Sunday, February 24, 2013

A Normal Week

Here's what's been happening this week!
  • We had some good classes at PNU this week.  We did all sorts of stuff.  On Monday we had an interesting discussion about capital punishment, Tuesday we had a discussion for the first half and played battleships the second half, Wednesday we did Speed Quiz/Price is Right/Scrabble, Thursday we had an awesome cooking class! (we made Chicken Scallopini), and Friday my friend Elaine came in as a guest speaker!  It was a great week.  Only 4 more classes though!
  • I also went to Asia's largest department store on Thursday to meet Elaine and get some dinner.  It was pretty cool.  I didn't really do any shopping but maybe I'll go back before I leave Busan later this week.
  • CrossFit has been good.  Hard as usual, but I enjoy it!  I think I'm going to get lunch with the instructors and some of our classmates sometime next week before I head out to Suncheon.
  • I haven't started practically any lesson plans for next semester.  Ugh.  I have a few ideas including exchanging and actually responding to letters from Soon's all girls high school and doing a unit including shopping, big numbers, food, fashion, and other things that fit in that category.  I really want to try to get more unit based lessons that build off each other.  I was able to a bit last semester, but it was hard with random classes cancelled and things like that so sometimes it seemed a bit jumbled.  
  • Ryan is here for the weekend.  I think he's still zonked out right now even though it's like 1 in the afternoon haha.  Whatever.  He didn't seem too pleased with my goshiwon, especially the bathroom and shower facilities haha.  It's definitely not luxury, but it works!  I think I have to move out this Friday or Saturday.  Hopefully I can stay through Friday night, but I guess I could always just stay in a hostel for one night if I need to.
Well I think that's about it.  I haven't really done anything too terribly exciting.  I have no idea what Ryan has planned for today, if anything.  Might go to the sauna since he seems to not want to use our lovely showers here.  We're having dinner later on with a few of our buddies that are here in the city already so that'll be good.  So overall things are good!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Busan Life

Well I am still here!  I haven't really done a lot of updating as you can see.  I don't really have an excuse to be perfectly honest.  Pretty much just laziness haha.  But hey it's vacation so I can be lazy right?

Even though I haven't really been doing a whole lot of blogging, I have been doing some things so I guess it's more like I have just been lazy at blogging.  Last time we left off, I was hanging out in the goshiwon and getting settled into there.  Since then, I had my mini-vacation within my vacation where I wasn't teaching any classes, but now I'm back to work and resuming my class at the University. 

I guess I'll just give you the highlights of what I have been doing rather than a gargantuan blog post.

  • I traveled to Daegu to visit my friend Elaine and help out with her winter English camp at her elementary school.  It was really cool!  I went the night before and stayed with her homestay where we had a nice dinner and got to hang out with her host parents and siblings.  They were really nice and they spoke really good English!  Her siblings are also very good at English even though they are both in elementary school.  In fact, I think her host sister would probably fit right in with the advance class at my high school haha.  She's very smart!
  • It was really fun to help out with her winter camp too.  They were doing kind of a food camp and the day I was there, they were dying Easter eggs.  Elaine introduced me as "The Egg Master" since I told her that I am totally into dying eggs and that I still do it regularly which is true.  It was really fun!  Her kids were very well behaved and even though it was a bit messy and got a little crazy at times, it turned out to be a great cultural lesson for them as none of them have ever done it before.  So yeah Daegu was great!  Oh I also got a really nice new winter coat.  It was definitely a lot more than I would normally spend, but it was like more 50% off and it had a really high quality and I know I'll wear it for a long time so it's worth it.
  • My wonderful co-teacher, Ms. Jeon, booked my flight tickets over to Jeju for the Spring Fulbright conference!  Yay!!  I'm really excited to finally get over to Jeju.  Jeju is the island off the southern coast of Korea and is frequently called Korea's Hawaii.  Granted it is not nearly as warm, but from what I have heard and seen, it seems to be just as beautiful and has many lovely white beaches.  Unfortunately, I will be there in April so I probably won't be able to enjoy the beach as much as I would like, but I'm not complaining!  I'm really really excited to go to Jeju!
  • Along with or invitation to the conference came a survey inquiring about the possibility of renewing our grant.  With Fulbright, you are permitted to renew your grant for up to two additional years, provided that you have performed well enough during your first grant year.  Well, I'm still not 100% sure either way so that's basically how I filled the form out.  Honestly, I'm probably not going to renew, but I'm not completely committed to saying no yet.  If I were to renew, I would change cities and schools.  Suncheon is awesome, but there aren't really any ETAs around as I have mentioned before so I would want to go to a new city.  If I were to renew, I would definitely keep an all-boys high school environment, but I think I would want students that have higher levels of English.  I don't know.  Like I said, I probably won't end up renewing, but I still have to get a little more info about it so we'll see how it goes! 
  • And yes, I started my new class at the university!  I actually have two classes now so that's cool!  It's pretty much the same thing as last time, just have a discussion and informal chats.  The biggest difference between this and last class is that I have a budget!! Yay!!!  It's about 400 dollars so I have to spend it wisely.  A good part of it will probably be spent this week towards buying ingredients for a cooking class that I am doing.  I am super stoked for it!!  I think we are also going to go to Norebang/Karaoke and to a Board Game cafe where we can teach each other games and stuff.  I'm pretty stoked. 
  • We went out as a class for Valentine's Day.  The first class and I went to a coffeeshop and the 2nd one and I went out for lunch.  It was really fun!  In celebrating V-Day and most of our single-ness, we decided that the topic of the day should be love and relationships in Korea and America.  It was pretty educational and it was fun to be able to talk about it and compare and contrast Korea and America with regard to those things.  
  • I have been continuing getting beatings at CrossFit Busan.  I can't believe how much harder it is here!  This week they introduced a new exercise called Hindu Pushups.  It's basically like a push up except you dip down onto the floor and flow back.  I don't really know how to describe it well.  It's like combining "The Worm" dance with push-ups.  For some reason, I just can NOT do them!  I don't know if it's because my upper body strength is like non-existent or if I'm just too uncoordinated or if I have bad balance or what.  It was pretty awful.  He also tried to get us doing more exercises with the Kettlebell but that wasn't really working out because we couldn't get the right form down and he didn't want us to hurt ourselves haha.  
  • But I'm starting to get to know everyone there a bit better and they're all super cool.  I was chatting with the owner and he told me that he is leaving in September to go to Dubai to compete in the World Jiu Jitsu Championship.  I guess he got 1st place in the East Asian trials so it's pretty exciting stuff.  He's going to get to fly over there and stay in the famous 7 star hotel there.  He said that he's also entering grad school at PNU this March and he's going to get married in October, on top of all of his training for World's and opening the gym!  It's crazy!!  But yeah, all of them are cool and I'm kind of bummed that I have to leave so soon.
  • I've also been able to hang out with some of my Fulbright buddies that have come down here to Busan!  I got to meet up with Payal, Ryan, Adam, Hilary, and Lauren was just here for the weekend.  It's great to be able to see them!  Most of them are all up in Seoul now so I haven't been able to see them as often as I would like, but some of them are starting to make their way down here so I'm super stoked about that!  I'm trying to get them to come to my class, but a lot of them are teaching winter camps and things like that so it's been a little tricky to coordinate, but I think I'll be able to get a couple of them to come in towards the end of this week and some of next week too.
Um I think that's been about it.  That wasn't too bad of a summary.  Short(ish) and covered the things that have happened so it's good enough for me!  I guess if you have questions, you can always send me an email or write a comment or something.  Gosh only like 5 more months left!  It's been a fast one.  Hope things are going well back stateside!

Saturday, February 2, 2013

The Move into the Goshiwon

So yesterday I finally moved into the goshiwon.  The place itself is good, but the move was frustrating.  Of course, it happen to be pouring down rain this fine afternoon and I proceeded to soak my suitcase, my backpack, and the bottom of my pants.  It was pretty annoying, but thankfully my suitcase absorbed most of the water and my clothes and other things were spared so I guess I can't be that annoyed. 

When I arrived at the goshiwon and after a call to the lovely May, the owner of the goshiwon came down to greet me and show me around the building again.  She was talking to me in Korean for about 6 or 7 minutes and I honestly understood about 3 words that she said.  I was trying to convey that I had absolutely no idea what she was saying, but I was experiencing little success.  This is one of the many, many times I have wished that my Korean skills were at least semi-existent, but alas, there is very little I could have done in this particular moment.  After some nodding and smiling from yours truly, she seemed content to leave me on my own to unpack and she left.  She is a very nice lady and I know the communication problem certainly isn't her fault, but it's probably the biggest problem that I have encountered living as an expat who can't speak the language.  It is really my fault that I don't know Korean very well since the only time I really studied it was at Orientation so I don't really have a right to complain about not being able to understand people.  I just wish it was easier sometimes.  Oh well!

Then I had to check out of the dorm where I experienced more communication problems when dealing with paperwork.  It was just not that fantastic of a day.  But eventually everything was worked out and I successfully checked in the goshiwon and out of the dorm so that's good.  The only thing now is that I don't have internet at the goshiwon!!  The internet cord just doesn't work and I'm pretty sure it is a problem with the internet and/or cord rather than the computer since I successfully posted this so I guess in a way that's a good thing.  I'm going to tell my buddy May about it, but I'm going to wait until Monday so she can have a weekend off from helping me haha.  And I still have my smartphone so I can send/receive emails and things so I can still communicate with the world so that's good. 

Here's some pictures of my new crib!

I can't actually sit at the desk since my suitcase is under it.  There's no other place for it though!

There's my bed and maybe more importantly, my fan/tie rack!

Where did that handsome guy come from?

Those are actually just nails on the wall that are now part II of my closet!  And there are 3 pairs of pants on that one hanger...you have to be creative in tight spaces!

What else...  Um I had a couple of CrossFit days.  Those got better.  The MMA fighter took over the last two classes I did and they seemed to actually be easier than the other guys.  There's two teachers there and I guess they take turns teaching the Jiu Jitsu and the CrossFit classes.  The other guy is a bouncer at a popular club/bar that he's trying to get me to visit so he's a pretty fit guy too.  But yeah the MMA fighter/owner was a little bit easier, which I was pretty surprised about but no complaints from me!  I was telling him a bit about the differences between his gym and the one I go to in Suncheon and it's interesting to hear why he has his certain style and why he has or doesn't have certain equipment.  I'm definitely learning more about fitness than I ever have in the States.  Didn't really see that coming when I initially came here, but I guess it goes to show you that you should just expect the unexpected over here!

Okay well I think that's about it for now.  I'm attempting to plan a zipline adventure at Jeju Island sometime this month too.  I've really been looking to go to Jeju for some time, but it's hard to coordinate with school so hopefully I'll be over to go!  If not, I know that I'll be there for sure in late March/early April with the Spring Fulbright conference.  I also ran into one of my PNU students at the coffeeshop and we're going to hang out sometime next week.  Maybe go shopping for some Korean clothes! :)  I've noticed that Korean clothes fit me a bit better than most American clothes so hopefully I can get some good things before I leave.  I would really like to get a suit sometime since the ones in America were almost all too baggy on me and I didn't want to go to a tailor.

Anyways, I'll post again soon, hopefully in my goshiwon so I don't have to use the wifi from the coffeeshop!  Have a good one.