So, it's back to Southern California October 6th, 2011, with nothing but great memories, a decent amount of pictures, and (something sentimental that I can't think of right now) as well.
GOOD TIMES, TALK SOON!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
FROM SO CAL TO SOUTH KOREA, AND NOW BACK
Hey blog, it's time that I come rambling home. Our school hit the skids about 6 weeks ago after a failed sale, I found out about two weeks ago that the school would be closed, and lastly I found out on Monday that I will be sent home due to the short time remaining on my contract. Not by any means an unusual occurrence in this business. I, like everyone around me will be sad to say goodbye to the co-workers and the all the kids especially. I've worked with nothing but awesome kids since I stepped foot in Korea, and more selfishly it will be hard to be as silly as I am naturally with out them around to make it seem sane.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
PREEMPTIVE MEAL
Ah I forgot to remember (if that makes sense) what the name of this is, but I know it as it's common name amongst those around me: Hangover Food. I actually ate it with some friends before I went into Seoul to watch a Rugby World Cup, game so I guess I was hoping it could work both before or after a night out. I had no idea rugby was so awesome btw, it has some similarities but it has less breaks than American football which is a bonus. Back to the meal:
It's a rather large bone of, I believe pork, with perfectly tender meat that more or less falls off it still attached, and then the broth with veggies and green onions on top. So first you take out the bone, and then add some rice and the meat that you pick off and devour. Awesome, hearty, warming.
OH Yeah I also lost a game (of rock scissor paper (translated to kai bai bo)) and I had to eat half of that spicy green pepper up there next to the carrots. It ended me, chicken feet style; for a good few minutes I kept my tongue in ice water. Because that is how I spend my free time.
It's a rather large bone of, I believe pork, with perfectly tender meat that more or less falls off it still attached, and then the broth with veggies and green onions on top. So first you take out the bone, and then add some rice and the meat that you pick off and devour. Awesome, hearty, warming.
OH Yeah I also lost a game (of rock scissor paper (translated to kai bai bo)) and I had to eat half of that spicy green pepper up there next to the carrots. It ended me, chicken feet style; for a good few minutes I kept my tongue in ice water. Because that is how I spend my free time.
Friday, September 23, 2011
WALK COP
A few weeks back a boy was running and he fell down and broke his arm! It was super sad and all, however the parents flipped out so as a result we had to take turns at lunch standing and yelling at the kids to walk. But you know me I hadda take it a step further:
That's me and my Walking Patrol homemade sash. I also bought those shades and practiced that sneer all weekend specifically for this 'duty' I was to perform. Oh and that badge says the slogan "Walking Matters!" WHICH IT DOES.
Here is me, oh sorry, Officer Matt Teacher, with four of the worst repeat offenders, with their hands flat on the desk ready to take em' downtown. Slash send them to the playroom where they were no longer in the hallway and my responsibility.
That's me and my Walking Patrol homemade sash. I also bought those shades and practiced that sneer all weekend specifically for this 'duty' I was to perform. Oh and that badge says the slogan "Walking Matters!" WHICH IT DOES.
Here is me, oh sorry, Officer Matt Teacher, with four of the worst repeat offenders, with their hands flat on the desk ready to take em' downtown. Slash send them to the playroom where they were no longer in the hallway and my responsibility.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
MINIMAL VACATION, CANDY TREES
That four day break was something else! Add on a three day work week and everything is peachy keen! Sort of, there could be some bad news on the work front coming down tomorrow from The Man up at corporate (I imagine Bill Lumberg from Officespace), but those are problems for higher pay grades, until then it's business as usual.
I have a class with two 6 year old (maybe 5) boys who are best friends named Eddison and Daniel (Eddy wants to be an inventor). We have been studying this same simple book that only talks about six parts of a tree and they have memorized it so to mix things up I went out and did some candy shopping:
Above are Eddy and Daniel working on the tree which consists of a Kit-Kat for the trunk, broken up wheat sticks for the roots, chocolate and cracker sticks for the branches, and these sour taffy-candies (they had a green package, but turned out to be yellow (upon closer inspection it was pineapple flavor....so it figures)) ripped up to make leaves. Also, Mom, I asked the parents first if it was okay to feed them all that candy -- they were cool with it.
Probably the only thing of note that I did over the break was going to Lake Park with some friends for a dinner-time picnic and kicking of the soccer ball / monkey in the middle session.
The first picture is facing away from the lake park at about 6, it was pretty warm out so it was not nearly as dreary as it looks there. At the bottom is an hour later on the field at which we were sitting, and in the distance you can see a screen where they were showing a free movie - a Korean film called Sunny about some high school friends or something. It was showing at an amphitheater overlooking the lake which I thought was pretty cool. Anyway a couple hours and a half dozen mosquito bites we retired for the night. I'll keep everyone posted on the news from work, take care all.
I have a class with two 6 year old (maybe 5) boys who are best friends named Eddison and Daniel (Eddy wants to be an inventor). We have been studying this same simple book that only talks about six parts of a tree and they have memorized it so to mix things up I went out and did some candy shopping:
Above are Eddy and Daniel working on the tree which consists of a Kit-Kat for the trunk, broken up wheat sticks for the roots, chocolate and cracker sticks for the branches, and these sour taffy-candies (they had a green package, but turned out to be yellow (upon closer inspection it was pineapple flavor....so it figures)) ripped up to make leaves. Also, Mom, I asked the parents first if it was okay to feed them all that candy -- they were cool with it.
Probably the only thing of note that I did over the break was going to Lake Park with some friends for a dinner-time picnic and kicking of the soccer ball / monkey in the middle session.
The first picture is facing away from the lake park at about 6, it was pretty warm out so it was not nearly as dreary as it looks there. At the bottom is an hour later on the field at which we were sitting, and in the distance you can see a screen where they were showing a free movie - a Korean film called Sunny about some high school friends or something. It was showing at an amphitheater overlooking the lake which I thought was pretty cool. Anyway a couple hours and a half dozen mosquito bites we retired for the night. I'll keep everyone posted on the news from work, take care all.
Friday, September 9, 2011
GOOD FRIDAY
For the afore-mentioned Chuseok I received some gifts, check them out:
The bottles are Korean apricot wine, and were from the head company and given to the male teachers...the female teachers got fancy tuna. I think it's a pretty cool gift mostly because the last two were sets of 10 tooth paste bottles and two soaps. I mean 20 tubes of tooth paste is great, but 30? Cmon.
These little rice cakes were a gift from one of my afternoon students. I only ate one (pictured below) but it was a very thoughtful and great gift.
Lastly I cooked dinner for some co-workers + girlfriends last night. I made two plates of this stir-fried sesame and chicken dish with (the traditional and popular Korean) sesame leaves (used to make a little taco) and rice with an egg on top and then some wings with my awesome new toaster oven and a broccoli+cheese+olives appetizer.
I forgot to take pics of the other stuff but it was a relaxing way to end the week and start up the vacation! There's supposed to be a typhoon-like-weather this weekend but I'll try to do something cool and post pics.
The bottles are Korean apricot wine, and were from the head company and given to the male teachers...the female teachers got fancy tuna. I think it's a pretty cool gift mostly because the last two were sets of 10 tooth paste bottles and two soaps. I mean 20 tubes of tooth paste is great, but 30? Cmon.
These little rice cakes were a gift from one of my afternoon students. I only ate one (pictured below) but it was a very thoughtful and great gift.
Lastly I cooked dinner for some co-workers + girlfriends last night. I made two plates of this stir-fried sesame and chicken dish with (the traditional and popular Korean) sesame leaves (used to make a little taco) and rice with an egg on top and then some wings with my awesome new toaster oven and a broccoli+cheese+olives appetizer.
I forgot to take pics of the other stuff but it was a relaxing way to end the week and start up the vacation! There's supposed to be a typhoon-like-weather this weekend but I'll try to do something cool and post pics.
IT'S CHUSEOK TIME.
I am vacation-izing myself for this (four-day) weekend. Vacation-i-zation is a delicate process that involves a lot of wearing of basketball short/sweat pants depending on the season, very few alarm clocks, and in this context, no communication with anyone under 5ft tall.
Holidays, especially the ones celebrating traditions mean that the kids wear their han-bok (pronounced book) to school. That's their traditional robes that they wear when they bow to the elders in their family. They wore their robes for Chuseok (pronounced chew-suh-k (it helps to stick out your chin when saying the chew, and then push your chin as far back as possible for the suh-k)) last Wednesday at school and we made traditional foods and played games with the kids.
Here are a plethora of pictures:
Holidays, especially the ones celebrating traditions mean that the kids wear their han-bok (pronounced book) to school. That's their traditional robes that they wear when they bow to the elders in their family. They wore their robes for Chuseok (pronounced chew-suh-k (it helps to stick out your chin when saying the chew, and then push your chin as far back as possible for the suh-k)) last Wednesday at school and we made traditional foods and played games with the kids.
Here are a plethora of pictures:
NICK'S FAREWELL DINNER
It's a transient profession, blog.
People are always coming and going so you end up going to a lot of goodbye parties. This one unfortunately was for a good friend and co-worker, Nick. We went to a place called Big Bread. Big bread is a total trip. It's a Belgian bakery/restaurant run by this Belgian guy who works there all the time. It feels European and the food's delicious and fancy. What's a trip thought is that it's in a strange little corner of our small suburb. It's something that I could total see being in the heart of Seoul and it would fit right in, but we are always wonder how this great little restaurant found it's way to tiny Hwajeong.
Above, my meal was a Bulgogi (spiced beef) melt sandwich. Then there's the original 2011 male co-teachers, Nick's in the Cal shirt, I just got off work, and Zach is wearing his Korean UFC fighter whose nickname is 'The Korean Zombie' tee-shirt that always cracks me up. Lastly there's Nick and his girlfriend laughing about to light up his cake. It's very common to have a little cake for special occasions and you can bring it into any restaurant with you and have it for dessert.
People are always coming and going so you end up going to a lot of goodbye parties. This one unfortunately was for a good friend and co-worker, Nick. We went to a place called Big Bread. Big bread is a total trip. It's a Belgian bakery/restaurant run by this Belgian guy who works there all the time. It feels European and the food's delicious and fancy. What's a trip thought is that it's in a strange little corner of our small suburb. It's something that I could total see being in the heart of Seoul and it would fit right in, but we are always wonder how this great little restaurant found it's way to tiny Hwajeong.
Above, my meal was a Bulgogi (spiced beef) melt sandwich. Then there's the original 2011 male co-teachers, Nick's in the Cal shirt, I just got off work, and Zach is wearing his Korean UFC fighter whose nickname is 'The Korean Zombie' tee-shirt that always cracks me up. Lastly there's Nick and his girlfriend laughing about to light up his cake. It's very common to have a little cake for special occasions and you can bring it into any restaurant with you and have it for dessert.
TEETH AT THE NOW DEFUNCT YALE CLASS
We merged two kinder classes the other day because one class had been whittled down to only two kids. The merger is good because that's less classes for everyone all around to teach but a negative though is that when you teach a class with just two kids (one boy, one girl) you can be a lot more relaxed in your manner with the kids and they are relaxed and it makes teaching them, controlling them, and having fun a lot easier.
For example one day we calmly and comically talked about teeth for about 10 minutes. They are both six years old and they are losing teeth left and right. Something I've noticed is that in 6-year-old world, losing a tooth is big news and they always run up to everyone and pull down their lip like I'm supposed to be astounded at the wondrous events unfolding in their mouth. I never know what to say either so I just say, "good job!" like they accomplished something. I remember I lost my first tooth at a (most likely atrocious early 90's) Padres game while I was eating popcorn and I thought it was a seed and swallowed it, because swallowing popcorn seeds is also a cool idea. I'm sure the next day I was showing everyone too. Ah, rambling, sorry:
Below is the reason why I took these pictures -- Jade's lost four teeth recently, and they are the front four teeth. Missing your front four teeth must be so rough I honestly don't know how she eats food!
For example one day we calmly and comically talked about teeth for about 10 minutes. They are both six years old and they are losing teeth left and right. Something I've noticed is that in 6-year-old world, losing a tooth is big news and they always run up to everyone and pull down their lip like I'm supposed to be astounded at the wondrous events unfolding in their mouth. I never know what to say either so I just say, "good job!" like they accomplished something. I remember I lost my first tooth at a (most likely atrocious early 90's) Padres game while I was eating popcorn and I thought it was a seed and swallowed it, because swallowing popcorn seeds is also a cool idea. I'm sure the next day I was showing everyone too. Ah, rambling, sorry:
Below is the reason why I took these pictures -- Jade's lost four teeth recently, and they are the front four teeth. Missing your front four teeth must be so rough I honestly don't know how she eats food!
10 DAYS!?
Feels like it's been so long since I've updated. I have been hoarding pictures though, so sit back and relax -- like Mir ('Mir-cat') chillin in the library picture below on two separate occasions -- and barring any unforeseen Arizona-based blackouts I hope you enjoy them!
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