End of Innocence

'What is an elf?" I asked. 

Without missing a beat, sweet, innocent Peter piped up:  "A very beautiful woman who helps Santa."

Quelques photos de Noël

What did Adam say on the day before Christmas ?
It's Christmas, Eve !

Our director, who hijacked his gift BEFORE we made it to

the restaurant for the Christmas party.

As you can see, he was touched by our words.

  Two lovely people on Christmas day.  Can you find the third?

She didn't leave with that scarf.  I didn't leave with that scarf.

D*** white elephant Christmas exchanges.  ^_^

 December 24th:  no snow

December 25th:  magic!

Yummy Fishies

This might look a tad disreputable but it must be THE best snack place in town!  The fishies on the left are made of pancake dough filled with sweet red bean paste.  This particular street stall makes them extra crispy and...the lady's husband always gives me one for free.

I Don't Think It'll Be a White Christmas

There are not many Christmas lights around Seosan but it warmed
me up inside to see this gas station's attempt at holiday cheer.

Just Your Regular Wednesday

This is the latest update I've received from the Canadian embassy.
 Life is never boring here, that's for sure!

__________________________________________________

South Korea will hold a nationwide special civil emergency exercise today at 14:00 for 15 minutes. Sirens will sound, transport will be stopped and some people may be asked to take shelter in metro stations or basements. Aircraft may be heard overhead. There is no need to be alarmed. On 23 November, North Korea fired multiple rounds of artillery shells at the island of Yeonpyeong, killing 4 people and injuring several more. South Korea responded with its own artillery and has strengthened its military presence in the area. We advise against travel to Yeonpyong, or to the other North West Islands of Baengnyeong-do, Daecheong-do, Socheong-do and Woo-do. We assess that there is no substantially increased risk or danger to those living in or travelling to other areas of South Korea as a result of current tensions. Canadians should be vigilant, monitor ongoing developments, and follow the advice of local authorities.

Canadians are encouraged to maintain their level of readiness to cope with any emergency situation. It is recommended that:

you ensure that your travel documents, including your passport, are valid;
you have registered with the online Registry of Canadians Abroad (ROCA) and/or updated your registration with your latest information.

Please see the weblinks below for additional information:

Travel report-up-to-date information about Korea
http://www.voyage.gc.ca/countries_pays/report_rapport-eng.asp?id=153000

(...blah blah blah blah) 

We hope that this information will be helpful to you,

Your Consular team
Embassy of Canada

Surpris par l'Esprit de Noël

Parc national Woraksan

Province:  Chungcheongbuk-do

Woraksan  = "Moon Crags Mountains"

4.9 km, 1097 m

Man-Made Lake in Seoul

 

Christmas Cheer

 It's great to be friends with the girl
    who works at the local coffee shop. 

Cause then, you get free muffins
with your sweet potato latté on your way out of town.

AND wonderful homemade knitted mittens. 
Thanks Soo-Kyung!

C'est Noël, c'est Noël, apporte des bébelles! 
Fini (ou presque), le magasinage du temps des fêtes.

Bizarre Happenings

I work 6 days a week.  I teach 9 classes each and every one of those days.  I also meet with friends, go on hikes, take care of the groceries...  In short, I'm away from the apartment quite a fair bit. 

Is it just me, or it a tad strange, then, that every time I go to Seoul, and only when I go to Seoul, without fail, the cats hunt down the latex cleaning gloves, drag them into the litter box, and uncannily proceed to MAKE WATER on them?  It's weird.  I'm just saying.

Mug Shots

We are making movies in one of our classes, which led me to take pictures of various students.  Here are some mug shots of great kids.  These guys crack me up week after week.

Par une belle journée d'automne

De nouveaux horizons

Je n'ai pas été très assidue. Je sais que je n'ai pas écris souvent, en deux ans. Mais l'on peut FAIRE, ou bien l'on peut PARLER de ce que l'on a fait. Ce fût un 24 mois bien occupé!

Nouvelle année, nouvelles résolutions.

Biking in Seosan

A few years ago, I never would have believed that I'd one day make my way halfway across the world to South Korea. Even less than one year ago, it never even would have crossed my mind to leave sprawling Seoul for a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere called Seosan. But I did it, and I love it.

S.O.S Marin ...gouins!

Y'a beaucoup de maringouins chez-nous. Y'en a tellement, même, que le sport estival préféré de mes jeunes étudiants en vacances est de flâner devant la télé, sous l'air climatisé.

Raison no. 1: protéger sa peau contre le soleil.

Raison no. 2: la voracité maringouine.

Voici donc la solution:

La motocyclette dégage des pesticides destinés à l'annihilation des maringouins.

Moi, la santé, ça va mais...mon voisin a un 3ème bras qui lui pousse au front.

I Play With Myself

Teaching English has its moments. Students come in all shapes and sizes, with matching attitudes. I teach spright young things, aged 13 to 17 years old. From the outwardly taciturn to the bubbly airhead, I love them all. I get excited when I see them walking in, and I thrive on the challenge of getting them to participate. And, let me tell you, for some, that’s –C.h.a.l.l.e.n.g.e-, with a capital C).

For the most part, my students can carry on extended conversations, be it by enunciating complex sentences or by grunting out one word here and there. I’m fairly persistent on building up their confidence, though, and try to get them to speak as much as I can. As they come in, the students are asked to share something about their week. They can tell us about something that’s happened or about an interesting event they’ve heard about. It took a while to get things going but, recently, even the really shy ones have started to come out of their shells.

This week, though, I was thrown for a loop and caught completely off guard. Ricky (fake name, of course) came into the classroom yawning so hard I thought I caught a glimpse of his lung. “Hi teacher!” Yawn. LOUD stretch.

-“Ricky!”, I said. “Hi! Wow! That’s some yawn. Tell me why you’re so tired? Did you do something interesting last night? You must have been up quite late… It looks as though you’re pretty sleepy!”
-“Teacher! I tired because I can’t sleep.”

-“Really? You couldn’t sleep last night? What do you do when you can’t sleep?”

-“I, um, I play with myself.”

- …

- “I play with myself a lot… really late when I can’t sleep.”

-Ummm…. Ricky, I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say. What do you mean, you play WITH yourself? Do you play alone? (Don’t ask me why I said that…Oh God, this can’t be happening…)

Ricky is looking at me very seriously, with bright, innocent brown eyes.

-"Teacher, I… "
HERE, RICKY WAVES HIS HAND QUICKLY UP AND DOWN IN THE AIR, MUCH TO MY DISMAY AND UTTER CONFUSION. What?!? What.do.I.do?

-Ricky, do you mean to say you play ALONE, BY yourself when you can’t sleep?

-Yes! Teacher! Yesterday, I can’t sleep so I (again with the helpful up-down hand motion in the air)…. I play computer games with myself.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was what a young Korean boy did this week when he couldn’t sleep. It was also, I should say, the basis for today’s quick review of the usage of WITH vs BY.

_______________________________
Another favorite recent moment of mine, as a student shared her favorite moment of the week:

-Teacher! I caught some crabs on the bitch! (…that's beach, most definitely. Beach.)

Say What?!?

A new class opened up a few weeks ago, and one of my new students submitted her first essay last Thursday. She had put a lot of effort into it but, unfortunately, it was so full of archaïc translations and run-un sentences that, in the end, I couldn't understand anything. Trust me, it wasn't for lack of trying. We went over her text together, and I gave her tips to keep her prose accessible to the common reader.

This week, the students were asked to discuss the reasons why people attend college or university. This is what she submitted.

My favorite parts are the following:

-"My mom and her friends say my sexual performance is compared with their friends. For these reasons motivated only want to boast too much because of the size of undergraduate education of their children seem to be trying to do."

-"Also fail because the ones through the University since. It's a lot of people fail to succeed, most often, people who have scoliosis."

Babelfish be damned.

Oh, by the Way...

I came in to work a few minutes early today. The other teacher has left, and the new one arrives on Monday...I've been asked to cover both my class and her classes meanwhile. It works well enough since most of the older kids are studying for exams and aren't all making it in. Still, it requires A BIT of extra work. Also, my vacation starts Thursday, so I wanted to get ahead and get things organized and ready for my return. I'll be climbing Mount Fuji in a few days, and working pretty much as soon as I return. The less I have to prepare when I come back, the better...

So imagine my, um, surprise, when I walked into my class and glanced at the note on my desk. Notes, it turns out, are my boss's prefered way of communication. Imagine my surprise, then, not at seeing one of these customary notes, but upon grasping its content. The note, today, was to let me know that report cards are due. They are due tomorrow. All 163 of them.

Breathe, Blanchard. BREATHE! And besides, it okay. I type really fast.

You Know You've Mastered the Language When...

Usually, the students I teach last on Tuesday are engaged and witty. Today, however, was a constant battle for productivity. They came in wanting to "just talk" and promised me they "wouldn't tell" the school's director. Touching. They coaxed, and cajoled... and I kept plowing through the material. We were reading an article on David Beckham, and the text was supported with pictures. I'd developed a sudden interest for soccer and no sodden 15 year-old could vie for my attention for very long.

At one point, we were getting through a discussion worksheet that had the students address Beckham’s feelings through the media outlash that surrounded his move to Spain. They had to scour through an autobiographical text and come up with examples of his emotional turmoil.

Usually quite animated, our exchanges tonight were lackadaisical. Beck’s darling blue eyes didn’t have the same effect on them as he had on me, I guess.

‘Teacher! I think he was anxious.”

-Okay, what else?

“He was nervous, and excited.”

“He was sad.”

“He was depressed.”

-Sure. But, come on! What ELSE?! Put yourself in his place… You’ve just left your country, you’re a world-renowned celebrity, and nothing you do is going right! How DO-YOU-THINK-HE-FELT?

‘Teacher! I think he was like a teenage boy: his feelings always going up, and down, just like a rollercoaster…”
-Ahh…now we’re talking. Very poetic, Daniel. Well-said.

“Or”, pipes the very same Daniel, “he just very badly wanted to use a four-letter word.”

These are the days of my life. 8)

Misadventures in Gyeongju

Seoraksan

This weekend, Tricia and I went to Seokcho and climbed Seoraksan. We got up at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning to hike up the mountain in time to see the sunrise. It was cold. And dark. But we dressed up to take on the weather, put on our head lamps, and off we went in a conquering spirit.

To no avail...

Turns out the trail we had carefully mapped out for this little morning cordial didn't go up, which meant we were surrounded by mountains instead of sitting on top of one of them.

Still, we found a comfy bridge to admire the peaceful, sparkling pink sky.

Tricia turned out to be a great travel companion, with a nose for flairing out great accomodations and keeping us warm with soju. Thanks to her, our resting quarters went from dingy to luxurious in the lapse of but a few street corners. (There was a case of suspicious possible underwear-thievery that should probably not be discussed here but encouraged her to snoop out better lodging...)

Thanks Tricia! I hadn't laughed so hard, or so much, in quite a long time. :)

Don't worry. No animals, nor humans, were
 really injured during the taking of this picture.

Two-Day Biking Trip in Rural Gyeongju