Do you remember taking the SAT's? Do you have a moment of sheer fear that you will never forget? A moment of epiphany? Or something else? My favorite memory will be my long time friend, Steven A. Tangen, turning around only seconds before the test began and saying to me "Hey, Paul, my initials are S.A.T." And he said it like he had never once given any thought to his initials ever referencing anything other than his name, as if they were GJN or VWX (do those letters stand for anything?). But it was a moment of epiphany for him, and a moment of calming comedy for me. Steve went on to score the highest in our class with a 1580. He just edged me out, like a fast ball from Rick 'Wild Thing' Vaughn was just a bit outside.
Well this past week in Korea the entire high school senior population in the country took their version of the SAT's. All high school seniors, at once, around the country sat in classrooms for EIGHT HOURS to take the test. Believe it or not, it's an even bigger deal over here. Getting into a good college is, so I'm told, almost all that matters for your future. Bad grades? No big deal. Discipline problems? Don't worry. Ugly? They could care less. Friendly? They're not asking. But if you got accepted to a major University you are qualified to do anything.
I hope my kids did well, but instead of worrying about them when another teacher finally told me why we had a random Thursday off (for the testing), all I could do was think about what I would do with my time off. But the good news didn't end there, apparently the seniors basically stop coming to school now that the tests are over too. Talk about icing on the cake. I mean I mentally checked out of high school as soon as I heard I was accepted to Penn State, but these kids really don't have to come anymore. I've heard that some do, but they spend most of the day playing in the gym. This would mean my heavy work load of 12 classes a week would deflate to a measly 9. That good news, added to the surprise day off, testing coming up soon, then vacation to follow, and I was on cloud nine.
Here are some pictures of what I did on my day off. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'll be sure to document my first Thanksgiving in a foreign country tomorrow but I'm pretty sad that today is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I'm not seeing all of my old friends at the local Roxbury bar. If you're there, please pour one for your homie. Peace out.
Showing posts with label schedule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label schedule. Show all posts
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
A Three Class Week
Believe it or not this week concluded my second month here in Korea.
I was all excited for this week because we had known in advance that Thursday was a holiday, Buddha's Birthday, and we didn't have school. Initially I was disappointed that the holiday wasn't on a Friday (who doesn't want long weekends), but I got over it quickly after arriving at school on Monday morning and hearing some more good news. I was told that on Tuesday there would be no classes for "Sports Day", and Wednesday there would be no classes for "Music Day". That's right, the four day work week turned into a 2 day party(or a three class week for me) in just a few, short, glorious, moments of casual conversation with another teacher.
Tuesday was a beautiful day spent watching kids play the "wave game", soccer, basketball, foot-volley ball, "snatch the hat Game", and "nonsense quiz game". What does all that mean? Well, it means I came to school, put on mesh shorts, and then went outside in the sun all day doing nothing but eating, drinking, and laughing. Oh yeah, and there was also a "teachers vs students" basketball game that I was recruited for. That was quite interesting because every time I touched the ball the entire school was screaming "DUNK IT!!!".
Sadly, I only furthered along the stereotype that, in fact, white man can not jump. But I didn't even play my best either because I was so confused. I figured we would murder the students because some days I stay after school and play with them, and there has never been a close game, but playing with other teachers really threw off my game. 
Why, you might ask? Well can you picture little children around the age of 5 playing soccer? What do you see? All of them following the ball, from one spot to the next, well that's how the teachers team plays defense during basketball. It was like I was surrounded by four chickens with their heads cut off. The long and short of it was that we ended up winning, despite my lackluster performance, by one basket...which just happened to be my basket in the final seconds. Haha, so lame, but so true.
Wednesday wasn't even a full day. I got to school and went into the gym to watch kids perform Karaoke for a couple hours, and then I went home. It was that easy. In at 8 and out at 11 with some good singing, bad singing, hilarious singing, stand up comedy and magic in the middle. I'm not sure I've ever felt more like I was in the middle of a tv sitcom, but it was definitely something I enjoyed seeing. I really need to get some video of this for you in the future. It was a definite MUST SEE!
And all of these cool events were basically a surprise to me. I never really know about anything in advance here. It's as if everyone just expects us to know things, but we don't, and then at the last second they say things like "yeah, there is a tv studio on the fifth floor. Didn't you know that?". No one did say that to me because no one has a high enough level of English to put a sentence like that together, but I thought it to myself on Wednesday after the Karaoke.
The Karaoke performances were being recorded by students, so when it was over I followed them to see who got the tapes. They led me to the "Internet Broadcasting Room". It is basically a small tv studio; lights, cameras, computers, tape decks, tripods, and even a blue screen. A FRICKEN BLUE SCREEN. This is a perfect example of people not sharing things with us foreigners. Everyone knows I was a film major, but no one mentioned the fact that the school has film supplies gathering dust. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this new found discovery, but I hope to take advantage of it during my time here, and hopefully my faithful readers (you) will get a few more video's to watch because of it.
I'm sorry I slacked off a little on my posting. I was sick for about a week, but now I'm as happy to be healthy as this kid was happy the race was over. Rejoice.
I was all excited for this week because we had known in advance that Thursday was a holiday, Buddha's Birthday, and we didn't have school. Initially I was disappointed that the holiday wasn't on a Friday (who doesn't want long weekends), but I got over it quickly after arriving at school on Monday morning and hearing some more good news. I was told that on Tuesday there would be no classes for "Sports Day", and Wednesday there would be no classes for "Music Day". That's right, the four day work week turned into a 2 day party(or a three class week for me) in just a few, short, glorious, moments of casual conversation with another teacher.
Tuesday was a beautiful day spent watching kids play the "wave game", soccer, basketball, foot-volley ball, "snatch the hat Game", and "nonsense quiz game". What does all that mean? Well, it means I came to school, put on mesh shorts, and then went outside in the sun all day doing nothing but eating, drinking, and laughing. Oh yeah, and there was also a "teachers vs students" basketball game that I was recruited for. That was quite interesting because every time I touched the ball the entire school was screaming "DUNK IT!!!".
Sadly, I only furthered along the stereotype that, in fact, white man can not jump. But I didn't even play my best either because I was so confused. I figured we would murder the students because some days I stay after school and play with them, and there has never been a close game, but playing with other teachers really threw off my game. 
Why, you might ask? Well can you picture little children around the age of 5 playing soccer? What do you see? All of them following the ball, from one spot to the next, well that's how the teachers team plays defense during basketball. It was like I was surrounded by four chickens with their heads cut off. The long and short of it was that we ended up winning, despite my lackluster performance, by one basket...which just happened to be my basket in the final seconds. Haha, so lame, but so true.
Wednesday wasn't even a full day. I got to school and went into the gym to watch kids perform Karaoke for a couple hours, and then I went home. It was that easy. In at 8 and out at 11 with some good singing, bad singing, hilarious singing, stand up comedy and magic in the middle. I'm not sure I've ever felt more like I was in the middle of a tv sitcom, but it was definitely something I enjoyed seeing. I really need to get some video of this for you in the future. It was a definite MUST SEE!
And all of these cool events were basically a surprise to me. I never really know about anything in advance here. It's as if everyone just expects us to know things, but we don't, and then at the last second they say things like "yeah, there is a tv studio on the fifth floor. Didn't you know that?". No one did say that to me because no one has a high enough level of English to put a sentence like that together, but I thought it to myself on Wednesday after the Karaoke.
The Karaoke performances were being recorded by students, so when it was over I followed them to see who got the tapes. They led me to the "Internet Broadcasting Room". It is basically a small tv studio; lights, cameras, computers, tape decks, tripods, and even a blue screen. A FRICKEN BLUE SCREEN. This is a perfect example of people not sharing things with us foreigners. Everyone knows I was a film major, but no one mentioned the fact that the school has film supplies gathering dust. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this new found discovery, but I hope to take advantage of it during my time here, and hopefully my faithful readers (you) will get a few more video's to watch because of it.
I'm sorry I slacked off a little on my posting. I was sick for about a week, but now I'm as happy to be healthy as this kid was happy the race was over. Rejoice.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Another Day, Another Won (Korean Dollar)
So my internet is back up and running. Huray! Rejoice! I'm back to downloading movies, and American tv shows like it's my job. If the FCC or MPA wants to punish me I doubt they'll come get me in Korea. But many of you have asked what my week is like. I plan to make this a short post to let you all in on what a week in Paul's shoes is like here in Korea. First off, I wake up around 7 AM to get to school at 7:50AM.
The first class of every day is EBS (English Broadcasting System) which starts at 8AM. It is 40 minutes long and I always have to teach it. Somedays I have to teach it on camera to the whole school, you can imagine how lame that is. But about half of the 40 minutes is spent watching an even lamer video made in 1979. After it I am just supposed to say stuff like "Why do they call him Billy Buttons? Do we like Billy Buttons? Who can facilitate a well thought out discussion on the disintegration of American imperialism?" You know, stuff like that, nothing difficult. Then the rest of the day is 45 minute classes. On monday I have 2, Tuesday 2, Wednesday 4, Thursday 3, and Friday 1. Thats right on Friday I teach for 85 minutes in the whole day. I usually have head to the lunchroom between 11:20AM and 1PM, and if there is all one thing we can agree on about high school it's that we don't miss the lunches, well in Korean high schools is the same.
Actually some are okay, but nothing that comes close to Taco Salad back at good old Roxbury HS. So after lunch there is still plenty of school left, but we do have to stay the whole day, from 8AM to 4:30PM. What do I do with the open time you might ask? I'm still pretty slow at making lesson plans, and I have to make tests too (then of course I use G-chat and the internet for hours on end, like the rest of you do at work too). Once school ends I usually hit up the gym to lift some weights, 
but lifting kilogram weights makes me feel even weaker then when I lift at home. There is somthing about using weights with single digit numbers on them that just make you feel useless. After that I hit up the gymnasium and play some highly competitive Badminton. Did you know that's how you spell Badminton? I didn't up until recently, I mean who plays it? Or talks about it? Or even worse, writes it down? But I must tell you it is an awesome game. It's a ton of fun. It is much more like raquetball then I would have thought. It's fast, competitive, and a good work out. I would have never thought it, but I have really taken to it. But it is a "game", why wouldn't it be fun, people don't make games because they suck, they make them because everyone liked what they were doing. If you are reading this thinking "Eh, badminton isn't for me, it's for little kids, or losers" your only limiting yourself. As much as we all like to think we are different then other people, when you break it down we are all the same. If you get the chance, I suggest you try it. Then after badminton I usually go out for some fried chicken and beers with the other teachers...which only brings me back to my last point (we're all the same).
The first class of every day is EBS (English Broadcasting System) which starts at 8AM. It is 40 minutes long and I always have to teach it. Somedays I have to teach it on camera to the whole school, you can imagine how lame that is. But about half of the 40 minutes is spent watching an even lamer video made in 1979. After it I am just supposed to say stuff like "Why do they call him Billy Buttons? Do we like Billy Buttons? Who can facilitate a well thought out discussion on the disintegration of American imperialism?" You know, stuff like that, nothing difficult. Then the rest of the day is 45 minute classes. On monday I have 2, Tuesday 2, Wednesday 4, Thursday 3, and Friday 1. Thats right on Friday I teach for 85 minutes in the whole day. I usually have head to the lunchroom between 11:20AM and 1PM, and if there is all one thing we can agree on about high school it's that we don't miss the lunches, well in Korean high schools is the same.
Actually some are okay, but nothing that comes close to Taco Salad back at good old Roxbury HS. So after lunch there is still plenty of school left, but we do have to stay the whole day, from 8AM to 4:30PM. What do I do with the open time you might ask? I'm still pretty slow at making lesson plans, and I have to make tests too (then of course I use G-chat and the internet for hours on end, like the rest of you do at work too). Once school ends I usually hit up the gym to lift some weights, 
but lifting kilogram weights makes me feel even weaker then when I lift at home. There is somthing about using weights with single digit numbers on them that just make you feel useless. After that I hit up the gymnasium and play some highly competitive Badminton. Did you know that's how you spell Badminton? I didn't up until recently, I mean who plays it? Or talks about it? Or even worse, writes it down? But I must tell you it is an awesome game. It's a ton of fun. It is much more like raquetball then I would have thought. It's fast, competitive, and a good work out. I would have never thought it, but I have really taken to it. But it is a "game", why wouldn't it be fun, people don't make games because they suck, they make them because everyone liked what they were doing. If you are reading this thinking "Eh, badminton isn't for me, it's for little kids, or losers" your only limiting yourself. As much as we all like to think we are different then other people, when you break it down we are all the same. If you get the chance, I suggest you try it. Then after badminton I usually go out for some fried chicken and beers with the other teachers...which only brings me back to my last point (we're all the same).
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