, pencils, their hand in marriage. Eric, the fouth corner of the square, then became a bit jealous and turned his envy towards the two boys in the forms of intellectual superiority. Paulie and Jack responded with primal insults and it got a bit dirty. The pentagon... or even pyramid, I suppose, is formed by Jasmine, who at some point declared her love for everybody. Strangely, though, when Heather left, everybody stated coldly that she meant nothing to them and they hated her. Still, there were emotional hugs all round when she came back at graduation. Fickle kids.

Most memorable moment: Paulie and Jack devoting themselves to her on her last day, Heather blithely lapping up the attention.

Sarah

Sarah, I think it's fair to say was the weakest student in the class. Over the course of the eight months I taught her, there were only minimal improvements in speaking, reading and writing, whereas everybody else made middling to astounding gains. In spite of this, though, in our open lesson, where the parents came to watch me teach them about a subject we'd practiced for a month and the point was to memorise and enunciate clearly your section of the lesson script in the right order, she was exemplary. Despite underwhelming in rehearsals, she did brilliantly in the class play too. She tried hard most of the time, but you could tell things went over her head a lot of the time, and with kids like Eric in the class, I couldn't help her as much as she needed without disadvantaging the others. I'll miss her though, especially since she inexplicably quit with one week of lessons to go, and I wasn't able to say goodbye.

Most memorable moment: Revelling in rare praise after on open day I singled her out as the star performer, and showered her with stickers and candy.

 

Jasmine

So we come to the gem of a student that every teacher dreams of: Jasmine is very clever, funny, interesting, adorable, well behaved and affectionate to the point of stalkerish. She's unique and I will unabashedly admit that she's my favourite student by a mile. When I arrived at ECC in July, she was very quiet and spent most of the lessons in a world of her own or half asleep, her head on the desk, not participating in the lesson. This lethargy and apparent slow-wittedness (as mentioned on here before, she was once stabbed in the face with a pencil and didn't flinch) led the foreign teachers to facetiously speculate that she was perpetually high. After the first couple of months, though, she started to come out of her shell. I started teaching them phonics and Jasmine was suddenly putting her hand up in class. Her spelling improved no end. She'd come out with priceless one-liners or tangential anecdotes about her dreams, or tangerines. She told everybody on a ten-minutely basis how much she loved them, swooning all the while. When Heather left in December she stepped up and assumed the position of dominant female and set about catching up Eric. By the time of the final exams, she was top of the Cambridge class academically, even beating half the students in the class that had been learning English for two years. I still say that Eric's the smarter kid, but grades-wise Jas was just pipping him. 

Most memorable moment: So many, but number one was when she came in one day and told me about her boyfriend from tae kwon do class. "He kissed me... on the lips!" (giggle) (swoon) "And then here.. and here.. and all over. Mmmmm." Bear in mind she was born in 2002. Don't be alarmed though, I'm pretty sure that's all that's happened. She's referred to Paulie as her boyfriend since, and as mentioned above, declared love for everybody, including me. She lists her dream occupation as mother. She's going to break some hearts, that one.

Bye, you adorable little bastards!

Cheating

In one of the classes I teach, or technically, used to teach, we did a book that had the answers printed in the back. These two pictures show what was always inevitable...

Graduation

It's the end of the school year right now, so the 7 year old kids will be leaving us and starting school from March. This means they graduate. Graduate from kindergarten. It is pretty weird to see kids who in real ages are only six wearing mortarboards and gowns - they do appear much older than usual, as I associate the image of the graduate with somebody in their twenties.

Aside from that it wasn't as odd as my own university graduation. We've been practising for the last month a play that the kids performed for their parents before they received their diplomas. My homeroom Cambridge class did a piece of drama called Sleeping Ugly, a bastardisation of Sleeping Beauty where the princess is a bitch and the prince falls for the 'not so beautiful' normal girl. I chose the play for the sole reason of casting Eunice in the mean princess role, and she was awesome, she blew them away. She has a future on the stage that one. Despite the rehearsals being at times chaotic the play went down OK. Eunice even slipped over at the start but recovered remarkably well. Plus, though I only saw the one play the general consensus is that they did better than the other class of seven year old students, so in your face Cambridge 2!

So, they graduated last Saturday and we've had the last week of study. The majority, though, will be coming back for afternoon classes in March. Of the graduation kids I've been teaching my guys in Cambridge 1 fifteen times a week, and the other classes either daily or thrice weekly so yeah, I'm going to miss them, a lot. Tributes and endless albums of photos to come...

My guys receive their diplomas... so proud

Sarah, on the left, decided to quit ECC after graduation... with one week left.

Sarah again

Left to right: Jack and Paulie (Fairies), Eunice (Princess Misarella), Eric (the Handsome Prince), Jasmine (Jane), Sarah and Nathan (Narrators)

Jasmine, playing herself, becomes friends with the prince

Dylan the goat from Cambridge 2 class

Noah the goat, was however the cutest thing I've ever seen

Lunar New Year

Today is Lunar New Year. You may have heard on the news about Chinese New Year. Same thing, essentially. It's the most important Korean holiday of the year, it's like Christmas around here. My neighbourhood is pretty deserted and all the shops are closed - all bar McDonalds, Starbucks and Domino's, and all the 24 hour conveni-stores. Consequently today I've had a cheeseburger, a pizza, some hot chocolate and some beer. Oddly, however, fruit vendors are out en masse. I also have some tangerines for later.

It's nice to have a four day weekend but it was our intention to do something, to go somewhere. We tried to book a room at a ski resort but underestimated the amount of Koreans who were planning the same thing much much earlier than us. Ah well, another time.

In other news, there are only three days left of the intensive schedules, which is great. I'm looking forward to getting my three hour lunches back. I'll miss the classes I've taught this month, especially 14 year old one-to-one Tom. He means I'm in school from 9am til 7.30pm on Tuesday and Thursday as his class isn't until 6.45, but he's great. His knowledge of English football is awesome, and he tries hard to get through the book we do as quickly as possible so we can get onto the real reason he's there - to talk football. I can even forgive the fact that he's a Man U fan - with Park Ji-Sung it makes sense.

That's it. Happy Seollal, readers.

Halfway

More than that.

I've completed six months and a week and a half of this year-long thing, so here are some brief thoughts.

Being at home seems a distant memory, but the first few weeks in Korea seem aeons ago. When I reminisce about those humid, exciting times, so much has changed. It's certainly become chillier (-8 yesterday in Hongdae.) I'm feeling pretty good about my ability to make kids learn stuff and still have fun and that, a far cry from when I was being observed. Kids are still quitting but I'm confident that's not about me. Everyone's kids are quitting. The three guys I work with are cool, and have certainly made the living in another country thing easy as hell. 

Though I've hardly mastered the Korean language, or even learnt basic phrases, I possess the very, very barest essentials. I can say the following:

• Hello
  
• Goodbye
  
• Yes
  
• No
  
• Thankyou
  
• Tuna kimbap please
  
• One, two, three, five.. maybe seven
  
• Hundred
  
• Thousand
  
• How much?
  
• Shut up
• Merry Christmas
  
• and shovel
  

I have, however, become an expert in internationally-understood gesticulations, so who needs words?

This blog, too, conceived as a means of letting people back home know what I'm doing conveniently and with pictures, has had visitors from every continent, from Peru to Malaysia to Reunion island to Kazakhstan. So hi you lot.

I'm going to bed.

Birthday

Like racehorses, Koreans get one year older on New Year's Day. So although I had my birthday on Wednesday, I've been 24 for a week and a half.

Midweek, my birthday passed without much fanfare and without any alcohol, because firstly I'm a professional and secondly, I know the drawbacks of teaching rowdy kids with a hangover. Weekend will probably contain a certain amount of decadence. I kept it from the kids too, though it was leaked to one class, a class I've only been teaching for a week on the new intensive* schedule. The next day, one girl presented me bar of chocolate with this brilliant message attatched.

It says "To Michael Teacher. Hello I'm Sarah. Happy birthday to you. When you teach me I am so happy. Whey you come ECC first I don't know your name but you teach me and I know your name. From Sarah." (I resisted the urge to correct her grammar with my big red pen.)

The next day, today, having finished off what was left of my birthday cake (which had a tomato on it and was consumed with chopsticks), I went to work with the last of my birthday out of my system, not expecting to have to deal with any more of it. But Will, second from the left, evidently not wanting to be outdone in the impressing Michael Teacher stakes, had brought a whole carrier bag full of sweets for a party during our lesson. What your see above is nearing the end of our saturnalia of sugar. That was fun. Though I wasn't too sure about the chocolate-covered sunflower seeds.

*Winter intensives started at the end of December. I probably wrote about summer intensives some time in summer, so go and look for that. The winter intensive schedule is a bitch - I'm in school from 9-7.30 two days a week, and only have one 40 minute break on the other three. But, as you'll have noted, I'm teaching some good kids, and the days fly. Plus, and I'm sure I've said this before somewhere, think of all the wons!

Japan

Over Christmas, I hopped across the East Sea to Japan. Japan is good.

Mt Fuji there. Not as close to Tokyo as cartoons would have you believe.

We never left Tokyo, and in a sense it was was obviously quite similar to Seoul, but here's the difference: everywhere you went, things were just a bit more exciting. Crazier, in a good way. And more expensive. Freaking expensive.

Before I applied for this job I had an interview for a position in Japan. Didn't get it. The interview was a farce. Anyway, the monthly wage I was quoted was however many yen 1000 English pounds buys you. I spent half that in four days in Tokyo. OK, I was on holiday and was using that as an excuse for some exorbitance, but it still makes you think how I'd have lived on that wage. I get the equivalent of the yen wage I was offered in won here in Seoul, which allows me to live like a king - and still I've bought a laptop and had two holidays in the last six months. I'm going start saving money this year.

First night in Japan was strange. We'd booked one night's accommodation in a hostel in Asakusabashi, which is nothing like Tokyo should be. It was suburban. There were no lights, few people, not much going on. Bars were non-existant. The next day, which was Christmas, we went elsewhere.

Shinjuku, actually. Shinjuku is much more like the Tokyo you see on TV and futuristic anime. Lights, people, pornography: everywhere. Christmas lunch, incidentally, was fish and chips, and, later, a salmon pizza. Neither were pleasant. Aside from the food aspect, it didn't feel especially like Christmas. Sure there were Japanese dressed up like Annual Gift Man and, y'know, some tinsel here and there, but it was 18 degrees, and I went to an arcade. Plus, people were taking the decorations down at 9pm.

Christmas Lunch

Then we spent another night at a hostel followed by a night in a place called Kimi Raikkonen. I mean Kimi Ryokan. Both were in Ikebukuro, which was good, too. Cut a long story short, I'm going back one day. When I have shitloads of money.

As promised, I'm going to give the blog some much needed photography.

Rainbow Bridge

We got on something like DLR to get to here. Nicer than London Docks.

The view from halfway up Tokyo Tower, which, incidentally, is the same as the Eiffel Tower, just a bit bigger and red.

Shibuya Crossing, the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world or something. You've probably seen it on Lost in Translation.

Day 1: I slept in a pine coffin.

Tokyo Tower. Told you it was just like the Eiffel Tower and red.

Condomania. It sold phophylactics and other phallus-oriented stuff. This was in a mall, in the same building as a two kids' theme parks. Oh, Japan.