Racap

Okay, so with a little free time today because the gym was closed for some reason or another (there was a paper taped to the window but it was in Korean, however I gather it said "Closed"), I was able to put up some pictures of things I talked about in earlier posts. So if you’re interested check them out. Otherwise I kinda just wanna catch you all up on some of the events that have gone on in the 3 weeks I've been here. The biggest event so far was on my second day in Korea. It was the schools annual teachers party. It is basically an eating, drinking, Karaoke feast, and it was a lot of fun. At the time I barely knew anyone, but that didn't stop people from being really nice to me. That has to be the best picture of the night...can no one say "Paul YOUR IN THE DAMN PICTURE!!! SIT DOWN" nope, not when they don't speak your language, they just take your camera and then make you look like a fool. It was an awesome night. There was some rookie teacher hazing where we had to sing in front of a schools worth of teachers into a spoon, during dinner. But it was all in good humor. It was my first real taste of the culture. You had to take your shoes off at the door, sit on the floor, and they cooked the food right in front of you. I couldn't sit indian style for more then 10 minutes at a time though, who sits Indian style anyway? I thought that was just for little kids, but that brings me to my first goal to accomplish in my year here in Korea: Get in better shape, strength & flexibility. I felt like a moron not being able to sit the way everyone else was, not like they cared, but I did. When I went to my knees the woman next to me laughed and told me that’s how kids sit at the table in Korea when they're getting punished. So before this trip I always said I was unflexible, like it was a disease I caught, but it's not, it's something I can change so I'm going to change it. Here are some more pics of the night: Me with Mr. Jong
Me with Rachel (another English teacher) and Mr. Kim (the principal) who is a really nice guy, funny, and one of the best English speakers in the school, thank god.


Here is just one table of the 3 that the school was taking up:



Can you see the one white guy in the picture?
That's another foreigner, his name is Paul and he's from Canada. Yup that's right. 3 white people in a school of over a thousand and we have two Paul's. Not cool. Because of this confusion they have made up nicknames for us. His include 'Big Paul" and 'Superman" while mine are 'handsome Paul', 'small Paul', and apparently they kids have some Korean nickname that translates to 'skinhead'. I found a ton of irony in all of this for a number of reasons. They said having two Paul's was too confusing for them, but I teach classes with 12 Mr. Kim’s, 9 Mr. Lee's, and 5 Mr. Pak's. What's so hard about 2 Paul's? Also when anyone referred to me as small Paul...I was bigger then them. It wasn't very PC but it was pretty funny. As for the kids referring to me as skinhead. Everyone here seemed to love to talk about my bald head when I got here. I would say nearly all of my first conversations where about it. I'm not really sure what they thought about it, but they loved saying "so you're going bald, huh?" Or something close to that like "no hair?", "Him hair, you no" all prodding at the same idea. There is even a teacher who is an acupuncturist who wants to give me treatment to help me grow my hair. And yes of course, he's not only the president, he's also a client, he showed me before and after pictures. Alright, well this recap has gone on long enough. You can check out the rest of the pictures from the teachers party night on my Picasa page. I was really dragging today, if I bored you I hope I can cheer you up with a short video from Big Paul:

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 Day After...

Okay so after getting the internet hooked up, and everything was working fine, I was told that I wasn't getting the fastest speed internet that I should be getting. I was nervous to change, nothing had gone wrong so far, why fix what isn't broken right? RIGHT!!! I should have not let them touch a thing. Another guy came to my house on Friday and installed a new internet system. It worked really fast friday night. I downloaded "V for Vendetta", and "Borat", both movies I really wanted to see, and they finished downloading within a few hours. It seemed great. That was until the next morning. After me and my computer both woke up on Saturday morning it seems the internet was lost. No surfing the web, no downloading movies, no uploading pictures to this Blog site, nothing. So I'm back in the stone-age again. No internet or cell phone again. It kind of sucks not to be able to talk to people and get this stuff taken care of. I need to talk to a fellow teacher, who speaks English, then ask them to go out of there way to help me. I don't like it. They are very nice about it though, but I just don't enjoy asking them to help me out. Thats probably why I still don't have these important items, but I need to get them soon. On another note, I went out in downtown Seoul this Friday night and it is a really good scene. Lots of young people, lots of foriegners, and lots of things to do. I will fill you in more later.
P.S. - trying to make a blog without the internet at home is annoying...I'm sorry

The Day the World Changed...

Today I got the internet hooked up in my apartment. Yes, that is a big thing, if that sounds lame well then I meant not for me, but for this Blog it's a big deal. I've already started putting up pictures, and I plan to write as close to daily as I can. Okay, continuing on from earlier. Where were we? Oh yes, "The Smell" it was like when you can't find your glasses because you are wearing them. The smell was coming from the drainage hole in the middle of my bathroom floor. I wanted to imagine it was just like every other shower drain I'd ever come across before, but I was only lying to myself. The thing is that Korean bathrooms don't have a "shower" as most westerners have come to think of them. Imagine your bathroom, then take out the shower, and put the shower head on the wall across from the sink, that’s really the only difference...Oh yeah, then put a drainage hole right in the middle of the bathroom floor too. So really the whole bathroom is your shower. Everything gets wet, the toilet, the floor, the walls, the sink, the mirror, and this really scared me (but almost 2 weeks in, I can tell you now that my fears were without merit). Next, I thought I'd outsmart the smell by hanging a scented thing below my sink, much like New York taxi cab's hang the scented trees. Well, it had about as much effect as the trees do, none. It took a few days of dealing with the smell until I realized, like a child who finally saw the way he could climb to get the cookie jar, that simply placing the plunger over the hole utterly and completely takes care of the smell. There is no smell, the smell is now dead, thanks to my trusty Excalibur. That wasn't the only bathroom mishap though. The first morning I showered before work at 7:30 AM (only hours after arriving in Korea) the water was a bitter cold temperature. I swore to myself I could take it, I had to get used to it because I'd already signed up to do this for a year. I told myself I had done it before. The month spent in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala was full of cold showers, and i got used to it there. I kept telling myself this, but it didn't help. After cupping freezing water onto only my most necessary body parts, and washing at least most of the soap off, I cried a little as I put the "big towel" around myself. The biggest towel in the store I bought the night before was no bigger then the ones you get at the YMCA. You know, the very suggestive ones that barely cover all the elderly men? However, my fears of a year spent showering splash to splash were put to bed when my teachers told me I had to change my heat setting. Just a simple button on the thermostat means hot water. It's as simple as that (even though I had my doubts at the time). Now I take nice long hot showers. It's a million times better and everyday I don't take them for granted, as if showering right in front of a mirror isn't enough to put a smile on my face, coupled with the hot water, believe it or not I've become a morning person :)

My Apartment

Okay, so that was my idea of a blogging "cliffhanger"...It's lame I know, but I'm sure I will bore you in a million different ways so if there is one cheap way to keep you interested, you better believe I'm going to take it. Continuing on...My apartment was BEAUTIFUL!!! It was so nice. The second they opened the door I could see new floors, a huge common space, a nice living room, a small bedroom, a kitchen bigger then I've ever had in an apartment, and pretty good furnishings too. I really couldn't believe it. And like all that wasn't enough, then they showed me to my bedroom. I HAVE A KING SIZE BED! Does it get any better then that? My Korean students in New York told me I would most likely end up sleeping on the floor because I'd be too big for most Korean beds. Well they prepared me for the worst, but in reality I'll be sleeping like a king. And believe it or not (well believe it because it's the truth)it goes on. I have a patio too. I can step out of my bedroom and into a small patio. It gets sun light, it has a washing machine on it, and there is a water slide that leads out of it down to the alley and into a huge community pool. Did I loose you with the slide and pool? Okay, so that isn't true, but everything else is really nice. Since everyone I talked to said my place was small, I can't even imagine what they think a big apartment looks like. Just on size, the apartment is at least 3 times larger then I was expecting. Just on cleanliness, the apartment is 5 times cleaner then I was expecting. Over all I give it "3 and a quarter stars". There are however some drawbacks to the apartment. One, it's pretty damn big, and I left all my stuff in America, so for the moment there is just a lot of empty space. I'm not sure if I want to buy stuff to fill it, but some teachers have offered to give me some second hand items, so we'll see how that goes. I bought 1 cup, 1 bowl, 1 plate, 1 knife and chop sticks the 2nd night I was in Korea and that has been my dining set for almost 2 weeks. It's pretty nice stuff really, but it's a pain to do the dishes after every meal. Please do not take your dishwashers for granted. They truly are gifts from above. Now onto the only real drawback, because being too big is hardly a problem. After the first night there I noticed a smell. One of those smells that kind of teases you. You think you smell it in the corner, then when you get to the corner it's gone. Only to smell it again when you least expect it. So I played my college roommates favorite game (besides Nintendo Olympics with the power pad) for a few days, it's called "Find the Smell". I couldn't quite pin it down until my brain started working, but once that happened it seemed so obvious what it was...(schools over I'm out :)